weltraumpirat Reviews

Revolution (2012–2014)

Mediocre at best

[4/10 · 26 September 2012]

I won't get into all the hairy details about how unrealistic the "no electricity" scenario is - other people have said enough about that.

Honestly, I wouldn't care so much about realism, if the story itself were in any way convincing. The sad thing is, it isn't. To sum it up, this feels like a revamped version of "Renegade", with all the cheesy dialog, the bad acting, the stereotypical characters and - last, but not least - the cheap fighting choreography that would have made Lorenzo Lamas proud.

It's quite beautiful to look at, but that's about it - that's what I gave it 4 stars for.

I might give it a shot and watch another episode or two, just to see if they manage to turn this thing around. But as of today, I seriously doubt there will be a season two.

The Fourth Kind (2009)

Is there joy in repetition?

[1/10 · 6 June 2010]

This has probably been one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

The reasons behind Milla Jovovich's involvement in the horrendous "Resident Evil" series have always remained a mystery to me. But it turns out, she cloud do (and did) worse: While "Resident Evil" at least had some merit in special effects, costumes and decoration - "The Fourth Kind" was just unbelievably bland and senseless.

To sum it up: It's supposed to be a suspense/horror movie. So all the protagonists act like they're really terrified. Only the terror never gets across. In fact, some of the acting is so bad... Let me give an example: There's a German comedy movie by local comedian Helge Schneider, in which the evil-doer, played by Schneider, stands in front of a mirror saying the phrase "I'm angry. I'm really angry." over and over again - but he never plays it, he just keeps repeating the words. I felt awkwardly reminded of that scene more than once.

Instead of providing some kind of tension, the movie constantly keeps repeating not only "I'm scared, I'm really scared", but also its theme of being "real" or "based on true events", almost as if the producers realized how fundamentally NOT scary their film turned out, and tried to save a little of the production cost by creating an aura of authenticity to lure at least a minimum amount of viewers into the theater. Reading other reviews here, and learning that all the so-called authenticity really WAS fake did not surprise me much.

What's worse than a senseless splatter movie? A senseless splatter movie without the splatter.

I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm really bored.

The 7 Adventures of Sinbad (2010 Video)

Painful

[1/10 · 23 May 2010]

Seriously, people: If you don't have the money, don't produce movies that rely almost entirely on special effects.

I will not even comment on the quality of... well... everything. But let me just say this: If there were only $500k to spend (as one of the other comments mentioned), there ought to have been at least 500 Bucks to spend on a halfway decent script written by some English minor from undergrad school.

Cheap trash actually makes me smile every once in a while, but this here was just a pain. Really.

(Why can't I give 0 points for GODawful?)

The Wolfman (2010)

A true classic

[8/10 · 24 February 2010]

Many true things have already been written by my fellow commenters, so I will only state what I feel is most important about this movie: If you are looking for the usual genre horror movie with lots of gore, some mostly half- naked, screaming girl victims and the usual ten-little-indians-plot - do not bother. This film takes the classic, literary approach to the beauty/beast story. It focuses on the tragedy of the hero/monster who falls not by his own flawed character, but by a sad and irreversible twist of fate, and re-discovers his humanity in embracing death over a life without morale.

You WILL enjoy beautiful scenery, costumes and cinematography, an exclusive cast (though the acting seems a bit over-the-top at times), a fistful of iconic references (Hamlet, Oedipus, even King Kong, - am I the only one thinking of Ang Lee's Hulk?! - not to forget Sir Anthony Hopkins' own classic performances in Coppola's Dracula, Hannibal, etc.) and two hours of intelligent, maybe at times a bit too dramatic entertainment well worth your admission fee.

If there is one thing to criticize : Like so many more otherwise enjoyable movies, this one also does not manage to convey true romance where it should (the story demands it) - maybe ten minutes more and a few well-written lines of dialogue would have helped.

But still: If you're asking yourself why you should watch this movie in the time of Anne Rice, the Twilight saga and a variety of TV series in the creature/vampire tradition, then it is like asking yourself why you should read the original Dracula by Bram Stoker, the Hunchback of Nôtre Dame, the Phantom of the Opera or any other variation of Beauty and the Beast: Because true classics never were about the action, the special effects, the good-looking star, the hype or the costumes, but about the drama, the deep human conflict, and the timeless truth somewhere between the lines.

Of this tradition, Wolfman is a worthy descendant.

The Reader (2008)

An insight into the humanity of the inhumane

[10/10 · 20 February 2010]

Before I start reviewing, let me say something personal: As a German, one can hardly watch movies about the Holocaust, WWII or any related topic unbiased. As I have discovered myself, no German family is without a history related to the Third Reich, almost none are without grave guilt, or at least the fear thereof, and most who say otherwise either lie knowingly, or simply try to evade further inquiry.

Reading some of the other reviews, I realized that for me, the movie conveyed something slightly, but decisively different: It is not so much about understanding HOW people could ever do the things they did, but rather how it is possible, that people we love, and people that have been loved by people we love could be so guilty and so loving, so despicable and lovable at the same time. It is about how we expect the guilt to show up somehow, how we expect to know the killer, the monster, at first sight and say: how could anyone not have seen it? Yet we have to admit sooner or later, that we were wrong, or were we? The question really is: How could I have ever loved someone who did things as horrible and disgusting as Hannah did? And just as much: If I am unmerciful now, having learned of their guilt, is it because they did what they did, or because they disappointed my own belief in their innocence?

At one point, Hanna Schmitz asks the judge: "What would you have done?", and I think that therein lies an even more disturbing and unsettling question: What would I have done? What would you have done? How can anyone know for sure what WE would done? It is too easy to think of oneself as morally sound, with a firm belief in what is right and wrong. It's what Germans call the "mercy of late birth" - the luxury of not having been in the position to make that choice.

So, what made this movie worth giving the full 10 points out of 10? It is well-crafted, well-played, believable, at times even beautiful. It captures both the fascination Michael feels with Hannah, and his disbelief, even disgust while exploring the ugly truth about her past. It conveys the struggle between our compassion and the reluctance to show mercy against the ones who did not. It leaves the viewer with the same, disturbing questions that have not been answered sufficiently in the past 60 years (nor will they ever be). It does not provide simple answers, but rather raises more questions, left to be unanswered. As Lena Olin's Character says: "If you want Catharsis, go to the theater!"

Other than providing beautiful, well-toned cinematography, a well-written script, love of detail and convincing performances even by the supporting cast - what more can you expect from a truly great movie?

Smallville: Absolute Justice (2010) Season 9, Episode 11

Yeah, this show is going somewhere...

[2/10 · 6 February 2010]

...but the only place it's going is down.

I used to be quite a fan of Smallville, because I liked the idea of retelling the Superman story without the cape, but with each season, especially since the writers killed Lex Luthor and the Kents, it continually degraded and is now but an overblown mixture of cheesy special effects ( I can't believe how BAD some of those look! ), especially whenever someone is supposed to be flying, even cheesier dialogs ( maybe they should hire a writer ), and by far the most untalented cast since Baywatch (unfortunately though, Smallville is not half as entertaining, since it lacks Baywatch's frequent show of girls with large breasts in wet bathing suits).

In short: Instead of coming up with a new super hero (or villain) for each episode, the creators of this show should have invested their money in a believable story line.

I am surprised I keep watching this nonsense - must be some twisted sense of nostalgia, since I used to be a big fan of the Superman comic books.

The Lovely Bones (2009)

What a time waster...

[2/10 · 11 January 2010]

Okay, I might have been expecting too much. I admit that. But this is easily the greatest disappointment in years.

To sum it up shortly: A considerable amount of (acting) talent hopelessly lost in a very uninspired sequence of slow-motion scenes featuring the oily After Effects creations of a 10- year-old on acid.

I felt eerily reminded of that insufferable Robin Williams flick, "What Dreams May Come". And that even stood out in comparison.

What's really sad is that there has been quite a lot of talent wasted on this piece of crap, especially in Saoirse Ronan, Rachel Weisz and Stanley Tucci. They do their best to make up for the lack of coherence, esprit, and dialog in the script, but ultimately fail as any actor would have. I feel almost as sorry for them as I feel for anyone who decides to waste two hours of their precious life time on this the King Kong of Kitsch.

I give it two stars only because I felt a slight tingle of suspense during that scene near the end, when the sister slips into the killer's house.

It would have been only one otherwise.

Please, Peter Jackson, make another hobbit movie soon. THAT you know how to do.

Avatar (2009)

Well... What else could one expect?

[5/10 · 2 January 2010]

To make it short: Everything sucked about this movie. Except it didn't.

The script was ... well ... an uninspired mixture taken from a lot of a lot better other movies done by (frankly) more talented people.

The acting was ... well ... not god-awful, but even compared with recent performances in other action movies (I'm thinking Heath Ledger, Robert Downey, Christian Bale) bland, superficial and - again - uninspired.

I will not comment on what else was uninspired, because other than the visual candy, I couldn't find much else even remotely original.

And still - I have to admit, I was amused. And I stayed through the entire movie without getting completely annoyed. And after all, what can you expect from what was going to be a popcorn movie, anyway? At least it felt a lot less painful than most of the other so-called "blockbusters" of recent years, like the mediocre Fantastic Four movies, the second Hulk , the Transformers movies or the unspeakable G.I.Joe, just to name a few.

So if I'm totally honest, I can't trash it. Not as rigorously as some of the other commenters did. I can't, even though I'd really like to - only because of the size Jim Cameron's ego has grown to. I mean: Come on, Jim, you don't REALLY think you're the savior of cinema, do you? The movie was REALLY long, alright, and it certainly raised the bar concerning special effects and what not. But here's a thought you might want to wrap your head around: A bunch of great CG scenes and pieces out of everything successful from Al Gore to Harry Potter do not a great movie make. You have to have a story first.

Muxmäuschenstill (2004)

Do you know "Faust"?

[9/10 · 7 June 2005]

It seems that nowadays a lot of people believe they know all the answers, and they do not bother to be modest about it: Who is right, who is wrong, what is morally and politically correct, what is not. It is a common flaw, one that we know from ourselves, our neighbors, our families, even our governments.

In "Muxmäuschenstill", we follow the "works" of one man, who takes his self-righteousness one step further. Mux invents himself as the people's hero, a one-man-army against all kinds of crimes and misdemeanors, be it parking in handicapped spaces or rape and murder. He even founds a private police organization with the fines he collects from the perpetrators. All neatly booked and organized - here's your receipt!

What starts out as a quite cynical, but nonetheless very entertaining satire, soon turns out to be a brutally realistic (I am not a big fan of that jerky Dogma-style camera, but it actually works very well here), deeply German version of "Fight Club" - minus the fights and the schizophrenia. But while David Fincher turns to the surreal, Mittermeier does not. Mux, his views, his attitude, even his looks and words are chillingly familiar. In fact, he is probably one of your friends, too!

And while we watch him taking step by step down a road we instantly know to be a dead end, we cannot help but ask ourselves, if it isn't already happening. Somewhere. Next door? Down the hall?

This is a special film. A brutally honest one. And most importantly: it makes you think.