Beachbum2018 Reviews

Replicas (2018)

Literally unbelievable

[3/10 · 10 June 2024]

Proof that even the best actors make crappy choices when it comes to deciding which movies to make and which not.

Very third rate plot, full of holes and nonsense science, this was really just a bit of fun masquerading as a serious movie.

Reeves is a much better actor than this, so not sure why he agreed to participate in it..... it just diminishes his brand overall.

Beyond that the script was wooden, casting so-so about the CGI was just about bearable.

No idea why the movie had to set in Costa Rica, but then again a lot of other stuff doesn't make much sense either.

All that said I watched it to the end so it had some sort of strange fascination about it that kept you hooked, but it's not a serious movie in any genre!

The Man in the High Castle (2015–2019)

Pace is so slow, radio-active minerals decay faster

[5/10 · 6 June 2024]

Been avoiding watching this for a very long time, because there was always something else to watch, but had to eventually as I run out of other decent movies / series.

The premise behind this is interesting, there's a lot of runway to play with because of history and ways to take it forward, but omg this is painful to watch at times. It's not rubbish it's just a bit silly, as it seems the whole US has become a different planet within a few years of the end of WW2.

Also there's simply no way a country the size and population of the US would ever be run by a relative handful of Jap & Hun invaders, the population is too large, smart and motivated to just give up and accept being overthrown as easily as the plot suggests.

A few character choices are dodgy, and casting could be better, but overall it's just so so.

Don't know how it survived 4 seasons though, there's not that much rope to swing with from a starting point about seeing a film that depicts a different outcome to the war.

Getting to point I feel will take as long as it takes for those atoms to decide to decay.

Atlas (2024)

Rubbish..... only saved by the CGI

[3/10 · 27 May 2024]

What kind of cr*p is this..... JLo is not a good lead actress choice for a sci-fi.... she's a dancer / singer not an actor!

Yes, there are some other good acting choices, but even they can't save a truly rubbish storyline!

This is the worse kind of sci-fi movie..... super mechanized human operated robots reminiscent of Avatar, space craft traveling to the Andromeda Galaxy in real time, fighting an omnipotent AI, etc, aarrgghh!

The CGI is good though, but that's about the only good thing I can say about it.

Alien world is reminiscent of Vin Diesel's planet Helion Prime in the excellent sci-fi movie, but here's its cold.

JLo must need the money!

Society of the Snow (2023)

Same movie as Alive.... literally

[5/10 · 25 May 2024]

Watched Alive years ago so thought let's give this newer version a go.

Being totally honest the same plot and character flaws that plagued the first movie have basically been repeated here.

It's not known how close to reality the drama that plays out in the script versus what actually happened, but there are many extremely irritating aspects that have to make you question if they really did happen.

The most obvious thing is that a sizeable percentage of people who survived the crash act like total morons, sitting around like dummies, smoking, acting irrationally, etc, when you might imagine that what would probably happen is a few people would just take charge and engage everyone to try create a plan to survive, assign actions to people, etc.

This likely did happen but the movie makes it look like was marginal at best.

Impossible to know of course but it just feels a bit strange, though obviously not having experienced anything like this most of us have no concept of what it would feel like to be there.

Acting was so-so, script was so-so...... overall it's not much more than a 5.

The Signal (2024)

Incredibly irritating everything

[2/10 · 7 March 2024]

Just started to watch this new series and am halfway through episode 1 but already am so irritated with everything about this.

Acting is diabolical, characters are incredibly irritating, premise is frustrating, setting is annoying, science is looking dodgy and it's still early! Plus it's supposed to be sci-fi and once again writers make it all about relationships.... Charlie and her dad, etc!

Main male lead needs a huge smack in the face, little girl needs to take lessons in how not to be a boring girl, female lead astronaut is mega frustrating..... there's basically no empathy for any of the characters, you're just glad they're not your friends in real life!

Plot is totally missing, setting is horrible and depressing..... there's very little redeeming aspects to praise so far!

Spaceman (I) (2024)

Rubbish

[1/10 · 6 March 2024]

Not even 2 minutes into the movie and it fails miserably on the most basic scientific fact, that you can't have instantaneous two way conversations between earth and Jupiter because of a very inconvenient fact called the speed of light which governs electromagnetic wave propagation!

Look if it's going to be sci-fi it has to pay the most basic respect to at least some scientific principles, else it's just fantasy!

And Adam Sandler isn't the guy to carry this off, poor casting choice, or maybe he was a big name for a low cost, who knows.

Don't even need to wait to get to the creepy monster in the bowels of the ship!

Manifest (2018–2023)

Starts well but falls away quite quickly into mediocrity

[5/10 · 9 February 2024]

This starts well, but after just a few episodes we're back to the usual script writing black hole of more and more character development and less and less plot.

Got to s1e9 before writing this, but I had to as I couldn't take much more of Grace and Michaela. Grace is ultra, ultra, irritating and honestly needs to be abducted by aliens and medically tested for cross breeding potentially between humans and alien insects, and Michaela's not far behind.

The premise isn't bad, but the plot execution and development are rubbish, there are so many holes in everything the science, the politics, law and order, national security, etc, almost nothing would play out in reality they way it's portrayed.

Then there are the characters who don't want to speak out loud about their experiences even though it's blatantly obvious to anyone on the planet that the whole thing is a mystery so why not accept there's more mystery to be investigated.

Don't know if I'm going to make it to the very end, will try a few more episodes, and if Grace meets with an untimely brutal end shortly, it might just be enough to keep me going!

The Mist (2007)

Painfull stuff

[3/10 · 25 January 2024]

This is painful stuff to watch, like most Stephen King films.... it's pretty rubbish.

Take away the fog and the fact there's supposedly some kind of scary beastie in it, some blood and gore, a few people getting shot and this just another collection of human drama interactions.

Beyond that the premise is ridiculous of course, an evil fog.... really, or whatever it really pushes the boundaries of credibility.

Really struggling to get beyond episode 2, and it's hard to see where this is going to go.

I'm at the start of the mall story and what killed it for me was the store manager deciding to draw lots to decide who gets to go into the creepy fog to go to the security office. Really, the store manager should be fed to the creepy beastie end of!

Irritating and a plot full of holes.... about par for Stephen King as I said!

The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022)

Suffers from the usual modern sci-fi'itis disease of over-characterization

[5/10 · 28 December 2023]

The intellectual premise is promising, albeit it's been attempted many times in one fashion or another since the original movie, but somehow it gets bogged down and forgets to move forward.

There's not a lot of sci-fi in this sci-fi, rather it's choking to death on over-characterization which is the usual downfall of US script writers, most of whom still think it's necessary to provide bucket loads of human interest, instead of actual sci- fi content, and which is probably also because it's way beyond their ability to write decent sci-fi content.

Script starts to get bogged down in socio-political, smart speak waffle very early on (who cares about the patent when you're talking about a technical paradigm shift to humanities benefit) and also has to succumb to weak humour to get past the slow pace.

Stellar acting performances though from many involved, probably trying to compensate for the weaker than urine script and plot.

Could have been a lot better that it actually was, but no surprise it wasn't extended to a second season.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Utter drivel

[1/10 · 25 December 2023]

How anyone likes Sherlock Holmes is beyond me!

Even with the cast involved, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

This is just drivel, script is as weak as filtered tap water, and the plot is farcical..... literally!

Never seen a good Guy Ritchie movie yet..... and this just continues the bad portfolio.

RDJnr being cast as Holmes is a joke surely, his accent is hopeless, most of the time it's impossible to understand what he says through his mumblings, and his characture of Holmes as a super sleuth is far very wide of the mark. More likely he comes across as a bumbling RS hole, you'd rather avoid and cross the street.

Period Victoriana is not the stuff of legend.... trust me!

The War Below (2021)

Enjoyable but slow

[5/10 · 20 December 2023]

Overall this wasn't bad for what must have been a very low budget film, but the writing and dialogue were so bad as to make it irritating at times and didn't do proper justice to what must have been very brave men.

A bunch of soft spoken Yorkshire mining lads fighting the hun in tunnels is all very well, but it were too clichéd for a movie mother!

Still I've watched worse, but a bit more pace would have benefitted things tremendously.

Not much more to add, it wasn't memorable or stand out as you might have expected for a war movie but it was an interesting insight into a previously unknown facet of trench warfare.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Depressing but artistic

[5/10 · 7 December 2023]

Another long drawn out epic from Scorcese, that was about as interesting as watching someone watch paint dry.... slowly!

Stellar character performance by DiCaprio though, who made it real easy to hate him a lot, but that was about in terms of acting.

De Niro was as always on the money, but just another nondescript as a character, it could have been anyone in any of his numerous acting roles over the years, since he plays these types of character with ease.

Overall it was more utterly depressing than anything else, made me glad I never lived in Fairfax during this time, but entertaining it was not!

Too much doom, gloom and misery overall that just served to confirm that the love of money is the root of all evil!

Would be disappointed if the film wins any major awards as it's not worth that kind of praise!

Time Scorcese hung up his director's chair!

Mars: Darkest Days (2016) Season 1, Episode 5

Smart doesn't equate with leadership

[7/10 · 28 November 2023]

The Richardson characters are a perfect example of why you don't send smart people to lead anything, and it doesn't matter what the facility here is doing, research, science, engineering or anything else.

Of course this is part of the episode objective, but it makes for frustrating viewing watching two smart egotistical idiots nearly kill everyone at the base.

It also serves to exemplify what is wrong with commercial enterprise leading pure research and science, the objectives are always in conflict with the purpose, and man's age old fascination with power and wealth just screws it all up to make sure its fundamentally flawed from the outset!

Butcher's Crossing (2022)

Not very good

[3/10 · 1 November 2023]

Predictable movie in terms of a typical Nicolas Cage performance.... irritating, boring, over acted, etc.

Plot is paper thin, characters aren't very interesting, and the green behind the ears Will character makes you want slap him sideways.

Only thing that saved it was the scenery, the rest was predictable. Only stupid morons would head off near winter into the mountains with minimal provisions to shoot buffalo expecting massive herds and only bring one tiny wagon.

Beyond that there was little empathy for any of the characters, and the random dream sequences did nothing to add to the story, more confusing than anything else.

Glad it's over!

Triple Frontier (2019)

Not very smart special forces

[5/10 · 19 October 2023]

For a bunch of supposedly seasoned special forces soldiers these guys looked like rank amateurs. All the hooping and hollering and high fiving when they found the money in the walls, got a truck to start, etc, etc, was shear amateur hour.

If this is the best sorte they could plan, then heaven help real special services troops. You have a plan, you have a back up plan and you have an exit plan and you stick to those plans, you do not get greedy at the last minute! Had they done that they would have got over the mountains with the chopper and away.

As for the movie, we'll the premise was reasonable, but the plot and script were full of holes. Characters weren't particularly identifiable but then again that might fit with the criminal core to the plan.

Invasion: The Tunnel (2023) Season 2, Episode 4

Kids and acting!

[3/10 · 12 October 2023]

Episode is proof if it were ever needed that you should never make a movie with kid lead actors.

This episode is shockingly bad, no need to worry about the alien monsters, there would be plenty humans who would love to see this lot vanish in a mysterious incident!

Acting is borderline rubbish, storyline is something from Enid Blyton than an alien invasion sci-fi story.

Overall series premise isn't all bad, but the famous 5 (or 6 or whatever it is) kids add nothing to the story whatsoever beyond they are irritating beyond belief and they've been written in for tokenism.

I mean the young girl has specs which have zero prescription, which means there a prop but for what reason, there is no reason as far as I can see!

The Creator (2023)

Confusing..... US bad-others good, GI Joe meets Rambo, NAM..... parody!

[5/10 · 7 October 2023]

Was really looking forward to seeing this movie, but am totally underwhelmed afterwards.

First problem - poor casting choice, male lead is not male lead material.... period

Second problem - good premise but incredibly poor script and storyline, unbelievable basically.... just left me wondering what it was all about! Random things happen for no reason!

Third problem - the storyline is nothing more than another US goes to war with the bad guys, even the military rhetoric doesn't depict the future, and once again more ammo is fired than in the whole of WW2.... it's a very tired recipe now!

What was good - the CGI definitely deserves a mention, very well done, even if the machinery was a bit like something from Avatar or District 9, but hey-ho it must be hard to come up with original tech design for a future less than a 100 years out!

Watch if you want to be mildly entertained but don't expect to want to watch it again!

Confusing and disappointing basically!

Roswell, New Mexico (2019–2022)

10 seconds into it and it's already about human drama.... beat that Polanski!

[1/10 · 27 September 2023]

Absolutely un effung believable, not even 1 minute into the pilot of all things.... and it's already about human relationships..... "oh Liz it's you", "yes Max it's me", "when did you get back", "just now you moron the episode's just started", "I waited for you you know", "no you didn't you just worked at smash burger weekends and I happened to come in", "that was the highlight of my weekend, that and the 50cent tip", "I know it was you damp squib, you were always such a limp biscuit", "but that was before you got to know me", "I know and now I wish I'd never met you, but I still love you....".

Had enough yet.... well I have!

This is drivel..... and it sure as heck isn't sci-fi!

Rig 45 (2018–2020)

Utter drivel

[1/10 · 23 August 2023]

Not even 15 minutes into and I had to give up.

As a retired oil worker, who has spent time on lots of rigs around the world, in different cultures and organizations, I can assure you the dramatized approach to work and safety in this drama is totally incorrect, right from the very start. After that comes the on site culture, management attitude and work practices, all utterly rubbish and far from any work experience most offshore personnel experience.

If you're going to make a drama about an offshore facility, the very least you should do is portray the technical aspects correctly, as this determines credibility and hence viewer buy in, otherwise this is just another murder mystery drama which could have been set in a garden shed for all the difference it makes!

Foundation (2021– )

Rubbish

[3/10 · 9 August 2023]

I love science fiction, but I simply never got the Asimov bug at all.

Foundation is just like normal human drama played out in a space setting but with sci-fi boundaries and weird context.

The CGI in this is impressive but the story plot is well.... more than a tad boring!

Why is it all these supra galactic fantasies all revolve around power megalomania and humanities age old death wish to destroy itself!

The script in this is so convoluted it's impossible to follow, and given the objective is to convey understanding then this must simply rank as failure.

And I've only watched E1 of S1, somehow I don't think I'm going to get very much further.

What a waste of budget, should have used the money and CGI to have a decent go at putting Arthur C Clarke's Rama on the big screen, now that is science fiction, not psychotic fantasy!

3 stars for the CGI only.

On a Wing and a Prayer (2023)

Painful experience- watching it not the real incident

[3/10 · 31 July 2023]

You'd think none of these main actors had ever been in a movie before, weak plot, dreadful script, cliched acting, banal performances.

It feels more like a cheap C class movie.

Stupid kids acting, little brat syndrome overload, distressed wife syndrome overload, red neck amateur pilot syndrome, drunkard flight controller syndrome, etc. Need I say anymore.

The only bit that felt real was the BBQ competition!

The bit where the experts wife build a soapbox cockpit out of wood and rubber bands takes the biscuit.

Basic question never answered was why wasn't there a co-pilot on board, seems totally obvious!

Fringe (2008–2013)

Not bad, but not as good as others say it is

[6/10 · 30 July 2023]

Yes it's like the X Files...... but the X Files it is not!

Just can't see why so many folks say this is the best series they've ever seen, because it isn't if we can be honest about it.

Sure there are interesting topics per episode but the characters are flat and dimensionless, even irritating at times.

John Noble gets rave reviews but to be honest his forgetful genius character becomes annoying rather quickly, and the FBI supervisor is always looking out from under his eyebrows, also very irritating!

Plots are generally weak and the science is mostly garbage technically, almost childlike and usually inaccurate in it's foundations, and can come across as condescending!

Yes it's loosely entertaining but I'm struggling already at E7 of S1 with lack of stamina to keep going, there's only so much an attractive lead can do to keep interest alive, don't know how much longer I can take it before unplugging completely.

Emancipation (2022)

Good movie spoiled by B&W format

[7/10 · 26 July 2023]

This is actually a pretty good movie, don't know what those scoring it low are on about.

Biggest problem is the B&W format, it does absolutely nothing to make the movie more appealing, if anything it just annoys the viewer, after all those characters in the movie would have experienced a green swamp so why not show that!

Good acting and good actors.

Ok, it's a bit bleak plot wise but as it's based on a true story that would be realistic in real life.

Slightly cliched in places with sone flat dimensionless characters but it's not the worst movie you'll ever see.

Glad to see Will Smith doing something productive as he's a damn good actor when he gets the right roles.

Secret Invasion (2023)

Stellar cast and dark matter!

[3/10 · 2 July 2023]

Stellar cast but the rest is like dark matter & dark energy, it exists but no-one has any idea what it is, or why!

Seldom seen a better group of actors together have to concede that straight up, but I also have to ask why they agreed to do this. Suspect the real answer is there must be a bottomless pit with lots of money in it, because the script, plot and concept are terrible.

Shape shifting aliens who are constantly shape shift is so old hat nobody bothers trying to use that kind of mediocre plot mechanism anymore...... unless the plot mechanism is about a bunch of shape shifting aliens who try to bore the bejeebers out of humans until they decide to top themselves because of the boredom!

Already fell asleep during E1 as it was so boring, slow and meaningless my eyes were rolling back into my head!

The 3 stars is just for watching a bunch of really good actors acting together!

65 (2023)

Not so bad, but not good either

[4/10 · 27 June 2023]

Proof if it was needed why you should never make a movie with a child lead.

Nothing wrong with the female actor in this movie, but it never results in a good plot.

Acting was good by both, but the plot left a bit to be desired.

The pilot seems to be pretty ignorant of his passenger load, and for any long term mission there should be more than one crew member..... in case you encounter unexpected things like asteroid showers?

Overall premise that somehow humanoids visited earth at the same time as the Chixalub meteor impact is stretching the plot to the utter extreme, but it is what it is.

Beyond that it's a reasonable survival theme movie, much better than the Will Smith and son alternate.