pygospa

VIP

3

I have to say it right away: This is probably one of the best German movies made in the last 20 years. And having gotten this out of the way, just sink your teeth into this next bit of information: It's a "No-Budget" production. This team started out with an idea, that was developed in free time and produced in free time just with the help of friends and family, and whenever they had something they could show off, they asked for any money they could get, to get the next bit of movie produced. All in free time, e.g. over the time of five years they filmed on weekends, using as requisites what they had. The result was something most people shook their head - famous directors said to just delete the movie as it could never work. The cool thing? The crew kept believing in it. As they said in the making off: "Often we said to our selves: We cannot do this, this can't work. And then we stopped and asked our selves: But why not? We are laughing? We're having fun? Maybe it will work?"

The end product was subtitled: "The most fucked up German fairy tale since the Brothers Grimm." And yes, that it is. Let me just say a few words on the story - but beware: The less you know, the better:

Two gangsters, after committing a crime and steeling a car, find a screen play in that car that - in the screen play describe what just happened since the movie started. It end's a few minutes after the screenplay is found, so the two gangsters, believing that they are in some kind of hoax, search for the author of that screenplay.

Javid: "If this screenplay is turned into a movie it's going to be the most retarded movie that has ever existed"

The movie is a really strange genre mix: it has action, it has gore and splatter, crazy shoot-outs, comedy, a revenge part, a love story, it has God in it, cannibals and even social criticism. All this is packed together in a movie that is captivating right from the moment it starts, that has great black humor, doesn't take itself to serious and has a plot that is surprisingly refreshing and has a really original story idea.

To make it short: This movie is just fun to watch, and whenever I think about it, it's fun again, and whenever I see scenes or hear other talk about it, I start smiling, so yeah. It's a must watch!

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 am ashamed to admit it, but I've just seen this movie for the first time now (on Feb. 27th, 2019), so this review has to be seen in that context: We have 2019, so the movie is nearly 45 years old, I am in my mid thirties and a movie enthusiast since at least half of my life, so I've seen a number of movies already.

So, I probably cannot appreciate this movie as much as someone who has seen it in his early years or who was even lucky enough seeing this movie when it was released.

Yet, as you can already see, I really enjoyed this movie. It is incredibly iconic, and if you are a movie enthusiast you will probably recognize a dozen movies that where inspired by, or that pay tribute to this movie. I especially had to laugh at the scene with the white board.

Other than that, it has aged incredibly well. I watched a Blu-ray version that was released by Universal for their 100th anniversary and it has crisp images - there is only one image that is strange, but that's probably due to editing (the scene has both, near focus on a head in the foreground and far focus on the sea at the background and right at the border of these two images you have a really blurry line, so I guess, this scene consists of the image of two cameras that where joined together in editing) - a good sound quality, the dialogues weren't to stale, there are some really great images some of them where you wonder how they managed to achieve those shots in the 1970 on a small boat, and even though the shark puppets are not realistic at all, in general the movie manages to build up a really frightening atmosphere, and there was also one jump-scare-esque scene that really got me (and it's really seldom that I get scared like this by a movie). Also story wise it manages to captivate you and surprises you in the way it evolves. So even though it is that old and even if you've seen so many movies that you feel like you've seen it all, this movie will leave a mark and you will understand why people will tell you that it's one of the best movies.

From today's perspective I'd rate it 8/10, because a) the shark puppets made me laugh - they ARE really bad - b) it had a few lengths and c) some decisions did not make too much sense to me. But I gave it an additional point, because thinking of it, this movie has produced a milestone in cinemas, it is absolutely ambitious and for that time really extremely good produced. And most of all: It has inspired so many movies that followed. I didn't know how many actually where, but watching this I was reminded of a couple of films, and I guess the number is much higher and if I'd watched this one before I've seen all the other movies I would probably realized more movie inspirations than I was able to.

If you haven't seen it already (and let's be honest: who beside me hasn't?!) what are you doing? Please don't wait longer, you are missing out on general knowledge.

I am quite a Liam Neeson fan since I actively took notice of this actor due to his Qui-gon Jin role which was one of the only good things about Episode I. I've since then seen over 20 movies with him, and most of them are probably a tad better rated just because I like his character.

So I was really looking forward to this movie for a long time - Liam Neeson staring in an action movie against nature, in a nearly one-man-show, with a lot of positive reviews from people who've already seen this movie. Now that's got to be good doesn't it?

Well... the movie starts off really great. We have some workers doing seasonal work at an oil station in Alaska, which is not only a rough place location-wise, but also from the people. Liam Neesons character John Ottway is a hunter who's task is to guard the workers from wild animals. On their way back home however the plane crashes in the mountains, and only a hand full survive. The first survivors succumb to their wounds but soon they find themselves facing another enemy, that is picking the survivors for killing one after the other: A pack of wolves.

Liam Neesons character gets a really good background story, that makes his character interesting: He has lost everything and given up on live already, but when thrown into this live threatening situation his survival instincts kick in. There is something secretive in his character and we get to learn this while the movie enfolds. This makes the entire first half of the movie really interesting. Also they have a great location, with stunning pictures, a really high quality camera, and good performances, which I really enjoyed a lot. There is good chemistry between all the surviving characters which are totally different in style and believes, providing some room for arguments.

However, on the other side there where a few things I disliked. First of: The wolves, that hardly look anything like wolves. Here we get really cheap CGI and as the movie maker probably knew, most of the wolf attack scenes are in the dark and with hectic camera so you only see glimpses of the wolf. However I don't really enjoy shaky cams and rapid movements through hectic editing, so all in all this took a lot of excitement out of the scene because you actually do not see what happens but keep pondering about the few glimpses you get, while the action sequence is still going on. Also, the behavior of the pack of wolves is totally atypical: They don't hunt a group of men that are capable to defend them selves over days just for sports?

Also, during the movie the physical accuracy gets smaller and smaller - with the cliff jumping scene being the worst part of it. If you find yourself thinking: Well that's not realistic at all, that's plain idiotic, your brain gets occupied by other things than merging into the plot of the movie. And there are a number of these little things (like Ottway finding his letter after the crash which has been for hours in the snow but is still in excellent condition, or all the guys sleeping and not hearing how the one guy standing guard is taken by wolves just a couple of meters away, etc.), as well as movie mistakes (the letter has an re- and disappearing coffee stain throughout the movie).

In the end we get a 2hrs movie that feels really long and doesn't add anything new to the typical man vs nature survival movie (such as The Edge or the Mountain between Us, which I actually liked a bit better), that starts of really great but in the end gets actually pretty unrealistic and boring. And that's really sad, because they have some great scenes, really wonderful images, and a good Liam Neeson. But especially with high expectations that I had, this movie was mostly rather disappointing to me. It's still a solid movie, though.

"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.

After the ingenious first installment "First Blood" of the Rambo series that in retrospect got a 10/10 from me, the second movie named "Rambo: First Blood Part II" can - in my opinion - in no way live up to its predecessor.

This starts with the premises that Rambo - a PTSD Vietnam veteran, who is imprisoned in a labor camp for his psychotic breakdown in part one - is send back to Vietnam (rather then sending him to a mental facility where he could learn to cope with his mental traumas)! And Rambo, of course, agrees to. Because yes, after the heart-felt monologue at the end of the first movie where under tears he describes explicit detail how he tried to scrap together his best friend who stepped on a mine, or how he was tortured by the enemy, this is exactly what you would do. As the tagline reads: "What others call hell, he calls home".

But okey, let's not argue on how well part 2 fits to part 1, let's take a look at it like a solo movie, because after all, except for the character names and their backstories part 2 really does not build upon part 1 at all - it seems like they did not care and wanted to do another kind of movie, so let's treat it as such.

Rambo is released early from prison because he is an expert stealth guerilla war human killer machine, and he is set back to Vietnam, to look at prison camps and - if he should find PoWs he is not to free them, but only take pictures and return. Makes sense to fly all the way to the US, do all the paperwork and go through all the suffering to get out an war expert, who is known to snap, just to have him take pictures... this get's especially weird as at the end it is revealed that all of this is actually a conspiracy and Rambo shouldn't have even seen any prisoners - anybody could have just taken pictures from the camp - they could have been totally staged - why go through the hassle to take a war veteran that is not even in on the plan, so that this plan is risked to be revealed?... but hey. Why not? Let's keep an open mind!

Rambo meets up with his contact, a girl named Co, who actually is just a tag along female hottie, probably to lure in young male viewers. She has hardly any relevance to the story what so ever, there is zero chemistry between the two actors, even though actress Julia Nixon puts her absolute best into acting as she fell in love at first sight. Still there is a romantic part and a dramatic turn of events that is so unbelievable - but I'll get to this later. With the help of her, he gets to a camp, does not obey his orders, but starts shooting everything down, and by this act gets both, the Vietnamese army as well as the Russian army on his tail...

If the plot itself isn't bad already, it gets really bad, when it comes to the action: With no regards on anything, Rambo gets to Vietnam and shoots up everything, using machine guns, bazookas, grenades, etc. to blow up straw huts. No settlety, no stealth, no intelligence that you would believe a green beret to have. There is however, a part that actually is pretty cool towards the end, where he gears up once more and kills his pursuers one by one, actually using guerilla warfare techniques (sneaking and hiding). Those are really fun to watch, but a small portion just before the end of the movie, and up till then the action is in general overdone and gets boring fast. And that's really sad because Part 1 had absolutely stunning and captivating action, that was so much more fun.

As already mentioned the plot isn't that good either: We know exactly from the beginning who the bad guy is, and as if that's not enough, there are not only a number of plot holes but also simply stupid mistakes. Our project leader seems to be a civilian, or at least he dresses as one, but has the rank of major, and operates form an army base but not with an actual army but mostly mercenaries. Still, in the movie he outranks the Colonel, who simply follows his orders even if he doesn't like them and even if they are straight immoral and criminal - there is nothing cool or interesting about Trautman at all anymore. And then there is the end: I mean, really? WTF! It was a conspiracy? The American major ordered the camp to be empty, so that they could fly in Rambo who would take pictures from one empty camp and that would have been proof that there are no PoWs in all of Vietnam? But by accident the stupid Vietnamese who rotate the prison camps put the prisoners into the camp anyways so that the one date that it was important this camp was empty it wasn't? Which is why they get in the Russians to kill Rambo so he cannot tell what he saw? Well...

The message is all to clear: The bad guys are the people wearing suits, who send the soldiers to Vietnam, then make them loose, by discarding them, and in the end it's all about PR. The US are the good guys, the Russians are the war hungry bad guys, and the Vietnamese are wild animals that are easy to kill... oh yeah, speaking of that: I also feel that the movie is rather stereotypical and in that sense a tad racist. Be it the so overdone and downright stupid fake accent of Julia Nixon, who has Asian roots but a native British father, is US-citizen and speaks perfect English, or the way this movie depicts the Vietnamese people (even the tagline does it by calling Vietnam "hell"), as well as the Russians. That alone wouldn't bother me to much - I mean, hey. It was the 80s, standards where different. But it adds up to all the other things I did not like about this movie.

And to close - we again get a kind of "nervous breakdown" monologue at the end, but while the monologue in the first movie comes unexpected, is ingeniously acted and makes you hold your breath, give you goosebumps and/or wet eye, this one will make you either laugh or yawn. Boy was that a bad attempt of tie this movie on to the first one. A really bad knockoff.

It really is a shame. I would have wanted to love this movie so much more. But 4/10 is the best I can do, honoring a) the few good scenes and b) the influence this movie had on pop culture. But I've rather seen Rambo III following into the footsteps of First Blood.

I haven't seen this movie for a really long time and just bought the new restoration from a 4k master on blu-ray and was happy to watch it. I thought it wouldn't be as good as I remembered it, because most of the time you realize that movies you liked in your childhood weren't actually that good.

That's however in no way true for Rambo (the German title of "First Blood" which is why I always got confused in the past when I heard the original title and thought that it was a part of the franchise I hadn't yet seen).

The restoration looks really good (except for some scenes that stand out because of their worse quality (mostly due to bad lightning in the original movie, I guess), and besides that, the movie is still really captivating, though it is in no way over the top. The car/motorcycle chase for instance - how unimpressive was the car flip or Rambo falling from the motorcycle? Still it was more captivating than a lot of modern movies with so overrealistic and fast paced cuts, that you just stop caring all together.

Also I totally forgot how funny Richard Crennas persona was: "God didn't make Rambo - I made him. I'm Sam Trautman - Colonel Samuel Trautman. I came to get my boy" - what an introduction :D And then follows a dick-measuring contest between Will Teasle and Sam Trautman. That is great acting. As is the acting of Brian Dennehy as the dislikable villain character - and of course we cannot forget the actin of our main character, portrayed by Sylvester Stalone - I also forgot how extremely moving the last scene was - I remembered that there was this critical moment when Rambo finally opens up to Trautman, but I forgot just how intense it was, and how unexpected it came. It feels somewhat displaced in a movie that builds up as an action movie with the underdog fighting the bad guys who unfortunately have the law on their side. And at the finale all of a sudden this change of tone - that is really bold, it's both strange but because of it strangeness so much deeper and better - as you are simply not prepared to what is going to happen. I always remember to feel sympathetic towards Vietnam veterans even though I am and always was a pacifist. I guess that is an impression that this movie left with me when I saw it the first time at my earlier teen years.

Last but not least I also really liked the sound track and the setting and locations are also really great. All in all a pretty good movie and factoring in that this movie had me so interested even though I've seen it a couple of times in my youth, and feeling that though it is so 80s it is still a movie that could captivate so many young audiences who have never seen this movie before, I am inclined to give it the best rating possible.

And because I mentioned the new blu-ray release: this is really worth a buy. There is more than 1,5 hours of extras, and these are pretty mixed - from the classics like interviews, making-ofs, trailers and featurettes to two serious documentaries, one on the Vietnam war and the other on the training of Green Barrets, as well as a fitness training featurette from the personal trainer for Rambo, there is a lot really interesting and unconventional ground covered. And the steelbook artwork looks just stunning as well :)

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 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!

7 Days in Entebbe is a movie that shows a dramatized version of the real historic events around a plain kidnapping and blackmailing that took place in 1967. Similar to movies like 13 Hours, this movie concentrates on planing a military coup to free the hostages, but different to other movies this one creates its drama by a theatrical dance piece.

This makes the movie unique when compared to other movies that you are used to. There will be a number of viewers that will probably be disappointed by this; others - like me will be extremely pleased by the fact to not have yet another movie concentrate on this story (that has been told in a couple of other movies already) the same way, but to actually have a movie that uses new innovative and intelligent aspects of art to dramatize a story that is otherwise heavily based on dialogue and personal emotions and personal doubt. that is what this movie focuses on heavily. We don't get classic good and evil - instead every character is put into a spectrum in which he decides to go to the one or the other direction, while not knowing if what they are doing is right or wrong. This is something that a few people critizise and I can understand it, because it makes the characters appear different than they where in reality. A lot of critics have pointed out that certain personality aspects are simply left out and that the historic personalities get off much better in the movie, downplaying the actual horror these people unleashed.

However in these situations I like to counter with this being not an accurate documentary but rather a entertaining movie. Movies are a form of art, and art is never something that is factually correct but always something that explores ideas and emotions, that points out certain aspects of life and explores them in great detail. This movie does nothing else. It presents us with characters that do extremely violent things but are still represented as the heroes, as a group of people that have a moral code, and that question their actions on every step and live with the consequences they unleash.

The movie is pretty captivating and interesting, even though it is heavily based on dialogue (which eventually starts to repeat itself) and where not much else is happening. It is captivating even though there is no action, no violence and no drama - which I think is a real achievement.

This of course needs good actors and we do get two really great actors. On top there is Rosamund Pike, who is not only acting extremely well (as I have no doubt since seeing here in Gone Girl), but also speaking a language that is not native to her. And she does so incredibly well - she has an accent of course, but after learning German only for this movie, that what she does here is incredible. It saddens me a bit, that only us Germans are able to actually appreciate this, and I hope so much that the German dubbing does not replace her original voice. Next to her we get german Actor Daniel Brühl, and he of course also is a great actor and one of my favorite. Other know actors include Eddie Marsan and Denis Ménochet, but non of them are really challenged in this movie, even though they are really good and provide believable performances.

And I really liked the dancing parts and the music. I had an earworm right after watching the movie and even looked up the theater group that performed for this movie - it is really good. And it really is something different.

Unfortunately I am pretty sure that this movie wont find many fans, but I recommend it to anyone open to seeing something different.

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.

I was lucky to catch this movie in the sneak preview, otherwise I wouldn't have watched this one, as it did not seem to be any interesting.

I was expecting something in the direction of Bliar Witch Project when watching the trailer, and I though that as a found footage movie this would be as bad as all the other found footage movies I've seen (I am absolutely not a fan).

However, this was totally different and a total surprise for me - I found it to be pretty innovative to have the entire story told from the view of a computer screen (though now, having seen Unfriended, I have to see that it's actually not that original). The actor was pretty decent, the way of story telling worked really well and there where a number of surprises and turnarounds I did not expect.

The only criticism I have where those scenes that where a bit "too much", telling and showing the obvious to the viewer as long and in such detail that even the most stupidest person couldn't have missed it. You feel like the director thinks the viewers are extremely stupid sometimes. That was a bit unsatisfying but only a small flaw in an otherwise pretty great movie. It's really entertaining and a positive surprise. Definitely worth a watch!

In a prologue scene this movie starts by introducing the main characters an our team: A special task force that operates outside of the law and is supported by bleeding edge high tech gadgets, that allow them to infiltrate buildings without problems and leave as fast as they came, leaving no traces for the police to find.

We then get the background story of our main protagonist James Silva, portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, as timelapse in the opening titles, and then the story finally starts: Our main setting is Asia, we have Silvas team on a new mission - a raid goes totally wrong and Silva is extremely hard and unfair with his team (which he is the entire time from this point on). While at the US embassy from where the team operates, they get a visit from a local (portrayed by Iko Uwais) who has some important information for the team, that makes them want to dirve 22 miles through the city towards an airport. To do so they terminate their contracts and call out the "overwatch" operation - a voice over explains: Now our team is stateless and therefore they become something higher, something special, something overly patriotic. And of course these 22 miles become running the gauntlet....

I was looking really forward to this movie from the very first trailer, and I was totally in the mood for this movie as I was already watching M:I 1-6 and The Equalizer one and two, so I was in the mood for a good action movie. I also loved the premises: An paramilitary operation team operating in a foreign country being outnumbered while a catastrophe emerges - that reminds me of movies such as Black Hawk Down or 13 Hours which are two of my most favorite movies.

The action scenes on this movie are pretty realistic, it seems reasonable what each character can bear unless they break down (much better than most other action movies), the wounds look realistik and our team gets cut down one by one pretty fast. The action isn't reduced to only shootings and fast car chases, but also include man to man fights, and of course Iko Uwais is the guy that stands out most, who will show us some pretty crazy moves and fighting choreographies. These aspects as well as the question what this movie is probably aiming at story-wise make this movie really interesting to watch and also pretty entertaining.

However, the story is also the strongest negative aspect: It is incredible muddled, and many things have to be explained with an voice over from the off, so that the viewer gets whats actually going on. Also there is absolutely no character development, and the crew stays as shallow as possible, making nearly everybody replaceable. Therefore you also don't have any sympathies towards any of the characters, allowing for no emotional bonds to evolve and ultimately in the end you don't care about any of the characters dying, steeling those scenes the dramatic effect they should have had on the viewer. And even for the main character we hardly know anything, except for the view pointers in the opening titles, but that's not enough and even worse: His character is the most exaggerated and therefore does he not only become unsympathetic with the viewer but also unbelievable.

To add to the confusion, a number of story elements are told either via an interview with Silvas (that seems to be taking place in the future), or by cutting either into a top secret hight tech operation center, or an Russian aircraft (it is not explained why). These cuts are both unnecessary and often also don't bare any logic, and you could have left them out entirely and the movie would have still functioned. Even in these scenes with again high ranking actors such as John Malkovich, non of the characters is essential in any way and totally replaceable. And most of the dialogues either consist of exchanging hostilities or of technobabble.

And even though Uwais is great, after the first fighting scenes one will be pretty disappointed because most of the fighting takes place in the dark and additionally there is a lot of cuts, so that a lot of fun is taken out of these scenes.

And then there is the finale, which to me was a kick in the teeth. The resolution seems so artificially constructed, stupid and is also full of logic holes that it takes away a lot of the fun, as you start to believe that the filmmakers question your intelligence. Worst of all, it's an open end that seems to be made for a second part. In no way was this satisfying.

This movie had great potential but wastes it entirely.

The main character in this movie is a Captain Joseph Blocker (portrayed by Christian Bale) , a veteran in the wild west, who is a living legend for his merits in the American Indian Wars with an reputation as a ruthless killer. Waiting for his retirement he gets one last mission, that goes against his entire believes and that he only attends because he would be court marshalled and lose his pension if he doesn't: After 7 years of imprisonment the Cheyenne war chief and arch enemy Yellow Hawk should be brought to a reservoir, and Blocker and his company are task with safely escorting the war chief through enemy territory controlled by warring Comanche Indians.

This movie has totally conviced me. The storytelling is sensitive and precise, and is supported by really great imagery of the landscape - if you can, watch it on the big screen. This visually stunning picture is supported by a great and fitting score. Even though the movie is really long and mostly really slowly, it is not boring at any time. There are a few action scenes but they are sparse and most scenes are slow and quiet, as the main focus of this movie is what our characters go through emotionally and how they are believes are challenged during this mission, as well as how they cope with the things happening to then during this mission.

For this to work, the movie needs good actors and of course with Christian Bale we get a high class actor that delivers an absolutely great performance: Wow. He's supported by Rosamund Pike who actingwise is his equal. Both of them have a great chemistry going on, and it is ingenious how often they converse just with looks and gestures, without seeing a word - yet the viewer gets exactly what's going on, what the characters feel and think. They do this so well that at the end I had goosebumps when for instance Pike looks thoughtful and melancholic, then tears starts running over her face and in the next moment, she wipes them away, contains herself and puts on a natural smile. Wow.

It is really seldom that I feel like clapping in cinemas, but here I did. This is an absolute recommendation beyond the typical blockbuster mainstream, absolutely worth watching. Great movie!

I cannot believe that I am the first one commenting on this movie. I've bought this on blu-ray from a small independent German label because the label boss recommended it to me and after watching it I have to say: Wow. This is one of the most absurd and craziest movies I've seen in a long time. It is full of morbid black humor with a touch of social criticism, and tells the story of a guy who has build himself a little paradise in a shopping mall that he works in. But after years and years of perfection his life takes a turn for the worse (quote): "In this moment I realized that hell existed. And the devil existed as well. He wears a skirt, a girdle and an incarnadine bra!"

This movie isn't for everyone, but everyone who loves angry humor, exaggerations and caricatures, everybody who is open for movie that is truly different (quote from the director in the audio commentary: "We actually did everything exactly in the opposite way then they teach you in literature") will find a little movie pearl, full of references and tributes to great directors of our time. Stile-wise we get a really crazy mixture of drama, thriller, horror and comedy, great camera works, that manages to show the same set once like being in paradise and then fearful and claustrophobic. The Set is great and timeless, even though this movie is now 15 years old you get the feeling that it could play just today - or in the 60s or 70s.

Some of the scenes are so absurd (for instance while one of the detective is in a dialogue with another person, his partner all of a sudden and with no reason starts to play with a plaster this guy is wearing and then starts padding his face - all this happens without any interruptions of the Dialogue). There are a lot of details you won't get when watching it the first time and I had to watch it a second time right after the first time (this time with audio commentary).

The actors are - unfortunately - rather unknown, because they are local Spanish actors - nonetheless they are really great actors: Guillermo Toledo for instance plays a character that is totally lovable even though he is an unsympathetic despicable person. On the other end we get Mónica Cervera who has to do the same thing - but in opposite order. While we start to sympathize for the asshole, Cervera is sympathetic right from the get go and over the movie you start thinking "oh my god, please help me, that woman is crazy!". Also Enrique Villén plays a character that you will remember.

The story itself is in no way foreseeable - you will be totally captivated. And everything is managed with an absolutely low budget. This movie is really really great fun. A must see, and a recommendation for anyone that shares my sense of humor :D

This movie should be on everybody's watch list just for the cast: Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Zachary Quinto, Dave Bautista, Brian Tyree Henry, Jeff Goldblum, Charlie Day and Sofia Boutella. Wow.

The setting of this movie: We have a future dystopia, there is hardly any fresh water to drink for the people and the world is ruled and divided by companies and mob bosses. Technology and living standards have rapidly dropped (though due to us being in the future the technology is at least far beyond the things we would be capable right now). In this setting there's this independent hotel called Artemis that is led by a former nurse (portrayed by Jodie Foster) and her personal aid and bodyguard (Dave Bautista) as a private hospital. To being able to be treated you need to be a member of the hotel Artemis, make your monthly payments on time and follow the three important rules: You cannot be a cop, you are not allowed to carry any kind of weapon and as a patient you are in no way allowed to harm another patient.

However, on the day the movie plays all three rules get broken and hell breaks loose.

This movie, that is narrated primarily from the viewing point of the nurse, who is old and suffers from anxieties and phobias. Foster plays here believable as a slitary-eccentric scared person that knows her ways and who - in her element - is totally under control, but also totally looses it if things don't go according to plan. We learn a lot of things from her past and because of this really perfect portrayal you'll start to embosom her really fast, which makes this movie so captivating. The two other characters that really shine are the ones played by Brown and Boutella, because their roles are important - all the other characters, like Day, Goldblum or Quntio actually are only the supporting cast - they deliver as great performances as the main cast, but due to low screen time do not carry any weight. Once the story get's going, it will soon become violent and brutal, some of the scenes where so brutal that I was actually thinking this movie could get an FSK18 rating in Germany (still it didn't - jsut FSK16).

All in all it was pretty interesting, a captivating neo-noire crime drama in a sci-fi setting, with a great cast and for me, as a Jodie Foster fan, it was really nice seeing her on the big screen again, though she got really old, she still owns it!

What a tarrific movie. Again one of this lucky moments at the sneak preview - I hadn't heard of this movie before, hadn't seen any trailers, previews, reviews - it would have totally passed by me. This is director Sam Levinson's second movie as a director and in it he tells ports the story of Salem (the biggest witch hunt in the history of the USA) into the modern times and retells it as a story under high school teenagers who live an excessive live on social networks, in a society that still sexualizes women, discriminates against the different and stigmatizes those who do what everybody does in secret but get outed publicly. In this tinderbox of a society a hacker is doing his mischief by stealing private data from our teenagers and also the adults surrounding them and publicly displaying them on the internet, which first only leads to mobbing of individuals and personal tragedies but soon the entire situation switches into a nightmare and a new kind of witch hunt.

The first thought I had when the credits of the movie rolled was "Wow". The dangers of social networks of information leaking and the effects this has both on individuals as well as the society in its entirety is not new (there is even a South Park episode on this regarding the browser history); yet how this movie handles it is refreshing. This movie is different - you get thrown into the story without any introduction, you are there with a group of girls hearing their ordinary daily dialogues (which is kind of Tarantinoesque) about every day's boring stuff, to introduce the characters and their way of thinking. We get great story telling and a really great camera work that captivates you right from the beginning. From all the main characters only Bill Skarsgard rings a bell, so I guess all of them are newcomers yet they all play very well. The sets, the scenes, the costumes the colors, everything is trimmed to create really stunning images that are combined with a great soundtrack. But best of all there is an incredibly great one-take dolly shot that is really stunning as well.

But what kind of movie are we actually watching? That is really hard to answer, actually. The movie starts quite heavy, only unfolds its story slowly and is packed with social criticism without being in your face. The first part reminded me of Spring Breakers. However, Assassination Nation is also packed with a morbid sense of humor while staying serious the entire time, becoming more and more a personal drama until it actually turns into a Gore movie that starts reminding you strongly of the movie "The Purge". And if that is not enough we get a finale that has a lot of elements of a classic Rape-Revenge-Movie that slowly drifts into the surreal.

As you can see, this movie is hard to explain and I feel that rather than reading about it, you'd really have to experience this movie yourself to get a picture of it. I myself was captivated for the first minute, I was really curious how this story will unfold, I have been thinking about the message or the messages that this movie probably tries to convey a lot, I was entertained by the gore elements and I had a couple of scenes where I had to laugh. All in all a well rounded movie, with only one critizism that I have: I thought the ending was pretty forseeable. Not too worse, but still.

Other than that, a really great movie! And everything is done on a low budget!

Btw. here is a great "Anatomy of a Scene" with commentary by Sam Levinson, published by The New York Times. Worth seeing, but also spoilery of course: https://youtu.be/VJNLmfyNpqk

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.

This is one of the movies that is really hard to rate for me, and I am torn between two sides. On the positives:

I liked the acting of this rather unknown cast. Acting for a normal movie is hard enough, and I believe that musicals are the supreme discipline, as you do not only have to have the ability to be a good actor, but you also need to both, be able to sing and dance and it has to sound good and look good. And here I have to say: They are excellent. All dance choreographies where really challenging, and had really funny ideas that made me smile a number of times. Comparing it to other musicals I have seen in the last year I have to say, those choreographies where even better than those in the beloved La La Land. Those choreographies where also well designed and scripted - for instance take the very first dance choreography in the high school - it is used to convey all the relationships of the different characters and their (hidden) feelings for each other, which I think was really great.

And speaking about great ideas - the entire movie is a absolutely great idea - when did you ever see a Christmas-High-School-Coming-of-Age Musical with Zombies? A really innovative idea, creating something new, which is really hard, in today's movie landscape.

The movie uses a lot of absurd ideas and interesting camera angles (e.g. the burning tire or a few of the deaths) and the humor that is conveyed using these angles was also really good. The movie doesn't take itself serious, there are a number of splatter scenes that are really funny, many things look unrealistic, because they avoid CGI and everything is made of practical effects (and those are simple) but with this I think they pay homage to the stage musical where you don't have CGI and use simple practical effects throughout - and also these things make the movie look even more funny.

And last but not least, the movie has a lot of soul, everybody seems to be really invested into this movie and giving his or her very best. It is a really charming movie.

If I point out that I have found a number of positive aspects that means that unfortunately I also have found some aspects that I consider negative:

Probably the most important one for me: The jokes that they made on purpose in movie where absolutely bad, and I couldn't laugh at any of the dialogues or one liners (e.g. "Oh no" - "What?" - "Justin Bieber is a zombie" - how is that even remotely funny?). I thought most of the jokes where either embarrassing, not funny at all or even annoying. And for me that really harms the movie.

Obviously Shaun of the Dead is an inspiration to this musical and it's even referenced. The parallels however are often really obvious and the problem with that is: Whenever Anna and the Apocalypse "copies" something we already know in Shaun of the Dead the later makes it so much better than this movie does. For instance they use the typical cut technique we know from Edgar Wright (e.g. in Worlds End where they order their beers and a water), but when they do, they do not try to convey a funny moment and therefore it seems unnecessary and wasted (for instance they use it in a random scene where the guys get into a car, which has no funny moment and does not compact something that needs to be shown).

Musicals are called musicals because they have music, and for me, a good musical has a song that captures me and that stays with me even after I've seen the movie for the first time (without rehering the soundtrack, etc.). Take La La Land, for instance. I've just seen that movie once, yet when I read the three words "City of Stars", I have an instant earworm that will stick with me the entire day. The Greatest Showman's "This is me" is equally catchy. With "Anna and the Apocalypse" there is no song that stood with me, no song that stood out, that captivated me, and a few weeks later if you'd play a song from this movie to me, I believe I wouldn't recognize them).

And when it comes to the genre of Zombie movies, this movie does not bring you anything new. And even for Zombie comedies there are a lot of better options to turn to. The only thing unique to this movie is it's setting at Christmas time, but they don't really cash in on the Christmas spirit, so other than the date and the decorations, this movie does not feel like a Christmas movie at all - take classics such as Home Alone, you can see that it is possible to convey a Christmas feeling even though your movie is not really about Christmas but cool action. And here - again - Anna and the Apocalypse falls short.

Last but not least - I am not really a musical fan. It's just not my genre. So convincing me is just as much harder, and in that aspect "La La Land" really did an excellent job, while all of the other current musicals didn't - this one included. I would have loved it to become a Christmas steady, I am always open for good new and unconventional Christmas movies (I feel like there are too few Christmas movies that I actually like - you can fill them into one evening, so I would love to have some additions to that list) but I am not sure if this movie could fill that spot - unfortunately.

Still I have to also honor all the positive aspects that I have mentioned, and I am sure that everyone who enjoys musicals will find this movie a great pick - it's no La La Land, no Shaun of the Dead and no Zombieland - but for a low budget independent movie with an entire cast of new inexperienced actors this movie this is really worth your time, so I would still recommend to give it a chance, and I am sure that it will find its fandom.

Again a movie that was shown at our weekly sneak review in cinema and it was a movie that I wasn't even keen on watching, a movie I wasn't really wanted to watch because it would tell the prequel that I thought was really unnecessary, for a movie series that was annoying me more than it was giving me fun.

Also, such prequels are most often born to fail, and just remember the last prequel to the last great franchise: Star Wars' Han Solo - a flop. Because nobody needs to get to know all the secrets, nobody needs to get an explanation for every smallest detail and everybody knows how the story will be ending - so often you cannot surprise, but only deliver some fan service. So if you don't have a good story and strong characters this is bound to be a failure. I was absolutely certain, that this would also happen with BumbleBee. But other than Star Wars this franchise didn't even start well, yet did it do well in my opinion. And that comes from a guy who loved the transformers tv series, and had a number of transformers toys in his youth. I was really excited for the 2007 movie and for a short time during the first watch I was sure that this movie was better than it really was - the second viewing of course knocked me out of the skies and I was knocked down hard. While the transformers still made my eyes glow, the story was bullshit and there is hardly any character more annoying than Sam Witwickey (I'd say he's the Jar Jar Binks of Transformers). Megan Fox could have been left out of the movie entirely, and if you believe the rumors, Michael Bay cast her role by inviting the actors to his home and letting them clean his car. Topped of with stupid dialogues this movie is so much tailored towards boys in early puberty, that it's no fun to watch - and all the other movies don't get much better. My ratings therefore aren't that good either - all of course get the Transformers fanbonus because I grew up with those things - I'd probably rate them even worse if it wasn't for my goodwill due to my childhood:

Transformers 1: 6/10
Transformers 2: 4/10
Transofrmers 3: 5/10
Transformers 4: 6/10
Transformers 5: 7/10

To spoil the end: I was positively surprised by this prequel. Even though the base plot is as uninspired and uninteresting as any of the other transformers stories and absolute foreseeable from the first minutes of the movie, this movie does so many things right, that I wished that this would have been the movie they started of with in 2007.

What does this movie - the first that is not directed Michael Bay - have that the others didn't? In short: It has heart and soul. Travis Knight is still a newcomer, he has only worked as animator since 2005 at the totally crazy studio Laika (who in the 2000s decided that there was still a market for totally expensive and time intensive hand made stop-motion-animation movies such as Paranorman, Coraline or Boxtrolls), and had his directing debut with "Kubo and the Two Strings" which as animation movie is of course different to directing a movie with real people - so in a way, BumbleBee is his first real debut.

And as with Kubo you can really feel the passion that was put into this movie, that you can feel in so many aspects. For instance you get this wonderful 80s feeling which is totally appropriate for an 80s cartoon adaption. This is not only portrayed by the music and the looks of the people and the technology but also by little things such as not using the typical futuristic CGI high gloss that Michael Bay uses to put on all his transformers. Instead, Bumblebee has an antiquated dusty look. We also get a lot of sand and a worn down finish that makes everything look rough and even dirty.

The camera does a great job and a lot of attention to detail, we get a lot of action scenes that thrive without being a fast paced sequence of cuts - instead the camera stays in one position during the action sequences - you always know who is fighting whom, and this makes the action scenes even more interesting. I've missed this in the Bay movies where there are so many fast cuts that you don't even know who is doing what and who's good and bad - you just see robot hands and foots boxing and kicking and stuff exploding - but because you don't see who is who (due to the fast pace) this might look dramatic but it doesn't captivate you (or at least that's true for me). This movie is so different, and works so good.

Of course for a transformers movie there has to be a lot of action, and this movie is no difference. Yet, the movie also takes a lot of time to build up the characters, to let firendships build up over the time of the movie. And that works really well and in favour of the movie - we get many heartwarming scenes, a couple of laughs but it's never too much and never unbelievable. We get a teenage girl, that is struggeling with grief, rebelling against her family, having fears, finds friendship and even first romantic encounters. And all this fits perfectly into this action packed Transformers movie, while still being a Transformers movie that fits into the franchise.

Hailee Steinfeld is a great actress who you'll embosom right from the beginning. She might seem a bit unbelievable at first - playing a "mechanic girl". But you'll get into it fast, and soon everything seems natural. And also Bumblebee is done really great - you'll realize that this time - even though it is still CGI - you have a gifted craftsman on set that spent his entire career animating figures. In the end you'll be reminded of movies like E.T. or Short Circuit. Of course those movies play on a totally different level, but there are parallels.

In my opinion this is the best Transformers movie made, it's the one movie this franchise had deserved from the beginning, it's finally a movie I can identify with, it's the movie where you can say: "Hey I'm a fan" without being embarrassed. It's the first good Transformers movie. Finally! Thank you, Travis Knight!

I've finally come around to re-watch this movie, after it has been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year now. I first saw this movie in a sneak preview - it was a movie that I would have wanted to watch anyways, so I was happy to get a head start, and I really enjoyed it. By now I think everybody knows that this movie is finally the long awaited continuation of Unbreakable (2000) which was not communicated and came as a surprise for all - unfortunately I was the only one to realize that at the cinema hall, screaming "Oh my god, this is Unbreakable" while everyone else looked puzzled. The story, however, is totally detached from Unbreakable and if it wasn't for the ending scene, you wouldn't have known it, as this one does not tie in any of the other characters and stands on its own:

When wanting to leave from the birthday party, the birthday girl Claire and her two friends Marcia and Casey get abducted by a strange guy. The girls are locked into a cellar and don't know what to expect, as their kidnapper seems strange and mentally unstable. And so a struggle for life and death begins.

I've originally rated this 8/10 after watching it at the cinema, but while re-watching it, I believe that this movie even got better. It was interesting in three ways:
First, now knowing that this movie is a sequel to Unbreakable, this movie has so many parallels that seem so obvious. Yet, I did not see them watching the movie the first time, and maybe wouldn't even have realized now, if I hadn't watch those movies back to back.
Second, re-watching this movie I figured out so many more interesting aspects I did not get at the first glance.
And third, even though I now knew the entire story, this movie was still so thrilling and captivating that I really felt of pushing my initial score up a bit.

It really is a great movie, it has so many interesting aspects, a really fascinating premises, and a really great story telling, pacing, it's wonderfully shot with a really great camera and has a great score. This becomes so clear right at the beginning of the car scene, which is so ingeniously done. Everything in this movie seems perfect already - but we haven't even yet talked about the actors and while all are great, there are of course two that stand out. First, there is "The Witch"-Star Anya Taylor-Joy, and her performance is absolutely stunning - her performance is absolutely believable, and she can convey so much just with her facial expression: fear, frustration, disappointment, but also her cleverness, the way she portraits that she is a fighter and a survivor. I feel like her performance isn't actually not valued as much as it should be - and the reason for that is of course James McAvoy, who gives his absolute best performance of his career: A DID patient with 23 prominent personalities of which we actually get to experience 5 in greater detail. He does that so stunningly well, that you can actually always tell, which person he is, right now. Of course there is some help in a number of scenes where the clothing changes - but there are also a number of scenes where he switches personalities in-scene, and even those are absolutely stunning It is a real pleasure to see him change his voice, change his accents, even change his entire facial expression from one moment to the other - that is some extremely high level acting that only few could master. It's incredible that M Night Shyamalan knew how to pick 'em and cast the perfect guy for this incredibly demanding role.

It's simply a really great movie with superb acting, great story telling, a really good story to tell, a clever idea - it's the prefect package.

PS: If you get the BD, take your time and watch the extras as well - Shyamalan actually comments on a lot of things: There's an alternative ending, a huge number of deleted scenes and all of them are introduced and explained by a commentary from Shyamalan that also gives a lot of additional background context to the movie itself. And there are three behind-the-scenes featurettes that are all worth watching as well.

When I saw the first teaser to this movie, I was like "What the hell is this? Something Peter Jackson created, that looks this fantastic? I need to watch this, even though the CGI did not look that good (yet?)". The first trailer wasn't that interesting anymore as it spoiled a lot. Still, Peter Jackson, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Lang... that could still be a good movie?

But first of all: The marketing - at least in Germany - was irritating. Peter Jackson wanted to do this movie, he held the rights to making this movie for over 8 years but couldn't get around and therefore decided to pass it on to one of his protegees: Christian Rivers, who has worked as storyboard artist and visual effects supervisor in 11 of Jackson's movies, has his directorial debut - Peter Jackson only contributed his first draft, and of course the rights and budget - which by the way is 150 million dollars - not bad for a debut. But does money equal quality?

Let's take a short look at the plot:

In a dystopian future the few survivors of a global catastrophe gathered together to form mobile predator cities and live in an world order called "Municipal Darwinism", i.e. in the great hunting ground larger cities hunt smaller cities for their resources, to enslave the people, etc. In this steampunk setting London is known as one of the most predatory cities - but the free young woman Hester Shaw wants to travel to exactly this city, because she is hoping to settle a score with one of the leaders of the city.

Peter Jackson has already proven that he has the ability to create new, unseen and absolutely fantastic worlds, and at first glance it seems like with Mortal Engines this applies as well, even though this is not really Peter Jackson. But: It's just the first glance. Yes, the world is cool, it has a lot of beautiful and interesting original ideas that we get to see. The CGI at first glance looks good - but unfortunately only at first glance. Different to Lord of the Rings, where you see a number of details, that are filmed in long slow moving camera to make sure the viewer has the ability to actually see, discover and experience all the details, in Mortal Engine you always have very fast tracking shots, so in the end, everything is blurry giving the movie makers the ability to mask the missing level of detail, as well as often also the physical plausibility of things. And that was something that really bothered me. How do the cities actually transform, or rake up to bigger cities? This happens so fast that you don't actually know - because there is no clever way they do fit together. And what are all the details in London? You don't get to see anything - there are 2-3 spots that are shown in detail - the rest is principally just a hill with a number of glowing spots, that blur due to the fast camera pace. Same with the wall. Why don't show how the people behind the wall actually live? They live a totally different life, why not celebrate it, like e.g. Lord of the Rings celebrated the introduction of Rohan? Because these details actually don't exist.

And at least to me, a movie of this caliber, with this budget and playing in such a world needs to be presented, needs to stun me. And we don't get anything.

But it's not only the graphics and setting - this is probably still the best part of the movie. Talking about the story, this movie is even worse. First, this movie is so packed, that you start to ask: Why did they not make a 2-part movie? Peter Jackson made 3 movies out of the hobbit which is a small to medium sized single children's book. But here, due to packing so much into one movie and not getting rid of certain aspects you feel like a lot of things are touched but not really explained. And this is really sad, as the story has a number of interesting parts. I would have loved to learn something about Anna Fang. Why is she hunted? What is her motivation as leader of an resistance movement? What is that resistance movements motivation? We get nothing - Anna is seen in the wanted poster in the beginning and all of a sudden she is there. The whole backstory with Shrike could have also been interesting, but is also just touched. Same with our antagonist. What is his motivation? No idea. Why does he - all of a sudden - decide to destroy something? No one will know. There are also hardly any quite moments to establish the characters, and this leads not only to the characters being really shallow, but also not rally having time to interact with each other and in the end there is absolutely no chemistry between the characters. All could die, and no one would care. And also the story telling is absolutely minimal. Most of the time is spend in an concatenation of action sequences: I feel that more than 80% was just action, and these action orgies where extremely CGI dominated, so they don't even get that exciting - and to me, after the first 2-3 action sequences I got fatigued.

In the end the actors are not challenged at all and fall far beyond what they are probably capable of, and there is not much else that the movie has to offer - I was bored after the first third of the movie, and it did not get any better till the end. A really great disappointment, I had high hopes :(

I've literally seen this movie decades ago and really enjoyed it then, but during the last years entirely forgot about it - until I saw Split in a sneak preview - when they showed the closing (or after credit?) scene, I was the only one in the cinema hall screaming "Oh my god, this is Unbreakable", while all the other visitors where puzzled. Unbelievable. Even my girlfriend didn't know the movie, so it had to be rewatched, and as "Glass" will be released this month, we finally got to actually watching it:

David Dunn (portrait by Bruce Willis) lives an ordinary life in modest circumstances, working as a football stadium security guy who is estranged from his wife and planing to start anew, when he gets in a train accident which he survives as the only person. He is then approached by the comic book enthusiast and comic art trader Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) who is certain that David is a real life impersonation of all the super heroes written about in comic books. He tries to mentor David who doesn't believe a word...

Being a comic book fan and loving the mid 2000s for all the stunning great super hero movies (Sam Raimis Spider-Man, X-Men, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Hellboy, Constantine, Watchman, 300, Sin City and of course the first MCU movies), I have to say this movie really stands out. It's not a typical comic book movie - it's not based on a comic book, it isn't even seeing itself as a typical super hero movie - it's rather a meta comic book movie, all the while having an integral part of typical comic books and focusing on this relevant mechanism that every comic book thrives on.

All the while this movie is so totally different to any super hero movie you have ever seen. Totally calm, slow paced, no special effects, hardly any fight scenes, all the while absolutely thrilling due to brilliant cinematography, great acting and a killer score. The characters and their relations are as deep as in a drama movie, and nearly the entire movie is a built up to a great finale and an unexpected turn of events. There is no CGI, no action, not even a hero vs super villain showdown. All the while it touches the essence of every comic book story, and does so in an ingenious way.

Because of this, of course not everyone will like the movie - a lot will probably not even consider it an comic book or action hero movie. But it really is a memorization of the comic book genre and given its age, and the fact that it came before the action hero genre took off, it really aged well - even after all the Marvel, DC and independent stuff this movie stands out as a great movie.

And now I am really looking forward to seeing the final 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!

I've watched this back to back with Unfriended on television, but I've seen this movie once before when I did a Prom Night marathon.

I don't remember how I liked the movie then, especially compared to all the other movies in that "series" - however, this second watch was rather boring. The movie starts a reboot of the movie series that started in 1980 and inspired 3 sequels in drastically descending quality. The original was all right, staring Halloween-Star Jamie Lee Curtis in a classic 70s/80s slasher movie, with everything you expect such movies to have: a masked murderer, sleazy guys wanting to pick up girls in their cars, easy girls that wanna get laid, drugs, alcohol, and of course a lot of very graphic and bloody kills, including stabbing, strangling, beheadings and a lot of blood.

The reboot movie does not in any way try to retell the original story: Except for the premises that girls are getting ready for prom night, there are no story parallels at all:

Donna grows up as an orphan after having witnessed her entire family getting killed by her teacher who was in love with Donna. She finally reaches the end of her High School, but at prom night her killer escapes the psychic ward and tries to get in touch with her again.

The worst thing about the missing parallels is that director Nelson McCormick who is debuting as director of a feature film here, is that it not only applies to the story but also to everything else in the genre. No sex, no drugs, no alcohol, no funny kills, no bloody kills, hardly any thrill at all - it's rather boring, and one might find oneself questioning whether this is an attempt to make a PG rated slasher movie?

4/10 points, because - believe it or not: Idris Elba is in it.

I've watched this because I was bored and it ran on television, and I remembered that I've seen the trailer for the second movie and that was so bad (but had an interesting idea), that I thought: Why not watch this?

And to get this out the way upfront: I hate found footage movies and this is best categorized as found footage. Also it is a low budget movie, by an unknown georgian-russian director with hardly any experience. The idea is pretty simple: film just the screen of one of the participants of a group skype call:

A group of teenager meet for a group skype call, which accidentally takes place at the anniversary of a suicide of one of their friends. Now, during the group chat our main protagonist gets messages from that dead girl, while some unknown person always joins the skype sessions. What was first thought of as a harmless prank by a troll seems to be the work of a skilled hacker targeting the group...

Easy premises, easy story. Does it work? Well, partly. I think the acting was okay, though the dialogues where partly way too much and too unbelievable. There are two scenes, that in my opinion where too overdone, totally overreaction and overacting. Also, some scenes where really boring and too long (all the time she starts searching something) - especially interesting: If she starts searching things, the chat automagically is mute, i.e. they stop talking? Really strange.

Also there are a few plot holes, like: why do they not use the smartphone to call each other, or to call help? Chatroulette, really? Why don't they simply turn of their computers all together, to get away, if they so desperately want to get away (of course, it wouldn't help the story and it wouldn't work for the found footage aspect - but it really makes you wonder...).

On the other hand I like the premises - it's something different to the classic camcorder or handycam shaky videos that you associate with found footage movies, and so I am not even that annoyed (I hate the constant shaky cam, the "selfi" parts where the camera operator turns the camera around to talk into it, the pointing the camera on the feet to give the feel of some amateur filming, etc.). That's refreshing. Additionally - and this is really important to me, someone that works as a computer scientist - they did not do any absurd stuff with IT - everything that happens seems plausible, and I also liked that they did not invent apps and websites that resemble actual apps and sites, but used real sites and apps to do their movie. This goes as far as that videos they used in the movie are real videos they uploaded to YouTube - and they are still there: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhdblEqwoRg

Getting to the horror aspect of this movie: Well, I wasn't scared. At all. I do appreciate what they tried to do, but this did not work at all for me. There was also no gore, I feel like this is an "FSK 12" rating.

In the end I was struggling with a rating of 2 or 3. I went with 3, because 1) the director is rather unexperienced and unknown, 2) it's a low budget production and 3) it is a fresh and new idea for found footage, and the first time I actually enjoyed found footage. Even though the movie has a lot of problems I enjoyed it, and therefore I grant it 6/10 stars.

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).

What a great movie to start the new year. I've finally watched this movie that has been on my watchlist for a while now, due to a number of praises by people I trust, and I can totally understand where they are coming from!

Dan Gilroy has been writing movies since 1992, throughout all genres and all of them great Hollywood movies. With Nightcrawler he gives us his first directorial debut, and this really is a great movie, that is well directed, extremely well shot, extremely captive and thrilling even though it does not even have that many action sequences, it has a great accompanying soundtrack and of course, most important of all: An enormously great performance by Jake Gyllenhall, which too me, after having seen current movies such as Nocturnal Animals, Demolition, Enemy, Prisoners, End of Watch, Source Code, is of course no surprise. Still, in this movie his performance is superb.

However, I did not quite like the ending, and I somehow feel that the movie looses a great opportunity for some social criticism that could have directly addressed the viewer: Because in the end it is us all who enable people like Lou Bloom in his career, because we create the demand for such videos. There is of course a subtle hint, but I would have liked a more "in your face" ending (take for instance the South Park approach with "Super Sexy Action News" in the Episode "A quest for Ratings"). Other than that a really great movie.

I've watched it from the Korean BD release, there was just one 5 Minutes extra but that was really interesting as well: For the movie they had two "experts" as consultants who themselves are active Nightcrawlers, and a paraphrased quote: "In the movie Jake Gyllenhall moves a corpse for the better angle before the cops and parametics arrive - we've never done that, but other than that: yeah, this movie pretty much shows everything we do."

A classic with a motif that is often been adopted since - creepy kids that kill all their parents and try to live on their own; in away this was lastly depicted in American Horror Story: Hotel, with the School-Sidestroy-Arc.

That is definitely something to take into account; as is the fact, that over the time it has gained a certain cult status (it even inspired the name of the Band KoRn as well as one of their song titles "Children of the KoRn"), despite the really low budget this film was produced on.

It is that low budget that in the end invited so much negative criticism: The bad, really cheesy graphics effects, the rushed ending, the bad acting by some actors. Story-wise it is - on the other hand - really strong. It is mostly suspense, and less explicit graphics, it had an - for that time - inspired new idea, it paved the way for children as the evil creatures of horror movies; all points to take into consideration. And talking about bad actors: There are also really good ones, such as Linda Hamilton, who seems to be too good (and kind of untapped as she is capable of so much more) to be in this movie.

On the other hand, however, from a today's viewers standpoint, it has aged really badly. Comparing it to movies such as Orphan or Insidious, the kids are completely tame and not at all frightening, the dialogues are a bit dated and feel strange, and the suspense is - for today's standards - much less frightening and lean more towards the boring side of things.

So in the end I am torn between a high rating that deserves a cult classic that has inspired many other movies to come and the low rating of a dated movie that leans towards being a bit boring and cheesy. I still believe it is worth at least having seen it once. So I'll grade it with an average 3/5