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roganoffeski
Reviews
Nope (2022)
Terribly disappointing
That's probably it for me as far as Jordan Peele is concerned. Get Out was decent (though overrated) and I loved Us, but I absolutely hated his Twilight Zone remake which is one of the worst TV shows I've seen in many years. But I was willing to give Nope a chance even though the reviews had been very mixed.
I shouldn't have. It's not a terrible movie - those giving it 1/10 are being deliberately disingenuous and are as bad as those hyping it to the moon. You can see they've pumped money into this thing because it looks great and the effects are convincing.
But it IS horribly flawed - the acting is mostly fine but I couldn't stand Keke Palmer's character. The pacing is awful - the first hour just draaaaaags and it's ages before the storyline kicks into gear. And other reviewers are correct that most of the characters act in completely illogical ways and continually do stupid things. By the end, I just wanted the film to finish.
The Twilight Zone (2019)
Don't waste your time
I should have trusted my first instinct and avoided this. I don't mind a little social commentary now and again, as long as it's subtle - this is anything but. Gun control, black lives matter, immigration, toxic masculinity, the presidency... it's all so over the top and in your face.
The most disappointing thing is that it completely misses the point of the original series - yes, to make you think about important stuff but to do it in a creative, enjoyable way. Most of the episodes have an interesting premise but then literally lose the plot and ram their woke message of the week down your throat.
Great cast and the show looked good, but a real wasted opportunity.
Day of the Dead (2021)
Good lord, this is awful!
Currently watching episode 7 - it's hard to believe but the show is actually getting worse. Everything about it is bad - the acting, the writing, the editing, the effects... It's almost like they filmed a pilot and then were caught by surprise when the show got picked up and didn't know what to do with it - it's just so directionless.
And it just looks so cheap. As disappointing as The Stand and Twilight Zone remakes were, at least the production values were high. But not this dumpster fire of trashiness. Easily the worst show I've seen in many years.
Psycho Goreman (2020)
Such a waste
Great idea for a movie, just horribly executed.
The casting director should be embarrassed - the whole family seem to have all gone to the same bad acting school. They were deplorable, especially the daughter who was excruciating every time she appeared on screen. Truly excruciating.
The storyline was fine, until it reached the stupid dodgeball fight at the end, and the dialogue is ludicrous throughout. Psycho Goreman himself is pretty entertaining and it shouldn't have been too hard to build a decent movie around him, but this was seemingly beyond them.
The effects were fun and well suited to the tone of the film. I was even willing to overlook Pandora's cardboard helmet. And the film sped along pretty well and didn't outstay its welcome. But the acting... lordy, the acting.
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
Uneven, but still entertaining
A movie of 3 different parts, with some stronger than others - ignore the Owen Wilson fluff at the start. The Concrete Masterpiece was a great first story and I'm still struggling to get Lea Seydoux out of my mind - you'll understand if you've seen the movie. Del Toro and Brody are also a lot of fun in the story.
But then it hits a brick wall with part 2 - Revisions to a Manifesto. It's dull, boring and contributes little. Christoph Waltz is utterly wasted in a nothing role.
The final chapter, The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner, helps the film recover a bit but is so over the top and the use of animation doesn't help in that respect.
An entertaining way to spend an afternoon but Anderson has done better before. The framing sequence is also a colossal waste of some great acting talent like Bill Murray and Elisabeth Moss. Fun but flawed.
Dune: Part One (2021)
All sizzle, no steak
And I was so looking forward to this too. So disappointing.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to enjoy about this movie. It looks gorgeous and the acting is generally very good - I was especially impressed by Timothy Chalamet who I hadn't seen before. And Oscar Isaac was absolute perfection.
But here's the problem - we get so little of the story in Part 1 and it is soooo dragged out - the pacing is just not great. So much time is spent on Paul and his mother's escape from the Harkonnen and then... we're done - come back in 3 years' time. It didn't feel anything like a complete movie to me. I could tell from the reactions of the audience that they weren't expecting such an abrupt and premature ending. I did know it was coming and was still bummed out.
Considering how much I loved Blade Runner 2049, this was a letdown.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Probably the weakest MCU movie since Iron Man 3
I usually like to post my thoughts straight after seeing something new, either good or bad, but this time I just didn't care enough to bother. I just felt flat at the end. I'm sure there are plenty who enjoyed it, but the plethora of super high scores is weird. Even if you want to turn your brain off and enjoy the visuals, it's still not that good. It's actually quite dull.
The acting is... fine. With the exception of some of Liu's scenes, the whole movie's had a complete charisma bypass. And then there's Awkwafina's performance - not as bad as I expected, but that was still some strange casting.
Who knows, if they'd chopped half an hour and tightened up the story a bit, it might have worked better. But instead it was a bloated, CGI heavy snorefest. Unless Eternals is a surprise hit, I'm really not liking where the MCU is heading post-Endgame.
Jungle Cruise (2021)
Nice and harmless
This was the 2nd movie I went to see this weekend as I had to wash the taste of Candyman out of my mouth from yesterday. And I'm glad I did because it was quite a bit of fun, pretty much as advertised.
Is it the greatest movie ever? Of course not. The plot was a bit fanciful and the ending predictable, the bad CGI was distracting and it went a little long (though not by much). But the leads were charming and the photography looked great, so the kids will love it. Shame it took so long to come out in cinemas but it was probably worth the wait.
Candyman (2021)
Give it a miss
I really should have read some reviews before seeing this. If I'd known it was another hamfisted horror movie laden with racial and political commentary (much like Antebellum last year), I would have given it a wide berth.
The other negative reviews have already covered the problems with the movie - there's a complete lack of scares, most of the kills are off screen and it's just so incredibly boring. The best thing about it was the trailer for Halloween Kills.
Hemlock Grove (2013)
Quite dreadful
I bought the first season of the series on a whim - I knew nothing about it, but Famke Janssen was in it so it had to be good, right?
Half an hour into the first episode, I felt like Job from Arrested Development - I'd made a huge mistake.
Firstly, the look of the show: you know those TV shows that look like a million dollars? This looks like it cost a buck fifty - it looks cheap as hell. And yet it apparently had a budget approaching that of GoT, which is madness.
The acting is also very spotty which makes no sense considering some of the talent involved. There's at least 5 actors I'm very familiar with, but most of them are phoning in their performances. And Famke's accent - WTH, girl?!
But it's the writing that sucks the hardest. As others have already mentioned, it often feels like important plot points are not mentioned or glossed over and they skip straight from A to Z without sufficient explanation. The characters range from annoying to infuriating, with the possible exception of Peter. And the conclusion of S1? What a mess. The plan was to have the vargulf eat my face? Umm, whuh?
The scary part is that apparently season 1 is the best of the three. Needless to say, I'll have to take people's word for it. This is easily the worst thing I've seen since S3 of Under the Dome.
Chernobyl (2019)
Engaging and entertaining, but loses momentum
I wanted to wait until I'd seen the whole series before I voiced an opinion and it's just as well. The show starts off with a bang - literally - and the first couple of episodes that detail the unfolding of the event and immediate effect on the workers and first respondents are frightening. No one should have to go through what they did.
But then... things slow down dramatically in eps 3 & 4. I love a good drama as much as anyone but it gets to the point where it's almost boring. 4 is especially disappointing - someone here made a comment about too much time being allocated to the killing of the animals in the area and I have to agree. The point was made but then it just went on and on. Thankfully things picked up again for the final episode where we saw exactly how the reactor exploded and the story wound down to its inevitable, though somewhat unsatisfying, conclusion.
The acting overall is topnotch, especially the two main leads. Harris is especially sympathic and acts as our proxy throughout the story. Skarsgard is also excellent as his character evolves throughout the 5 episodes. But...
Yes, the accents. I'm sorry, but this is unforgiveable. Right from the first 5 minutes, it completely threw me out of the story and distracted me from what I was watching. Considering they were such an accomplished and talented group of British actors, it is inexplicable and non-sensical that the director and producers chose to use their natural accents. ESPECIALLY when some of the supporting cast were doing Russian accents, at least early on. It's lazy, arrogant storytelling and makes zero sense - please don't tell me the likes of Harris and Skarsgard wouldn't be able to come up with passable Russian accents because it's simply not true.
Lost in Space (2018)
Some terribly unfair reviews
I was reading a bunch of these reviews while I was watching the first few episodes of the series and got the impression this was a terribly produced and acted TV show. The truth is, it simply isn't.
The complaints about a dysfunctional, unlikable family can only have come from those that stopped watching the show after the first 2 or 3 episodes because the family dynamic begins to change (for the better) pretty early on. It's not long before most of them are quite enjoyable to follow. The criticism of supposed 'man-hating' Maureen Robinson is especially ridiculous - the reasons for the breakdown of her marriage are fully explained & very reasonable given the circumstances detailed later.
Yes, the characters make some silly decisions at times but, given they're marooned on a hostile alien world, I think you can cut them a break. And Dr Smith is SUPPOSED to be an evil scumbag - that's the point. We are supposed to hate her. Some of those commenting seem to forget that while we are seeing everything she does, the others only learn of her betrayals gradually and then act accordingly.
Overall, Season 1 was pretty high class and certainly good enough for me to keep watching.
RoboCop (1987)
Still holds up more than 30 years later
I rewatched this film on blu-ray a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at how good it still was. More often than not, old action movies can look horribly dated compared with today's movies, but not Robocop. I actually like it more now than when I first saw it in the 80's and 90's.
It's greatest strength is that it's just a beautifully constructed and simple story about good vs evil. And the bad guys are VERY evil - Kurtwood Smith, Ray Wise and Ronny Cox are all exceptional. The good guys - the police department - are fighting a losing battle but they nevertheless persist. And Peter Weller's performance as both Murphy and Robocop is subtle but excellent.
The special effects are brilliant for their day, with the obvious exception being the stop motion effects for the ED-209 (but it's such a small part of the movie that I'm happy to overlook it). The violence is brutal, as it should be, and the humor very dark but generous at times.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
And the Oscar goes to...
Well it bloody well better - it's only January but I'm not going to see a better performance than Carey Mulligan's this year. She was just incredible in this movie from start to finish.
The film itself? Enjoyable and absorbing, if flawed to some extent. It was a little difficult to accept Cassie's decisions in the final act and the sacrifices she was making, knowing what might happen to her, considering how strong a character she'd been portrayed as for the previous 90 mins. The tyre iron scene was a small insight but there needed to be more scenes showing the direction she was heading in - I'm still not sure I'm convinced.
Good supporting cast, especially Alfred Molina in a tiny role. Best thing I've seen from Alison Brie in years. But they're all overshadowed by Mulligan. Without her, it would have been a very different movie, and likely nowhere near as good.
Happiest Season (2020)
Nope
Well that was nearly 2 hours of my life I'm not getting back. I took a chance on this based on a well edited and funny trailer I watched this week - if only the whole movie was as good. But it's not. It's painfully unfunny with the exception of a couple of Levy's quips - this guy's good, I should check out more of his work. But I digress...
The other reviews are pretty much correct - the only saving graces are Levy, Aubrey Plaza and sometimes Kristen Stewart. The rest of the cast are sleepwalking through the film - Victor Garber, what the hell was that, man?
Avoid this, save your $$ and just wait for Wonder Woman next week.
The Babadook (2014)
Finally watched it... and it is bad
I'd put off seeing this movie for years as I hadn't been that impressed by any of the previews I'd seen. Turns out I should have trusted my instincts because it's an incredibly frustrating experience. Bad enough that the child is the most excruciating brat in the history of film but then it devolves into a ham-fisted portrayal of mental instability with a pretty hokey monster thrown in. And not a single decent scare in the entire movie which was a real chore to sit through. If this is the kind of rubbish that gets 98% on RT, my faith in that site is gone for good.
Summer of 84 (2018)
Pretty dreadful
I'm a little surprised by all the positive reviews here and elsewhere - I thought this was a really ordinary film with some very basic performances.
The cast should be a bit of a giveaway - I don't think I've heard of any of them before, with the possible exception of Rich Sommer (a c-lister at best). No one puts in a stinker but it's all very simple and uninspiring work. And the storyline was about as rudimentary as you can get, with the reveal being utterly predictable. I saw a comment somewhere that this movie is just a collection of ideas stolen... sorry, 'borrowed' from other films. It is exactly that. There is nothing new in it whatsoever.
Except perhaps for the bizarre tonal shift that happens in the last 15 minutes and turns what was a 'fun', almost light-hearted mystery into something very dark and pretty ugly. So I'm not surprised to see this thing had 3 directors - that explains everything. A really frustrating and substandard movie.
Antebellum (2020)
Woof, that was hard work...
It's been a long while since I've looked at my phone halfway through a movie to see how much longer it has left, but that's how disappointing this was.
Like many, I got sucked in by the "by the producers of Get Out & Us" - this is nowhere near the same quality. There is no humor, no suspense, and the acting is poor. I can't think of a single performer that impressed me - even Monae let me down this time.
The first 1/2 hour was strong but then it completely degenerated. The twist was interesting and probably the only thing of note that I took away from the viewing. And as important as the 'message' of the film was, it couldn't have been any more hamfisted in its delivery. Such a waste.
Legion (2017)
Utterly phenomenal
One of the truly great TV shows. As good as Fargo is, also created by Noah Hawley, this is another step beyond. Every episode is a tour de force of drama, comedy, emotion, music... and the visuals. Oh lordie, the visuals. There are a lot of series that look like real money has been spent on them - this one, you wonder how the hell they were able to do it on ANY kind of TV budget. I look forward to revisiting the show in a couple of years and watching it all over again - I suspect it's going to be just as enjoyable the second (and third) times around. But be warned, this is not for those with short attention spans or limited imagination.