John Noble (Walter) really grows as a character throughout the series. A series worth the watch.
I really liked the green-green-green-red light pattern that constantly returned throughout all the seasons.
Somehow it feels like the writers did not have the time for all of the stories they wanted to tell, especially the last season is a bit far from the rest of the show. Some unchecked sources also said that there was material for 6 and not 5 seasons.
Very fun to watch. Sometimes the jokes and settings feel too staged though. The repeating of jokes from the first movie is also a weakness of the movie, as well as the fact that the overall story is quite similar.
Secondly, the character of Ron Burgondy is not really on par with his character in the first movie. Yes he is random, loud and prejudice but he seems to have lost his 'principles' what made him the man he was.
However, these things do not break the movie, just like the first movie, which also had a lot of 'errors' (it is really romanticised by a lot of people) and the cameo's are very fun to watch. There still is a lot of great original material and jokes.
And remember: bats are like the chicken of the cave, WHAMMY!
Least amount of words used in a movie I have seen.
Beside 1 short monologue at the beginning of the movie and a very short radio conversation. The only things the lead actor is saying are 'Shit' 'Fuck' and 'Help' (a few times.)
Intriguing movie that stayed interesting until the end. You get a lot of pitty for Redford with all the bad lukck he has throughout the movie. They did not make him a 'conveniently' smart individual, just an old man who has experiences with being at sea and realistic responses on the situation he his in. I constantly wondered what went on in his head.
It is a bit repetitive and slightly predictable though.
3rd and (imho) final installment of the Bourne trilogy. It has the same pace and action oriented directing style as the 2nd part of the movie series. It couldn't keep up with the 2nd one in it's originality and outstanding action scenes, but that's no shame. Nonetheless a great piece of work, with some really nice development, and of course the final closure.
This was such a funny movie. I expected a ridculous B-movie like the first one, but they went a completely different way.
A way of over the top comedy and parody-like jokes. I liked it so much more than the first one because it stopped trying so hard. The amount of big names working on such a movie was fun to see as well.
One of the best documentaries that ties to the Dance industry. It follows Duncan Stutterheim, co-founder of Dutch dance company ID&T, and shines a light on his motives and how ID&T came to be where it is now (2006.)
Still in 2014 a great film to see where the now global operating company originates from, and especially the highly succesful 'Sensation' concept.
Great movie! Need to write a long review to exactly point out why, but don't feel like it right now. The fun thing is you can compare it to 'Oblivion' (2013) with Tom Cruise, which has similar themes, and conclude that this lower budget movie is better in almost every aspect.
The ending doesn't give me enough satisfaction, but overall this is a great work!
This cover picture is from 2007, the tree of life. Not 2004.
Line-up of 2004:
Brian S
Benjamin Bates
Paul van Dyk
Megamix
Sander Kleinenberg
Erick Morillo
Joost van Bellen
Really funny anime (with lots of Ikkitousen-like fanservice, so you need to be able to handle that) with some nice action in it as well. It is a bit too fast paced to build up a really decent story, but it manages to deliver nonetheless. Of course a lot of clichés, but not to the point that it gets tiresome.
Decent and enjoyably but not a masterpiece.
Great classic, with still a high enjoyment when watched today. Even though it can feel a bit lacking when placed in our time.
This is 'Primer' for dummies.
The movie frustrated me from time to time because of massive plot holes and bad writing. The idea is challenging, and complex enough to have fun with, and not too complex to get lost in. However too many things did not add up.
For such smart kids they sure were reckless and rushed everything as if they were for the first time in a chemistry class. Every guy who has even the slightest idea of timetravel knows that messing with stuff in the past is going to get you in trouble (butterfly effect) and if you are going to do something you have to plan it out carefully.
There are also multiple occasions when they travel back in time for a 2nd time to the same time and place, but do not meet their 'earlier' time traveling selfs there. This was especially awkward with the kiss scene. Arguably the most important scene of the movie. Even if the device somehow canceled out earlier jumps to the same time, they didn't have to interfere but just had to jump and wait.
For the story it might have been much more interesting if they didn't focus so much on the main actor during the final act of the movie and prevent such a boring cliched ending.
There is more, but lets leave it with this
There is 1 interesting detail in the ending though; the papers David throws in the garbage bin after the talk with his father date 2025. I wonder what that implies....
Still, there are way worse movies out there.
Edit: there is another thing I really liked about the movie btw. It used a track by Mark Sixma. :D
It is hard not to compare the 2021 Snyder's Cut to the 2017 release, which was generally perceived as a messy film due to its problems during production. There is definitely more coherence and structure in this version, with less plot holes and more time for the characters to breathe (not in last place because of the significantly increased -doubled- run time.) However, in many moments it is clear the movie has been edited together from incomplete and/or unfinished material. This is especially noticeable in several of the (many) CGI scenes, which look outdated and unpolished. It makes (some of) the choices made in the 2017 version more understandable, even though it does not make them any better. The hated reshoots that ended up in the 2017 version were clearly not unnecessary, just the execution was poor.
Light Spoilers ahead (marked.)
The antagonist is clearly one of the main improvements. Steppenwolf is relatively well fleshed out, and no longer a completely forgettable generic bad guy (and I thought his costume looked awesome! No idea why that was changed in the earlier version.) It remains a problem that he is just a henchman, and the big bad guy boss (Darkseid) plays no real role in the story. Darkseid appearance has not much added value because of that. It adds significantly to the antagonist motivation, but his appearance is mostly used to make way for a next movie.
We also spend more time on Cyborg and his character, which is deserving and rewarding and makes him a more interesting character to watch.
The dynamic within the team is also much more balanced, with less awkward forced moments.
That being said, the main focus clearly never was the characters themselves, which is not unusual for a blockbuster (superhero) movie. There are scenes that feel out of place because of sudden shifts of tone and focus. Also, several events, plot lines and choices or alternatives are never explored or given a pay off.
There are several setups that are never paid off, especially with the introduction of additional characters. This pads the runtime unnecessarily and often makes the movie feel like a set up for later movies (which will probably never see the light of day.) Secondly, their are so many endings, it could compete with LOTR's Return of The King for most endings in a major film release, and unlike RotK, it is not to finish up those aforementioned loose ends, but rather to set up new plots.
Of course this has to be mentioned. The choice for 4:3 ratio has been done for creative reasons, and it has already caused division among the viewers. Their are many shots where the 4:3 ratio is exceptionally impressive, and it is justifies the choice for that aspect ratio. However, in just as many scenes the lack of widescreen makes the experience underwhelming. This is (logically) mostly the case with wideshots and the big battles. When the ever present but lacking CGI meets those wideshot angles, this negative effect is even more increased, and it made me feel like watching an episode of Friends or other old television show.
In conclusion, the chosen aspect ratio has both its merits and demerits. The difference between 4:3 and Widescreen is not impossible to overcome to use in 1 film, but it is significant which makes it tricky to naturally switch between them. The choice to stay dedicated to an unchanging Ratio is logical.
This is an average but fun epic superhero movie that is enjoyable to watch if you have the time and patience for it. The movie is split into several distinct sections, with headers, so it is possible to watch it as a mini-series. It does not rise to the heights of Infinity War, but it also does not steep as low as Suicide Squad.
"Be careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it."
'Transcendence' is a science fiction movie about Artificial Intelligence with some classic themes in it. After a tragic event someone is brought back to life by copying his mind to a (quantum)computer. When the program spins out of control, it is up to the heroes of the story to stop the machine from destroying humankind.
Story
So far so good. A basic AI story with all kinds of possibilities, and this is where they went wrong. It looks like they could not really decide which theme(s) they really wanted to go with, so almost every theme is hinted at: Self-consciousness, Technology as a life form, is a machine able to Love, is the world holistic or based on reductionism, Could a machine ever overpower us, post apocalyptic world, struggle of morality, devotion and faith et cetera. None of these themes gets the proper time to get deepened out, so we end up with a movie with a lot of unsatisfying development.
Secondly, the first scene of the movie already betrays the end of the movie, which was a very bad decision, because it took out all the suspense from the movie and made you aware of the ending from the beginning.
Some plot holes which made me think the creators think I am dumb, but in the end made me think they are dumb:
1. I thought it was weird the 'virus' had to be uploaded by 'the wife' Evelyn, since it was basically working like an antidote (a bit weak imho) and since the AI's main goal was to "improve" everyone, not kill them, dosing people with the virus would make them invulnerable for hostile takeovers.
2. Also, the main power source of the AI was his solar park. Even though he operated on the complete Internet and everything connected to it, including the power grid itself (which is literally named in the movie.) So shutting down that solar park should not have any effect on him at all!
Characters
Besides a few 'errors in 'judgment', the cast is overall pretty good and does a nice job. Nobody will probably win an award for this movie and some characters are so anonymous I cannot even remember their characters name just after watching the movie (I seriously had to look this example up: Paul Bettany as Max Walters.)
Visuals/Music
The music in the movie was pretty decent. Nothing special, just like the movie in it's whole, but not bad either. Visuals were neat, but no megalomania was added, so you won't really be able to enjoy big massive visual spectacles on the screen. But this is not a film for that anyway.
Overall/Enjoyment
In contrary to the many negative points I wrote down, it is not bad of a movie at all. It does not reach classic heights or big majestic scenes, but you will be interested in it as long as you like the AI kind of Science Fiction. I especially liked how the movies seems to have a bit of a slower pace than is the standard nowadays, which I can appreciate.
I expected a bad movie, but I got a fun action movie with a surprising high amount of enjoyment.
It is fast paced with good action. Yes the story is really thin, but that's to be expected from a movie like this. In the end the story was actually better than I expected it to be.
Filled with cliché's and all, but enjoyable. Can't call it a bad movie.
I feel kinda cheated from that fake out with Picard his death. I don't know why the writers tried to put several high emotional stakes into 1 episode, with several of them feeling unneeded, while neglecting many loose threads.
Overall, this show is very good, but after this episode I have a feeling some of the writers have difficulty with creating overall story structure. With (high budget) series being more and more like movies these days (and this series definitely having the allure of one) I also expect more from the writers to treat the stories and characters with more consistency, and not cram too many different stories to follow or (fake) drama into a show. They chose for a season overarching story instead of an episodic one, so a disappointment at the end like this affects the whole show, not just a single episode (although the cracks started to show in the last episode already.)
It is not just Picard's death fake out. Rios and Agnes matching was dumb (but at least it was a hinted at, although without clear explanation) and made no sense for either of the characters. Seven of Nine and Raffi (which tbh was my least favourite character to begin with) romantic involvement tease at the end felt like I was watching The CW network, and made completely 0 sense. Starfleet (Riker) flying in last minute also looked like a result of the writers getting stuck. Soji her motivation for her choices were remarkably underdeveloped. Why did the Borg cube weapons have to be activated, when it is not used at all, except to get abused by the villain. Why do all the synths just agree with whatever Soj/Sutra/Saga say or want. What are the flowers? So many questions are left unanswered, so why did they introduce all those things so close to the end of the season?
I hoped the evil synth overlords would enter the stage, and turn out to be very different than anyone would have expected. I think that would have been far more interesting, match better with Star Trek themes (curiosity and exploration)
I feel disappointed after having a pretty good run this season, that they ended it like this.
With the latest live action translation 'Cruella', Disney is trying to mimic the successful formula used for 'Maleficent',. Take an antagonist from one of their classics and switch her to an anti-hero protagonist. Pulling the same trick twice is difficult, even for veterans with big artistic freedoms, the strong studio influences don't do them many favors either.
Disney's firm grip on its own material is understandable, but as we see time and time again is more often than not problematic for most of their current live-action translations. There is not much in the story of 'Cruella' that makes any of the characters very relatable or recognizable for people unknown with the 'source' material. Unlike the 2014 'Maleficent' there is no redeeming villain act in 'Cruella', neither is there a positive message (or any clear one at all for that matter) in the film. Add to that some repetitive and dragging scenes, only kept together by flashy visuals and music. I am unsure this is a movie you want to show to your kids, and for adults it can be rather dull.
Most problematic is the soundtrack. First of all, the choice for a focus on rock & roll and especially punk music is very complementary with the themes in the movie (although the whole status/fashion part of that is contradictory.) However, the songs often feel very forced and only superficially connected to what is happening on screen. Secondly, the movie is simply to family friendly to really be able to carry any sort of punk theme. The mix with Disco and R&B was a mystery to me, especially when 'Car Wash' played i was totally taken out of the movie. There is also an overload of well known songs to be recognized by the audience, not contributing much to the film.
Absolutely the most positive part in this film is the acting. Emma Thompson is impressive and steals the show in this movie. Even though Emma Stone performs great, Thompson kind of outshines her most of the time. Emma Stone is a great actress though, and she does notably well here too. Especially noteworthy is Emma Stone her use of voice. She clearly studied the original voice actor for Cruella wel, and her use and tone of voice is done very accurately and fitting.
Besides the acting and some nice visuals every now and then there is not much value in this movie to put your time in. An overly long runtime, unclear or poor message and a soundtrack that does not do more than a good Spotify playlist drag down the movie as a whole. If you want to see Emma (any of them) shine, it can be worth the watch though.
With a good cast and some good ideas it is disappointing this movie does not achieve more than the average cop crime thriller.
The ideas are there, and at several points the movie tips its toes into intriguing territories. However, it avoids to tackle the themes and questions it sets up, which results in frustrating moments and it lets the movie as a whole fall way below the potential it had. Even though it does not manage to outshine some of the other movies in its genre, it still is a decent movie to watch.
A bit of a messy episode, mostly prelude to this seasons conclusion episodes and main enemy.
Not a bad movie, but not very original either nor does it really challenge the viewer. Even though it has an original source material, you always have the feeling you've seen this one before. It doesn't help either it is so closely comparable to Intouchables (which is a way better film imho and not as predictable.)
Decent acting, decent script, decent camera work, decent story. Everything is just a little bit too run of the mill and average for it to really get to shine. But then again, it isn't a waste of time either.
With 2 strong leads and 2 good supporting characters this movie did not disappoint in the acting department. Dialogue was quite nice too. But the whole story (and especially the ending) left me unsatisfied.
Surprisingly good movie, with an extremely low budget.
In this fictional documentary we start of with the surprising news humankind won an alien invasion and survived for a change. In the almost 90 minutes that follow we see the soldiers of a military outpost base battling the remaining aliens in the region and a unique sci-fi war story.
Although this movie wouldn't be considered 'great' by many, it is not as bad as its ratings do make believe. The visuals are pretty nice, but not overdone, the story is surprising at points, and directing choices are somewhat unique.
This makes the whole movie feel very realistic. The Direct Cinema technique (making use of hand-held cameras and the cameraman being a part of the story) amplifies this heavily. The low budget doesn't hurt its realism either.
Having such a low budget does has its downside. The aliens are drawn into the movie pretty late, they couldn't fix the fact that some scenes do feel like being on a set and some of the dialogue and text is a bit corny. The writers even do a (misfired) wink to the Afganistan war. That kind of political symbolism is painfully misplaced in a movie with an overdone amount of macho men.
And even though they do an elaborate effort to make you familiar with the mediocre cast, they don't really stick for the most part. The General might be an exception on this.
However, the aliens do look really badass and so do most of the props used by them and the human props are neat too. The action scenes are solid as well, with a lot of explosions (don't worry, it is not Michael Bay-like) and changing environments.
One of the biggest plot problems is probably on how the soldiers managed to advance, enter and destroy the (most important) base of the aliens with less firepower and more resistance than they had to endure at their own base, but they lost that. Even though they were 1 man down. I have to say they do lose more men at the alien base.
The second problem is the lack of answers the movie provides. You are left wondering why the 'heavy' want to conquer the earth, and they are really teasing you with the 'metal rain' and after-the credits scene they provide us with.
Maybe they hope on a sequel, with a bigger budget. And to be honest, even with all the bad points this movie has, I am all for it.
"Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others."
This was a much anticipated movie for me, so I really wanted to give it a proper sit down and give it my full attention. It turned out it needed it too. The movie falls into the category 'hella long' and with the different story lines, sometimes difficult to understand accents and philosophic punch it feels even longer.
With it being based on a book (which I didn't read) that has 6 separate stories with a specific order, this could not have been translated to the big screen without changing the structure of the stories. So it got chopped into many different smaller pieces and throughout the movie the viewer jumps from one story to another.
It makes for a more proper build up, but it unfortunately also created a big mess that must've been hard to follow for at least a part of the viewers. You can see even the actors having some difficulty with it at times.
It is obvious right from the start that this movie is aiming for a more intellectual public and wants to deliver a wide spectrum of ideas and views. It tries its very best, and succeeds in a multitude of ways, but never grasps the feeling of completion. As much as it brings out a message of everything is connected, the script might have needed a few more rewrites to make it more interconnected itself.
You could argue it is either too long with no strong red line, or too short to succeed in making the connection between stories and between audience and characters. There are the obvious crossovers; like a flashback to a previous story in time and the recurring actors, plus some (broad) recurring themes. But besides that it doesn't link the stories together well enough.
There are many great actors in many different roles they handle quite well. I was especially surprised by Hugh Grant as an oil company executive. Hugo Weaving is, unfortunately, type-casted as the villain in every storyline. He does a great job of course, but with such a diversity of stories and settings I expected him to get a good guy out of it as well. (Besides maybe during the very last scene as an interrogator.)
Also Korean actress Bae Doo Na was a treat playing a sort of 'ghost in the shell' girl in futuristic Neo Seoul. I think something the Wachowski's had a lot of fun with.
It is an interesting and entertaining movie to watch, and I think it is best to watch it at least two or three times. But doing that would just take too much time for making it really worth your while.
There probably will be people who will absolutely love this movie completely, but it is not me. Seeing the 75% rating on trakt is about the best it gets on the internet I am fairly confident to say it isn't for the masses either.
A lot of the actors in this movie usually play depth-less side charachter or have main roles in B films, but somehow they managed to do better with this one. The plot has some interesting premises as well.
Unfortunately it still doesn't get that magic touch it needs to make it magnificent. This is probably because of the relatively short length compared to the amount of story they want to tell. It will leave you with a sense of surrealism because it is hard to identify yourself with the characters. My guess is this might be as a result of poor directing choices or a budget issue.
It will probably always be banned to a cult scene or late night tv.
Pretty straightforward and fun adventure movie, although does not come close to the greats in its genre. Overall it is pretty shallow and Mark and Tom's comedic talents are wasted on the poor jokes, but it still manages to be one of the best video game adaptations ever made. The bar for that is very low of course, but an achievement nonetheless.
Besides being a thrilling high octane chase movie there is not much here.
While this could be considered as one of Bay his better movies, maybe on par with 'The Island', it still inherits a lot of the flaws that plague many of Bay his films. Especially the editing is of horrendous quality not usually seen with directors and editors with this level of experience. Story is razor thin and of course character writing is non-existent.
95% of the movie is fast paced action that can best be described as an extended theatrical cut of a (good) GTA (Grand Theft Auto) mission.
Where Bay does (not totally unexpected) excel with 'Ambulance' is in the relentless action pounding your screen scene after scene, without giving much room to breathe. And it does create an effective thrill for a big part of the movie. Although there are moments when the lack of more calmer parts start to wear you down.
It is also quite fun to see the actors, especially Gyllenhaal, are having a lot of fun with the material.
The result is still a thrilling, perhaps even entertaining, experience that will probably be forgotten by most in the foreseeable future.
With over 90 comments already existing, I will keep it short.
It looks like the two writers responsible for this movie bit off more than they can chew. Looking at their experience, they were involved in some rather questionable movies already, with the best ones being comedy. I think this is what resulted in (some of the) the poor character decisions, awkward tone shifts between sci-fi horror, thriller-action and even comedy, and some poor plot decisions.
Surprising entertainment with a Mexican mythology background. Besides that it is a one time watch only movie with a basic unsurprising story.
It even needs a few familiar songs to make it more appealing. Didn't feel like a movie where the creators really put in their heart, and were more concerned with the artwork and animation than the rest of the movie.
ok show, but understandable it got canceled. I thought it would be a 26 eps 1 season thing with the title though.
As with all racing movies, this is not a good movie on itself.
But keep in mind this movie is a tribute to the games, and not an act to try to make a movie that can stand on itself. So do not expect anything about story or characters. This movie is all about fast awesome cars and racing them.
It was easily better than any of the Fast and Furious movies, mainly because they used better scenery, cars and camera work. They definitely have people more experienced with car filming than the crew from FaF.
The main pleasure point about the movie are the references and camera actions that came straight from the game. I did think they could've added a bit more cockpit views and 'behind the car' looks like in NFS itself. The constant shifting from left to right behind the car disappointed me.
I would give the movie a 4/10 but the racing shots + the NFS experience are really giving the movie extra points. So I will give it an undeserved 6/10 from me.
This one is probably in the category: "worst of the best Disney animations of the past few years."
It has the good and lovely mood of the better Disney movies, and it does have a decent CGI and some great songs.
However, the storyline is so incredibly dull and unoriginal. And a lot of problems have pretty lame solutions.
If you had to choose 1, better go with Tangled or Brave (which are of the same style.)