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Reviews
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Get a group of 12 year old gamers to write a storyline...
Wow. How can you describe this? Was it a human who wrote this, or is AI already with us, and it's not very good. The whole film feels like a bad xbox storyboard, the script is basically irrelevant, the characters are completely hollow. I got the impression that any minute my teenage son would come in and take over the Dpad, and tell me to go and do something more appropriate for my age.
Either that or this was produced by the most plastic human possible, whose only previous experience of scriptwriting was daytime soaps.
The CGI is just about adequate on a ps2 level, but the cliche ridden dialogue makes you want to mute it every time a cardboard cutout mutters grunts. A real effort to make it to the end. I gave up.
Boar (2017)
Set your standards low and this is watchable
OK. Don't expect anything exemplary from this film. The banter and Aussie rawness is quite reasonable to start off with. I made it to the end. Yeh, so the acting and script is fairly average. And the only full on CGI Boar exposure scene is both badly acted and mucho risible. The film tails off badly towards the end, when you realise that macho hunk man will survive. Not great. First hour is standard Frightfest fun. Last half hour you'll be just waiting for this codswallop to end, and question why you were in the mood to watch it in the first place. 4/10 is more than fair.
Sukiyaki uesutan Jango (2007)
Oh Dear. So silly.
So silly, too silly. Why wasn't this shot in Japanese? Is the market just too thick to read subtitles. Unfortunately, there is a diaspora that truly believe Tarantino was sent from heaven to make films. He wasn't, and nor is his favourite Japanese director. Miike. QTs cameo in this dross might as well have included a Benny Hill impression. It merited it.
The film takes style over substance to a mumbling, camp Japonica level of pure cretinism. Bad haircuts taken from the 90's trendy Battle Royale edgy Japanese teen set. Oh dear. Had to mute after 20 mins, to avoid anymore Japlish. If it was in subtitles, it may just have been tolerable in a cartoonish, who really cares what I'm watching way. Silly, stupid and, let's face it, dull and boring.
Den blomstertid nu kommer (2018)
If Michael Bay was a Swedish Art film maker suffering from dementia....
Okay. Where do you begin? Visually quite stunning, but everything else was an incoherent babble of unlikable characters, rambling storyline, illogical plot development, mumbling script, almost manic direction. Right, I get the fact that everyone was getting affected by the toxins in the rain, but does that have to include the director, story-liner and actors.
I managed to get through the whole film, mainly to see if there was any point. Err, sort off. It felt that the Crazy Pictures director kept getting bored with the plot.......so, bang, crash, gun fire. Next scene. Over and over again.
I did enjoy some of the crash bang wallop, but ultimately felt a deep resentment, that after 2 hours plus of this, I felt short changed with my time lost. And I hadn't even been standing in the rain, getting Putinphobic.
E.M.P.: 333 Days (2018)
Slow TV has a rival.
Sometimes low budget films work, sometimes they don't. This doesn't. Perhaps, it's suitable for teenage preppers. Can't think who else would enjoy it, that I'd wish to know. Basically, the most interesting thing is the title.
Found myself fast forwarding after a while. It didn't improve. The ending. Gordon Bennett. I believe this was written by or for a 12 year old. Perhaps, it should come with a warning - Not suitable for grown-ups. Gave it 2 stars, because it didn't make me angry. It was too dull.
Greenland (2020)
The Worst of everything
First off, I gave it 2 stars, because of occasional good fx. That only. What a terrible piece of dirge. If Heat magazine did sci-fi, they would make this.
Wooden lead, annoying support, sick child, bad sci-fi. Characters doing really stupid things, repeatedly, but still somehow making it to the end. Cliche after cliche after cliche. I thought this sort of toss disappeared with the 90s hup hup blockbusters. Amazingly, despite an imminent apocalypse extinction event, the phones, electricity and water still works. Good on those workers for manning their stations!!!
Anyone who says they like this sort of film, doesn't, unless they mean insipid melodrama, with plastic characters, dressed up as sci-fi. Anyone who genuinely likes thought provoking sci-fi will see through this garbage within short shrift. I made it most of the way through, and then fast forwarded to check the obvious ending happened. It did.
Slow plan outward to a devastated world. We can rebuild it. He's a structural engineer.
The sort of film you can judge other people by.......
Containment (2015)
Phoned in effort
The trouble is, very quickly, you just don't care what happens to any of the characters. Only made it to the end, because the film is relatively short. Was it worth it? Meh. Low budget can be good with a little imagination, a decent script, some originality, and direction that maintains some pace. Looks like a film school effort from someone destined to be a middle manager in a Local Government office. Meh.
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Annoying teenager pap for people who only watch superhero films
Seriously. The reviews for this are baffling. Annoying, really annoying teenager friendly 'characters'. A chronic lack of anything original, just regurgitated stolen ideas from other films. About as twisted as the Road to Priddy. Google it.
This films appeals to people who go wow at adverts and think Love Island has some social relevance. Proof pudding that critics know very little objectively. Expected better, was disappointed and frankly bored. Failed to make it to the end. I really didn't see the point of wasting more time.
Open Grave (2013)
Better than you expect
Well. Read a few reviews and ignored the metacritics. I assume they are the same people that raved about Cabin in the Woods, a teen bag of genre farts.
This is a surprisingly solid genre typical example of the Indie horror scene. Nothing to write home about, but enough to leave something lingering in the sub-conscious for a while afterwards.
As has been noted, it's a slow burner. Characterisation is not a strong point, but that is largely irrelevant, as the storyline keeps you watching. Stay to the end, and all will make sense. An intelligent attempt to tell a vaguely familiar story, with several twists galore. Grown-up suspense horror for the market that's bored of juvenile re-imaginings of what horror is actually about. Work that out for yourselves!
The Colony (2013)
Starts OK. Tails off badly
Every cliché in the book. First half is tolerable. Somewhat annoying characters. But, as soon as the story twist is established, it rapidly goes downhill and becomes unwatchable. Waste of a talented lead. May as well have been a Michael Bay film. It's that poor. Pity
Devil's Express (1976)
Wow. Watch it, if only, for the golden flared boiler suit at the end
OK. I wasn't expecting much of this film on Amazon, but it was a short blacksploitation/chop-socky film with a lead called Warhawk Tanzania.
Let's start with him. 70s machismo kung fu artist, with almost no acting ability, bizarre novelty fight stances, but full of 'I'm going to be the next Jim Kelly' enthusiasm. He isn't. He's actually quite terrible.
His Jersey Hispanic sidekick is even worse, at both the acting and fighting. the support actors were similarly poor, with the bizarre exception of the 'educated' jokey detective drafted in to help solve the case. He just seemed to be in the wrong film entirely.
As expected, the story moves along in a disjointed fashion. Full of poorly shot fight scenes, where you clearly see that the kicks and punches are missing, but somehow the recipient lurches back in agony. Some of the subway/monster scenes have a genuinely eerie 70s feel, and in parts, the film is not bad. The DP tries some effects in part- slomo/monochrome, etc.
I won't spoil the plot, because actually that doesn't matter. Made in a time when New York was genuinely a dangerous place, people wore flares, and production values were less important than the 'vibe'. I happily watched this to the end just to ensure that Warhawk put the fiend 'in the pocket'.
If you can wade through the clichés and cheesiness, this is worth a view, if only for the terrible fashion, grubby New York outlook, 70s jazz-hipster dialogue and an actor inspired by decolonisation to change his name so spectacularly.
Worth a view. They don't make 'em like this anymore!
The Droving (2020)
An honest review to counter all the fake 'in-house' ones!!!!
I'm sorry, but 9 or 10 out of 10 reviews. You're joking! The film crew and hangers on have been busy, and I was initially taken in by it.
First off, the location manager and cameraman did an adequate job. That's why it didn't get 1 star.
But, dear oh dear. The script is simply dreadful, and even the 'star' couldn't make anything useful out of it. The support cast were, at best, recruited from some local amdram troop, at worst, consisted of some blokes from down the pub.
The 'suspense' was diluted completely by sloppy direction and editing. The flow of the film was non-existent. Scenes were either rambling and pointless, badly delivered or irrelevantly placed and meaningless. Even the 'festival' scene at the end (highlighted in the trailer)was poorly shot and delivered.
This isn't a well-crafted, sinister or creepy delving into folk-horror sub culture.
Sadly, it's just a pet project of a skill-less director/scriptwriter/producer who managed to get funding from some capital arts fund or daddy, and will probably continue to do so. Thank fudge it was only 1hr 20 mins
Please don't believe the fake reviews. I get sick of this sort of cobblers.