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The 'Burbs is a crazy comedy playing in a street in the suburbs called Mayfield Place, and it's inhabitants live the typical suburbian life: people perfectly mow their lawn, everybody greets their neighbours at the morning when picking up the newspaper, the veterans hoist the American flag, and everybody is angry about the neighbours who let their dogs take a dump at ones lawn. And one talks, all the time, and especially about tne new neighbours. Especially if they have an unamerican name such as "Klopek", you never see them and your son tells you, that he saw them digging in their garden at night; they have strange bin bags in their trash cans and they don't care about their garden! Is there something wrong with them?

This movie dances on the thin wire between being serious and being absurd - many things are exaggerated and therefore absurd and funny; still it also manages to be a serious caricature of the typical suburban live (similar to series such as Desperate Housewives - which by the way has a street that looks extremely similar). It also shows how people manage bluster into something extreme. Also this movie has a couple of comedic references to movie classics, such as Once Upon a Time in the West, Rear Window, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, etc. You will realize that Joe Dante normally produces horror movies (e.g. Gremlins, The Howling and Piranha are three of his movies). Many of his sets are therefore also used before in other movies (e.g. sets from Jaws). And if you are not into movie references, then maybe you might get interested if you hear about the cast? On the one hand, we have a 1988 Tom Hanks, who I have never seen looking younger. Wow. And even without the experience in acting he is great - a natural. But he's not alone - we also get Carrie Fisher, and wow! We all know her from Star Wars, and we all like her well known character Princess Leia. But wow, in the 'Burbs she is so much better - and that's coming from me, a Star Wars fan! If you liked her in Star Wars, go watch this one. She's at least 10 times better!

I was really well entertained and had a lot to laugh with this 80s charme comedy movie and therefore award it 8/10 points.

Wow. Only a 69% rating and no comments? I cannot let that stand as it is, so here's a short review. I have watched this movie countless times since I first saw it, and it was one of my "must haves" movie collection wise. I still only have it on DVD, but in my opinnion this movie deserves an collectors edition re-release on blu-ray as well.

What we get is a modern kind of western, somewhere down south, near the mexican border in the 1930s, where John Smith, portrait by Bruce Willis is getting into a ghost town that is inhabited by two rival gangs, one of italian the other of irish origin. John Smith, being an excellent gunman, is drawn into this fight by accident, but instead of leaving as soon as he can, he sees opportunity, playing both ends against the middle for personal profit. But while it starts out to be great, in the end it turns out, that John Smith isn't as ruthless as he likes to appear, which is his downfall.

I used to love the 80s and 90s action movies with Will Smith, and if you do too, you'll get a movie that you've got to love. It's hard, it's brutal, it's Will Smith at his best, it has a marvelous scenery, this ghost town in the desert is perfect for the movie and adds to this gerat atmosphere, and the story - though simple - is not too bad either; plus point are the monologs and the ingenious plan that Will Smith has, and that nearly works out to perfection.

It's not deep in any ways, it does not have a deeper meaning, it has no added value, it doesn't even reinvent the wheel - this is credited as a remake of Akira Kurosawas Yojimbo, and the producers also list the heavy influence of A Fistful of Dollars (which has a nearly identical plot); then again - that movie doesn't have neither Bruce Willis nor Christopher Walken, both really great actors that play perfectly in this movie - but also all the other actors are really gerat and so in the end, you'll get a modern western that is fun watching - if you are into those things.

I know, 10/10 will seem much overrated for many, and I probably wouldn't have given it this rating, if I'd watched it nowadays. However, given the countless times I've already watched and enjoyed this movie (mostly during my youth, but even nowadays I do enjoy it from time to time), I think it has earned these 10/10 - at least in my account.

This is a really great movie, with some disturbing imagery. David Ayer wanted to capture the everyday life of police officers in one of the most criminal districts: South Central Los Angeles, in a way that hadn't been done before; of course there are many movies that play in South Central Los Angeles, such as Colors, Boyz N the Hood, South Central, or Training Day, and especially compared to Colors you can find a number of similarities. Still, Ayer makes good on his promise: Similar to Colors we get a movie that in the first half seems totally random, we follow two around two cops, experiencing a lot of ugly stuff and soon some of these events lead to bigger events that unfold dramatically.

Different to Colors, however, Ayer focuses on the two cops. These are both young and in the beginning of their careers, and as two young guys their heads are full of shit, while their hearts are still in the right place. Even though being highly trained and professional when it comes to the job, they fool around a lot, and often just push their damn luck. They seem different at the beginning, yet they call each other brothers and you soon get to know why: Being in a car with each other nearly 8hrs a day makes for a really special friendship. In the Interviews Peña says that a third of the movie plays in the car, and I don't feel like that's an over-exaggeration. What's also interesting about this movie is, that for probably half of the movie "found footage" like shots where used. Gyllenhaals character "Brian Taylor" is filming his everyday for a class project, and both carries a camcorder with him as well as having his partner and himself wearing body cams on their shirts. Besides we often also get "ego perspective", especially when they move in somewhere with weapons drawn. Other great "found footage" like shots include cameras mounted on long weapons filming towards the actors, dashbord cams, etc.

These are however mixed with real camera work, and different to most found footage horror movies they are not used as long single shots, but all these different approaches are edited together to form great scenes. The pacing switches from slow scenes that are mostly driven by dialogue or off-duty scenes that seem mundane (e.g. the day that Brian has off with his girlfriend and has a special date planned from which we only get to see the drive with both of them singing to music playing on the radio), but that in their very special ways convey so much emotions, that makes you really love all of these characters, with all their quirks and idiosyncrasies. In contrast we get these highly thrilling on-duty scenes that are either packed with suspense or with fast pace action. Acting-wise we get a number of high ranking actors such as Anna Kendrick, Maurice Compte, Frank Grillo or David Harbour who just play small supporting roles with minimal screen time. The main focus lies on Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, and both are so good and excellent in their roles that you cannot imagine this movie with any other actor in their place.

So all in all this is a shocking movie with a - to me - really unexpected ending that shocked me. However, I found it could have had an even deeper impact if the ending was slightly different, and I would have loved it if it wasn't for the last scene.

Hey "Mortal Engines" - look at this: This is how it's done!

Both of these movies play in the steampunk/cyberpunk genre setting, both movies are about revenge, both movies have a female lead with a male sidekick that is also somewhat of a love interest, and both movies play in a fantastic world that has different rules and different factions. Both movies are CGI heavy and heave a lot of action/fighting scenes and a final enemy as well as sub-boss - everything such as it was with "Mortal Engines". With costs of $150m and $170m both movies are even in the same league budget-wise.

The difference - to me - was that while I was really interested in "Mortal Engines" I wasn't really sure what to expect from Alita, and after Mortal Engines being really bad (see my Trackt-Review here: https://trakt.tv/comments/209128) I wasn't too interested in watching this - we even pushed the cinema reservation 3 times before finally watching this (unfortunately it then wasn't shown in 3D anymore).

But be assured: Other than the similarities mentioned above, these movies don't share much else - especially quality-wise there is an enormous gap between both movies.

The plot: In a dystopian future the offspring of the survivors of "The Fall", a mysterious event in which all but one sky cities crashed back down to earth - the junkyard of the sky cities, the offspring of the survivors of the sky city falls spend their time with robotic enhancements, playing Motorball or being a Hunter-Warrior, while dreaming of getting the chance to move to Zalem, the last floating sky city, where live is rumored to be paradisaical.
In this setting Dr. Dyson Ido, a earth dwelling doctor and scientist and expert in cyborgs, finds parts of a cyborg in the waste-dumps of Zalem: An intact brain and heart combination - and he rebuilds her: Alita however does not remember anything from her past, and tries to make sense of what's happening around her as well as her origin.

So much for the plot. As you can see, there is a lot of plot already in this really short extract that I gave you. This is probably the biggest negative aspect: To get all of this background into one film. The movie manages this arguably quite well - if you are someone who needs an explanation for everything right from the get-go, you will probably have your problems with the story. If you can, however, just accept what you are given, and - so to speak - step into the brain of Alita who experiences everything from a clean slate as well, you wont have that much problems. I am of the second kind - I like comic books and in comic books it's often like that: You get presented a situation that you do not fully understand but you just appreciate the artworks, the little explanations that you get, and how the story unfolds. Alita is doing just that. And it's doing it very well:

With Christoph Waltz and Rosa Salazar we already get two really talented and lovable characters. Of course, Rosa Salazar is totally computerized and the thing that will stick with you right from the very first trailer are her huge eyes that make her look unnatural. Her CGI is however done extremely well, her facial mimics look ingenious and so you really like her right from the beginning. And this is a great plus - you find her likable and you identify with her (something Mortal Engines did not achieve at all). She is really cute in her naive ways, but you also realize right form the beginning, that she has her own mind, a great sense for justice and that she is extremely brave. After having established these two characters and the father-daugther bond that is to be, new characters get introduced, and while I was excited to see Jennifer Connelly her role is unfortunately a minor one. However, Ed Skrein as an enemy and Keean Johnson as love interest are really interesting characters. I really liked Keean's character Hugo and though that he and Alita had really great chemistry. And that's really seldom in a CGI and a Human character - but here it works absolutely excellent. There are other

Talking about the CGI: It's absolutely gorgeous. Everything looks great and realistic, and - different to most other CGI movies - you still get the felling that what's happening is intense and has consequences. This makes the fight scenes thrilling, e.g. when Alita faces Grewishka, and starts taking damage, this is actually pretty intense.

The running time of over 2h is pretty long, still you never feel bored or overwhelmed by fighting scenes and you never start asking "is the end near yet" - once or twice I wondered how it would end, just because we where already sitting at the cinema for a long time, and I dreaded an open end. Unfortunately in the end that's exactly what you get - an open end. Yet it didn't bother me as much as it bothers me with most other open endings - in a way this movie gets to a really satisfying closure in it self. Of course, it doesn't even begin to address even half of the questions that you might have, e.g. who is Nova, why is he doing what he's doing? Who is Alita, was her origin on the good side, or actually on the bad? Who threw her away, when and with what purpose? And what did she do all that time in Zalem? What was the Great Fall, why did it happen, who are the Martians, etc. pp.

Actually you might wonder if this movie did answer any question at all, and well - probably it didn't. But never the less, we get a really satisfying end. An ending however, that cries for a sequel, and I really really really hope that we do get to see one. This is of course unclear, due to this being probably the last movie that Fox has made as Fox (i.e. not under Disney), and Boxoffice results not being as high as expected, due to probably also many negative preliminary critics that I cannot share at all.

On the negative side however, I would say that over all the story isn't reinventing anything. It's a fish-out-of-water plot, you know who the end-bosses will be and the story develops in just the direction you'd expect, with a number of precursors.

I had a lot of fun in cinemas, I was really captivated, I loved the setting, I loved the characters, the CGI, the plot as it evolved. For me this is a must see, for anyone interested in cyberpunk/steampunk-ish movies.

I have to say, I was a bit scared about this movie as the critics I've heard beforehand where all rather negative. But: The movie was really good, and I enjoyed it a lot.

I've seen it in 3D and it was one of the best 3D movies I've seen lately, so I can really recommend watching it in 3D. The setting was really great, and I liked it quite a bit better than the first Fantastic Beasts ; we get a great 1920s vibe, the look is incredible. We are mainly in London and England, and we get to see a lot of new magical creatures and again, what I really liked was that this movie is opening doors and becomes a bit more "international" - so instead of just the creatures of our own mythology (dragons, unicorns, centaurs, giants) we get Asian and South American folklore creatures such as Kappas, Chupacabras, Zouyus, etc. And to me, this is what "Fantastic Beasts and where to find them" is still a main aspect that this series should be all about - expanding the known British magical universe told in Harry Potter to both, new locations as well as new creatures and folklore. Of course as it is closely connected to the Harry Potter universe, there are also a few references, and a number of new background information is provided to a number of characters - some where interesting and of course this is majorly done as fan service. Most of the time I thought that this wasn't necessary, though and I could have lived without them.

What I did enjoy though, where the effects, and I think they where even much better than the in the first movie - with one exception those hairless cats in the French ministry of magic? Seriously: WTF?! Did the budget for the animator run out and so they hired an intern?! It looked like CGI we know from cheap television series such as Xena or Buffy. Other than that, however, I loved the effects, and also the tone that is set in this movie - different to the first one, this one is really dark and grim the entire time - the cuddly aspect of the first one that is spiked with funny jokes and "aww" moments of the first movie are nearly entirely gone. Instead we get to experience an evil emperor like person (a new "Hitler"-like character if you will) slowly gain power and influence with ideas that are horrible but still find their followers. The movie walks into a lot of new territory: becoming more political and mature than any other movie in the Potter universe, but also more dramatic and sad. And I really like that.

Acting-wise everybody is again on a very high level. Eddie Redmayne plays as lovely as in the first movie and I really like the Newt Scamander character. Katherine Waterson is great as well but has much less screen time than in the last movie (unfortunately) and Alison Sudol is again totally charming and beguiling, and one of my favorite characters in this series. But of course everyone was most interested in Johnny Depp and Jude Law; when hearing about the cast I was more covinced of Depp than of Law, but in the end both where really great. Law's Dumbledore is so good that you can really see him as the young version of Dumbledore as we have known him for 8 movies - something that is really hard to achieve. And Depp had one of his greatest performances since probably a decade? Perfectly on spot, never too much, never boring, giving you the chills especially during his monologue.

When talking with other Potter-Fans the greatest criticism I heard was the character break of Qeenie, and I was puzzled as well, but in the end, I see so many little aspects that might give you hints of what might have happened take for instance, the tea scene. What was that all about? Why do they obtrusively try to give her tea which she declines the entire time? Also she is not at his side from the beginning and even raises her wand once he enters - however we never get to know what the talked about - the movie cuts away - maybe something that is revealed in a later movie?, and I can somehow empathize with her - given that it is 6 months later and in all this time she has suffered a lot under the society and their conventions that do not fit her unconventional choice. So even though some of her actions seem extreme and at first glance unreasonable, try to put yourself into her shoes and think of the situation as something so frustrating with no way out where everyone works against you, and then finally you get a "way out". Is her action still so unrealistic?

Another criticism is of course the open end, and the fact that this movie does not proceed in any way. And I share that feeling - but it's exactly the same way I felt about "The Two Towers" - in the end you can say "well great, Sam and Frodo are at the same situation they where in right when the movie started". Of course, story-wise we don't get any progression. But it's not about the story, but rather about building up characters and their emotions and motivations, putting all the pieces together for a great finale, and I myself find that "The Crimes of Grindlewald" does this perfectly and while doing so there is a lot of good stuff going on, character-wise. Also I do believe in J. K. Rowling - she presented as with Harry Potter and had a master plan and an ending that heavily relied on character trades and actions that happened right in the first book - she had a plan - a great one, that unfolded itself over 7 books that where written subsequently as the story progressed, and I cannot imagine that she worked differently when conceptualizing "Fantastic Beasts". So even though the ending seems strange and does not appear to make any sense, I think one should bare with it, and see where the journey will end. Many other movies (such as Infinity War) get better critics even though it is totally clear to everyone that they will just undo everything done in that movie, making it both meaningless and boring. Why be so hard with a movie where everything still is absolutely open?

I myself was really excited - I enjoyed the movie a lot, I think it's worth watching a second time to look into details overlooked the first time, I enjoyed the characters, the magic, the discovery of new worlds - all in all, I really had good fun and liked this one even better than the first movie.

One of the comic heroes from the DC universe that I never understood: Aquaman.

I mean, seriously, why? He's an underwater leader with superpowers that include everything under water, but all of a sudden he becomes a land super hero and one of the memebers of Justice league? I don't really get that.

So I was really uninterested in this character, both in Justice League as also in his solo movie. And even though in Justice League Jason Momoas Aquaman was one of the positive aspects of the movie, I still wasn't really interested in the solo movie. This only changed when I saw the trailer, and somehow I got interested in the movie and so I watched it at the cinemas.

And I have to say: I really enjoyed the movie. It is of course the typical 2010s comic movie, i.e. you get your hero on the one side with some kind of origin story and you get your super villain on the other side - the entire movie works towards those two meeting for the final showdown and on the way to that moment, the superhero has to prove himself and fight hoards of enemy minions. All story elements are exchangable and only needed as vehicle to bring the hero from one action scene to the next, and all in all everything was forseeable in the first 10-20 minutes, and it happens exactly the way you expected it. I used to love those movies in the beginning, but after 10 years of Marvel making these a mass production consumable, I am actually pretty fatigued.

And yet, this movie does a number of things differently, even if only in small doses and nuances. We get the typical dark DC look in the beginning, the lighthouse scene could have been part of BvS or MoS, then all of a sudden we switch to an absolutely colorful popping setting which is neat to see and explore. The underwater world, the techniques these Aquapeople use, the design - this is really great. It's the same feeling that you get when watching Black Panther: You dive into a new, cool, interesting world that is fun to explore, and that is both, bound to nature as well as technologically far beyond the standards we can imagine. However, I would have liked a bit more details, a bit more of this interesting world (Black Panther is a bit better in that regard).

Different to the typical Marvel movies this title again takes itself serious, which has two interesting effects:
1.) The really rare funny moments surprise you, and you have great fun with those. This is so different to Marvel, where I sometimes just sit there and am really tired of the jokes (worst experience for me was Thor Ragnarok. It was the dullest super hero movie I've watched so far). I did not have to smile that many time in most other super hero movie.
2.) There are scenes and setups that seem "willingly unwillingly funny", like some kind of meta joke (if you know what I mean): The movie takes itself serious, so no one is there throwing around one-liners. However the scene is definitely willingly a bit over the top, which in itself is funny, even though there is no forced joke. I hope you get what I mean, this is hard to explain (at least for a non-native English speaker :D ).

We know that every hero needs it's villain, and an action movie really rises and falls with the quality of it's villain. Especially lately most movies have really shallow and weak villains, and again, James Wan knows to surprise. Again like in Black Panther we get a strong antagonist that has a motivation for his actions - a motivation that is comprehensible and human. Showing human characteristics is a strong suite of this movie and does not stop at the villain, but also includes our hero. Even Aquaman isn't free from human errors, makes mistakes, lives with guilt pangs, even creates his antagonists, and Aquaman makes some decisions that will surprise you and that make you think off movies like Sam Raimis Spiderman.

Speaking of the characters: The cast is of course great as well. Jason Momoa has aloready proven himself in Justice League and is once again really great. The supporting cast is not bad either: We get Nicole Kidman (is she ever getting old? I feel like she looks as good as she did 20 years ago O.o ), Willam Dafoe or Dolph Lundgren - and of course Amber Heard as redheaded mermaid - great actors that all play pretty solid - however these characters unfortunately don't get enough screentime or background, so they stay really shallow.

An action movie needs action, and while with all these comic movies this action is usually a CGI thunderstorm. Yet, Aquaman does not only give you CGI carnage. There are also scenes that at least seem like hand made practical effects - there is an entire fast pace action pursuit on the roofs of Sicily; it seems somewhat strange in a super hero movie and has a strange contrast to all those slow-mo CGI fight scenes that are made to be totally epic (somewhat like scenes in Thor Ragnarök). Still it works.

We also get a number of references to other movies, such as Jurassic Park, Fast and Furious and Mad Max - and director James Wan (known for movies such as Saw, Insidious, Conjuring or Furious 7) has said that he put a number of Eastereggs from his other movies into this film - I did not find any, but am sure that there will be an Annabell doll somewhere?

There are some great settings arround the world, such as the Indian Ocean, Sicily, the Sahara - when the credits roll, you'll get a huge list of locations this movie was shot in (from Australia to Canada nearly every coastal country gets mentioned). And last but not least: If you are a comic book fan, and where annoyed about the looks of Aquaman in Justice League - don't worry! You'll get a great lot of Momoa in a skin tight green-yellow spandexy-looking body suit!

I think I've listed a good amount of positive things regarding this movie - if you like super hero movies, you cannot go wrong with this movie. If you are like me and used to like super hero movies, but are now feeling a slight Marvel-featured fatigue, you cannot go wrong either. If however you never ever liked any of these movies at all, this will not change your mind: The movie is deeply rooted in it's 2010s super hero movie time, it knows it's typical DC-roots and honors them, it also knows about Marvel and their success - it uses all of this in it's movie but in the end it also goes it's own way - a lot of times this movie is somewhat over the top, in certain camera angles, in the effects, in pathos, even in the love sequences (there is a incredible long kissing scene where the camera actually slowly moves around the kissing couple three times!) - but all in a very charming way that not only seems like a humorist take of the producers of this movie - it also works. And all the while this movie does not turn into a laughingstock like most of the latest Marvel movies do. You get the typical weaknesses every super hero movie has, but a few of them where actually address - in the end, you get something worth watching, something that will give you a good time.

Watch it in cinemas if you can!

This movie was a long time on my bucket list, and finally there was a release of the uncut version on Blu-ray in Germany last year (there was only the R-rated verison on DVD available in Germany, even though the Cinema and VHS verison used to be the unrated cut!). Interesting movie that starts really weak, but then gets better and better. We first have Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), the first murder victim and I did not enjoy this part of the movie at all. It's main part is the museum sequence, and though I get that there are some interesting ideas, that are conveied by her watching the lovers, the family, the kid that runs of, and the guy hitting at a woman, and how it is connected to what she is going through in her thoughts and emotionally. But in all it was too long and especially the chase scene is - though greatly filmed - not really getting anywhere, and adds some stupid elements to the movie - I mean, especially Kate - how stupid is she?

First she want's to get the attention of the guy, then she takes of her glove, to show off with her wedding ring? Naturally he walks away, so she follows without realizing that she looses her glove. Running through this museum we get the scene where he touches her shoulder with the glove and she sees it, but doesn't recognize that it is her glove? Then, only when walking away, and looking at the map she realizes that she is only wearing one glove? How much feelings does she have in her hands? So, she remembers that she took it off and mus have lost it, but not finding it, again she starts thinking and remembers him wearing it (great job, only figuring that out now!)
So she storms out, and throws away her other glove right at the steps (why? And how rude is that?), only to get lured into the taxi by this stranger waving her other glove. So because she wants it back, so gets to him (regardless that she just threw out her other glove, so she would still be ending up with only one glove?! They start making out in the Taxi and at his home, and when she wakes up, she get's all dressed, writes a note, we have a lot of situations where she looks at her hand - all of a sudden she realizes that she is not wearing any panties (really?! Wtf is wrong with the sensitivity of your skin, lady?!), so she searches his appartment, does not find it, then remembers that she dropped it at the Taxi so it's probably still there, she puts on all her other jewlery except her ring, which until now she did not realize was missing, goes into the elevator, drives down, then realizes that she is missing her ring, thinks about where she could have left it, only to remember that it was besides her watch in his appartment, so she drives back up again.
How stupid is she?

And then there are silly coincidences that actually make no sense

We see the killer, he sees how she drives down with the elevator, but decides to stay just where he is, in case she comes back up - and because she forgot her ring, she does? And runs into him standing there, ready with his razor blade?!

This scene in my oppinion - as some others - are just lazy script writing. They needed a situation, so they created one without thinking two steps ahead.

However from there on I consider it to get better - the scene where Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) is introduced and meets with Kate Miller in the elevator has some ingeniouty in it, and is fun to watch and to experience. Of course there are minor things that don't add up, but Nancy Allen is not only a far better actress, also her character is far more interesting and smart, and with her also the movie picks up the pace and adds some interesting and thrilling scenes, right up to the final, where we see a lot of her that is really beautiful :)

On the downsides, however, I did not enjoy some prejedices the movie proclaims. Take for instance the "punks" - of course they are all black no-goods that assult beautiful women out of nowhere and try to rape her. Of course, the black police officer does not believe a word, of course anyone wanting a sex change must be a psychopath. Not cool. Even for a movie that is from the 1980s, I think it is a bit too much. But okey. Those are only side effects and nothing the movie proclaims as one of its main thesises.

So to sum up, it starts slow and bad, I did not like the acting of Angie Dickinson so much, as well as her character - but it gets better with Nancy Allen, who is great in all departments. Of course we also have a strong Michael Caine, and a believable sidekick with joung Keith Gordon as Peter Miller, the son of Kate. And Dennis Franz, who plays a typical - but in it's acting good and believable - detective. In the second half the movie gets really interesting, we have a lot of scenes that remind me of old Hitchcock movies, but we also have a number of Giallo references, kind of a: "What if Hitchcock had shot Gialli?" sort of movie. And I enjoyed that part.

Normally I would not review a different cut seperately, but with this movie things are most definately different. "Lisa e il diavolo" is the original Italian title that was first translated into English as "Lisa and the devil", and should have been released in 1972. It was the one movie that Mario Bava put most of his work into, his final great movie, where everything should have been the way he wanted it to be. However, due to some problems with finding potential buyers, producer Alfredo Leone forced Mario Bava into editing the movie. This was not because of bad critics - everyone at the filmfestivals who saw the movie was excited, however noone was in the market. Leone acted like an businessman, analysed the market and jumped on the train that was currently hyped. And that of course was "The Exorcist"; so Leones vision: Let's turn the movie into an Exorcist movie. So even years later after the movie was already finished, Leone reassembled the cast, and made them shoot additional scenes that should alter the movie entirely. What used to be a nightmare like reallity is this time turned into the wild dreams of a girl (Lisa) posessed by the devil. So we get as new scenes how she gets possessed, then how she is deliverd to a hospital, how she turns crazy and how finally priests are gathered to exorcise the demon in her. And while this is happening, we always cut into scenes of the old movie showing her nightmare-visions. It is a totally different movie, and it is totally bad. The atmosphere that Bava created with his original is totally broken, the new scenes that mostly consists of disgusting pictures, obscenities, and nudity are bait-like and where shot despite the explicit whishes by Bava to not have such scenes in his movie (he actually - as a director - left the room when these scenes where shot, because he wanted no part of it).

What we end up with is a movie that is more direct than Bavas original, easier to grasp, with fewer wearisome lenghts, but also movie that loses nearly its entire atmosphere, that has no originallity anymore, no metaphors or symbolism, plus some things that are actually never said in the original movie but are implied for the viewer to find out himself, are simply put into the dialog by just watching Lisa and the Devil the first time I did not grasp that this movie has for example a part that is about impotence. So in the end this movie gets irrelevant, and that is something that even the critics realized - Leones vision backfired - instead on hopping on to the Exorcism train and giving the people yet another movie they would want to see, people realized it to be a blatant rip-off and therefore was denounced.

That already being bad enough, Bavas original vision was litrally butchered, and he was not okey with it (he actually changed his name on the credits to 'Mickey Lion' because of this), and never even saw this version which was the only one in cinemas. He still read the critics and those made him really sad - it should have been a master piece and his final great work before retiring, but in the end it became a cold and soulless movie created for just financial profit-making. The sadest thing: Mario Bava did not even see his original version being released - he died with the knowledge of nearly no one having seen his masterwork (except for France, where it was released in the original cut at cinemas, but for the home release also only this cut was released) and thinking that no one will ever see it. Only in 2012 where for the first time both versions released - and the original version is much better rated by critics and is today seen as the far superior version.

This movie is hardly critizied (at least in the German community), so this review will be a bit longer, because in many parts I disagree, even though I think there is a lot wrong. First of, I have to admit I dont like adventure movies, so movies like National Treasure, Indiana Jones and the Mummy trillogy are not my piece of cake; I haven't even fully watched the 1999 Mummy yet, so why did I go to the cinema at all? First: Tom Cruise, second: Jake Johnson (I love him as Nick Miller in the sitcom New Gril), and third: I liked the trailer. So my interest was peaked. Still not liking adventure movies I was also skeptic.

And in the beginning, my skepticisim was met: The entire frame story, introducing Nick (Tom Cruise) and Chris (Jake Johnson) and describing how they meet Jennifer (Annabelle Wallis) and how it comes that those three start recovering a sarcophagus - what a load of b... This is not realistic at all, and therefore I cannot believe it; if it was a comedy, okey (and I wasn't so sure that it's not going to be, because in the beginning it surely all pointed in that direction); but for a serious movie? At least I expect som serious story.

The first thing that was interesting to me was the actual finding of the sarcophagus; it really looked cool, they had some cool ideas like with the mercury, the mechanism, and the spiders, and the birds, etc. Why however Nick and Chris can actually abandon their job and fly with Jennifer and the sarcophagus to London? Again - story is not believable. And the logics behind the character Henry (Russel Crow) is absolutely beyond me - no that makes no sense at all! I mean seriously? We dig up a many thousand years old mummy and a some hundred yeras old templar, revive the mummy, give her the weapon to release the ultimate evil, so that we can fight it? Seriously? Why don't just put her back in the sarcophagus, fill it up with mercury again, and let her rott for eternity in a save space as this base where he is operating from is said to be?!

But we have already established this: The framing story is at best average.

And this is the most sadest thing, because the rest of the movie does a lot right - not everything, but I liked a lot of things, starting with the look. When looking at promotional pictures I laughed, because seriously? Sofia Boutella (I absolutely loved her in Star Trek Beyond as Jaylah!!!) in sexy poses being the scary mummy? Not really. But! In the movie she isn't. She eventually gets there, but it's a long journey from starting out as a corpse that can bearly crawl, into various stages of half-humanoid with a lot of wholes in her face and everywhere, up to the latests scenes, where she regains her full looks. And that's pretty cool. Also, her powers are great I loved her kiss that sucked out the live of others, turning them into zombies while simultaneously making her stronger. So when it comes to the costume, makeup, and effects (including CGI), I really liked the movie. I also enjoyed the action scenes, they where pretty well done, and I had fun watching them. When it comes to acting, both Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella do a great job. Also Russel Corw is as good as expected (but more to him later). Jake Johnson plays the role that I expected and that I love. However, I somehow found it not fitting into the general tone of the movie. Especially in the beginning I found him to be a bit annoying; however his later role I somewhat liked, expecially taking in the fact that in New Girl he's also obsessed with this. I mean the zombies - in New Girl he always wants to write his zombie novel - and now in the Mummy he gets to play one. That is pretty neat. But all in all he's just the side kick, sometimes annoying, sometimes neat, but until the end, he is not really relevant for this story at all - and even in the end, you could have found other ways; so I am a bit ambivalent about his role. Non the less, I like Jake Johnson :D
Whom I did not like at all was Annabelle Wallis. She's just means to an end, but other than taht totally irrelevant (as a character), just tagging along all the time, not funny, not interesting, not tough and able to defend her self, not intelligent, nothing. There isn't even any chemistry between her and Tom Cruise, which is why even a main plot line does not really work as it should have. So, all in all, her character could have been written better, she could have had more story impact - I mean, she's there, isn't she? And also, I think Annabelle Wallis was the possibly worst cast. She's however not irrelevant, because there is one important factor she adds to the story.

Besides this I however liked the cast (a bit more of Johnsen would have been nice, but yeah) and I think they did a good job. Another thing I really liked: the genre. I spent some time in the beginning explaining how I dislike adventure movies; well: This one starts out to be an adventure movie with some comedy scenes, but overall it is a rather dark movie, which besides action also offers some horror-elements, such as jump scares, dark and spooky creatures, and an overall dark tone. I liked that - today it might sound silly, but the mummy movies used to be horror movies from the black and white era, and even with color TV the mummy was used, e.g. by the Hammer studios as horror movie creature. So somehow this is kind of a "back to the roots" thing. Not entirely, it is also an action movie and a bit of adventure, but still.

Let's get back to Russel Crow. He is playing an interesting character, and while introducing it, I rememberd reading about the Dark Universe that Universal wants to create - something similar to MCU or DCEU but with horror movie villans (such as Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, etc.); all these will get new movies, and they will have some combining elements - apparently that is Russel Crows character Henry. All in all not bad, the scenery was also nice, you are not pushed into "hey look, our horror universe", it's quite settle, but if you know it, you'll see it (and it is not to be like in the comic movies - we won't have Dracula fighting next to Frankenstein and the Wolfman, having a war with the Invisible Man and Frankensteins Bride, or anything - all movies will stand alone - but there will be a combining component: Henry(?)). So, yes, I liked the idea - BUT: what the movies shows about Henry was - for my taste - far too much. It does not have anything to do with the main story, it totally digresses, and therefore does not fit in. Better they would have left it with the short pointers from the beginning where we meet him.

The end was suprising, and therefore good. I thought it would end the way it was forseen Tom Cruise breakes the stone, the Mummy cannot do anything, maybe the curse breaks while doing so, and in the end, they find a way of destroying her - probably with the mercury; but after Nick doing what he did I thought: Wow, and now?! - I wished the effect of his deeds would have gotten a bit more screen time - what follows was relatively short.

But all in all I was entertained, even though I wasn't that well (my contacts where itching and my 3D glasses at cinema were crooked). The movie does have some lenghty parts, but it did deliver more than I expected and I had a nice evening at the cinema. Most of the negatives I can condone - I have seen much worse. It's nothing you'd need to have seen in cinemas, but it's a nice to watch movie. I am excited about how this will go on and how the Dark Universe will further unfold - 2019 we'll get the next installment: The Bride of Frankenstein :)

I Am Not a Serial Killer tells the story of a teenage boy that realises he has shares all trades with that of serial killers. To stay in check he designs a set of rules, because he is scared of maybe becoming a serial killer if he does not follow them. However, suddenly he experiences something that makes him question himself and makes him wonder if he should "release his beast" for the greater good.

This movie is clearly a movie on a budget, however it still is of high quality. Developed over a time of six(!) years, with early concept shootings dating back to 2013, much love to detail and attention has been paid to create this movie and this shows in the movie. It is an highly atmospherical movie that consinsts of a lot of quiet scenes and a slow pace, but still does not make you loose interest; not only because of the great shooting but also because of great acting, by both, the unknown actors as well as the acting of famous Christopher Lloyd that we all love and know as Doc Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy. I must confess I wouldn't have recognized him as he has gotten really old. However he has lost nothing of hsi great acting, and plays a wonderful role in this movie.

Because of the slow pace and the independant or sometimes even arthouse like filming this might not be a movie for everybody - and unfortunately judging the title and cover one might expect an action horror-thriller; but with your expectation in check this is actually a great movie that is worth watching!

Life is a pretty interesting movie that is basically a survival movie with elements from horror and thriller that is not afraid to have some drastic scenes (some of the people in the cinema left when the first dead occurred). However, these scenes are scarce. The Alien looks great, far better than I expected from the trailers.

Most of the time this movie keeps you on the edge, it is pretty captivating - the acting is great, however I found the characters to be a bit shallow and would have loved a bit more insights and development. Never the less, the crew is likeable and you do care for them which makes the story of course much more thrilling. The ideas are in part pretty innovative and the filming is great - so is the soundtrack. So all in all a good movie. However, shortly before the end, I did guess what would happen and it did, which I consider to be quite a bummer. However, the way they shot it, was still enjoyable - and again, the music for the end is ingeniously picked.

This is why I award the movie 9/10. It was fun watching from beginning to end, and I will love watching it again some times.

A man wakes up in an abandoned hospital, to realize that the world has been taken over by zombies.Well that’s a story we all know? Just turn on the TV and of you go with the Walking Dead. However, 28 days later was released in 2002, it plays in London, and even though everybody is absolutely positive about it being a Zombie movie, it is actually never said they are Zombies. In contrary, we don’t have living deads, or walkers or what you want to call them, but actually an epidemic! Scientists searched for a cure for range (which as the prolog to the movie reveals leads to our typical destructive behavior, such as riots, fighting, looting, etc. However something goes wrong and instead we get a Virus that enhances rage in a way that the being is transferred into a state of full, pure, unconditional and extremely enhanced rage that makes the being irrational and let them lust for blood and flesh. And by being bitten you get infected too - so yeah, basically Zombies. But the focus lies on the Virus that is in the blood, so even a drop of blood into any body opening and you get infected too, in just seconds.

We start with nearly soundless scenes, the quietness is depressing and horrifying, the camera has a number of cuts to show in different perspectives the vast emptiness and loneliness of this situation. We then get to see the empty London, the totally abandoned and our main character making sense of it. Even with this entry scene we get a sense of how ingenious this movie is - the great camera work consisting of many cuts from the same scene that give us the feeling of being lost, the fast pace, the great pictures and the absolutely fabulous use of great music - from starting soundless, to a very slow and quiet music that nearly is just a beat, to the build up that is somewhat absolutely dramatic and hits when it hints the main character of what has actually happened. We get a number of these, and even though we are reminded all the time that this actually is a low budget movie by the quality, you also get a feel that here someone is making a movie that knows what he is doing and that creates great thrilling scenes and enthralling story lines regardless of the money.

Also the actors are great - we have the till then unknown actor Cillian Murphy who has his break-through and will later be seen in high-profile movies such as Christopher Nolans Dark Knight Trilogy, as well as Inception, Transcendence and lately Free Fire and Dunkirk. Naomie Harris as the female lead was also unknown till then and also her career skyrocketed afterwards, with roles such as two Pirates of the Caribbean-Movies, as well as in the new James Bond movies (Skyfall and Spectre), Southpaw, Moonlight and the coming Jungle Book. Other actors chose different career paths, such as Megan Burns who is now the lead of a rock band. However even she does great in the movie. And a few stars could also be acquired, such as Brendan Gleeson. So all in all we have a great cast of unknown actors who did so well that afterwards they where considered for all the big movies in Hollywood.

So great music, great camera, great actors - what about the style and story? You would probably file this movie under horror. However, it has elements of a lot of different subgenres - there is the apocalyptic movie aspect, there is a road movie aspect, and then we have something of an revenge thriller at the end. Further more interesting, we have different aspects of the rage idea - on the one hand we have the zombies who are the extreme regarding rage - on the other hand we have our main character, who is actually a pretty decent guy - the one that comes back for you even if it means to risk his own life, and who in doubt would always help. On the other hand, we have the female lead who is full of rage and heartlessly butchers everyone down even for the slightest doubt of him being effected. And we have that turning point, where she gains hope while in the same time he gains rage (the revenge part of the movie) and this is important because otherwise the group would have been lost. 

So if you want, you can start asking philosophical questions (and yes, there are scientists who did and who quote this movie for their assessments) about whether and to what degrees rage is good or bad.

So in the end considering all the aspects, this movie is ingeniously great and this is actually a low budget flick; for me this is a 9/10

We've catched this at the sneak preview in our cinemas and I was totally suprised. I did not hear anything about this movie before and I found the movie to be great, but at the same time also hard, because of it's difficult topic. So it is nothing you want to see if you want to be entertained on a light/happy evening, but rather a family drama dealing with a difficult situation that is hard to discuss and decide and where the different positions are already so stuborn that it seems to be a deadlock. Of course there is one position who could just decide it for all and therefore is in an advantage point, however especially this person is interested in finding a solution that everyone can live with.

While trying, we get to know the differnt individuals not only by their strange behaviour, but also by showing us different events that took place before and that slowly let us understand the people, even if they are not rational and hard to follow, at least you can understand where they are coming from. These events are not shown linear but unfold over time, piece by piece and keep the whole movie interesting.

The director is playing with the audience, and does not reveal everything - a lot is left even open to imagination. The camera is reallly interesting, there are some quiet sometimes even bizzar scenes that are dropped in, and especially the main cast is ingenious in acting, and we get presented some great dialogs. All this keeps the movie interesting and if that is not enough, we also have a great mismatch both in the setting where the dialogs take place as well as in the music that is used while this family argues.

So to sum it up: I was pretty excited. This movie is definatly nothing for someone who wants to be entertained (at the end a lot of people where asking "WTF?"), but whoever is interested in a really difficult controverse discussion as well as a character study, will find an interesting movie that is worth seeing.

I really love this show - in my opinion it is one of the best quiz and entertainment shows we had in at least a century in Germany, with a lot of incredible moments and guests that you get to know from a totally different side. I was surprised from some guests who I had prejudice against, that I found really sympathetic after watching them in this show.

So in a way it breaks my heart to see this season not being one of the weakest, due to the inclusion of Klaas, who always competes against Joko in the finales, and where all finales felt rather boring because those two know each other so well; but also boring within the shows as the wildcards, plus Lena and Sarah perish between Joko and Klaas interaction during the show.

But that was not the low-point. The low point was the show of Klaas once he finally won it; this had everything: tasteless questions (with the guests knowing the answer but actually saying: "I dare not to give that answer"), unfunny repetitions (like the senseless "sensation" buzzers and the "sensation cam"), and the sad climax in an embarrassing "joke" where Klaas had a naked man dangling from a crane in front of the guess - he actually seemed to get laughter with this, but neither the audience nor the guests where amused at all - Lena saying "I don't believe this", Kathrin saying "I'll leave after this round, this is too much, seriously", and Joko pleading to Klaas: "Please don't drag my show through the mire".

I've actually never seen Joko and Klaas together and I also never saw any other solo shows of those two, so I don't know if this is what you usually can expect from them. This show was the first time I saw Joko and he really grew on me. Klaas on the other hand I'll happily skip in the future...

Worst season so far - and worst overall episode. Hopefully the next one will be better again.

After a really excellent first movie in the Conjuring universe, this spin-off was created in just a year after "The Conjuring", and the focus on the doll was also a financial one, as it was one of the famous characters of "The Conjuring" where it just played a side role to explain who Ed and Lorraine are and why the family heard of them. And unfortunately, the really short production time has a highly negative impact on the movie.

The plot is rather predictable due to the main points being already discussed in "The Conjuring", but even worse - the things that could have been original and made a story like this interesting, are also taken directly from "The Conjuring". So in the end, we get a demon that wants the soul of a child... well... yawn. However, there is a little plot twist, which could have worked pretty well in my opinion - if the movie wouldn't spoil it by explaining it, right before it happens! All the other story points you see coming a mile away, so in the end, the entire story is rather boring. Then again, a horror movie mustn't be extremely clever or original. Horor movies should be scary, and "The Conjuring" managed to build up a really scary atmosphere and dramatic scenes, has a great spooky setting and manages to give you the chills. Annabelle doesn't even try this; instead we get a bunch of jump scares, that again you will see coming from a mile away. The acting is okey, but nothing special and because Leonetti doesn't spend half the time that Wan spent to introduce the characters, they stay pretty one dimensional, making it hard to sympathize with them.

This leaves you with a rather boring movie, which actually started of really great; I really enjoyed the first third of the movie - up to the attack everything was great, especially the scene in the neighbors house that you get to witness in the background through the window - that was a rather great shot and promised a great movie - a promise that the movie couldn't keep.

Already in the first scenes it is pretty obvious that this is an low budget production, but the introduction showing the previous six months in flashbacks is pretty well done, even though it already makes you wonder about the logic (to battle a Zombie plague, the whole of the USA was bombed with EMP bombs? Why? How does not having electricity affect Zombies?).

The movie stars Taryn Manning who looked really familiar to me (but isn't), and she is soon joined by Ving Rhames (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Mission Impossible 1-6), and a couple of other actors that are all pretty unknown (a few are extras in TV shows, rest are only seen in a couple (or no other) productions). The acting isn't too bad, especially Taryn Manning has some potential, we know that Ving Rhames can do really good, the rest does okey as well. However, that doesn't make up for a really bad script, bad directing, and really bad cutting.

The story doesn't have much to offer, but it's decent and believable enough: Three people who survived the initial six month by not going out, get out of their cabin for food and news. They get attacked by Zombies, but then another group of three survivors comes along and saves them. They are on their way to the island of Catalina (near Long Beach, CA), where there is supposed to be a camp of survivors. On their way there they get attacked by Zombies, Zombie Dogs and other Zombie animals, a lot of them die, while other surviving groups join them. I won't spoil the end, but so far so good.

Given that this is a low budget production, I wont criticize the bad CGI - they did what they could, and the exploding heads actually are the singular thing in this entire movie that are actually unintentionally funny to watch. They also had a lot of extras playing zombies, using interesting different makeup jobs. Things didn't look too realistic, definitely no Walking Dead, but all right, and I do like it if they use real people for extras and practical effects instead of CGI - especially for a low budget movie this is always a plus (nothing is worse than bad CGI people). I also won't criticize things like weapons that aren't blood-dripping, a machine gun, where the cartridge belt isn't moving, bad CGI fire and explosions, or the really bad and unrealistic looking cracks in glass windows. A decently good job (or a decently bad one) can still make up for these things, and deliver a good end result. Take the low budget production of 28 Days Later, for example. A tremendously good flick, even though it suffered from its budgetary restrictions (such as the bad Canon X-L1 cameras used, that only allow for a digital resolution of 512x492; worse than what DVD is capable of delivering). I also don't care that a lot of the times you see the same extras, even thou they are supposed to be other zombies.

But there are these errors, that are bad enough to bug you, but not as bad, that they are at least funny, and this movie is full of them - plot holes in the dialogue that don't make sense. For instance: the leader of the group is wearing a sleeveless vest with nothing under it, so his arms are basically free. Yet, he insists that our group raids a store, because the new guys aren't dressed appropriately: T-Shirt-Guy has free arms, all of them have no armor. In the Store they find leg pads, but only the most armored up guy takes them. The girl gets new shoes, T-Shirt guy keeps his shirt, and of course vest-guy stays as he is as well. Another example: In one scene they get attacked by zombies, and split up, which makes them vulnerable, so one of the girls screams that they should stick together, especially as her friend gets into a lot of distress. But then she is the one leaving the group, wandering really far off - yet she's pissed at the others when that guy dies because the others went away without helping him. Yet one more example: There are some archers, and they say that they need to be thrifty with their arrows, and reuse as many as they can, asking everyone to pick up any arrows they can. In the next scene, they shoot three zombies with arrows, and then walk right past them, without picking up any of the arrows. These are the script errors, I am talking about. They are so obvious that they'll annoy you, yet this isn't in any way funny in the way that certain B-movies are.

The dialogues are also pretty dull, not even funny. But also in a lot of situations not really believable. For instance, they loose friends tragically during the day (especially one girl lost both her best friends, whom she spent the last six months with) and at night they sit together and talk about their stories. One lost her brother, and got separated from her husband. She was all alone in the end, but then met the other guy of the group. She is telling this tragic story that she actually didn't want to talk about, with a smile on her face, joking around, and the others all cheer in - as if they where on a class trip, rather than in a Zombie apocalypse, which makes the whole thing unbelievable. What also makes this story hard to believe: none of them are dirty, there's no blood on their clothes, even the weapons stay clean the entire time. Yet, the thing they all long for (with their perfectly clean hair) is a bath/shower.

But worst of all, in my book, are the most evident post-production errors, this movie has. For instance, there is this scene right in the beginning, where there is a cut between two scenes: A guy shooting zombies, and the other two people, getting something to defend themselves from a garage and running out into the action. The scene goes like this: Guy shoots a zombie - cut to garage - girl runs out of the garage - cut to guy - guy shoots another zombie - cut to garage - girl runs out of garage again - cut to guy - guy shoots another zombie - cut to garage - again, she runs out of the garage. The fast cut between this scene suggest this happens in seconds of time, and so it appears that the girl runs to the street, then disappears and runs out again, disappears and runs out once more. Or in another scene they add CGI to a scene where a girl cuts off the head of a zombie with a Katana. When she moves the Katana there is a "difference in height" of the CGI Image and the real one where they are stitched together, so the point of the sword is cut off and appears a few centimeters below - as if there was a refraction.

And then there is bad direction and a missing of vision by the director. E.g. actors looking in one direction to see something "in the distance" but once the object they look at is added by CGI, this object is somewhere else than where the actors are looking.

I still think, in its entirety the movie was thrilling enough to be enjoyed, and it had a lot of references to famous genre movies, e.g. someone called Kirkman (after Walking Dead comic book author Robert Kirkman), S-Mart (from the Evil Dead), or a satellite exploding in earths atmosphere (like the Venus space probe in "Night of the Living Dead"). Apparently there are a lot more, that I have missed. But I do like this, and together with the more or less thrilling story, this is worth +1 point, but I do have to factor all the errors in as well - even though it was still somewhat "okey" to be watched once, these points don't make this movie worth watching again. The errors do not have the quality of something that makes you laugh - I did not laugh at all. They are not stupid enough, to have that humorous quality, they are just annoying. So I'll be deducting -1 for Post production, -1 for bad directing and -1 for the dialogues/script.

3/10 Points.

The movie is pretty decent - unfortunately that's it. The story is that of a typical disaster movie: Someone realizes that something is happening, governments keep this secret but prepare in secrecy, while everywhere in the world since of this happening, appear (but are played down). Some random guy, who has some kind of quarreled family finds out by accident, gets involved with one of the officials and by chance manages to get himself and his family saved as well, and in the end they get over the dispute they had, jut because of the experience. Sounds familiar? Well then, maybe because you've seen "The Day After Tomorrow". or "Independence Day". Or maybe, because you've seen 2012. What else do these movies have in common? Well, Roland Emmerich - seen one Emmerich, and you've seen all.

And while I am not saying it's bad in general, it's just not incredible good either - just one of the many (and there are even more of these), so it won't score any points with the plot or the story. On the plus side, however, even though it has a lengthy run time of 158 min (2.5 h), it will keep you interested till the end, it's not boring at any time and doesn't have lengths. Of course, you'd wonder at one or the other scene if that was really necessary, but other than that, it's an entertaining movie throughout. The camerawork is decent, but nothing to but nothing to brag about, the VFX looks stunning, but the story telling is quite straight forward. There's a great cast with John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover or Woody Harrelson, but the acting - though decent and well played - are never really challenged, and don't give the performance that you'd expect them to be capable of; this leads to actually the children actors being the most interesting ones, because they just play the biggest and most believable emotions. But all in all, there is no chemistry between the actors, and this is probably due to mediocre directing. On the negative side, there's the question of how believable this whole story is. And to me, it isn't at all. Of all the scientists, both astrophysicists, as well as particle physicists only one guy sees a) the massive, never before seen sun eruptions, as well as the high neutrino concentration that just a few meters under the surface of the earth brings water to boil? And that's it? Of the tens of thousands scientists arround the globe no one else makes this observation? No one else notices anything wrong? And years later, when all the nature catastrophes start even Universities say "It's just a little earth quake", while whole cities where layed to waste with no prior indication what so ever? To me, that's a rather weak point of the script, and it really bothered me two or three times.

So summing it up, for every good point I can find, there's an equally negative point. This movie is enjoyable, it doesn't make any bigger mistakes, but that's just it. So in the end I end up where I started: in the middle! 5/10 Points.

I haven't seen too many Spanish movies, but all of those that I can remember (e.g. Relatos salvajes = Wild Tales, or Crimen Ferpecto) are rather absurdly strange - and this movie (originally titled "Las brujas de Zugarramurdi"; "The Witches of Zugarramurdi") is no exception.

This action-horror-comedy tells the story of a group of people that in rather absurd disguises steel a large amount of gold, and flee the scene. During their escape they come across a pact of witches (as the Title suggests)...

This movie is great fun for a lot of reasons: First, the dialogues. They are really great, and give a feel that reminds you of Tarantino, yet it is totally different to his style. It's non the less absurd, has some great lines and situational comedy and is simply great fun to watch. Second, the absurd situations that the story starts of with and puts our main characters into. Starting with their costumes, how the robbery takes place, how they loose their escape car and find a replacement, how the characters from then on play out. Third, of course the absurdness that we get to experience in the second half of the movie, where the action-comedy turns into a horror-comedy. Fourth, the way the story is told (at least in parts), e.g. the scene with the books of the son. This really made me laugh a lot. There is also a beautiful parody in the battle of the sexes, these topics are extremely well parodised and turned into jokes.

Despite all those positives there are also a few things I did not like. Mainly, the movie has some lengths. After the long chase there is not too much happening, and once our heroes are at the dining table the scene (including the phone-scene) gets really lengthy and you start wondering how long this is still going to go on. Here and there one could have shorten a few things. Also not all of the jokes are good, there are a very few that where just too much. And while I liked the mother in the first part of the movie, I did not like or even understood her part in the second half of the movie. I even feel like, if you'd left her out, you'd win a couple of minutes without loosing any story element at all. She also does not provide a lot of laughs, so in the end it didn't matter if you'd had her in the movie or not.

I did like the car chase though, that was great fun, the introduction scene is superb, the performances of our main cast and Carolina Bang where really great - this movie has a lot going for it. Something you don't see every day, something besides Hollywood, definitely worth a watch, especially if you have a strange humor (again, I would say that people who like Tarantino or Edgar Wright might like this movie a lot).

2 guys that don't know each other that long (and don't know how far they can trust each other) but work together doing jobs for the Mexican drug cartel. When the cartel boss crosses them, they plan to rob the bank where the boss has $3 mio. US dollar stashed. However, when robbing the vault, they end up not having $3 mio. US dollar, but $43 mio. that do not belong to the cartel boss but some mysterious 3rd party, and due to some unfortunate events they lose hold of the money, facing an enemy that is far superior...

2 Guns is not really a new concept and does not really add anything to its genre which is best described as action buddy movie, similar to films such as Bad Boys, The Hitman's Bodyguard, etc.

The story seems rather constructed and parts of it I did not get. E.g. if Stigs "motivation" has always been the money, why did he get into a business arrangement where they get paid in drugs? Was he going to sell it (on the street)? Steeling the money to get to the drugs, okey. But given Bobbys "obligations" the lengths that they have to go through seems absurdly unrealistic. Who would ever sanction the things they have to go through in order to being able to rob the bank? The Earl character is the most unrealistic, but okey, let's go with it. However the Harvey-arc - no way, that's a hell of some coincidence, and it even collides with yet another coincidence on the side of the cartel boss - that doesn't make any sense at all. Storywise, as you can see not too good and not too well thought out.

Character-wise already this movie manages to make up for a lot. Buddy movies need the chemistry from their main actors, that's the basis for every movie in that Genre, and given Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg as counterparts, this works absolutely gorgeously. Even though I am not the biggest fan of Mark Wahlberg, he has some great performances, and this is one of them. But it wouldn't work without Denzel Washington, who I really love watching and who is - in this movie - once more really great. There are a lot of jokes that work pretty well, it's fun watching both of them play, this is really a great team.

While the plotholes are gaping, and get bigger the more you think about the movie, the story*telling* is not too bad. I didn't know what to expect and so it got really interesting to watch along, especially as more and more secrets got dropped. That was rather cleverly done.

What I also really liked where all of the action effects - and here I have to say: kudos to the film makers! This movie is full of rather expensive practical effects (e.g. crashing a real helicopter), with only minimum use of CGI or green screens - and apparently even a minimum amount of stunt doubles stepping in. The making-of and behind-the-scenes videos that you can find on the Blu-ray release are really worth a watch.

So while I was thinking of giving the movie 6/10, I upped the rating, just because watching the making-of was so fun and interesting and made the movie just a bit more interesting to me.

Because I did it with the first two movies: The original title アウトレイジ 最終章, is finally a bit different - phonetically "Autoreiji Saishōshō", so not two English words, written in Japanese and pronounced totally strange - "Saishōshō" litterally means "Last chapter" (as does coda in music - so good translation there!), and it is the final installment in the Outrage movie series. The best things come in threes?

Well... at least I did not like this movie as much as I liked the first two movies, and that for a couple of reasons:

First, the story is far less interesting than the other two are: Otomo is living in exile, on the one hand because of a certain killing he did in the previous movie and second because after defeating the Sanno-kai, the Hanabishi-kai started executing the former Sanno-kai officials. Otomo builds up a new crime ring in Korea, however, when one of Otomos subordinates gets killed by a Hanabishi man on holiday, Otomo returns to Japan to settle the scores.

As you might imagine, this time the movie is pretty straight forward: Otomo returns to clean up. Different to the first two movies where it was a power play and different characters all followed their own internal motivations that only got unfolded slowly, leading to quite a few "aha" and even some shocking "i didn't expect that" scenes, this time, there was just one scene that I didn't see coming.

However, even though the story is straight forward, I somehow felt it harder to follow. And to be fair: I've watched all of these movies in original soundtrack with subtitles, so this is probably a contributing factor. However, I felt like in the first two movies the different characters where much more invested in, so you really knew who was working for whom and what was actually happening. Here, I felt, most things where conveyed in dialog, rather than in seeing the people interacting, so I somehow struggled to understand who was doing what with whom. Still, somehow I felt that it wasn't that big of a deal because I wasn't missing out on anything major.

Also I felt this movie did not add anything new to the world of Outrage - in the first movie we had the internal power play, the intrigues, the way these people treat each other and how one can rise and fall. In the second movie we had the revenge theme, as well as the external wars and in addition the tie ins with politics and the police.
And the third? Well it's a bit of the first and the second. Nothing new, nothing interesting that is explored. And also in the department of violence this movie is far less interesting than the other two movies who had far more awful killings and tortures, things that made you grit your teeth. Coda brings nothing new to the table.

What I liked, however, was the weariness that Takeshi Kitanos character Otomo exuded. You really feel his fatigue, his reluctance to return to Japan, and his retirement-like life in Korea, and this makes the ending so much more interesting. And of course, there is the absolutely captivating ending, that was really good.

Still, for me its the least favorite movie out of the Trilogy, with the second being the best.

アウトレイジ ビヨンド, phonetically "Autoreiji Biyondo", in English "Beyond Outrage" is the unexpected(?) sequel to Takeshi Kitanos 2010s Outrage, and picks up the story of the Yakuza bosses that started in the first movie.

Before you read on, please be aware that it is impossible to not spoiler a crucial ending point of the first movie - so only read on if you have at least watched the first movie (or better yet, watched both movies) or don't care.

As most of the people in the last movie died as a result of Katos power play, Kato as the new Grand Yakuza boss of the Sanno-kai clan has a all new family that concentrates on legitimate businesses, stock markets and influencing high-ranking politicians. By doing so the Sanno-kai gains in influence that the police find more and more problematic to deal with. But instead on stopping them with legal measures, the corrupt police detective Kataoka tries to initiate a Yakuza war between the Sanno-kai of Tokyo and the equally powerful Hanabishi-kai of western Japan.

Again we get the typical structure that we already got in the first movie, only this time, it's between fractions and not internally. Also, thanks to the first movie and the faith of Otomo, we finally get a character that you could at least feel some kind of sympathy for. The guy that got played even in the first movie, that however has some kind of remorse for some of the actions he did in the first movie, and that in this movie is the underdog, that on the one hand wants to rest, but on the other hand is pressured back into the game, and also feels the lust for revenge.

To me, this movie was a bit more interesting, a bit more surprising and a bit more thrilling than the first movie was, which is why I rate it a tad better, even though basically it's the same deal as the first movie.

One of the things that always shock people when I tell it to them is the fact that I really don't like the Godfather-Trilogy. To me it was really long and boring, not much happening, and I simply cannot get all the fuzz people are making around these movies.

Outrage - in the original アウトレイジ , which should rather be translated into the phonetically correct "Autoreiji", as Japanese people would translate this title to, is probably best described as the Japanese version of the Godfather-Trilogy. And surprisingly I really enjoyed the movie.

First of, we get a more interesting movie that is not too hard to follow, still in the beginning you don't really get what this movie is going to unfold into:

We start of with a great meeting of the Sano-kai clan, the Yakuza family that is reigning over the greater Tokyo region. The grand Yakuza leader Sekiuchi is displeased with one of his Yakuza leaders, Ikemoto, who in prison befriended an unassociated and rivaling Yakuza leader named Murase. Ikemoto is ordered to get Murase in line, however to do so would mean to break the holy pact he swore, which in turn would be dishonorable. So he orders his subordinate Otomo to steer up some trouble that would so that would make Murase to be in debt to the Sano-kai clan which in turn would have to make him swear his legion to the Sano-kai. However, what non of the bosses are expecting: This actually is clever power-play and a plot to shift a number of power relationships.

This movie is interesting in may ways. First we get into a Yakuza movie that is more modern than typical other movies. And this modernes is a topic that is picked up even in the movie. We have younger Yakuza bosses who do not follow the customs of the older Yakuza, e.g. things such as cutting off a finger to plea for forgiveness. It is also a clever plot at which end a chain of events have been released to find a really unexpected end.

Besides this, the movie has some really ruthless graphical violence that will make you clench your teeth. In the end, every one of these guys is a ruthless criminal, there are a lot of events you will simply not see coming such as the cutting of the face.

It is also interestingly filmed - there where a few very interesting angles, but all in all the camerawork is really slow and steady, and the transitions rather untypically: They simply fade to black and then start at the next scene. And as strange as this is, it doesn't feel bad. It somehow fits the overall style, both of the movie as it is made as well as it fits the content of the movie, i.e. the plot.

I was intrigued and it got my interest right from the beginning to the end. Something you probably haven't seen yet, if you are - like me - more into western movie productions.