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Reviews
Silent Night (2023)
If this is a John Woo film, youd neevr know it
John Woo is known for bringing action, sometimes some humor twisted in, some heavy emotion spinkled on to build drama, and ballet level bullets.
None of what you expect is actually here. The artistry of his gun battle scenes is faded into a poorly choreographed barrage of random shooting. The poignant loss felt by say Chow Yun Fat or John Travolta offsetting their killing, is lost as angry unredeeming revenge that doesnt even contain pathos or any feeling of justice. It is just watching a man lose his son, and then walk away from everything else becoming obsessed with killing those who caused it. There is no YEAH...SHOOT HIM AGAIN DAMNIT joy in his quest!
Its just, dark, gritty, fairly UN-entertaining death. None of his revenge victims had any idea who he was or that he had any reason. They just were people being killed.
I dont recommend this to fans of revenge drama or artistic gunplay. Frankly it was very disappointing on all accounts. Woo has done better. MUCH better.
Gran Turismo (2023)
Fun, and somewhat based in truth, Underdog shocks the world story
Overall, its a good movie,. It has some character building, it tells a fun inspirational story that is based on a real person, and it has a happy ending. A poor mans modern day version of Rocky.. The kid from the video game world (Rocky was from the tough streets of Philly) wins a tournament and gets a chance to drive real race cars. Aside from the "he was a video gamer" background, the script follows a dozen previous racing movies verbatim. Amazingly talented rookie unknown appears out of nowhere, gets paired with a gruff veteran with personal baggage, has a big crash that shakes him, but in the end comes back and wins the big race! See DAYS OF THUNDER and change the names.
This semi-true story did sorta happen though. Not quite the way it was shown. Jann Mardenborogh was not the 1st ever winner of Nissan Academys online tournament. He didnt actually arrive till year 4 and 3 other "winners" with less dramatic stories preceded him. (It wasnt the only racing academy in the world and not only gamers were there). Also, Jann Mardenborough did not win at Le Mans in a thrilling photo finish. His team 1 year finished 3rd in class. 3rd is a very respectable amazing achievement, Le Mans is the endurance trial of all racing, many cars and drivers fail to finish even in multiple attempts. But 3rd is not a photo finish victory as it was portrayed.
But fact bending aside, the actors carry it off well, the racing is more video game feel portrayed than putting the audience in the seat of the car but considering their theme thats fine.
Overall it was fun and inspiring and worth the watch.
Nefarious (2023)
Everything oit promises, but a bit preachy and pushy.
This is not unenjoyable. But it is rather taxing at times. This sort of story has been done many times before. The speech making and
monologue heavy diatribes from both characters were to be expected, but it didnt lessen the fact that it felt at times like a sales pitch to believe more than entertainment.
ALL these stories require some level of faith, or at least the belief in the idea of it, lest they be unable to reach or touch any chords in the viewers. But its still unappealing to be sold the idea over and over.
The story created and pressed a few too many unbelievable plot points and unrealistic ideas to explain its situation and the character really couldnt be entirely believable with the poor plotting. Sean Patrick Flannery gave it a good try, but again, some better screenplay, directing, and less flimsy plot points would make the performances more believable.
In the end, it did seem like another creative attempt to resell us on the church version of good and evil...and how evil will one day win when we fail to stop it.
Still, the end result wasnt unenjoyable, it was just preachy at times. The ending seemed stupid, insomuch as the bad guy told the good guy what he would do. And of course, the good guy does exactly that, while proclaiming he was actually doing the opposite.
SImple, to the point of stupid. They could have ended it much better than they did. But it is what it is.
Kandahar (2023)
Good and bad. Covenant + action and spycraft
The story is all to to familiar. Its been done before and recently, noble middle easter trranslator guts it out to protect his american asset.
On that point alone I had to pull a yawn. Problem 2 was that the dialogue, the character development, the emotional scenes all kinda faltered. Didnt hit the target in several ways that could have made it impactful. On multiple occasions we see wives crying or being hurt by all thats happening, but never did we want to cry for or with them, because they werent ever made to matter to us, Thats a writing/directing issue.
BUT, when we push through that, it had some quality to it. The night fighting in the desert was very accurately done. Hollywood hates to sacrifice image quality even in the face if natural laws, so they always light up the sky for nite fights so the audience doesnt miss a thing. But it also means the audience never sees or feels how dark it really is when there arent 1000w floodlights and reflectors making night into day. Its dark and the noise bounces and you have to trust your ears more than your eyes in night fighting and they displayed that well here (for once).
A few to many standard tropes, a few to many weak cardboard cutout characters. But it was still more than serviceable in many ways.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023)
Everything in its place, as expected, and thats fun.
You dont go into a Statham movie expecting teary endings or even emotional twists tying into the action, you expect some tongue in cheek sarcastic commentary from the lead, alot of action, and hopefully a good time.
And like a slightly late but very well aimed missile, it was right on target and achieved its goal.
While its not quite a Bond level plot, or even effortful in attempt to make the payoff important to the viewer, it made the characters important without overworking it, and by the end, even if you dont entirely know who is the real bad guy, you dont care because you enjoyed the ride with the crew onscreen doing all they did.
I must admit, 30 minutes in I was seeing enough familiar set piece approach to it all that I was almost ready to give up. But rather than throw in cameos, plot twists or CGI, they stuck to their guns and trusted in the charisma of the leads to make it worth the watch and it ended up being one of the more enjoyable films Ive watched this year..
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
A fitting finale for a tragic loss. Just, not a great movie,
I suppose you cant blame anyone. Chadwick Boseman dying was not something you could write away in any sort of manner and have the audience that respected and loved the character he brought brilliantly to life not feel cheated. Boseman brought charisma, presence, athleticism, and style to spare. He commanded every scene in all his appearances in the Marvel universe. This movie lacked that presence and they simply couldnt restore that. Danai Gurira is always a pleasure to watch, as is Angela Basset and Lupita Nyongo. But this movie missed the presence of the Black Panther that was Chadwick Boseman, and the effort to elevate Letitia Wright from a character who was previously a wisecracking comic relief to the new lead hero just didnt really feel like it worked? The Villain was poorly presented, the explanation felt cobbled and rushed. So much about it felt like they were trying to replace story with style, substance with simplification. They couldnt deal with the loss of Chadwick Boseman, so they sidestepped the problem via overemphasis till the audience wanted to move past it. And not a single appearance by an Avenger at the funeral seemed like a gaping hole?
They had a mountain of issues to try and write away and overcome. And perhaps they did as well as any could. But perhaps no movie could have every fixed this? Sometimes, you do your best, and you live with what you can. Well done, Im glad I watched it once. As much to see how we move past Prince T'Challa and on to the future, and fittingly say our final goodbyes.
But I will not own the DVD, I will not scroll through the list of streaming movies and pull this one again. It simply wasnt as good as it needed or wanted to be.
And its time to move on.
The Enforcer (2022)
Same old undeworld tale rerolled, Banderas sleepwalks through as a marquis name
It wasnt the worst movie Ive seen this year, but it was flat, boring, predictable, poorly written and directed, poorly acted, and just, a weak effort. Nobody who dies was cared about, nobody in the movie had a last name, most didnt even have 1st names. Hamfisted setups, overstated and oversplashy scenery to establish tension that the actors and the script couldnt handle on its own. Marginal acting (Though I dont know you can blame the players, they were given nearly nothing to work with). I can tolerate the idea of its all been done before, but the lack of emotions, the bland vanilla characters that had no dialogue worth remembering.
I wouldnt watch it again. It simply wasnt interesting enough to do twice.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Thus far continues the quality and tradition of its forbears
Its a bit early to tell, many a show has had a great 1 or 2 hour premier and then struggled to maintain that afterward. They already have established some politicking and some characters have fine arcs developing. Im not entirely loving the SHE HAS TO PROVE HERSELF cliche with Galadriel, which is a attempted in most shows that have a dominant female lead, (and still done too often with male hero characters). Emphasize early and often that nobody trusts or believes in them especially when they are obviously right to the audience, start them off a little damaged and obsessive. Bring out the righteousness and heroism and establish they always were meant to become the leader later. They are firmly on that train already, and its fine they are far from the 1st, but they may not have needed it and it is a bit of a worn out cliche by now.
I love the Dwarf kindom being actually seen finally (rather than its ruins/memories seen) and Durin seems like a character who will be much enjoyed. Not sure I love the take on Elrond yet, a bit understated and written almost as an unproven child early, but hes an obvious work in progress so lets see if the emotive poet and phosopher they have shown thusfar starts to become a leader who will fight in the war of the ring as a general.. The visuals are stunning, the layout is amazing. All it lacks is a bit of polish, and its a shame thus far the humans are all paint by numbers, but even that may develop. A great start, lets hope it continues to hold this level.
A League of Their Own (2022)
I agree, this isnt a baseball show or a sports showl
Despite what some others may shout from the rafters, this is not a baseball movie. The baseball team was a sideline to its story of the era and the undesrtanding and acceptance a groupe of lesbians in 1 town all faced from varied perspectives. While its not a terrible show, it was never ever about baseball. It was always about womens relationships under a backdrop of society wanting to hate and shame them for being lesbians, a sport that barely tolerated them playing a mans game, and then they even striggled hardt o roll a race based theme into it with a throwin character who never was on the team, Was it awful? No. Some of the performance developed, The character of Clance was a scene stealer every time she spoke, and several others made you care. But this was never about the AAG baseball league. This was a show about the struggles of lesbians 75 years ago to find happiness and acceptance and become athletes and heroes while also being watched and judged and under intense scrutiny both social and personal. Take that for what it is. I though it was precisely, OK. Not great. The writing was very...convenient. Events and issues and moments all landed with cliche level predictability. The lesbian bar getting raided while the star couple is having their 1st date their. The weirdest most sketchy member of the team who might out anyone at any moment having ab ig reveal where she accepts and embraces after finding out its OK to be a lesbian, the former teammate hitting a game winning homerun, and her previous team with all her left behind lesbian friends carries her around the bases to victory because they all love her, and the rules prohibit her team from carrying her. It was too self serving for melodrama. So no, it wasnt a great show. They made sure to document at least half a dozen team members being lesbians. The showed them dating and kissing and even making love. They showed none of the "straight" girls on the team, gave us nearly zero backstory on ANY straight member of the team. One said she had kids in the final episode. We never even find out how many?!?! How many of the girls were married besides carson? Did any have boyfriends? Only carson ever showed up and he was the husband about to be dumped. It had 1 focus. Too much so. The plot was so mired in overfocus it became unbelievable by the end. Which is sad because it started off better and faded as the episodes wore on.
All the Old Knives (2022)
I dont know who to blame...but you see it coming?
The plot twists were neat in small doses. The ending seemed a but over-dramatic. I suppose it just, felt like the 1st person who seemed like the bad guy ended up being the bad guy? When you get 10 minutes in and you are already saying to yourself "I have seen this done before, I know who did it...Its gonna be..."
The performances are good, the idea had some merit. I suppose it just wasnt written in a way to make us think its different than when we have seen spy and investigation flicks past throw this same scenario at us. We are investigating the past, and one of us is the bad guy...we are gonna find him together"
If you can get past that...its a semi-engaging piece of work. I love all the leads in nearly all they do, and they gave it their best. I guess its just the rewashed plot twist screenplay that drained it for me.
The Guardians of Justice (2022)
I appreciate its effort to do grit and camp...but...sigh
It was/is a darkened sarcastic twist on the now getting well past overdone hero team genre. And in most ways thats probably better than a hopeful try at avengers 2.0 or justice league reborn.
The direct to your face gritty real world outfits and makeup come off as cheap rather than battle worn or realistic. The casting...missed on several characters who I wont name out loud, but they lacked charisma or talent enough to fit the role as written. And most of the writing and dialogue was underwhelming bordering on painful. Some sarcastic deadpan humor takes Adam West level dedication, and they couldnt find it in many scenes where it might have helped. (Hey, he was the (bat) man for a reason! There will never be anyone better at deadpan scene mashing overdelivery than Adam West!)
Only in 3 episodes, will give it some more effort, but up to now its failed to impress much, but it does bring enough humor and distraction that it may pick up speed.
The 355 (2022)
Decent try, but all been done before too often.
The casting was above average, enough charisma and talent to carry most of its many very predictable scenes and verbatim lines of dialogue.
But weve seen enough rogue agent team saves the world movies, and enough heist movies, to know every plot point from the moment each scene began. Not to say the result was unwatchable, it was very OK. But it lacked anything that would make you wanna pay to see it. Its fine on a weekend channel surf session.
Dos (2021)
Body Horror films take talented directing. creative effects. This lacks both
Im loosely reminded of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE movie(s) that pretty much depended on a lack of story or any reasonable explanation and instead try and focus on the body horror and agony of the characters to fixate our gaze,,
That only lasts a few moments. After that you have to have something to make us want to watch more. Build suspense towards goals, or eventualities, or a possible climax or hope of some sort? This lacks that entirely. Human Centipede was similarly stupid (a typical beyond previous levels mad scientist doing something beyond crazy with no past or future story...for 90 minutes) and it gets boring quickly. Waiting for the inevitable something weve been expecting isnt any good if we have nothing to expect? The SAW films for example do it a bit better. Not gonna replace THE GODFATHER or GONE WITH THE WIND in all time great movie lists, but they knew their goals, They took extra time to make sure the audience was lured into a scene before just slapping them in the face with more implied body agony. Made us like or hate characters, gave us reason to wanna cheer or cringe. Just for a moment at least.
This is a mess. With BAD effects (As said, the characters are seen standing or speaking from positions that they couldnt be in if they were attached.)
Bad directing and bad effects, coupled with useless writing. Bad film.