glanzer-markus Reviews

20 Years After (2008)

What a waste.

[5/10 · 20 September 2016]

The movie has had huge potential, but fails to deliver due to it's limited format and (probably) budget constraints.

In the beginning, hints are being dropped that peoples "balls were rotting off", adding gravity to the pregnancy, the whole movie revolves around. Unfortunately, there should have been more emphasis on communicating that vital plot detail for the movie to make sense.

I liked the characters a lot, and I think - aside from the wonky routine the twins show in the end - the overall acting is good. There just wasn't more in the script.

Aside from the badly communicated plot, the movie suffers from a huge pacing problem. It just crawls along, doesn't build much tension, and then all of a sudden tries to climax with 15 minutes of run-time left.

This could - of course - be something that probably works great on stage, but translates quite poorly onto film. I'm also curious if much of the movie's problems couldn't be solved by a different cut, but we might never find out.

Anyway - if you happen to like post-apocalypse as a genre, and feel the need to have seen everything on the subject, this is - by far - not the worst movie you'll come across.

Infini (2015)

because we needed another Event-Horizont.

[3/10 · 12 December 2015]

The movie managed to break my suspension of disbelief before anything was shown on screen.

Aside from the "Cat-women from the moon"-level ridiculously stupid back-story. Sure, mankind has perfected matter/energy conversion, and also has access to enough cheap energy to send it's poor people to do all the hazardous space-jobs (if you don't see it here, it's probably not a problem for you, but for me the movie died at precisely this point). Anyway, it doesn't have any impact on the movie's story, so they could have left it out anyway.

This is the point, where we stumble upon that tried and tested coconut-horse from the 70s, which states that space freezes everything instantly (and is repeated to an extend that people deem it 'realistic'… this is not a bad thing, it could be part of the "formula" being pursued here).

Consequently the movie shows it's inspirations, by using 70s style dumb-terminals instead of computers, which could be interpreted as a nod to Gems like "Outland" or "Aliens" (only without the great art-direction and any originality - at least they don't try to copy Giger anyway.)

Add badly written dialogue and bad acting (also inconsistent camera-work) to that mix, and what you get is a pretty decent "Event Horizon" copy, with more pseudo-space-military thrown in (there are gun props in that movie that would look ridiculous in "Métal Hurlant". Without the movie being purposely over-the-top this looks just off). Cramming 20 minutes of Exposition into the End after the movie could (and should) have ended twice doesn't help either. Have I mentioned that the scoring is rather bland and generic too?

Anyway, I can see how they thought making this movie would be a good idea on paper - I expect the story behind that to be similar to "Event Horizon"'s

Under the bottom-line, it all depends on how you look at it, and where you're coming from:

It could be a retro-futuristic movie paying homage to (somewhat) successful space-horror movies (from the late 70s) that followed "Aliens" and could be seen as it's very own sub-genre. One could argue that it follows their established formula so closely, it can not be a coincidence.

Or maybe it's just a bad SF action-movie with way too much testosterone in it.

Either way, it's just another "Event Horizon" (or now that I think of it "the Abyss" in space?) without any originality or surprises.

Actually the last one's a lie - I was really surprised that no team-member turned out to be a cyborg.

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Not as bad as claims it is.

[7/10 · 12 December 2015]

I must confess, I really loved the 1980s Flash Gordon, and I've found David Lynch's Dune to be OK.

We're looking at a quite nicely styled movie, with a very thin plot and lots of bad acting - so pretty much what you're used to in space opera anyway.

The moment you put this movie into the same drawer as other trashy sci-fi movies such as "The Ice Pirates", "Flash Gordon" or "The last Starfighter", one could even call this Movie 'secretly brilliant', since it's sticking to every camp-space-opera trope one has ever seen, while still being constantly over the top in a surreal manner.

For completeness sake, they could have hired a power-metal band to do the soundtrack, that's about the only complaint I have.

Roketto gâru (2007)

They are all completely bonkers

[7/10 · 15 August 2015]

There isn't really a lot to say about 'Rocket Girls'… but there are some things that need to be said.

One could sum up the whole series as being the punchline of a (rather inappropriate) joke that started with "Have you heard, Japan has it's own space program now.", and that's also the beauty of it.

It's writing is surprisingly clever, to an extent that even explains the crewing of the Space Program with 16 year old schoolgirls. I'm also surprised with the utter lack of of floating emotes and other cliché stuff that's usually making me dislike Japanese cartoons.

Bottom line is, the series is educational, cleverly written and at times awesomely funny - something I'd recommend to everyone with at least a basic interest in space flight.

12 Monkeys (2015–2018)

The worst re-imagining of all time.

[1/10 · 10 May 2015]

I wasn't sure if they copied the scene from the movie in the first scenes, but they did.

And swapped really good actors that played well written and likable characters into something that could come straight from scripted-reality TV, changed the dialogue into something more-trashy, maybe because they hope that -at least the Sharknado-fanbase will like it.

Congratulations, SyFy, you drove another one straight into the ground (Anyone remember that "Flash Gordon" serial? They quasi turned it into "Power Rangers").

Please stop making re-boots, stop making movies and stick to your re- runs, or better - please close down, and put the people behind such crackpot ideas on the street where they belong.

Hyperfutura (2013)

Enough stock-footage to shame Ed Wood.

[1/10 · 25 April 2015]

Hyperfutura is proof that the tradition of replacing actual work or budget with randomly selected stock-footage still is alive and well. The Movie consists of about 6 actors, one camera, about 60 minutes of - supposedly open-domain stock footage, a soundtrack, and a vague arrangement of all these elements to something remotely resembling a plot.

After a two screens full of text meant to explain the history of the world this piece plays in (as if that would matter anyway) which is in short your generic apocalypse, but apparently everyone is fine, and the only problem seems to be unemployment. The about 20 minutes of genuine Film are constantly accompanied by stock-footage via split-screens and overlays. Add a strange attempt of humor to the mix - Defibrillators in this Universe are called 'Hypergasm' for example. It's use is marked by a straight fade to a sex- scene, complete with overlaid Saturn V takeoff footage.

In general the movie has a weird religious vibe to it, feels a lot like your generic info-warrior "truth-o-mentary", and generally lacks a consistent idea, a plot, actors and originality.

If you like loud punk-rock trash cinema that desperately tries to be 'artistic' (or just lazy, pick your poison), you might actually like that movie.