moshtheboss Reviews

Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009)

Crappy 'remake'.

[1/10 · 12 August 2021]

I once read online: "Is this a remake of the 1978 television show? Yes, although it's producers call it a "reimagined" series, due to some slight differences."

Slight diferences? I don't call them slight. They are too big or me to enjoy this. I am a original BS78 fan. BS80? Mediocre with only a few stand-out episodes. But this 21st century TV show does so much damage, it hurts.

Firstly: The colonists do not feel like 'humans from another galaxy' at all. The mannerism, disctionary, even uniforms are way too 'earthly' I often feel like watching the Cheyenne Mountain scenes from Stargate SG1: American military personal. Not alien, not outerwordly. This is not only because of uniforms (we even see olive drab.... in space....worn by 'alien humans') but also the US military lingo. I just hate that. Oh wow, we have 'Dradis' instead of radar. Big deal. But 'klicks'? Combat Air Patrol? Commander Air Group? Please, just go away show! What a failfest. Where are the centons? Microns? Yahren?

Secondly, making a part of the Cylons look human? Boring...just boring. Even The Terminator series itself got stale after 2 movies. Go away show. Lazy!

The 'Apollo' from the show has the aura of a goldfish. Just a pretty boy suited for a toothpaste commercial. A mere shadow compared to Richard Hatch. Made even more clear when Richard Hatch actually appeared as Tom Zarek and outshone Jamie Bamber even when he didn't speak.

Lieutenant Boomer? Go away show. This character has no aura whatsoever. Not cuddly, not brave, not strong, not amicable. It's just... there. And the acting is just flat out terrible. Never convincing. Meandering! Terribly bad!

Okay, Kathryn Sackhoff as Kara "Starbuck" is at least a positive aspect of the show and perhaps even the only one. She makes the character her own, She differs so much from the Dirk Benedict version that even I don't compare the two in the back of my mind all the time. So, well done! This also goes for Edward James Olmos as Adama. He doesn't make me forget Lorne Greene but he at least gives the character his own vibe and credibility.

I can go on and on. About the weak modern 'Baltar', some gruesome episodes, etcetera but I've said enough. This is just crap!

My Way (2011)

One of the most epic WW2 movies to this day

[8 July 2015]

After decades of being fed pretty much only British and American movies on world war 2, globalization is having a great effect on the movies concerning that era in human history. For the first decades after WW2, we in Western Europe, mostly got holier-than-thou movies on glorious Allied victories (Longest Day),fantasized heroic tales (Where Eagles Dare) or pure 'fun' movies (Kelly's Heroes). Even a movie about a defeat (a Bridge Too Far) was turned into a'ridiculing-the-Germans' tale. Those diving deeper into movies made about that dark period in history would discover non-English classics like Das Boot, Talvisota, Come and See and Die Brücke.

'Mai Wei' is a truly epic movie based on a Korean named Yang Kyoungjong. Here are the historical facts about him; In 1938, at the age of 18, Yang was in Manchuria when he was conscripted into the Kwantung Army of the Imperial Japanese Army to fight against the Soviet Union. At the time Korea was ruled by Japan. During the Battles of Khalkhin Gol, he was captured by the Soviet Red Army and sent to a labour camp. Because of the manpower shortages faced by the Soviets in its fight against Nazi Germany, in 1942 he was pressed into fighting in the Red Army along with thousands of other prisoners, and was sent to the European eastern front. In 1943, he was captured by Wehrmacht soldiers in Ukraine during the Third Battle of Kharkov, and was then pressed into fighting for Germany. Yang was sent to Occupied France to serve in a battalion of Soviet prisoners of war known as an "Eastern Battalion", located on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, close to Utah Beach. After the D-Day landings in northern France by the Allied forces, Yang was captured by paratroopers of the United States Army in June 1944. This is his story in a nutshell.

Reading the above may have taken you less than a minute. Yet the movie shows us this tale in 137 minutes. And much, much more detail and fantasy is added to the storyline to make it a truly epic tale with special effects that more than often put Hollywood's abilities in 2011 to shame. The movie is never dull, never predictable. The battle scenes are what you may expect from an Asian movie. They have a gift for them.

I shall not give you more detail and spoilers and I will end with saying if I ever decide to make a list of my 15 favorite WW2 movies, this one WILL be in it.

Fury (2014)

Tiger 131, Anamaria Marinca and Alicia von Rittberg are a pleasure. But the end ruins everything!

[5/10 · 8 July 2015]

Fury is the quintessential example of a movie that gets ruined by the ending. You can't discuss the movie with anyone into WW2 without discussing the bad turn it took.

Up till that infamous ending, Fury is a quite nice American movie about a group of tankers in a M4A3E8 Sherman (the so called 'Easy Eight') with the nickname 'Fury' on their way from Normandy after the D-Day landings to Germany.

Most standing out moments in the movie are the scene where the tankers visit two German ladies Irma and Emma (played by the lovely Anamaria Marinca and Alicia von Rittberg). The tension is played well and throughout the scene one actually really starts to dislike these uneducated 'liberators' more and more. Not often do I see an American movie on WW2 portraying their own soldiers as such lowlifes.

Secondly, the movie will appeal to anyone with even the slightest interest in German armor. And why is that? Because there is a REAL Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. E, also known as the 'Tiger'. The tank came from The Bovington Tank Museum. Tiger 131 was captured by the British in the African campaign. Even though the Tiger in the movie makes a rookie mistake which couldn't have happened for real during those fighting days in 1944 and gets taken out because of it, the scene in which the Tiger and Shermans meet and fight is the true highlight of the movie for any tankophiliac.

No matter how much I now want to write an entire essay on the intense fighting spirit and efficiency of the Waffen SS after D-Day had made it clear the (borders of the) Reich itself were in danger, I shall refrain myself. A trackless Sherman tank against 2 or 3 die hard Waffen SS members with Panzerfaust, what did you think would have happened? well, is this movie they take on hundreds of SS men and, well, the ending is so unbelievably improbable and impossibly bad. I can not, shall not give this movie more than 5 points.

Which is a shame because the presence of Tiger 131 and the Irma-Emma scene were truly an addition to the collection of WW2 movies.

1944 (2015)

One of the most impressive WW2 movies from this decade.

[9/10 · 7 July 2015]

A WW2 movie coming from Estonia. A part in that war many westerners forget about and even more so those not 'into' world war history.

Originally Estonia declared neutrality in the war but was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. Mass political arrests,deportations, and executions followed. Many Estonians were force into the Red army. During the German Operation Barbarossa in 1941 Estonia was occupied by Germany. As a result many Estonians were conscripted to the Nazi German forces and also many became SS Volunteers, recognizable by the 'Blue, Black & White' Estonian flag on the sleeve of their SS uniform and Divisional insignia on their collars.

This movie focuses on fighting in the year 1944. The Red Army advanced back into Estonia. Estonians are fighting on both sides, inevitably opposing each other. Without revealing too much about the plot, we all know how WW2 ended. Estonia was occupied by the Soviets and became part of the USSR until August 20, 1991.

As an anti-war movie this movie succeeds in a marvelous way. It's insane how another man's war can bring such confusion and destruction to a small country like Estonia. Death can come any moment, but so can luck. No main character in the movie can be considered all good or all bad in that childish Disney kind of way.

The pace of the movie is solid and speeds up where it is needed and takes time to dive deeper into the developing storyline(s) and characters of the movie. For those interested in larger battle scenes, the Battle of Tannenberg Line is impressive!

For those that are fed up by American or Russian made movies about world war 2 making their side look like holier-than-thou victorious heroes, here's a real bleak and more realistic view on the war without that tedious black&white lens the big ColdWar contenders tend to put over it.

Battle for Sevastopol (2015)

Meandering with too much love story.

[5/10 · 7 July 2015]

The Battle of Sevastopol lasted from October 30 1941 until July 4th 1942 and became a huge and tactical victory for the Axis under The German Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein. Why on earth the Russians would actually make a movie about such a big defeat in WW2 may at first be a mystery.

However, after seeing this movie it is clear the movie does not in any way focus on the outcome of the battle of Sevastopol and not even the outcome of World War 2. Also, though packed with action, the movie does not constantly resort to horribly fantasized Russian 'superheroes' nor a constant flood of cgi monstrosities like the earlier 2013 Russian movie 'Stalingrad'. However a lot, and I mean a LOT, has been fantasized to thicken the storyline.

The movie focuses on the (in)famous female Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko. As a movie it is a pretty simple tale being told how Pavlichenko discovered her talent with a gun, got dragged into the war and why she made the trip the United States in 1942. However also omnipresent is her affection to several men throughout the movie. This flow of love stories almost constantly distracts from the horrors of war and the actual historical tale being told. Because of this, the meandering movie even gets quite tedious halfway through and the viewer is glad when hell breaks loose in a scene. That can't be the message the makers want to send out I reckon.

As a movie coming from one of the participants in WW2 and certainly not one with a clean sheet when it comes to war crimes, it is rather painful to see how the movie does not want to touch that aspect of the horrors on the Eastern Front nor does it reflect on how the Holodomor divided the Ukrainians when it came to choosing either the German or Soviet side.

Leaving aside any emotions, as being an action packed movie about a sniper, the tension of the movie falls short compared to, for instance, 'Enemy At The Gates'. Also the made-up German sniper (Google his name and you will only find reviews of this movie) in 'Bitva za Sevastopol' is more than a big wink at 'Enemy At The Gates' but in this movie the duel turns out only being a short scene without any further use for the storyline.

For a Russian movie in general about world War 2 it is in a way a great improvement after the 2013 Stalingrad debacle but still a far cry from earlier Russian masterpieces such as 'Idi i Smotri' (1985). 'Bitva za Sevastopol' is Okay-ish, but nothing more.