zabpehely-95 Reviews

The Dark Tower (2017)

Poor writing and directing. Missed opportunity.

[5/10 · 4 August 2017]

I have not read any of the novels, but I think I would be even more upset about the amateurism of this movie, and about the murdering of those (probably) awesome novels.

First of all I would like to mention the aspects of the movie which were pretty good: -The scenery: The wastelands of Roland's world were beautiful. -The special effects/fight scenes: I was actually surprised how good the action scenes in this movie were. The special effect guys did a very good job. The fight scenes with Roland shooting bullets in slow-motion and Walter O'Dim's scenes were extremely fun to watch. -The actors: In my opinion the actors did a pretty good job. They did their best with the horrible script the writers handed to them.

And now the negative aspects: -Awful writing: I have no idea how can four (!!!) writers create a stupid dialog and story like this. It's not even the book's fault, because as I know the story is completely different than the one of the books'. -The constant switching between the two worlds, the involvement of the "asian medium lady" and her village, the repetitive usage of the Warriors' praying were so unimportant that it makes me mad. Not to mention the ending...as if it was made for 6 years olds. -Sloppy directing: The director was nominated for BAFTA Award, so I am pretty sure he just did not give a damn about making the movie at least mediocre with the absence of a proper script. The cuts in this movie (when there's no fight) are very annoying, and I am pretty sure I could have cut it to be more watchable than Nikolaj Arcel did (and I have not directed anything yet).

Summary: The books had a perfect material to create an excellent movie series, but someone decided to create an upset, a ruined cinematography from it. I am pretty sure it is the fault of the negligence of the people behind this movie (writers;director). If a Sergio Leone directed this movie with the given universe, it would have become a classic. Now it's a movie nobody will remember after a couple of months (if yes, then it would be due to their hatred for the production crew).

Alien: Covenant (2017)

The saga getting serious. (Spoilers)

[9/10 · 19 May 2017]

I've read the reviews of "hardcore Alien fans", and i do not understand why they get upset about the way Ridley Scott sews the saga of Alien.

Seeing with my 21 years old eyes the old movies weren't scary at all. They could not bring the nerve wrecking atmosphere to the screen for me, even though i watched the first one at theater, too. They did not have a plot, just a black monster killing crew members in a very vanilla way.

So after saying i did not like the old movies (only Aliens, the second part of the saga), i would like to tell you, what things i found excellent in Prometheus and Alien:Covenant.

The plot, that the old movies did not have: The tale of discovery, creation, destruction, men and god, men and androids. The movie is playing with the idea that we were created by a superficial species, and questions what artificial intelligence may be capable of. The dialogues, the quotes, the android's curiosity for nature, and fondness for classical music are things which appealed to me very much.

The atmosphere that put me always on the edge: The colors, the landscape of the planet, the buildings and bodies of the ancient "gods" make a very unique atmosphere. I liked it.

The realistic portrayal of alien species slaughtering the crew members: We can see the killings in a very detailed way, which personally, made me feel very uncomfortable, and that is one of the goals of horror, in my opinion. As for me these could have shown just a little bit more of gore, since it would make the movie more characteristic.

All in all i really like what Ridley Scott decided to do with the Alien saga, making it more serious, story oriented, and not leaving it to be a stupid killing fest. The only thing that would have made the movie a bit better would be showing a bit more of the killing scenes. Not that i like gore, but that would have made the film more memorable.

The things that got into my mind after watching the movie: David killed our creators, and developed the best killers, Aliens. That is an awesome plot twist... So indirectly humans created aliens, and killed their own "gods".Some say God made a mistake when he created us, because we are slowly killing Earth, and its cohabitants. Are we doing a mistake by making A.I. so developed? Stephen Hawking says so...