croco-dopolis Reviews

The Dig (2021)

Good cinema. Engaging. Not stupid.

[8/10 · 15 February 2021]

After watching "The English Patient" and "The Constant Gardener", I swore I would never watch another movie with Ralph Fiennes again as long as I lived. My girlfriend said she liked it, and being snowed in the last few days I figured I'd give it a shot. I found this to be surprisingly good cinema. Very well done, with good talent, great cinematography, albeit a somewhat slowly evolving storyline. That, however, is perfectly in tune with 1939 Britain - bad cooking and all. I'm only submitting this review so that those who happen to click on my other reviews don't get the impression that I hate everything - it's just that I find most modern cinema poorly written, horribly acted, and ridiculously childish. This one was made for adults and it is well worth the two hours viewing time.

Barbarians (2020–2022)

Six hours of my life I should have spent watching paint dry.

[1/10 · 15 February 2021]

I only clicked on this one because I've been snowed in for two days and was bored to death. Most of the over-dubbing is so bad it reminded me of some of the low-budget Spaghetti Westerns of the mid-1960s. It's almost as bad as some of the early Japanese "Godzilla' movies. For something that's supposed to be "action packed", most of the characters seem like they're eating Xanax. Somebody spent a lot of money on fancy costumes, sets, and props, but it's too bad they didn't shell out more money for decent writers. The whole "liberated warrior princess" thing is laughable at best, and an obvious very poor attempt at re-creating "Lagertha" in a Teutonic setting. The anachronistic stirrups and other out-of-place props are insulting to one's intelligence. I find it hard to believe this has gotten a 7.2 rating here, but I guess kids who pay money to watch "Avengers" and "X-men" just can't get enough of this sort of pap. I'm going back to my online "solitaire" game.

The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1962)

this one is a good example of why ratings of ZERO stars should be an option

[1/10 · 3 July 2018]

We endured this turkey in its entirety last night after watching "Destination Moon" (1950), so we were certainly in the right frame of mind for a good dose of hokey 1950's "B" sci-fi. This is a disappointingly dull and uninteresting pot-boiler, obviously intended for no other purpose than being run as a second feature. I am baffled by the reviews here claiming that this is "ahead of its time" and comparing it with old "Outer Limits" or "Twilight Zone". I have to wonder if I was really watching the same movie. The acting could have been done as well by wooden cigar-store Indians. The dialog (for the most part) is insipid. The only "special effects" are a shaky and out-of-focus camera on a few shots. While the director had a great location to work on - a massive old mansion - he failed miserably in using it to his best advantage. He could have used the setting to really ramp up the tension (as was done with "Saltair" in "Carnival of Souls") but instead about half of the movie is shots of the two main characters wandering around and back and forth, seemingly lost on a large estate. When the best things about a movie are the cars (a 1954 MG TF, a 1962 Plymouth Fury Wagon, and a 1960 Plymouth Taxi Special), and it's NOT a movie about cars, you know it's a loser.

Kill Django... Kill First (1971)

The Very Bottom of the Spaghetti Barrel

[1/10 · 16 May 2018]

This farce is 80 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Watching paint dry might have been equally as entertaining. First of all, there's no "Django" in the cast, and this movie has nothing to do with any "Django". It's just another low-budget potboiler that never managed to get to a lukewarm simmer. Giacomo Rossi Stuart, in the lead role as "Johnny" is too much a pretty boy to be credible in a Spaghetti western. Aldo Sambrell, as the arch-villain "Burton" (recognizable from "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"), the only real talent in the cast, doesn't do much other than stand around all dressed up sipping whisky and smoking cigars. There are a lot of characters, but no character development. The same can be said of the plot, such as it is. It's like the writers started out with an idea, but then forgot what it was somewhere along the way to the set. Characters we know nothing about appear from nowhere and then disappear and reappear randomly through the film. Some of the music by Elsio Mancuso has been recycled from "No Room to Die" (Una lunga fila di croci)(1969), further adding to the cheezy feeling. One star out of ten, only because IMDb won't allow ratings of ZERO stars.

Hell on Wheels (2011–2016)

Forrest Gump meets the Wild Wild West

[7/10 · 16 March 2018]

After watching all five seasons of "Hell on Wheels" I feel I am being kind by giving it a rating of 7 out of 10. Unfortunately the excellent cinematography, breathtaking landscapes, creative sets, fanciful costumes, and all of the mud do not redeem its ridiculously implausible interpersonal relationships, anachronisms, and (in too many cases) shallow character development. The producers could not have come up with a better duplicate of the original "Django" protagonist Franco Nero; Anson Mount's steely gray eyes peering out from under his wide-brimmed hat are a direct rip from the opening bar scene of Corbucci's 1966 classic. Colm Meany's portayal of the seemingly ruthless robber baron is well-played, but too watered down to allow us to despise him for the fraud he actually is. The other supporting characters come and go in an endless parade of preposterous scenarios, in some cases even more ridiculous than the make-up and plastic noses of the Italian-Americans portraying "redskins" on old episodes of "Wagon Train" or "Gunsmoke". I will concede that the series is engaging. The little operettas play out as each new character comes and goes, keeping us intested enough to keep watching without being interesting. Rather than developing the character and letting them be part of the plot development, the writers instead choose to simply kill them off, thereby eliminating any necessity for further creative plot development. Rife with little anacrhonisms which are in most cases easily overlooked, the completely ridiculous relationships between characters of different colors causes the entire series to become farcical. The notion that a black man would be working along side a white man in the post-Civil War reconstruction era is laughable at best. Moreover, the introduction of characters who are (presumably) based on real-life figures takes it out of the realm of "fantasy western" and into what some mistakenly might perceive as something with some factual historical basis. This is taken in the end far past any limits of absurdity in the final episode, when we are introduced to a famous military character ostensibly to further plot development, but more likely the writers' inability to pull a more convincing rabbit out of their hat. As with "Forrest Gump", the series is fun to watch and full of action - from fist fights to train wrecks and everything in between - but is nonetheless completely lacking in any depth or meaning. If only the writers had strived to show us something of substance about who the characters were, and how they would have really behaved in the post-Civil War era as much as they strived to show us that the towns of the old American west were mud pits, they would have really had a winner. Alas, it's just another big-budget pot-boiler.

Britannia (2017–2021)

truly awful. couldn't get through the first episode.

[1/10 · 24 February 2018]

The only redeeming quality was Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" during the opening credits, otherwise this is just a load of dung. First of all, I was unable to understand most of the dialog. If you wish to keep my attention, speak in a manner that is intelligible, not in some unknown foreign tongue with impossible-to-read white captions on white backgrounds down at the bottom of the screen. I wish to be "entertained"; I do not need or want to have to go work my way through a learning curve to "figure out" what you're trying to say. Secondly, the anachronisms make the show farcical. If that was your intent, fine, but from the beginning the program is presented as something that pretends to take itself seriously. For Chrissakes, go to the library and read some history books before you start drafting a screenplay. Third, as has been mentioned, utterly preposterous situations and plot developments are better left to comedy, and I certainly did not get the impression that the intention was to present comedy. There have recently been a number of really good "historical" productions presented on Netflix and Showtime like Tudors, Vikings, Last Kingdom, none of which strictly adhere to historical fact, but manage not to make themselves look silly in their effort to tell "stories". It looked like they had some decent talent, an adequate budget, and lots of production people making costumes and sets, but they would have done better if they'd not had schoolboys writing the script. Truly awful. We didn't even make it all the way through one episode. Old Star-Trek reruns are far more entertaining.

Frankenstein's Army (2013)

Un-watchable. Truly awful. Amateurish camera work.

[1/10 · 15 January 2018]

Worst piece of garbage I've wasted my time on in a long time. Absolutely unintelligible dialog, Shaky, nauseating AMATEUR hand-held camera work. We only watched maybe ten minutes of it and decided we'd both had enough of the TRULY AWFUL camera work. It's NOT "arty", it's NOT "cool", it's just shaky AMATEUR camera work and it's GARBAGE by any metric. Grow up, get a dolly or a tripod, pull up your big-boy pants AND HOLD THE CAMERA STEADY.

Marco Polo (2014–2016)

If you want historical accuracy, go read a book.

[3/10 · 6 January 2015]

I will make no comparison to "Game of Thrones", because I have no idea what "Game of Thrones" is. I will make comparisons other films and made-for-television features. Netflix (according to Wikipedia) spent about $90 million on this project to produce all of 10 episodes. They produced three seasons of "House of Cards" for about $175 million. The producers of "Myn Bala" spent about $7 million to make a 90-minute feature film.

Sure, the costumes are fabulous, the set designs are awesome, and the CGI graphics are all state-of-the-art. So big deal. If you throw enough money into a project, you can do most anything: I submit Robert Rossen's "Alexander the Great". Costumes, sets, and fancy special effects do not necessarily make for great film. Nor do repeated displays of nude young female bodies or over-the-top ridiculous "kung fu" fight scenes.

Overall, the acting is "acceptable". Not bad, but certainly not great. I will say that ten hours of Lorenzo Richelmy's disheveled appearance with the 3-day beard while all those around him are washed and clean-shaven does start looking a bit silly after a couple episodes.

If you're in the 18-24-year-old male demographic, this farce is for you. If you're looking for some great writing, great acting, and at least a fairly plausible plot, watch "House of Cards", out of which Netflix most assuredly got far greater bang for their buck.

If you're looking for some swordplay and a good story (with great costumes, set designs, and arguably much better cinematography), save yourself seven and a half hours and watch "Myn Bala". At least you know going in it's just a story.

The closest "Marco Polo" gets to historical accuracy is that Kublai Khan, Marco Polo, Jia Sidao, and trebuchets all existed during the late 13th century. As with Showtime's "The Tudors", artistic license is all fine and well, but the real stories (in both cases) were actually far more interesting and both series would have been better absent the insertion of the implausible and unnecessary nudity and sex scenes. If I want porn, I know how to log onto Google.

Probably the best feature of this series is the opening credit graphics, which were brilliantly executed. I'm trying hard here to say something good about this, but I still feel I've been cheated out of ten hours of my life I'll never get back.

In sum: three out of ten. Below average. Nothing special. Lack of talent and imagination on the part of the writers wasted a lot of money on something which will be soon forgotten.

Edit: I had originally given this a "5 out of 10" rating, but then after I wrote the above watched "Time Traveller: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (2010) and realized that Netflix could have done much better, even with a fantasy story.

Retribution Road (2007 Video)

not suitable even for starving bottom-feeders

[1/10 · 25 September 2013]

You thought "Waterworld" and "Battlefield Earth" were bad? You ain't seen nothing' yet, honey. Quite possibly one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Bad acting, bad script, bad dialog, cornball plot ripped from various westerns (One-Eyed Jacks, High Noon, ad nauseum), bad lighting, bad cinematography all combine to create a movie that is quite literally UN-watchable. I didn't even make it half way through. I was starting to think maybe it was some sort of joke and was waiting for the punchline, but I paused it and logged on here and found that no, it's a REAL attempt at making a movie. And that's what it is: an attempt. A very FAILED attempt at that. Even the pair of village idiots can't manage to be funny.

I'll go back to watching the paint dry and put this in the box for St. Vincent de Paul. No... no.... I'll put it on Craigslist in the "free" section. It would be some majorly bad juju for me if I caused another person to pay money for this piece of trash.

I only clicked "1" on the "vote" because there's no option for "ZERO".