Good movie, althoug for a German movie I (as a German) found it somewhat disconnecting that actors I know speak English all the time and - making it worse - try to pronounce German names in a way that English people would pronounce it. Why the hell?
Not that I have a problem with English movies (I try to watch all my movies in original language (with subtitles if neccessary) and 90% of these are English) as is. But a German movie in Germany played by German actors shown to a German public in English - that's mighty strange. As well as it was strange that Moslem people when with each other, spoke English, and not Arabic.
Would have loved it, if they did what Tarantino did back with Inglorious Basterds; there would have still be plenty of room for English with all the contacts these people where suppose to have with American Contact persons. And then use subtitles whereever needed. I mean for a movie that depicts the conflict of interest of international collaboration in fighting terrorism a bit more international touch would have been great.
Other than that, however, the movie was really great. I enjoyed it a lot, the actors played their roles well and it was great to see a movie that just depicted the field of problems without judging - it's hard to find someone to relate to, there is no good or bad - you feel like you're thrown into something where you can understand the reasoning and interests of the different people, but where you cannot say "Ok, that guy's the good one, and that's the bad".
I really liked that about the movie.
I liked it. It's not the best movie ever made, but it had it's moments, there where some shockers that even got me (and that happens seldom) and all in all I had fun. I have to agree with Gazoo69 about the exorcism, though. That was a bit long and all in all quite disappointing. Other than that, a tad to religious for my taste.
But besides that a good movie. Was fun watching it!
This movie is extremely hard to rate, as every word on the story will give away all the fun. You also probably shouldn't watch the trailer and additionally you shouldn't look up the other movie posters as they contain spoilers as well.
The only story you can know: "Rhiannon is a ~15 year old girl that is in an one-sides relationship with her boyfriend Justin. However, one day she gets to know a guy who turns around her entire life".
If you know me you also know that I don't have much love for romantic movies and romantic comedies and even less so if they are teenage romances (or romantic comedies). So it came as an absolute surprise to myself, that I actually liked this movie - which is due to its really strange and unusual story. This absurd idea makes the entire story totally interesting - however it is just revealed in the last third of the movie - two thirds you sit there and keep asking yourself what you are seeing and why you are seeing it and how this all fits together.
In the end, this isn't a classical teen romance story but touches aspects of the fantasy genre and explores a really strange kind of romance. And it's a really great idea and a great take.
There are a number of weaknesses though. Most of all, I think the movie doesn't explore it's idea deeply enough. The romance part is still the main aspect of the movie, and we get a large number of scenes that just focus on teenage romance. One could have shortened this part just a bit and instead could have gone deeper into the aspect of this personality, into the problems and into what this kind of romance actually means. It especially also has an aspect of unconventional love that could have also found a number of parallels to our modern society.
Also the story telling moves towards banality when getting towards the end, even though I liked the resolution.
To end on a positive note: The cast is really good - all of them young actors who despite lacking the experience are already great actors that probably have a great acting career in front of them.
It's not a movie that you'd had to have seen - still, anyone who loves the genre should definately watch this one as it will give you what you love but yet also give it an entirely new spin on things.
This movie is the first from the incredibly great Laika studio that - founded in 2005 had the ambitious and totally crazy idea to specialize in feature film length productions of stop-motion animation movies. They started with contract work but right from the get-go they announced their first movie: Coraline. It took them 4 years and $60 million dollars, but in the end in 2009 Coraline was released. I was intrigued right from the first time I heard about this movie, it looked absolutely fantastic and I love Neil Gaiman on who's children's book this movie is based on.
Still it should take me all the other movies from Laika untill I finally got to this movie. More by accident, and because my girlfriend liked the cover, I bought "The Boxtrolls" on Blu-ray, which was therefore my first movie from Laika. Then - and because I really liked Boxtrolls as a stop motion picture - we got ParaNorman, and it was good as well even though we did not like it as much as Boxtrolls. Then we watched Kubo and the Two Strings (also on Blu-ray), which was incredibly well done, and finally I manged to secure a first edition release of Coraline. Wanting a first edition (wich in Germany comes with a Lenticular O-Card) was actually the only reason that we've watched this movie so late after it's release, because it was already sold out and I had a really hard time searching for it.
But here we are, I could finally see the movie and unfortunately I have to say I wish I'd seen it earlier. After seeing Kubo you are somewhat set up for a disappointment. Still it is a really great movie. The plot is rather simple but non the less good, and the effects are great as well though if compared to Kubo you can see how over the years this company has perfected it's craft more and more. The sets are non the less really fantastic and the effects which are all hand crafted are absolutely worth your while. Here it's worth mentioning that if you actually own this on a physical medium you'll probably get a ton of extras that are absolutely interesting and stunning. A lot of the "magic" is given away, such as how the fire and the fog where done, how the actual dolls look like, and how they make it that these doll animations look so incredibly good, how animations effects of certain scenes where done, such as the "garden scene", and also who is behind the voices and what these actors think about the movie and how it is different to what else they've done.
And if you see these, I am sure you get a totally different appreciation for this craft and Laika as a film studio. What they do is insane. And it is even more insane when you take into consideration that today you could do everything they do with the help of a computer. But they don't use computers, they do everything by hand. The sets, the puppets, the effects. Everything. That's insane. That shows absolute dedication to the art. And that alone is worth at least watching it once, even if you don't like animation movies. It's worth it.
Having said that, I also really enjoyed the fact that they hired great actors for their voice acting, including the - in my opinion - best child actor out there: Dakota Fanning. But also Teri Hatcher is really great and she voices three "distinct" characters which she does great. Also worth mentioning: Keith David!
To sum up: It's an insanely expensive, extremely well done stop motion movie, probably one of the last of it's kind (with Laika being the only one doing "major" Hollywood releases recently and on this level of perfection), with great artwork, a really great dark fantasy story, and fantastic voice actors. Don't be like me: Watch it as soon as you can! :)
This movie is again a movie hard for me to rate. On the one side, I like it. It was good, and I did enjoy it. But on the other hand it wasn't what I expected it to be - I had high expectations, I enjoyed the trailers and even though I block myself from reviews before watching and experiencing a movie myself, I did realize that people where loving it. So maybe I also had some really high expectations - I don't know.
However, the movie did not wow me the way that Man of Steel or even Batman v Superman did. Maybe, those did because MoS I had no expectations at all (I am no Superman fan) and BvS I did not expect to be so much about Batman (I love Batman). Wonder Woman however I do not have any childhood connections to, and never followed her, and her role in BvS wasn't the best - not because of she was bad, no - but because it was introduced in probably the most unfortunate way.
Taking all movies of the DC Universe into account, Wonder Woman is better than Suicide Squad for sure. However it is worse than both MoS and BvS - so somewhere between 7 and 8, and I actually put it on an 8 beforehand, but thinking a lot about it, I'd rather see it at 7.
The movie starts really great, I love the child Diana actor - and don't get me wrong: I love what this is doing for small girls who love becoming her, who will dress up like her on Hallween, etc. It's great! And that alone deservs a good rating. But, looking at the movie from a cinephile perspective, there is again a lot of things that I have to critizise.
What I loved: The fighting scenes, especially in the beginning. They are great - I would have loved it to be R-Rated, a bit more brutal, such as Fox's Logan - it would have done the movie better. But okey. That's just a small thing. Bigger however is the missing atmosphere. What I love about MoS and BvS is this dire atmosphere, the hopelessly, which is not only expressed by the story, but which is also aided by the camera work, by the beautifull imagery, by sometimes the shaky cams, etc. In Wonder Woman, which is set in the First World War, which is discussed as one of the most horrible wars we've ever experienced, when it comes to brutallity, mortallity, and the way the war was fought (trenches and gas attacks, etc.), we should ge a dire atmosphere as well. However, what we actually are presented with jokes, with silly characters, etc. All these things take some of the seriousness of the entire situation and that also affects the credibility of the entire situation. I cannot believe that Wonder Woman is so touched by the wouded people, for example - yes she wants to fight, she was born for this, she feels this to be her purpose - no question. But then she's war/fighting hungry - and that is okey. But her feeling shocked when seeing the wounded? She feeling the need for helping those people freeing their village? I don't feel that, when seeing it. They are saying it, but it's not credibil, especially if it was said between two jokes.
That is not me saying I didn't like any of the jokes - especially in the beginnig they where somewhat nice, and put her in an interesting spot, because on the one side she seems like the strong, unapproachable and unrelatable fearless godlike warrior; but giving her being thrown in a world she doesn't know and doesn't understand making her appear even naive in some situation, that on the other hand makes her relatable, makes her cute and funny in the same time. And I enjoyed these two contraries.
Another thing killing the amtosphere was the sometimes overdone action. I mean, seriouly: She jumpes into the window of a church tower and the whole building collapses? Why doesn't she jump all the time and by doing so invoke some earthquakes killing all the enemies? Not only does she sometimes show powers unmatchable and therefore breaking the mood: She also seems unbreakable. She never takes a scratch, she's never tired, never wounded, never in doubt, nothing. She's even hardly in pain about loosing some of her loved ones. And that makes all the action irrelevant, because you know that she will never be overpowerd in any situation. That's what Marvel is doing and that's what set the frist DC movies appart: We had Superman, who is fighting an inner conflict by protecting those who are fighting him, and we have Batman, who is broken because of his past - we have heroes that are wounded, that bleed, that can actually die and this makes it even more interesting to watch, more thrilling, more realistic and relevant.
And then - this is probably just me, but actually I hate it when Germans are played by English actors, and the only way you realize that they are Germans is because they speak in an accent. Why? We are in the Post-Inglorious Basterds era, where Tarantino had shown us, how great movies can become when you do them multilingual. The French speak French? The woman in the Trench spoke something (that I did not recognize)? We had Italian, we had Chinese. And we hat a lot of fun with different British Accents used in this movie. Hell, they even made all the other Amazones speak a Israeli accent, so that it doesn't sound weird that Gal Gadot had one - that is intelligent script writing! But why then not have the Germans speak Geramn? Makes a movie so much more fun to watch. It is of course just a minor thing, but it adds to the list.
So up to now I listed everything wrong with this movie - however not everything is. I think the acting was great - I am not a fan of Gal Gadot, but I think in the role of Wonder Woman she has mad her best performance yet. She fits perfectly into this role and I cannot imagine any other actress that can fill this movie with both, the power of an fearless strong female lead, who at the same time keeps her feminine features, and who has the right amount of sexiness without it being too much, sexist, etc. And I also liked Chris Pine - he is just about right, without being too much, and also fits perfectly into his role. Also I enjoyed the fighting scenes - they really maxed out everything they could - being an R-Rated movie this still looks absolutely stunning and great and just makes a lot of fun.
I also found the story to be reasonable, it is really good, you can follow throuhg and find every step making absolutely sens (lessons learned from Suicide Squad wich in that department was aweful). And somehow it does rectify her role in BvS - I do believe that when rewatching BvS, I will like her character - I will not think "okey, where did she come from and who the hack is she and why is she there all of a sudden and helping them" - no. This scenes now will actually make total sense - I am sure of it, and I am looking forward to rewatching BvS.
As it goes for the DC Universe: I hope that Justice League will be a little bit more back to the DC roots, but I am looking forward to it - I love that DC is having a great success here and that finally they work and effort will pay off (after the not so well received BvS and the horrible critics on Suicide Squad, I was fearing a bit for them; I am especially keen on the single Batman movie. I want it to happen!). But I hope that they will also recognize that the main reason is that we have the first female comic hero lead that is captured on canvas. I loved their style thus far, with Suicide Squad one could see that they where adopting Marvels style and that did not pay out. This one has it's flaws aswell and it does not mean to put back more comedy into the movies and take away their seriousness.
The movie cleverly plays with typical Irish cliches, and has beautifully scripted characters that are perfectly depicted by both, the main cast as well as the supporting cast. And while it has it's surprisingly gruesome scenes and shockers, it is mainly a comedy, and one that is typically British and reminds you of movies such as the one by Edgar Wright, especially Hot Fuzz. It is full of little absurd situations and dialogues, which will make you laugh, if you like this kind of humor. The story is interesting and captivating, and refreshingly witty. However, the last third of the movie gets a bit predictable and a bit tedious. Acting is great, and especially the chemistry between the characters works out really good. And for a low budget production, this movie uses some of the greatest CGI scenes I've seen. The alien is not only perfectly designed, it looks great, and given that the movie relies heavily on CGI the interaction between actors and CGI is seamless. Responsible for the effects was Shoume Harrison who is known for his works on movies such as "Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows" or "Captain America: The First Avenger".
All in all this movie is greatly entertaining, and refreshingly original.
I am no friend of remakes, and I am especially no friend of Hollywood remakes of hit movies just to make them Hollywood - especially if the remake comes out in a really short time after the original did and if additionally it doesn't even try to be creative. E.g. even though a lot of people hate it (for understandable reasons) I would say Rob Zombies remake of Halloween is a valid remake, as he tries to give the story a totally other viewing point, a different interpretation and a totally own style - and he did it in the 00s to a movie from the 70s. But Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? (2009 vs 2011) Let the Right one In (2008 vs. 2010's Let me In?) - having exact 1-to-1 copies just with Hollywood stars and fishing away any further success that the foreign movie could have had, even in the U.S.? Come on.
The Upside is the Hollywood remake of the french surprise hit "Intouchables" (https://trakt.tv/movies/the-intouchables-2011), and as soon as it turned out to be a surprise, The Weinstein Company acquired the rights for a remake, that was started just the instant they had the rights. Thankfully production had a lot of problems, e.g. there where at least 5 directors that started and left the production, and the actors where switching as well, from Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx and Irdris Elba and Chris Tucker we finally got down to Kevin Hart. And Colin Firth finally got switched to Bryan Cranston, and Jessica Chastaine and Michelle Williams where eventually replaced by Nicole Kidman.
For me this was a movie that I was bound to skip - I never cared too much for Nicole Kidman, and though I love Bryan Cranston, I have to say that I really really detest Kevin Hart. So, as I didn't plan to go to see this movie, Fortuna took it upon her to make me see it anyways: It was screened at a sneak preview.
Let me get back to Kevin Hart: In this movie - and it really is the first - I really liked him. Wow is this guy a good actor, once he starts playing serious roles and is not doing his usual silly small guy clown routine. I really liked his acting, he was really believable and I felt really sympathetic towards his role and his character. Please Kevin Hart, do more roles like this. It suits you so much better than the stupid comedy stuff. Bryan Cranston was great as usual. And then there was Nicole Kidman. And wow. I really loved her as well! First, i wasn't even sure if that's actually Nicole Kidman, because to me she looked too young to be her. Yet she was. And her acting was really superb, you knew exactly what was going on with her right from the moment you saw her - without her even saying a thing. That was some really great acting - I actually didn't see too many movies of hers, but after seeing this performance I am really looking forward to seeing some of the other works she has done. I've got a lot to catch up, I guess!
Acting was great, music was great, and if it weren't for the bold copy of the entire story, I would be even giving this movie a higher rating. Still it was a surprise to me and even though it is one of these remakes nobody asked for, I am happy to have seen it just for the performances.
I'd still recommend all of you to watch the original, but if you like to see Kevin Hart in a serious role or if you are a fan of Nicole Kidman or Bryan Cranston, you might enjoy this remake. Just make sure to watch the original first, because it deserves the credit!
"What is it." - "Blue light" - "And what does it do?" - "It turns blue"
At least in Germany this is one of the best known movie quotes that even people know who have never seen any of the movies in this movie series. After the excellent "First Blood" (10/10) and the rather disastrous sequel "Rambo - First Blood Part 2" (4/10), we get third installment "Rambo III", in which John Rambo has retired in Thailand, living peacefully among monks. However, when his former commander gets captured and his fate is left to him, Rambo decides to get active once more. He travels to Afghanistan and is aided by Afghan Mujahideen (i.e. people engaged in Jihad) who during the time of the cold war where of course supported by the U.S. army in their fight against the invading Russians under their communist regime.
Different to the last movie, this one is really good once again, even though in general there are a few parallels to the last movie: Rambo has to meet up with his contact, find a prison camp, sneak in, and get out the prisoner, which does not work right from the beginning, so he has to return, fight some more enemies until he can safe the prisoners. However, this time it's really captivating. The plot is sound, there aren't many plot holes, the action good, and not as overdone as in Part 2 - even though it's probably more. The enemy is interesting as well, and not as stupid as in the last movie. We also get some thrilling sneak and hide scenes, and a lot clever usages of blue light :D They are also hopelessly outnumbered, take some hits. Yet the body count is probably equally high as in the predecessor, and there are a number of rather innovative killing scenes that are really fun to watch.
Plus we also get some decent tag alongs that can actually pull their weight, have more personality and that actually have some chemistry with Rambo. So to me, while it cannot get near to the first movie in any way, it is still a solid, fun to watch and also fun to re-watch typical action movie that is captivating and never boring. Even though its a 102 minutes long time really passes by - something I could not say about the second installment that over long parts was boring and where I was often looking at the blu-ray counter to see how long it would still last.
And thankfully there wasn't yet another bad attempt to copy the ingenious monologue scene from the end of the first movie. Instead we get a text card just before the credits roll in:
"This film is dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan"
For today's standards this seems rather awkward, but keep remembering: It where other times back then.
Willard is an extremely old movie, nearly 50 years old. Yet, even though it was pretty famous in its time and broke some records and influenced a number of movies to come, as also being fueling a genre with not yet many movies, it's rather unknown for most of the younger generations due to an rights issue due to which it wasn't also never released on neither VHS nor DVD. Fortunately this time is over now, and if you want to, you can get this movie in a stunning restoration on BD.
Judging such an old movie is often hard, what was cool effects then might be boring today and also acting and storytelling standards have since long changed. I can totally see how for new viewers Willard might not live up to the praises one might have heard. The movie isn't as thrilling and captive - it's even not an natural horror movie, even though this one influenced them heavily. It's rather a natural drama - the title giving boy "Willard" is in the center of the movie, his social awkwardness, not fitting in and being pushed around by everyone, until he finds his "release" by pushing around creatures of his own.
But there is a lot to this movie that one should take into consideration. First, and this is undesputabel - there are some great actors, most of all Ernest Borgnine, whom you will hate from the minute you see him. And then there is our main character Bruce Davison, who up to then did not have any acting role, kick-starting his career with this one. As for the rats, no tricks where used - they are all real, and in this movie 600 rats where actually used. These where not harmed - plastic rats where used whenever a scene was too dangerous. And because it is not possible to train rats, these could just be lured with tricks (like peanutbutter smears), and so a large number of scenes where improvised, and there are scenes that had 30 to 40 takes.
Willard was the first movie to ever use rats (many other natural horror movies with rats as protagonists followed), and set an precedence for many movies to come.
Given these background facts I am willing to add +1 points to my initial rating which would have been 6 points, totaling in 7/10. Definitely worth seeing if you are interested in movie history.
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!
The trailer of Gold made me expect a fast pace, party like movie such as The Wolf of Wallstreet. However it turned out to be a pretty slow-paced movie with lots of lengthy scenes, especially in the beginning. Basically, it is a movie of downward spirals. We meet the main character played by Matthew McConaughey who starts out in a successful family business that he takes over and from there loses everything. However, he does not give up, even when it means to have no money, to live at his girlfriends house and to work from a pub.
But he believes in his dream of finding gold and after finding the character Edgar Ramírez, who has a similarly strong believe for an unlikely goldmine in the Philippines, McConaughey not only wagers his last possessions, but also his health. Suprisingly, they get lucky, and make the gold-find of the century; only to discover that having a gold mine only steers up more problems than it actually solves. So in the end what should have been a lucky turnaround turns out to only go from bad to worse.
The story was interesting but not as well told as I would have expected, there are a lot of tedious lengths in-between, and most of the time I was wondering where this story was heading. I had some ideas, however these always seemed to be wrong (but in the end I was right from the beginning on - only in a total different way).
So, while watching the movie, I was considering a 6/10; mostly because this is probably one of McConaugheys best performances that I've seen. His character is pretty broken and McConaughey plays this to perfection. But besides this, the movie had not much going for it.
Until the end. I really loved the last scenes, and I was surprised by the last scenes, that to me really made a change; I would not have expected the dramatic turnaround, I would not have expected what McConaughey did, and I sure as hell did not expect the final scene, which to me added a lot to the characters and their relationship to each other. I loved it. And therefore I was willing to add a point, so we end up at 7/10.
This movie was shown in the sneak preview at our cinema, so I did not know what to expect, and actually I haven't heard from it before (at least in Germany there was no advertising for it at all). I found it hard to rate, and would like to split it into two aspects:
1) The story, which is a story worth telling as it is an important story that pays credit to a real event in history, which is - at least in Germany totally unknown. I don't know how it is in the USA, but I guess even there it might be an eye-opener to one or the other viewer.
2) The movie, as an artistic expression that is created to "entertain" us in cinemas.
Let's start with the second: the cinematic recreation is rather bad. If it wasn't for the other aspect, I'd rate this 5 points. The story is processing sluggishly, the actors do not portrait any great emotions, the soundtrack is nothing that you realize (neither positive nor negative) and not much happens in the entire moive. I like the sentence I picked up in one of the ohter comments to this movie: "it was a bit like watching paint dry" - yeah, it actually is.
And that is so, even thoug you are somewaht interested in what would probably happen next; I was waiting for the dramatic turnaround - was the mother the one that tipped them off? Or was it someone from the girls family? Is anything bad goint to happen to either of them? Like people beating them up, etc.? But actually nothing happens. Of course I understand how the director would have probably wanted to keep this as real and realistic as possible, and I highly appreciate it. However, if you don't have much to tell in a movie, why not make the way you tell it interesting? Take "The Dinner" for example - it's all about some people meeting at a restaurant discussing a family matter - that's all there is to it, still how the story is told, how the events unfold, how we get to get know all the details - that was interestingly shot and cut into a final movie. Or if you want another courtroom drama, take "The Social network" and look how a simple boring story of a guy being sued by two different parties is cut together in a way that keeps you invested the entire time of the movie. I don't think that I'm too much hollywood-maladjusted; I love slow paced movies, I enjoyed Manchester by the Sea, for instance, which is also quite slow-paced and not comparable to typical hollywood cinema, where everything is entirely dramatic and exploding and stuff.
But taking two rather shallow characters and telling their story linearly over the time of 10 or more years - that just doesn't cut it.
So, then there is the other aspect - the story, and that is a story woth telling, hell yes - everyone go watch this movie and learn some empathy. Honor this brave two individuals that both have to fight with different demons and where dealt with a life of hardship only because of their love, which should be a human right. And only this aspect gains the movie a number of bonus points, which lead me to finally give it 7/10, because even though as a movie it fails horrible, the story is worth watching and knowing!
Every Back to the Future fan will turn heads at this episode that features Lorraine (Baines) McFly, mother of Back to the Future's main star Marty McFly. The story is original and fun to watch as it is really interesting, although near the end a bit irrational (why is she destroying everything around when she could simply take it and be gone without any buzz?). In the end, we get another irony of life ending, with an agony of choice.
I rather enjoyed this one, and for a good story, a good (and tragic) ending and a good performance I end up with 7/10 Points.
As much as I did not like the first episode I love the second: Starting of with a scene of rather dark humor, we get into a really great mix between thrilling and horrifying scenes accompanied by funny ones as well as ironic ones. The acting of our main character, played by Mary Ellen Trainor (known from the Leathal Weapon films) is really great (although it's really odd that she does not freeze at all, even when kneeling on the ground with her bear legs), the episode is really atmospheric and manages to hit the sweet spot between funny on the one side and horrifying on the other.
We also have some nice camera work, that I did not expect (e.g. the scene in the storeroom that is only shown from the top shelf perspective showing the gun that she cannot see - I really loved that scene). This is great fun to watch.
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.
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.
After having seen the trailer and after hearing all the critics I wouldn't have watched this movie. I thought it would be stupid and boring, without much action and totally unbelievable due to the total disregard of physics.
I must say that after watching it anyways (I got the Blu-ray due to a coincidence) I was actually pretty impressed. Yes it doesn't reinvent the wheel, yes it's not a Die Hard, and yes, there are scenes that are laughable due to the afore mentioned disregard for physics. But in general, this is actually a pretty decent action movie - it's not full of jokes and stupid one-liners, it has some decent acting and it is pretty thrilling most of the times, and has some really clever ideas, beside the obvious crane jump for which you needn't study physics to know that it's totally absurd. It's still good for a laugh though and other than that, this movie was good fun.
If you like simple action movies, if you don't expect the next "Die Hard", "John Wick" or "Equalizer" but are also content with simple movies, this is one of the better ones worth a watch. Really. I've seen far stupid (e.g. that really horrible Die Hard 4.0).
I've seen this movie in a sneak preview and I really liked it for the message it conveys as well as for the movie being different to all the other movies that you'll see. It is really slow, it takes a lot of time, has a lot of dialogues and is probably told for at least 40% in off-screen narration. I think this is something that is pretty brave.
Additionally I liked a lot of the scenes that where really artistic, e.g. the scene where you have Fonny with his sculpture and the camera circles around it and we have the smoke of his cigarette. I liked that a lot. And I liked the camera, e.g. in the beginning scene where Tish conveys her news to the mother - this is really great camera work, really great editing and aspects that make this movie really good. Another thing that got me right from the get-go was the music.
Now having pointed out all the positives, the biggest problem I have with this movie is in a kind a missing emotionality. Take Green Book for example: I really had a lump in my throat when Mahershala Ali stood in the rain and started screaming out his dialogue - that was intense. That gave you goosebumps. And I would have really liked to see something of that sort in this movie as well - the story is absolutely worth telling and could have easily included a scene of that kind. In a way it even has - that moment when the mother Sharon is in Puerto Rico. However, and I don't know why - it didn't get to me, which is why I was really surprised that this performance actually won an academy award.
However, I am not saying that the acting was bad. I liked the acting, there was great chemistry between some of the actors, especially KiKi Layne was really great as this young, dreamily-naive girl that just experiences first love. And Colman Domingo and Michael Beach as the two fathers where absolutely great as well and had some really great laughs. Equally good where of course the mothers, portrayed by afore mentioned Regina King and Aunjanue Ellis.
However, in the end, I feel like I wasn't as invested into the characters as I should have been, and I am not sure where exactly to pinpoint the guilt. One aspect I did not needed in the extend it was shown in the movie was the love scenes - we had a lot of those, and for a movie where there isn't much happening, you really wonder if it would have needed that many love scenes - maybe that time would have been better invested into further developing the characters and thus having the viewer more invested?
To end on a positive note: One thing that I actually realized, was the really settle but still very apparent switch of tone - while in the beginning you see this movie probably ending on a positive note, there is that one scene (the artsy one I mentioned before) where this feeling starts to tip over to the negative side - I wouldn't have been surprised if this movie had a really bad ending; and reviewing this movie I wonder if it maybe would have needed this ending ... e.g. I wouldn't have been surprised if at the end the scene from the beginning was something Alonzo was experiencing in his head right before successfully taking his life after having lost the trial
I feel like lately I am always pointing out that on of the genres that I do not enjoy at all is romantic comedy - and though this is more of a family comedy I would put it into that broader category of romantic comedies.
And actually, this movie is not that much of an exception: It is absolutely foreseeable right from the get go, most of the jokes are not that funny and have been heard a number of times, and in the end we get a dreamy happy end. It's so unbelievable cliché.
Yet, I gave it a good rating - that might shock you, but different to most other movies of this genre, I was pretty entertained - while thinking about it, I think there are 3 main reasons:
First, though humor is always difficult (and I mostly like intelligent humor, good made parodies, socially critical, ironic and sarcastic humor, such as in Silicon Valley, South Park, Futurama etc.) I do have to appreciate their take on things. Even though it's a 2018 movie it is far from the really stupid and dumbed down humor that (like movies by/with Melissa McCarthy, Jillian Bell, Kevin Hart, etc.) everyone uses this time. It's also not intelligent, of course - but at least it has heart. And it had some surprises in it's story, side characters that are funny in certain ways, etc.
Second, even though it's a comedy the actors play serious (not over the top like for instance Blockers) and the play really good. Of course with Marc Wahlberg and Rose Byrne we have two veteran actors. Of course, especially Byrne is in her element, having made mostly comedies (I would have loved to see her in more movies such as 28 weeks later). But we also have a lot of unknown actors and they are good as well - the kids are great, they are cute and great actors - you start to hate the petulant episodes of Julianna Gamiz character Lita, pitty the clumsy weepy boy Juan portrayed by Gustavo Quiroz Jr. and you sympathize with the teenage girl Isabela Moner having a hard time adjusting. And then there is a great supporting act by Margo Martindale.
Third, as already mentioned, the movie has hart. You start to like all the characters, even though they are so cliché.
Of course - as for a romantic comedy there are a few negatives - the story is all in all rather unbelievable, and avoiding any deeper character conflicts (e.g. the birth mother had great potential for drama), and in the end you get an happy end that is rather unbelievable (180° turn of emotions by some characters just because of one moment). But hey. It's a romcom.
To put it up front: I am not a fan of boxing, it never really interested me. And thus I haven't even ever seen any of the Rocky movies. So you might think: "Why am I watching this? Can this review really be fair"?
Well, I can at least try? Give me a chance. The truth is: I really enjoyed this movie. I still cannot understand why everybody likes boxing so much - yet, this movie made it seem really interesting. The staging is really captivating, and the fight scenes look really authentic - it was a pain watching them bloodied up. It also had a lot of heart, and the actors where great. I like Tessa Thompson, I think she is a great actor - unfortunately she doesn't get much screen time and especially not much background - but hey: It's about Creed - and Michael B. Jordan is not only a good actor - he also makes you jealous as a man, because of his great physique. And Sylvester Stalone is also pretty decent.
All in all I was really entertained, would love to both, see the second movie in cinemas soon, as well as filling a gap in my cinematic education by watching the Rocky movie. What more can a movie like Creed hope to achieve? Keep in mind that I never ever was interested in boxing ;)
Worth your while!
A few years ago by accident the first movie I watched with my mother after Sylvester night was an Liam Neeson action movie I did not know (Unknown) and since then this became somewhat of a "tradition". I've been watching Liam Neeson action movies as first movie of the year ever since, and normally it's the movie I watch on January 1st.
This year however we where on vacation and could not watch the movie on 1st, but hey - it is still the first movie of this year, and out of necessity (I ordered The Grey and A Walk Among the Tombstones on Blu-ray but they did not arrive on time) it was Taken, which I've already seen, but my girlfriend hadn't.
We get the story of Bryan Mills, a former CIA operative, who - to get closer to his estranged daughter - allows her to take a trip through Europe with her friend. However, in Paris she get's kidnapped while on phone with him, forcing Mills to reactivate his retired secret agent skillset to hunt down the kidnappers in Europe.
This movie is french cameraman Pierre Morels second movie as director, and he was heavily backed by Luc Besson, with whom he had already worked on The Transporter. It ensembles a great cast with Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Katie Cassidy, and Xander Berkeley who are all but supporting characters to Liam Neeson, with - unfortunately - very low screen time.
I remember watching it the first time and I really liked it then. Liam Neeson is a great actor and his character is wonderfully introduced. He get's a lot of back story, plays a somewhat broken person that has no other desire than to reconnect with his estranged teenage girl that he had neglected in his active days - which is even harder as he is divorced from her mother for the same reasons. He is totally believable throughout the movie and is one of the positive aspects of the movie.
The second positive aspect is the action which is mostly hand made practical effects, hardly any stunt doubles, hardly any greenscreens and CGI, which is really great. The movie is therefore not as action packed, not as fast paced, a lot of steady cams but all the fight scenes are totally believable, and therefore quite thrilling.
The great negative aspect in my opinion - and this was so much more bothering watching it the second time than it was the first time is the story itself, which is totally unbelievable. To start, even the premise is crazy - given what we see, every day at least 20 girls that travel to Paris - apparently mostly from the USA - are kidnapped. And nobody cares? Also, it is inspired by "The Bourne Identity" but does not quite reach that level, and after having seen many current action movies such as The Equalizer, John Wick or Atomic Blonde, this movie seems a bit dated.
Never the less a movie worth watching (but probably not re-watching material).
Intresting movie. As far as I can reconsider my ver first "blaxploitation" movie (I didn't even know this genre existed) which is exactly like any other exploitation movie: You get violence in form of fistfights, shooting, and rape, there is love, there is sex, there are drugs, there are criminals, helpless cops, corrupt judges, prostitution and vigelanty justice - the only difference are the main cast being black. I found some of the depictions a bit stereotypical and there are some racist prejudices (like for instance "No family loyalty? I guess that is something those kinds don't have". But taken the time this was created into account it's okey I guess and depicts quite well what white people then thought of black people (a shame, but accurat contemporary testimonies).
Other than that, the movie has not much to offer, acting is alright, the dialogs are not that great (except for the crazy one liners), action and violence is cheap (you can figure that they are not actually fighting a lot of the times), the fake blood looks horribly like paint :D But hey, it's a B-Movie. Not as much fun as modern B-movie remakes (such as Machete or Planet Terror), but still pretty neat.
If you are into those kind of movies, or if you'd like to know where Quentin Tarantino get's his inspiration from (Jackie Brown is heavily inspired by Foxy Brown and Coffy), you should give this movie a whirl. But probably also if you are a cineophil, as this movie is probably one of the landmarks in the history of cinema, having a strong black female lead, that fights herself thoruhg an entire drugs cartell, as well as it being one of the more prominent blaxploitation movies.
"Devil in the House of Exorcism" is an alternative title to "The House of Exorcism" which is a really weird poster to have with this version of the movie, because this one - as title and year clearly state is the original version as Mario Bava intended it (for the other look up "The House of Exorcism" there - I have written a review for that one as well explaining the differences to this version).
This one is "Lisa and the Devil" - Lisa e il diavolo, and it is by some considered to be Bavas masterpiece. You can really recognize the totally different style that Bava uses in this movie, it's poetic, full of symbolism and metaphors. A lot of scenes show his genious for those times, take for example the opening scene that is extremely depressing, or the love triangle during the car ride, where the viewer understands what is going on without anybody saying a word - just because of the way Bava shot the scenes.
Still especially in the first half the movie has a number of weary lengths, and there is hardly any suspence or excitement, except for all the symbolism and metaphores that Bava installs. Only when leaning towards the end does this movie turn into a horror movie.
Thoug having yet another movie with genious camera work I still do also miss all the technical finess, that I used to see in his first movies (think about Black Sunday, that is full of craftmanship, when it coms to inventing new and extrodinary effects for the movies. Stuff that today we ask the PC to do without even thinking about it - but that where - during that time impossible to get shot - and yet he somehow did it and invented innovative ways to film those. I miss that in this movie.
Still it is an interesting piece of art, and something you should spend some time with, when you see it. In the beginning I was like "This is a 5/10", but looking at all the extras, understanding what he did and why he did it - and what makes it ingenious - those where the things that made the movie even more interesting. I guess it's hard - at least to me - to fairly critizise movies from so many decades that we cannot even begin to understand what amount of work simple scenes consumpted. And taking all those factors into consideration I end up with 7/10 Points.
For me, Silence is a tough movie. Tough to watch, tough to digest, tough to judge.
As with Manchester by the Sea, with Silence we get more or less a character studies, but this time from a person who makes a shocking change in his live, having a 180 degree change of belives, which are enforced of course by outer conditions, but it still happens.
The title Silence is quite literal; you'll experience whole passages that are without any noise and only show images, sometimes still images, sometimes beautiful scenary. We get some great sets and beautiful shots, the camera work is phenomenal, absolutely great. In many parts the movie tires and manages to convey feelings and emotions only by the use of excellent camera work and succeeds (e.g. the feeling of both lonelyness, cold and hunger, as well as being lost and hopeless, by showing how Garfield sleeps leaning against a stone first in closeup then in a wide angle shot).
Besides these great things, the movie is mainly driven by Garfields thoughts and his prayers and letters and diaries which are conveyed by narrating them offscreen. And here starts my critics, because as for an great director as Scorsese it would have been easy to tell us a lot of what is told us only by narration by using moving pictures. By narrating it, it starts getting extremely slow, and boring, because it us extremly long and a lot that is narrated. All in all the action is at a minimal, interaction with other people is reduced to mainly dialogues (which are of course much more interesting than the monotonous narrator), and I got the feeling that a lot could have been told much faster. Therefore watching the movie becomes cumbersome and that is really sad, because the movie actually has so much to offer.
We get the afore mentioned great camera work. We also have Andrew Garfield, who is at the peak of his acting skills - this guy is extremly good - I enjoyed him in a number of other movies and was aware of his greatness long before but this is probably his best acting piece yet. We also have an interesting story about percecution of Christians in Japan which I had known nothing about before; and this movie has absolutely great food for thought - raises a lot of hard questions without giving any answers to them and the best of all: It doesn't even judge. You can feel for both sides - of course you have the classical villain and the classical hero at first glance - but the movie does not make it as simple. It gets more and more complex, and in the end, you can understand both sides but don't want to have to be on either. It shows a great conflict between religious convincement (and borderline personal egocentric delusion) and moral and ethic on the other side. This is actually ingenious work and definately a move one SHOULD see!
However, all the negative aspects hindred my enjoyment of the movie. A lot. It was too long, had too much narration, to many lengths, a much to slow pace, and all this made it a non-enjoyable experience, and especially a moive that you watch once and never again. Which is sad, for such an important message.
Therefore - even thoug it made me think a lot and occupied me days and weeks after watching it, I cannot make up more than 7/10, which somehow saddens me.
In the 1970 an unchartered island gets discorverd by new satelite technology in the mids of the cold war, and a scientist manages to finance an expedition to this island. With the help of the military under a leader played by Samuel L. Jacskon who is to be retired but loves war, they reach the island only to find it inhabited by a number of giant creatures like spiders, squids, water buffalos - and of course the king of all creatures: Kong; and as Ahab, Samuel L. Jackson sets out to kill this enemy of mankind at any cost.
This movie is mainly all about showing off giant creatures fighting. The framing story is sound, the sets are beautiful and show a number of beautiful and impressive scenery. After setting the story up, the pace is extremely fast - we approach the island via helicopter and the movie makes a hommage to Apocalypse Now, and then already King Kong appears and rips the helicopters from the sky.
Stranded on the island, the team tries to reach the pick-up point to get of the island and while doing so we witness what this movie is all about: CGI creatures fighting each other in epic battles. These are more interesting than the survivial fights and especially more interesting than the acting of the crew. Even though the cast consists of highly appreciated actors, such as Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Toby Kebbell - all actors from wich we expect great. However in this movie their talent isn't even yielded but rather vasted. The only two actors that are somewhat remarkable are Smauel L Jackson and Jason Mitchell - all the other roles could have been played by amateurs and wouldn't have changed the quality.
The tone of the movie that is set with the jungle, the action and the giant biests is rather frightening - however it is often disturbed by jokes. While some things where really good, such as some funny scene changing cuts and some situational comedy, most of the time I was annoyed by the funny remarks that where constantly made and that had an aclimatic touch.
So at the end we have an rather insignificant movie, that has great CGI, great images and great beast fights, but nothing more than that. However, it was fun watching it, it isn't a movie that one has to see, but it's an entertainment movie that does it's job well. To compare it with a similar movie: I gave Godzilla 8/10. This movie was slightly worse.
If you watch this in cinemas: Stay seated! There is an after credit scene!
A teenage love drama. This at the beginning might sound bad (especially if you don't love that kind of movies), and in the beginning I was thinking that it will be really bad, but over the time I realized it wasn't that bad. I think this is due to the perfect acting of the two main characters - they play totally believable, you just need to look into their faces and can read what they feel. Also there are no clichés, no sob stuff, no over- or underacting: just perfect.
Other than that, there is not much happening in this movie. Still especially at the end, the movie is getting interesting - and I was totally suprised by the ending - I figured out three ways this could end, and I was really expecting a classical ending, but this was somewhat suprising and not that expected - not the typical happy ending, but also not a sad ending.
So, I think 7/10 is a good rating, for a movie that actually isn't that deep, and that you probably don't want to watch more than once. A movie I wouldn't have watched voluntarily; but I was happy that is was shown at the sneak preview.
"The Bye Bye Man" is a relatively classical horror movie which tries to send you the chills by scary images and a scary way of story telling and not so much by using gore or jump scares. There actually are two to three jump sacres, one of which even got me. However, the rest of the time it is slow paced atmospheric horror flick, which I did not find scary most of the time (yet there where approx. 10 of the 40 people that visited the sneak preview that left early). Still it was greatly enacted with some innovative ideas (yes, they did not invent anything new, most of the ideas we have already seen in different versions, but the way the ideas where shown in this movie was somewhat innovative), and it was an interesting and thrilling story.
What I did not like at all (and what cost this movie at least one point) are the CGI figures. Oh my God was this horrible. I hated the figure, it did not even contribute a lot to the story, so leaving it out would have actually been much better; if you'd had to have it, then take a real creature, or some real animal or practical effects. But that was rather cheap and spoiled the mood alot.
Other than that, I was entertained and enjoyed the movie; I believe it's more of a movie for people who enjoyed atmospheric horror movies such as "It". One last thing: I loved how the trailer does hardly use any scenes from the movie - so no spoilers there!
It's a typical Liam Neeson thriller. You'll get what you expect, not more but also not less. I was entertained, but it's nothing you'll have to see, even though it has a number of really great actors, some of my favorite (especially also two TV series stars!), whom I really loved to see again. Pretty much similar to Nonstop, though.
For me, this movie was really hard to rate, because starting with the idea, this movie has a great surreal premises, that fancied me right from the beginning. Seeing the first trailer I was excited because the idea seems absolutely great and crazy, but I had no idea, what direction this movie would take. Seeing the second trailer, however, I was pretty pissed, because crucial story elements are spoiled right away and you get to understand where this movie would probably end up.
Still, the movie has some great ideas, and I liked how it formulates it social criticism; e.g. the people can downsize and by doing so have a great impact on nature and saving the planet, so actively and positively impacting the far future of everyone. Still, by doing so, they also get out of the social system, because their contribution to society also shrinks. And therefore people who decide to not downsize and by choice stay in their position that are already bad, they start hating those who strive to better their own situation as well as the overall future situation of the world in general. And this is something pretty common, whenever change is involved. But that is not the only criticism you’ll find. E.g. we have the problem of dictatorships touched, that are legitimized by us as we still maintain good relationships with these countries, we have the tendency of human being to use anything as a weapon to inflict pain to others. We have the criticism of humans always inflicting systems that segregate us from „others“. Even in a paradisaical place like the shrunk community, where everyone could be filthy rich, we have people seeking personal profit and (in a way) power over others, and segregating those less fortunate into slums - people have the tendency to turn even paradise into hell. And topics like world overpopulation, illegal immigration, etc. are also briefly touched. It even gets philosophical while staring at human annihilation.
So, this actually should be a great movie. But that’s the problem - the creators chose to make a movie, and as a movie this piece of art has a number of shortcomings. Mainly that it has no direction in it’s story telling at all. You feel like our main character is thrown from one situation into the next. These situation are even hardly connected to each other - and never is there a visible story line. So in the end, you keep wondering what is actually happening, and why and how did we get there? This is one of the problems I had with this movie. The other is, that the end was one of the most unsatisfying I’ve seen in a while. I mean, yes, we where presented with some social and global problems, but in the end, what did I learn by watching this movie? I don’t feel like there was any contribution to me personally, there where no new thought processes induced, there wasn’t any answer offered. Nothing. The end feels like it really isn’t an end at all - they just all of a sudden stopped the movie, not at a climax, not a cliffhanger, it isn’t shocking, it isn’t happy, it isn’t sad. It’s just over, unexpected and the first question you ask yourself afterwards is: Why did I watch this.
Because, besides it’s lack of storytelling, there is also hardly anything else this movie has to offer. Acting wise we have Hong Chau, and she is the bomb, she steels the show of everyone with her energy, her charisma, her demanding nature. She makes this movie worth watching. Matt Damon, the main star is interchangeable, Christoph Waltz is as we expect him to be, but nowhere near his high performance that we loved in movies like Django Unchained or Inglorious Bastards. And all the other roles are actually pretty insignificant. Kirsten Wiig doesn’t have many lines and is a story device but that’s it. Udo Kier is nothing more than Christoph Waltz’ sidekick, Neil Patrick Harris actually has a 5 Minutes role, same with Laura Dern, Jason Sudeikis, etc. And each role is pretty mediocre and could have been played by any actor with the same performance. Nothing outstanding here. Soundtrack? Well it has this caching theme from the trailer, but that’s it. Stunning pictures? Nope. Special Effects? Nope. You would actually think, that in a movie where people are shrunk you would encounter some interesting situations where the director had to introduce some clever, some never-before-seen techniques but no - after Matt Damon’s Character enters the shrunk society there is nothing to remind us of this fact, other than a pretty blunt reference to a real rose in his house, or the giant vodka bottle.
So in the end, what do we have? A courageous new idea of how to tackle our world problems, some great critical views on our society, which are then turned into the self finding trip of one man in a wonderful new world that isn’t wonderful or new at all. We have a story that feels random, we see some great actors in mediocre rolls, there is nothing interesting to experience cinematographic-wise, and we are left with the feeling of having wasted some time.
Why does it still get such a high rating from me? Well for it’s great premises, as well as for Hong Chau - the only actress that managed to connect with you emotionally and made you both, happy and sad. A great performance and so much energy, which actually makes this movie worth seeing, even if it isn’t a good movie.
In this movie, Jennifer Garner plays a woman that takes justice into her own hands after witnessing and experiencing an incredible crime for which no one gets punished due to the corrupt justice system in the US. Because of this, our hero has to fight both, a drug cartel as well as the justice system, who see her actions as a criminal act of terrorism.
To keep it short: This movie has it's moments and is in its entirety nice to watch. However, compared to the overwhelming competition with movies such as John Wick, The Equalizer or Atomic Blonde, this movie does not risk anything - no interesting stunts, no interesting fight choreographics, no interesting dolly shots - all scenes that could be interesting are cut together from different takes and are so fast paced that makes you loose interest. Jennifer Garners performance is in general all right but the one or other scene even she is not as believable as you would wish. And the plot is totally foreseeable.
Still it's a nice movie for a diverting evening - but nothing you have to see, and especially not at cinemas.