Once you embrace the cynicism and ignore your neverending anger about Hollywood's zombie-like state, which is dead, but not quite, which nowadays cannot produce anything but unworthy remakes of classic films, the film is quite enjoyable. If you're a fan of the series of course.
But, I don't understand what did the commentators expect; not a single sequel of 70s/80s/90s classic is comparable to an original, they as a standalone pieces can't be even considered good, that's why you have to evaluate things in context, and the context is that this film, and many others like it, were not made for art's sake, for glory of the creation, were not made out of ingeniousness of an author, out of a unique idea - they were made rutinely, industrially, on a Ford's assembly line, without a pretence of anything else but for (more or less mindless) entertainment that makes your minutes and hours go by, and most importantly, because big heads concluded this model of filmmaking is the most profitable.
You know it, filmmakers know it.
Still, I feel that there's enough good philosophical and social ideas displayed, (some obvious, but some hidden, like the dialectics, evolution of Smith and Morpheus, evolved and more complex class struggle when it comes to humans and robots, capitalist incorporation of its critique, like the reality becoming just another simulation, and most importantly, true belief in positive social change), and that Lana Wachowski has more, but is restrained by powers that be for exactly described reasons.
Visually I wasn't impressed, also I was expecting a bit more from the "sci" part of sci-fi, first part of the film is too slow, and the second part is too fast, but it's hardly embarrassing like some make it
Face it people, Hollywood is finito. Nowadays, there is hardly a new film truly worth watching that isn't an art film. Your self-righteous wrath won't get you anywhere, you should've learned this by now (I did with the X-Files remake), and it certainly won't make you a better person if you bitch about it more than the next guy. If you look for deeper meanings of this world, then leave entertainment media, and go read some books (preferably not belletristica or poetry, those are for suckers).
After watching this masterpiece, I'm ashamed and angered that I live in a culture which made me discover this film via its entertaining, but shalow, reductionist, emotionless, individualist and ultimately unworthy American bastardisation.
The storytelling is of top quality, film's grounding in historical period and its social conditions is so important, characters may seem one-dimensional in their drivenness on the surface, but are complex, torn between widely accepted morality and personal/family principles and devotions.
I'm not too familiar with Japanese cinematography so I cannot place my observations into context, but I liked the tempo/pacing, camera-work (usage of fast zooms, bird's perspective shots, skewed angled shots) adds to an original feel, scenery is fantastic and even more impressive knowing it's a low-budget film, music is full of emotion and it guides the viewer.
I will definitely watch it again
The author tried too hard for this one, too many themes, too many rough breaks, too many radically different influences. Shocking scenes and visuals for shock value only are so cliched and not worth watching. I think that stylistically it would've been better to go full kitsch in some parts, but I guess that the issue of the budget.
The pacing is so inconsistent, first half of the film is promising, the middle is boring and annoying, I couldn't wait the film to end for at least half an hour of it. Film has a lot of long scenes without any reason for it, should've been at least 10 minutes shorter.
There are some really good stuff, those topics that deal with basic needs of a human individual, to be loved, to be accepted, to be safe.
But that serial killer stuff, Alexia's psycho motivations aren't explained at all, this plot choice served as a cheap set-up for the rest of the film. Lot of gender topics were touched upon without ever deciding what to do with them.
The final scene is biblical and probably saved the film from irrelevancy, although I hoped that Alexia would get killed with that damn hairthing by Rayane.
Don't get how so flawed film got so many important awards. The competition must've stunk.
I watched the film again, raised my mark, and confirmed to myself: you haters of the film, you really don't get it, and I think you never got the genius of the Matrix. Go watch that crap John Wick, that's your level
This film doesn't have the pull it should to keep the audience for almost three hours. Maybe I wasn't watching it with 100% of my attention, but characters, especially the police ones, are thrown into the story mix without much justifying their roles. Too many things are taken for granted and are not explained, but vaguely implied, "sujet supposé savoir" kind of thing, which is not encouraging for the viewer. Without knowing that Robert Graysmith is the one who wrote the book, so that's the reason his character is important, you'd be left wondering for more than half of the film of why is this guy so important as a mere observer to solving a crime.
I love films based around newsrooms and their portrayal of real events, but Zodiac's perspectives, journalists' and detectives' points of view, got quickly muddled. I have a feeling this adaptation from the book could've been done better, with more care for clarity, fluidity, narrative building and dramatic crescendos/decrescendos.
Fantastic film, I'll need to watch it again to analyse it properly, but whenever a film manages to perfectly hit the reality of its subject and theme, whenever it manages to fulfil the genre conventions without falling into cliches and without being predictable, you know it's a goddamn fine piece.
It has an unmistakeable atmosphere (great and fitting music, scenery, mise-en-scene and tempo), an alluring feel around it which is (I suppose) not easy to create nor sustain throughout the two hours. Its internal coherence is amazing and the actions really do have consequences ( I might've missed some of these little hints, but I really liked the one which suggests that Dixon would've killed himself with that shotgun if Mildred didn't accept his offer of him going with her to Idaho )
What I want also to point out is the evolution of the motives – from exposing the dullness, the stinky staleness and stuffiness of the small middle of nowhere "community" (whose apparent, on the surface idyllic nature becomes shaken not by the tragedy, by inhumane crime, but by attempts to touch into and clear up the (for some comfortable) quagmire (Twin Peaks reference of course)) and sad, pathetic lives of the inhabitants – to the personal arcs of the complex characters who are trying to find their ways of existing in, but also confronting the described society while being pushed forward by personal drives and morals or pulled back by desperation and nihilism.
Not bad by any means, but it looks more like a half-baked university student attempt than a polished high budget episode. It's filled with lots and lots symbolism, you gotta give this episode that. Nobody is innocent in this game and the real bosses are behind the scenes. I'm a big fan of moving the plot back to 2006, also a big fan of music choices
Pretty nihilist film, its characteristics are the perfect represent of the US society in which people are incapable of creating lasting bonds with other people, or, more abstractly, of properly engaging with an idea of other people's identities. This radical individualism is apparent throughout the (too long) minutes, but is never problematised. Also, there is an unmistakable element of some kind of soft masochistic pleasure in solitary grieving/pain, which undoubtedly leads to romanticising the imaginary freedom of "chosing a lifestyle", rather than seriously delving into the conditions which made contemporary nomadism possible.
The atmosphere is too lulling for the viewer and distracts from the harsh realities and pure surviving (few windy and snowy scenes are simplistic cop-outs and really not enough) that these people have to go through, physically and mentally. I say this with no pleasure or self-entitled smugness - this film is a product from a liberal arsenal which numbs the people who think they're morally enlightened on the issues of the true nature of the lowest strata of American society. This film tries so hard to be an authentic portrayal, but ultimately it fails miserably on multiple levels.
Except for Frances McDormand's role, this film is completely forgettable and not worth watching, if you've already seen Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, then you have another reason less because you've seen how she performs these kind of roles.
So daring film for its time.
Talking about hard hitting issues such as society's desensitization to violence and the unavoidable role that media has played in it. Spectacle of the violence and the violent ones brings the views, the clicks, the attention, the money, but only if it's framed right. This surrealist masterpiece takes us out of that comfort zone from which we could consume violence safely, it shows us the glimpses of its true cost, that consequences of violence are secondary to the consumer, shows us that the lines between the reality and the media produced spectacles don't exist, and that the media universe has entirely blended in with its once object of reporting. The scene where the journalist starts killing himself is so full of symbolism; it should be absolutely clear that media aren't just a neutral observers and messengers, they create what we perceive as reality.
Watching this film I couldn't help but think about Jean Baudrillard's theory of hyperreal, of the real that's more real that reality itself, and of his essential "The Gulf war didn't take place". War propaganda and highly organised media hype gushing for war, especially in the USA, are topics that are unfortunately becoming increasingly more relevant today, and the mainstream media's role, the CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NYT, WP, of being almost more blood-thirsty than fricking Pentagon generals is the phenomenon which must not be overlooked.
This episode, like the whole show, is cliche central. Apart from all the casual, but persistent racism and moral relativism, this show, which is especially present in this episode, has dubious motivation of characters, which are copy-pasted and cliched on their own, and starking jumps quintessential for Hollywood C production of the 70s.
And remember, if you want something from someone, and you can't hack them, just get into bed with them, this works every time, even when you're socially awkward nerd who has no communication skills. Is there someone in this show who's not completely desperate?
This episode had a story for maybe 30 minutes, but the producers thought they had to make a Christmas special so they extended it to whole 55. Awful, atrocious pacing, I was bored for more than half of it, and then the "action" scenes were chaotic but somehow not engaging at all. This episode never felt like Doctor Who, from camera work to editing and cuts, plus the CGI was completely off.
Ruby is a poor version of Rose Tyler, but without any depth, emotion or sincerity. She looks like a character amazed by the existence of velcro. The new Doctor has something in him, but it's early days for making conclusions on him, his personality needs to be developed more, preferably beyond generic sassy and quick-footed fellow who talks too much for the sake of talking.
If the writing remains crap, potentially great actor could be ruined just like Jodie Whittaker was. Not holding my breath for better days unfortunately, I got nostalgia kick back with Wild Blue Yonder and now we're going back to dull reality I presume. This is not the opener which can get people excited for new season and new Doctor.
Informed by the unrestrained hype, all the high scores and positive critiques, I expected much much more. For 2006 CGI is truly great, but except that, this film is nothing special. There's no message or lesson that these types of stories usually tell, the film is at least 15 minutes too long, the script is too focused on Ofelia and what bothered me the most throughout the film is that Ofelia's speech mostly doesn't follow her actress's mouth movements.
If it is a film made for children, then I sort of get it, but for the rest of us, all we learned is that fascists are inhumane cruel monsters who kill without remorse, which is something everyone should know already. I wouldn't say I wasted two hours, but I definitely forgot the reason why I wanted to see the film, which left me unsatisfied
Pretentious, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It leaves the feeling of uneasiness, those scenes - "inside battles" in the head of Colin and Vos are true Cronenberg and undoubtedly my favourite part of the film. My critique of the film is a lacking backstory, not enough is clear in the Vos's family relations. I guess the technical side of entering into someone else's brain wasn't even considered properly. Also, it's difficult to connect with any of the characters, but I guess that was on purpose.
Congratulations to the show makers for creating Caitlin, the most annoying "good" character in the history of television. What a disappointment of a season after a brilliant first. The series is deservedly cancelled
Dreadful episode to cap off a dreadful season. Awful storywriting, glaring holes, annoying developments and plain lack of imagination on part of the writers.
I didn't understand John Wick, I don't understand this film (which I thought it was better than JW), but I guess it's some kind of new type of action pieces where your brain needs to be on holiday to fully enjoy them. I can appreciate great special effects, great soundtrack, great scenography, but it's just not my cup of tea.
For all the hate Brooker gets, I think he deserved to do whatever he wants without being forced to satisfy rigid demands of his supposed fans who are exposing themselves as nothing but frustrated tech nerds. As a mix of weirdness, grotesque, danger and destiny related topics, along with interesting characters and plots that leave somewhat to be desired, I think this season was completely fine, even if there wasn't a groundbreaking moments. Moreover, I think that the episode Beyond the Sea, the one most like the "true Black Mirror" ilk, was the least ambitious of all the rest and kinda playing it safe. It's just that the expectations are now too high, and "completely fine" doesn't cut it for certain types of people.
But I gave 6x01 a mark of 10, so what do I know...
Completely twisted, goes completely beyond the notion of "liking it" or not. I don't even know why I wanted to comment because at the moment I've got nothing to say.
I liked it, but as many commenters already said, it's not really Black Mirror type stuff and the episode misses something. The pacing is off, first half is just too slow and the latter part is not that novel. If the end emphasised a bit more the contrast between one man's sorrow (well two mens', because there's Stuart's dad also present at the end) and commercial success of Davis's film and tourism in Loch Henry, the feel would be much more fuller.
Dark, fun, horrific, serious, liberating - absolutely brilliant episode, I am rarely amazed by anything, including films and TV shows, but this has left me grinning of how simple and complex and slick it is, all at the same time.
I mean they hired Salma Hayek to play as her own virtual version in a virtual world that's depicting a virtual TV show universe.
Moral of the story: don't be a tech nerd whose CGI image would be Michael Cera and watch where your data goes. It's not like we mere mortals can do much with AI and deepfakes (well, there's maybe an axe?)
If the creator of this series wanted to make something to show how small towns in western societies (no matter the indigenous people who seem to fit right in) are filled with reprobates, degenerates and just awful, horrible, selfish people (and the more disgusting they are the more money and power they have) whom one noble city girl cannot change, then they succeeded.
Otherwise I don't get the point of this show and I wonder how did the basic info manage to trick me into watching this cheap attempt at portraying a valid topic of complexities of small communities.
I'll stick to Twin Peaks
The whole season resembles a bad comic book, with makers not having a clue what to do, wasting everyone minutes of lives, what could've been a (bad) feature film. The only positive thing is cast, fantastic acting by Evan Rachel Wood and loads of decent individual performances, but everything, from story which plagiarised pieces of tens of successful cyberpunk artworks, directing, politics (why is every human in the show a mix of a malthusian and a nazi eugenicist?), vision, SF elements, internal logic of the show, character motivation, character use (just kill Bernard's character already, he's useless, just like you did to Musashi/Dolores when you didn't know what to do with him) , to the absolutely atrocious special effects which remind me of 80s B movies, but with much less style
I don't know how the hell this crap got renewed for season 4. I certainly won't be watching it
It's unbelievable how little imagination and ideas creators of this show have. Boring, stale, not even too much cliches, it's just awful, uninteresting storywriting. The character of Caleb had potential (although the concept of him was plagiarised like many things in this series, you may heard of the original one, he's called Travis Bickle), but season 3 is managing to be worse than 2.
The whole season is a proof that creators of the show didn't have any idea what to do after they finished with season 1, filling given number of minutes with almost unrelated, standalone episodes (which were in the end the best thing about this failed season).
The whole "host as a new species" concept (as well as the internal dialectics between Dolores and Wyatt) had so much potential, but when fifth rate Hollywood clowns grab the best of ideas, they turn them into a forgettable past-time, but with high budget visuals. Character of Man in Black is written appalingly, character of Akecheta completely wasted, Teddy's "path" couldn't be written by a lazier person, I don't understand how can a production grab so many actors of the highest profile and not utilise that coup, but lose themselves in "hah! I'm more clever than viewers" idiocies.
But I guess this is what happens when pretentious wanker like JJ Abrams has his fingers in a show. Stop giving this man so much power and money to spend ffs, he's singlehandedly ruining TV series as a medium and as a form of art.
For a Hollywood film, it's not bad. It suffers from all the usual Hollywood issues, which makes any mainstream film almost insufferable to watch, but the main concept was really interesting. Shame that the focus and shallow psychological implications went in totally predictable direction. Good enough to burn a couple of hours, but nothing more. Nowhere near the levels of Tarkovsky's Solaris, and I feel filthy just for uttering this comparison.
Truly excellent show, such a shame that it won't get the chance to develop itself.
Great cast, complex and detailed exploration of different themes, The Society asks relevant questions about the world today without giving us easy answers. It doesn't bail out of the difficult question of politics, it engages bravely in it without glaringly pushing it into one direction. (Although some ***** may argue that home abuser Campbell deserves more sympathy). I'm really satisfied with portrayal of relationships between people, the dynamics between public and private interests, human emotions, aspirations, priviledges, biases and social structures, all without falling down into a hole of fetishisation of individualism and overemphasis on personal identity (which I did expect of the show judging by its title). Grizz, Kelly and Helena as characters are excellent, there cannot be enough scenes with them.
But the most important thing is that this show didn't left me indifferent and it managed to do its magic on me.
I have a few minor critiques - character of Will is not up to standard as the other characters, he's lacking something, but I can't define what really, his role should've been more thought through. Also, like some of the other commentators here noticed, there's too little emphasis on searching what's around the town or how to actually escape from that place, like they all gave up for 5-6 months after first attempt that resulted with death . For my taste, the show didn't show much of daily routines which mundanity angers significant part of the population and which (the anger) becomes a major drive for later developments, as a viewer you can't really grasp the atmosphere of the town, maybe more mass scenes would help to amend that problem .
After watching a fiasco of modern TV called Mr. Robot, I needed to come back to review this TV show, which also has the theme of social revolution mixed with personal "journey", and I realised this is a masterpiece. It has better and more stable, rounded characters, better understanding of society. This show isn't obsessed by extreme individualism and it does a great job of exploring motif of selfishness against caring for others/greater good. Authors of this show are theoretically equipped, aren't swimming in cliches and obvious popular culture rip-offs, style never preceeds the substance and ambitiousness didn't ate the whole point and internal coherence of the show, which is apparently a hard thing to do, no matter the budget.
