retrodyne Reviews

The Bay (2019– )

Unlikeable characters abound

[3/10 · 25 November 2021]

Sometime in the last few decades, film schools must have taught a script writing approach in which the entire plot is driven by the main characters making one deliberately stupid decision after another, ad nauseum.

It's not believable, plausible, enjoyable, relatable, or entertaining.

And this show is rife with it - self-absorbed gits making destructively bad calls over and over again. Give it a miss.

Condor: Not Necessarily to Lose (2020) Season 2, Episode 10

This season of Condor went nowhere... extremely slowly

[2/10 · 30 August 2020]

PROS

• At least they made a second season

CONS

• The plot was meandering, tedious and lacking drama
• Plot points and story lines made little sense or took too long to care about
• THE WHOLE SHOW WAS SPONSORED BY THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY

I'm not joking. Smoking was omnipresent for no reason other than it must have been in-show advertising. Absolutely awful.

Red Dawn (2012)

Uninspiring, poorly made film - with poor casting

[21 February 2013]

A few of the positive reviews for this film were probably written by real people... like 13 year old boys, and frustrated, wannabe soldiers who failed the IQ test.

The rest can only have been added here by a cubicle farm of movie studio marketing drones, who really earned their pay trying to think of good things to say about this sad, career-damaging waste of time.

Josh Peck is one of the all-time worst casting calls, and should become a cautionary tale amongst casting agents.

Agent 1: 'What do you think of this guy for the main character?'

Agent 2: 'Are you trying to 'Josh Peck' this film?'

He looks about 20 years older than his older brother, and even in the most dramatic scenes - has a mopey expression on his face that makes you want to slap him. All I can imagine is that he helped fund the film, because there's no other logical reason for him playing this part.

I would have liked to be in the screening room when they showed this to the studio head. There was probably a long silence when the curtain fell, as half a dozen people were fired by text.

A Perfect Ending (2012)

Disappointing

[13 February 2013]

I will be completely honest - I'm a guy and I watched this film in the hopes of being titillated.

But once I realized it clearly wasn't that kind of film I kept going in the hopes of a solid drama. Unfortunately it was far from it.

THE GOOD This film did make me look beyond my stereotypical lipstick lesbian fantasies and have some insight into the everyday life of gay women. This was mainly through the social scenes with groups of characters discussing their own lives and activities.

The basic premise and the characters themselves were easy to grasp.

THE NOT SO GOOD. It didn't really offer any insight into whether or not gay women face similar challenges or prejudices in life to gay men.

There are some glaring inconsistencies in the plot. The main one being: how did such a strait-laced, inhibited and unhappy main character come to have a circle of younger friends who seem to be openly gay, deeply in love and very chilled out.

I guess it's fair enough to include a dislike of men in a lesbian film if you make one, but I wasn't aware that a general disregard for men was part of being a lesbian. There's not a good guy in the whole film. Rebecca's husband is cartoonishly evil in his treatment of his wife and daughter. Her sons are weak-willed lackeys. Paris' lost love is annoyingly upbeat, vacant and sets off a major gaydar alert. Other men are users of prostitutes. All in all it changes the tone of the film from pro-women to anti-men.

Uneven storytelling. Rebecca's 'will she, won't she' vacillating over meeting a female prostitute is drawn out to a ridiculous degree. The surreal scenes where Paris goes away inside her head don't fit with the rest of the film. The scenes with the brassy madam of the escort agency don't seem necessary at all. etc. etc.

Lack of chemistry Rebecca is so tense, unhappy and painful to be around that it sets your teeth on edge. Paris is so drugged up on loss that she seems to be sleep walking through life. Opposites attract, but in this case the characters and the way they are portrayed create a chasm that plausibility can't cross. It also leads to a total lack of passion. I never thought I would be capable of watching with complete disinterest as two beautiful and naked people (women or not) made love. But that's what happened.

In conclusion, I'm stunned at the high scores some people have given here. I can only conclude they must have been involved in the production, because on any objective level this is not a good, or entertaining film.

Killer Elite (2011)

I guess nobody has actually read the book

[22 November 2011]

...because this film turns the whole book upside down for no obvious reason, and to the detriment of story.

In the book by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the SAS were the good guys who were being targeted for assassination, and the Feathermen were their last line of defense.

Presumably the usual suspects (producers, director, writers) all felt obliged to inject their creativity - leaving us with more complexity and less heart.

The central mystery of Killer Elite is how so many good actors ended up in this turkey.

Predators (2010)

It's still downhill for the poor Predators

[1/10 · 23 August 2011]

Once upon a time a single Predator was capable of wiping out whole squads of special forces bad asses. Now a single Japanese gangster with a sword is able to handle one. What a sorry state of affairs. Not only that, Lawrence Fishburne's insane character has managed to elude the legendary hunters and their super technology for years.

Sci-fi fans everywhere were hoping for a reboot of the franchise under the auspices of Robert Rodriguez and his Padawan. Unfortunately what we get is a clichéd collection of characters on a lackluster Predator planet that changes terrain from scene to scene but never feels alien. The action is unremarkable and script is the same.

I hope someone else is given the chance to do something great with any further Predator films.

Blood and Bone (2009)

A win for fans of old school kung fu and modern martial arts

[10/10 · 24 October 2009]

The director and writer have done an awesome job of paying homage to martial arts films from Bruce Lee onwards. They've also rolled with the times and included some very cool BJJ and grappling moves without sacrificing fun and action. Whoever the fight choreographer was deserves big points for showcasing Michael Jai White's truly impressive martial arts training and athleticism. The director and Cameraman have also used good, simple camera work to showcase the action clearly. Add to that an amazing cast of MMA fighters, decent acting, and the right balance of clichés stuck to and abandoned. This is now in my list of favorite martial arts films.

SPOILER! _________________________________________________

Real old school fight movie fans will love the fleeting cameo at the end by O'Hara