bheadher Reviews

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)

Far less impressive than one would have hoped for...

[5/10 · 18 May 2024]

Since this was a prequel long before the episodes we have loved, you would expect to understand the why and where of those hunger games, like how the games came into being in the first place...yet you find the games began even earlier than a young Snow can explain...

This is a dry tale with little to get excited about. The action seems stunted and choreographed and you can pretty much see what will come next without opening your eyes...no this one is not exciting, not even a little bit. Instead it makes you watch all the way through, only to be rewarded with a nothing ending...it just don't make any sense at all.

Maybe that is what the producers intended all along...

The Equalizer 3 (2023)

There is only one word...Superb!

[8/10 · 5 January 2024]

Now why would I say that...perhaps because each of the Equalizer movies has a unique 'mood' to the story. Certainly 1 and 2 had plenty of villains, but 3 stands alone, allowing us all to see pure evil and how Robert McCall responds to that evil.

Yes, Danzel pulls out all the stops this time, vanquishing evil the best way he can...from nowhere. Just like a ghost haunting the streets of a Sicilian town, he is not there and suddenly he is everywhere. At no time can you predict from where he will strike; yet you know he will. I'm sure you've noticed I am avoiding spoilers at all cost this time. For you to fully appreciate this episode in the Equalizer trilogy you must not have any preconceived notions on what happens next.

Just enjoy this one, for it truly is SUPERB!!!

Gen V (2023– )

If you liked The Boys you'll love this...

[4/10 · 30 November 2023]

You may have noticed from my rating that I don't think much of this new series either, just like I didn't for The Boys. That is mostly because this one goes for the ugly and gross right out of the starting gate.

So far we have one mutant girl who thinks it is cool to shrink herself to about 6 inches tall by drinking some sort of liquid and barfing in the toilet and have sex with her boyfriend by hugging his erect penis and sliding down until she sits on his balls. Yup, how erotic is that, heh heh...

Then near the end of the first eppy another guy has the ability to erupt into flames and kills another (super?) hero girl, and then regrets it; so he ends up launching himself a couple hundred feet into the air and then explodes himself, with you guessed it, blood and guts raining graphically over everyone in the court yard.

This is the new production goal, make everything as gross as you can and I guess make money now...

Blue Beetle (2023)

Why all these ethnic based movies lately...???

[3/10 · 27 November 2023]

I rented this because it was discounted, not because it looked interesting even; I just needed something to distract me from all the hate out there in the world. I sorta had hopes of finding some small piece of the movie that might make me smile, but that hope was dashed quickly when the characters were almost all South American and acted like it. I kinda want to say I'm not a Xenophobe (??) but maybe I am, for after 30 minutes I am really not into this character back and forth about a plot that doesn't seem to exist at all. Where is this Blue Beetle pray tell?? I sure don't see any reason for this movie to exist let alone being offered for rental...

Ahsoka (2023– )

I am just not feeling the vibe...

[5/10 · 8 September 2023]

I dunno what has happened these past few years, but ever since Disney. Barged in and bought up the Marvel and Star Wars franchise franchises quality has sort of evaporated.

I tend to blame the writers and producers really, the quality of dialog, production values are going downhill rather than moving toward the crest of the mountain...I actually want to praise this attempt, but find it hard to accept the meager storyline. And don't get me going about the pace of the story, as it seems to meander with no goal in sight. Sure it is slow, but why inject moments of action into an otherwise boring series (excuse me, 'mini' series). Are there truly no more writers with vision or at least imagination?

I think I will pass on this one...

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)

What in hell am I watching???

[5/10 · 26 July 2023]

OMG this must be a reimagined Transformers, that is the only explanation I can come up with. I'm 25 minutes into this and it bears no resemblance to the Transformer brand. It's like they decided to just throw some incoherent dialog and some CGI into the Mixmaster (TM BTW) and waited for the slop to create the movie for them, it is that bad. I guess Optimus Prime will make a guest appearance sometime later on, but I don't know if I can suffer long enough to get to that point.

Hell, this is turning into a mixed culture exhibition now! Bunches of kids all jamming and jiving (yes I'm that old) through their lines, but with no coherence at all...

Oh they took pity on me, there's Optimus now. Sure doesn't look like him, yup this is a reimagining of the franchise...

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Darmok (1991) Season 5, Episode 2

This one is my number 2 episode...

[10/10 · 17 July 2023]

...number 1 being The Inner Light. Both episodes deal directly with existence and communication, but where The Inner Light deals with rememberance, Darmok deals with the here and now difficulty of making yourself understood with wildly different dialog and context.

In the end The Tamarian Captain impresses on Picard that communication can be more important that life itself. That is what makes this one of my forever favorites, almost perfectly written and performed this is one of those TNG eps that simply sticks in your mind...yup, forever. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of really great episodes in TNG, but this one and The Inner light are unquestioningly the very best from an outstanding series...

65 (2023)

Starts off weak, and believe it or not gets weaker right up until the ending...

[5/10 · 3 July 2023]

Frankly with all the hype I thought I would at least like it...it did not happen...

The visuals leading to the story were amateurish to say the least, like something out of the 70's or 80's, and went downhill from there. CGI dinosaurs have been done and overdone for years now, so I figured this outing might have some good ones...unfortunately no one opened a single book to find out what dinos are supposed to look like, and act like too...the T-Rex was passable but that was the only one that came close to impressing me.

I had been hoping for a while that 65 would follow an old ancient aliens theory that us Earthlings were actually descendants of a past civilization, but noooo...the writers went with we were just visited, crashed or whatever, and the protagonist manages to escape back to his own home planet...in other words this movie was a waste of money for me...

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Honestly a huge letdown...

[5/10 · 7 June 2023]

How can you not feel letdown, when after 15 years what you get is a jumbled mess of a plot; not to mention various recycled dialog to make it worse...

The CGI is of course outstanding, if a bit choppy in sequences, but as often happens now a days does not in any way make up for a lack of story...and to be completely honest the story is little more than the Na'Vi' emulating soldiers. It simply does not hold together. James, I am ashamed really that you allowed this project to move forward when I'm sure you saw where the story was headed. I am doubly ashamed to have waited in anticipation only to be enormously disappointed with the final product...

Gawd, I can't believe I watched this to the ending...completely unimpressive James...it could have been so much more if you had kept the magic of the original story...

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

OMG, I waited for THIS...???

[5/10 · 26 May 2023]

There is something wrong with the timeline here...Cassie should be like 13 or 14 tops, but appears mid to late twenties. I think everyone picked up on that...

And then we have the story itself, or what sorta passes for a story. I actually felt I was watching The Wizard Of OZ for crying out loud, the sets felt like that, CGI or not. The colors were so vivid it looked like the old gel cells type of painting. The writers? I remember saying "keep the writers" after Antman And The Wasp, but they didn't..I expect Marvel hired their writers this time straight out of high school writing classes, it shows...

No, I am not impressed by this one...THIS is what you get when you wait 5 years to do a sequel...

Crater (2023)

Another teen adventure that doesn't please...

[4/10 · 23 May 2023]

What is with the namby pamby approach that Disney is shoving down our throats...this outing is missing something, a whole lot of something. Maybe I missed it, but why is the crater such a mystery? Why are four teens even looking? Those are questions that I would think should be answered before they even head out on their journey of awakening...yes, I blame the writers for toning down what could have been an interesting movie...

Yes the CGI is good, but it does not tell a story and that is what is lacking in this one. In other words, the story is what really matters; not the scenery. They got clever with the holographic representations, but that does not make this story fun to watch...

Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog (2019)

Iam rather disappointed with the reviews...

[7/10 · 19 April 2023]

This is not an Academy Award movie certainly, and the acting is low key at best, but Shepherd none the less tells a compelling story of love between man and dog. If you have never felt the bond that only a devoted dog can instill within you then you will undoubtedly treat this film with disdain, simply because it was low budget; but if you can overcome that prejudice, you will feel something important inside.

It is a chronicle of Caleb, a German Shepherd, from his birth to the final escape from the horrors of the Holocaust. It is NOT a particularly impressive film overall and was not created as an hour and thirty-three-minute block buster; it simply did not attempt to do so. It is far more i you are willing to overlook the limitations low budget creates...give it a look see, most will not be disappointed...

Nope (2022)

Ooookay...

[4/10 · 22 March 2023]

How does anyone in the movie industry expect to get anywhere near the Oscars, when the first 30 minutes of their attempt is seriously uninteresting...? I mean it was like people (and horses) standing around spouting meaningless dialog, then spot shotting meaningless action (yes, they do move around occasionally)...

Seriously, there are some spectacular scenes of the countryside, but that is all...one liners abound but don't seem to coalesce into anything usefull to a viewer. Again, when the horses are the best actors it is hard, real hard to stay awake when the camera shifts to the mannequins masquerading as humans acting.

Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm in my review but watch this for as long as you can; then you'll know what I'm talking about...alright, I just went back and watched the rest of Nope...

IT GETS WORSE!!!

Super 8 (2011)

Yes it does seem like the same old formula at first, but it isn't really...

[7/10 · 8 February 2023]

Super 8 does take elements from several other movies by Speilberg and Abrahms, and yes it seems sorta strained at first...but I think that was intentional, as the different pieces seem to merge into a different movie by the ending.

All six kids wat to do is make their own horror movie, only to be drawn into some very real horror in their real lives. By the end you see a rather ugly and crotchety alien that's been kept confined for years by the government, whose only interest is going back home to his people. Sure it felt like ET in that respect, but if you watch the alien, you hafta sympathize with him...he has been the victim, and even though you never see his original starship, you do see how he converts the old water tower into a crude replacement...AND IT ACTUALLY FLIES!!!

Gotta add, then we have the standard mish mash of weird, disfunctional families of course...you know, average everyday American families, heh heh...

The Ark (2023– )

OMG this is sooo amateurish...

[3/10 · 4 February 2023]

I realize I am 75 years old, and young people are supposed to look...well...young! But virtually all these actors look like they are still in High School, damn...and they all act like it too...

The entire dialog is pretty much meaningless, along the lines of a Sitcom rather than a serious Science Fiction series. The sets are right out of a school project too, and don't get me started on the CGI...

Ok, the premise is that this Ark is on a journey to a distant planet, but some asteroid hits it and kills off the entire senior crew members while everybody is in stasis. So everybody wakes up to a catastrophe, has to fix the ship before all of them die...and from then on it is ho hum lets get ready for the prom night coming in who knows when...

Oh, theey just happen to have a bunch of treadmills that keep playing a major role in this, but hardly anything else...and they are going to starve because they all woke up a year before they should have and of course they won't have enough food to last that long...

Get the picture? This is NOT very good at all...

Update 2/8/2023

After finally seeing episode number 2, I can give a sligtly better review...IT GETS WORSE...!!!

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Sorry folks, this makes no sense at all...

[4/10 · 1 February 2023]

Has Marvel completely forgotten how to tell a story? It appears so after Thor Love And Thunder...and now this one. There is almost no background, no character building, and a jumbled mess of a script. I can only hope Quantum Mania will restore my faith in Marvel. This does NOT...

I think the worst part is that there are scattered action scenes, but no coherence between them...the rest seems to be a lot of meaningless talk talk for the sake of talk...sorry but that is how it comes across to me...oh, and throw in a bunch of incoherent foreign language with subtitles DOES NOT make an interesting movie people, it just distracts the flow...

Beauty and the Beast (1987–1990)

Just like Firefly this one went away too soon...

[9/10 · 1 February 2023]

I'm gonna say it right off, this was a mesmerizing series that unfortunately was cancelled by those money worshiping Network Executives...Beauty and the Beast had that character building magic that made you want to see the next episode each week...

Three seasons and they threw this one in the trash, simply because ratings fell below their arbitrary number (a number that seldom if ever is totally accurate. This series had it all, location "under" the streets of New York...and I do mean under, for there was a whole multilevel world down under the subway tunnels. A world some 7 levels deep if I counted right...The magic was their, the writing and acting was there too...

...and they took it away from us, the fans who understood that world...

Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023)

Like everyone else I'm trying very hard to enjoy this...

[5/10 · 24 January 2023]

OMG, everyone has pointy ears! Except Jean Luc and Data of course...I'm undecided on whether or not the Producer though that would make up for the low key feel of this show, but I'm beginning to believe he went for an anthology rather than a Star Trek series...

In reality (sic) perhaps this is what we must expect now. As space travel evolves so must the people...Patrick is getting very old so perhaps the writers felt they had to taylor the show to fit the actor's advanced age, for it shows in every single episode I have seen so far. It is mostly remeniscing and clutching past glories. I love Patrick (Sir Patrick if you please)...but DAMN...

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

I'm gonna be honest with everyone...I "learned" to like Maverick...then I learned to "love it"...

[8/10 · 24 December 2022]

After the first 30 minutes I was thinking "I already don't like this." Wanna know why? Well alright I'll tell you; then I'll tell you why I'm still watching this...

1. We do not have Mach 10 piloted aircraft, not yet...

2. 55 or older pilots would not be flying said Mach 10 aircraft, I don't care how fit they are.

3. I felt really cringy about rubber stamping dialog from the original movie and modifying it ever so slightly to sorta fit into a new movie...it really felt like they were using the loss of Goose as a kind of back story to maybe revisit the original and justify this one...

...Then something strange happened, the back story wasn't in the back anymore...it became the reason this movie exists. Maverick still carried guilt from so far in the past, and had to get past that, because Goose's son is now at Top Gun for the "Very special mission"

Then something even stranger happened...Top Gun Maverick got real exciting for the remaining 3 hours (yes it feels that long)...

Yes the movie is total fantasy from start to finish, but the damn thing is totally entertaining, which is my number one rule for reviews...stick it out folks...it may be fantasy on steroids, but by the end of the movie you just don't care...

Well done...very well done...and don't forget to notice those flying sequences, they are outstanding...aaand I just love the tribute to the first movie by having them find an old F14 Tomcat in flyable condition, sorta...

National Treasure: Edge of History (2022–2023)

Way too much dialog, almost no action at all...

[3/10 · 24 December 2022]

This Generation X crowd seem to have lost the abiility to understand action movie making (or series if you prefer). This latest from Disney reminds us that the magic kingdom of our youth is no more.

Remember way back when the mere mention of a new Disney production would bring tingles to your skin? Well, from my own personal experience lately, it now brings on an automatic cringe. I felt that as I clicked on National Treasure, something History, and was rewarded with a confirmative upset stomach not 5 minutes later...this series is exactly like listening to an audiobook, but without the background noises to add substance to the story...

Anyone have some recently hung walpaper I can watch cure...???

Crimson Tide (1995)

While a mesmerizing movie...

[7/10 · 22 October 2022]

It's the littleinconsistencies in Navy Protocol and dialog that will detract from the overall enjoyment for any long term Navy service member...actually the most annoying being the crew saluting over and over again while underway...first and foremost, no sailor salutes while under cover or underway, and in a submarine you are always under cover don't you think? Other than that pet peeve from a retired Chief, the overall movie is wellput together and well paced.

The premise is a worst case scenario for a "Boomer" sub, the potential use of nuclear missiles, and the chaos that ensues when a series of messages come in to prepare for the real deal; especially tense when the authorization message comes thru as a partial roken of messaye...the tense near mutiny between the Captain and XO drives the majority of the movie, and illustrates just how Navy peoplemust occasionally confront their inner demons in real life...

This is certainly 'slightly flawed', but depicts a fair amount of real Navy...

The Peripheral (2022)

Is this suppose to be scifi, or a James Bond series...?

[4/10 · 21 October 2022]

Haven't figured that out yet, but then again I'm only about 45 minutes into this...if it is scifi then sofar it fails miserably, but if it is a James Bond simulation it's almost interesting...in between it is just dull. Maybe it needs some time to decide on what this series wants to be, I dunno...

First off everyone walks around like they have no idea where they are...and then they can't seem to figure out who they want to be. Except maybe the lead guy, who apparently wants to be 007. The dialog is unintelligible sofar, and frankly very low key. In other words this series is lacking so much that my first impression is they wanted to make a dumbed down Ready Player One...

The Andromeda Strain (2008)

Why do producers think...

[4/10 · 4 October 2022]

That they can take a really good movie, and chop it up into a series/miniseries?

The original book and the first movie were simply riveting...THIS is not. No real backstory, a lame intro that seems to last forever...and really crummy and sparse sets all combine to degrade your viewing experience rather fast.

The story for this miniseries tries to bring elements from the movie into this, but ultimately fails profoundly. And whoever wrote the dialog must be an out of work comedian, using way toomany one liners to create his script. Beyond that, there is little dialog that even makes sense let alone adds to the story. Apparently they think using a lot of closeups and long camera shots enhance the show, but trust me it does not...

Honest first impression, not impressed...at all...

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

HUH!!??

[4/10 · 30 September 2022]

A 12 minute intro is just way too much...and it goes downhill from there. I am wondering now just how far down the tubes this reinvented movie will go, but I tell you true, I am no longer looking for entertainment...

Something I have noticed already, modernizing a movie does not necessarily make it better...I am 15 minutes into the actual movie (remember the 12 minute intro?) and it is grating heavily on my nerves. As I'm sure you can see, I am not a happy camper with this one...and I was sorta eager to see what they did with what was something of a cult classic for quite a few years. Of course, now I am not so eager...

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)

I can sorta understand the premise...sorta...

[2/10 · 25 September 2022]

But but but, why did they hafta base her whole existence as a lawyer...the reason for that question is, lawyers end up being the most uninteresting characters, unless you are a Perry Mason type of course...sure, there have been plenty of movies/series about lawyers and their cases, some even good ones; but using the whole legal thing as the backdrop is kinda lame (you know, like a curtain.

I suffered thru the first pilot eppy, only to feel underwhealmed. Most of it dealt with how she bacame a Hulk in the first place, and her 'training as a hulk) under Bruce and all that...then at the end of the eppy we get 5 minutes in a courtroom, until of course a villianous women bursts thru the wall and has to be subdued by Guess Who. But we never are told who this mysterious super woman is or what the heck she was doing bursting thru the wall in the first place...

I switched channels right after that and have not returned. If they are shooting for a snarky comedy, there are loads of one liners all thru the eppy, but even those seem lame to me...