max_tout Reviews

Mr. Holmes (2015)

Dull and boring portrayal of Holmes had he lived to old age.

[3/10 · 23 April 2023]

Sherlock Holmes! And Ian McKellen plays him?

Sign me up!

Not sure where I saw this. YouTube free films, Netflix, Disney+? Don't remember. Had not previously heard of it, though.

High expectations.

Not met.

McKellen is always watchable. But half an hour into the film and I started fidgeting.

After a while, I realised why.

McKellen was good. But it didn't feel like I was watching Sherlock Holmes.

I don't mean the pipe and the deerstalker.

There was no hint whatsoever of the great intellect that we are all used to in Holmes films.

And, yes I know, he was dealing with encroaching dementia.

Still, there was nothing there for me that said Sherlock Holmes.

It could, quite literally, have been any old Englishman.

And I have to say that I'm really not a fan of this new film meta thing - the scenes where the boy asks the aged Holmes to "Do your thing."

It didn't work in the last Matrix, and it is even more annoying in this.

It's almost as if the film makers realised that they were making a film about some random old dude, and they felt that throwing in Sherlock Holmes tropes would sell the illusion that this was a Holmes film.

The boy was good. I've seen him in something else but can't remember what. He played the part well.

I got the impression that the film makers were attempting to set him up as some sort of Holmes protégé. It didn't work.

The mum was okay. She didn't have a lot to do. And did it well.

Overall, it was a disappointment. I don't want to spoil it for those who may wish to see it by giving away too many plot details. But the Japanese wonder herb angle was really badly handled for a film about Sherlock Holmes.

Evidence, not rumour m'boy!

It cost nothing to watch. McKellen is always good. But it was not, for me, a Sherlock Holmes film.

Even an aged, past his best by, Holmes.

1922 (2017)

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

[2/10 · 23 April 2022]

I lasted an hour into this movie. No idea how it ends. Life is too sort.

Started off fine. The three leads were excellent. I know the lady who plays the mom. Just can't remember what from. She played the part very well.

It was just soooo boring. I'm all for not rushing a good story. For building tension slowly.

But this was just plain tedious.

I'm guessing that the mom (and maybe the enormous cow?) comes back to hunt the husband and son? It's Stephen King, so it would be surprising if they did not.

But jeez, she took her own sweet time.

Like I said, I watched the first hour. And all I could think of was 'what? The editor fell asleep?'

The husband works an 80 acre farm. His wife inherits a 100 acre farm. She wants to sell both farms and move to the city with the boy. The husband wants her to add the 100 acres to the 80.

She says that she wants a divorce. That they both want a divorce. So why don't they divorce? He tend his 80 acres, she sell her 100, and let the boy decide who he wants to stay with?

She's blind drunk when they put her to bed. I imagine it would've been pretty easy to smother her with a pillow. The boy even suggests it. But no, they have to stab her and slit her throat while smothering her with a pillow.

What?

I thought that it was a stupid film, with very good actors. King has fallen a long way since The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption.

Although, to be fair, I have no idea what happened in the second hour. Maybe she came back at night riding the big cow? If so, I might give it another shot. Otherwise....

Apex (2021)

Super dumb. Even for Willis.

[1/10 · 15 November 2021]

It was painfully obvious, a few minutes into the "hunting" section of this film, that the director and/or writer have never been in as much as a fist fight at school. And have zero knowledge of how to fight, use guns, or hunt prey.

It's not like this hasn't been done before. Predator or The Hunger Games were immeasurably better than this.

The guns were basically, just send anything that you have in props - doesn't matter.

The "predators kill each other. Not because of the "psychological warfare" that Willis' character has unleashed. But because the were written as one-dimensional assholes.

Clearly Willis did this for the money, and nothing else.

It is laughably stupid. The films of Roger Corman were masterpieces compared with this film.

Avoid.

Cold Pursuit (2019)

Not as funny as it thinks it is

[3/10 · 12 February 2021]

Watched this on Prime. It was OK. That's about it. Tried very hard to do a Coen Brothers film. Failed hard. Good cast. But cliché after cliché in the screenplay.

The thing about a film focused almost entirely with killing people is that it has to do it with bravura and originality. With wit. It needs to be funny. Because the people being killed are just props. You don't care about them. It means nothing to you that they die.

This screenplay couldn't make up its mind if it was Gerard Butler's Law Abiding Citizen, Fargo, or one of Arnold's 80s flicks.

It was quite violent. Like slowly punching guys to death type of violence.

The main bad guy, Viking, was a lazy caricature of every mommy's boy psychopath that you've previously endured. A lousy father. A bully who is okay with his wife grabbing his nuts in front of his crew after he tries to side swipe her and misses. With the exception of the gang leader, the native Americans are depicted as morons. Teenage boys in grown men's bodies. Like I said, it was okay. But I'll be hard put to remember it in a month or so.

The Walking Dead: Guardians (2019) Season 9, Episode 12

It's dead already! Give it a decent burial.

[1/10 · 28 March 2019]

Sad, pathetic waste of good acting talent. Really, really badly let down by a writing team apparently using crayons to turn in the scripts. The shuffling faux zombies are embarrassingly dumb - what a ridiculous concept. The writers don't know what to do with Norman Reedus the only alpha male left in the show. Apart from Negan, who was chillingly portrayed, and then put on ice. The storyline if building to an escape/release but he's never gonna be a Rick replacement. It's boring, predictable, and a sham of the show that was once so watchable. It has literally become The Walking Dead! Bury it now, please.

The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)

Turgid pointless nonsense.

[1/10 · 8 May 2016]

First off, not liking this boring POS does not make me stupid. I don't usually watch fast paced horror movies, with rapid cut scenes and multiple plot twists.

I am quite happy to watch slow paced films - if they have an interesting story arc. This didn't.

A family of religious whack-jobs are dumped out of the safety of the camp of even more religious nuts. They try to carve out an existence on their own. It doesn't go well for them. Stuff (duh! censorship!) happens.People die. The family disintegrates. The attractive teenage daughter survives long enough to get her kit off and walk naked through the woods to a coven of naked witches. End credits.

And that's pretty much it. They speak in that annoying English/New England puritan "thou" and "thee" syntax.

Oh and there's a witch lurking in the background. Which is unsurprising, as the film is called "The Witch." This film redefined boring for me. It unfolded at a snails pace. The only story arc was the obviously inevitable disintegration of the family. Throw in some hints of incestuous rumblings, some twisting bodies ala Regan in The Exorcist, a smattering of Denis Wheatley horned devil-demon, and some questionable teenage nudity and that's pretty much it.

Don't fall for The Emperor's New Clothes angle that some people are trying to sell. Liking this film is NOT an indication that you are possessed of some form of superior intelligence. It's boring predictable twaddle, and you should do yourself a favor and avoid it.

Ex Machina (2014)

Risible nonsense

[2/10 · 12 February 2016]

About halfway through this, I noticed a sparkly smear on the left side of the screen. When I looked closer, I noticed that it had been left behind by the snail who had scooted along to the end of the film.

I envied him.

I have overworked pasta that wasn't as drawn out as this film.

The script was paint by numbers sub Kubrick.

And I watched it dry.

Seriously, Mad Max redux was *cough* a better film.

I have to say, though, that I loved the sticky-on skin that Ava donned at the end. Matched only by the screw-on limbs.

Watch this if you thought that 2001 was paced too fast for you.

Sense8 (2015–2018)

Sux to be a dad in Lanaland.

[5/10 · 9 January 2016]

Excellent series. Compelling characters, large dose of 'what comes next,' spot on acting and directing. But what the Hell is it with all of the shitty fathers in this series? Apart from Riley's dad, they are either assholes or monsters. Is this perhaps the autobiographical element that Lana alluded to in the writing? One or two shitty fathers? Sure I get that. But almost all of them? C'mon!

Also, do gay/trans peeps have any other hobbies apart from sex? Just asking 'cos it seems to be the goto recreational activity that they all indulge in. Hey, who doesn't like sex? But ALL THE TIME? Nobody likes tennis? Movies? Just sex then. Well okay then.

Haven't got to the last episode of series one yet. Looking forward to something of a cliffhanger.

Z Nation (2014–2018)

Painfully bad cash in on zombie genre.

[1/10 · 16 October 2015]

Watched the first episode of this a few months back. Had a hard time getting past the 'scientists' in the lab using prison inmates as guinea pigs.

Saw the trailer for series two and thought 'hey, that looks good. maybe I gave up on it too quick!'

I didn't.

Episode 2: The weird guy in the Arctic(?) base bounced back and forth from having zero contact with the outside world to being able to use satellite imagine to get close up shots of the main group of protagonists.

Also, is it just me or has anybody else noticed that there are NO female zombies? 51% of the world population and yet not one infected? Not up to episode two, anyway. I stopped there.

Sux 2 b a man!

The characters are little more than fleshed out zombies. They are caricatures of every other zombie movie hero we have ever seen.

The 'hope for mankind' dude reminds me of Zachary Smith from the TV Lost in Space (Oh, the pain! The pain!) but lacks his charisma.

The script tries hard to be funny but misses every time. A character looks at a descending horde of zombies and sighs 'Fracking zombies,' and I go 'f*cking scriptwriters!'

Shallow, predicable, uninspired story-line. Phoned in actor performances, TV school directing. Give it a miss unless you like watching this type of cr*p.

I don't.

Predestination (I) (2014)

Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane?

[3/10 · 7 December 2014]

I must be missing something that the rest of you got 'cos the reviews here are full of 'John goes back and meets Jane, etc., without addressing the singularity of the characters.

This is how I saw the time-line. Feel free to correct my errors.

N.B. THERE BE MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE YET TO SEE THE FILM Jane meets her future male self. They conceive a child together. Her reconstructed future, future self steals the product of this union, baby Jane, and places her in the orphanage. This baby is the foundling that grows into Jane. Who grows up to meet and fall in love with her male self. And on. And on.

So, pretty much most of the lead characters are all Jane.

And we were supposed to believe that John was a guy when we first meet the character in the bar? Seriously, nobody else thought 'He's going nowhere fast with this gal, she's a butch lesbian? The woman who played Jane (Snooky something) was brilliant.

Interstellar (2014)

Dumb, dumber, dumbest!

[1/10 · 18 November 2014]

This is without exception one of the dumbest films I have ever sat through. Or perhaps it's a masterpiece and I'm too dumb to understand it? Anyway .....

Here are some of the things (the list is not exhaustive) that I could not get my head around.

There is a catastrophic failure in most of the crops of the world. And the entire scientific community simply shrugs and says, 'Oh well. Dem's the breaks' and does nothing. Seriously? Apart from that one dude in the 'super secret' NASA compound? Okay then.

A super intelligent, super advanced alien civilization has been watching us. They see that the planet is in peril. That more than six thousand million people will die from starvation. So they offer a solution. Not by curing the blight mind. No, that would be far too easy.

They construct a wormhole (they being five dimensional creatures 'n' all) close to Saturn ('cos Kubrick had already used Jupiter in 2001). The film makes a big deal about corn being the only viable crop still resisting the blight (cornmash beer anybody) but it's only a matter of time before that too succumbs. So It's a matter of great urgency that the astro-heroes get to the ol' wormhole as quickly as possible.

So the far side of the Moon would be a handy place to put it.

No, no, noooo.

They place the wormhole beside Saturn. So distant from Earth that it takes two years just to fly there.

And all the while any poor kids unfortunate enough to be called Dusty are getting the crap beaten out of them at Pharming College. Anybody for cornflakes?

Now NASA have already explored the wormhole. They know that it opens into another galaxy, beside a black hole and an assortment of potential new worlds. Because of the proximity of the planets to the black hole, time will be distorted and a couple of hours exploring these new worlds will translate to decades back on Earth. While back on ol' Planet earth the corn crops fail and the dust storms gather pace. So this was the plan?

By the super intelligent aliens? Is someone taking the p*ss? There were no planets anywhere that were ... um ... NOT right beside a black hole? Super intelligent? Doh!

And so finally, after a number of silly subplots, our hero finally descends onto the event horizon of the black hole (My God! It's full of stars?). And experiences time as a physical construct. But is he shown the origin of the blight that is wiping out the planet so that he might alert the scientific community? Hell no. He is shown his daughter's bedroom on the day that he left on his 'weekend getaway.' We see him getting really upset that his daughter isn't picking up on his STAY ...... STAY! gravity assisted message, even though he should remember that she shouted STAY .... STAY! to him on that day, and he left anyway. Sheesh!

And Zimmer's soundtrack? I hadn't heard about the soundtrack request came to him via email, without him ever seeing the movie. Explains a lot really. Presumably the email went something like 'If you produce anything orchestral like Kubrick, you're off the project.' So the soundtrack consisted almost entirely of ponderous bass heavy synth driven (in the cinema where I watched it) piercingly loud quasi classical discordance. Bear in mind that Kubrick chose the pieces by Strauss, etc., to assist him in editing the movie,and then realised that they actually fit perfectly, and so discarded the original soundtrack that he had commissioned.

Not Nolan.

NoSirreeBob! Email it in, Hans.

Who listens to the music anyway? Deeply, deeply disappointing.

And I loved Inception!

The Returned (2013)

Not a typical zombie movie

[4/10 · 22 June 2014]

The premise of this movie is that people infected with the zombie virus can keep their zombie-like predilections at bay by daily injections of a super-drug. The drug is in short supply and people are getting jittery. This is where the zombie element of the movie begins and ends.

This isn't The Walking Dead or The day of the Dead. it is essentially a film about AIDS. The zombie infection is a none too subtle metaphor for the paranoia that gripped the world back in the 80s, when AIDS sufferers were feared and shunned in equal measures.

If you are expecting a 'brains, nom nom' type of zombie film, you'll be disappointed. If you can deal with a parable about a dark period in our human evolution you might enjoy it.

And try as I might, I could not get Chris Martin out of my mind every time the lead character was on screen. :)

The ABCs of Death (2012)

Like hitting your thumb with a hammer. And then doing it another 25 times!

[1/10 · 17 March 2014]

Sometimes browsing Netflix isn't a good idea. I was looking for a good scary movie. And found this.

26 different shorts, each based on a letter of the alphabet. Sounds like a good idea, eh? Nope. Cretinous crap, Batman!! Two things I did learn though. Japanese porn is really weird. And Japanese men have really small dicks.

The only one that showed any evidence of directorial skill was the Robocop one. Stupid story, like the rest of 'em, but it looked good.

The two worst for me? The one where the Japanese schoolgirl asks to smell the farts of her teacher, who then sucks the schoolgirl into her a***, where the two of them, now naked, lick each others' tongues (not French kiss, just lick)while the schoolgirl happily farts away.

The other in an animation of a girl who takes a s***, which then chases her around the public toilet, until, finally, it drops from the ceiling to her upturned a*** and goes back in.

Seriously, some people are just f***ed up in the head.

Avoid!

Her (2013)

Her is boring!

[1/10 · 3 February 2014]

I couldn't get Brendan Fraser's character in Bedazzled out of my head while watching this. You know, the one who cries at the songs of the whales and also at sunsets? And whose girlfriend just longs to be banged? This pretentious overlong film almost put me to sleep. It redefined boring. And yes, there are those who will protest, 'But that's because you are too stupid to appreciate the subtle nuance of the multilayer storyline.' Yeah right - I know a turkey when I see one. And it's okay that you can validate your own lives from this risible drivel.

The lead character, Theodore Twambly, works in a super-de-duper Hallmark type of company, writing cards for people unable to articulate their feelings to their loved ones. His co-worker stops by his desk at one point, puts his hand on his shoulder and tells him that his cards are 'beautiful' 'cos he's so 'sensitive.' He adds that he's so sensitive, in fact, that he must be half female 'cos, y'know, guys don't get that stuff. I'd go further. This guy is producing so much oestrogen I'm surprised he didn't need feminine hygiene products.

He has sex with his virtual girlfriend (i.e. he masturbates while chatting to her on the phone). And smiles as he tells his friend, Amy about this. As does she. With absolutely no sense of irony in the fact that the sex he is having with his 'new girlfriend' consists of free phone sex with a machine. Hilarious! When a real girl offers her body as proxy(hey, it takes all sorts!)to Samantha , his virtual girlfriend, he grows uncomfortable and calls a halt to the lovemaking. Virtual sex is okay but he draws the line at ménage à trois, which involves ...um...y'know....a real woman.

I'm not sure whether it was Joaquin Phoenix or Spike Jonze's idea to have Theodore speak throughout the film in that annoying ultra even tone. Has this guy, ever, once in his entire life, got angry? If you think of HAL from 2001, you wouldn't be far off the mark. Or Robin Williams on Valium.

I could go on. His ex partner, soon to be ex wife. Childhood sweethearts, so OS1 Samantha is only the second long-term girlfriend he has had in his life. He discovering that Samantha has more than six hundred love partners, etc,. etc. But I'm guessing you know by now that I didn't like it.

If Spike Jonze's aim was to make a film about the dangers of online friends over real friends (I have 250 Facebook friends and six regular buddies in COD so I must be popular), then he did a good job. I'm not so sure that this was his intent though. The film aimed for, and by all accounts reached, the pseudo-intellectual audience bereft of real friends, and looking for validation of their surrogate online existence.

Me, I like something a little less cerebral. Anybody know when the new Dumb and Dumber comes out?

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Plodding waste of excellent actors.

[1/10 · 5 January 2014]

Solomon Northup suffered many degradations after being unlawfully forced into slavery in the American Deep South during the 1840s and 50s. He contributed to a ghost written book detailing his tragic experiences. This movie is based on that book.

The film is relentless in its depiction of the despicable white men and women that Soloman (renamed Platt Hamilton by his new 'owners') encounters as a slave. There is absolutely no let up. This does a disservice to Mr Northup's account of his tale. By his own account, William Ford was a decent man, though a product of the time he lived in, and his background. He was not portrayed as such in the movie - I'm guessing because this did not fit the screenwriter/directors literal black and white vision of his tribulations. Thelma and Louise suffered from the same type of problem, in it's depiction of 'all men are bastards' proclamation.

I got bored after a half hour or so. Which should not have happened. It's a terrible story, filled with deeply tragic events. But I found myself, moving from... Jeez, that's terrible. The poor man.....to Oh God love her. That's unforgivable.... to I am so glad I was not born black in America during slavery... to OK, I get it. There weren't many sympathetic white people... to Sheesh, was EVERY white person SO irredeemably vicious? to Alright, ALREADY...I get it..White people treated black people worse than animals!! to Oh FFS, how was this written? With crayons? I also found myself thinking of Alex Haley's Roots. This told a not dissimilar story of enforced slavery on black people in America. But there was dark and light in the story. You rooted for the characters. You understood that the black slaves were quite often better people, all round, than their white owners. But you weren't beaten over the head with that thought.

12 Years's depiction of Salomon and his companions existence did not let up for one second. I don't mean to underplay the hardships that they endured, which were terrible. But the relentless depiction of all of the black people as nothing other than victims reduced them to caricature.

Just like a good horror movie will have light moments, which both relieve the tension and then make the horror more shocking, it would, for me, have been better served to show moments of light relief which were then snatched away by, for example, the loathsome Edwin Epps. In this way, we can better identify with Salomon's plight. But the incessant misery becomes almost expected after numerous representations, to the point where it ceases to shock. And that's what's wrong with the movie, for me. Something has gone seriously wrong when the depiction of merciless hardships by fellow human beings becomes boring. And I was bored. Not helped by too many lingering closeups, some extending to thirty seconds. The director is obviously a fan of Kurosowa.

The actors were all excellent, especially the lead character. It looked beautiful. And I will read the book now, where before I hadn't heard of it. But the movie didn't work for me. A good story badly told.

The Last Days on Mars (2013)

Straight to TV schlock

[1/10 · 29 December 2013]

First off. The description for this film states that it was made at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, England. The interiors and sound were both done at Ardmore Studios, Bray, Ireland. Just thought I'd put that out there.

It's basically a zombie movie set on Mars. People develop an infection, die, come back and again and try to kill the nearest person. Who carries on in similar fashion. Never been done before so.

You get the impression watching it that the director has seen a few sci-fi movies. He just doesn't have anything original to add to the genre.

The script is pedestrian, humourless, predictable; with no sense of the impending doom that should have bled from the screen. From the moment the Russian guy falls into the hole in the ground, you can pretty much figure out what's gonna happen. And it does. Exactly as you'd expect it to.

Films are supposed to take you out of yourself, surprise you, entertain you, immerse you in the world that they have created. This film did none of those.

/yawn.