karlsaville Reviews

Last Seen in Idaho (2018)

Too Cartoonish and Too Stupid to really Enjoy.

[4/10 · 29 April 2018]

On the plus side the movie is well shot, there's a nice car in it, and some of the actors are quite good, unfortunately one of these gets killed quite early on. There's also intriguing supernatural subplot that ultimately leads nowhere.

On the down side, the script ranges from requiring behaviours that make you shake your head to suicidal stupidity. Characters creep downstairs when they should be creeping upstairs, then they creep back down again for no reason. They hang out where they know they could be found when bad guys are chasing them. They don't report murders they remember because reasons. They willingly allow themselves to be kidnapped because plot. People get left alive when it only makes sense to kill them, other folks get killed pointlessly and stupidly. The whole thing is a mess.

The lead actress is stiff and wooden with the emotional range of a cheeseboard. There's a convincing psychopath in the gang who I did enjoy, but unfortunately the gang leader is a tattoed muscle-bound joke. A cartoon of a character. A cartoon of a movie. I give it a 4.

The Elf (2016)

Not QUITE the worst film I've ever seen.

[1/10 · 24 November 2017]

Not QUITE the worst film I've ever seen - after all, it IS in colour. But it's pretty close. It's certainly the lowest IMDb score I've given.

Firstly everyone in the film appears to have some significant physical disability or disfigurement. The lead actress is suffering from some kind of lip bloat, so her face resembles an over-inflated deep sea fish. The lead actor experiences frequent epileptic episodes which the camera rather cruelly continues filming. Either that or he's under the mistaken impression that this constitutes method acting. One of the characters who is 13 feet tall seems not to possess articulated limbs. Or a neck. Or a spine. I assume he is rotated into position by a hidden platform operated by dwarfs.

The elf of the title is a small doll approximately the size of a man's fist, who wields a miniature knife the length of a sewing needle. Using this fearsome instrument he somehow manages to dispatch most of the cast in the movie. Possibly because they are handicapped by the weight of their lips or their inability to articulate their limbs.

I'm not sure. I fast-forwarded most of the film and then abandoned it. But don't take my word for it - knock yourself out. Advisedly during the opening credits.

Passengers (I) (2016)

Lawrence gets her shirt off.

[4/10 · 12 March 2017]

Not being a Social Justice Brownshirt forced to run in screaming outrage from any film, play or book which contains a plot element I find knee-jerkingly offensive, I was perfectly able to settle in to enjoy Passenger's traditionally uninspiring tale of "girl meets slightly rapey boy, jumps boys bones, falls out with boy, gets rescued by boy and lives with boy happily ever after" in space.

Well, I say "enjoy", actually the plot is laughably thin and one- dimensional, the obviously thorny issue of the boy awakening the chick he has the hots for to her irredeemable doom is disappointingly briefly addressed and the otherwise bland fairy tale romance is tedious to say the least. It's a pity, actually, because the issues raised by the space- prisoner's dilemma of who, if anyone, to wake from the vessel's choice of thousands and condemn to his fate, either to stave off loneliness, start a family, or to help extricate himself from this sentence of a lifetime alone was an intriguing one, and could have made for a deeply interesting and thoughtful film.

Unfortunately the writers decided not to go that route. It's possible they toyed briefly with the notion of turning their work into a space-parody since the comedy robot bartender, played by Michael Sheen was by far the most human of the on-board characters, and certainly the fortuitous appearance and immediate demise of the token black dude is well within ironic boundaries.

I must admit that despite not really rating Jennifer Lawrence as an actress - given that her range of facial expressions only barely exceeds that of Noomi Rapace, who, as we can all tell, has had her musculi faciei surgically disconnected - I was really quite impressed by her emotive performance. She genuinely managed to look both upset and slightly worried on occasion. Well I was convinced.

Unfortunately, despite the lush, if somewhat scientifically unlikely, design of the ship and its on-board technologies I found the film simply boring. When it got to the (inevitable) point at which Jennifer Lawrence was forced to strip off due to the intense heat of the ship's exploding engines I couldn't help barking with laughter thinking of that brilliant moment in Galaxy Quest's Star Trek parody when Alan Rickman snidely comments to Tim Allen "I see you managed to get your shirt off!"

So at that point I turned off Passengers and re-watched Galaxy Quest instead. I recommend you do the same. I give Passengers a 4 for "pretty, but not worth finishing".

Jeruzalem (2015)

A Massive Letdown

[3/10 · 25 January 2016]

Such a disappointment for a film that started so well. I liked the Google Glass POV concept - much more believable than lugging an open laptop or a video camera around, and the early glimpses of the bat-winged demons of the apocalypse was excellently done. The characters developed nicely, the acting was quite acceptable (despite Yon Tumarkin's wooden and unconvincing contribution), and Jerusalem beautifully shot.

Just a pity that the director had to go and spoil that magnificent build-up by unaccountably jamming in ever single one of the most ridiculous found-footage and horror movie tropes you could think of.

• The lunatic rescue mission to the darkened insane asylum (I kid you not!).

• The cracked camera lense for that really cool disjointed and shattered film look.

• The inexplicable insistence on dragging a bitten and obviously infected friend along with you.

• The absurd crying and screaming in the dark and dangerous tunnels where silence is essential.

Have these people never SEEN a horror movie before? It's like they're DETERMINED to die.

I just couldn't make it to the end - giving up on the film after 15 minutes of unwatchable dark, broken footage as they crawled through the cave of the demon bat beasts. All I could think was "won't this mewling woman EVER shut up?". I do hope she got eaten.

What a waste!

Lake Eerie (2016)

Laugh-Out-Loud Awful

[2/10 · 23 January 2016]

Literally laugh out loud.

The lead actress (Meredith Majors) is catastrophically unable to portray a convincing human, never mind a recently bereaved widow. She has less talent than a soft-porn actress, and I can tell you this for certain because there's actually a hilariously bad, and painfully inappropriate soft-porn scene inexplicably rammed into the middle of the film! You get an idea of this woman's utter lack of talent when, early on, she fails to simply walk down a road without looking like an awkward marionette.

I kid you not, it's like a home movie made by doting parents who film their baby daughter self-consciously pretending to "act natural", and then force you to watch. The only redeeming features are an unaccountable cameo by Lance Henriksen and the over-enthusiastic neighbour they've invited over to help out. She can't act either, but boy she gives it a damn good try.

Get out while you can.

The Last Days on Mars (2013)

A Long Way To Go With Such Little Payload

[3/10 · 21 February 2014]

A tediously uninspired zombie slasher pointlessly set on Mars. You've seen the same tired tale set in shopping malls, in creepy cabins in the woods, in Grandma's basement. There is nothing new, interesting or exciting in this movie either.

From a promising start in which a bunch of fractious misfit scientists investigate the dead rocks of Jordan attractively shot through a red-tinted lense, once the zombies start arriving the script-writers leave, and the actors are left to run around haplessly arranging for themselves to be picked off one by one.

The only controversial plot decision of note was to have the zombies be smarter, faster, more charismatic and make better use of available resources than the scientists they prey upon. I couldn't bear to watch right to the end, so I don't know if the zombies made it back to Earth and killed us all, but I sure hope so. They looked like mankind's best bet to me.

Avatar (2009)

One-Dimensional

[6/10 · 19 January 2014]

Avatar is a quality cartoon, with rich, well-rendered fauna, prettily radiant flora and spectacular complex landscapes: an excellent movie for children. What it isn't though, is a particularly satisfying experience for grown-ups. The dialogue is trite, the characters hopelessly one-dimensional and the plot derivatively simple-minded.

Whilst the smurf-like aliens have a luxurious, fleshy feel, they do not make convincing lifeforms. If you were unexpectedly to come upon one during a walk in the forest you would in no way believe that it was a living, breathing animal but that someone had left a sculpture or a plastic model there by accident. They compare poorly in this respect with the aliens in District 9, for example, who would be entirely realistic creatures to find rooting through your garbage.

Between the pantomime villainy of Stephen Lang and Sam Worthington's torpid, wooden delivery this was a hard movie to sit through, and not one I'm interested in revisiting.

6/10

After Earth (2013)

Can you tell what it is yet?

[3/10 · 24 September 2013]

In this dystopian vision of the future the human race appears to have entered a deep recession and man travels the galaxy in space ships made primarily from bamboo and rice paper to do battle with unconvincingly computer generated giant alien chiggers using only their knuckles and swords. In fact we have fallen so far that the very concept of pillows or cushions has apparently been lost. Together with that of narrative arcs. A tale for these austere times perhaps?

If so this is the most clunking and heavy-handed tale you could wish for:

• astonishingly tedious exposition,

• dull and wooden acting,

• an oppressive score frantically telegraphing every required emotion

• the most unconvincing family relationships I have ever seen depicted in a movie.

The single redeeming feature is that some of the scenery and the landscape shots are quite beautiful. Unfortunately the camera occasionally also lingers lovingly on Jaden's face - inviting the audience to guess what emotion this singularly talentless celebrity is attempting to portray.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Looper (2012)

Entertaining but wrong

[6/10 · 26 November 2012]

It's a fun film no question - very entertaining. But unfortunately it's wrong, which is a pity because if you think about it too hard it pretty much spoils it. Even before you get to characters who have magic superpowers.

See the whole premise of the film and the basis for the ending is that Young Joe is Old Joe's past self. It's critical that this is so because Young Joe kills himself to erase Old Joe. This will only happen if Young Joe is Old Joe's past self.

Unfortunately Young Joe cannot be Old Joe's past self because Old Joe killed his looper (going on to live in Shanghai, spend all his saved silver and live his 30 year contracted lifespan before the gangsters came to close his loop). Old Joe killed his looper.

But Young Joe didn't kill his looper. His looper is Old Joe, and Young Joe is currently attempting to get rid of Old Joe so he can get back in with the mob and get his silver, and his life, back. Young Joe didn't kill his looper

So Young Joe is not Old Joe's past self. So when Young Joe kills himself it will have no effect on Old Joe whatsoever.

Wrong!

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Inspired!

[8/10 · 18 August 2012]

This isn't exactly a horror movie - it's a movie about horror movies. It has horrific elements, but isn't traditionally horrible. It has comedy moments but isn't entirely funny.

What it is mostly is a self-examination of the moronic desire for formulaic satisfaction of a certain kind of ur-human cretin - referred to in the film as the "Ancient Ones". You know who they are - they bay at the movie screen when the marines kick that alien ass, they hiss and throw popcorn at the comedy evil genius.

If you believe the greatest concept in modern horror-movie production is the screening of badly-shot, poorly edited film purporting to be from a camcorder found next to a dismembered corpse then you should avoid this film.

If you are the kind of idiot who was actually disappointed to find that this wasn't really just a film about a bunch of American teen mannequins being horribly murdered in the woods then this isn't your film.

If you are a witless imbecile who finds thinking about a film while you're watching it makes your brain hurt then this film isn't for you.

This film isn't FOR you: it's ABOUT you. YOU'RE the horror.

Green Lantern (2011)

The Colour Of Money

[26 September 2011]

You know those people who spend an entire film asking you in a hoarse stage whisper who all the people are and what they're doing now? Well this is just the film for those people, because the entire plot is explained in loving detail by a series of alien voiceovers, convenient side stories and an overexcited score that frantically signals every emotion required of the audience.

I don't know why more films don't do this - it makes it so much easier to watch the film - instead of all that tedious concentrating and analyzing you can just relax and enjoy the show.

To be honest I may have misunderstood some of the exposition in this film since I took the opportunity to nip out for some popcorn, but as far as I could tell the premise of the film is that there is a a sort of inter-galactic security force for rich sentient beings called "The Green Lanterns" that derives its extraordinary energy from the power of money - which manifests throughout the universe as fat beams of green light.

Down on earth a spoilt self-indulgent American test pilot called Jordan is chosen by the magic money ring of one of these inter-galactic security guards to take his place when he dies after his space ship crashes, and the nice alien men explain to everyone that the power of money embedded in his ring will allow Jordan to physically create anything his mind can imagine. Unfortunately, being a spoilt self-indulgent American the only thing Jordan's mind can imagine appears to be racing cars, nice jewellery for his girlfriend and a number of unlikely but really big guns.

Jordan's first job as a Green Lantern is to protect a party of very wealthy industrialists and a powerful senator when the senator's helicopter breaks and tries to kill everyone at a terrifically swanky corporate party for rich people. He manages this very successfully by imagining a racing car and gets to impress a wealthy industrialist's beautiful daughter, who Jordan then chats up by using the power of his money ring to imagine her a jewelled necklace.

There are a couple of mildly amusing episodes where people recognise Jordan despite his cunning super-hero disguise of a green lone-ranger eye mask, but since he happily tells anyone he meets who he is anyway it doesn't seem all that important.

In order to alleviate the boredom of this trite and tedious super-boy meets girl story, the alien narrators introduce another power in the universe to rival that of money which is a yellow colour and is the power of the envy of rich peoples' ugly children. Fortunately on earth Jordan has a childhood friend called Hector who is the ugly son of a powerful senator so he is able to absorb the power of envy to become the film's antihero and indulge in some massive overacting.

It's easy enough to separate the goodies from the baddies in this film because the goodies are all incredibly handsome and slightly green, whilst the baddies are all hideously deformed and jaundice yellow. I suppose it makes a change from the baddies all being black, and I liked how it made the film so much easier to follow.

Jordan quickly assembles his team of standard supporting sidekicks instantly recognisable from groundbreaking shows such as 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' and proceeds to visit a massive expensive lab where rich people take their ugly children to get them treated so he can have a huge fight with Hector. In which he mostly imagines some really big guns.

I think I might have fallen asleep after that 'cos I don't really remember much else about the film - I'm guessing that Jordan uses the immense power of money to beat up all the bad ugly yellow guys in the universe probably using some really big guns, that the earth is once again made a safe place for rich people and that he gets the beautiful rich girl. I also imagine that Jordan's geeky sidekick gets some sort of awful injury and dies at the end as he wasn't really as incredibly handsome as all the other wealthy green people because he had to wear such thick glasses.

But I don't think I'll be watching the film again to find out.

Be Kind Rewind (2008)

Hilarious

[3/10 · 18 January 2011]

In this movie Jack Black plays a lovable scamp who lives in a caravan in a scrap yard and breaks things for a living. People don't actually bring him things to break of course, but he breaks them anyway, and because he's such a lovable scamp no-one really minds. Which is hilarious.

The movie starts by explaining how his friend Fatty Wailer is a famous black and white Jazz instrument and lives in a video store near his scrap yard. But then Fatty Wailer becomes coloured and suddenly looks a lot like the actor Danny Glover, but with a stick-on beard.

The character of Jack Black is established early on with a series of hilarious escapades - first we see him being stopped by the police for vandalising a bridge, but they don't really mind because he's such a lovable scamp, and then we see him in Fatty Wailer's video store where he knocks everything off the shelves, but it's OK really because of him being a lovable scamp. Next he ruins a lady's car by sticking big metal tubes to it, but she doesn't mind so much, him being a lovable scamp and all. The big metal tubes are hilarious.

For a while Jack Black and his friends wear funny hats, which emphasises their lovable scampyness and then Fatty Wailer has to go away somewhere on a train and leaves his friend who is deaf in charge of his video store, but I wasn't really paying attention there because they weren't wearing their funny hats. Which were hilarious.

Then Jack Black dresses up as a black and white minstrel, which would probably be offensive to minstrels except that he's a lovable scamp so it's OK. In this movie though, the job of a black and white minstrel is to get magnetised by a thin plot device disguised as a power station so that Jack Black can ruin all the videos in Fatty Wailer's shop. Fortunately, because Jack Black is such a lovable scamp no-one really minds that he's ruined all the films and then he walks around pretending to be magnetised and everyone laughs. Because it's hilarious.

But then to everyone's surprise it turns out that Fatty Wailer's video store has a customer who wants to rent his videos and watch them. The customer looks like a famous movie star except older and without her makeup, but everyone pretends not to notice.

Because Jack Black is such a lovable scamp and is really sorry for ruining all those videos that the nice old actress lady wants to rent, he persuades his deaf friend that they should remake all the films the old actress lady wants to rent for themselves so they don't have to buy them on ebay or anything.

Everyone thinks this is a very good idea because the old actress lady only wants to watch rubbish old movies that a man who lives in a caravan in a scrap yard and his deaf friend could easily make by just dressing up in tin foil and funny hats. So Jack and his friend who is deaf make their own Ghostbuster movie which is hilarious, and the old actress lady is very pleased.

But in an unexpected plot twist the video store gets another customer who doesn't much look like anybody I recognised and wanted to rent a movie I've never seen, which seemed to be in Chinese and required Jack Black and the deaf boy to wear dark suits. Which was hilarious.

But I stopped watching then because I had laughed enough for one Jack Black movie and wanted to save some laughing for his next one. Which I'm sure will be hilarious.

The Mist (2007)

The Stupid. It Burns!

[3/10 · 17 January 2011]

You know those cretinous B-movies that use the tired cliché of the irritating moron determined against all reason to visit the dark and spooky basement armed only with a broken flashlight and a screwdriver? Well this cretinous B-movie has a whole supermarket full of those morons.

Here the morons find themselves under threat from CGI bugs and giant CGI tentacles, which are reasonably convincing but are cleverly concealed by a mysterious smoke effect. And all of which are taller than knee height.

So our morons choose to barricade themselves in the vulnerable plate-glassed front of a small town food store using hundreds of bags of dog-food piled up to knee height from where they signal their presence to those waiting CGI monsters by the waving of flashlights and the shining of powerful arc lamps.

The convenience of so very many bags of dog food can only be explained by the total absence of dogs.

At the back of the store there is a loading bay with a solid roller-door in which they could more securely have barricaded themselves, but unfortunately this area had already been used as a plot device for a clichéd moron with a broken flashlight and a screwdriver earlier in the film. He died.

Our morons then try to battle the terrifying CGI bugs attracted to their light show by setting fire to their store with mops and buckets of petrol, but fortunately none of them appear to have cigarette lighters, or know how to operate one and they only succeed in setting fire to one of their own number. Who dies.

So seeking for further tension a lady moron has to leave the store to be eaten by CGI monsters because she has left her children at home. All the other store morons unchivalrously refuse to accompany her to be eaten. But then after she's left, a group of the darker-skinned store morons who just finished refusing to leave with her now insist that they have to leave the store because it's all just a white-skinned conspiracy. The remaining white morons try to awaken them to the clumsy transparency of this plot manipulation but they leave anyway. And die.

Then some of the whiter morons who previously refused to leave, and then tried desperately to convince the others to stay decide they also must now leave to visit another store where they spend some time screaming and gibbering at CGI spider-bugs and getting killed before remembering that they have the power of movement and can return to the first store. The trip is not a complete waste however, since they return with a comic book which was unavailable in their own store.

Unfortunately in the minutes they were gone, the morons left behind in the first store have formed a religious movement and are now determined to force outside some of those who went to the other store as human sacrifices to placate the CGI gods, including a hapless young soldier whom they repeatedly stab. Until he dies.

This is particularly tragic as he was friends with two other hapless young soldiers who were found to have hung themselves in the safety of the loading bay after realising they were in a cretinous B-movie. They were dead.

As a result of all this, the morons who first refused to leave, then fought to prevent anyone else leaving, then left, then returned, then didn't want to be forced outside now decide it would be best if they left after all. Again.

So they leave and wander around the parking lot for a while shouting loudly to each other and waving their flashlights to attract the giant CGI bugs. Then they all die.

Awesome!