nilssonbst-14186 Reviews

The X-Files: Sleepless (1994) Season 2, Episode 4

Have you heard of Vietnam?

[8/10 · 26 May 2024]

Sleepless is a true nailbiter. It's a great episode on its own with a great narrative involving manipulating somebody's mind - a recurring theme in the X Files. It's also combined with the Vietnam War - another great influence of the series.

The supporting cast is great with Tony Todd being the excellent Preacher, but also Jon Gries - Rico from Napoleon Dynamite, lol - who looks tired like hell.

The "science" behind it is also intriguing, a great episode on its own merit! But there is more...

Watching the episodes of Season 2 back to back seemingly marks the end of Scully and Mulder, and the beginning of Mulder and Krycek. Mulder gets a new partner to solve crime, and a new informant with X. It pushes the "plot" forward, and we're not sure whether Scully will completely come back, it's great stuff!

It works an important segway to the next episode, a must watch for any X File fan.

Fun Trivia - Dr Pilson was only the hotel manager in S1 E2 and was also a minor character in a few more episodes.

The X-Files: Ghost in the Machine (1993) Season 1, Episode 7

Guilty pleasure

[9/10 · 26 May 2024]

This is a huge guilty pleasure for me. The first ever "evil technology" episode with a scruffy "Steve Jobs" genius character and a corporate evil character and your HAL 9000 computer.

Many people dislike this episode, but I like the tone a lot even if it is now the best of its kind. Season 1 is very uneven, and this episode is no exception.

I like the fact that Season 1 has a lot of "back story" characters and in this episode we get to meet Mulder's former partner, Jerry. He's an odd character, down on his luck, not cut out for the difficult task of an X File.

I know I'm in the minority, but on subsequent watches I never miss out on this one.

The X-Files: Space (1993) Season 1, Episode 9

Yawn!

[5/10 · 26 May 2024]

X Files in spaaaace!

Not really though, more like in corridors at "NASA".

This is an odd one, has an interesting plot with a former astronaut being somehow "linked together" with a ghost-alien.

Unfortunately too much revolves around the launch of a rocket and too much time is spent in corridors talking. The actors are not memorable at all, and the episode is resolved in a very unsatisfying way.

There really isn't too much to say about this episode more than it contains a whole lot of nothing. It was probably too expensive to shoot proper space scenes and therefore there are too many things which are "implied" but not shown.

Sorry, but I have to join the crew and say that this is not a very good episode.

The X-Files: Blood (1994) Season 2, Episode 3

Great cast saves the uneven plot!

[8/10 · 26 May 2024]

Blood is a great episode in spite of having to deal with the relative absence of Gillian Anderson.

They bring in everything they can to make this episode memorable such as the Lone Gunmen's second ever appearance.

The supporting actors are great, such as John Cygan playing the police officer helping Mulder. He's very professional and voices his concern for the community which is a nice touch!

There's also the presence of an adult actress, Ashlyn Gere, who was apparently one of "the greats" in the industry at the time. Also a red head which might be a nod to "keeping the men watching the show" - kind of when they wanted to have Pamela Anderson as Scully at first.

The supernatural elements are quite weak with this one with mostly LSD induced paranoia - which was much better made in future episodes. They also combine, in a way, evil technology, but that aspect is kind of "explained away" which makes little sense.

There are many "bad guys" of the series who are so involuntarily, but the reason for why it's happening is also poorly explained, but again much better made in future episodes like season 5 "The unusual suspects".

William Sanderson is, however, great as the "main antagonist" and it's easy to feel sorry for him. His acting is top notch, way above David Duchovny and he steals the show every scene he's in.

This is one memorable episode that shouldn't be skipped out.

The X-Files: Little Green Men (1994) Season 2, Episode 1

noho with the Rojo

[10/10 · 26 May 2024]

Little Green Men sets the ton of the X Files. It's the only opening (season 6 can of course be argued) which is not a "to be continued" episode and the x files has been closed at the ending of Season 1.

Scully's actor Gillian Anderson is pregnant and they had to set the tone.

In this episode we get the full story of Mulder's sisters disappearance and Mulder goes to another country in the search for truth.

The opening monologue is great, and the episode is very introspective.

There are few actors here and Jorge is unfortunately pretty weak as the only true "side character". The special effects are top notch, however and it remains one of my favorite episodes, but only when knowing that there is more to come.

The inclusion of Senator Matheson is interesting, but since he was so soon replaced by the more interesting X his role seems almost to have been a mistake.

The X-Files: The Host (1994) Season 2, Episode 2

X Files goes gross and intriguing

[9/10 · 26 May 2024]

One of the classic great episodes with Darin Morgan in the Fluke Man Suit.

X Files Season 1 is good, but season 2 is where it really hit its stride. The Host is the first Monster of the week episode, and what an episode that is!

Gillian Anderson is barely in it which always made the series struggle, but the cast does a good enough job even if lots of weight is on David Duchovny's shoulders.

Some of the supporting cast like Ron Suavé are great and the weirdness, and nastiness of this monster is wonderful.

It's also fun that the Marshall transporting Fluke man is the same guy (albeit with a mustache) who played the doctor in Fallen Angel. "I don't like fascists" obviously also applies for Fluke men.

It is the mysterious introduction of X which is a nice touch as well.

Interesting is that in the remastered version you can read the article Mulder is given and see tons of weird inconsistencies. The ship's name is not given, and then all of a sudden it's called "the Ukraine". I guess they never intended for anyone to ever truly read it.

Wonderful episode!

Fallout (2024– )

I don't know how, but they nailed it!

[10/10 · 16 April 2024]

Fallout is not just a game, it's a certain... tone. It mixes ultra violence with a post apocalyptic retro-futuristic satirical take on the Greatest Generation.

It's clever storytelling which is difficult to get right. Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas are the best games in the series and has since 2010 set the staple of what Fallout can be.

With huge setbacks for Fallout fans with Fallout 76, and Amazon failing Rings of Power I had no hopes for this series at all.

The Fallout TV Series, however... absolutely nails it! It has the exact right tone, pulls no punches with ultra violence, has its own unique characters and 50's sci fi scientific madness.

The actors are all fantastic, the style perfect and the story engaging! It sets the tone after just 5 minutes and tells a story. The story of Fallout, no bull, just plain Fallout.

This is amazing! As a massive Fallout fan since Fallout 3 in 2008 I have to say my hat is off and I will be enjoying this tremendously!

Damsel (2024)

4 stars for Millie Bobby Brown

[4/10 · 15 March 2024]

Millie Bobby Brown shows her talents once again, but that's not saving this awful movie.

At first we are lead to believe that this is somehow a movie rich of lore and world building like Game of Thrones, but the "plot points" and "twists", both major ones are seen coming from a mile away.

The fact that I could deduce the story very easily and then that's the end shows how poorly written this was.

The cave scene was way too long, and the villain a Cersei Lannister wannabe who's twirling her mustache at you.

Truly the poor mans "Hobbit" movie. One messy dumb movie with no real purpose. It's all been told, better, before.

The Abyss (2023)

Oh boy, this was bad

[3/10 · 25 February 2024]

The beginning of this movie is OK! We are introduced to some great actors and the setting of Kiruna, characters with their own beliefs and a lot of plot elements concerning themselves. I would like to know more about these people at this point!

There's also the plot of the foreboding "mine quake" of the Kiruna mine.

The movie starts cohesive enough, adding plot hooks throughtout the first 40 minutes, and then... it just goes to hell.

After the first "danger" this movie completely loses itself. There is not enought time to explain the various reasons various characters do certain things it just kind of goes on. At this point all the hollywood cliches starts to pile up, and we suddenly watch a very poor reboot of a movie in the similar fashion of Volcano from 1997, but with lower budget.

At the end these Hollywood cliches become more and more, and the end scene which is supposed to be emotional had me burst out laughing. The entire ending scene is horrendously bad!

This is not the actor's fault, it is just a terrible script, terrible pacing and too many Hollywood cliches ending in a total cringe fest.

This movie script should have been left in The Abyss.

Quick (2019)

Wonderful performance by everyone involved!

[9/10 · 1 February 2024]

The story of Thomas Quick fascinated me from around 2014 when I watched the documentary by Hannes Råstam for the first time. I read his book, and the book from Dan Josefsson as well as Josefsson's follow up documentary.

I read the book by Quick's brother, as well as other works, becoming fascinated with the story.

A large reason for this was the mechanism of "repressed memories". Having grown up in the 90s watching the X Files and psychological thrillers this was hard fact. As late as 2010 we got the movie Shutter Island which also revolves around repressed memories, the notion that the mind "locks away" horrifying events that can be recalled back by skilled psychologists.

Thomas Quick ended up in the hands of those who believed they were skilled.

My world view of repressed memories was totally shattered by Hannes Råstam and I don't believe in it today at all. My expectations going into the movie were therefore astronomical.

Fortunately they pull off this investigative story from the perspective of Hannes Råstam exceptionally well. Jonas Karlsson is excellent as Hannes, Alba August puts Jenny Küttim in the spot light she deserves (she was absent from the documentary) and David Dencik is an excellent Thomas Quick. Dencik was also personally fascinated by the case and had previously read many books about it which shows with the attention to detail.

Everything from setting, clothes, hair, photographs and video tapes are recreated in an authentic way, and also a very captivating way. It's easy to watch the 2 hours in one sitting, feeling the weight of "what the hell am I doing" from Hannes, and the feeling of being trapped by Thomas Quick. The feeling of "what the hell happened" by the ones involved with a consciousness.

This is one of the best true stories put to Swedish film, and there are a few scenes which stand out as heart warming, and deeply emotional.

I love this movie.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

Theatrical Zeist version - the Atari E.T. of cinema

[3/10 · 28 January 2024]

I actually like this movie, the Renegade or BluRay version that is, but here I'll review the theatrical Highlander from another galaxy which was the original intention of the film.

Only 4 years after the initial release this movie received the heavily edited "Renegade version" (which is also longer) and that was the only movie I ever saw until a few weeks ago when I finally sat down and watched the original theatrical version.

The theatrical cut only exist on

• VHS
• Laserdisc (dafuq?)
• Some weird french DVD
• Obscure pages on the Internets

This movie is very, very rare, like they are embaressed of its existence. The theatrical version removes several scenes, some of which are quite important, and the editing is insane.

What is most mind boggling is that Connor and Ramirez are aliens from another planet in another galaxy. The planet Zeist. They reference this planet all the time, never ever mention the Scottish highlands and they even toast to the planet.

They ARE aliens! It's absolutely insane!

It feels like we went from a fantasy movie to a sci fi movie. In the 1h 25 minute run time it's like watching two movies, one about a sci fi space dome which needs to be destroyed, and another one about immortal aliens travelling through space in a way which is never explained.

The Sci Fi stuff about saving the planet from unnecessary shielding is a really dumb plot point and completely unnecessary. Why the bad guy decides to team up with corporate guy makes no sense, why the heck would he care about that? He just wants a sword fight, right?

You have to watch the movie for its scenes, once you start thinking about the plot you will just go "why, oh why?" there's no way of making sense of it.

The actors are great though. They must have known that they were in an awful movie, but they give 100%, all of them, all the time. They make the movie worth watching to some extent.

This is movie badness at its finest, so bad it's good? You bet!

It's great to compare the two versions where they basically just cut away every reference to Zeist or even just dub over the word "Zeist". It's damage control in a way I've never seen before, and can possibly only be compared with movies like Zac Snyder's Justice League or something like it.

It's awesome and awful at the same time. A must watch bad movie.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (1997)

Mind = blown

[10/10 · 16 January 2024]

Having watched the original series episode 1-26 when I was 14 years old the original "ending" left me feeling unsatisfied. Little did I know that the complete ending came in the form av movie in 1997 that truly wrapped things up.

There are two separate parts labeled episode 25 and 26 where the original episode 25 & 26 took place inside of Shinji's mind. Both of these are double episodes around 40 minutes each.

The movie starts directly after the events in episode 24, but focuses on the real world and its characters. The mysterious Seele organisation takes a bigger role, and the plot is pumped up to 25 on 10 grade scale.

End of Evangelion is such an amazing ending to an otherwise amazing show. It wraps everything up, but leaves lots of room for interpretation.

The visuals are breath taking, jaw droppingly fantastic and nothing I have ever seen before. It takes all the themes thus far and cranks it up 12 steps to the epic conclusion of an epic saga. This ending is so good that I don't know if I ever seen a better ending to a TV series ever.

I just stared at the screen in total awe for 1h 25 minutes with my mouth slighly ajar.

If this is not the best anime movie ever made, I don't know what is? Leaps and bound better than for instance Ghost in the Shell.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996)

Fantastic

[10/10 · 14 January 2024]

Neon Genesis Evangelion centers around the 14 year old boy Shinji in the "futuristic year" of 2015 after a holocaust caused by the melting of Antarctica. Shinji comes in as an outsider to the military agency Nerv in spite of having a father who runs the project.

The show starts with Shinji learning that he is to fight against "Angels", massive "living" robots in his own "living" robot known as an Eva or Evangelion. He is to save the world, but like Harry Potter he never knew this was his destiny.

In the beginning one has a lot of questions, but Shinji is as confused as we are, which is a nice touch. You can tell things has been going on for a while, but that there are many hidden secrets and unknown facts.

We follow Shinji's life as well as the life of those around him. I find these parts of the series amazing. The characters are very human and full of emotions and have complex thoughts.

The writing is stellar, philosophical and introspective. There's also a lot of teen angst and even focus on sex in the adolescent way of "seeing boobs" or "being naked". It's kind of odd, but adds to the natural vibe of the characters in this otherwise unnatural setting.

This series is amazing. Better than Ghost in the Shell in my opinion. Absolutely fantastic, with great art direction and storytelling.

Have not read the manga, it came before the show, but the show was made before the manga, but took a while to finish. The manga is based on the anime show, not the other way around.

The only thing I can say to first time watchers is that episode 25 and 26 are utterly (IMHO) pointless. Just watch ep. 1-24 ans then watch the movie "The End of Evangelion" which takes place directly after ep. 24.

K2 (1991)

Vertical mind blowing movie Paradox

[6/10 · 5 December 2023]

OK, let's just get this out of the way - what's up with the paradox of this movie? Don't know what I'm talking about?

Well, this movie has arguably lots in common with the movie that came 9 years later - Vertical Limit.

1. K2 is about climbing... K2

Vertical Limit is about climbing K2

2. K2 has a billionaire who wants to push for the top and gets edema

Vertical Limit has a billionaire who wants to push to the top and gets edema.

3. K2 has a main actor who starred in the movie Aliens - Michael Biehn.

Vertical Limit has a main actor who starred in the movie Aliens - Bill Paxton.

4. K2 has a supporting actor from the X Files - Raymond J. Barry who played the informant, Senator Matheson.

Vertical Limit has a supporting actor from the X Files - Nicholas Lea who played Alex Krycek.

Come on! These movies are basically the same movie but 9 years apart.

Is it good? Well, it's OK, has a super odd beginning but gets better by the end. Vertical Limit is arguable better, but also more cheesy.

Europa Report (2013)

Rips off Arthur C Clarke's 2010 but with bad sci fi and poor directing,

[3/10 · 27 September 2023]

In the novel by Arthur C Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two, there is a group of astrounats who land on Jupiter's moon Europa only to be encountered by an underwater creature that causes the demise of their space ship.

This movie is a massive rip off of that novel, albeit more "fleshed out" if 10 pages of Arthur C Clarke's book would be turned into a movie.

Europa Report contains the acting talent of two great actors. Me being Swedish always loved the late Michael Nyqvist, and the New Zealand actor Sharlto Copley is the best amazing actor coming from that country the last 20 years.

Europa Report is an awful movie. Above all the actors feel undirected, bland and just bad. I can't tell anything about their personality, who is who, what is their specialty or motivation.

Every actor has 3 faces, either indifferent, overly happy or "alert". The dialogue is awful, the chemistry therefore suffers and I don't feel any connection with anyone.

The movie itself is poorly made. The lighting is terrible, everything is overly bright, the camera angels are in their faces all the time to hide the fact that they couldn't afford an outside landscape. Every single shot feels more zoomed in than necessary in the entire movie.

Speaking of the landscape one has to mention the cover of the movie, a single person standing in an open terrain with Jupiter above. This scene is absolutely not at all in the movie and should be branded as false advertising.

The digital video overlays are terrible since you can't even read what it says.

Every time something happens it is not shown, only told or implied since they didn't have the means to actually film it. They pretend that what they are doing is oh so necessary and for the benefit of mankind, but since it isn't shown it's hard to show interest.

There's one scene that takes place on Europa in the movie 2010: the year we make contact, and that one scene is better than this entire movie.

And yeah, Europa Report is also only 1h 25m long.

Nothing happens in this movie, there is nothing to spoil since the movie is about nothing. At the end I thought "oh yeah, this movie is supposed to be a bit scary? Huh..."

Terrible, terrible, terrible.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

A failed sequel

[2/10 · 12 June 2023]

Easiest way to describe this movie: it's really bad. There's no way around it, it's just a bad movie.

Avatar 2 had so much potential since there were so many questions unanswered.

• How's earth like?

• Why is Pandora so important to earth?

• Can there be some peace talks?

• How do normal earth people react to the war with the Na'vi?

Are any of these questions answered? Nope, because Cameron wanted to make an Avatar movie with water.

The plot makes no sense. The "clash" in the beginning is 100% unlikely, and the decision to go Waterworld makes absolutely no sense at all. We become separated with the entire first movie in order to remake the first movie in a water setting.

In some odd way the first movie is about nature, trees and godlike forces and gets its message across. I just don't feel as much for dying fish.

The new actors are terrible and I keep forgetting who is who.

The biggest complaint is that the movie jumps around and lack focus. It's over 3 hours long and still I feel like the movie is jumping around, missing important plot points, character development and a sense of what is going on. Characters spawn in from nowhere, development happen without understanding why and I forget some of the characters entirely.

Half way into the movie, the "evil corporation" which plot we don't know about ****SPOILERS**** have a main goal to extract fish oil in order to stop (I guess the elite) people from aging. It makes the "company" into some mustache-swirling charicatyr. They also rip a lot of plot elements from Aliens and for some reason makes the military into some Vietnam movie (GET SOME!!!), complete with burned down villages and "are you really gonna waste her?". So cringe.

At this point my mind turns off watching Avatar 2.

This is a bad movie. Really bad.

The Mother (2023)

One of the worst movies I have ever seen

[1/10 · 4 June 2023]

Ask a 13 year old to make a movie and this is what you get.

"And then she went into hiding in the Alaskan wilderness!"

"And then she teams up - a decade later - with an agent to bring down the drug lords!"

"And then she shoots a bunch of people!"

"And then she visits cool locations!"

"Her background is a sniper in the army!"

"And her hair and make up is perfect at all times!"

This movie is ALL over the place. It's a complete mess, the story makes no sense, the character not believable one bit, the way they are teamed up is laughable, the drug lords - whatever - are like some covert op special forces....

It's like the author has a problem with Da Guvernment...

Turned it off after 30 minutes. Worst thing is that the movie somehow rips off The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) an actually awesome movie!

The Guilty (2021)

Crazy good movie!

[10/10 · 11 April 2023]

The Guilty is a movie that feels very much in the same vein as movies like Buried or Exam; stories focusing on one location and few characters.

Jake Gyllenhaal makes one of his best performances ever, playing a psychological wreck of a police officer who's struggling with severe personal issues. Being demoted to a 911 call operator he's constantly moving back and forth over that thin line into pure insanity while taking various calls.

This is the role that Jake Gyllenhaal is meant to play! Finally!

Gyllenhaal became famous for playing psychological wrecks in movies like Donnie Darko, Jarhead, Nightcrawler etc... he should stop messing around with movies where he plays a "cool dude" and just embrace his demons where he performes oh so fantastically well.

The movie is not meant to be spoiled, just know that you will get Jake Gyllenhaal overload in a return to his roots of madness, and just enjoy the ride of one of the best actors of our time.

The Shining (1997)

Extremely underrated

[10/10 · 16 November 2022]

The Shining mini series became a victim of the early Internet era when movies and TV-series were judged by consensus. People "knew" that this series was bad, because that was the general consensus. People knew that Kubrick was God and that The Shining movie was a masterpiece in every coneivable way.

The Shining movie was the boomer horror movie #1 along with The Exorcist. All boomers knew that this was the scariest movie ever made, and many boomers continue to believe this, in spite of many horror movies since.

The reason this mini series is amazing is due to the story telling and acting. Especially Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay are amazing. Nicholson over acts a lot in the Kubrick movie, and Shelley Duvall is the poster child of non-independent woman. Weber and Mornay work as a couple, they share hopes and fear for the future and have many dimensions to them. Courtland Mead also makes a great performance as Danny.

If you are a fan of the novel, you will love this series. Don't believe in the haters, they are just grumpy boomers.

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

OK, not great - bad, bad actors

[3/10 · 10 November 2022]

The story is interesting, it's a TV-series format of The Haunting (1999), but 100% different. I like the sets, some ideas it has going for it is OK, but... there's a lot of ham.

The actors are really, really bad. It's like watching an audition for another movie where all actors fight for the role. They are supposed to be family, but behave like rivals. Especially the funeral scene has some absolutely atrocious acting.

At times this series feels like watching a 90's FMV game. All actors are just too "correct" without emotions, and perfectly dressed. Who are they really?

The children are much better actors, and the "young dad" is also fine. I like old Luke somewhat more than the others, but man... this TV-series truly lack a soul.

I'd take Owen Wilson, Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson any day over this.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Haters gonna hate, ain'ters gonna ain't

[9/10 · 18 May 2017]

This movie... is amazing.

Reading the reviews here made me almost refund my ticket, but I'm so glad I didn't.

This movie opens up immediately with a theme of philosophy and exploration that truly sets the tone for the rest of the story. It follows the theme of Prometheus of what it really is like to be a creator, a created, or what it is like to meet your creator. It touches upon the opposite of creation - doom.

The story of Prometheus was the story of the "giants" failed attempt coming back to doom the Earth, but as we begin this movie the colonists of the Covenant are looking for a new planet to inhabit. Why? We don't really get to know, but most likely it is the old subject of over reaching resources.

The movie mixes these enormously deep subjects with the ultimate consequence of what happens when you go looking for something so abstract and intangible. The consequence of madness and damnation, both internal and external.

Other than that there are beautiful settings, wonderful musical score and a lot of action and gore. Covenant brings back the feeling of Alien, but also adds something completely unique and also brings on scope and insight into the franchise.

On top of that the acting is great and Fassbenders has outdone himself. He is truly spectacular.

Don't trust the negative views here on IMDb, see it for yourself! A lot of people don't like it, maybe you won't too, but I sure loved it! Enter with an open mind, not a critical mind.