It looks great, better than anything on the recent trilogy. The lore is building up and the acting is on the dot. My only problem is the pacing and that the damn episode is too short. I was expecting a 1 hour show, but this is shorter even than network television prime time shows.
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@the_argentinian Actually, yes. It complies with the beats and feel of the original trilogy and sets the scene for about 5 hours of story in a time period never explored before. Also, the second season is filming right now, so you're gonna get 5 more hours next year, and so on. The films can't afford that kind of time to develop arcs.
It feels like a nice TV pilot episode, it has excellent action scenes and the acting is overall good. Michael B. Jordan does a decent job as a lead, and for a German movie, it's quite good. However it has nothing to do with Tom Clancy's novel, and that's a shame. Hope the follow up movie doesn't mess with the novel they mention in the after credits scene.
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@jeaneats As I said, it works just fine as an action movie where the main character happens to be named as a book's character. However, the book is entirely different. It deals with the SOG's operations during the later years of the Vietnam war era. Actually, it is pretty good.
I can't believe I haven't seen this. This is the first Terminator movie. This should so be remade today and updated.
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@gamerdave69 They tried, with Will Smith as Forbin. It went into development hell.
It feels like a nice TV pilot episode, it has excellent action scenes and the acting is overall good. Michael B. Jordan does a decent job as a lead, and for a German movie, it's quite good. However it has nothing to do with Tom Clancy's novel, and that's a shame. Hope the follow up movie doesn't mess with the novel they mention in the after credits scene.
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@gimmebamba My thoughts exactly, mate.
Just a comment regarding the SAC op. The radios issued in these ops are always rugged, waterproof models, at least IP67, and that means being under salt water for 60 minutes. So there's no chance the "electronics are wet" becomes an issue, but I understand that it's meant to advance the plot, making Bishop leave the boat.
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@melkiades96 Yeah, it baffled me. It was against his direct orders. So much for discipline.
I do happen to like the way they subtly hinted that The Doctor has enough regeneration energy for another go, at least. What I don't like is that this comes along with recent Peter Capaldi's comments on interviews about him being too tired of shooting Doctor Who, after just two series. That means that he's leaving after series 10?. Most likely. Cast a 57 y.o. actor in a physical demanding role, and what do you get?. The episode introduces the concept of a new Doctor in just a couple of lines, and that kept my attention off for the rest of it. When I went back to watch it again, there it was, I wasn't wrong. So, I'm expecting the beginning of the casting process after S9's Christmas special, and a proper send off after wrapping S10. Wearable technology?... sure.
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Most likely. DW i's a very valuable IP for BBC Wales (and in Cardiff it's a whole industry), so I'm sure they have in mind S10 and more. I'm just not sure if Capaldi will last. Last year he played Cardinal Richelieu and Doctor Who at the same time, and a couple of days ago in a radio interview he was talking about physical and mental exhaustion (from shooting from January to early September to complete S09), so more than 12 episodes is out of the picture right now. He's a fine actor, probably the best in this role so far. He's about to direct in the US some TV episodes, so he's also looking for something else right now, probably only directing. I think he'll wait until his 3 series contract runs out to pass the torch to a younger Doctor, and this episode gave us the hint that a whole new RC is available, as you say.
This pilot is one of the most compelling, intelligent and elegant hours of television I've ever seen. From the cinematographic standpoint, Niels Arden Oplev brought us the same original directing style that he did use in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the first film from the original Swedish trilogy), and hoped for his audience to be mature enough to digest a plot that evolves at every step, slow paced, gritty and edgy. Gosh, the sequence with Neil Diamond's song was as surreal as beautiful, and yet sad, evoking happiness. This is how you present technology to the public: with real information, explaining some stuff, keeping the plot grounded in reality (couldn't find anything too implausible or wrong in their technospeak). I'm a KDE guy myself since 1997, and I'm typing this review on my favorite Linux distro (that isn't Ubuntu, by the way), so I'm really looking forward for the rest of the season. Then again, I don't keep my hopes too high... Universal has a true innate talent to really screw up any good show that takes more than two neuron synapses to process (when they happen to own it), without exceptions.
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I'm running KWheezy/KDE myself. fM$
Couldn't stand it. Probably I'll try to watch a couple more episodes, but that's it. I don't like the writing, the message is too tame and diluted for me. Not even in the same galaxy than Alan Moore's graphic novel. It doesn't have nothing to do with Watchmen, it's something else's agenda with the Watchmen name attached.
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@misnomer Production value, VFX and music. The story is poor, anyway. I only watched that episode in the end.
Shout by João Paulo Almeida
Snyder should have stayed within the dawn of the dead (2004) universe. This movie is a step back in quality and originality.
there is always that guy that suddenly notices that he was bitten...really???loading replies
@johnnyvipossible Yep, it was a depressing - yet predictable - ending.
14 minutes of wasted & inconsistent time. Deeply disappointing even as a webisode.
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@wetwidwendy She didn't began the intruder alert protocol, that any Command candidate knows is the first step after discovering anyone on the ship, that conveniently has no security protocol during war time?. The dialogue and editing feels choppy and compressed, because it's 10 minutes between the characters. The ship isn't orbiting the planet of the alien (the opening shot shows the ship in open space) and the transporter range can't beam the alien back. To make things worst, she didn't alert the captain (this shot is set after Lethe, because she just informed her mother that she is applying to the Command training program, so Mirror Lorca is still the captain) who would be berzerk about all this. It doesn't deserve a review, just a comment.
Absolutely disappointing rehash of the first trilogy. Disney had a real opportunity to do something new and exciting with this ipr but resorted to rushed writing with an extremely compressed story that makes no sense and fails to make anyone care for the characters or events. Emo Kylo is an outstanding metaphor for the whole deal.
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I totally agree with you. I actually left the theatre as soon as the end credits were about to begin. I'm not caring to watch the next one at al midnight premiere, for sure. This movie is more like a fan film.
I just hope this movie survives to the hype. None of Abrams movies ever has.
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My friend... it was exactly the oposite for me. I've been since 1977, and If I wanted to watch a SW:ANH fan remake with plenty of fan service, I wouldn't have to wait for it (there are plenty at The Force). It's better than the prequels, but it didn't work for me, as it's the usual JJ Abrams' fare. It's entertaining, but dissapointing as it's a color-by-the-numbers-and-please-the-fans flick. Minimal character development, rushed, and a very let-down ending. I left the cinema tired, and not caring at all for the next one (that I'm sure not gonna watch on a midnight premiere again).
I tried to be more than fair to this film, given its cast. It has Michael Barrett's excellent photography, the original premise is also quite interesting and there are bits here and there where the writer-director tried to flesh out some characters. In paper, it has an outstanding cast. I loved Brendan Fletcher's performance. Eliana Jones is amazing, stealing all her scenes. And that's about it. Nomis a.k.a. Night Hunter has some of the worst acting I've seen lately. Henry Cavill couldn't be more cliché and honestly he's seems like he's just going by the motions, not even trying to be more than your typical burnt out cop. Alexandra Daddario looks so out of place that I was surprised she wasn't edited out of the movie. Her performance couldn't be more flat, totally coming across as a nuisance in all her scenes. Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion and Ben Kingsley seemed only interested in cashing their checks, and that's utterly sad. Alex Lu's score is intrusive, and repetitive. Heck, it even sounds like stock fare from any given music library. It's a very disappointing film and pretty good example of a nice premise going the wrong way. This is David Raymond's first "real" film as a director with a "real" cast, and I don't know who was financing this bloody mess, but I hope they get at least a third of it. They made a good choice to make it VOD.
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@steev1st My point precisely. There's nothing original in the plot to begin with, besides the evil twins plot twist.
I gave up on this dumpster fire of a show after watching the 4th episode's promo. When your promo clearly shows all the plot and ending in 45 seconds, why waste 45 minutes?. Hope it gets cancelled by next year.
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@jaw72 Yeah, after watching the first 3 complete episodes and figuring out the promos have all that's needed from those episodes. Won't watch the rest of the series.
Getting an invitation for a Marvel early screening was meant to be something great in the past. Sadly, I've just got it for this stinker of a movie, and lost two hours of my life. I'm a fan of Josh Trank's Chronicle, so I kept my hopes high, but not much so, as he's a competent filmmaker but more in tone with an indie vibe rather than a blockbuster, in my opinion. I'm so disappointed regarding this movie that I can resume the entire plot in the following few lines: a couple of kids (one a mild-mannered-mad-scientist-in-the-making and an honest-to-God-sports-jock) try for nearly a decade to create a functioning prototype of a phase-quantum-dimensional-shifting device (a teleportation machine, for the layman), getting the attention of a gifted scientist (who happens to have a politically correct bi-racial family) from a government-funded think-tank. Together, they spend HALF (yes, half) the movie trying to make the prototype of the device (now named "Quantum Gate") fully functional and open a portal to Planet Zero (a desolate generic CGI dimension that co-exist with ours), with the unwilling aid of Victor, a hacker-wiz kid who happens to be sadly in love with the only female character in the film, who in turn has a crush for Reed (as you might expect, Reed is utterly oblivious to her most of the film). The whole ordeal feels detached, procedural and boring, but has the very brief quality of portraying them as humans, with flaws. Anyway, as expected (because bad things do happen when you rush experiments), their visit to Planet Zero goes awry when Victor tries (as any scientist might) take a sample. The portal collapses, and Victor is left behind. I must dearly advise to you: it follows one of the most disturbing, un-glamours and painful transformation scenes I've ever seen in a Marvel movie. Their DNA is changed and they have odd molecular-phasing side-effects that can be characterised as "super powers". A great deal of the rest of the film is spent trying to - ironically - reverse the molecular-phasing disease, and we get to see a few neat scenes, while one of them is remorseful and contrite (hiding in South America) and the others begin to use their abilities to become military assets. This goes for a while until out of the blue, Victor (quite understandably bitter with them) decides to destroy our Earth using the Planet Zero portal. He's so good at it that he gets to almost destroy Earth without any complicated laboratory or technology. Then it comes the 10 minute studio-mandated battle where the characters become reluctant heroes (honestly, Reed a melee expert?) and obviously defeat Victor, who "disintegrates" (I don't believe that at all) while the portal finally collapses. After those 10 minutes of low quality CGI extravaganza, they get fully funded by the US Military, and decide to use their side-effects to protect humankind, while searching a cure for their disease (unlike the X-Men and most Marvel characters, the FF have always been in good terms with the US Government and NY authorities). In the end, I was baffled that there was not a single ounce of wonder or enjoyment from their part in their abilities, and that the characters feel underdeveloped, to the point of being hollow jokes compared to their comic book counterparts (especially the latest incarnation). With the exception of Michael B. Jordan and Red E. Cathey, the rest of the cast is AWFUL, their dialogues becoming wholly interchangeable. Really. Write down snippets from the dialogue, and any of the characters can deliver those lines. It's that bad. I'm sure I'll never watch this movie again, and I do hope the sequel never gets made. By the way: this movie isn't part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a good reason.
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Yep, right there with you on the buying. Usually I wait around this month to get my Blu-rays, and just like you, only favorites or excellent movies that have something unusual. I'm quite sure that I won't buy this movie or watch it ever again. It's sad... so much potential and expectation, wasted.
Getting an invitation for a Marvel early screening was meant to be something great in the past. Sadly, I've just got it for this stinker of a movie, and lost two hours of my life. I'm a fan of Josh Trank's Chronicle, so I kept my hopes high, but not much so, as he's a competent filmmaker but more in tone with an indie vibe rather than a blockbuster, in my opinion. I'm so disappointed regarding this movie that I can resume the entire plot in the following few lines: a couple of kids (one a mild-mannered-mad-scientist-in-the-making and an honest-to-God-sports-jock) try for nearly a decade to create a functioning prototype of a phase-quantum-dimensional-shifting device (a teleportation machine, for the layman), getting the attention of a gifted scientist (who happens to have a politically correct bi-racial family) from a government-funded think-tank. Together, they spend HALF (yes, half) the movie trying to make the prototype of the device (now named "Quantum Gate") fully functional and open a portal to Planet Zero (a desolate generic CGI dimension that co-exist with ours), with the unwilling aid of Victor, a hacker-wiz kid who happens to be sadly in love with the only female character in the film, who in turn has a crush for Reed (as you might expect, Reed is utterly oblivious to her most of the film). The whole ordeal feels detached, procedural and boring, but has the very brief quality of portraying them as humans, with flaws. Anyway, as expected (because bad things do happen when you rush experiments), their visit to Planet Zero goes awry when Victor tries (as any scientist might) take a sample. The portal collapses, and Victor is left behind. I must dearly advise to you: it follows one of the most disturbing, un-glamours and painful transformation scenes I've ever seen in a Marvel movie. Their DNA is changed and they have odd molecular-phasing side-effects that can be characterised as "super powers". A great deal of the rest of the film is spent trying to - ironically - reverse the molecular-phasing disease, and we get to see a few neat scenes, while one of them is remorseful and contrite (hiding in South America) and the others begin to use their abilities to become military assets. This goes for a while until out of the blue, Victor (quite understandably bitter with them) decides to destroy our Earth using the Planet Zero portal. He's so good at it that he gets to almost destroy Earth without any complicated laboratory or technology. Then it comes the 10 minute studio-mandated battle where the characters become reluctant heroes (honestly, Reed a melee expert?) and obviously defeat Victor, who "disintegrates" (I don't believe that at all) while the portal finally collapses. After those 10 minutes of low quality CGI extravaganza, they get fully funded by the US Military, and decide to use their side-effects to protect humankind, while searching a cure for their disease (unlike the X-Men and most Marvel characters, the FF have always been in good terms with the US Government and NY authorities). In the end, I was baffled that there was not a single ounce of wonder or enjoyment from their part in their abilities, and that the characters feel underdeveloped, to the point of being hollow jokes compared to their comic book counterparts (especially the latest incarnation). With the exception of Michael B. Jordan and Red E. Cathey, the rest of the cast is AWFUL, their dialogues becoming wholly interchangeable. Really. Write down snippets from the dialogue, and any of the characters can deliver those lines. It's that bad. I'm sure I'll never watch this movie again, and I do hope the sequel never gets made. By the way: this movie isn't part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a good reason.
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Exactly. After every Marvel premiere, I'm usually excited and already waiting for the next movie. With FF, I was wondering if this debacle would work best as a TV-mini series, slicing it into 4 episodes and adding the missing plot points (apparently there's enough footage for a 4 hours version if needed) and fixing the awful CGI work they did here. As you say, Doom was more like the villain of the week this time. A friend just got the Blu-ray and says there is not a real behind-the scenes, just some vanilla interviews (most likely recorded before the premiere), and (surprise) no comments track. Hope they revert the rights to Marvel someday. Oh, by the way... the Blu-ray here in Mexico is around $7.00 US Dlls, and you get the digital copy, a DVD and a t-shirt. Odd has hell.
I honestly tried to like this movie, mostly because of its great cast. But I couldn't stand their shallow motivations, egocentric attitude and silly, sentimental dialogue, that actually made me hate most of the characters (not to mention the cameos from known stars). What entirely lost me as a viewer and made me feel uncomfortable, was a rescue pilot that flees a disaster zone to fly to a far away location to rescue his daughter. I'm a medical professional and I have been a first responder in several critical situations, and I just can say that I truly hated The Rock's character so much after that stunt. After that, I couldn't enjoy the movie, despite the CGI, that I felt as outstanding. DON'T MAKE A FIRST RESPONDER THAT FAILS TO STICK TO ETHICS AND RULES YOUR MAIN CHARACTER. It's such an insult. If you disagree, I'll remind you whenever you need medical assistance and your paramedic, doctor or nurse has to leave the scene of your accident to check on her/his daughter.
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Precisely my point. I couldn't keep watching the rest of the film at ease just for that reason, and I know I'm not buying or watching this film again.
