vladhxh Reviews

3 Body Problem (2024)

Boring and unbelievable

[3/10 · 4 April 2024]

I'm not a fan of the books. Actually I've only read the second book on a recommendation of a friend who said that he really liked the second and you don't need a lot of background info from the first to understand what is going on.

The main premise of the books is more or less ok, but the Cultural Revolution inserts I felt were really badly written and full of adolescent cliche and overall, I never felt it was anywhere close to the best sci-fi books. I know that the trilogy has a lot of fans, but I thought it was some sort of a fluke.

When I heard that Benioff & Weiss were adapting the books for a Netflix series, I thought that maybe I missed something in the books and given that I was a big fan of Game of Thrones series (and, actually, not that big fans of the books), I thought they might pull off a strong series even if the source material was 'meh'.

Well, watched three episodes and had to conclude that this is simply bad - unbelievable plot, unbelievable characters, slow pace, zero empathy to anyone and anything happening on the screen - basically, everything that could go wrong did go wrong here. A blinking night sky was actually the last nail in the coffin, I have zero interest watching a series where extraterrestrial force is so unsubtle and illogical. It's just silly and a waste of time.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

ChatGPT making movies now

[3/10 · 13 January 2024]

The empire against rebels in space - where did they come up with this original premise? It's absolutely unoriginal, the scenes are uniformly laughably bad.

An imperial force that needs grain, because they have nothing to eat? And that's why they stop at some god forsaken Vikings-esque village and wreak havoc, to get grain, really? They didn't solve their food problem with all the robots they've got?

This is a Star Wars rehash with the smart, charming and funny bits left out. Why would anyone watch this instead of rewatching the original Star Wars trilogy?

It truly is a ChatGPT (version 3.5 mind you, 4.0 would come up with better stuff, for sure) created screenplay that doesn't make a lot of sense, does not have anything original to say, and is just plain boring. Pretty sure Part One will be the only part, unless Netflix just doesn't care and already budgeted for the whole trilogy to get Zack Snyder on board.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

This is officially the worst Nolan's film to date

[3/10 · 13 November 2023]

I am a big fan of Christopher Nolan and watched all his movies (yes, even the "Following") and loved them all. He is the best story teller, his moves have the best visuals, and most of all his movies are entertaining. He set such high standards, that I never expected to see his movie I did not like.

On the face of it, I should've liked Oppenheimer - I love science, I have two books on the history of the atomic bomb waiting their turn to be read, I even enjoy biopics and physics. I knew just two basic facts of Oppenheimer's bio, the "poisoned apple" incident and that he was selected to run the Manhattan Project. I knew that Nazis were building a bomb and there was a race, and that Russians made the bomb by having spies. That's about it.

Well, my main gripe is that the story is extremely boring. There is no character arc as such, there are no brilliant scientific breakthroughs, there are no quantum physics insights. Actually, the core of the movie is a legal battle between Oppenheimer and Strauss, an American bureaucrat. The legal battle is not even fought for dear life, not for prison term, oh no, it's fought for security clearance. And it's not even strictly a legal procedural drama (this is no A Few Good Men), as it is not actually fought in court.

Nolan can get the best actors, and the cast is impressive. Cillian Murphy might even look like Oppenheimer, who seems to be thinning with age, which is probably true to facts, but he looks unhealthy and not unlike a last stage meth head as a result.

All right, no story, no insights, no interesting tidbits, no progression... maybe we should watch this 3-hour movie for visuals? There are some impressive visuals, but do not expect to be amazed. Even the atomic bomb explosion, a silent fire ball, does not look particularly menacing, there is no mushroom cloud, no sense of danger. Documentary footage of the actual atomic bomb tests was always eerie, I think showing a devastating Hiroshima attack would make people consider whether the action was right and whether we are at a brink of something similar, but at the larger scale. But no, the explosion and the visions Oppenheimer gets are to subdued to elicit any strong emotion from the viewers.

Actually, the whole picture is mostly subdued, lacking color and vividness, there is a dozen of great cinematographic shots, mostly of the New Mexico scenery, but majority of the time we watch famous actors with heavy make-up and fake accents deliver banal, uneventful lines in cabinets.

I don't know why this movie received acclaim, I don't know why Nolan decided to film this biography and I don't know why he decided to bore the viewers first time in his career. Maybe it was a vengeance to everyone, who complained that "Tenet" was difficult to follow, and this is his "The Straight Story" of sorts. But I really believe this was just a hiccup, and we will see more exciting, rule-breaking cinematic spectacles that require viewers to think and pay attention coming from Nolan in the nearest future.

Banshee (2013–2016)

The ultimate male fantasy

[9/10 · 17 December 2021]

Although definitely not for everyone, the series is relatively unknown and in my view deserve to be much more popular. It's an ultimate male fantasy - an urban Americana fantasy town, where all women are hot nymphomaniacs and all men practise bare knuckle fights. Almost everyone is a morally questionable character, but there are also pure evil characters that still somehow follow their own version -- however incoherent -- of code of honour. The story has its share of twists, but you mostly watch it for the characters, fights and sometimes steamy sex scenes. It is an ultimate guilty pleasure and even though it's quite recent (first season aired in 2013), it is seemingly ages away from the politically correct / gender ambiguous / let's try not to offend anyone 2020s. Still, it's a lot of fun and surprisingly good in all aspects of the show: the story, the characters, the casting, the visuals.

Squid Game (2021– )

A powerful (yet flawed) critique of capitalism

[7/10 · 1 November 2021]

I'm surprised not that many people caught the main message of the show, as it is actually the reason for the show's popularity.

Foreigners (ahem, the USA) import a capitalist ideology to Korea, get people to start rat-racing for money, and those that lost are rejected by the society and receive a second chance, where the Capitalism is purified and speeded up. People compete with lethal consequences in quite random and easy games for an enormous money prize. This is how liberals view capitalism and material success - pure luck based on random, worthless skills for the sick enjoyment of the immoral rich.

It's somewhat ironic that in Korea's case we have an easy option to see what would happen to it under the "other ideology" by looking at the North. Yes, it's easy to imagine a world without competition and money, but I'm afraid you need to populate it with either angels or robots.

Other than that, as is the case with many Asian films, there are annoying characters that employ overacting as a method to show their emotions, and who at the end you wish to kill with your own bare hands.

On a plus side, it's swift action and the level of violence is what you would expect from a Korean show with a cult following in the West. It flies pretty fast, with only 9 episodes, although the end is pretty unambiguous - Season 2 is coming.

Westworld (2016–2022)

Getting out of steam after Season 1

[8/10 · 25 September 2021]

So, Season 1 of Westworld is/was a masterpiece. It's artsy and gorgeous most of all, but then it's a mystery with a strong plot with a satisfying conclusion (well, not 100% but close) and it's a great take on AI psyche. And it's really edgy, lots of violence and sex, and did I mention it's simply gorgeous? Not to mention that acting and casting are top-notch. In the masterpiece league. The plot is strong and intelligent and really ties almost everything in the end. So Season 1 is a must-see if you like sci-fi and strong / challenging plots, it's a no-brainer.

But the problem is... there are 2 more seasons out there. Not too sure if the creators originally planned for further seasons. Season 2 has many of the right parts of Season 1. Apart from one - a sense of a tight plot that leads somewhere valuable. It sometimes feels like watching outtakes from the original. Yes, the production values are the same, the fight choreography is at par with everything you see in a good blockbuster. But 10 hours of meandering under questionable pretense? It takes iron will to sit through it all. And there are some filler episodes, where writers decide to take a bit of a break and do not forward the plot one inch, and it kills what little anticipation you have in the plot's conclusion. In the end there is not as much plot progression from episode 1 to episode 10, the ideas would fill a 3 part mini series, so it's 7 hours too long. And there's not as much nudity, so you can easily watch a youtube recap/summary instead.

Season 3 starts off in a different direction. The first episode is an almost classic cyberpunk/Philip K Dick sci-fi tale. The production values are again top-notch, you're watching a blockbuster movie, period. This season has only 8 episodes, and it's an improvement over 2nd season. If you don't have that much to say, do not create filler episodes. However after the initial excitement of a new setting it goes back to its tried and tested tricks, it's essentially more of the same and the plot, although twisty and shiny, is not really that exciting in the end.

And I have to say, Aaron Paul in my view was seriously miscast. You just don't believe his back-story and he still looks like a baby faced stoner from Breaking Bad and keeps distracting you from the action.

In terms of ratings - I'd rate Season 1 as a 9-10, Season 2 as a 6 and Season 3 as a 7.

Tenet (2020)

One of the best sci-fi movies of the century

[10/10 · 23 August 2021]

This movie got the unfortunate cold shoulder from the viewers and the critics alike. The invincible Christopher Nolan really got defeated at his own game. All the parts that make his movies the intellectual blockbusters are there. Great cinematography, huge sets, non-stop action, exceptional acting, clever dialogue, an elaborate strong story and a clever idea taken to the extreme. I actually loved every minute of it and recommend it to anyone who loves strong original sci-fi.

This is probably the most complicated and smart movie made by Nolan (and it's a guy who made Memento and Inception, mind you), and this is probably it's demise - it's probably too clever and complicated for its own good. It's like a movie version of Einstein's general relativity, most people will completely lose it 20 minutes in. It sometimes seems that the movie was made for the future generations of ubermensch, who will eventually understand it (shortly before destroying the world, of course).

It is the first movie I had to watch twice in order to understand it, and I still did not understand some of it. Memento and Inception and anything else considered intellectually challenging is child play in comparison. Understandably, people usually do not like to be made to feel stupid for 3 hours straight. However, for sci-fi fans out there, this is one of the best sci-fi stories, it's intellectually rich and although it doesn't completely make sense and there are loops and maybe even holes, it is engaging and rewarding entertainment.

It is a shame that this movie became Nolan's flop, hopefully it won't impact his sellability in the future, as he is way ahead of virtually everything Hollywood has to offer. Probably next time he will need to dumb it down enough, so it will work better for an average moviegoer, leaving enough cleverness for people who don't mind to be intellectually challenged by blockbusters. But for me Tenet is great, clever and fun as it is, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Ted Lasso (2020–2023)

Just not funny

[4/10 · 23 August 2021]

Ok, maybe it's unfair to simply compare it to "Friends" or "Modern Family", with their 10 smart jokes a minute. Maybe it's unfair to compare it to "Curb your enthusiasm" or "Seinfeld" or even "Episodes", that sometimes go too deep into cynicism to make things funny. After all, this is supposed to be a feel-good post-modern comedy. But why is post-modern take often genuinely banal and unfunny? Is this a tv show for people who never watched a funny, original and clever series? Is it impossible to make something both funny and warm? I don't know, maybe there are people who find a goofy and somewhat slow American character deeply funny as such. Cliched British characters might also be hilarious to some. But it's definitely far, far off being one of the best comedy series out there and is way, way overrated.

Knives Out (2019)

Deeply disappointing

[3/10 · 23 August 2021]

I don't know who writes all the rave reviews -- this movie was extremely disappointing. The setup is all good -- it's an Agatha Christie-esque story, down to the strange and quirky characters, there is a sense of a mystery and you expect something clever and fun, like the old times. However, the movie goes in a totally different direction by replacing a good whodunnit setup with a post-modern take, as if the makers of the movie are saying - yes, we know that a genuine detective mystery story is impossible to pull off in the 21st century, so we won't even bother. There is no mystery, the most obvious explanation is the real explanation, so just enjoy this pseudo-mystery for the visuals and A-list actors having a romp plus a lovely Ana de Armas who was made as plain looking as possible. Isn't it funny and clever? Well, no. It's at best a Pink Panther remake without the gags.

I personally don't think that the movie is better for not having a good twisty plot, and I don't think that it's impossible to create an enjoyable and engaging whodunnit in the 21st century. You should have at least tried, then it might have been a good movie. As it stands, it's not really great entertainment, and I have no idea what made many people like it, there are much smarter and much more entertaining movies out there.

The Expanse (2015–2022)

Easily the best sci-fi series of all time

[10/10 · 4 May 2021]

I think I watched or tried to watched most sci-fi series out there, even the more obscure ones. There's often a trade-off. You can get good production values, but bad cast. Or good cast, but bad storytelling/plot. Etc, etc. The Expanse has it all. A deep, intriguing plot, that keeps you glued, a deeply satisfying world, smart politics that will not insult your intelligence, complex and compelling characters.

How on earth did SyFy decide to cancel its only good sci-fi show, is beyond me. SyFy was a swearing word for serious sci-fi fans, as it tried to go after the mainstream audience, so when it launched The Expanse, we were all pleasantly surprised. Thank god, Amazon decided to earn some points with the fans and banked the final seasons.

The only problem I had with the show is that it takes some time to remember what was happening in the previous seasons when you watch the new season after a 6-12 months break. But once you get back to speed with it, the story flies.

This is the best sci-fi series, period. Thoroughly enjoyed it and eagerly waiting for the final season.

Upgrade (2018)

An indie masterpiece

[9/10 · 4 May 2021]

Not sure, if it qualifies as an indie film, but it's not one of the well-known summer blockbusters with hundreds of millions to spend (although those are currently being filmed about superheroes). The best way to watch it is to know little about the premise / plot and just enjoy it. The plot is top-notch, each scene and piece of dialogue is breaking away from cliche and really delivers originality. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and everyone I recommended it to enjoyed it as well.

Usually indie sci-fi is a close-quarters philosophical/psychological piece, and this is not bad per se, just a result of a somewhat limited budget. However, Upgrade is first and foremost a great action movie, and every minute of it looks fresh and original. The fight scenes are really well done and fun to watch.

This is easily a top-10 sci-fi movie of the '10s, if you haven't watched it yet - you're missing out.

Stowaway (I) (2021)

Boring, pseudo-scifi, unoriginal film

[3/10 · 4 May 2021]

Netflix tries to fill the Hollywood void, and you can never have too many sci-fi flicks. To us, sci-fi fans this movie is severely lacking in all respects. The premise is just never believable (which is the most original, although deeply flawed setting, that is actually revealed in the trailer), the low-budget constraints are really noticeable (there is a gravity generator on the ship, you know), the accidents on board are also not plausible given what you would expect from a serious mission to Mars (you kind of wander, how those people would manage to stay alive for more than a week on a hostile faraway planet), the story is very simple and boring, and the conflict resolution is lackluster. So, meh, should've passed on it. Good sci-fi is worth its weight in gold, and for one original title with a great plot, you get dozens of passable titles, this is just one of them.

Nobody (I) (2021)

John Wick lite

[5/10 · 4 May 2021]

I get it. John Wick has been a beacon of success in the sea of box office duds. And with cinemas and movies in crisis mode, you need something inexpensive and a safe financial bet. Something that the CoD and CS gamers would watch for all long hour and thirty minutes until the next Wick comes.

So, get the screenwriter of John Wick, the young-ish Russian director of Hardcore Henry, who just loves action, and a B-list star who enjoys a healthy fan following, give them 15 mil and hope for the best. The story is utter nonsense, but that is to be expected. The cast is often questionable, there is some pretty bad cardboard acting, and Bob Odenkirk himself is never really that believable as an older version of John Wick, although he tries to make the best of it.

But you don't watch this type of movies for plot / psychological insights. You watch it for pure shoot-em-up action. And the action disappoints: it is mostly banal, with deus ex machina moments used every time the screenwriter writes himself into a corner. There are maybe 3-4 original scenes that may put a smile on your face, but no more than that.

It's a movie aimed at 10-14 year olds, who might find it light-hearted, violent fun (although they cannot even legally watch it, as the movie got an R rating, which is really too harsh), adults should stay away and wait for the COVID to end and the Hollywood getting back into business or, I don't know, maybe rewatch Tenet.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

A case study in how talented TV creators would end up making a super-boring game

[5/10 · 4 January 2019]

Wow, just wow. Black Mirror is one of the most original, interesting and actual shows on the planet right now, and Charlie Brooker seemed to have grown with each season. The stories got deeper, more interesting and way above the competition. It has become the show to watch for everyone interested in both good, challenging sci-fi and a way to reflect on our times and the paths the technology could lead us.

So, the premise is very exciting to most nerds out there - a guy is a game designer from the 80s, and the setting is reminiscent of the famous "San Junipero" episode from Season 3. You can see that authors have a lot of love/nostalgia for the period and for the gaming industry of that time. So, the setting is great, the actors are great, now for the bad part... the plot, the syuzhet is very, very weak. It's supposed to be for the videogame geeks, but all the game geeks know that interactive movies have been tried and failed in the 90s and Bandersnatch just follows closely in that tradition.

First of all, your choices are not that relevant to the story, in many respects (hello Telltale games), there is a clearly preferred path to follow for a good story and ending and there are other paths thrown in for the alternate endings. It's not rewarding enough to explore all paths. This is where most of the interactive movies failed in the 90s and noughts and this is where we still are in the 2018. Interesting, how nothing changes there.

Second, even the main path is not that interesting and not that well written. There is no deep experience, no profound truth, no logic in the main actions of the protagonist. It all seems rehashed and the most profound idea - an LSD-induced understanding of Pac Man is just a simple, tongue in cheek joke.

Third, the whole experiment seems gimmicky, just like the awful Philips CD-i game console of the 90s. I think, if someone could port this to the CD-i, it will be a match made in gamer's hell.

So, this is severely disappointing and not on par with the other episodes in the great series. Hopefully it was just a hiccup on the road towards the greatness that the fifth season should bring.

Raw (2016)

A smart horror story, for a change

[8/10 · 30 September 2018]

It's slow-moving and uneventful at times, but this coming-of-age movie has a strong, more or less coherent plot, that is so often lacking in the horror movies of late. Frankly, it's not even a horror movie, as in it does not rely on cheap scares. It covers a ground familiar to everyone who's looking at a deeper context of the modern films - trying to get a better understanding of our animal nature and an explanation of our motivation, both of the individuals and the species. In my mind, it still doesn't get it completely, but it's getting pretty close, so that you can have a clearer picture of the world once you finish it, especially if you haven't been able to formulate the antagonisms of a modern human life.

It is a movie, after all, and it's pleasing in it's images and sound. The actresses seem to be competent and believable, the gritty pictures, sometimes flowing with blood also look natural, you sort of understand that they are there not only for the shock value. It definitely doesn't feel like a rehashed story in a world where originality (rawness?) is getting extremely rare.

Tag (I) (2018)

This is exactly what you get by making a movie out of a kids' game

[2/10 · 30 September 2018]

This is an awful, shallow, lazy movie that relies on flat jokes, good actors and a decent budget. It's just formulaic as hell and is deeply unfunny, a Hollywood brand of unoriginality - a slick production based on cardboard characters. Come to think of it, even the trailer is not funny, and it has all the good jokes in it. Unless you watch your movies stoned, avoid at all cost.

You Were Never Really Here (2017)

A plus for cinematography, not much else

[3/10 · 29 July 2018]

A movie almost uniformly loved by the critics. A movie that feels much longer than its 1hr 30m run-time. A movie, in which an "assassin for hire" plot is rehashed almost verbatim from countless other movies, although the story makes very little sense. It doesn't really matter though, as the director wants you to marvel at the beautiful (though empty and cold) scenery and feel for the tormented soul of the protagonist.

Joaquin Phoenix seems to be able to play stoned, aggressive, inherently good but fundamentally broken types with his eyes closed. You can see that the guy in film is on some pretty strong anti-psychotic drugs, but it still feels like he is just massively stoned on a medicinal MJ. I really like Mr. Phoenix even if he plays a stoned, permanently depressed character who seems to feel deeply tortured even by simple stuff like cleaning a bathroom or just walking or driving. However, even his charisma cannot hold this movie together.

What's definitely missing is a story that makes at least some sense. A congressman's daughter has gone missing. But somebody sent him an sms with a precise address of the hideout. The guy goes to a hired gun instead of police. The reason is sort of explained by the fact that he runs for office as a second guy to the current governor. Well, Joaquin, being a reliable workhorse, kills everyone and rescues the girl. And then all hell breaks loose, everybody around him violently dying. Here's the twist - the governor runs an underage brothel and actually kidnapped the congressman's daughter himself. Yep, it makes zero sense, even if you think that all politicians are evil creatures eating babies for breakfast.

Apart from a deep neurosis of the main hero and a strange relationship with his mother, which is a result of a family trauma (and I think you can guess what the trauma is -- a deranged and violent father, how original!) -- there is nothing else in terms of a story.

You can marvel at the cinematography, as the movie does look beautiful at times, and the soundtrack is often brilliant. But if you want to save time, just rewatch Joaquin's infamous Letterman's appearance, it's much shorter and leaves the same aftertaste.

Finishing the Game (2007)

Way weaker than what I expected

[5/10 · 13 April 2008]

Just watched this movie in a company of friends and got extremely disappointed with it. I first saw a trailer a couple of months ago and though it was a great premise - yes, a little goofy and maybe too post-modern for it's own good, but at least it seemed that it was a fun thing to watch.

The premise of the film is simple and is shown to you on the first minute of the movie - Bruce Lee dies while filming "Game of Death", he leaves behind 12 minutes of footage that a studio producer is willing to exploit. They start a nation-wide search for a double, so that they can film "the rest" of the movie. And so enter the bunch of hopefuls wishing to take the place of the master or just get a first acting job.

The jokes are tongue-in-cheek, but the problem with them is that they are simply not funny. The whole movie is filmed in a pseudo-documentary style that has become a most overused technique in the last 10 years of independent movies. The situations and plot lines are sometimes cute, but mostly predictable and definitely not intelligent enough. The story actually looks like a long episode of "Office" (the US version), and you have a twitch to start channel surfing instead.

I'm not sure how many Bruce Lee fans are still out there, but this film has very little to do with his work and just takes the premise and runs with it - unfortunately the end result is bland and devoid of any creative spark.

Flying Phantom Ship (1969)

Why did they show it in the Soviet Union?

[7/10 · 13 April 2008]

As one previous reviewer said, this was one of the very first animes that were shown on a big screen in the Soviet Union. The other one was "Barefoot Gen". I think they showed those movies in ~1985, but not sure. There were so few foreign movies shown (that was before video was available to the soviet people), that any movie that passed through the draconian film commission would automatically become extremely popular in the USSR.

The message behind this movie was not as "anti-imperialism" (read anti-American in soviet terminology), "anti-war", "anti-capitalism" (and it also does not deal with the nuclear war, thanks god) as the Barefoot Gen, but it still left a lasting impression on me and countless other kids. As kids, we did not get the subtle satire of the advertising parody, big corporations, and so on, but as almost all of the anime, it has something really scary and illogical at the core, which would scare any kid.

I have recently re-watched the movie after finding it in a supermarket bargain basement and although it's probably 10-15 minutes too long and some gags are way off (the annoying dog, a rip-off from scooby doo is particularly hard to bear) there are topics you would rarely find in a Hollywood movie - city being destroyed, people getting killed by sea monsters, corporations taking over the world, arms race, and so on.

This animation was filmed in 1969, with the horrors of war still fresh in the memory of the Japanese, and although the animation might not be up to standard of state-of-the-art animes like Mononoke, etc. it is still an enjoyable film.

More so for people who watched it as the kids during the time of Soviet propaganda.

King of California (2007)

One of the best movies of 2007

[10/10 · 26 March 2008]

This is one of the best movies I saw recently. It has a bit of everything to make it an independent movie classic - goof ball characters, craziness and whole deal of introspection. What makes this movie different from many other independent films is a feel-good vibe which recently has been tough to find in American cinema and a quirky, interesting plot line. If there is anything bad I can say about the movie is that it felt too short. Fans of Little Miss Sunshine and Six feet under should be pleased with this little gem of a movie.

"King of California" actually deserves to be much more popular than it is now.