krachtm Reviews

X (II) (2022)

A typical Ti West movie

[6/10 · 18 February 2024]

A group of friends trying to make a pornographic movie end up fighting for their lives.

I guess your opinion of this film is probably going to depend on how you feel about Ti West. His movies are very minimalist, and there's often little in the way of plot. The characters are usually a bit interesting, but they just wander around for an hour doing their thing, and then a horror movie suddenly intrudes. A lot of people seem to find this suspenseful, but I can't really say that I do. This movie continues that trend.

The concept of a Jim Jarmusch style horror movie appeals to me, but it seems like Ti West's hipsters never really have very interesting adventures. It seems we're supposed to find some kind of meaning here. However, I'm not really seeing anything deeper than the most obvious interpretation - one that is simply stated outright by one of the characters. Then again, one of the characters is a pretentious director, so maybe there really isn't supposed to be anything here but a simple slasher story.

One thing you might notice about this movie right away is that the characters aren't a bunch of idiots who exist merely to be killed off. That's admirable in a slasher movie. The problem is that it's not really a high bar to reach for when you're a writer. Still, the state horror movies means we should probably be thankful of competent writing when we find it.

The acting was pretty good. If you're not a Ti West fan, some of the scenes in his movies come off like filler. There was singing, swimming, and people just hanging around, being somewhat creepy. The actors kept me engaged, though, even when the singing started. Mia Goth played a dual role, and I didn't even realize it.

The special effects are often the real stars of slasher movies. Mia Goth's makeup is fairly impressive. It basically transforms her into someone else. The gore is also pretty, well, gory. It looks like they wanted to really capture the feel of 70s exploitation. The thing is, we've already got enough exploitation homages, and I'm not really sure we need more unless they've got something unique to add.

If you're a fan of 70s exploitation, it should at least be watchable, even if you're not the world's biggest Ti West fan. It wasn't boring, and that's really the only unforgivable sin in a slasher movie.

Make My Day (2023– )

More watchable anime from Netflix

[6/10 · 30 August 2023]

On a frozen frontier planet, criminals sentenced to hard labor and their guards have to fight off hardy creatures who feed on their power source.

The first thing I noticed was that the art was pretty good. Then I noticed that a lot of it was in a rather stylized computer-generated style. It's not bad, but it gives faces and hair a plastic-like appearance reminiscent of older, cheaper video games. Sometimes it looks nice, but the plastic faces can be a little off-putting at times, especially when you compare them to screenshots of the newest games.

The monsters are reminiscent of tardigrades, probably to explain why they're living on a frozen wasteland with poisonous air. They're initially presented as immortal, but the protagonists soon figure out some weaknesses. There's a little more that gets done with the creatures, but that's pretty much it. The science fiction elements a bit minimal and mostly provide some quick world building.

Our protagonist, Jim, is a likeable sort though a bit of a generic everyman. He's an artist who has ignored his dreams and is too shy to tell his friend how he feels. There aren't really any surprises in his character arc, but you may be surprised at how much of a fearless and badass soldier he is. It turns out that all you really need to reach your potential is a lot of heart and maybe a training video or two.

Jim's new best friend is a criminal who repeatedly shows courage and honor. When Jim finally learns his crime, it introduces the core theme: redemption. Most characters are a bit cliched, and some don't really have any defined personality beyond "Jim's love interest". However, their flaws and redemption arcs can give them a bit more depth than you might usually see. It's a mixed bag that may work as long as you're not looking for something grimdark.

I had to fast forward through a couple scenes because they were just too long and boring, which is very rare for me. However, one of them was a scene where Jim's girlfriend, a surrogate mother, gave birth. It felt like it went on forever, though it might have just been my annoyance with having to listen to all that yelling. Overall, I thought the pacing was fine, but the series probably didn't need to be quite this long.

If you don't mind your science fiction being a bit generic and lawful good, it's pretty watchable. It's better than some of the stuff I've seen on Netflix.

The Devil Judge (2021)

A bit cartoonish at times but over very good

[8/10 · 27 August 2023]

A judge uses morally questionable methods to fight the corrupt government in a dystopian version of Korea.

The premise is what grabbed me. Chances are, I'll find dystopian works at least watchable. There's the whole "fight the power" thing going on, and sometimes you get interesting worldbuilding. Well, there's not so much of that going on here, but there's so much "fight the power" energy that you could power an entire city for a month.

Ji Sung plays Kang Yo Han, a judge who's willing to do pretty much anything to topple the corrupt leadership of Korea. You get the feeling that if the country collapsed in ruin around him, he'd congratulate himself on a job well done as long as the president was dead. These kinds of characters are often intriguing. A charismatic actor can make you want to believe in the character's insane plans and feel kind of bad when they're foiled. Ji Sung pulls that off in this show. He's really great.

There are some clear Good Guys who help little old ladies cross the street and rescue cats from trees. Their naivety can be goofy at times, but they're played well. If the actors weren't so likeable, it would probably be a bit annoying. I might have rolled my eyes a few times, but I did feel invested in their moral dilemmas. Judge Kang seemingly always has some crazy and morally dubious scheme he's planning, and he tries to draw them into it, sometimes successfully.

Besides Judge Kang's nemesis, a cold-hearted woman with a stalker crush, the antagonists are generally like villains from a Disney cartoon, including the evil cackling. The president is an amusingly clownish (but scary) demagogue, and his hammy evilness is fun to watch. The most fun comes from watching Kang pull of improbable victories from nowhere, but if you think too much about the plots, you may start to feel like you're watching an adaptation of an American comic book or Japanese anime. It's chock full of tropes.

Even if you're getting tired of Korean dramas on Netflix, you should still give it a look. It's not perfect, but the actors really bring their characters to life, especially Ji Sung. After seeing him, it's hard for me to imagine anyone else playing Judge Kang.

How to Become a Cult Leader (2023– )

Breezy but entertaining

[8/10 · 29 July 2023]

Peter Dinklage returns to perform sarcastic narration in another Netflix documentary.

Peter Dinklage is awesome. If you don't think he's awesome, you need to go watch The Station Agent. However, his name is not really the first that would come to my mind if Netflix said to me, "We're making a sarcastic documentary. Who's your dream narrator?" But after his turn at talking to us about the rules of how to become a tyrant, I'm glad he's back.

The topic of cult leaders is just as lurid and interesting as tyrants. It's also a pretty fluid transition talking about tyrants who prey on their citizens to cult leaders who prey on their followers. The problem is that it sometimes feels like we're covering very similar ground. Perhaps they're trying to say cult leaders and tyrants are not so different. If so, that's not exactly a deep thought.

Again, the choices will likely cause a lot of consternation. Would anyone have really complained if they had skimmed over the history of Heaven's Gate? Their history was more interesting than one might expect, but I doubt people are dying to know what Heaven's Gate was up to in the 1970s. It did lead to an intriguing concept, though: how do you deal with failed prophecies?

A failed prophecy seems like it would completely derail your cult. The truth is that sometimes cults bounce back stronger than ever. The reasons are really interesting, and they could go a long way to explaining why people stick with cults despite their ridiculousness. I mean, how do you stick around when someone says, "I'm the messiah, and I need you to have sex with me and mortgage your house"?

There are so many notorious cults that are missing. In many cases, there's no mention at all or just a trivial throwaway buried in the middle of an episode. And what can you say about Jim Jones or Charles Manson in 30 minutes that we haven't already seen several times before? Especially with them, it might have been better to talk more generically. Yes, we all know Manson was a failed rock star.

This is likely the sort of thing that would have sent me looking deeper if I had seen it when I was a teenager, and I think that's a good thing. So, despite its flaws, I have to say that I'm glad it's out there, and I'm glad that Peter Dinklage is back. I was leaning toward a 7, but I'll give it an 8 so encourage more sarcastic docuseries with him.

5th Passenger (2017)

Should have been a short film

[3/10 · 19 July 2023]

If you watch this, it's almost certainly because you saw a Star Trek actor is in it. In fact, there are several of them, including Armin Shimerman and Tim Russ. Marina Sirtis appears in a small role. Honestly, I probably would have removed most of her scenes during editing. Until her last scene, they don't do anything but interrupt the plot. Shimerman and Russ have beefier roles, and they're both pretty good.

Some of the actors playing minor roles seem like they were handed a script five minutes before shooting began and got no direction. The script never really has anyone do or say anything intelligent, though there's some reasonably interesting worldbuilding early on. It doesn't go anywhere or have any meaningful effect on the plot, but it's there if you go digging for it.

I think they probably should have skipped the special effects if they didn't have enough money to do them right. I've seen horror movies that were shot on a cell phone and acted by people who were recruited from social media. They knew their limitations and turned out to be pretty watchable. Shooting for the stars is a dumb plan if you can't afford to make it there.

If this had been edited down to the length of a short film and uploaded to YouTube, the average rating would probably be almost twice as high, and there'd probably be some dedicated fans willing to help fund the director's next movie on kickstarter.

Hell House LLC (2015)

Haunted by the ghost of a practical joker

[5/10 · 17 July 2023]

A group of young adults set up a haunted house attraction in an old hotel, only to discover that it may be haunted for real.

I suppose the premise has potential, but this is one of those movies where you're stuck with a bunch of annoying people who do stupid things. I think the guy with the camera pretty much has to be depicted as a socially awkward jerk to justify why he carries around a camera and secretly films his friends as they bicker or make out.

The other major problem you're saddled with in a haunted house movie is why they stay. Usually, there's a scene where someone says, "Money is too tight for us to leave." Most of us have been in a situation like that, right? Well, this movie has a scene like that, but it's just glossed over without any explanation at all. Sure, you could use your imagination to fill in something, like "the boss's girlfriend is pregnant", but it's frustrating that they can't come up with a workable idea themselves.

Once the movie finally moves beyond documenting the arguments between a group of millennials, it's becomes reasonably creepy. Most admirably, there's no music added. It's just them, the wind, and a creaky old house. One of the problems, though, is that they try to lay on the atmosphere a bit too hard by having the characters constantly breathing heavily and freaking out. The funny thing is that they're generally freaking out over mannequins that they themselves made.

In their defense, the mannequins are doing impossible things, like watching them and appearing in different rooms. That's creepy, but I have a question. Why would ghosts move the mannequins around? Is this the ghost of a practical joker? The only reason I can think of is that the house feeds off their fear. That would actually be a pretty cool plot twist in a movie about a haunted house attraction. They don't go anywhere with that idea or anything else. Nope, the ghosts are just practical jokers.

The problem is you'll now have to watch another hour of ghosts doing practical jokes on a group of millennials. I sat through it, so you probably can, too, but I found it less compelling than other viewers. I don't know. Maybe if you're younger and less tired of seeing the same tired tropes reused without any innovation, you'll forgive all the silliness. When you open your movie saying that the events depicted are real, though, it raises the bar for suspension of disbelief. I wish they'd tried a bit harder to make it seem believable.

Tekken (2010)

Watch fan films instead

[3/10 · 16 July 2023]

I've seen and liked some of Dwight Little's other work. He's usually pretty watchable, but this was just terrible

It looks very low budget, like it was shot in a warehouse over a weekend. There's even less plot than you're expecting, and what exists is boring. The dialogue is nonsense.

The only real saving grace, besides the cool cameos by a few of your favorite martial arts actors, is the fight choreography. This is passable and might tide you over until the next direct-to-video martial arts movie shows up on a streaming service.

There's a free web series called Mortal Kombat: Legacy that is better than this in almost every respect. I suggest you watch that instead.

From (2022– )

Don't expect any answers in the first two seasons

[7/10 · 16 July 2023]

A growing number of people inexplicably end up in a nightmarish town they can't escape.

This might as well be a remake of Lost. However, they cranked everything up to 10, which makes it feel surprisingly fresh. It's also great to see Harold Perrineau back in a supernatural thriller. This time he gets to be a bit of a badass, which is pretty fun.

The premise is pretty compelling. Not only are these people stuck, they're hunted by smiling monsters at night. What's up with the nearby enchanted forest? Why do some of the characters come back as ghosts? Where does the electricity come from? Who is that creepy, unexplained character you just saw? Ooh, so many questions.

Oh, wait, you wanted answers? Yeah, well, don't get your hopes up. It's pretty obvious we'll be jerked around for several seasons and never get any satisfactory answers. It's going to be like Lost, where it's the journey not the destination that's important. Screw that.

But Harold Perrineau is great, isn't he? The show is definitely atmospheric, and the gory special effects look pretty good. Some of the other characters are pretty interesting. Whenever you start getting bored with soap opera relationship drama, Harold Perrineau returns on screen and does something cool that reignites your interest. And, yeah, not all the drama is soapy melodrama. Some of it is pretty compelling.

If you're OK with just a bunch of mysteries that never get solved and imagery that's there just to be creepy and will likely never be explained, this is actually pretty compelling. It's a well-made show and has a pretty good cast. And if you're like me, you just can't seem to get tired of this premise. I really do hope that I'm wrong about this being a jerk-o-rama, but it's still worth a recommendation regardless. Just don't walk in with false hope.

It's worth a 7 or 8, depending on how sensitive you are being jerked around without getting any answers. Maybe even a 9 if they answer a few questions in the third season.

Deadloch (2023– )

It gets better

[7/10 · 14 July 2023]

When a corpse washes up, hijinks ensue in the small Australian town as the local police department attempt to solve the crime.

If you've never heard an Australian accent before, the dialogue might be difficult to understand, but I doubt most people would need subtitles. Except, of course, when the actors are mumbling their lines, which happens more often than I would have liked. You could always watch the Mad Max series if you need a crash course on Australian culture, but it's not necessary. The humor here is pretty broad.

In fact, this is a series for people who hate and fear subtlety. Some of the actors overact so much that I was tempted to stop watching the first episode. Luckily, it's steadily toned down after that, but this is the wrong show to watch if you're allergic to cartoonish overacting. Some of the characters who are initially very annoying also become more tolerable over time, so you might want to try pushing through the first episode if you dislike it.

The show is pretty progressive. I doubt social conservatives will make it very far, which kind makes it feel like anything past 15 minutes into the first episode is preaching to the choir. You'll probably roll your eyes a few times, but the preachiness usually isn't too bad. Sometimes it's played for laughs, and there are a few relatable scenes where well-meaning characters somehow manage to say all the wrong things.

The mystery itself is pretty good. I was primarily looking for a mystery, and I wasn't disappointed. I became a bit restless at times, but there were enough likable characters, plot twists, and sketchy suspects that it retained my interest. I felt a few of the antagonists were a bit too cartoony, but no matter how cartoony you make a bigot, there's always going to be someone out there who's even worse.

If you enjoy black humor and can forgive cartoonish parody, it's probably worth a look. If you're older than the cast, though, it might be a bumpier ride.

Vivarium (2019)

A Twilight-adjacent zone

[7/10 · 12 July 2023]

A youngish couple become trapped in a creepy but boring suburban development. With no ability to escape, they settle into a nightmarish parody of suburban life.

It's an obvious and overused metaphor, but this time it's quite literal. We're quickly introduced to our protagonists. They're a rather likeable duo, though you don't really get much more than a nod toward an archetype. Once that's done with, the movie skips all the lead-up and jumps straight to the weird stuff.

Often, you get a bit more stability and normalcy before the weirdness happens so that the weird stuff seems more striking. Instead, we meet a really oddball character almost right away, setting the mood for what's about to follow. In a way, he functions as our Rod Serling, letting us know that we've entered a Twilight-adjacent zone.

Like some people have said, this might have worked better as a long episode of a series. There are some creepy scenes, and some of the developments are interesting. The problem is that I don't think you could cut 30 minutes without it cutting into the good stuff, too. This makes Vivarium more of a slow-burn, creepy thriller than a horror movie.

There aren't really any straight-up, point-blank answers, but the movie's metaphors are pretty obvious. There's a bit of obvious symbolism thrown around here and there, which might make you roll your eyes if you're the observant type. There's also enough information given that you can come to your own conclusions. If tidy answers are very important to you, you should probably skip this, though.

Overall, I liked it. I think the ideas were stretched a bit thin at times, but I guess I'm always up for another cynical and somewhat surreal take on dystopian suburbia.

White House Down (2013)

Wants to be your new favorite guilty pleasure

[6/10 · 4 July 2023]

Mercenaries take over the White House and try to kidnap the President.

It's difficult to imagine anything beating this as the most over-the-top Die Hard clone. It's loud, absurd, and stupid, but its winking self-awareness blunts much of that criticism. For a time, at least. It's a Roland Emmerich movie that has been taken to its logical extreme.

It seems to take place in a parallel universe that looks exactly like ours but human behavior is often quite different. It's hard to say how much this will distract people because I think it's a personal thing. We each have our own breaking point when it comes to suspension of disbelief.

It certainly helps if you look at White House Down as parody. It does seem to be making a bit of fun of ultra-cheesy 1990s action films, many of which Emmerich himself was responsible for. But it's also a celebration of them, so this isn't really for you if you disliked them.

By this point, you likely already know whether you like (or least can stand) Emmerich's movies, much like how writing a review for a Jason Statham movie seems kind of superfluous. I walked into this without remembering it was a Emmerich movie, but I had time to adjust my expectations once the credits revealed the director.

White House Down's sincere attempts to become my new favorite guilty pleasure partially worked. It's got an ultra-cheesy charm working for it that can make you forgive some of the insanity that you see, especially if you watch it late at night when you're more suggestible and less demanding. I doubt it works at all during daylight hours.

Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune (2023– )

More watchable anime from Netflix

[5/10 · 18 June 2023]

After Earth is conquered, the survivors are pushed into becoming soldiers for an alien military.

This isn't exactly a unique idea, but it's nice to see a plot from anime that doesn't involve a high school student saving the planet using a giant robot. In Yakitori, it turns out that humans aren't really good for much but eating or using as cannon fodder. The recruiter is amusingly blunt about this and straight up tells our protagonist that the best he can realistically hope for is to come back with one or two few limbs missing.

However, this isn't just any recruiter. No, he's got a title that takes 30 seconds to say out loud. Something official-sounding that has to do with the United Nations. He's also got an enigmatic smile that seems to imply that he's a chess grandmaster who has already won a game that you didn't know you were playing. He denies that he's planning anything, of course, but nobody with good intentions smiles like that.

But who's our protagonist? You know, I couldn't really tell you. I think shouting angrily at people is his primary hobby. He also strikes me as being dumb as a pile of rocks. He's very committed to his stupidity, too. He'll see that there's an obvious solution to his problems, but he'll stubbornly refuse to take it just to spite viewers.

Eventually, over the course of several episodes, our idiot protagonist learns the value of friendship and teamwork. He continues shouting angrily at everyone, though. I think at least half of his lines in the script are in all caps, followed by three exclamation marks.

Once you get past the crazy number of flashbacks that establish all this, his squad is deployed to a tense situation involving the occupation of a world much like Earth. The rodent-like natives rise up in rebellion, and some of the most powerful units defect. The human squad has to shout at each other loudly, think up stupid plans, and have some adventures as they try to survive.

At this point, the story takes on a somewhat ambiguous tone. Poe's Law makes many movies like this ambiguous, really. The human squad mows down thousands of little rodent dudes who are just fighting for their freedom. Without the benefit of "Would you know more?" and "I'm doing my part!", it's harder to tell how exactly the creators feel about this, but it's easy to read in some satire.

It's passable. I think that if you're used to anime where the protagonist only has two moods (angry and I AM SO ANGRY THAT I WILL NOW SHOUT EVERY LINE AT MAXIMUM VOLUME!!!), you'll be able to sit through it. The art is occasionally good, though the frame rate is terrible. It can be very distracting if you're used to higher quality animation, but you'll get over it. Recommended mostly to edgy teens, who will probably appreciate the shouty protagonist. Adults will probably tire of him quickly.

Mulligan (2023– )

More like teenage animation

[5/10 · 15 June 2023]

Most of humanity dies before we repulse an alien invasion. The generally inept survivors try to rebuild the United States.

This is an underwhelming animated series on Netflix. I didn't think I'd make it past the first episode, but it does get better. However, the art is cheap, the characters are shallow stereotypes, and the humor leans very heavily on the elevator pitch of "Idiocracy meets Family Guy".

Idiocracy sometimes felt like it was more like a list of grievances than a laugh-out-loud comedy. However, it had some truly great scenes. Who could forget the idiotic majesty of the guitar army? Or the arguments about Brawndo? Idiocracy tapped into something real.

The writers of Mulligan, on the other hand, seem content to just list their grievances and toss out the occasional pop culture reference. As I watched the series, I thought this was shallow. As I thought about it afterward, though, I started to think that this show isn't really for adults.

Adults will understand more of the throwaway pop culture references and the jokes about Nixon and Reagan, but I think the intended demographic here is teens and college kids. Mulligan really doesn't have anything in common with Love, Death and Robots. It's simply too shallow, the jokes always go for the cheapest and most obvious target, and the art looks like a kids' cartoon.

Some of the voice acting was pretty good, so if you're a fan of the cast members, it might be worth watching. However, the things that the writers had them say were not very intelligent or deep. Phil LaMarr did a great job with his character, an alien who led the attack. This was also probably the best character on the show.

If they retooled the show to focus more on LaMarr's character and found something interesting to say, I think this show could be saved, even with the cheap art. As it is, though, it strikes me as more of a kids' cartoon than adult animation. Even if they're satirizing cheap kids' cartoons and the dumbing down of adult programming, it's not done in an intelligent or insightful way.

The Courier (2019)

Fun for what it is

[6/10 · 6 June 2023]

The Courier is a goofy action movie that doesn't make a lot of sense and overexplains things. I think it's also fun enough to be worth a watch.

First things first. You should skip forward to the 5 minute mark. You won't miss anything but a really long credits sequence. There's some background stuff flashed on the screen in the form of newspaper headlines, but it's just overexplaining the premise of the movie.

There's also a bit of filler in the movie once the credits finally stop. In the end, this is a 60 minute movie stretched out to 90 minutes. It's alright, though, because I liked the music that they played during the filler scenes. There's quite a bit of techno and opera, so you're in luck if you're an oddball who likes both genres. Otherwise, this might be pressing fast forward a few times.

Olga Kurylenko plays a tough and mysterious courier in the Jason Statham tradition. I thought she was pretty cool. She doesn't show off any incredible moves, but the fight choreography was alright. If you're looking for something stunning or new or different, you won't find that here. It also lacks the stylistic, charismatic bad guys that came out of Hong Kong.

There's a definite comic book feel to the movie, which might be a bit off-putting to people who want a "realistic" action movie. Jason Statham movies are almost as bonkers as this one, but they're usually bonkers in a more believable way. This movie doesn't even really pretend to model itself after how reality works. It's just a bunch of cool stunts linked together by a silly plot, fun characters, and a villain whose overacting steadily increases as he pops more pills. That works for me.

Manifest (2018–2023)

Soap opera for scifi fans

[5/10 · 5 June 2023]

This is basically a soap opera for science fiction fans. If you can stand the cheesy acting and writing, it's a perfectly acceptable guilty pleasure. You should be aware, however, that there's a lot of cheesiness in this show.

First of all, don't go in looking for an intriguing mystery. Yes, there's a bunch of mysterious stuff that happens, but it's the same kind of "make it up as we go along" writing as Lost. There are no thought-provoking answers. There are no interesting plot twists. There's nothing but a bunch of people who hug each other at the end of each episode as emo music plays.

That said, you'll get several years worth of cheesy, watchable science fiction plots that are kind of like someone's above-average Lost fanfic. If you can survive the last season of Lost, as you got increasingly annoyed that there were no answers forthcoming, you can survive this.

Manifest lacks a standout performance that you can use to justify continuing to watch the show. However, there were rarely times when I felt the urge to turn off my TV in the middle of an episode. Especially in the final season, some of the acting is noticeably bad, like they were doing scenes in a single take. A couple actors seemed like they were phoning it in, though others maintained their enthusiasm.

If you've already watched Lost and The 4400, you don't need to watch this. But it you're bored and a Netflix customer, you could do worse than this.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre (2023– )

Goofy

[4/10 · 22 January 2023]

This is a collection of anime horror shorts. Unfortunately, it's as goofy and poorly animated as an episode of the original 1970s Scooby Doo cartoons. I couldn't even make it past the fourth episode, which was mind-numblingly boring. Basically, it was a teenager who was trying to study, but his brother kept interrupting him by making stupid noises. Oooh, the horror. The only short that I liked was The Hanging Balloons, which was both creepy and surreal. That short deserves an 8/10, but almost every other short I saw in the first four episodes was a 1/10 from me.

The animation is Hanna-Barbera quality. While eating dinner, the aforementioned teen complains to his parents about his brother's behavior. While each is speaking, the others are completely frozen in time. I don't remember even seeing them blink. The person who's talking is barely animated and mostly just moves their lips. What's the point of even paying for a Netflix subscription if this is the best that Netflix can find?

The English language dub sounded like they were going for some kind of goofy horror-comedy tone, which ruined a lot of the atmosphere. Switching to the Japanese audio helps. The art itself, though, sometimes had the same problem. If I had known this was going to be a goofy comedy-horror series, I probably wouldn't have bothered. Based on Netflix's description, I was hoping this would be surreal and creepy stories for adults. Instead, you get the Addams Family bickering with each other while holding a seance and a teenager who has an annoying brother.

Stuck with You (2022)

Harmless time-passer

[5/10 · 29 December 2022]

Two people get stuck in an elevator.

Yeah, that's pretty much the plot. On the positive side, the movie doesn't try to milk this idea for a perplexingly long runtime. Even counting the credits, it's only 60 minutes. I'm a bit surprised (and confused) about how this wasn't full of filler. Maybe Netflix decided there's a market for movies not much longer than a short.

I guess this is what's known as a "meet cute". You know, when two characters are ostentatiously forced together in a quirky way so they can fall in love with each other. A stopped elevator is as good a setup as any. The characters don't have anything to do but have quirky and funny interactions with other and abruptly fall in love. Even though most people would probably just stare at their cell phone in awkward silence for an hour.

One joke is recycled a few times: someone says "I'm not an X", they briefly argue about whether the character is an X, and eventually both agree the character is, in fact, an X. It's not exactly laugh out loud funny, but as far as running jokes go, it's alright. It does admirably condense the character development as the leads are forced to acknowledge their foibles.

The two often walk outside of the elevator into each others' memories and daydreams. This is reasonably creative. I thought the writer-director was trying a bit too hard to make everything exaggeratedly quirky, but I guess the requirements of the genre somewhat force this.

In genres that appeal to us, we can fall back on the enjoyable cliches. A science fiction fan can ignore a movie's terrible plot and enjoy the imaginative special effects. I'm not a fan of romantic comedies, so when I watch a mediocre one, it's just a mediocre experience -- there's nothing to fall back on. If you're a fan, though, you'll probably enjoy watching these two doofuses flirt with each other. Perhaps the draw is that if these two can find love, maybe we can, too.

A movie like Muriel's Wedding functions well as a character study. Wristcutters takes all the indie cliches you can think of and twists them into something offbeat. Romantic comedies can be funny, insightful, and genuinely quirky. This one isn't really any different than the others that you might encounter on a streaming service, except that it's in French and respects your time.

No English dub. Just subtitles.

War (2007)

A great choice if you don't want to watch Korean soap operas on Netflix

[6/10 · 11 December 2022]

This movie got rather bad reviews, and the critics were probably right about it. However, if you're awake at 4am and don't want to watch a Korean soap opera on Netflix, this is a reasonable choice.

Jason Statham and Jet Li are on opposite sides here. You know there's going to be a duel between them eventually, but, man, it takes forever. Sadly, the fight choreography doesn't even make it seem all that epic. Still, it beats those action movies where the fight you've been waiting 90 minutes to see never even happens.

If you're a connoisseur of these types of films, you'll recognize a lot of the cast. Hey, that's Ryo Ishibashi! Hey, that's Saul Rubinek! And Devon Aoki and Sung Kang! Cool stuff. Some of them were even used. Ryo Ishibashi got to have a swordfight, and Sung Kang was an FBI sniper who got several of the best jokes.

So what got the critics so riles up, anyway? Well, the action sequences weren't exactly stunning. The exploitative elements were kind of unintentionally funny, like a woman who just randomly takes off her clothes. I mean, OK, she's supposed to be a Triad prostitute, but it's still pretty random. There's a car chase that isn't too thrilling, and some motorcycles, too. Not bad, just not thrilling.

It's the ending that really gets you, I think. You have to be a huge fan of B movies to like this climax. If this were a cheesier film, it would have been an awesome plot twist. But because the film has seemed like it was going for a sorta, kinda realistic feel, it comes off as absurdly silly.

The end credits song is great, though. And, really, what else are you going to watch on Netflix? An anime show about teenagers who fight off monsters at their high school while trying to impress their crush? Sometimes I wonder why I still check Netflix's recent additions.

Robbing Mussolini (2022)

It's watchable

[5/10 · 17 November 2022]

There's nothing so wrong with this movie that it ever becomes unwatchable, but there isn't really a good reason to watch it, either. It starts off fine, but as it went on, I became increasingly restless. The number of derivative and predictable plot elements really started to pile up, and the pacing felt off.

The worst part, I thought, was that they didn't really do much with the premise. This is an Italian movie set during the end of World War II, and they barely even used that setup. It could have been set in the United States during the Civil War or Prohibition, and there probably wouldn't need to be many changes.

The characters were likeable, though, and it hits all the notes that you expect a heist comedy to hit.

The Gunman (2015)

A competent thriller

[6/10 · 9 November 2022]

An ex-mercenary with a guilty conscience is forced back into the game when he becomes convinced he's the target of a hit.

I was a bit skeptical when I saw this stars Sean Penn and was directed by the guy who did Taken. It seemed a little too much like something dreamed up by an accountant. Even the likable international cast seems like they were picked to appeal to specific markets. Still, it's Sean Penn, Pierre Morel, and the aforementioned likable cast, so it's a known quantity. Can't be all bad.

Sure enough, it was watchable. It's the typical flawed 6/10 movie that Netflix customers have grown to expect. It's not exactly a thrill ride, and Sean Penn's buff physique is a bit distracting. It's like he's flexing in every scene because that's just what buff action heroes do. It sometimes feels like he dyed his hair green and is constantly playing with his hair to remind you that it's green.

His love interest is probably half his age and doesn't really get to do or say anything interesting during the entire movie. The bad guys can't shoot straight. The plot follows the standard action-thriller plot. Standard stuff.

But if you're into these kinds of Euro action films, this is actually a pretty decent choice. You can tell they were going for the "thinking man's thriller film" vibe here, which is pretentious when it doesn't work, but everything is done competently.

Exception (2022– )

It's watchable

[6/10 · 22 October 2022]

A crew of synthetic humans is tasked with terraforming an alien planet ahead of a slower colony ship. Sounds like an interesting science fiction premise, right? But then this plot is basically abandoned and replaced with some silly philosophical questions. The themes are a bit tedious if you've ever read any short stories by Philip K. Dick, but it's certainly watchable.

The art is reasonably good. Sometimes it seems pretty detailed, and other times not so much. It looks like they were given a decent budget and made good use of it. It's definitely better than average for the stuff on Netflix. The animation itself was usually fine, but the frame rate occasionally made character movements seem unnatural. I remember once being abruptly snapped out of watching an episode because someone's movements seemed to fall into the uncanny valley.

Character design is a bit odd. Each character has a color theme, like a blue uniform, blue hair, blue socks, blue blue blue. You know, I like blue quite a lot, but I sometimes wear other colors, too. It's an attention-getting stylistic choice but a bit perplexing, even for anime. For example, the blue characters sometimes seem to have blue-tinted skin, too. I'm not sure exactly why certain characters were blue-themed, but others were green. Maybe it was based on temperament or job?

The plot is generally fine, and I liked it. However, it's likely that, at any given point in time, you'll already know the next two upcoming plot twists, which can make the show seem more slow-paced than it is. Unfortunately, the characters routinely overexplain their motivations or recite overt exposition to each other. The way everything is spoon-fed makes it seem like the dialogue wasn't written for an adult audience.

There are a small handful of scenes with nudity that look like they were included solely for the reason of a check mark. However, on the positive side, all of the characters are adult scientists. Amazingly, there are no high school children in the entire show. It makes me feel a bit better about recommending this to other adults.

So, if you're over 30, and you're not an obsessive anime fan, should you watch this? Sure, why not. If you're a science fiction fan, you'll probably be pretty forgiving of its flaws.

Sweet Girl (2021)

I still liked it

[6/10 · 11 August 2022]

I saw that this movie was on Netflix, and I didn't watch for a while. It looked kind of dumb, I guess. Well, as everyone with a Netflix subscription knows, you eventually end up watching all those movies you passed up. There just isn't enough of a selection that you can indefinitely put off all those Netflix originals.

When I eventually gave in, I had low expectations and mostly just wanted to see a Jason Momoa movie. He was pretty good in this. Every time I see him in a movie, I like him more. He seems like an interesting person, and his action sequences are pretty good.

The movie isn't really all that good, but it was entertaining. It's got some silly plot twists, and it seems to work mostly off of dream logic. It was written by the guy who wrote Event Horizon, so maybe that's why I liked it. Event Horizon was entertaining for what it was.

There's a lot more acting and plot than I expected in this movie. I kept waiting for the movie to kick into overdrive, but there's a bit of buildup before that happens. If you're expecting non-stop action at a breakneck pace, this might not be the best choice. The fight choreography is good, though, and it's always nice to get some plot and characterization mixed in.

The daughter was pretty good. Despite being the "sweet girl" referenced by the title, I wasn't really expecting a lot -- basically that she'd be a plot device -- but she gets to kick some ass, too. If you're willing to accept the movie's dream logic and silliness, there's something here.

Chaos (II) (2005)

One of Statham's lesser movies

[5/10 · 13 July 2022]

This is one of those movies where I was constantly thinking, "Haven't I seen this before?" It was released 15 years ago, and it's got Jason Statham on the poster, so there's a fairly good chance that I have.

The plot is silly enough that it should be memorable, though. It's so convoluted that the plot twists have plot twists. In fact, you could pretty fairly say that this isn't really a plot so much as it's a sequence of plot twists that have been edited into a movie.

One nice thing about this movie is that it will likely make you feel smart. Not because you guessed all the plot twists but because you can say "what does this have to do with chaos theory?" Even if you're a bear of very little brain, you can probably recognize that plot twists don't really fall under chaos theory.

If you're looking for action, this is alright. There's some stunt driving, and there are several shootouts. A house explodes. Snipes gets to have a big fight, but Statham never really gets to cut loose. If you were waiting to see a big showdown between Snipes and Statham, you're going to be disappointed.

By this point, you should know already whether you like Jason Statham movies. However, I'd say this is one of his lesser movies. You might groan a little or roll your eyes, but Statham fans should still find it watchable. Others might want to pass on it.

Valley of the Dead (2020)

Competent zombie movie

[7/10 · 12 July 2022]

Sure, you've seen dozens, maybe hundreds, of zombie movies, but have you seen a zombie movie set during the Spanish Civil War?

The first thing you're likely to notice about this movie is that it looks competently made. Sadly, this is a rarity among horror movies on Netflix, so it's worth mentioning.

The movie is a little more lighthearted than I would have expected given the subject matter, but it never quite becomes a horror comedy. It also doesn't take strong sides on the Spanish Civil War. There are protagonists and antagonists from both sides of the conflict, and Nazis are portrayed as the true villains.

This is probably one of the better aspects of the movie. The characters spend much more time fighting zombies than ranting at each other. Quite a few arguments ended with pistols being drawn, of course, but I remember most scenes being more like civil debate than the traditional screaming matches you find in low budget zombie movies.

Unfortunately, we have to get past the tedious "that's not your father any more" and "aim for the head!" scenes before the action really starts. Once it starts, though, it's pretty good. They really, really loved their blood sprays. There are squibs exploding all over the place. Besides that, though, there weren't a large amount of really showy special effects. Gore was fairly minimal for a zombie movie.

If you don't have high expectations, and you're looking for an action movie that will pass the time, this is a good choice. The characters are likeable, the dubbing was quite good, and the movie rarely gets bogged down in exposition at the cost of action.

Ad Vitam (2018)

Interesting if you can overlook the plot holes

[7/10 · 8 July 2022]

Medical breakthroughs have rendered most of the population an ageless kind of immortality. Most people stop aging around 30. The first generation of immortals, now 120+, are getting pretty bored. The age of majority has been raised to 30, and teenagers have become so far removed from the rest of society that they're joining radical extremists.

The world created in this series is a bit odd. It seems set in modern day Earth, but they talk about futuristic medical advancements that happened 100+ years ago. No attempt is made to explain this. How hard would it have been to give us some kind of hand-wavey explanation?

Besides how distractingly non-futuristic this looks, it's also confusing as to why people would forget about death. Special death counselors have to explain the concept of death to families. And yet these people are driving the same unsafe cars as us? How is this possible? How are these people not dying in the same car accidents that cause millions of deaths for us?

You have turn off your brain to enjoy a show like this, and yet it has all these pretentious scenes where the writers clearly think they have something profound to say about the human condition. The pretentious scenes do mostly work, though. The actors are good, and the writers seem pretty competent when they're not being lazy.

As long as your expectations aren't too high, this show can work for you. It's interesting, and it has a good cast. After watching this show, I can't really think of a better choice to play a 120-year-old police detective. I do wish the show were less lazy about addressing plot holes and had a better budget, but just having Yvan Attal in the cast goes pretty far.