I keep watching these Lovecraftian films, hoping that eventually one will be good. This one looks like it had a decent budget for crew, at least. All of the supporting actors were either terrible or were directed horribly - hard to tell. The core actors were okay, but they'd likely kill better at dinner theatre.
Like so many JCVD films, it appears to be written by a team of 12 year olds. It's partially set in a hospital ER and partly in an FBI interrogation room, yet I don't think any of the writers had ever spoken to a doctor or someone in law enforcement before. Showing just the intro scenes admitting the people to ER would have had doctors rolling their eyes.
"Prioritize people! Victims with vitals first! No heartbeat, no treatment!" says what appears to be he only doctor in the place.
Jet contrails during the civil war shots?
Confederate soldier with a gold stud ear ring
Gravity all OVER that space station, weird shots aside.
Shaving stubble flying around loose in the ISS.
Too much mumbling.
This isn't about the protagonist going crazy, it's about dragging the audience with him.
So Made-For-TV, it smells.
"Fuck my best boots, I'm filled with wonder."
I have forgotten the contents of this movie.
How little can I care about the characters in a film? Uninspired Westworld wannabe with little plot or performance of note.
What is it with these ports that stack their cargo containers to form mazes?
Also, what's the point of a count-down timer on the guy you're killing? It's as stupid as the bright red light on the bomb you place under a truck. It serves no purpose.
"This is not your average party."
Something about this reminds be of Lanthimos' Dogtooth, though lacking anything of a linear structure. What's dream, what's solitude or drug-induced figment? Who cares?
This is one of those films to see, but not so much to re-watch.
Lame lame lame lame. Lame.
Saw this comment on Shudder - stupid fake comb-over bald...
"I worked on this movie and we know, we know, about the bald head... it makes him look like Baby Huey from those old comic books. The weird thing is that he's ACTUALLY shaved, it's not a bald-cap! But what makes it look weird is the way it's such a clean , straight line around his otherwise shaggy head, like he's given himself a "Friar Tuck". It doesn't look natural at all, but like he's some hipster who just doesn't give a fuck. And It's the ridiculous little top wisps he's got, too. UGHHH. Believe me when I say it shanks us every time we look at the finished film."
The side-by-side shots at the end. Pure gold. I lost track of which was original The Room a couple times.
There's some nice photography here, and Blake Lively gives a decent performance - as much as could be expected with the wafer thin story line.
Creepy husband guy has control issues gets off on having a blind wife, she regains sight, so he gets all bitchy about it. They travel for no apparent reason to see her sister, and that's a whole strange thing unto itself. There are people and plot points that go nowhere. Big surprise, her husband has been sabotaging her eye meds and she starts losing her sight. They're both suspicious, blah blah.
It could be an interesting thriller, but it just comes off as mediocre... there's no real surprises. OH NO! THE HUSBAND 'robbed' their house. OH NO! He's impotent in a couple senses of the word, and her one infidelity leads to pregnancy. The idea of hiding her sight from her husband could have happened much earlier if you really wanted this to be a thriller.
Every so often, I see a film that I can only guess was completely different from the one that Rotten Tomatoes saw.
For a romantic comedy with time travel elements, it has a surprising final act. Sure, it's still a sugary ending, but not the one that I'd have predicted. I think it could have been tightened up a bit with maybe one less cycle, maybe spent a bit more time developing Max, who could as easily have not been in the film as it runs.
It feels like it might coexist in the world Videodrome inhabits. Not pure horror, maybe, but... odd.
The end flops around for about 20 minutes and feels like it just won't die. At the end, I was cheering against Will because I hold him responsible for the crap 3rd act.
I thought it had promised at the start, despite Forest's bizarrely antagonistic character. It didn't really setup any real tension between the two, it was just annoying. Once things got moving, it smoothed out... Well until the last act where they pulled a Lost Series Finale and just fucked over the viewers.
Richardson reminds me at times of Ash in Evil Dead, if he'd stumbled into that island in Wicker Man. I wrote that before he lost his hand, too.
It's a bit uneven, but well enough done.
Well, I didn't expect much of this, but it was a nice little film. Surprisingly great acting throughout, other than Toronto which didn't play a good Baltimore.
The story doesn't get overly cliche or sappy, and still progresses well.
The acting ranges between scenery chewing and fair.
The script goes tries going places and just never delivers.
The poster looks nice.
There are a handful of possible films here, all little more than sketches. Exorcism film with the non-believer priest, lost woman unable to deal with life in the city, dark comedy about a reality tv exorcist, a dark comedy about nuns just living the nun life. Well shot, well acted, but incomplete.
C+, see me after class.
Keep calm and swallow your suicide pill for Queen and country.
A bit surprised there weren't more murders in this bunch. The ending shot of Art was nice.
This is the weirdest, and longest, episode of Columbo I've ever seen.
That's who Christian Bale is playing, right?
It's fine in its way, but there's too much going on without anything actually going on. Pace really could have been picked up, especially considering how it seemed to have promise when Washington and Bale were back in the USA, hired by a woman to investigate a suspicious death. It could have been a noir tinged film, but I don't know that they knew what they wanted.
The birdwatchers (Myers and Shannon) and the detectives (Nivola and Shoenaerts) could be removed entirely and not affect the story at all. Some real tightening up could have been done. Chris Rock wasn't needed, nor any Beatrice and the in-laws.
I think it's a mistake that Saldaña wasn't given a bigger role, maybe without the boring wafer thin love interest role. She's hardly more than a prop.
Honestly, everything was fine, but there was just too much filler. 2:14 but I think it could have been a tighter 1:45 and only making it a more interesting, fast-paced film.
In The Man From Toronto, they couldn't pronounce 'Toronto' right, and in Amsterdam, they pronounced 'Amsterdam' like they'd never heard anyone Dutch say it.
The poster looks nice, I guess?
Episode 3 was maybe the best character driven story in any zombie tv show ever written, even without any zombies in the episode (well, none that were pivotal to the plot, anyhow). Bill and Frank were lucky to find each other. Bill wouldn't have made it all that much longer on his own.
If there was a dead body instead of a crater and a narrator throughout the film, this could easily be a forward looking update on Stand By Me. Where it was written by someone like Heinlein writing science fiction for young people.
It's solid, it's hopeful without being syrupy or cliche.
Thankfully it does NOT take a dystopian turn at the end where we find out that Omega is an alien world where the residents e the people sent there. There are things that go unexplained because they don't matter like the half built city, the strange holo-deck, etc. They're just settings for the story, and don't need to take up time.
Sadly, Disney seems to have decided to bury this one for unknown reasons, matey. Arrrrr... if only there be a way to see it.
I'm not sure when "Wicker Man" become a genre, but I'm here for it.
Could have used more bees.
Fair film for the first two acts, kept hanging around to see what happened. Good performance by Reeves and Zellweger. Maybe not their best, but solid. I'm not sure what Mbatha-Raw's part in the film was supposed to be, but her part in the released film has zero impact. She's a good actor, but her character wasn't given anything to do but deliver a lukewarm questioning to one witness.
As for the surprise at the end? I've never liked thrillers that have the big "surprising" reveal that the butler defense attorney did it, despite there being no real evidence presented in the film. It went from mediocre and largely forgettable to stupid and insulting with the non-guilty verdict and the attorney client meeting.
I think I'd lock this film in my Disappointments Room. Unresolved story elements, surprise characters with no backstory or resolution, TV Movie Of The Week elements. A fair number of people lost bets where their forfeit was appearing in this film.
Just finished watching, and I've already forgotten about it.
None of the characters were even slightly interesting. Bunch of tropes with no personalities, dying one at a time until there's a Final Girl. Boring.
"No comment here, no comment at all. We only wanted to introduce you to one of our very special citizens, little Stephanie, who lives in a house all alone. And if by some strange chance you should run across her, you had best think only good thoughts. Anything less than that is handled at your own risk, because if you do meet Stephanie, you can be sure of one thing: you have entered The Twilight Zone."
