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Reviews
Kandahar (2023)
So authentic it was filmed in Saudi
A typical GB film - watchable, but a bit two-dimensional, but that's one more dimension that you usually get.
Butler plays Tom Harris, a freelance undercover operative who somehow manages to sabotage an Iranian nuclear research facility by fiddling with its internet (really). Naturally, the Iranians are very angry with him, and there then ensues a series of unlikely chases and fights across Afghanistan, with the Iranians, Pakistani ISI, the Taliban, Isis, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Tom and his unfortunate translator Mo Doud have to keep running, and with some atmospheric, if rather unlikely night fight scenes in the desert, the pounding score and plethora of doom-themed pop songs keeps them noisy company.
Trades Description warning -- Kandahar obviously wasn't filmed in Afghanistan, and if you notice a certain saminess about Iran and Afghanistan, that's because the movie was filmed in Saudi Arabia.
Butler is on form as his usual gritty, indestructible self, but it's Navid Negahban (himself of Iranian origins) co-starring as his Harris' companion Mo who gives the best performance of the film, providing it with some much needed gravitas and pathos, with all the other actors sort of fading into the desert mist.
To say that the west doesn't understand the nuances of the cultural and political tinderbox our forces have unleashed there over the generations is made painfully apparent by the movie, but it passes the time - and there are some good lines in there. When Mo asks Harris if he thinks the war in his homeland will ever be over, Tom replies: "Ancient wars were fought for spoils. Modern wars aren't meant to be won." Ain't that the truth?
Since the movie cost $70m to make, and only recouped $9m at the box office, I'm guessing there won't be a Kandahar 2.
Three stars because I watched it to the (inevitable) end.
T.I.M. (2023)
Moronic trash
Utter, utter stupid, stereotypical robot runs amok shlock. I can barely be bothered to warn you not to watch at, as, like me, you probably ran it on Netflix then watched in horror as it descended from one feeble third-hand SF trope to another.
Let's just say Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics would have saved us all nearly two hours of our lives.
It's a pity really, as the movie starts reasonably promisingly with decent FX and performances -- I don't blame any of the actors involved in this garbage for -- including Eamon Farren, who makes a decent fist of playing the titular role.
No, it's that the idea descends into silliness and entirely predictable irrationality.
Very, very feeble and stupid film. Netflix outdoes itself again.
Pan Samochodzik i templariusze (2023)
A bad mix of The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Da Vinci Code
The premise for this ridiculous pile of tosh is that when Tomasz, an art historian. Finds an ancient Templar cross, he must join forces with an unlikely group of adventurers on a quest to unlock the relic's secrets with the help of his ridiculous car.
An unpleasant mix of The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Da Vinci Code. The characters are bland, generic and unlikeable. The plot is confused, easily sidetracked and over-complicated, presumably to hide all the plot holes.
It's a sort of rip-off of Indiana Jones, without the strong, charming lead or companions, the Goonies without the humour, and the Da Vinci Code without the clever research and hokum that make that story spooky.
Tiresome, generic, and poorly conceived treasure-hunt film without any real character. Something Netflix commission all too regularly.
Immanence (2022)
Absolute garbage
Immanence (2022, Bondit Media), is, sadly best described as garbled, moronic garbage. The movie starts well enough, with some decent cinematography of both ocean and night skies, but the 'Event Horizon on water' premise dies a quick death with the introduction of a very clunky dialogue about religion v science, between the pilot (Jonah, Michael Beach), and the supposed scientists, played by the most unlikely and unintelligent group of actors to play any kind of scientists, probably ever.
The first problem is that the scientists are smug, dismissive, infantile and silly. The debate between them and the religious Jonah is as forced and unrealistic as any I (for one) have ever heard, and insults those of us with scientific training as it does people of faith.
Then the film quickly descends into dreadful, poorly acted schlock horror, which lacks as much narrative flow as it does imagination, good production and editing. It ultimately becomes a random sequence of garbled scenes that are like a cross between The Exorcist and Alien, but made by 11 year old glue sniffers. The story goes onto make zero sense, even to the internal logic of its own fictional premise of 'something alien landing in the ocean, and it's evil.'
My favourite goof is where Jonah pulls his fish cage out of the water to find that they have been boiled alive. When he cuts one open, there are no intestines, suggesting the fishes had been bought from a supermarket.
That said, it does give hope to anybody who has had an idea for a movie, and then said to themselves, 'nah, that's far too stupid.' Is it as stupid as 'Immanence'? Unlikely. Highly unlikely.
It is possible to cross horror with SF (Altered States, Scanners, Cloverfield, and the aforementioned Event Horizon), but it takes intelligence and skill to meld the two genres convincingly -- something Immanence quickly demonstrates it does not do.
I watched to the end, but only out of morbid curiosity to see if it improved. It didn't.
Encounter (2018)
Very feeble SF offering
Very feeble. The dialogue, writing, effects, and concept are all sketchy. Like a student movie, only lacking the imagination and enthusiasm. Does my review contain spoilers? No, because there's very little to spoil. The British movie 'Cosmos' (2019) was made for virtually nothing, and still has more heart and soul than this paltry offering. Liam Hemsworth is probably the one performance of the movie that at least elevates it to watchable in parts, owing to his not overacting with a less than stellar script. Bad editing throughout doesn't help, nor do obvious howlers such as a G-man scanning with a Tascam recorder, or a clearly non-magnetic wedding band being magnetically sucked on to the alien entity.
In fairness, it kept me watching, in hope of a good twist or denouement - that never came.
On the upside: it is possible Mystery Science Theater fodder.
A Mermaid's Tale (2017)
Undemanding but sweet kid's movie
I like films for younger viewers, generally, due to a lack of violence and cynicism. Granted, A Mermaid's Tale is a very simple story, simply told, with some dialogue that the writers should have left in their 'Big Book of Screenwriter Cliches' ("Don't you dare die on me, grandpa" etc.), but it's an inoffensive and warm-hearted little movie, with good intentions, and enough of a plot to keep you watching to the end. Probably best watched with younger children, as it does start to wane towards the end of the story, and it's quite obvious what all the plot twists (not that there are that many) are, but Jerry O'Connell heads up a likeable cast, and it's undemanding, light viewing.
Invasion (2021)
A slow burn that fizzles out to a damp squib
Invasion illustrates the difference between a genuine slow burner that builds tension and characterisation slowly, with a rewarding pay off; and a damp squib that fizzles out every time it looks like something may happen. 'Invasion' is, sadly, the latter.
The acting is ok, particularly Sam Neill and Shioli Kutsuna, but the characters are two dimensional, and the context of what felt like a 300 episode series of ten hour episodes, very poorly developed and inconsistent.
I came to imagine that every time a character climbed up a mountain or got lost in a desert, they were in fact, looking for the good version of the script that would have turned the ambitious grand idea into a decent production. Sadly none of them ever find the plot and all seem to keep going round in angry circles.
Invasion is Apple's first real flop - they've so far produced some very good SF shows (Foundation, Silo, etc.) You can see what the producers were going for - the slow weaving of a realistic invasion story where the loss of communications and infrastructure leaves the world reeling in a confused mess, but sadly the programme makers wove far too slowly -- a better name for the programme would be 'Evasion'. Both aliens and plot are largely MIA.
There are better ways to spend $200 million. 200 million tacos, maybe, one for every viewer who suffered through the turgid, leaden 'plot'.
Mi chao (2018)
Utter garbage
Terrible story and dialogue, obnoxious, unlikeable characters, a script that borders on stereotypical, and it doesn't improve if you keep watching.
Kelsey Grammer and Li Bingbing are good actors, and it just shows that even they can put in bad performances if the movie they are acting in as as poor as this one.
You can see where they thought maybe a 'Chinese Indiana Jones' thing might work out, especially with lots of deadly spiders, but it just falls flat -- especially the action sequences, which are poorly paced and directed.
A case of 'nice idea, shame about the execution' with this film.
Native (2016)
Cerebral, visually elegant low-budget indy SF
What "Native" lacks in budget, it makes up for in imagination, and good performances from Rupert Graves and Ellie Kendrick. This is a visually minimal, but well thought out low budget science fiction thriller that pre-supposes a collective advanced humanoid society bent on expanding its hive into the cosmos. But Independence Day it is not. Native concentrates on the telepathic link between the two pilots on board the expeditionary spacecraft and two linked siblings at Mission Control on their home planet. There are not much in the way of special effects or action, but there is much to commend a film that asks an important question: "is a native civilisation expendable?"
OXV: The Manual (2013)
Clever, imaginative, but cold
This is a movie that was crying out for a little heart and empathy. In an alternative future, everybody has a natural frequency that determines their luck, the higher the frequency, the greater the luck. Right from the beginning of the story it is obvious that the system favours those with a higher frequency, regardless of intellect.
Our hero, Isaac-Newton "Zak" Midgeley, has a negative frequency, meaning he can bring on bad luck, and at school, falls in love with a girl, Marie-Curie Fortune (note the name), who has a very high frequency -- she is used to getting what she wants and being naturally lucky. In the middle of the two, is Zak's mysterious friend Theodor-Adorno "Theo" Strauss, whose father is a talented musician. Marie is what we would a savant -- effortlessly brilliant, but at the cost of having no feelings, or empathy.
As the story progresses, Zak allows Marie to coldly experiment on him to explore their incompatibility, which is explained as a violent reaction between two repelling magnets. Theo continues to attempt developing 'cures' for Zak and Marie's inherent incompatibilities, until he apparently stumbles upon a technology based on two-phrase words that can equalise frequencies (we later learn this is a far from random occurrence that Theo has stumbled upon).
The story explores themes of free will vs fate (but (determinism), the things that trigger the alternative universe's frequencies (particularly as they affect human beings), and how Zak and Marie might be allowed to discover if they love each other.
So it's clever, very imaginative, well acted, and gloriously FX-free, for which it is to be applauded. The problem is, that for most of the film, Marie, and many of the other characters (the teacher Miss Anderson and the agents who apprehend Zak) lack any kind of empathy or understanding. The film feels almost autistic, nor does this feeling of coldness ever lift.
As the Tin Woodman opines in 'The Wizard of Oz' -- 'if I only had a heart!', and therein lies the fundamental weakness of Frequences / OXV: The Manual: it lacks heart, empathy, or any kind of warmth, even with a romantic resolution to the storyline.
Worth watching though.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Frenetic, funny and visually clever
A fast paced, funny, absurd, sometimes confusing whirlwind of a movie. The actors all accomplish the trick of portraying varying versions of themselves and carrying the ambitious storyline -- that there are as many versions of us as individuals as there are universes in the chaotic maelstrom of a quantum metaverse. It's hard to keep track of the silliness, but always amusing and thought provoking, and both Ke Huy Quan (who to those of us of a certain age will always be Short Round from Indiana Jones) and Jamie Lee Curtis give the fantastic Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu the backup needed to keep the whole mad movie going. Wonderful stuff, really. Sharp, witty, fast-paced, endlessly visually inventive, and moving.
The Rig (2023)
A slow burner, but intriguing
The Rig takes a couple of episodes to get going, and the characters to establish themselves. There are some clues for fans of classic SF (John Wyndham particularly) will recognise some of the tropes -- and the idea of an interconnected organism protecting the planet from the depredations of humanity is hardly new, but it's reasonably well developed story, even if it is slow going for the first couple of episodes.
The CGI and effects improve as the story progresses, and the pervasive atmosphere of isolation on the rig and the squalid conditions are reasonably well done. There are shades of Alien, the aforementioned John Wyndham (Kraken Wakes, Day of the Triffids) and other themes such as the difficulty in communicating with a radically different life form (as covered by Stanislav Lem's Solaris).
What probably stands out are the performances of Iain Glenn, Owen Teale, and Mark Addy, all experienced troopers giving a sometimes flat script and story arc more gravitas than it perhaps deserves. However, as others have rightly observed, the Hutton character is initially so wild and ill-behaved that it does detract from the story -- not Owen Teale's fault, so much as the way the character has been written.
As a metaphor for humankind's over-exploitation of the Earth's resources, the mysterious organism set loose by the corporation that then tries to exterminate it - at any cost - is also a fairly standard SF trope, but the difference here is that the story is delivered not from the perspective of a near future dystopia, or space, but the gritty realism of a dirty old oil rig -- as such the programme makers deserve some credit. The Rig takes time to establish both the premise and the characters - as such, it's a 'slow burner' -- no pun intended.
I fail to see why The Rig has drawn such negative reviews -- possibly from an audience now inured to anything but stupid Superhero nonsense -- overacting, limitless superhuman powers, alien lifeforms that can instantly communicate their intentions, OTT CGI etc -- and in that respect I think The Rig at least deserves some credit for trying to deliver something a bit different -- what used to be called 'hard SF' -- i.e. Vaguely scientifically plausible.
I'll certainly watch the second season, which is the best compliment I can pay the show - and would recommend to anybody thinking of watching to stick with the first couple of slow episodes in the first season.
Higher Power (2018)
Confused, poorly paced, poorly acted B-movie
MAN(IAC) CREATES GOD .....
Half a decent idea (based on DC's Doctor Manthattan), very poorly executed. Kept me watching to the end, more out of morbid curiosity, so avoids one star, but a confusing script, unevenly plotted and paced, and very poorly acted throughout.
Unpleasant characters, impossible to engage or empathise with.
Bad: Nasty, mean-spirited, badly made, tripe. Poor characterisation.
Good: Imaginative premise, somewhat wasted. Decent FX for the low budget.
There are worse movies out there, with less of a viable premise, but while it's probably ok to watch at 2am after a heavy night out, it's not the sort of movie you'll probably want to watch again.