griffo-86546 Reviews

The Misfits (2021)

Brought to you by the Abu Dhabi Board of Tourism

[1/10 · 27 January 2022]

You do get the feeling that you're watching a promotional tourism video for Abu Dhabi, the kind that you might see on repeat on a long haul Emirates flight, except that they've thrown in a heist plot to make this appear to be a normal movie instead of advertising.

The movie hits peak cringe when Richard Pace asks to be taken to the best five star hotel in the country. It is also very cheesy the way the crew give Pace a briefing, as each person magically knows when to start talking and pick up where the other left off. It's almost as if they were following a highly rehearsed script instead of having a normal conversation.

Pierce Brosnan has already been a much better thief before in The Thomas Crown Affair instead of, as somebody else here put it, playing a retired James Bond. His annoying irish accent from The Foreigner is back too.

I usually love heist movies but unfortunately I can't comment on the heist itself because I couldn't finish the movie.

1917 (2019)

This movie is not an 8. Not even close.

[4/10 · 21 December 2021]

The good:

• Visuals

The bad:

• wannabe Saving Private Ryan in WWI (but not as good)
• unworthy of comparisons to Dunkirk
• token and contrived "family" scene to insert a woman into the story ala Fury (minus the awkward rape scene in that movie)
• German soldiers with aim like the stormtroopers from Star Wars
• Given the choice of passing enemy soldiers by stealth or ambushing them using the element of surprise, the protagonist chooses to preserve life and fails at both. Soldiers are highly trained killing machines and would not hesitate to kill enemy soldiers particularly when under fire
• The much-lauded "one take" experience I didn't even notice until reading about it here so was unnecessary
• The climax of the movie is the dogfight scene and from then on it becomes a boring drag.

Logan (2017)

Wolverine and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[4/10 · 4 July 2021]

This movie certainly draws a parallel with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Whilst not being as unwatchable as that train wreck, it's clear that this movie only exists to introduce an annoying kid we don't care about in order to drive the franchise forward and ensure that the cash grab can continue for many years into the future.

This movie is nowhere near an 8, and an utter disappointment when compared to the other Wolverine movies and X-Men classics which were vastly superior and had the right mix of action, light-hearted moments, but most importantly, heart. This movie tries to have heart but fails miserably.

I knew that I wouldn't like this movie as soon as the kid was introduced. Nobody wants to see kids in movies like this except for other kids, and this movie is too violent for them anyway. Of course, the girl is not just a kid, but a strong, intelligent, independent and ethnic Mary Sue as that very tired trope requires. By the way, how did Professor X not know about or mention the existence of the other mutant kids? What made this one so special?

Stewart and Jackman were excellent as always, and had great and believable chemistry. It's very telling that this movie would have been so much better if their characters were the only two in it, and everybody else on Earth was dead.

The movie has no real plot, other than the protagonists getting chased by generic "baddies" who are never intimidating or menacing interspersed with fight scenes and a bunch of people we don't care about dying along the way, shortly after being introduced. One of the "baddies" is a pretty boy who, other than the robot arm, looked like he had just had a pedicure on the way from shooting for a men's fashion magazine.

My biggest problem with the movie other than the kids is that the deaths of Professor X and Wolverine were nothing short of criminal. We are expected to believe that Professor X, a mastermind with incredible mental powers, albeit frail, ageing and medicated can simply be discarded like an expired carton of milk and that should be a fitting and acceptable way for him to go. No climactic struggle, no fate of the world at stake, no last heroic effort. He just, well, dies.

Wolverine's death was not much better. Where was the sense of relief and homage to the end of a character after so many years of struggle, anger and guilt for a conflicted, tormented and complex person who ultimately had a good heart? His death would have been a good opportunity to introduce a reference to Jean, a woman he loved and cared about dearly, and would have helped to tie this movie to the others. But that is sadly lacking too.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Pretentious, self-indulgent garbage

[1/10 · 18 November 2020]

The Royal Tenenbaums is confused about what genre it wants to be:

1. As a comedy, it fails, as despite a great line-up, the laughs are few and far between.

2. As a drama, it fails, as the story is simply not interesting. A dysfunctional and quirky family full of completely unlikeable characters with various pursuits of differing success gather together in one house and some things happen to them. That is not only the premise, that is the entire plot.

3. As a black comedy, it fails for two reasons. Firstly, refer 1 above. Secondly, if you're making a black comedy, a suicide attempt should either be implied or done in a silly or exaggerated way, for example, somebody tries to hang themselves and the rope breaks. What you don't do is shoot a highly graphic and realistic scene of a person slitting their wrists with a razor blade and blood pouring out followed by close-up, detailed shots of the aftermath including associated scars, stitches and bandages. Were we meant to laugh at that bit?

I'm left wondering what was the point of the movie? It is implied at the very end of the movie that Royal Tenenbaum brought everybody together and that the family is so grateful for this, yet that is difficult to swallow given that most of the movie is dedicated to references to his poor parenting through decades of neglect, and continued failure in the movie where he manages to irritate everybody and lie to them leading to him being kicked out in disgrace. Somehow, against all logic, Royal manages to have some success in redeeming himself in the last 5 minutes of the movie, presumably for the sole purpose of setting up the closing shot.

I don't know how anybody in their right mind could rate this movie a 10 or, even more unbelievably, claim it is the best movie that they have ever seen. I must have watched a different movie. Other reviewers are fawning over the colourful shots and the interesting props and backgrounds. I really wonder how that alone can be enough for them to praise this movie when other critical aspects are nothing short of woeful. If aesthetics are all that you care about, go ahead and watch the movie with the sound off. At least that way you won't be kidding yourself that there's something more to it.

Another reviewer mentioned that when discussing this with others, they had to remind them of a couple of funny moments. They provided two quotes from the movie. If you have to remind people that a movie was funny by cherry-picking two isolated quotes, well, that is probably quite compelling evidence that the movie wasn't that funny.

It's clear to me that this movie is the result of a director who is far too preoccupied with putting in the elements that he sees as necessary for his ego rather than making a movie that is entertaining for an audience. As for Owen Wilson, stick to acting. This Royal Tenenbaums is a very clear case of style over substance.

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

Stopped watching after Episode 5

[2/10 · 23 October 2020]

First things first. This is NOT a horror series. This is a drama with the occasional jump scare.

It started off strong with the first episode, a great location, interesting characters and a sense of foreboding and dread.

It ticks all the usual cliches: old haunted house with a lot of history and deaths, strange children who can see ghosts, the music box, dolls, mirrors and so on but that can be forgiven as it's largely expected going in.

Unfortunately, from the second episode onwards the series becomes increasingly frustrating to watch as it jumps backwards and forwards in time. This has become an element in Netflix shows that is far too common, and somebody needs to tell them that moving backwards and forwards in time instead of showing things in sequence does not, of itself, make the show better. When used too frequently, it becomes frustrating to the viewer.

By the end of Episode 5, it is clear that the series has simply become an exercise for the director's ego, the show rapidly becoming artsy and pretentious and forgetting the very point of the show, to be entertaining to the audience.

I wanted to like this show, I really did. But I can't forgive a show that markets itself as something that it is not and becomes an exercise in ego rather than entertainment.

Syriana (2005)

George Clooney wins an Oscar for growing a beard and being serious for a whole movie

[2/10 · 28 August 2020]

I feel that perhaps this movie would have been quite interesting for somebody with a detailed understanding of the inner workings of the oil industry, and the commercial, political, diplomatic and regulatory environment it operates in. For the average viewer, this movie is inaccessible, as it treats these aspects as assumed knowledge rather than educating people along the way.

I am all in favour of movies that require you to think, even to re-watch to fully appreciate. But even after reading the plot synopsis afterwards in an effort to understand it, this added context still didn't make for a rewarding story.

The most interesting part about this movie is what's written in my summary line. There was no outstanding acting from Clooney, in fact, I'm puzzled as to why somebody would cast Clooney and Damon in the same movie when their stories barely intersect.

The movie was far too long and not worth the time investment. It gets two stars because although I didn't personally enjoy it, I can see it may appeal to a very niche viewership as described above. I also watched it to the end.

Project Power (2020)

Two guys, a kid, and a script with extra cheese

[2/10 · 16 August 2020]

Brainless entertainment, that is at times visually interesting, but ruined by an annoying kid. If the movie is rated R, we are expecting a movie for adults, so why have a kid as a main character with lots of "street cred" to appeal to kids?

Netflix really need to find some writers who can manage to create a decent script, after delivering yet another Netflix original turkey. Foxx and Gordon-Levitt do a decent job with the garbage script that they have to work with.

The bad guys are cliche and have unclear motivations. Who is the buyer? Does she work for the government? Where does the government fit in? This movie borrows concepts from X-Men (2000) and Limitless (2011), movies which are far superior, and never truly reaches it's potential, mostly due to the script.

Given the short-lasting effects of the superpowers, they could have had some fun with people not quite getting the timing right, but no, everybody uses the pills at the right time and where the effects are beneficial, they last for the exact time that the person needs them.

Replicas (2018)

Lower your expectations

[3/10 · 17 July 2020]

The good

• The movie feels like a straight-to-DVD or TV movie but it works ok as long as you're expecting a brainless and low quality popcorn flick. Despite it's many flaws, the movie maintained enough interest to watch it to the end.

• The acting by Thomas Middleditch was solid and his character was relatable to the audience as he brought much needed grounding to the story and particularly the irrational behaviour of William.

• Not having enough "pods" for everybody was an interesting twist. If they hadn't gone down the path of a typical Hollywood happy ending, this could have been further explored with the protagonist continuing to be racked with guilt over this decision and having to find a way to eventually accept and live with it.

• Although many other cliches were present, including the double cross, the big bad corporation and so on, as other reviewers have noted the ending deserves credit for originality in delivering a mutually acceptable resolution for both the protagonist and antagonist rather than taking the easy way out with one of them dying.

The bad:

• The subject matter of transferring consciousness from human to machine has been done before and much better in many other films and TV shows, including Transcendence (2014), Source Code (2011) and Black Mirror (2011-), although that isn't saying much.

• Acting by Alice Eve was garbage and we weren't given enough time with the family or reasons to really care about them.

• Keanu Reeves had the emotional range of a bag of flour, although if you've seen any of his previous movies, you wouldn't be watching for his acting skills.

• Suspension of belief is definitely required for this movie. That in itself is not a problem, but I found myself accepting certain absurdities as believable such as the consciousness transfer and human cloning whilst others I simply couldn't because of lazy scripting and execution with notable examples as follows:

For anybody who has worked on an algorithm in real life, the idea that it could be "finished off" by one person in an evening let alone retained in that person's memory is laughable.

An algorithm that requires at the very least a detailed knowledge of engineering, biology and computing and the interactions between them would require an army of people working for years and millions of lines of code. Instead Keanu Reeves waves his hands around Minority Report (2002) style whilst calling out random areas of the brain combined with letters from the phonetic alphabet in a hopeless attempt to make the scene credible. Although I didn't particularly like Transcendence (2014), at least it doesn't insult your intelligence in this way by leaving the 'how' part up to your imagination.

I also don't know how this scene could have been better handled, but let's be honest, a cheesy montage at this point wouldn't have made the movie any worse.

Another thing that bugged me was the idea that a hugely complex system like memory could have sections targeted and deleted by a simple keyword search. It's a human brain, not Notepad.

The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

Close, but not quite

[6/10 · 27 June 2020]

The good:

The animation and visual effects are amazing with a breathtaking level of skill in crafting an incredibly detailed, elaborate, colourful and realistic world. Judging this movie on visuals alone would warrant giving this movie a 10, and, similar to Avatar (2009), it seems that some reviewers have done just that.

The voicing and characterisations of Thomson and Thompson and Bianca Castafiore are great, in the appropriate doses and true to the books. The various nods to the books are also welcome. The cuts between Haddock retelling the fight between Sir Francis and Red Rackham were well handled, even if the fight itself was somewhat embellished and over the top.

Another reviewer lamented the lack of a love interest, but I am including that as a positive that one was not introduced into this story for the sake of it. A love interest is NOT a mandatory ingredient for an excellent movie or TV series for that matter, and especially not the contrived variety of love interest that you see far too often in most Hollywood movies.

For the most part, the movie is fun.

The bad:

The movie can't decide whether it wants to be a children's movie or a nostalgic movie for adults. On the one hand, there are guns, swordfights and murders. On the other hand, the humour seems to be mostly targeted at children, for example, where Snowy is used to try to create laughs.

Another issue is that too often the movie gets swept up in long action sequences, which can feel like a rollercoaster at times. But just because I love rollercoasters, does not mean that I want to be on one for 2 hours.

Some reviewers have criticised Tintin's character as being devoid of personality and whilst there is some merit in that, it is consistent with the books. But where there is limited material to draw on, it is even more critical that the personality that does come across is true to the source, and here the movie fails at one key point in the movie by portraying Tintin as a defeatest.

However the real failure in my mind, is the depiction of Haddock. Others have mentioned that the voices of Tintin and Haddock were not what they imagined from the books and whilst I agree, particularly with the comments about Tintin's whiney voice and Haddock's unnecessary Scottish accent, I acknowledge that it would be difficult to please everybody. I expected Haddock to be a lot more stoic and have more grit like one would expect from a man who has spent years at sea. Here he seems just too silly and cartoony, particularly with that giant nose. I don't know if it's the giant nose or the way he moves around but he also appears to be on the plump side in the movie but not in the books.

It would be better if the books were followed more closely, but that can be forgiven with the limited time that the movie had. In particular, finding the treasure was anticlimactic when the whole adventure was based on finding the scrolls. It would have been better to have more of the movie dedicated to searching for the treasure itself as in Red Rackham's Treasure, and Professor Calculus was sadly missing, but both of those aspects may be covered in the sequel.

Finally, the problem with an ultra-realistic and lifelike cartoon is that it makes it harder to suspend disbelief in things that you can normally get away with in a cartoon, for example, Haddock burping into the plane engine to keep it in the air, and the numerous times the parchment is lost and regained by a whisker during the chase scene in Bagghar. I think that it would have been better to simply decide on a cartoon or a regular movie and stick with it instead of trying for a hybrid.

White Lines (2020)

Garbage

[2/10 · 1 June 2020]

White Lines wanted to be about sex, drugs, parties and violence but forgot about having a compelling story. This show was created with these themes front and centre, with the story wrapped around it seemingly as an afterthought. In more intelligent shows, these themes may be present but are peripheral to an engaging story and characters. This is the reason why shows such as Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad will be remembered for a very long time, whilst shows like White Lines are quickly forgotten.

You know that things are bad for a show when the dad who kicked his son out of home is the most likeable character in it. He wanted the best for his daughter after seeing the writing on the wall for the no hope, rebellious, beach bum loser that was his son: constantly on drugs, partying with crime families and breaking the law until he wound up dead.

When dad turns up to check on his daughter's wellbeing, the protagonist exclaims "I'm an adult!" but everything she does up to this point suggests the opposite as she abandons her family and constantly puts herself and others at risk by making poor choices more typical of a teenager like stealing large quantities of drugs from a childhood friend, moving in with dubious individuals she has just met, evading and lying to police and generally acting out like the loser brother she idolises.

Come to think of it, most of the other characters make stupid decisions too, but the reason why shows full of teen angst like The OC work is because they have teen characters, who make teen decisions, and are made for a target audience of teens. Here we have adult characters making teen decisions for a target audience of, well, it's not really clear, adults who never grew up?

I'm giving this a 2 because of some nice scenery, but frankly that is being generous.

Ozark (2017–2022)

Ozark jumps the shark in season 3

[6/10 · 9 April 2020]

The good:

• Season 1 and most of Season 2
• The casino in Season 3 makes for a nice change of scenery
• Ben dies

The bad (season 3):

• The Marty and Wendy conflict has already been done to death and you simply can't milk more seasons out of it. It's boring and tedious to watch

• Having characters who are liars and manipulators only works in a show if there's one or two of them, balanced with mostly straight characters around them. Once almost every single character is going around deceiving, scheming and manipulating it loses any impact

• Ruth goes from rebuffing Ben to falling in love with him in the time it takes you to finish reading this sentence

• The mob boss is not at all convincing in the way he speaks, his motivations or his actions

• Tom Pelphrey and Laura Linney competing to see who can be the most annoying, hysterical and overacting member of the cast

• The focus shifts from Marty, even though he's the best character

• Wyatt and Darlene. No more needs to be said

Blood Diamond (2006)

In a nutshell

[6/10 · 17 February 2020]

The good:

• Excellent cinematography and impressive action sequences
• Interesting story
• Informative

The bad:

• Too long
• Obligatory Hollywood love interest
• DiCaprio's kiwi accent

Final Space (2018–2021)

Missed opportunity

[6/10 · 1 January 2020]

It's a shame because Final Space seemed to have a lot going for it, but could have been so much better if the script writers just spent a bit more time on making jokes that really land.

The show has some parallels to other shows such as Futurama with Gary behaving quite like Fry, and with gory and zany effects similar to those used in Rick and Morty. While the early episodes of Final Space are a lot of fun, after a while the same tired jokes become really worn out. KVN is annoying, we get it. Apart from being repetitive, the script really needed work to make the humour more clever and less slapstick. Further, just exclaiming things in a loud or forced voice is not enough to create genuine laughs and carry a show.

Mooncake is my favourite character, as he is the most likeable and least annoying member of the crew despite not having any real dialogue.

Den of Thieves (2018)

This movie makes no sense

[1/10 · 5 December 2019]

Normally one would suspend disbelief for heist movies, but this movie loses all credibility before it even gets to the heist part. None of the characters behave or do anything in a believable way. Does an action movie need to be extremely realistic? No, but it also shouldn't be completely brainless. I mean, how can we be expected to believe that this guy is a cop?

The worst cop ever:

• Eats from a box of donuts covered in blood at a crime scene
• Assaults, kidnaps and threatens an alleged criminal that he wants to turn (pretty sure cops can't do that)
• Reveals himself to the criminals he is investigating on multiple occasions and almost gets his insider killed
• Gets fed false information from a stripper, even though she was also with the leader of the gang and the three of them shared an awkward moment together
• Charges an active bank robbery where hostages are being held at gunpoint with one hostage already believed to be executed
• Has unnecessary macho contests with the leader of the gang, his police friend, his ex's new man, and basically anybody else he encounters
• Tails a car close enough to be seen and recognised by the occupants
• Decides to engage in a shoot out on a busy main road full of civilians with a few rogue cops instead of calling for backup and gets one of his crew killed
• Doesn't catch the mastermind or recover any stolen money

The Curse of Oak Island (2014– )

Painful

[1/10 · 30 September 2019]

Every minute or so the narrator bombards us with rhetorical questions in the exact same format:

An (ordinary object)? Could this be evidence of (wacky theory)?

Then it goes nowhere.

This show suffers from too much repetition and padding and not enough actual content. The same sweeping views of Oak Island over and over. It did not need 13 episodes, and after all that build up the show ends with still nothing definitive.