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The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Go to work, make movie, get paid, go home, routine.
It has nothing to say as a work of art, no intensity, no atmosphere, a lot of useless technobabble, minimal boring action, many flashbacks as if to say look how cool it was before and what lameness you watch now, many plot holes, contradictions, Neo was like a bum, Trinity was just there, the rest are completely forgettable.
I was expecting to see how the machines live, what they do with the neuralgic network they have created with the minds of people within the matrix. We learned it from when the first came out, the idea that you can use man as a battery is stupid, let it go.
When, after all, in the history of cinema, after the third installment
the movie was good? Never. In five years rebootquel with young actors. And it will be so bad we will say the first four were better.
They should have made Neuromancer instead, with keanu reeves as Case, Milla Jovovich as Molly, Carrie-Anne Moss as Linda, Vin Diesel as Armitage, Paul Bettany as Wintermute's voice.
Real Steel (2011)
This movie has little to do with the concept of giant fighting robots. It's a trap of corniness.
Real steel is based heavily on the anime Plawress Sanshiro (aka Jumaru). The movie comes out very strong, (grity, flawed, cynical) in the middle stumbles(talk, talk, talk) and at the end crumbles miserably(Deus ex machina, corny, implausible end).
I have three major gripes with this movie.
One. At the beginning the kids mother dies and she is only mentioned again towards the end of the movie for one minute, nobody never shows any emotion regarding that mater or acts as he should(especially the kid).
Two. Fahter and son bondage has no place eating so much time and eventually overtaking the theme of a movie like this. It was never done correctly in film because its not done in real life either. If things get like that they don't get fixed in real life, people just live with it, but I digress.
Three. The fighting mechanics of human shaped, non AI robots wile they were explored in depth with Plawress Sanshiro and other anime in this movie are absolutely ridiculous. What are the standards? The rules to enter the ring? Nothing is ever said about the actual sport. How could an old training robot controlled by a kid defeat professional state of the art world champion robots? If you pout it in perspective it would be like a kid with his grandfathers old toy car would win the F1 championship of the world. It would be cool if there was a hidden power inside the robots (ala Xenogears) but its not. The control modes are also inverted in their usefulness. wile the Joypad is clearly the most superior control device, voice interface is presented as a better one, and ghosting (robot observing real human movements) being even less practical is presented as the ultimate control scheme(witch no one uses except the protagonists as a last resort of course).
One star for a strong beginning, one for the robot dance and one for a few good fight scenes.
Actually the only reason I wrote a review was the opportunity to mention Plawress Sanshiro, so that's it. Thank you.
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Marines don't curse? THAT'S science fiction.
The beginning is great, it dives right in to action. The alien invaders come, guns blazing, annihilating army forces left and right. It will be an awesome movie. In the middle the talking starts and two advantages come to play for the side of the good guys, it will be a cliché sci-fi movie. Towards the end, the atrocious dialog reaches its height and one more crippling disadvantage comes in to play for the bad boys, they are now reduced to cartoon henchmen with the only purpose to make the protagonists heroes. It's a bad boring movie after all.
Some say its propaganda, recruitment film, etc. I say different. It's an insult. First the team discovers vital information about the alien tactics and weaknesses three times during the film, they show no interest or intention to convey that information to everyone else until the very last scenes where they have played them all out themselves, they weren't cut of mind you, they just didn't use the radio so they wouldn't risk their own lives. The lead sergeant character outsmarts the enemy and their tactics, keeps some marines and civilians alive and saves the day, but what about all the other thousands of marines and soldiers in the area? They all failed and died as it's explicitly stated in the movie. The lieutenant is presented as a total imbecile. He even confuses marines for aliens and tries to shoot them. He's a rookie and shocked but still... Mind you, in Aliens(1986)(which this movie is based among others) the lieutenant was a rookie and an ass, but he wasn't an idiot. One marine shoots the aliens from a rooftop, when he's approached by enemy aircraft he stands up and looks at the thing until he's blown away by it. The commander at the base says arrogantly that the aliens don't have air support so he plans accordingly. What kind of idiot assumes that the enemy doesn't have air support? Let alone unknown aliens from the sky? Finally, in one scene the corporal stops and questions the authority of the sergeant and they proceed to talk about their feelings, the most distasteful scene in the movie. I doubt that kind of thing has ever happened in real life to real people, soldiers have entire conversations just by exchanging glances anyway. At worst it gives an anti- recruitment message. At best it says: If you join the army, hope you cross paths with the one and only awesome sergeant or else you're pretty much dead.
This is what annoyed me most in this movie. There is no swearing. Don't misunderstand, people swear, it's a legitimate way to express some feelings. When you encounter damned aliens you are inclined to swear. When said aliens have killed thousands of people including your friends you aren't inclined to swear, you're obliged. When its payback time and you have them on the run and you still don't curse
what's wrong with you? The real problem is that you can see it in the actors' eyes, they know the scenes that compelled some cursing and the director knows it, but they can't have it, so the scenes fall flat and unrealistic. Also, when they found the aliens' soft spot was on the left chest side they concentrated their fire on the chest and the aliens fell like dolls. But where they were shooting them before, when they seemed invincible? They were shooting them in the chest like you would shoot instinctively a humanoid shaped enemy. So if anyone else shot them at the chest (which is everyone) there would be an instinctive convergence of fire at the chest area which would have pinpointed the weakness for the entire army in a very short time. But how did they conclude the soft spot? By stabbing an already full of holes alien randomly until the creature died, which actually could tell them nothing about its weaknesses.
Ultimately this is a mishmash of famous scenes from other movies and video games. We get glimpses of what it could have been: the alien commander, the draining of the sea, the air force sergeant. But they go nowhere.
One star for Aaron Eckhart (The sergeant, which is the only memorable character), he always does his best, one for some well played action sequences and one for having very few plot holes. And stop with the shaky camera, nobody likes it.
Tron: Legacy (2010)
Tron: Legacy (2010). Unrelated to Tron (1982).
This is a movie about a bad guy wanting to conquer the world and the good guys trying to save it. If you think you know how the script will play out you are right, it will play out exactly like that. In contrast, in Tron, Master Control program was already controlling the world in the beginning of the movie and I at least, couldn't imagine how everything would end up.
First of all: Tron is in this two hour movie titled with his name for two minutes. Second: The techno-religious if I may say undertone of Tron is absent. Third: No awesome, hack the planet, Master control program. Fourth: It doesn't make sense in the realm's rules. I'm sure some other reviewer will be happy to list us all the gaps in logic and plot holes so I will not go in to that. Fifth: The whole premise if I may say is based on Ghost in the cell (1995), especially the ending. Sixth: I find it extremely unlikely that after his adventure in Tron, Flynn would remain silent about everything that happened. And about the laser ending up in his basement. There are too many people involved and its way to important technology for that.
Now, as a stand alone movie the SFX are great, the best reason to see this movie. I hated the choreography though. It has some good action moments and some good dialog. But the problem is that some scenes break the atmosphere of a digital world. The acting and directing is average I can say, neither bad nor revolutionary. The product placement is very blunt and persistent but I suppose it can't be helped in such a big budget movie. When it comes down to it I do recommend watching this for the experience alone. But it left me with a feeling of pointlessness and I immediately proceeded to watch Tron, were it left me with a feeling of that's what the future might bring. One star for the cyberbike fight, one for the wardrobe, one for Bruce Boxleitner's short appearance and one for The CGI.
Freakonomics (2010)
Freakonomics. Just make stuff up.
The first scene with the real estate segment is interesting. The rest is useless information and strange hypothesizing about things. With information interpretation one could arrive in opposite conclusions using the same data according to a philosophy that suited him.
The school incentive segment is exceptionally distasteful. Paying kids for doing their homework, great idea, maybe the grading teachers can get in on that deal. These guys appear smart none the less, maybe they should try to understand the underlying causes of these problems and come back with some real answers. Definitely not what you expect to watch and definitely not worth watching it.
Inception (2010)
Do you like pretentious and plot holes? This is your bag
Dreams are colorless, you can not read in them and you don't dream about dreaming. You might jump from dream to dream and you can live a dream more intensely but you don't dream in a dream. You can not share or enter a dream, it has never been achieved in the least possible way. Lastly if it rains outside you don't obligatory dream about it.
If this was only the protagonists dream and he woke up: You can't find catharsis in a dream, you might wake up feeling uneasy from a nightmare or wake up feeling good from a good dream, but that's it.
If he didn't: If he fell in a coma from the use of those drugs or whatever, he saw strange dreams, so what? He failed, his wife failed to bring him back, no point.
If he did went home and things are what they appear to be the plot holes are abundant:
1. If you can get you hands on the president and CEO of a multinational conglomerate you don't need his secrets to begin with. Those sections are ridiculous, Saito and Fischer should have an army of bodyguards or at least some aids around them at all times. 2. Why Saito hire Cobb? He fail to extract from him. 3. Why don't they know Fischer is trained? That is the only thing they had to make sure and triple check. 4. When they wake up why they are not angry at Coob for lying to them and the danger he put them through? 5. What scum sends a little college girl on a job like this? 6. They plan to stay in the dream for ten years but when cornered they make stuff up, succeed and are out in a day. Why not plan that from the beginning? 7. Inception is easy. Take some random numbers from the victim, put them as combination on a safe that you made, disguise yourself ala mission impossible and voilà. Why doesn't everybody doing it? 8. Fischer is specially trained for just this kind of thing but doesn't have a totem to blow the hole plan apart? 9. Mal jumped from another hotel room, isn't there a paper trail or forensic evidence to that room? Or even a single witness? Being declared sane by three different psychiatrists does not look strange at the polices eyes? 10. If you want to see your children put them on a plane, make a video call, have them send pictures for god sake. 11. The entire rule set of the dreams is illogical in its own context and the time passing between the tree layers makes no sense, nor could it make because of its complexity. It would need an entire book to be attempted at.
Artistically it is shot with skill, it is immersing, the effects are good and I did watched all of it for the cinematography. But pointless is pointless.
Also when movies end this way, meaning with two options for the viewer, either he is still dreaming or he woke up, does not make a good movie or a good ending. Good ending makes open interpretation from many points of view, for characters ultimate motives, for questions of what is done is done for good or ill, etc. Here the characters are evil and they want to destroy thousand of peoples lives(Destroying Fischer company) for money, Cut and dry.
To conclude I want to say that this has nothing to do with dreams. Dreams do not work that way, we all know that. This is a sci-fi movie about how dreams might have worked but even in that context doesn't make sense like I said. Watch but don't take seriously.
Shinseiki Evangelion (1995)
Few of my true thoughts.
Hideaki Anno truly puts his soul in his work like so very few writers do today.
Neon Genesis Evangelion. The fact that it is anime is irrelevant. A work of art, a study of characters, a journey through the human soul. There is no getting in the giant machine and riding around destroying enemies answering to no one. Everything needs to be studied, planed and executed inside a short time frame with limited resources and terrifying risks must be taken or else humanity is gone. The most original, realistic, intense battle sequences are not even the main concern. The main concern is human interaction, between each other and the unknown.
All the characters are real and they stick to their nature trough the very end, human, angel and Eva. Every dialog and every event comes with a purpose from an idea. This is the most important thing for me, in almost all other movies the protagonists betray their character and their intelligence for the shake of action sequences, cliffhangers, etc. Not in this one. The angels are relentless and merciless, they don't spare a moment to stand around or to threaten someone, they don't care how they look, they only pursue their purpose, that makes them some of the scariest creatures ever. The Eva units 00 and 02 are controllable, they shut down when they run out of power, no exceptions. Unit 01 is made from something different, it will move without power and it will persevere through every trial, it will not be beaten no mater what. It has the scariest most intense scream I have ever heard, full of suffering, anger and power. The humans never stray from their strengths or shortcomings even in the face of annihilation, they survive not because they must or because of a "deus ex machina". Not because they rise above themselves, but because they stay true to themselves.
The hedgehog's dilemma, joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, how they affect the mind and soul. Layer after layer, motives and intentions unravel before our eyes. Some answers we are given to, some are for you alone to figure out and some maybe we don't have but still live in spite of it.
Lastly allow me to give my advice: If you haven't already do not watch the later installments to the series, they keep getting lamer with every new installment. Watch only the twenty six original episodes.
Nikita (2010)
Your name is not Nikita.
If you love "la fame Nikita" boy will you hate this. Like Knight rider, the prisoner, etc. all the grate aspects of the original are removed. First of all I got the distinct impression that the actors are trying to impersonate the characters from "la fame Nikita", definitely a step to disaster. Second: these guys are elite? they wouldn't last two hours in Section one, these are a bunch of idiots running around for the sole purpose of making Nikita look good. Thirdly: how could these series can go on? They will continue to pursuit her making fools of themselves and she will continue to make impossible and implausible plans to bring them down? Fourthly and finally let me repeat my self: All the elements that made "la fame Nikita" are not here, I will not trouble you mentioning them because if your reading comments about this new series you already know how awesome "la fame Nikita" is. I know people work hard to make their visions come true but for me this is a joke that true fans can watch and laugh at thinking "That would never happen in the real Nikita".
If you haven't watched the original I suppose you could enjoy some parts of this but I still don't recommend it. Find "la fame Nikita" and watch that.
The Expendables (2010)
Nothing to see here.
If you want to see mercenaries at work watch "The Killer Elite", if you want action watch "Predator", this movie has nothing to do with mercenaries nor with action. Its really sad to see action stars giving up all concept of action movies. Like 99% of the movies of the last decade you WILL walk out of the theater remembering nothing of what you watched, you have seen it all before made one thousand times better and with allot more point.
The dialog was really disgusting for me, no mercenaries, real people or respected movie characters would outer such nonsense or acted like this guys do. In one scene the merc. goes to a basketball court to beat up the guy that hit his girlfriend, when the other guys in the court hear what happened they side with the woman beater, WTF? and surprise the trained mercenary beats them all up. I think a cold killer mercenary would be the scum that hits women, now I don't know any mercs so I digress. The bad guy says real men don't beat women so he orders his lackey to beat and torture her thus proving his point of ordering it is not the same as doing it? some would disagree. The rest of the movie is just talking nonsense, explosions and shooting signifying nothing until the bad guys are dead and the good unscathed. I wasn't watching with extreme attention and I skipped a few parts, so maybe I had more things to say, but I'm sure someone else will mention them in another review.
In Predator there is a scene in witch the guys are shooting in the jungle: As the sergeant starts of, the rest of the team one by one walks in, guns blazing, emptying clip after clip after explosive round on the trees. After the onslaught is over the unearthing line "We hit nothing" is uttered. every time I watch it, it sends shivers down my spine and I've watched it allot of times. I'm writing this to show that I love action and war movies, sadly they make only one or two a year the last few years.
All the names appearing in this movie is just the gimmick of the movie to make a days work, money and power, you don't need to watch it.
Also, if you want to know what it really means to get shot in the shoulder watch "The Killer Elite", a very realistic movie that also shows how obsolete ninjas really are.
Star Trek (2009)
Bad movie yes. But not because of what everyone else say.
Maybe I'm wrong. I just type what I think. Here it is:
One conversation between Picard and data or Kirk and Spock is more insightful and thought provoking than all American movies produced for the last eight years. Since 9/11 directors are not allowed to make smart movies any more. Actually they only make propaganda films like in world war 2. But the problem is that those films are smart and thought provoking and inspire people even today.
Some powerful people are making the job of their enemies for them. Making the American people dumper. How can anyone believe that Kirk's actions would earn him something other than a kick out of the academy in any reality that such a benevolent institution exist? How can someone abandon a crew mate on a frozen monster infested planet. How can someone linger next to a black hole and fire all weapons on a dying ship endangering his own ship? Because it looks cool? It that what they want to teach? If American boys go to war with mentality like that will they accomplice anything? They'll just going to get killed. Actually all the characters are petty and cruel and act stupidly. Even the last security guard. Is J.J. Abrams that dump? No. he is told to make it that way.
You think that J.J. does not know that the Romulans can warn their people in the past or does not know all the other unbelievable plot holes? He made the movie. And to be fair all of Star Trek had huge plot holes most of all TOS. The plot was always the means to make a philosophical or technological point. Witch here is obviously non existent.
Just like The Vulcan councilman insults his best student (Spock) in front of everybody with no reason and loses him that is how they insult the audience with no reason and loose them.
The point is propaganda films don't need to be stupid and sure as heck don't need to be stupid when they are based on Star Trek. How can you help people protect them selves from terrorist or any treats? By making them dumper and scared or smart and informed?
This is not Star Trek don't compare it with Star Trek. Its nothing. Only Gene Roddenberry can make star trek and he is dead. what he made he made and that is Star Trek.
But there is a good think to come out of it. Peoples attention will be drawn to the Real Star Trek and maybe they'll learn something.
And if you materialize in a sealed tube filed with water you will die. It is worse than materializing in a wall.