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Us (2019)
Infuriatingly bad. Such a disappointment.
After watching Jordan Peele's Get Out and Nope (ratings 6/10 and 7/10 for my personal taste), I thought I knew what to expect from Us, but even going in with low expectations, the movie managed to annoy and bore me from beginning to end.
The development is slow and uninteresting, the action is predictable, the main premise is so weak that if you give 5 extra seconds of attention to it, it breaks completely. That's why the movie universe must remain shallow and underdeveloped. Some premises are better off being a complete mystery - a poorly explained premise is always the worse option.
In my opinion, metaphors and symbolism can transform a good movie into a great one, but they can also turn a bad movie into a pathetic attempt at an artsy, cultsy hit. And before I forget: adding a silly plot twist at the end does not erase the past hour and a half.
Go watch Coherence instead.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Taika need to tone down a few notch on the jokes...
This movie has the most jokes-per-minute of any marvel movie. Too many memes and silly jokes that drag out while crucial, life-threatening situations await to be dealt with.
- Villain is excellently done and portrayed.
- Heavy scenes are greatly done (when not undermined by jokes).
- Action scenes are great as usual.
- Soundtrack is good, although a bit cliché on the metal subject.
- CGI is great 90% of the time (some effects at the beginning felt weird to me)
- Plot is okay, nothing special but compelling enough.
Overall, a fun movie but please stop trying to turn movies into silly comedies!!
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Scooby-Doo with dinosaurs
Inconsistencies everywhere, dumb decisions being made everywhere, sequences so outrageous they must've been made for the memes. So much fan service that almost recreates the first movie shot-by-shot.
Hilarously bad, to the point it actually turned out a great comedy.
This franchise went extinct, got brought back, now it's time to let it rest. Please...
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Nice, but "Dumb People: The Movie"
Always good to see dinosaurs on screen, but in this sequel there's a bunch of bad decisions from characters all around and the people with guns don't shoot once in the entire movie.
Love, Death & Robots: Jibaro (2022)
Masterpiece of sound, image and performance
The only episode of all three seasons I've given a 10/10 without any hesitation. It's a masterpiece from beginning to end. It closes the third season bringing back the hope I lost after a very weak season two and a weak season 3 episode 1.
Eternals (2021)
Amazing visuals and a gripping storyline.
A very interesting look into the cosmic lore of the Marvel uni(multi)verse. It connects well all sorts of historic events to the Eternals' presence and does a good job telling past and present plots. The visuals are stunning, the battle sequences are fantastic. Apart from a couple of out-of-place comedic reliefs and "god ex-machinas", I loved this movie from beginning to end.
Bo Burnham: Inside (2021)
The only reason I give it six instead of TEN is...
Bo is a genius and an artist, that much was clear from the first time I saw a clip of one of his shows. I was excited to watch Inside, but I was NOT ready for what would follow. I got in expecting to laugh, but I cried instead.
Bo never fails to be meaningful with his words and make you think, only this time it's more a drama instead of a comedy. I got flashbacks from some of the theater plays I've watched: artsy, deeper than I was prepared for, and more meaningfully abstract than I could really grasp. I don't know how much of it is an act ot not, but some of the insights on his personal life and thoughts are quite rough.
Inside is a masterpiece, just not a comedy masterpiece, and I was not ready for it.
Love, Death & Robots (2019)
Season 1 is mostly awesome; Season 2 is lackluster.
10 episodes shorter than the previous season, season 2's episodes feel like teasers, pilots or excerpts from a larger whole that you never get to see. Most feel incomplete and while some present interesting and thought-provoking settings, nothing ever gets properly developed. Apart from 2 or 3 episodes, all of them leave you unsatisfied with the small windows presented.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Look past the plot holes, let the story grab you and enjoy!
Gotta love me some well done alien / monster flick. A Quiet Place has an inventive filmography that grabbed my attention from the start. Yes, if you think about it a lot of stuff don't make sense, but if everyone in movies (from the government to individuals) acted in flawless logic, no plot would ever be developed.
Alien Code (2018)
Mediocre at best
I knew what I was going into - a low budget B movie more focused on dialogues and concepts than fancy execution and visual effects. And for this exact reason, I expected more from the script than it delivered. The acting is good but, while the movie touches a bunch of different concepts, none of them develop under a new light. Most if not all of these concepts were already done, and better developed, by other films.
Annihilation (2018)
Disappointing & bland.
I was fearing for this movie since I've watched the trailer. I didn't think the concepts presented would be explored in an interesting enough way. But as I saw a 7.6 on this movie's IMDb page, my hopes got up again, only to be crushed by the movie itself.
In Annihilation, you'll find:
- Interesting concepts... but badly explored;
- A group of female professionals... that make a ton of bad decisions;
- A threat of unknown origin... unless you've watched the trailer;
- Trippy, artistic photography... but the movie pace is very slow at times;
And several other examples of "this is good... but then this is bad", making this movie nothing more than a 5/10. Go watch a video of plot highlights instead, you'll get the same good bits without the bad ones.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Shallow villain + useless romance Vs. Great visuals + interesting universe
A hard movie to rate. I WANT more movies like this: Fantasy/sci-fi with nice gci, not afraid to propose different universe settings, tons of alien races, new tech, etc etc etc. That earns it 1 more point from my original 6 rating.
The romance part is surreal. In a real setting where your life is in danger and you have some serious missions, people do NOT waste time acting like two lovebirds. She plays hard-to-catch and the guy is dumbly and completely in love, proposing marriage before the first kiss and whatnot. It adds nothing to the plot, the synergy of the characters could have been easily established without it.
The villain is set up to be 100% evil and shallow, EASY for the audience to hate him. As soon as he poses even a spark of an interesting philosophical conflict (the consequences for the humans to have admitted his mistake), he is promptly met with a fist on his face by Valerian, reassuring that no deep conflict would be present in the plot.
The Snowman (2017)
One of the few movies I couldn't bear to watch whole.
This movie is slow and a lot the scenes are weird and feel disconnected. I couldn't care for any of the characters and I must admit, after watching 75% of the movie I was so utterly bored I skipped forward to find out who the killler was, saw some lines of dialogue and some action shots, and that's it. A huge disappointment, even going in with low expectations.
Enter Nowhere (2011)
More like "Goes Nowhere". Bad in so many levels.
The plot is okay-ish at best, as long as you don't think too hard about it (I don't think even the writers did, so...). Acting and directing is very poor. Characters are not likable and their reactions are unnatural 70% of the time. A huge waste of time.
Viral (2016)
Disappointing and cliché. Made for casual viewers, not fans of the genre.
Stupid decision after stupid decision, this movie follow every cliché of how brainless the movie industry depicts every main character in horror movies.
Characters are half-likable, plot is half-developed, disease makes half-sense. Cut your expectations in half, and maybe you'll be able to enjoy (half of) this movie.
V/H/S (2012)
Good example of how to make the most out of a handy-cam-style movie
V/H/S is a good movie with a lot of tension. The effects are pretty good and although you can clearly question some of the actions the characters take, there is a mantra that says "Without dumb people, there is no horror movie script". Actually I've made this up, but you get the point.
The movie never tires the spectator because it follows several different recordings. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just leave here my suggestion: Enjoy the experience. Put yourself in these situations. Don't expect to understand what is going on more than the characters themselves. Have you ever watched Cloverfield? The thrill of the unknown is often more rewarding than a step-by-step explanation of every single thing you find in a movie.
Warning: If you are susceptible to dizziness or feel a level of discomfort above normal while watching flashing lights of chaotic camera movement, this movie is not for you (it has more of these features than the average handy-cam movie).
Skinwalker Ranch (2013)
Watching this movie alone in the dark will make it enjoyable but not great.
Let's get this out of the way first: I love found-footage movies and I love alien-themed movies. A combination that generated like... Only one great movie, a couple of good ones, and the rest (they're not so many by the way and I wish there were more and better made ones) is composed of mediocre movies - if you are a fan of the genre. Otherwise what I refer to as mediocre you may prefer to call "a steaming pile of trash". So if "alien-stuff motif + found-footage / documentary" does not sound appealing to you, you can stop reading this right now - your time will be better applied to something else.
If, however, the motif sounded interesting, I still don't have the best of news. As the title of this review already spoiled, Skinwalker Ranch for me fit right in the third rank - the mediocre movies. I don't recommend watching it in any other scenario than completely alone and in a complete dark environment. This will maximize the tension and the fear factor of the movie and make it worth watching.
The CGI is so-so, the plot has a fair share of clichés and it's nothing innovative. I have the feeling that they stuffed a bunch of different "tension-makers" that did not fit very well in the same plot, but at the same time I wonder if the movie would be any better with these plot elements trimmed out.
I did not consider this to be a waste of my time, I watched under the right conditions and got pretty tense at some parts. But it is far from the best movie I've seen in this genre. Watch it "at your own risk".
The Last Days on Mars (2013)
Good if you focus on psychological value, getting past the terror/action clichés.
This movie has such mixed reviews that I had to see the thing for myself. It's the kind of "you either love it or hate it" movie. And I figured out why.
In the beginning, it's quite easy to feel that nothing in there is really breaking new ground. When the first (spoiler!) zombie appears you think "There we go, to the trash kingdom! Zombies on Mars!" And it can create a wall in your mind right there. But I kept on watching and I can tell you: You have to get past this block to find out there is more to this movie, and I even dare to say that "surviving a zombie attack on Mars" is not the major part of the plot.
I'd like to compare it to Signs. If you get past the wall of "Aliens invading the Earth", you get to what people claim to be the core of the plot which is "a man rediscovering his faith". I'll have to say though, I was NEVER able to get past this wall on Signs. For the same reason, I understand the people who hate Last Days on Mars. I really do. "You cannot portray a global full-blown alien invasion and expect me to get value from the tiny story of a religious man" sounds very similar to "You cannot portray zombies on Mars and expect me to get value from analyzing the characters' decisions and psychology". But for some reason, while I couldn't get the "real" plot message on Signs, I could get it on this movie.
I found it rewarding to see the mindsets, actions, changes and decisions that go through each of the crew's members. If you can see this movie for its psychological value, you'll enjoy it. If the mere thought of zombies on Mars makes you want to rage quit, this is not the movie for you.
The Game (1997)
Illegal and risky torture-like gift makes my brother a happy man.
The concept of the movie is quite entertaining. It reminds me of one Derren Brown's shows when a woman agreed to take part in this experiment where actors would intervene in her life and she should report the things she noticed and how these things made her think and perhaps change her perspective on several subjects. She reported so much stuff that she thought was staged on her daily routine and at the end even said she rethought many aspects of her life. Then, Derren reveals that nothing was ever staged on her daily routine - no actors, nothing. Just by thinking that she was in a game, everything looked unreal to her.
Back to the movie, I couldn't buy a lot of things. What were the motivations behind what his brother chose as a gift? All I saw was a man getting tortured over and over again and his brother being an EXCELLENT actor all the time... I don't think that's his profession. At the end the protagonist seemed happy and thankful. Wh.. what? That man should head straight to the psychiatrist and hate his brother forever.
Ambiguous ending: Either 1) - That woman was being rude by inviting the guy to leave his party for a coffee at the airport. - Then 1.1) - He accepted and by doing so, was even ruder with everybody else. - Or 1.2) - He didn't accept the invitation. Or 2) - She was still acting and his game was not over yet. Well, I don't know and I don't care.
People try to defend the movie saying that CRS had everything under control all the time. I doubt that. It's impossible that everything was always under control. Something could have gotten out of hand. People could get injured. The guy could go insane. He could have a cardiac arrest during his suicidal fall. He could be traumatized forever. No previous tests could predict his behavior, reactions or mental health like we are supposed to believe.
And I'm sure several laws were broken in the process of making this torture game that somehow ended with happiness all around - A birthday party. All I know is that I wouldn't be happy if I were that guy and I'm SURE the police also wouldn't.
From all that I pointed, I rate this movie a 1. For the concept, it gets an extra point. 2/10.
I Origins (2014)
Interesting concept that gets lost in it's own pace
The movie has an interesting concept overall, at the beginning I had this feeling that it would be better than what I was expecting. Unfortunately this feeling didn't hold up too far.
The dialogues and concepts are good but the movie is filled with a lot of weird coincidences that are supposed to be meaningful but just feel artificial. Romance plays a huge part in this story and because of it the movie drags a lot.
The movie is slow paced from beginning to end and most of the romance scenes feel like filler. The movie becomes increasingly slow to the point I was begging for it to end.
Overall, it would be a much more enjoyable if shortened to, let's say, 45 minutes max. But if you don't mind romance-filled-long-slow movies, the concepts within this one may be worth your time.
The Wicksboro Incident (2003)
A big disappointment.
Not that I expected much of this movie anyways, by looking at the upper half of the poster we can already expect a low budget, "amateurish" kind of movie. The market is saturated with hand-held camera filmed "documentaries", and since these kind of movies are easier to make, there's a whole lot of garbage out there. Unfortunately (or not) for me, I sometimes come across a really impressive title so I am constantly digging out for more. And since I'm also I am a fan of aliens and alien theories, this one got my attention. It's always a gamble though, since the majority of these titles are obscure and you can never be sure if they will be good or not. This one did not fit the bill at all. The only good thing about this movie was the acting, better than I expected. But the movie is simply boring and not worth the time spent watching. The storyline is only original if you haven't heard anything alien-related. I mean, really, anything. If you lived in a hole for the last 70 years, watch it. Otherwise, not recommended.