Sequels should only be made if you actually have a good idea that could work. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is an example of a movie where this obviously isn’t the case. After the park went out of control in the previous movie, the island has been abandoned and the dinosaurs lived as free animals. As that isn’t an interesting setup for a movie, they are now threathened by a vulcano on the island that will wipe them out once again. Problem solved you could say, but the government is thinking about rescuing them and not letting them go extinct. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is running the Dinosaur Protection Group in support of this plan. When the government decides against rescue, she is approached by Benjamin Lockwood who has a plan to relocate the dinosaurs to a new location where they can live “in peace”. She must convince Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to join her. Once she does, they head to Isla Nublar and things don’t exactly go as planned. Continue reading
Tag Archives: score: 2
Dirty Grandpa (2016) – Review
In general I will finish watching every movie I press play on. That sometimes mean I will have a heard time to keep watching, but also that for some movies I will watch them at slightly higher speeds. Lately I’ve been questioning myself why I force myself to finish each movie I start. I think it is because I’m able to give my opinion about a film (because a movie might become better later on), but is that the real reason? Or does it simply give my some kind of satisfaction to be able to say I’ve finished it and add it to the number of movies I watched as some sort of reward? Isn’t it better to spend my time on a good movie which I actually enjoy? Sometimes it can be fun writing a review of a horrible film, because it allows you to air your frustration. Still, Dirty Grandpa almost managed to get me to stop it before it ended. Continue reading
Paradox (2016) – Review
There are moments when I look at the reviews I’m writing and the scores I’ve been giving films, when I wonder if I’m generally too positive about the movies I watch. Should I be more critical or do I simply pick out the ones which are, on average, actually good? Paradox quickly gave me an answer to those questions. Continue reading
Russian Ark (2002) – Review
After seeing the fantastic (it ended up in my top 10 of the year) Victoria last year, a two hour long movie shot in one take, I was very interested to see this movie which has been shot in the same way. According to IMDB: “2000 cast members, 3 orchestras, 33 rooms, 300 years, all in one take”. I had bought the film a couple of years ago after the rave review, but never bothered taking the plastic of and actually watching it. So a good reason to add it to my blindspot list for this year as it would make sure I’d finally come around to seeing the movie. Continue reading
Thy Father’s Chair (2016) – Review
I’m sure you sometimes have one of those days where you don’t feel like cleaning up the house. You don’t do the dishes or pick up some stuff laying around. Sometimes you might do that a couple of days, but you’ll quickly realize your house will become a mess and you make sure you get rid of the mess. Jewish twins Abraham and Shraga from New York haven’t done anything around their house. The man are covered by wounds from all the vermin in their house biting them and the average person wouldn’t dare enter their house. Still a specialized team goes into the house and tries to get the brothers say goodbye to all their “precious” junk. Continue reading
Tokarev (2014)
It’s a shame to see how the careers of some actors or actresses develop. On the box of this movie it clearly states “Academy Award Winner” Nicolas Cage. What that cover doesn’t mention though is that he received that statue in 1996, almost 20 years ago and that the quality of the movies he stars in has taken a huge nosedive. The number of B-movies to his name keeps increasing, but there might be exceptions. Is Tokarev one of them? Continue reading
Savage Killers (1976)
After recently watching Kung Pow: Enter the Fist I got curious about the movie which was used to make one of my favorite comedies: Savage Killers (also known as Tiger and Crane Fist). If you don’t know Kung Pow: It’s a comedy which uses footage of this movie to create a whole new story in which director/actor Steven Oedekerk has added himself. I was wondering about the original story, how specific scenes were used and whether I would be able to take any of the characters in the original seriously. Continue reading
The Counselor (2013)
“What have I just been watching!?” That was the first question that popped into my mind after watching The Counselor. My expectations in advance was that this would be a movie which would be both visually beautiful and also engage on an intellectual level and I had enough reason to do so: directed by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) and starring an amazing cast, including Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt. With so much experience and raw acting talent it was not strange to have those expectations. The first blow came before seeing the movie as a lot of bad reviews entered my mailbox. It made me decide not to see the movie at the cinema, but wait until it was available on DVD. It could be that I would like this movie a whole lot more than others did and in the end it is all about forming your own opinion about something. After watching it though that question went through my mind about what I had just seen. Was this an amazing misunderstood Ridley Scott movie or was it as bad as all the reviews had made me believe? Continue reading
Getaway (2013)
On paper some movies sound better than the final product. Getaway is a great example of that. When brainstorming about the movie the team behind it had some great ideas. They must have thought about how much audiences love car chases and that a whole movie almost completely consisting of them is a lot better than only having a couple. Then they remembered how cool the car was that Nicolas Cage used in Gone in Sixty Seconds, so they decided that would be the ride to star in this movie.
Since you can’t have a movie about a car being chased some people and an actual story is also needed, so they looked in the big book of Hollywood cliches and found some amazing ideas there. Just like in Taken someone is being kidnapped (in this case a wife) and a former racedriver (because they know how to drive cars really fast) should be the husband doing everything to save her. Of course this can not be all because only worrying about his wife is not enough. There also needs to be some drama in the car, so adding a teenager in the car is a great idea since teenagers can be dramatic about anything. String it all together and that’s the concept of your movie done. Continue reading
All Is Lost (2013)
The packaging of this movie in its DVD or Blu Ray form could have blurbs on it like “most realistic depiction of man versus nature” or “the ultimate movie about survival”. Unfortunately that does not automatically means that All Is Lost is a good movie though, something everyone will be able to enjoy. Could you imagine Life of Pi without the animals and narration? Or 127 Hours without the main characters talking to the camera? Buried without the phone? Those descriptions come pretty close to what this movie is. Except for a voiceover at the beginning of the movie this is almost a silent movie. Over an hour in Robert Redford (who I guess plays himself since we don’t get to know anything about the person he is playing) screams “FUUUUCCCKKKK”. Which was about the same thing I thought about the movie not having finished yet. Continue reading