acutisnasus Reviews

The Father (I) (2020)

Story told amazingly

[10/10 · 27 March 2021]

What a wonderful, amazing, humane way to tell a story.

As a viewer I was immersed and felt every bit of the characters sense of reality.

Simply wonderful the way it's told.

Shadowhunters (2016–2019)

Review purely based on the show

[6/10 · 24 February 2021]

I haven't read the books, this review is purely based on the show. The latest reviews will tell you to give it a go, I agree. But there are some things that might turn others off.

Before I go on I must say that I have never been impressed by how a show majorly improved in how a story is told, acting and flim making.

Season 1 (and a bit to half of season 2) The dialogs are pretty corny and there are abrupt dialog changes and also lines that are not necessary at all. Added to that an urgency of a scene is not really felt or clear, because they are not properly setup before hand. And it seemed the actors don't know where the story is taking them. Above things, affects the actors skills to anticipate a certain type of reaction on an event or line and also how to deliver the lines. The actors do the fight scenes themselves, but you can see that they are not trained, the urgency or danger of a fight is not felt.

But to me all of that did not distract of the story line which was interesting enough to not let go and actually bite through it.

Season 2 Things change drastically. Dialogs and fighting scenes have majorly improved from the beginning of the season. At the half of the season a new story line was introduced and actors took their skills a level up. Either the actors knew more where the storyline was taking them or they got used to the more justifiable dialog and setup of events. Either way the acting and the way the story is told, improved massively.

From here on It's just a matter of taste. But it is fun and a learning experience to see how they improved the show with a bit of hard work. It almost makes you proud,... almost.

Besides the major story line which is very interesting and cool it also has side stories which makes the show feel like a daylight soap. And a young adult way of looking at the world on how relationships or leaderships works. This changes a bit from half of season 2. From Season 3 everything has grown up massively, dialogs, storytelling, sets, filming and acting. If you like the stories of season 1 and 2, you'll be very glad and maybe impressed how they improved.

Ghoul (2018)

Totalitarian is not the same as Nationalism

[6/10 · 14 February 2020]

Don't get fooled into thinking that the movie is about nationalism. It's about Totalitarianism. And it is a fantasy environment.

This tv series was unexpected. It is showing a fantasy Totalitarian India, that is governed by a government that does not allow people to be educated. It does also not allow any foreign religion. In that Totalitarian environment a ghoul is set loose.

It was not great, but also absolutely not terrible The pace was a bit slow, but not slow enough to make me fall asleep. The acting was good.

People do not understand what the word Nationalism means. Nationalism, means being proud of your country and the laws and the people and the progress that it makes. It means being so proud that you would fight for and protect every single person living in that country. It means that you are prepared to stand along side your fellow country men and women and make your country great. It means a government that brings all the people together to achieve a common goal.

Nationalism has nothing to do with Totalitarian, However nationalism can be turned into totalitarian, As soon as a country start purposely excluding groups of people, you are on your way to a condition where people will always find an excuse to hurt others and create conflict. You will see an environment where people fight against each other. If you like that kind of environment, you like totalitarianism not nationalism (1930s to 1945). You are only concentrating on conflict.

Thugs of Hindostan (2018)

Beautiful scenes, BUT

[5/10 · 15 January 2020]

You would think that if a movie is meant to look and feel very adventurous, then it should not be hard to make decisions based on that given concept and goal.

Pros: The acting is theatrical which fits the adventurous story very well. Some scenes are really cinematic and very beautiful to look at. The editing is moderately paced, which is ok I guess.

Cons: All of below doesn't let you get immersed into the story.

Constant slowmotion, did not fit the adventurous and playful style and acting of the movie. Any excitement or tension that is created in a scene does not last. The slowmotion releases every feeling that you have at that moment. Because there is too much of it, any scene that contains tension, your sub conscience expects the slowmotion to happen, so you don't feel the tension at all.

The background music did not make the scenes work, When there was playfulness or funniness in the scene, the music was dramatic. When there was tension in the scene or fighting, the music did not convey excitement but drama. Decisions as to where place drama filled boom notes, were very odd and almost in every scene. Suspension scenes felt like an uplifting moment. Scenes between two major character who have a tension filled dialog between them, were nullified by the music.

Background music is as important as the main songs in the movie. Just look at your favourite action scene of some movie and put a sad music below it, it does not work. The background music must help the audience get unnoticeably immersed into the story. In this movie, every scene felt like a dramatic one instead of adventurous playful, silliness tension, happy or sad one. Throughout the whole movie I can only remember dramatic background music.

It is hard to belief that John Stewart Eduri and Vijay Krishna Acharya made these decisions as artists. I don't understand it.

Because of the acting and cinematic shots a 5 rating.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Everybody Here is on Point, But

[10/10 · 2 January 2020]

There is no BUT!!!

Everybody here is on point, emotional ride gallore! And that is not the only thing,... what a great storyteller Waititi is! What a good way to make people think!

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

BUT,

[7/10 · 18 December 2019]

There are three interwoven stories told in a way that we know Tarantino likes to tell us, but after the end it felt like it was all to tell us just one story. A story that tells us that it should have ended exactly like the way it ended.

Wonder Park (2019)

Lots of spectacle, BUT

[5/10 · 6 June 2019]

The thing I look for in movies, a good/ gripping story that makes sense and is interesting to me, actors who make it a believable journey and visual aesthetics. But it does not necessarily has to have all three.

Pros;

There is lots of spectacle, humour and "wonder" in it. Big names have given their voice to this animation. And the visuals are beautiful.

Cons;

I can't help but feel this was done with not much attention to detail. The story is for children, but I mean really for children. But if I read other reviews not all children liked it. And I maybe know why. The story works maybe perfectly on paper or when you tell someone the story, but on screen it did not translate very well. The characters behaviour were not made unique and the few that were, did not get enough screen time to get attached to.

Producers forget there are kids who notice stuff and they will tell the other kids. Like a rucksack not falling out together with the character after a hell of a ride and then suddenly appear again. If you want kids to use their imagination and get smart, show some effort to get consistency in a movie, if one kid doesn't get it, another kid will explain it.

Because of the small details that did not add up and because the characters were made to "act" standard in a beautifully made environment.

I give it a 5

Captive State (2019)

There is not really a but, BUT

[8/10 · 4 June 2019]

The thing I look for in movies, a good/ gripping story that makes sense and is interesting to me, actors who make it a believable journey and visual aesthetics. But it does not necessarily has to have all three.

Pros Boy was I in for a surprise. The story is expecting you from the beginning to understand that you need to pay attention and if you do just that you'll get immersed in no time. And believe me it's not difficult. Good action movies have that tension that keep you on the edge of your seat. This film did not needed "standard" action to give you precisely the same kind of tension you expect in awesome action movies. The story is told in a very believable way. You know that there are aliens ruling us, but you do not have to see them to make you believe that they are ruling human lives. I was never distracted from a story line that did not make sense or actors not performing believable characters. The visuals are aesthetically gritty and setting the mood that fits the story best.

Cons There is not really a but, but maybe I've seen to many movies with twists to be able to predict. Normally I would be annoyed by knowing it, but in this story it was kind of satisfying.

I love stories of invasion and resistance and the action and heroics that come with it, but a movie like this grounds me to reality and makes me not forget that we as humans will have to depend on our intellect to fight against a power greater than ours and that will be not easy nor will it be done fearlessly.

I give it an 8.

Serenity (I) (2019)

Waaahh, BUT

[8/10 · 28 April 2019]

The thing I look for in movies, a good Story that makes sense, actors who make it a believable journey and visual aesthetics. But it does not necessarily has to have all three.

PROS;

Waaahh, the story feels unusual but it is actually not, I mean half way through the movie I realised, the movie felt just like I am reading a book. The way the twist and turns happen, it felt as I was reading instead of watching a movie. Don't get me wrong it is not a movie that made me go "this is frigging awesome" but it was a story that drew me in and when the plot became clear, I thought "yes, that's okay, I understand" and then at the end I had closure. Lane, Hounsou, Clarke and supporting actors have performed very well. McConaughey and Hathaway are doing their very best drawing you into the story and they succeeded with me. Except for maybe the first time Hathaway appears and does her scene with McConaughey, that felt weird. But luckily she did not act like that in any of the other scenes, it was as if she was saying I am not gonna do that ever again.

CONS;

Maybe some people will find it having it a weird pace or strange dialogs (which does make sense at the end). But in my opinion if you watch the movie with the mindset that you're reading a book, it might be not so bad. Of course if you do not like reading books then it might not do much for you or maybe it will and you could change your mind about reading books or it doesn't make any difference, but what the h**l do I know. So for me there were no Cons, wahey!

I enjoyed the story, unusual but nice, therefore an 8

What Men Want (2019)

It's Kinda Funny, BUT

[5/10 · 26 April 2019]

PROS;

The plot and topic for the story is a good one. It's fast and not dull, I can totally see Erykah Badu being the weird comic relieve in a serious movie. The slapstick is fun to watch. When there is drama, you feel for the characters.

CONS;

Like I said it is kinda funny, the thoughts that men had were weird. If that were a bit more realistic, maybe the comedy would work better. There were funny moments and that is probably why it didn't work for me. The funny moments were just that, moments, they were not funny because something else happened earlier.

It is a movie where you can see that quality is presented, but the funny things all "just happened" and that is why it probably didn't work for me. Therefore a 5

The Silence (II) (2019)

All these bad reviews? BUT

[6/10 · 22 April 2019]

I'll try and give my view on the "strange" or unrealistic events that happened in the movie.

The daughter is completely deaf;

The daughter became deaf 3 years ago in a car accident. I don't think that she is entirely deaf. There were I believe 3 moments in the movie where we were hearing what she was hearing, a high pitched frequency and a very far away sound. And also, that a person is called deaf does not mean that he/she is entirely void of sound or can not speak. The actress did a good job portraying a girl who is deaf and talks, it should take away the believe of people not being able to talk normal while being deaf. Don't believe me? There are videos of deaf people complaining that people do not believe they are deaf because they speak so well.

Carnivorous Bats surviving millions of years underground;

It's not really such a strange thought that creatures could survive underground in caves for millions of years. There are underground lakes, so it's not unreasonable to think they ate normal bats, snakes, fish and maybe even other animals we don't know of (it's still a fantasy movie). That they survived million of years is plausible.

World ending event;

To me the movie did not seem to be implying that the world is ending, but that only America was being attacked. The Vesps only originated from one place and on the first day started attacking some cities in America. The second day they find out in the farm house that entire regions are without electricity, not whole states. The third day, after the night in which they fought the cult, they left the house and are heading towards the north. We never know in what state the rest of the world is.

Internet still works;

As long servers are powered, the internet works. Without human maintenance it'll probably last only a few years. So it's comforting to know we can still communicate for a while if it happens for real. Besides in the movie, the few days that we followed the Family, we know that power is working in some regions. So it seems logic to me that internet was working at some places in the movie. (while they were in the city it worked, the internet stopped working when they were in the farm house and they had internet again when they arrived in the north).

Staying Home like the news said;

Yes, of course stay where there are literally thousands of them flying over your head, as you could see when the family moved out. And when they moved out there were army jets flying towards the centre of the city. I don't think trying to survive so close to thousands of those creatures with the army trying to fight them (without sound?) would be a very good idea. Let's say you do stay in the house. You would have to be really still. All noisy applications off, no cooking, no sneezing or coughing. You can't flush the toilet, the stink would be unbearable. Any sound would be notable because there are no other sounds to camouflage it. I say it was a good choice to move out of the city. It is high likely that the rural area would probably have less of those creatures and therefore I would think have a higher survival rate than staying in the city next to those thousands of creatures.

The family made stupid decisions;

When they heard the news they got out of the city because of the noise and the thousands of creatures flying over their city. They chose to go to the rural area, where there would be less noise and maybe also less of those creatures. They searched for a house to have shelter for the night, which is probably better than staying in the car with cracked windows. They searched for medicine which they needed badly. They found out that north was probably saver so they moved north where they could survive. So every major surviving decisions they made, they decided as most of us would do. Which I find not so bad decisions.

Cult created within days;

It's not unreasonable to think that the moment such an event occurs, existing cults or a bifurcation of a cult would rise within a very short period of time. Reminds me of the mayan 2012 end of the world hoax, people were very quick to believe that. You only need a few people with fear who want to believe and a someone who twist and turns truths and you have a cult, as history has repetitively shown us, that is never hard to do when there is a crisis.

That Fertile thing;

When I saw that the lunatic wrote that, the first thing that came to mind was that the leader is a pedophile and the others are following him because they are also pedophiles or he convinced them to believe the human race is decimating and it needs to repopulate. I guess the writers could have come up with some better reason to kidnap the deaf girl.

The creatures are stupid;

Are they really? They just came out the caves, so it's logic that not all have learned what each sound means. If there is a sequel, we'll probably find out if they have learned to distinguish the above ground sounds, like the wood chipper.

Kill all the creatures with the wood chipper;

It was a nice scene with the wood chipper, too bad the wood chipper stopped because it got stuck with the bodies (dad does not let go of the button). The family did the right thing trying to get away from the creatures and start finding other people, they are not soldiers who are setup with the task to exterminate all those creatures, they are a family who needed to survive.

Lure the creatures with sirens;

That would have probably been a better scene than the metro situation, lure the Vesps with a siren so that the city folk can escape and then suddenly the siren stops because the thousands of Vesps broke the loudspeaker and they are now after the noisy people who are trying to escape.

Lure the creatures with a loud noise and bomb them;

I'm sure the military were at the place where the most Vesps were, we saw jets flying towards the city. And they probably have had great ideas to exterminate thousands at a time. Me, I'd prefer poisoning them instead of bombing them. But we are following the family who were trying to get away from the Vesps. We only know what the family knows.

So this was my (fair?) view amongst all these bad reviews BUT,

The movie felt as if it could not decide if it should be an action movie or not. I can therefore understand what the disappointed reviewers were talking about, they should have stayed home or how the army should kill the creatures and the sudden cult leader thing. At those moments it felt like the action could start right now but then it didn't. When the family heard the news, they could've stayed home and all kind of exiting stuff could happen, but they didn't stay. When they moved out, the jets were flying over to the city, it felt like now here comes the army and does their thing, but we don't see it. And with the cult leader it felt like something exciting and smart is going to happen, but it went in a different direction. It is a very simple 'what if' story and although it was told maybe in what I felt like an undecided way, I was immersed in the story and wanted to know what would happen. Therefore a rating of 6.

The Bouncer (2018)

Never seen JCVD like this, BUT

[8/10 · 22 April 2019]

A bouncer who takes care of his daughter, is forced to take a dodgy job.

Pros; The story is well visualized, it is gritty, it is filmed in such a way that we feel what the protagonist feels during the course of the story. And not one moment was I distracted by things that did not add up. I was totally immersed in the story. We are used to feel energy in action scenes, action scenes that makes us go, wow I feel so exited. This movie goes for a deceiving realistic approach. You think this is what it feels like for real, but actually you are feeling what JVCD character is feeling. And that is a fantastic approach to tell a story like this one. The performance of JVCD, Sveva Alviti, Sam Louwyck and the rest of the cast are immersive. But really hats of to JVCD and the people who designed the story, intelligent character to visualization approach. After the movie was over I thought, do you have the normal exiting action movies in mind or have you grown up a little and are you going to think and debate with yourself a little bit before you let go of this story.

Cons; Non

See the movie, you will not be disappointed. Never seen JVCD like this, but I would not mind seeing him in serious roles again. I liked the simple story, the visualization and the performances, it made an impact therefore an 8.

The Professor and the Madman (2019)

Beautiful story and wonderful acting BUT,

[7/10 · 19 April 2019]

PROS: Like I said beautiful story and wonderful acting. It becomes more apparent that if the acting is done believable you can immerse yourself within the story. And that is what happened to me, lead and supporting roles were so good, I actually "woke up" after the story was finished. Maybe it's intentionally maybe not, but the language used and the sentences formed in this movie seemed to be a message to the viewer stating the more words you know the more efficiently you could express yourself. Use one word instead of a whole sentence to state your meaning, but maybe that just me;)

CONS: Like I said beautiful story and wonderful acting but, In my case there was a small annoyance, like the camera shaking when great dialogs were performed. The dialogs seemed therefore chaotic and not stand-fast when it was meant to be stand-fast making the emotion of that moment fleeting away quickly, but that is my pet peeve.

The story is a beautiful one, people who made a difference should not be forgotten. The wonderful acting is immersive although you get out of it quickly, because of the handheld camera. Therefore I give this movie a 7.

The Head Hunter (2018)

Beautiful Scenes BUT,

[5/10 · 6 April 2019]

A man living in the woods with just one purpose, to seek revenge on the beast that killed his daughter.

A very simple story visualised in a simple way. You can either like the simplistic way it is told or not.

The Pros: Like I said, beautiful scenes, the visualisation is nicely done, some beautiful shots of the landscape and snow. I liked the idea of telling a story without much dialog, just a visualisation of some actions being taken and because of those actions you know already what is going on. The main character looked cool. You can see that a good amount of attention was given to the props. The music and sound effects are really adding to the ambiance of the movie.

The Cons: Like I said beautiful scenes but, I could not get into the story or into the tense moments that were created. And I think there were a couple of reasons that caused that.

Character

I could not feel or root for the main character, although he looked very cool. This was because of how he gave his daughter gifts at her grave. The grave is one of only 2 moments in the movie that we can see how much he loved her and therefore needed the revenge, but it felt as if it was just a matter of fact.

Lack of complexity in the actions.

In my opinion if there is lack in dialog, then the actions must make the audience think and that happened, but you could figure out what was going to happen pretty fast and that left the tense moments empty.

I liked the approach of this movie, but I couldn't get into it. Therefore I gave it a 5

Special Unit (2017)

The Comedy Is Really Funny, BUT

[5/10 · 29 March 2019]

I Liked the jokes very much, but it felt off.

The Pros:

Like I said the comedy is funny, all the interactions between characters is comedy orientated and you can see that in every single scene. The actors were somewhat acting over the top which, to me, fitted the mood and story of the movie.

Overall, all human interactions and dialogs were comedy orientated and you could really see there were a lot of funny ideas, it is pretty cool to see a very funny man show us what he does best.

The Cons:

Like I said the comedy is really funny, BUT It did not feel like a movie, there were a couple of things that felt off. And in my opinion there were 2 major things causing this;

Environment sound:

The change from having only environment sound or only music or no background sound at all felt clunky. And at some moments the environment sound did not fit with the scene.

Music:

The timing of the music felt off. It feels awkward when you are laughing after a punchline and 2 sec later music starts, I stopped laughing each time because I expected something to happen and this would happen a lot. In some scenes the music would suddenly stop or begin to emphasise the spoken or physical comedy at weird timings, It felt clunky.

Maybe it would have helped if the music was thought of as the introduction, applause and laughter within a standup routine, put the music where you would 'expect' those 3 things to occur in the movie and you would probably be on par with the audience laughing and each scene with music would not feel off and clunky.

The jokes are very funny, fantastic ideas, but to me the environment sound and the timing of the music stagnated the flow and feel of the jokes and the movie.

Therefore a rating of 5.

Dragged Across Concrete (2018)

Absolutely Engaging Story BUT

[7/10 · 28 March 2019]

The Pros Like I said an absolutely engaging story, With this movie I did not really care about the characters, but I understood them and it got me intrigued and still wanted to know what would happen to them and was curious where the story was leading me to. There were silences in some scenes which were not making me say 'get on with it', instead those silences made me want to look at the situation of the scene and look at the faces of the characters or their body-language and make me come to my own conclusion on what was going on. In normal life we do that every single day, in a movie those silences can be annoying when you have already come to a conclusion, but the scene is still ongoing. With this movie when you come to your conclusion either the scene is over or you'll wonder what is going to happen next or you'll wonder what they decided to do.

The ambiance of the scenes were a bit dark a bit blueish a bit gritty, but it helped majorly set the mood for the story. The dialogs at some scenes were pretty surreal and at first I was confused about the dialogs and the acting that came along with it, but now that I think about it, it was probably meant to make me feel that it was surreal. Either to feel what the characters who was talked to felt like or to make us think in general about similar situations in real life.

The Cons Again it was for me really an engaging story, but If you are like me and start to look at surroundings when you can guess what the characters are doing then you might get thrown out of the total immersion once in a while by stupid little things.

Things that were thrown on a desk were not at the same place when shots went back and forth. A car that makes a 270 degrees turn and we are to believe it only made u turn. Letting an actor sit diagonally behind the wheel to get two characters in the shot. And no front window glass on a van to see (hear) two characters having a dialog. These were the things that I noticed.

But if you normally don't look at surroundings in a scene then these things will be not noticeable at all. And you could get totally engaged with the story and it is really good!

Although I got distracted, the characters, the ambiance and the story really engaged me. Therefore I gave it a 7.

Hotel Artemis (2018)

It made me feel good!

[7/10 · 29 September 2018]

The story Hotel Artemis is a hospital to patch up criminals who can pay for a membership and it's run by 1 Nurse. The Nurse put up some rules which the criminals are reluctant to follow and there is only 1 person to enforce it and help the Nurse. (Really it does not resemble John Wick at all)

Some criminals go there to get patched up but they are linked somehow to the nurse or each other. There are three stories told, One of the Nurse. One of a Male criminal with his Brother. One of a Female criminal. The surrounding is a riot in future Earth and the Hotel.

The stories of each of above characters are cool stories but I felt it was rushed through. It was like looking at plot where the characters reasons were integral to the story line but there was not enough time to go in depth. (movie is 1 hour and 30 min)

I find the whole feel of the movie aesthetically pleasing. I also felt it had that comic book feeling to it. If it was 2 hours, I think the writers could have done more, because the plot and the stories of the characters were interesting.

The choice of how to present the characters were actually well done by all actors, it fit the story, But it can't help but feel that if they'd done some overacting (theatrical acting for screen? it would be helpful to the story and the whole feel of the movie. The story line would not feel it was rushed.

Overall I enjoyed, really loved seeing Jodie Foster and Dave Bautista doing their stuff on screen.

Hotel Artemis (2018)

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion

[7/10 · 29 September 2018]

The story Hotel Artemis is a hospital to patch up criminals who can pay for a membership and it's run by 1 Nurse. The Nurse put up some rules which the criminals are reluctant to follow and there is only 1 person to enforce it and help the Nurse. Some criminals go there to get patched up but they are linked somehow to the nurse or each other. (Really it does not resemble the hotel in John Wick at all)

There are three stories told, One of the Nurse. One of a Male criminal with his Brother. One of a Female criminal. The surrounding is a riot in future Earth and the Hotel.

The stories of each of above characters are good stories to support the plot but I felt it was rushed through. It was like looking at plot where the characters reasons were integral to the story line but there was not enough time to go in depth. (movie is 1 hour and 30 min)

I find the whole feel of the movie aesthetically pleasing. I also felt it almost had that comic book feeling to it. If it was 2 hours, I think the writers could have done more, because the plot and the stories of the characters were interesting.

The choice of how to present the characters were actually well done by all actors, it fit the story. But I cannot shake the feeling that it might have worked better if it was done with a tad bit more of overacting (theatrical for screen?). It would definitely make the characters fit more in the story and the whole feeling of the movie.

Overall I enjoyed, especially loved seeing Jodie Foster and Dave Bautista doing their stuff on screen.