WinstonNoCGI Reviews

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Mediocre, too much bad CGI, tediously, yet franticly presented story

[6/10 · 11 September 2023]

I'd like to make this short, particularly as this isn't my native tongue. I am going to review the movie from a solely production-technical point of view.

For me, the sole positive aspect in this movie was the core statement of the plot: Don't rely on digital, fragile media and communication channels alone. It's a wise decision to have analog, distinct, resilient and easy to repair devices and communication channels nearby.

Yet, that's the only positive fact I noticed.

To my reception, the movie was another sample of "modern" movie making: Too much CGI, chopped fast pace cutting, too many pointless fight and car chasing scenes, too much shooting, insufficient motivation for why things where happening.

Let's get into more detail here:

• Too much CGI. ... Yes, I know, it's cheaper; it's faster. Yet, when do they realize it isn't more realistic than using real or miniature props. It doesn't even matter that they filmed some real footage for one or two action scenes. That footage then was apparently just being used for rendering an animated CGI sequence again. ... Many of the action scenes were pure CGI. Character and prop movements were awfully unrealistically animated. And, to make things even worse (and presumably cheaper), there was too much motion blur in the CGI, appalling me even more.

• Boring story, seen many times before in other movies. ... I've already seen many of the story fragments before in other movies, e.g., in John Wick 4, Indiana Jones, The Bourne Identity, Mission Impossible I. I even remember an old Western movie depicting the same train crash story shown here. Why is it the script writers end up having actors run on top of a train in all these current action flicks?

• Too much fuss, too much rush. No intrinsic motivation. ... This issue has been commented in the other reviews here extensively. ... The script failed completely here. I never felt the slightest glimpse of suspense. I missed someone to meet at a public place for conspiratorially sharing information. I missed sort of a scavenger hunt. I was missing an old and wise man or woman to consult somewhere at a hidden place. There were no unexpected turning points in the story.

• The story stinks from the beginning: What do they need a physical key for if the KI is (blockchain-like) residing on many distinct servers? Why are these two super hackers, Luther and Benji, out of their wisdom right from the start? Let's get real: Any operation that key may possibly perform could easily be blocked by the (presumably) self-modifying code of the Entity. I guess the writers/producers felt it would be boring to watch Luther and Benji just sitting there, hacking servers, while Ethan & Co. Would go shutting down servers one after the other, worldwide.

• Fighting scenes were so cheesy. ... I could easily tell that the actors haven't been trained to perform these figthing scenes: The scenes were ruined by too many short cuts. ... What was this ridiculously contrived and choreographed "sword against jackknife" fight? Isn't it obvious that the chances to win this are quite unequally distributed? In the theatre I was shaking my head watching these appalling clumsy movements in that fight, conducted by someone who is presumed be an experienced and trained fighter. ... Why is it that actors nowadays think they don't need to attend a decent acting school, teaching them how to fight and how to handle blades of any size in a fight? Give them some decent acting school! The editors then could refrain from rendering the fight scene in silly CGI and cutting it into tiny 20-frame pieces just to distract the audience.

• To me, the "funny" scenes weren't funny. ... Bad timing breezed over all these scenes. And the musical score in that scenes didn't support the jokes at all.

• In the end, character portrayal depth suffered from all the above. ... Well, I don't expect this to be an academic movie, but I would expect more than: "Let us now introduce this character to the plot. (S)he doesn't add value to it, but that's none of your concern. Just deal with it and accept that we wanted him/her on the payroll."

• The overal musical score was mediocre. ... Throughout many scenes it didn't convey the right emotion. To me, it felt "empty" somehow. I was very much missing occasional short snare drum rolls in those little suspense moments. And fast string arpeggios here and there. Or some hard 7/9/11 brass/woodwind hits on surprise moments. ... Gee, get a decent musical arranger.

My2Cents.

How to Please a Woman (2022)

Very much liked the movie

[8/10 · 30 April 2023]

Me and my girl friend we like the movie a lot. It was funny and (partially) so true.

Okay, parts of it were exagerated. It was odd that all of Gina's female customers originated only from her.circle of friends and acquaintances and that they were so freely sharing their desire amongst each other.

The storyline was too simple and predictable, too. But, well, we had very much fun following Gina's success story.

In particular, I very much liked the short podshot.on "Magic Mike", having a fake police officer, whose name in his CV was Mike, appear in the office, asking for a job, doing Magic Mike's dance moves - but having full hair to his shoulders (in opposite to Mike's bald head :))) ... and then be refused for being too bold and blatant. :)))

From my personal experience, parts of the movie's plot are so true: I know a close friend who in real life knows how to please married women. When he's going to the dance club where they are playing live music from the 70s/80s, he is regularly ending up having close encounters of the third kind, satisfying them all in the end: aged women, her husbands (who continue to believe having a "happy" marriage when returning from the office) and himself. And, like the movie depicts clearly, such happy relations are not based on porn moves (alone). It's dancing close, listening, holding hands, having fun, appreciating each other.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Most boring flick for years

[2/10 · 9 April 2023]

First of all: Perhaps I should have watched the previous John Wick movies first in order to find a value in this movie's plot. Well, I didn't watch the prequels. So, perhaps I may be missing the true core value of this flick. Who knows ...

First, the plot summary: People are getting killed over and over and over again. That's it. End of story. Period.

Yet, for what cause do they fight? So, they just hate each other?? ... or love each other? Hundreds of them? And they all just die in seconds? Where did all these fighters get their training from? How did they all master such training if they all die on a fast lane in the end?

For John & friends it doesn't seem sufficient to just immobilize their enemies and continue to deal with another person. Oh no, way off the mark! They compulsively must return to every seriously wounded person and finish him/her off while already "serving" their next slaughter victim ...

Actually, while watching the movie I couldn't fail to get the impression that I was barely audiencing a rendition of some gamer who is playing a first person shooter computer game. The plot didn't have any deeper sense than that at all. No goal to achieve other than killing everybody until John & friends were the last men standing. During the fight scenes I was from time to time looking out for a game score in the corners of the screen.

Considering the stunts: The flick was advertised for its great fight scenes. So, well - I came expecting ... great fight scenes. But what did I get: CGI fights. Animated computer characters fighting animated computer characters. How much more boredom can be portrayed than barely watching computer characters fight each other.

Anyone glorifying the fight seens here in his/her reviews: So, you don't recognize a plain CGI rendering when you're watching it? Really?? - So, you didn't recognize all the unnatural character movements during fights or shootings? You didn't recognize or realize that the whole Place Charles de Gaulle scene was a computer animation with no man nor dog nor any car being recorded in reality? You plainly have been watching a bloody computer rendering on a large screen and failed to recognize??

These unnatural rubber toy, superball movements of the CGI characters during fight scenes kept me wondering if I had accidentally visited one of those dreadful poorly computer animated Marvel flicks.

Well, I guess it should be clear to everyone that no-one ... I repeat: NO-ONE by far could have survived any of these fight scenes. John Wick would have died multiple times: Fully hit by a car, but suffering no harm, huh? Falling down the stairs hundreds of meters, but he's fine and immediately continuing to fight. Or he's crashing into another car unbelted. The car is broken, yet John is left uninjured - yeah, sure ...

Honestly, I'm a person who wants to believe. Yet, there is a limit that's being reached when it comes to a certain degree of incredibility. Now, that limit of credibility has by far been exceeded by this flick.

Next, the musical score was a true disappointment. It didn't convey any emotion. It just played some metal licks, being strung together, or boring loops that have been played.

By the way: What sense does it make for this decade's professional radio station to play vinyl records or multi-track tapes from a tape recorder?

Last but not least: Character depictions were shallow. Since the musical score failed to support the characters, I failed to feel for any of them. ... One of John's friends died? Well, OK, fine. Next.

For me, this movie was a true disappointment.

Sisi (2021– )

I wish the actors would have taken acting classes

[2/10 · 9 January 2023]

Throughout each of the takes the actors and acresses are murmuring and mumbling. Not to mention their emotionally unconvincing acting.

It's undeniable that the actors never went to any serious acting classes and have never been on stage for learning how to speak and pronounce correctly on stage and how to act.

I admit I haven't seen any of the episodes in full length. I couldn't stand any of this for longer than 15 minutes.

They could at least have taken the path to have the actors being dubbed by professional dubbing actors.

This show is advertised as being an award-winning series. What kind of jury is actually going to award a prize to this lack of story telling and acting quality?

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)

A shallow gallop through Whitney's life

[2/10 · 24 December 2022]

This movie left me disappointed. It didn't catch my heart.

It's just a loose concatenation of tinges of episodes in her life that hardly brings any true emotional moment to life.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody lacks story-telling and continuity to the most.

There's not a single episode in the movie that's handled with longer than a minute or two. Many people suddenly appearing are not getting introduced. Many times you wonder: "Who is this new other person she's now talking to all of a sudden?" or "What has happened causing this scene? Did I miss something?"

Just a few examples (nothing to spoil about):

° Whitney signs her first contract. Cut. She listens to a number of tapes at her producers', selects one of the songs, convincingly claiming: "I'll add a hook to it". Cut. (And that's all. We don't get to see how she actually does "add a hook" to the song.) Next scene: We get to see a 1:1 copy of the music video.

So, we never see her working creatively in the studio. She never performs any musical effort in the movie.

° Whitney's producer is showing her the Bodyguard script. Cut. She sits in a beedroom scene, getting her hair done, walks to the window and breaks down. Cut. She's lying in a hospital, crying. Her husband's telling her that they will be giving birth to another child. Cut.

You wonder: Huh?!? They actually had been expecting a child? When did that happen?

° Whitney is sent to the rehab. Cut. We see her swimming with her daughter in a swimming pool, being remotely observed. Cut. End of story.

You wonder: So, that's how detox therapy actually works?? You just swim two lanes and that's it?

The only thing that is been depicted in full length are some of her live gigs. But when these are depicted, the camera is so close to her, it's almost in front of her nose.

Which brings me to the next bad part in the movie:

I understand it's hard to mimic a life performance that's been originally recorded in hi-res and been seen hundred times before. However, when the camera is so close to the singer's face, then - please - take better care of lip-syncing! - You should have done better! A cut takes usually 5 - 10 seconds. It shouldn't be too much of a demand to expect that Naomi Ackie practices the singing sequences again and again, until she fully got them. And only after that, they should have shot the scene again and again, until it fits! Plus, Naomi forgot to mimic Whitney's classic tongue vibrato. Naomi's tongue was stiff as a whale when we heard Whitney singing a vibrato.

Another thing:

While we've been listening to Whitney's original voice recordings, the instruments have been re-recorded to be rather dull and in the background. So many times you can see musicians who are playing an instrument that's actually not to hear in the mix.

So, as I stated in the beginning of my review, this wasn't a well-done movie. In contrast to Bohemian Rhapsody it didn't convey any emotion. It was just a loose, boring concatenation of scenes.

Delicious (2021)

Technically mediocre made romantic flic

[5/10 · 4 January 2022]

I don't focus on the film's story but rather on the technical skill levels applied.

* Dramatic Composition: Poor From my perspective, the movie wasn't able to convey a lot of emotion. Character backgrounds stayed vague. All characters stood stiff, like being nailed to the floor. Dialogues had been sparse. There was not a single dialog that would have been driving the story forward. For example: Right at the beginning, when the chef is fired, the duke's emotion confines to staying seated, merely waggling his cheeks and shouting the chef's name. Then silence ... That's all we get to see as a reasoning for why the chef is being fired and why he's feeling humiliated. Cut, next scene (as far as I remember): The chef's at his ole barn, sitting with his son and a neighbor. Not a single emotional comment on what's happened.

* Camera: Excellent The film comes with a plethora of short, beautiful still life sequences. Very nice. Still, I have a feeling that these still life sequences were just cribbed from already existing romantic painted art pictures.

* Lighting: Mediocre At many occasions in the movie, scenes were poorly lit. Lighting could have been much more dramatically set. For example: When the characters sit in the hut at night, there are no candle-like spots to highlight the texture of the room. Another example: When the apprentice enters the barn - was she supposed to be lit or kept dark? If she was supposed to be kept dark, then they should have kept her silhouette black, not just underexposed.

* Musical Score: A Nightmare The lack of dialogue and those many pauses were crying for some decent classic programme music to emphasize and convey the emotion of a scene. But all there was ... was silence.

* Conclusion The story of the film claims to enjoy all senses and to relish a good composition, but the presentation itself was merely focussing on a single sense: The visual one. My conclusion: In its mediocrity the film was not a piece of art.

Bad Banks (2018–2020)

Exciting drama - bad pronunciation: mumbling actors

[8/10 · 22 June 2021]

This show is a thrilling fiction based on the financial districts of Germany.

I've been working for several banks in recent years and I very much feel at home when I watch the show. From my perspective, people in Frankfurt - despite the fictional story - behave very much like the characters depicted in Bad Banks.

Camera, lighting, post-edit, costumes, dialogs, screenplay, actors ... all crafts have been performed excellently by great staff members.

However, from my perspective, for some of the main cast members I suggest to further attend acting school soon or to go performing on a live stage to drastically improve their pronunciation. Being a native speaker for decades I often find myself rewinding the show because I didn't understand a word.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (2019)

A poor movie, depicting people with today's attitude set back in time to 1934

[3/10 · 19 January 2020]

When I saw the flick today, from the very first minutes of the movie I saw people talking and acting like today's people, set into some 1930s stage. I don't know if it's just the bad acting or the bad director that made the movie so implausible to follow.

The actors neither speak or act like people spoke or behaved back in the 1930s.

Within the first 10 minutes the words "Nazi" and "Hitler" were uttered several times - completely omitting that, back then, the true apprehended menace was the local authorities. Back then, the politics wasn't perceived as being the result of just one single mad man. It was a huge and, back then, popular organization that was ruling the country. I haven't read the original book; probably it's written the same way, but if it does, then it's, too, not using the words that have been used back then and written from a retrospective. So to me, this flic is rather a fictional wannabe than a realistic biopic.

Though I admit the film was portraying only a child's view on the situation, from my point of view it is emotionally quite vapid. All the important moments in the film that might have caused the slightest suspense or compassion were left out. Even the situation where the train conductor checks for the family name is depicted like they were just buying a pound of butter.

Which brings me to mention the completely irrelevant and petty musical score. I wouldn't call the few dull notes in the movie a "score" anyway. The musical score didn't at all convey any emotion whatsoever.

The depicted situations all were so nugatory staged and poorly scored, it was often utterly hard to bear. When the family left their mansion at the beginning of the movie I begged for some emotional musical score to convey the loss. But no, why bother viewers with emotion ...

Then, dialogs were often spoken like being read from a text sheet. The intonation was horrible. Important words were hidden in a discharge of words. No pause was disturbing the spate.

The only exception to the cast was the elder woman playing the housekeeper/nanny. She was acting marvellously, conveying emotions from every word and every micromotion. And I felt the actor depicting the son character acting quite authentic.

Finally, I don't quite unterstand why French scenes were subtitled while the Swiss actors (even the children) were to talk German instead of Swiss German. The children even were dubbed. Well, as I wrote before, the flick was implausible to many regards.

For everyone who wants to follow a year in a child's live bothered with some relocations but otherwise living a life everyone else lived back then, they will enjoy the movie. But for everyone else, expecting only a fraction of a quality flick like "Der Engel mit der Posaune", they will certainly be disappointed. To me this film is just a plain subsidied direct-to-video quality level production.

Escape Plan (2013)

Thrilling action movie with standard plot - and utterly bad CGI

[8/10 · 1 July 2018]

Watching the movie remembered me of the old Lock Up flick. The story appears to be rather similar to me.

It has its thrilling moments, yet I was missing suspense.

Acting, soundtrack, camera, lightening, they were all very well performed.

One thing that really pissed me off was the utterly bad CGI: parts of jail interior, helicopter, ship, escaping sequence, blood squibs, even characters ... it all was so painfully poorly shaded and animated, so unreal ... I could barely watch those sequences.

In one sequence (don't want to spoil here), Stallone seems to be a springily superball, not a human being. In the animation sequence, he just resembles one of those repulsive Marvel hero animations, having their character animated like being just an implausible whippy superball.

I don't understand why didn't they use real props for the flick, like they did back in the 80s? It's all there! And I doubt it's more expensive than the CGI part. But it would have given far better results. ... Well, on the other hand, given the quality of the CGI, I suspect the CGI must have been a real bargain.

Nanga Parbat (2010)

Technically a disaster - nice panoramic views

[3/10 · 8 April 2018]

From a technical standpoint this movie is a layman's work in many regards:

* Music: Musical score doesn't enhance emotion in any of the scenes. It only serves as a boring, easily written, lame absense of silence. I cannot stand to hear this score any longer. Whenever my mind wants to compare this zero level score to a score of older films, like Luis Trenker's composer Giuseppe Becce's score, it becomes unbearable to me that this is supposed to be the new level of a composer's prowess.

* Actors: I brings me to tears that none of them apparently learned their acting skills. None of them shows appropriate facial expressions, none of them can speak like an actor. No emphasis, no stress, no accent, no innotation. Just a common man's speak. And no mimic. (OK, the priest at the end of the movie, Matthias Habich, is a well regarded exception to the crew.)

* Sound design: Too may slightly coughs, too many hissy fits. I guess they added them due to the absence of an appropriate musical score. It's like being forced to listen to Darth Vater infamously and inappropriately crying "Nooooooo" over and over again.

On the other hand: The camera is marvellous, illumination, color timing and post-production are great to watch, too.

The aeroplane should have been rendered more majestically. In the movie it's just "some vehicle", it's not an important, elevating begin of their dangerous journey.

Now that I've seen the movie, I wish someone gave me the raw cut, an editor, a decent composer, a small orchestra, and a bunch of good dubbing actor's voices! I would completely redo the movies audio to create a movie that's emotionally poignant and great to watch.

This current movie is a pain to watch and appears to be a laboured students' work only.

The Leisure Seeker (2017)

Marvellously emotional movie about a truely loving old couple's final big journey

[10/10 · 14 January 2018]

The English movie title is misleading, the German title is much better. It translates to: "Smouldering remembrance" (there surely will be better translations, even more meeting the movie's true content).

The movie is an emotional journey about an old couple that's been married for half a century. He once was a literate English teacher and she's been giving birth to two beloved children, who have their own families by now.

The old couple's live has reached their final stage: He's suffering from Alzheimer disease and she's suffering from cancer. So they spontaneously decide to go on their last big trip, from Boston to Key West, to meet his lifetime wish of having visited The Ernest Hemingway Home once in his life - without telling their kids, who get anxiously concerned when they realize that their parents are not at home as they expected them to be.

The trip that the old couple takes is a truely heart-warming story through their past. They take their old Winnebago and head out for Key West, revisiting not only the old camp sites they visited so often before but also revisiting stages of their life and their family, being aware that this will be the last big trip they will ever have together again.

His dementia gives room for some funny moments but also for some truely sad. She attends him the best she can, but when they go back through their life, watching old slides on improvised personal slide shows they watch at their camp site stops, it's heartbreaking to realize that she will be losing him.

The movie is a great emotional roller coaster ride of a beloved couple, of loving and anxious children and how our life may be like when it will have reached its final chapter.

The movie is a so-called chick flick. Be prepared to have handkerchieves near at hand when watching it.

Me and my girl friend had quite a few tears dropped while watching the movie. It may have affected us more than other viewers because it kind of reflected our life. We are about 50 years old and had a similar life, taking camping trips in an old Jeep Wrangler on our journeys to Italy. To be in the picture of the movie: I'm the demential (former?) literate driver, and she (who's even more literate) tells me where to head to and, whenever she can, she attends me so nicely (or tells me where to put it). We are laughing, talking, quarreling, and we get emotional ... So we felt very much like that old couple. (Well, at least I did. My girl friend felt with the old couple on their own.) ... And if we could have a trip like this at the end of our life, this would be one of the best final chapters I could think of for my life.

La La Land (2016)

An indecisive picture, pointlessly drifting between genres

[1/10 · 12 February 2017]

Throughout the picture, Damien Chazelle doesn't take a decision on what kind of picture to show. The film appears to be a random collage from a number of chapters from some cyclopedia about film making.

Being rapidly dragged through diverse genres, heartlessly knitted together, it's hard to get emotionally bound with the story or with the characters in the picture.

I felt like a 1st grade student watching a training movie presenting a sketch of different genre styles.

The base story, a Becoming of Age story, is obtrusively filled with all kinds of styles. I was permanently asking myself: Why is he doing this now? What's his motivation? What's the story's motivation? For example: --- I guess the musical elements where supposed to convey love emotion. But why have the actors been so unemotionally, even dismissively, playing it? --- What's been the reason for taking so much time for conveying that the Mia character is an actress? That fact doesn't add to the story at all.

--- There is an (utterly awesome) long lasting uncut scene. It's a performance highlight. But why on earth is it applied to a negligible chat between lovers? --- Why are all the musical artists depicted in the film so emotionless? I understand the jazz club scene as a reminiscence to the jazz club scene in The Glenn Miller Story. But how dull is the La-La-Land version compared to that? --- Speaking of dull: The score was extremely boring. Cheap jazz licks, carelessly arranged.

--- In the musical scenes I was very much in doubt whether the musical text was meant to be serious or ironic. I was asking myself: Is this a Fourth Wall movie or was this a movie with a story to cling to? All in all, to me the movie appeared to be some kind of a bachelor's academic thesis. And I don't understand what makes the movie worth a nomination for even one single Academy Award.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

The good, the bad and the ugly (incl. German edition's review)

[7/10 · 14 January 2016]

I went to the cinema last night and here's my personal review:

In general: None of the characters is getting developed during the plot. All of them are fully explained and equipped with all their attitude and feature sets within the first five minutes of appearance.

Kylo Ren, the villain: isn't threatening at all. I feel sad for a youngster who's apparently been hanging around with the wrong guys and is gotten weird in his puberty. But I'm not impressed. He's just a nervous kid who has never learned to control his temper, angrily destroying things in his room when he gets upset. To me he's more like Biff Tannen in the "Back to the Future" franchise.

Rey, the girl: is just as stubborn, insolent and ludicrously high gifted as all movie heroins are. She's so scrawny she can hardly hold a gun, yet she's winning every fight easily. Oh my god.... Well, at least she PILOTS like a woman ;)

Flinn, the guy: is stupid and clumsy. I wonder how he survived his time as a soldier. And I wonder why I should be continuously watching him failing over and over again. I feel sad for him.

The girl and the guy: I guess Disney wanted to turn the role model wheel 180°, making the skinny young girl a fighter and the fighter a foolish young girl. For me such absurdity is utterly hard to watch without holding and shaking my disenchanted head.

Lor San Tekka, Max von Sydow: Why is he, the perfect Obi-Wan Kenobi character successor, in the movie only for about five minutes?

--

Why is every film aimed at 12 year old children nowadays? Why didn't the creatures in the carrier hurt someone?

Most of the excitement, suspense and sobriety in a movie comes from characters not talking. But all of the characters in the movie - just - didn't - stop - talking!

No ambiance or mute suspense scenes are depicted whatsoever. No fade or wipe as been applied, too. So there's no chance whatsoever to get John William's excellent score to interact with the audience.

Everyone was acting so fast and nervously. Gee, I felt like being in a nursery from all the unnecessary stupidity and cheer that's been said.

What's so great with Chewbacca's crossbow which Han Solo didn't see earlier in all these years?

Everyone in the movie is talking and behaving too nervously and fast. The only ones with a great timing were Han Solo - and Snoke in particular.

The Chewbacca character is giving a plain stupid idiot. Just like the Finn character does.

BB-8 is behaving like a little dog. No cleverness whatsoever. He's unnecessary from the beginning. It would have been more reasonable to put the USB stick into a box and hide it in the sands than to introduce the BB-8 character for this.

I would have preferred if a Muppet would have been used for playing Maz Kanata. These CGI characters just don't have soul. I bet no child would like to have a Maz Kanata puppet in their bed.

Why is the chess board (Dejarik) on board the Millennium Falcon playing all of a sudden - WITHOUT players?

--

And here's my review to the horrible German translation of the flick:

"I'm a Stormtrooper" has been translated into "ich bin ein Sturmtruppler" - Huh? "Sturmtruppler"??? Really? So the German translators didn't know how to translate a German word into German?? In English this would be like calling him a "Stormtroopling"! Gee!! ... Who came up with that idea?? Why didn't they let him say something reasonable like: "ich gehöre zu den Sturmtruppen" which may be translated as "I'm belonging to the shock troops"?!?

Same for "The First Order": They translated it into "Die erste Ordnung" which sounds just like "The First Orderliness" in German. Gee!! What did they think this is? Isn't the house cleaning company nearby called like this? I hardly believe the director of the German version really knew what he/she was doing... A more appropriate translation into German would have been something like "Das neue Regime".

It must have been nitwits who did the translation. Didn't they know that the Empire is a allegory to the Third Reich? Come one, guys, this isn't Lord of the Rings!

Moreover, I don't know about Kylo Ren's English voice, but the German voice has been badly set. Too much intonation, he is talking too quickly. His voice is just too vivid and nervous to be evil. Given that voice, wouldn't he be better off singing when he tortures others? (After all, it's a Disney flick, isn't it?)

Same for the silvery "Stormtroopling". He's a "she" - and she's talking with a high pitched girl's voice! Urgh!! I couldn't hold myself laughing when she'd be giving orders.

Not to mention the voice of Maz Kanata. She's got the voice of a young woman! But does she look like one?? To me she rather seemed and felt like a female Yoda. And that's what I would have expected from her voice: The voice from someone having a voice like one of the Golden Girls actresses. Or Roseanne's as it is now.

--

One positive thing: There *really* is a great deal of true hardware and makeup done in the movie. And it was great to see the Millennium Falcon interior with all the traditional switches and levers - and WITHOUT a touch screen!

However, the amount of CGI in the movie is still 99 % compared to real hardware/makeup.

--

I'm very much looking forward to get a hand on the DVD. As soon as I get it I will cut all the hooey and girlish stuff out, add length by slowing down some scenes and create my own grown-up version of the flick.

Terminator Genisys (2015)

This flick should have been called "Terminator GenderSys"

[3/10 · 1 August 2015]

While watching the movie I couldn't decide whether I accidentally entered a Rosamunde Pilcher movie or Lifetime/Sixx TV show.

There was too much talking, too many discussions about love, too many dreams of living in a beloved family, too much trying to be funny.

There wasn't even a single gory scene in the movie. The most gory scene was seeing the Terminators skeleton arm (yes, once again... gee).

Basically this movie is just a 1:1 rerun of the most catchy T1 and T2 scenes, plus pointlessly shooting magazines empty on robots plus a number of discussions about love, family and hate. Who on earth targeted this flick for being rated for children of 12 years old?

The musical score was so boring and timid that I believed to feel a breeze of fresh "Breathe Happy" while it played.

The most disgusting part of the movie plot was that the chick is plotted to be the only hero - even the Terminator is just some funny sidekick supporting the chick. ... Maybe I'm too old for this. I just can't stand seeing a tank-like fighting robot and an experienced marine-like warrior to be bullied by some little chick throughout a whole action flick. Younger viewers may find this attractive, perhaps. But, hey, the cinema was filled with 99% men. What in heaven did the writers of the plot believe to aim at?

Suspense ... No, I don't think so. Terminators have been depicted as being some shining metal things shooting around as soon as they enter the room. There were just too many of them and they've been too occupied in shootouts to be menacing. (Though shooting always did pause while children where around.) That's all there is to it.

Fighting ... There was no fighting. Only some shoving around and ludicrous emptying of gun magazines.

Schwarzenegger wasn't menacing. He wasn't funny, too (and he shouldn't try to be). I can't believe people still feel joyful hearing him repeating his same old quotes over and over again. Hey, his text made sense in the original flick, but it just DOESN'T MAKE SENSE NOW. His quotes just are trite.

Well, OK, there were some good parts in the flick:

The CGI 3D model of the younger Schwarzenegger was remarkable. You could hardly tell the difference. And this should mean a lot, stated by someone detesting CGI as work generated mainly by machines, tedious to be watched.

Cinderella (I) (2015)

Too much CGI

[3/10 · 12 March 2015]

In this movie there's CGI in every shot. Even Cinderella's shoes are but CGI. Hard to believe, yet true.

I can barely watch so much visual boredom lacking real props.

In the acting I can't see fairy tale type of acting, too. I would have expected to see the acting being at least as intensive as in The Wizard of Oz or Cinderfella. The actor's mimics are close to nothing. I don't comprehend on why press reports are reporting Cate Blanchett's performance as overacting. Gee, if anything else than a Botoxed face is already declared as overacting, these guys should definitively stop gazing at mannequins.

I'm a huge fan of Kenneth Branagh from his Shakespeare movies. But this time he set the bar too low.

The Expendables 3 (2014)

Loved it - with a few restrictions

[8/10 · 27 October 2014]

After watching marvelous Expendables I and boring Expendables II I was very excited to see the latest result of Sylvester Stallone's brilliant heroes legend.

To cut a long story short: To me Expendables III, this time again, was an absolutely fabulous flick.

I loved seeing the crew splitting up and watching those different threads evolve separately, cumulating in the film's final. That added a touch of complexity to the movie which I liked very much.

Giving the antagonist's part to Mel Gibson seems the perfect decision to me. He was vivid and excellent. (Same as all the other main characters, I'd like to add.) Antonio Banderas, who played the absolute reverse of his role in Assassins, was very funny to see. However, I would have loved to see him having some secret skill available, even just for a second.

All in all I felt the actors and the story very convincing and well balanced.

Yet, there was one central part in the story I absolutely disliked: Does it really need a clash of generations? Why is there a Young vs. Old conflict anyway? Why is it that only young people seem to be able to handle digital devices? And why is "nerdiness" and arrogance an essentially juvenile trait in the movie? And why is there an Expendables franchise anyway if the story wants the main characters to tell they're being too old for it? Well, back to the parts I enjoyed: ...

* The (thankfully) only babe in the flick this time fitted the cast tremendously. Gee, Ronda Rousey is not one of these sticks usually being cast for cockamamie female fighters... Ronda Rousey had muscles and flesh on her bones. Great! ...

* In contrast to Expendables II the actors didn't make fun of themselves being actors. It's so annoying when they do that. Breaking the fourth wall is something I really don't want to see in an action movie. - But I loved these sarcastic relieving humor punchlines in the flick *rofl* ... Great! ...

* No CGI blood this time. Excellent! And I loved to see real tanks firing (you could see the dust falling from the stone mounds around) causing real explosions. - However, the helicopter was far too easy to identify as CGI. Bad.

* Great camera this time. I loved those detail shots. Very thrilling.

* Superb musical score. Great to hear a real orchestra playing this time again.

* Excellent lighting.

* There were exciting moments when no-one was talking. You could literally feel the tension. Great.

* For the German dub: Great to hear Thomas Danneberg excellently dubbing Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger using different tonal voices. I also relished to hear that all the well known actors were dubbed by their regular voice actors.

Well, I can hardly wait to see Expendables IV !!! (Sorry, English is not my native tongue, so please forgive my ineloquence here.)

The Expendables 2 (2012)

A craftsmen's disaster (awful score, rigging, camera, editing, story)

[3/10 · 2 September 2012]

Expendables 2 tries to step into the big shoes of Expendables 1 but fails disappointingly.

Throughout the movie the viewer gets the impression of watching a Greek tragedy, but not an action movie.

~~ Musical Score ~~

The musical score confines to strings playing slow arrangements. At a few, random(!) occasions, playing staccato lines, but still it's not "Action" music.

This musical score lacks brass, snare drum, timpani. It's lacking hard, military, score parts.

I remember better musical scores, like Predator, Rambo: First Blood Part II, The Wild Geese, Mission Impossible TV show.

Where's Alan Silvestry? Lalo Schifrin? Composers like (unfortunately deceased) Jerry Goldsmith or Maurice Jarre? Don't they belong to a movie like the Expandables like any of the actors?

~~ Sound Effects ~~

The only sound effects to appreciate have been the heroes' guns. No other extraordinary efforts in creating sound effects have been taken.

This comes along with camera/editing, lacking a view for details.

You never hear (or see) gloves grate when tightened. You never hear (or see) snap fasteners click when closing a knife's holster.

You never "hear" silence. - Back in the 80's, limiters were used to increase the impact of sound of a movie. Their use had been exaggerated so the the viewer was able to hear crackles when no-one talked. These were the most exciting moments because the viewer actually had the impression of adrenaline kicking through his own veins, which would have resulted in the same effect. The viewer could virtually hear a needle fall on the floor. Expendables 2 is missing both: Silence (and thereby suspense) and a limiter device.

~~ Rigging and Color Timing ~~

The whole movie is tainted blue. It's lacking pristine colours. The viewer feels more like watching Sleepy Hollow or Blade than watching an action Movie.

But for the worst: While the lighting people put lights on the stage, they missed to put light on the actors' faces! The actors mostly are just black blurry shadows acting in front of the camera!

Moreover, the movie is missing highlights. The only highlight I could actually see was the sun shining through the airplane's windows. But that's all. Lighting technicians must have been on strike while making this movie.

~~ Camera and editing ~~

Camera end final cut are awful.

The camera did not focus on details at all. You never see macro close-ups, e.g. showing a hand either tightening a glove or clasping a knife in the holster. You never see someone's eyes focusing on anything.

This becomes particular annoying during action scenes: Every actor is almost immediately shooting around. There's not a single arming/preparing sequence in the move.

The camera never follows a flying knife, or any other of the rare non-shotgun weapons, on its way.

The whole cut is always either hasty or boring. Anyway. it's rendering many potentially relevant scenes irrelevant.

~~ Story telling ~~

This flick is a patchwork of about a dozen common-or-garden stories, each told within 5 minutes, and none of them adds value to the movie.

There is not a moment of suspense in the movie. What happens on the screen is either boredom (like the actors waiting for night to come) or immediate action. The viewer never is ahead (or behind) of the actors' knowledge.

The jokes don't bring relief to a suspenseful moment. They are mostly referring to the age of the actors.

I don't like being reminded of being too old when watching an action flick with my old heroes. I want them to surprise me. I want them to show me what they can still do! Either join the action as a hero or stay out of it.

I'm missing the funny chats, the ambiguity between brave heart killers and sentient men, like the Lee/Stallone dialog in part 1. Or the Mickey Rourke scenes from part 1. The coffee/spaghetti cooking scene is funny though.

The whole story is missing detail and suspense. The villain never becomes a personal menace. His/their killing is performed without any reason. But a villain does not become a menace from just killing people at random.

Most character dialogs or monologues are bullshit. Few jokes are funny. Most of them aren't, particularly when they are making fun of the heroes' previous characters.

~~ All in all ~~

The flick is technically bad done.

I have had the impression of taking part in a video game, but not of watching a Rambo style quality action movie.

I've been missing soundness in the characters' portrayal.

I've been missing suspense, in story, sound and musical score.

There have been too many heroes in the movie. None of them got enough time to fill his role. Less would have been more.

I loved how Thomas Danneberg managed to German-dub both, Silvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

My conclusion: The second part of a series always is bad. Seems to be a mathematical law, waiting to be cracked yet.

However, I'm very much looking forward to a third (better) part!

Titanic (1997)

Marvellous Movie - Excellent 3D Conversion

[10/10 · 2 May 2012]

I just went into the movie theatre to see my all time favourite movie, Titanic by James Cameron, in all its brilliance.

It's just like those 15 years have never happened. It's so utterly sweeping to watch this huge vessel rising up in the screen. Cameron outstandingly managed to shoot his sequences comparing sizes against each other which - by their contrast - brings so much emotion to something we only perceive in real life: size.

After watching the movie, I can't believe this is a 2D to 3D conversion. This is not just a diorama kind of 3D conversion; watching the movie it's hard to believe it was not shot in 3D originally. Even in real life action scenes Cameron stems the task of creating realistic 3D perspective throughout the movie. It must have been hell to mesh all the fringes in each and every of the frames. Well, as I learned now, it took 60 weeks and 18 Million dollars to work on this. That gamble payed off very well.

Not to mention all the emotion that comes with the story. Cameron is a wizard of timing. One moment the audience is just deeply moved by romance, when it gets torn out right the next moment by fear, anger or laugh.

This is a very emotional film. There are so many different fates one can as easily think his/her way into. In 1997 I have been crying about what I saw in a movie - I was baffled, because this happened for the first time in my life... Now in 2012 I was crying, laughing, fearing so much all the way again, together with my girl friend.

We personally feel so much like Rose and Jack. There are so many details in the movie that match our situation, up to tiny things like dancing barefoot or the butterfly as a symbol for freedom at heart and escape from family's restrictions.

To all those who don't like the movie, here's my advice: NEVER watch this film on TV! You can only appreciate this precious work of art in a movie theatre. - I never saw this movie on TV and I never will. But when it'll come back to the theatre's in a couple of years, I'll be right back to watch it there.

Jerry Cotton (2010)

Gute Umsetzung - aber warum verschenkt an billigen Klamauk???

[14 November 2011]

Handwerklich ist dieser Film absolute Spitze. Beleuchtung, Kamera, Ton, Inszenierung - alles Topp! Aber WARUM verschwendet man das ganze Talent an eine so dermaßen platte Komödie?? Hätten die Produzenten mit diesem Team nicht einen Jerry Cotton im Stile eines Jason Bourne, James Bond oder Largo Winch machen können? Wer soll diese Plattitüden lustig finden? Dazu fehlt dem Film die Timing-Perfektion eines Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker-Streifens.

Die Macher des Films wollten mit diesem Drehbuch gerne ernsthafte Krimistreifen persiflieren. Und darin steckt seine Krux. Für einen ernsthaften Krimi ist er um Welten zu platt. Und für eine Komödie ist er zu aufwändig gemacht.

Stumpfsinnig ist aus meiner Sicht die richtige Bewertung für diesen Film.

Zurück zum Handwerk: Topp, bis auf das Green-Screening. Da passt weder das Colour-Timing noch gehen die Säume sauber ineinander über.

Thor (2011)

Great Bible Stories Adapted To Germanic Mythology

[8/10 · 13 June 2011]

Thor is an extraordinarily well directed movie with fine acting.

Its story line contained many interesting stories worth discussing the plot: Father-Son conflict (Odin-Thor), Life and death of Jesus (Thor sent to earth, fight against the Destroyer), the Antichrist (Loki), Cold War (Ice People against Odin's Heaven), generation conflict (old, wise fighters against hot-headed youth). So this movie is worth watching it with your girl friend as well.

I very much like Kenneth Branagh's kind of staging. It's so outstandingly personal even when scenes become crowded. You immediately identify with all the characters.

Great acting performed by all actors in the movie. I particularly liked Idris Elba who played Heimdall in the movie.

Not to mention the good work of other arts like camera, light, cut.

The story was very exciting. However, it sometimes wasn't conclusive: It's very hard to believe that an unarmed man can easily walk into a place guarded and monitored by a number or armed forces men. And it's also hard to believe that just an agent has this much power of decision.

Moreover, there were a few other things I didn't like:

* The musical score was low of emotion and ambition. In my view it wasn't able to properly augment many scenes appropriately, fighting scenes in particular. From the assignment of instruments used and from composing complexity it becomes apparent that the composer very much lacks classic composing education. The result is far below the result a composer like John Williams would have achieved.

* CGI characters were rather clumsy. Mass scenes at Asgard looked like they had been shot with loads of mannequins. Ice people, too, were rather lifeless. Not to mention the Destroyer, whose movements were not too "metally".

* In the German version the term "destroyer" had not been translated. That very much pulled me out of it. Correctly translating it to "Zerstörer" would have been much more frowning. It's a very well known term from World War II. To me, "destroyer" is much more of a term known from movies like Toy Story.

Collateral Damage (2002)

Bad Soundtrack

[3/10 · 25 December 2010]

I've just been watching Collateral Damage on TV... Watching it now, I'm wondering why I found it unpleasant to watch the movie in the theaters'.

Well, one thing I can see - or hear - quite clearly now is the bad score. There are other issues like cut length or that "family guy" appearance of Schwarzenegger, but for me the musical score is definitively the worst part, pervading the whole movie.

Many suspense scenes are missing a complementary suspense score. The score is missing military snare drum hits and similar exciting parts. It's too moody...They better should have copied scores from Die Hard, Rambo or even Terminator 1.

The Ruins (2008)

Great Horror Movie to Watch - A Classic!

[8/10 · 4 September 2008]

After reading all these negative comments here about Ruins I didn't went into the cinema the other day with my pals. Now, half a year later, I watched it privately. And I saw that my decision not to watch it in the first place was WRONG! This was a great, thrilling movie. It was exactly what I would have expected from a good, decent horror movie. I had a great time watching it. The story was very frightening and exciting.

If I had to compare level of suspense, special effects, occult background, unknown origin etc. to another movie I'd recall the classic "The Evil Dead" immediately. Very great horror movie as well.

Many commentators complained they were lost on the monster's features. Well, then they would have been lost on films like The Evil Dead as well. I wasn't lost at all. Without creating spoilers, I'd like interested parties to refer to a thing like "Impatiens glandulifera" or "Nepenthes". The movie did just exaggerate such things.

I found everything in the movie quite consistent, logic and story driven. Very good plot! There was one very funny moment in the movie (I guess this won't be a spoiler): Someone in the group said "We Americans don't just get lost!". Very cool! - "Ruins" is an Australian movie. Nice reprise to the 80's, where in US American movies there was always one pathetic moment ("You are... American? Gee..." or "Let me go first, I'm American") and a US Stars and Stripes somewhere around in the background. - Very funny moment... :)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Too many special effects - boring

[5/10 · 8 August 2006]

I've just seen the movie in the cinema. The story was quite alright. I felt, though, that the actors spent too much time trying to crack slapstick jokes. Can't hear any more actors' "oh oh"s or "oops"...

The storyboard also spent way too much time and distracted the story on CGI sequences. These are so boring to watch... Where have all the stunt men gone? Ignoring laws of physics so trite and obviously in CGI "stunt" scenes really drops me off the movie. I was rather impressed that there was a "real" watermill scene indeed in the movie showing *real* actors in action for... was it half a second?

After all, almost every character from the first movie had a reprise. And you could literally see the story authors' minds working hard on how they could possibly fit any character back in. With more or less success...

I personally found that Kevin McNally lost character in this second episode. Too clean, too positive...