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Reviews
Damsel (2024)
Awful rip off
Lord of the rings, game of thrones rip off - fantasy novel stuff but without the incredible classical knowledge of Tolkein or intrigue of Martin. They should stop making this kind of film, nobody will do it better than Peter Jackson now so why bother.
From the first scene, where some knights go fight a dragon (who of course breathes fire) wholly unprepared, it's just a let down. All too obvious. At times it resembles a TV movie, there's no quality.
Millie Brown does her usual 11 from Stranger Things thing, the standing and screaming act which she's perfected but there's nothing else to it.
I lost interest half way through.
Tom and Jerry (2021)
Awful
Just a terrible take on the classic cartoon, which was funny because of when it was made, probably wouldn't have been made like that now, but also because the situations they got themselves into - short and clever little skits. Not overly long. Simple.
Basing that over an entire film situated just in a New York hotel with actors trying to react to the animations just doesn't work. The storyline and humour are just appalling too.
Add to that, it's just terribly acted despite having some well known names, and you have one of the worst remakes I've seen in a long time. It just didn't need to be made.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Truly terrible
Ok so we don't need another sci fi so soon after all those Star Wars films but if a film is good it'll always be given space.
This on the other hand is a mishmash of lord of the rings, the aforementioned Star Wars, and game of thrones but is filmed like a terrible advert for some cheap men's aftershave. The script writers have read a little bit of folklore and came up with a total catastrophe.
Speaking of the script: it is terrible, the acting totally wooden, and the casting is laughable. The main woman in it should be pouting on a billboard not pretending to be some sort of warrior. It tried so hard to be something but just ends up as...nothing. Blah.
Den utrolige historie om den kæmpestore pære (2017)
Awful and cheap
Terrible wrip off of everything Roald Dahl this rather cheap looking and overly long animated film is just atrocious.
It's done by the same studios I think as cocomelon so the cartoon itself is recognisable - but it's just very weird, makes no sense, and like I said above looks so cheap. It's also amazingly creepy but not in a good way, just in a way that makes no sense.
You can also tell it's dubbed or was originally in a foreign language - so that adds to the overall bad rating. What is most annoying is that it's a copycat, and is not original. There's an element of Dahl, an element of a Disney film or two of course and all sorts of other cartoons mashed into one.
So terrible!
The Adventures of Paddington (2019)
Cute but Paddington is so annoying
I enjoyed watching this with my little one as the animation is nice and quaint, it's also more realistic in terms of London life than the films too. The stories are sweet as well, innocent and fun.
Of course it HAS to be PC so there is one character (just one mind you!) from different ethnic groups and one child is disabled. So obvious but that's not an issue.
What makes the cartoon annoying is the main character: Paddington is 50 times more annoying than any other character, everything he does makes me want to turn the tv off. I know it's meant to be lighthearted and fun but he's just so....irritating!
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About Christmas! (2012)
For kids but totally awful
Doesn't teach your kids anything and it's so weird. I can't stand Dr Seuss at the best of times but this was incredibly poorly made and idiotic.
My little one watched it once but thankfully lost interest halfway through.
The storyline also makes no sense, the Cat hosts a party then some annoying baby reindeer causes everyone to do a massive detour because he's a complete idiot. That's basically it.
Add to this bad songs and annoying rhyming couplets and that's your standard Dr Seuss film. I'd much rather watch the Michael Myers version as at least that had some jokes in it!
Looking for a Xmas movie? This ain't it.
Leo (2023)
Garbage
Not sure why the reviews are overwhelmingly positive on this film, it's awful.
Ok so it's a cartoon for kids I know, but it's based on a lazy trope, probably dreamt up by Sandler himself who hasn't had a good idea since Happy Gilmore. A talking lizard helps kids come to terms with their weaknesses or issues, but tells each one he only talks to them so when they find out they're incredibly upset yada yada. Then an evil teacher...this is too boring to even recount. It's such an obvious storyline, has been done loads before in various ways and the lizard himself (voiced by Sandler) comes across as obnoxious as the man himself. No surprise there.
This isn't the warm cuddly film it's meant to be, and comes across as trite and idiotic. Like issues children have (being a bully, being insecure) can be resolved by one evening of listening to a preachy lizard who then sings a song telling you to shut up when you cry.
Sandler should stick to awful romcoms with Rachel from Friends.
The 355 (2022)
Big names, low budget
So the film is about a highly trained team of female agents from around the world who have to work to stop a criminal mastermind (a mean Englishman, of course!) who possesses a deadly weapon.
Typical. Bond-like. But different because there's a few of them, oh and they're women. Ok so far not too bad? Wrong.
The problem with this is a) the budget seems low (maybe they spent it all on the all women cast) like you're watching a tv movie and b) it's all so blah. It's been done so many times.
The acting too is rigid (especially Nyongo) and strained. Penelope Cruz is invisible too and it's full of cliches, like where they shoot the guy in the leg and are like "ok here are your options..." - meanwhile he's remarkably calm for someone just shot!! Terrible.
Avoid, as there are so many more films like this, including the incredible Zero Dark Thirty - Chastain should be ashamed of making this after appearing in that!
Get Gotti (2023)
Interesting series but nothing new
The whole Gotti story is completely overdone so I'm surprised this series even got commissioned, although it was a good watch in that it gave you the perspectives of people who'd also been there at the height of his power not just some grey FBI agents. Yes, that Mouw guy is still there, dining off his contribution, but a fair amount of the interviewees are from a range of backgrounds - his associates all still revel in the age of course, like it was the pinnacle of their lives - that Giovino woman especially almost can't get over her dalliance with fame and power.
The programme's main takeaway is that law enforcement seem idiotic as most of them were in direct competition to arrest the man himself instead of cooperating with each other. They overlook some of his more heinous crimes too, focusing mostly on the Castellano hit (not what he did to his poor neighbour John Favara). Also the prosecutor Giacalone comes out of this looking awful: she sent jurors home in limos (so they could be tailed and paid off) and later exposed an FBI informant who was then killed....totally incompetent and it's no wonder Gotti stayed free for so long.
It's mostly a nostalgic look back for a lot of these ex-wiseguys and agents, to a time when they were important, on both sides of the law. You almost can't believe this sort of criminal organisation was allowed to exist so brazenly back then now you look back at it. But overall RIP to all his victims, this guy was no hero.
Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle (2017)
Not aimed at me but...terrible
Ok so this is aimed at my kid of course but I have to sit through it with him. And it's awful. The various skits don't actually teach them anything, it's just a bunch of incredibly cringe middle age white people with musical aspirations but ended up doing a kid show instead.
Right, so maybe it teaches them what rhymes are as all of the skits involve songs which often have to rhyme to make sense, but apart from that it has no learning involved.
Not sure how it's been so popular for so long, maybe Australians enjoy their kid entertainers to look like used car salesmen who knows, but I'd recommend something that actually teaches your child something.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Every cliche under the sun
Just...where do you start with this tired hackneyed kind of film? One where you've seen every scene before, multiple times (and not just in this franchise) and yet they keep making it. And we keep watching it!
Ok so there's a mysterious online entity, baddies who drive black cars and are just everywhere...all the time, intelligence agents all talking in turn to explain the plot, a mysterious (bad) blonde oriental type woman oh, and a British female lead, (and she's an orphan), a party in Venice of course, and a destructive car chase through a major city, just again and again...the same film made so many times. This could be yet another Fast & Furious movie, a Daniel Craig Bond film or a Bourne snore fest and we wouldn't blink.
This one is different in that it's longer than most others, at two and a half hours or more. It's time to retire this franchise. And Tom Cruise just looks like he's had enough...even he can't carry it anymore.
From Scratch (2022)
Pls stop making this crap
Jesus, another American film where a woman goes go Italy and falls in love with a stereotypical Italian male. Why are these churned out every few months? It's like it's been commissioned by the Italian tourist board.
It's all the same. Cue loads of sequences in a restaurant tasting food and moaning at the delicious nature of it, scenes by a major tourist sight where they happen to be living or quite frankly by now racist depictions of Italians. I reckon Zoe Saldana just wanted a free holiday to Florence which is the only reason I can see why she made this.
Make it go away! Or choose another country to film in, like why do Americans never fall in love in Germany??
Tenet (2020)
Boring Bond rip off
Not sure how this film got such a high rating, people will think anything is good these days!
It starts off well, but soon descends into what all these Bond-like films tend to, quickfire scenes that don't necessarily tie together, a few explosions, overly sped up repartee between multiple characters who always know a little too much about every subject in the world, and of course an English thesp playing an over the top Russian baddy. Yawn. Sure there are some great locations shot in but then you'd expect that in a Bond-esque rip off. Oh and chuck in Michael Caine for a cameo because you know he's British.
I don't buy Washington in the main role, nepotism aside, he's too small and awkward to be "the protagonist". He's too stiff, delivers his obvious one liners terribly "at least buy me dinner first" when being frisked and he and Pattison look like they'd struggle to run a 5k challenge let alone take on and beat up multiple burly Russians.
The plot too is just trying to be complex for the same of it, like a mix between Inception and Bourne - this fails on multiple levels. It's lazy, overacted, trite and quite frankly incredibly dull.
Everyman: Jihad: Afghanistan's Holy War (1986)
No holes barred
A fantastic and gritty documentary from the 1980s showing the Afghan war against the USSR first hand from the eyes of the Mujahadeen, even before the Taliban was a thing and during a time when America wasn't even in their consciousness (much) - this is an eye opening insight into life with these fighters, throwbacks to their Indo-Aryan ancestors, they still dance the same dances and ride the same types of horses as the warriors who came before them and moved into these parts in the Bronze Age. But fighting a modern superpower.
Shows them trying to expel a foreign power and it costing them their lives, livelihoods and freedom. A great film that shows the other side of war which we take for granted.
Indian Matchmaking (2020)
Decent show ruined by one person
An old auntie goes around trying to get couples to marry in India and further afield. I'd have liked to see the show stay in India as the people abroad that Sima (the matchmaker) tries to set up are so annoying.
There's one called Aparna who is single purely because of her own mental health issues, I'm amazed they didn't edit her sections down as she's so insecure and full of self loathing that she tries to bring everyone else down to her level and even blames the matchmaker for her situation. It's uncomfortable viewing and the producers clearly use her footage to mock her ("I rarely leave Manhattan these days" she says just a few weeks after moving to the city from Houston, or "he thought we were on a date, ew" about the only man stupid enough to want to spend time with her) - a truly awful person.
Apart from that the show is quite entertaining but gets a bit samey after a while.
La Leyenda Blanca (2022)
A bit contrived
Not a fan of Real but nor do I dislike them - I support a team in England's 2nd division so have never even met them in a game! But I was naturally interested in this documentary to see what life was like at this huge and mythical club and to hear what some of the legends of the game had to say.
Of course it was all scripted and contrived from the very first scene. The bunch of legends playing table football, in slow motion, with lots of fake laughter and then having an 'impromptu' sit down chat....all put together by a video agency who have probably never even played the game.
There is some good footage but if you want a rosy view of a big club, with loads of talking heads, using soft focus camera lenses and dramatic music then this is for you - but if you wanted just a proper multi sided documentary about the club then this isn't it.
Paddington (2014)
Good for kids I guess
I had to sit through this as I have a child but can't see why anyone would otherwise - it's basically a Richard Curtis film with a talking bear in it. When will the American public stop assuming England is like this - I know they hate reality but this trope about everyone living in Notting Hill and being like "quite alright, eh" to anything that happens is just so tired. Nicole Kidman was a pleasant surprise as the evil museum curator and like I said my kid likes the talking bear.
The Gray Man (2022)
Horrendously bad
I mean where do you even begin with this film...? It's like Hollywood ran out of ideas 10 years ago so someone just sits there going "hmm what If we remade Bourne but also added a chunk of Fast & Furious...do ya think they'd notice?" - we've all seen this film before 100 times but in bits and pieces. It's so, so boring now.
Also, what makes this film so bad is the casting. Thornton looks like a dehydrated prune and you just don't buy Evans as a bad guy...he's actually a terrible actor when you get down to it, and Gosling as always plays his character like a plank of wood. They act like they just don't care in this film too, like even they're tired of the plot.
I turned it off, couldn't finish it.
Killing Eve (2018)
What is the hype about...?
Not sure why people rate things so highly - like 9 or 10 for this awfully acted, all too obvious Dexter rehash but with a vampy female killer and dogged female investigator. Seeing the theme here? I get that they're trying to be more diverse which I applaud but they've done it in such a 2D, stereotypical way it just doesn't empower women at all and the storyline is so tired at this point. It's just a series we've all seen before but with a slight tweak. I didn't finish series 1.
The Master (2012)
So dull
Full disclosure I couldn't finish this film it got so dull so maybe it was better after I switched it off but it took forever to get going.
Seems everyone was more interested in Joaquin Phoenix showing his acting range than an actual storyline - he does his usual deep and intense performance with loads of facial changes etc but after a while you kinda crave more from a movie.
They got the 40s look right though - it looked very authentic. Just needed a better writer maybe.
Stranger Things (2016)
Getting a little dull now
The first two series were edge of the seat watching tv....apart from that weird episode where El goes to find her sister or something in Chicago. Like why?
Anyway I felt that at the end of season 3 it had been wrapped up nicely, albeit slightly sadly, but ohhhh no this is America and if there's one thing they like to do it's squeeze out any last bit of interest in a series until someone jumps over a shark on a motorbike.
So, to season 4: ok I'm not going to put in any spoilers but it's as if the Duffers were made to do this at gunpoint or were just writing it as it went along. A new demon is on the loose in Hawkins (of course) and it all starts off creepily until...you see the demon who has a sort of connection to the previous one, and it's just a guy in an octopus suit or something. So now it's just silly.
All the 80s cultural references are still there as are some new characters but some of the existing ones seem totally obsolete now (Will? Why...?). Another annoying thing is allll the sub stories - at one point I counted 6 as the characters are split apart across the world, and the writers desperately try to give them all enough screen time (unsuccessfully) to the detriment of the actual story - who cares about the trip to Utah, or all the long, drawn out pieces with El. And the Hopper storyline just makes no sense.
They should've stayed in Hawkins and gone for the real creepy feel of that town and its apparent curse instead of flapping between Alaska and Russia on the one hand, and California and Utah on the other.
At one point too the writers almost feel guilty that they're losing you so it's almost as if they were like "let's make one of the main protagonists temporarily cursed" and then that's kinda forgotten about too.
Still I watched it because I was bored. By the time they make another series (maybe?) everyone will be like 25 so it's just going to go the way of Friends where some pile on the weight and others get nose jobs which you're meant to not notice.
London Has Fallen (2016)
Quite possibly the worst film of all time
I mean...so much is wrong even with the opening 30 mins of this film, just how on earth did they make this and then make another one...?? The stupidest set of circumstances in cinematic history take place during the London funeral where the initial massacre occurs and it's downhill from there.
Shame on them.
6 Underground (2019)
Fast and Furious rip off
You can so see what the producers of this are thinking - let's knock 5 of these out, cheap like, make the characters all zany and funny and multi cultural...oh and spend the entire budget on Ryan Reynolds and filming in some third world country. It feels like a TV movie at times with the poor supporting cast of actors, and is totally nonsensical. One minute trying to be serious and the next having Reynolds do his usual Deadpool-like joke cracking with a straight punchable face.
The storyline goes nowhere, is predictable and after a while just plain dull. Avoid.
The Witcher (2019)
Rubbish LOTR rip off
Did the makers of this just watch LOTR and think "ok its been a few years since that was made. Let's just nick most of the films' imagery and then make this toilet show"?
Orlando...I mean Henry Cavill is so out of place in this, with his Batman voice and giant sword. He looks and sounds ridiculous.
Couldn't make it past the first couple of episodes.
The Irishman (2019)
Good but not Goodfellas good
I was maybe expecting too much from this because of who's in it, what it's about and the fact it's the last time this group of people will collaborate. It's a long one! But you wouldn't expect anything less from the director and the topic at hand. It's not an instant classic, like Goodfellas was for example, but it's still a powerful film full of great scenes.
Some really good performances pepper the film, Pesci in particular, Pacino too but I was a little less blown away by De Niro...the cgi too threw me a bit because the actors all had old man bodies but not their faces. Still, you get used to it. Supporting roles are less impressive, Ray Romano is just himself and the guy playing Tony Pro is now forever going to be typecast as a bad Italian American impersonator.
What made this less of a clear classic was that it was slightly bitty. It's as if at times they were forcing a scene into the film for context so it didn't flow...the guys seemed a little rusty too at times maybe because it's been so long since they made a film of this type which in all honesty should've been made a decade ago when they were all that little bit younger.