NikTesla Reviews

Are You Being Served? (2016 TV Movie)

Avoid this mess of a show

[2/10 · 2 September 2018]

This is nothing more than a lame attempt to cash in on a beloved show.

The character are charmless cardboard cutouts of the ones from the original show, missing the charm of the originals. Mrs Slocombe is played by someone far too young, especially for someone who was supposedly still in the same position 3 years later and the voice is totally wrong. Mr Humphries' campiness is way overblown on the reboot. Ms Brahms is missing her normally boisterous self Mr Grainger is not the stereotypical older employee he normally is. Captain Peacock does not carry the right level of faux military pomposity. Mr Harman is just plain crude and obnoxious. Mt Rumbold is not the same clueless middle management stereotype from the original.

Thankfully all of the negative reviews from fans and the media the reboot was immediately killed off.

Pork Pie (2017)

It's a remake. What else do you expect?

[5/10 · 10 December 2017]

As a standalone movie it is OK, although the character development is somewhat lacking. It was a bit hard to connect to the main character.

Some nice scenery shots but the trip through this beautiful country we call New Zealand was disjointed with little to identify the locations.

It didn't have the same feeling as the original. The silliness that made Goodbye Pork Pie a fun film just wasn't present there for me.

Top Gear: Episode #24.1 (2017) Season 24, Episode 1

Not a train wreck like last season, but.....

[4/10 · 24 July 2017]

Let's get the obvious statement out of the way. This season seems to be better than the horrendous train wreck that was season 23. There isn't a annoying shouty person in front of the camera. LeBlanc seems to have settled in a bit more, although the horrible US butchery of car manufacturer names (Marzda, Neesarn, Feeart, Hunday, etc) really grates on the nerves.

However, the chemistry that made for such a great show before Clarkson's brainfart is just not there.

The current team try to recapture the friendly but intense competition in the original but it feels forced.

I am quite happy to sit and watch replays of the old series as they are entertaining. With the current series I cannot see me doing that unless there is absolutely nothing else to watch.

While season 22 was the "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace" to Clarkson/Hammond/May's Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, this season is more like the "Alien 3" to Clarkson/Hammond/May's Aliens

The Final Destination (2009)

How is it people thought this was good?

[2/10 · 25 February 2017]

I cannot understand how people thought this an even halfway decent movie. All the deaths were the most ridiculous, implausible sequences imaginable.

I was expecting to see that this travesty was crapped out by The Asylum. I guess it was just written, produced, directed by and special effects done by graduates from The Asylum instead.

The "special effects" looked like something out of the 90s, the acting was so wooden it could keep the world's entire paper supplies going for the next decade, the "action" sequences were laughable. It was about as suspenseful as watching a dead blade of grass growing.

Don't bother watching it.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Such a shame!

[2/10 · 17 February 2017]

It is truly a shame that a great film franchise should come to such a ridiculous and ignominious end.

While the overall plot line had potential the ludicrous action scenes completely ruined the movie.

Implausible sequences Not so much broke my ability to suspend reality, which a good film can do, so much and blow it up and bury it.

Some of the ludicrous sequences were swinging through the tress on vines, ants that haul human bodies into the ants nest, driving a vehicle (the so-called ducks") down a tree into a river without the tree breaking, the way the rocks just stopped and fell when the spacecraft shifted to a different dimension instead of continuing it their path as they would as dictated by the laws of physics...

I could go on but there is just too much and I don't want to wear out my keyboard.

I can only hope that there is never an attempt to revive the franchise although, give the current Wallywood obsession with "rebooting anything and everything, I fear that this will happen.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again (2016 TV Movie)

This version left me somewhat confused

[1/10 · 2 November 2016]

Is this movie supposed to be some sort of (very) amateur local dramatic society rendition of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. That is the only reason that I can possibly think of as a reason for how terrible this movie is.

The acting is soulless. Laverne Cox was totally wrong for the role of Frank-n-Furter. I guess the meaning of the words "sweet transvestite" got missed somewhere along the line. I have have no issue with her being a transxual, in fact more power to her, but the point of Frank-n-Furter is that he is a cross dressing male.

She is trying to be too much like Tim Curry's iconic performance in the role. Is she trying to do a British accent or something? If so, she needs to get some lessons from Kevin Costner.

It was somewhat distressing to see Tim Curry so badly affected by his stroke.

I stopped watching during the Rocky birth scene. I could take no more of the travesty. Lets hope that this abomination is the lowest point to which remakes of the original RHPS sinks to because I dread to this how mind shatteringly awful a worse version would sink to.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Why? Oh Why?

[2/10 · 4 June 2013]

Just when you think this franchise cannot get any worse and more ridiculous than before, it does. It is not so much on life support as crawling with maggots.

This time they are in massive testing facilities that look like cities such as New York, Tokyo, Moscow, etc. The monsters are bigger and even more stupidly impossible to kill. To show how little imagination goes into this long dead pile of rubbish, Anderson decided to revive some of the same beasties from his previous iterations.

I have just one plea to Wallywood. Please stop funding crap like this! I am dreading to see what crap he puts in the next corpse bearing the name of Resident Evil.

Thunderbirds (2004)

Gobble Gobble!

[2/10 · 5 January 2013]

The only time this turkey should be served up is at about 3AM on the day after Thanksgiving or 3am on Boxing Day when everyone is sleeping off their dinners.

The characters in this movie are more plastic than the puppets in the original series, despite the actors best efforts.

Unfortunately Jonathan Frakes not only missed the boat on this one, he missed the whole fracking ocean! His purported quote about never directing should be quite true, but given the bean counters in charge of the movie industry these days, you never can tell.

However he cannot be entirely blamed for this abomination. I had the impression that a bunch of blind, one armed chimps put together the script form the shredded rejects from The Spy Kids franchise.

Avoid at all costs.

Prometheus (I) (2012)

Disappointing

[7/10 · 6 June 2012]

I was looking forward to this movie.

I was, to some extent, disappointed. The movie at time seemed disjointed and lacking in flow. Another issue was that the parts of the plot were projected well in advance, rendering items that should have been "wow" or "interesting" became "yep, saw that coming a mile off".

By and large the acting was decent, although sometimes I felt that Noomi Rapace was giving a mixed performance. Plus it was obvious right from the start that David was an android.

Visually the movie is great. Ridley Scott avoided the habit that some directors have in a 3D movie of having lots of this come at the viewer for no apparent reason other than to scream "THIS IS 3D" as if we did not already know this.

One thing that struck me is that Ridley, at times, seemed to me making too much of an effort to make it obvious the movie was not a direct prequel of that most excellent of movies, Alien. This caused the storyline to sometimes lurch and trip on it's own feet.

A few times I lost that "this is plausible" feeling. An example is when they find the "vases". They are stepping in the fluid on the floor yet nothing happens. However, at one point on of the characters falls over, with his helmet landing in the fluid, instantly causing it to melt.

One disappointing error was one of the characters saying that mature does not do straight lines. Immediately my mind went to the rocks in the high desert such as the Nazca desert which travel across the desert, leaving shallow, straight trenches behind them

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Please, someone stop Michael Bay from making movies!

[3/10 · 28 January 2011]

I mean this so very seriously.

The guy seems to think that a movie revolves around fights and explosions rather than around plot, characters, dialogue, you know that stuff that has been part of making movies for over a hundred years.

Unfortunately Hollywood seems to be aiming at the dumbest common denominator. And Bay is the vanguard of this stupidity.

As per usual with his movies, the "characters" have the depth of cardboard, with the mental capacity to match. \ Strangely, this seems to also match the mental capacity required to watch his moronic rubbish with more plot holes that an entire factory of swiss cheese.

The fight scenes are monumentally stupid. The "robots" are constantly shooting each other (without ever running out of ammunition, it seems), punching each other and yet they never seem to die, unless it is a "clever" plot twist, which seem to be about as invisible as the Empire State building.The special effects are about as special as a lump of dirt.

Fighting seems to be Micheal Bays version of dialogue. Unfortunately The fighting is just moronic, overblown rubbish. Explosions seem to be his substitute for plot. 3 year olds would find his "humour" immature.

This movie is rubbish, lame, pathetic, puerile, moronic garbage.. well I could go on, but I want to keep this family friendly. Unfortunately he has been given the money to make a third "movie" (read mindless pile of fetid dingoes kidneys). WHY?

Tron: Legacy (2010)

Visually stunning yet ultimately disappointing

[7/10 · 19 December 2010]

Visually this movie is stunning. It is a triumph of great visual effects.

I am not a great fan of 3D, seeing it as yet just another overblown pile of Hollywood marketing bull. However, in this movie, I thought the 3D was well utilised. Rather than using gimmicky "flying towards you at every opportunity, the director used it to give The Grid and beyond a real sense of depth. There was, however, some annoying stroboscopic effects when there was swift movement, especially close to the camera.

But a movie with great special effects is nothing without a good storyline and characters you can really sympathise with. I did not really feel anything for the characters. To me they seemed to formulaic, spat out of the Hollywood character presses. There was the naive genius/father, the ne'er do well son, the evil villain, his henchmen, the double crosser and the beautiful sidekick who the main character falls in love with.

The movie also seemed to be too long, maybe because there seemed to be less action and more jaw flapping than the first movie.

Daft Punk came up with an excellent sound track, with their eerie tunes fitting in well with the environment. However, at times I felt the music was too overpowering.

I gave the movie a 7 due to the way the movie looked. Without the visuals the movie would be a 4 or, at best, a 4.5 out of 10

2012 (I) (2009)

Diabollically Bad!

[1/10 · 17 October 2010]

What is it about movie directors now? Do they get paid per minute of unrealistic, ridiculous and overblown special effects while completely ignoring science? The claims that mutated neutrinos could be causing the core of the earth to melt is a complete joke. In order to cause the earths core, a massive ball of iron, to melt would have required so much energy that life would have been extinguished long before the core would melt, especially in the 3 year timeline given in the film.

This movie had some of the stupidest effects I have seen in a long, long time. The limo scene was beyond dumb, especially the gigantic wave following behind. As those sorts of waves travel at around 3000 metres per second or 10,800 Km per hour (around 6000 miles per hour) then I think they would have had a hard time escaping.

The speed at which the buildings and the bridge they drove under collapsed was ludicrously slow.

The bit with the loaded Antonov An-225 climbing like an empty airliner at an air show was laughable.

A tsunami would not have produced a surface wave of the size shown in the middle of the ocean. Tsunami's travel along the bottom, only showing once the tsunami hit the continental shelves.

The scene where tropical animals were being transported over a glacier, through frigid high mountain air while slung under helicopters showed that the director had not given even the slightest thought to what would happen to those animals being transported that way.

Another laughable scene was the bit when whole flooded hydraulic chamber scene. Considering how high they were and the fact the waves had traveled through the high mountains, the water would have been frigid. Those people trapped in it would have died from hypothermia very quickly.

The captain was not being able to start the turbines till the door is closed? Why not? And when the turbines finally started a big cloud of smoke, suggesting that the turbines were burning diesel or some other liquid fuel. Yet we are expected to believe that this fuel would last for a minimum of two months.

I was almost falling of my seat laughing during the Everest collision. A multi-thousand ton behemoth like that vessel hitting Mount Everest would have caused a massive ice slide. Yet all that happened was a couple of ice blocks fell and broke a window. And later we see the front of the vessel and there is absolutely no sign that it had run into the side of a mountain.

What can I say about the dialog other than how many 7 year old kids did they get to write it. The dialog was lame. The screenplay was a joke, with the good guys getting out of yet another inescapable situation at the last millisecond in the most improbable ways.

Yes, the special effects were spectacular and yet it was quite clear they were there to cover up for an incredibly lame, dull and boring screenplay.

I am glad I did not pay to see this joke in the cinema. I would have been demanding my money back.

The Boat That Rocked (2009)

A mediocre movie made better by it's music

[7/10 · 11 April 2010]

I must say that I was a little disappointed by this movie, especially considering the list of actors playing in it.

The script was good in parts, with some funny moments. But the direction left me cold. Shots kept changing without making sense. The movie characters mostly left me cold and felt as though they were just stereotypes that I had no real sympathy for.

The only thing that kept this movie from sinking in it's own blandness was the great music they played through the movie. Classic rock is still the best as evidenced by the fact that groups like AC/DC, The Who and The Rolling Stones can still pull massive crowds after thirty to forty years of creating great music.

Rock and Roll forever!

Zombieland (2009)

Delightfully irreverent

[8/10 · 22 December 2009]

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The movie is full of funny little jokes and one liners. The special guest pokes fun at himself. The movie doesn't seem to take itself too seriously.

It is not just another zombie movie trying to capitalize on the recent very good remake of Dawn Of The Dead. The cast work well together. Although this is not a movie that does not need character development the movie makers have managed to make sure you feel something for the characters.

There are no masses of explosions all too common in too many movies today.

Yes the characters are somewhat stereotypical, but in this movie it works. Go see it, and make sure you bring your funny bone along, as it will be tickled.

Star Trek (2009)

Interesting, as Spock would say

[8/10 · 7 May 2009]

Overall I felt satisfied with this movie. J.J Abrams has bought out a very worthwhile movie and completely blown the "Odd number bad, even number good" Star Trek myth completely out of the water in the process.

There were some nice nods to the original series but the movie did not feel constrained by that. There were some nice inside jokes. The cinematography was, by and large very good. I liked the way J.J. moved the camera around. And the special effects were very good without overpowering the story.

Mostly the cast were well selected. Pine's version of Kirk had a lot of similarities to Shatner's Kirk, but he was not a slave to that version of the role. Karl Urban (yay Kiwis! :)) does a great Bones, even getting the same vocal infections that DeForest Kelley used. Zoe Saldana's Uhura is very good as well. Zachary Quinto is very believable as a still maturing and evolving Spock.

But there were, in my mind, a couple of things that did not work well. Simon Peg missed with his portrayal of Scotty. While I was not expecting another James Doohan, there were certain elements of Scotty that I felt should have been there that just weren't. Also there was too much of that damned annoying camera shake in an otherwise static shot. It's overdone and outdated. Knock it off! Other that that I would say it was well worth the money.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

What a pile of garbage.

[1/10 · 25 February 2009]

This movie is a complete pile of garbage. The idiots that "wrote" the "script" clearly have not seen any of previous Alien or predator movies. Having the =alien that formed from the chestburster that came out of the predator was laying multiple embryos in each human. No encapsulation to be exposed to a facehugger. Multiple chestbursters from each human. And the movie had the "atmospherics" of a sweaty armpit. The only good things about this movie was that it ended and that I did not pay anything to see it in the cinema. But it is and hour and a half of my life that I will never see again.

I just hope the AVP franchise has been killed off by this squalid lump of trash. It is just a shame that it was two films too long.

Jarhead (2005)

A good telling of an interesting story

[7/10 · 22 December 2007]

I must admit I was not expecting much from this movie, not knowing anything about Tony Swofford. I started watching it as a "nothing else to watch" time filler. However, I soon found myself being drawn into the movie.

I feel that war movies, with a few exceptions, tend to descend into a blinkered view of the subject matter. But Tony has managed to tell a story from the view of the ordinary soldier without going gung ho or commenting on the validity of why they were there. In some way I was disappointed that the film was not longer. Although, at times, it was a bit tedious, there are some thing I would like to have seen explored a bit more.

I also feel that the fact this was a grunts story, told from his perspective rather than as part of a larger "plot", gave it a nicer feel than some Hollywood script.

But this is a movie I would definitely recommend to others.

The Net (I) (1995)

What a complete load of garbage.

[1/10 · 1 April 2005]

When, oh when, will Hollyweird write a decent movie based around computers? I cannot believe people actually consider this movie to be a credible story.

No computer operating system could ever survive wit that sort of annoying scrolling interface. It may look good on a movie screen but if you actually tried using it for any length of time you would go nuts.

As for "tracing" people the way she did it simply cannot be done that way. Network security alone would prevent that from happening. The key stroke logging was laughable to say the least.

Regarding the software that was supposedly being installed, no system administrator would allow such a critical piece of software to be installed on a production system until it has been tested, retested and tested again on a sandbagged system.

But probably the worst possible part of the movie was the "virus". There is no way that a virus that works on one operating system will work on any other system. And as for a virus that could take out a mainframe is a couple of seconds, that just beggars belief. There is no way that an open remote connection would have the required superuser access that would allow deletion of system files.

I could go on but I can't be bothered.

A porno has a better thought out plot that this pile of garbage.

Driven (2001)

Bernie Ecclestone must have let out a sigh of relief.

[1/10 · 23 April 2004]

This thing has to be one of the worst movies based on motorsport of all time. The "race" sequence through the city of "Chicago" was laughably ludicrous. Stallone is his usual wooden self and the others are not much better.

OK, lets tell the truth. This thing was nothing more than a Stallone ego massaging movie. It has to have been part of a package deal, although having seen some of the latest piles of effluent to be ejected in huge volumes from the bowels of the Hollywood studios I may be wrong on that point

Don't bother with this piece of flatulent rubbish. If you want to see a good movie involving motorsport see Le Mans or Grandprix and let this abomination pass from memory like a fart in a hurricane.

Rollerball (2002)

What a load of rubbish!

[1/10 · 21 March 2004]

This utter pile of crap has nothing to do with the real "Rollerball" starring James Cann. That movie had characters you could feel sympathy for, a coherent plot and some style. This thing has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The only thing I can think of is that director John McTernian must have been very short of money when he made this monstrosity. Avoid at all possible costs. Lets just hope that the same thing does not happen in the upcoming Die Hard 5 movie. Although, judging by the slowly deteriorating level of plots in the Die Hard line I will not be holding my breath on this one either.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

A mixed Bag that proves the sequel saying.

[4/10 · 22 May 2003]

Overall the movie is good. The special effects were absolutely fantastic. But I felt that too much of the story relied on the fight sequences. I felt they were overly long and the stop/slow/start got tiresome really quickly as it was overused. The writes/directors seem to have moved away from the mystical what is reality/is this a dream type story to an out and out action movie.I felt that this was a mistake. And whats with the orgy scene? There is no logic to it.

I enjoyed the references back to the original movie, such as the spoon and the sweets.

I can recommend seeing it on a mega screen such as an IMAX screen but only as an action movie, not as a worth successor to The Matrix.

2001: A Space Travesty (2000)

The farts at the end of the movie were the funniest bit!

[1/10 · 10 January 2003]

This has to be one of the most pathetic movies of all times! There is very little that can be said about this movie. It is complete garbage. What was Leslie Nielsen thinking of when he signed up for this load of utter rubbish.

I don't want to think about it any more.

Driven (2001)

Movie incorrectly titled. Should have been Drivel.

[1/10 · 29 December 2002]

This load of garbage has to be one of the worse sports movies ever foisted on the movie going public. The storyline was trite and predictable, the acting was so wooden I thought I was looking at a story about dead trees and apart from some shots of actual CART races, which stood out as the only good looking bits of the movie, the cinematography and editing looked positively amateurish. A couple of special effects looked ok but, as is often the case with inadequate movies, mostly they were used to cover for a load of crap. An example is the sequence where a car is flying through the air in slow motion while cars pass by underneath the car in a blur. Ridiculous. The racing incidents looked unrealistic and the cars racing through the city was positively ludicrous. A good example of the way to show a sequence like that is Smash Palace. Save your money, or time if you are thinking about watching the movie on TV. It is a shame that the scale only goes down to 1 as it deserves less than that. This movie also shows that Stallone was at his "acting" peak as the grunting mumbling blockhead in the Rambozo movies.

I would rather stick my most sensitive anatomical parts in a running blender filled with a cocktail of aftershave, iodine and salt water connected to the electrical mains than watch this load of fetid dingo droppings again.

Payback (I) (1999)

Paybacks a bitch! And messy to boot!

[8/10 · 3 September 2000]

Damn, what a movie. Mel Gibson leaves behind a trail of bodies to get back $70,000 stolen from him by his ex-wife and his partner, which they stole from a Asian gang. A whole host of characters come and go (usually in a bloody way). He goes up against "The Syndicate", corrupt cops and the Asians he stole the money from. There is a nice undercurrent of black humour, which both lightens the mood and sharpens the movie.

Being There (1979)

One word: Brilliant.

[10/10 · 7 July 2000]

There is nothing much else that can be said. A very touching movie. No violence, very little swearing and Peter Sellers was simply brilliant.

Maybe Hollywood should look at this movies style instead of the brain dead big bang no plot "action" movies it keeps on regurgitating.