ikoos-1975 Reviews

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)

It is even worse than the first part

[2/10 · 21 April 2024]

In this film there are no any idea, absolutely. In the case of first part the creators tried to invent something, although with little success. But in that movie there was a man-spider, griff, etc. This film doesn't even try. It is a a bunch of scenes we have watched a thousand time, but these scenes appear more like parodies to me. There is no story, no characters, not atmosphere, no world, not style, not interesting planets, only starships are interesting a little bit.

When lightsaber appeared on the screen, I hardly believed what I was sawing. This idea is so iconic and belongs specially to Star Wars that stealing this weapon is so impudence I could'n imagine before.

Poor Things (2023)

A miraculous carnival that sparkling in a thousand colors

[10/10 · 28 January 2024]

This movie is a foolish and gorgeous mix of almost every genre and modality: at the same time you watch horror, comedy, love story, nonsene story, picaresque story, bildungsroman, fairy tale or an old Hollywood movie (the bright and colorful sets look like they're painted). It is funny, dreadful and grotesque, satirical and touching, too.

This piece of art is everything and the contrast of everything, it is a genuin, self-identical movie and a parody of itself simultaneously. It is a touching story and a nonsense drollery at the same time, it is a strange cavalcade of stunning, separeted episodes and an integrated story at once. It is a bildungsroman and a parody of bildungsroman. The movie is a tribute to a lot of artists and a pradody of them, too. Randomly some names: Mary Shelley, E. A. Poe, H. G. Wells, Lewis Carrol, R. L. Stevenson, Sigmund Freud, Henry Bataille, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton.

Every moment is a suprise, you never know what the next episode will bring, the movie is never boring, watching it you forget about the real world around you. I could have been watching it for a long time.

Sets are wonderful, I love the movie's bright colors!

Napoleon (2023)

It is even worse than I expected

[1/10 · 13 January 2024]

Watching this movie you don't know anything about the era, nor France, nor Napoleon the emperor, the millitary commander, nor about his controversial personality, his reforms and his political and cultural legacy; Code Napoleon isn't even mentioned.

In the beginning of the film Bonaparte fights at Toulon, and suddenly you see him camping in Egypt, and hear him anounce he has occupied Italy. What happened between the two events, how did he become the leader of this campaign? In a scene Napoleon and Alexander czar make an alliance, in the next scene Napoleon attacks Russia. What happened? There is a scene where Moscow is burning and in the folowing scene Bonaparte is exiled from France over death of half a million french troops. What happened in Russia? No word told about the war against the sixth coalition and the battle of Leipzig. I think these gaps in the story are so big that I could say the movie hasn't even any meaningful, coherent plot. You don't know anything about historical events, it is a mess. The whole movie is a bunch of spectacular but incoherent scenes. Even battle scenes come from nothing, they hadn't beginning or ending.

Napoleon is a totally uninvented protagonist. How does he become a dreadful and admired captain? What does he think about the world and himself, what does motivate him? How does he move up the ranks in the army? How does he change the world, society, law? How does he make decisions? In no way, there are always other ones who suggest him what to do. Paradoxical enough, he seems as if he only passively drifting into being a great leader, he is only a supporting character in his own story. You can' identify with him, can't hate or love him, he is not obsessive, not reformer, not leader. Joaquin Phoenix has almost no lines in the movie.

Instead interpreting Napoleon the leader and emperors the movie interested in the love and personal, sexual life of Napoleon, but failed in this topic, too. When Bonaparte meets Josephine, he doesn't say a word, only stares dumbly (as he does in so many other situtions). Why does he so? Is he dumb, a miserable or a debil? Does he think something, or is there an empty space in his head? Does Josephine love him? Why does she cheat him? Plenty of questions, no any answer.

You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment (2024)

A lot of information is missing

[2/10 · 6 January 2024]

At the beginning of the series experts talk about processed food, mainly processed meat, and the "processed" seems to me so important. But soon they forget about the prefix "processed", and they talk about simply 'meat', comparing to green goods. Maybe it is a confused attitude, isn't it? What is the difference between processed and not-processed meat? Is there a difference or isn't? There is not a word about this. Hamburger is unhealthy, ok, but hamburger not contains only meat but also flour and lots of additive; even processed meat (cold cuts etc.) contains not only meat but also lots of junk materials, too. So if hamburger represents carnivore diet, it is'n surprising that vegan diet proves to be healthier.

But what happens if you eat non-processed meat with little or no lard, for example lean chicken breast, and comparing vegans eat not greens but processed food that rich in sugar, and lot of white flour, pastry, layer cake? Experts don't talk a word about sugar, so is sugar healthy food? That's why I think a lot of information are missing.

And what about margarine and other oil where trans fats are produced during hydrogenation?! Don't trans fats increase the risk of heart disease, don't increase bad cholesterol??!!! So is the margarine healthier than lard??!!!

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Boring to death

[3/10 · 3 January 2024]

Roughly in the first third of the film the ominous atmosphere is great, backgrounds are beautiful: the interiors of the house are bright and spacious, landscape is inviting. The movement of the camera involves you in the scenery of the story.

But the story is boring. We have already tones of visions about apocalypse, societal collapse. This film hasn't anything new to say about the topic, for example trauma processing, ways to survive, psychological dynamics between person, how different personalities react to crisis.

The movie hasn't even any story, there is not a plot twist at the end of the story that could give meaning to the formal events. Characters keep speaking but don't tell any interesting, they haven't unique personality, past, secrets, wishes, conflicts. There is not drama, character developement.

There are several events that seem to be mysterious but at the end of the movie it becomes clear that these turns have no sense: why do deers gather around the house, why does Charlie loses teeth etc.?

24 (2001–2010)

Full of magic and mistery

[10/10 · 25 December 2023]

In these days I rewatched the show, and I am newly amazed how fantastic movie it is. I have two thoughts about 24 to tell.

Firstly, it is an action movie, but with a very strange, acentric structure: there is an endless line of adventures, there are at least three stunning turns in each episodes. In most of the seasons act several antagonists, too: when Jack killes one of them, immediately appears a new one. There is a new secret behind each secret, there is an evil behind each evil. The show is full of mistery, violence, sacrifice, changes of identity, upliftong, poignant and horroistic moments. Because these treats 24 seems to me being a modern Arabian Nights, a magical world, an inexhaustable array of miracles.

Second speciality of 24 is that in this show each character has strong personality, identity, even thoses who appear on the screen just for some moments. Just one example. In episode 9. Of season 1. Jack takes a woman hostige. This hostige is a totally insignificant character, but you know surprisingly much about her: she has to stand trial for drunk driving, she has to nurse her desparately ill sister, therefore her husband left her. These lively, developed and interesting characters make the show more magic. Its world seems to be real, full of exciting details, it is worth to be discovered.

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

Dumb bunch of separated, meaningless elements

[4/10 · 22 December 2023]

I have been looking forward this film, watching the trailer I expected a large-scale work of art and a magical, monumental, strange world with quaint creatures, furthermore, a meaningful, coherent mythology.

But at the very beginning of the movie I disappointed: a handful nazis attacks a handful irish farmers. These scenes depict a totally Earth-like world, some wears T-shirt, some wears necktie (!), there is no even costums. There is no fantasy, no invention in it. It is no a magical world but a tasteless, boring scene.

But there is bigger problem with the the antagonist. Star Wars' Darth Vader was an alien-like, mighty, frightening character, full of mistery, but in Rebel Moon the enemy isn't enough daunting and interesting, it has no strong personality, no face with definite contours. Noble is a miserable clown, his soldiers are small-minded, stupid men with only dumb sexual motivation. You can't feel the power and the threatening presence of the evil, as you did so seeing the Star Destroyers and Death Star in Star Wars. So there is no true, gripping conflict in this film.

At the second half of the film Kora is hopping from planet to planet. The problem is that none of this worlds and their people is interesting enough, they are underdeveloped, you don't know anything about them. The characters (Nemesis, Tarak etc.) have no personality (or, only in visual appearence), no background story, no any motivation - why do they fight with Kora? Their presence is only a flash on the screen.

There are few interesting landscapes and buildings. Backgrounds are empty, in most of the cases you can see only the gloomy sky or some blurry tower, walls. Colours are greyish, it should be more light on the screen.

Only Sofia Boutella is great, she is so charismatic, beautiful like a nymph and agressive like a soldier at the same time. She would have deserved a better film.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Story is thin, characters are poorly invented

[3/10 · 11 December 2023]

The story of the film is very slight: there is a bad man who kills others for money. That's all. We have seen this a thousand times. An extremly long runtime for an extremly thin story. Ok, in this case the victims are osages, native americans, but this fact isn't enough to make the plot more interesting. This story is must be known as a historical fact, but on the full screen as an aesthetical object it seems to be an ordinary crime film.

Characters are not unique or genuine, not complex enough for a more than 3 hours movie. Bill Hale is the bad, nothing more. Ernest is an imbecile, nothing more, he keeps staring dumbly.

Mollie, who (I assumed) is invented to make the viewer feels the tragedy of the osage people by identify with her is a totally empty character. She hasn't any personality, you don't know anything about her, you can't mention any characteristic relating her (Wise? Empathetic? Conscious? Has a good sense of humour? Etc.). What is the purpose of her life? What the hell she did in life before meeting Ernest? (for example: did she farm her land, play the piano, read books etc?) Nothing, she is a totally passive character, Ernest takes her everywhere by car, and she is sitting without any act, she has nothing to do or say or think about the world. She doesn't even a meaningful sentence in the film. She keeps suffering, crying. There is nothing to love or excite her for. She doesn't say anything about her feelings even when she realises at the trial that her husband is an accomplice in the murder of her sister.

As in the case of Molly, the film doesn't provide any infromation about osage people. You don't know anything about their culture, life, traditions. I suppose Scorsese's originally purpose was to arouse sympathy for them but he failed. Osages are totally passive in this film. When oil is found on their land, they become rich, if Bill Hale kills them, they die. But they do nothing. A good example is Henry, who drinks a lot of alcohol. Anna drinks a lot, too. Nothing more. So you can't feel the tragedy of their fate, there is no genuine value that destroyed with them.

Bodies (2023)

It is an over-complicated, confusing, illogical story

[4/10 · 22 October 2023]

Meanwhile watching episode 4 or 5 I thought it would be a clever story, a genuin combination of well-known elements: at the one hand this movie recalls the topos of time-paradoxon (like Predestination, Dark, Vortex, Terminator 2. Etc) and the other hand it talks about the theme of fate (as Oidipos, you maybe fulfill your dark fate just by trying to avoid it), furthermore, the story asks a moral question: if you can produce a new, better world by destroying this actual world (Elias), are you allowed to do this? (This is the question of Watchmen). Is there free will or there aren't true choices because our acts determined by fate?

But by the end of the movie the story losts in its own twists, it has no answers to the most important questions. Here are some of them, only a few. Why does Barber want Elias to blow up the bomb? Who created the bomb? Why and how Elias go back in time, and what is the connection between his two main acts (firing and travelling in time)? Why does the corps of Gabriel multiplie, and why exactly into three copies, why not four, ten, etc.? There is nothing or almost nothing told about 'Chapel Perilous' or the 'Throat,' nor about the futur society Iris lives in. Why isn't exit wound on Gabriel's skull? Why does Polly allow Mannix to subtitute her son? Why Syed die by suicide?

This movie is a mess, not a clever piece of art.

Women at War (2022)

Not perfect, but interesting enough

[8/10 · 1 October 2023]

One of my favourite miniseries is Bonfire of Destiny, so I was very happy to find this other french miniseries with the same actresses. I hoped it would be an exciting story like that, and on the whole I was not disappointed in it, though this film has darkest tone, there is so much violence and death in it.

The story is full of surprising turns, and the female characters are lovely, too, but some turns and episodes seem to me a little bit exaggerated, forced, for example the scene when Agnes scourges herself. I don't understand why Eleonore hates Caroline so much, the film doesn't make clear her motivation. Other episodes happens suddenly, as if they were not part of the whole story, for example the pregnancy of Genevieve - because at that point when Agnes realised it we don't even know anything about the character of Genevieve; Abbé Vautrin come up as one of the main antagonist only midway through the story. So this film has not a strong epitome as Bonfire, as if the creators invented some turns meanwhile telling the story. That's why I think it isn't a perfect work of art, but yet exciting enough.

Charles is a very strange, goodly invented character, evil and disgusting, a coward, morally weak, but he is so miserable and lonely that you can't hate him but feel sorry about him. It's a shocking and memorable scene when Eleonore told him she wishes he died instead Victor. Grégoire Colin is able enough to represent this character.

The Bonfire of Destiny (2019)

I adore this miniseries!

[10/10 · 3 September 2023]

I adore this film, I enjoyed each moment of the movie, I love french language and literature, and Paris, too.

The story of the film is totally unpredictable, full of surprising turns. The conflagration in episode 1 is breathtaking, I never forget these scenes, I watched this episode several times.

But not only the interesting plot is what makes the film valuable, I think it is not only an adventurous story but an existentialist drama, too. There are three female protagonists (Adrienne, Alice, Rose), each of them is lively character, they are brave and full of emotions, you can easily identify with them. Each women has to make a hard decision: they can choose the boring, monotonous but safe and luxurious life of rich people, or they try to find love and an authentic way of life, but this latter decision is a step to the darkness, a totally uncertain future. The existentialist theme of this decision adds weight to the twists of the plot. (Borowing some phrase from Heidegger's Sein und Zeit: it is the decision between Dasein and Das Man).

Paris is beautiful, backgroonds and costumes are vivid, colours are bright. J' adore cet film, il était une grand expérience pour moi!

Hadik (2023)

Visually correct, but story and characters are poor enough

[5/10 · 3 September 2023]

Scenery is correct: landscapes, buildings, interiors, costumes are quite beautiful, full of colours and lights, some scenes have really great atmosphere, you can feel the breeze above the fields, enyoy the light of the sunset or full moon, the sounds of crickets in the morning, etc., Gyori Mark is very talented and so from this point of view this film would have deserved 9 or 10 stars out of ten.

Unfortunately, the story is banal and boring enough (whether it is based on true events or not), because of lack of any true conflict: the campaign related by the film hasn't any serious target, there is nothing at stake, hussars struggle by no emotions or passion, not for family, nor for country or even not for vengeance, they act only because Mária Terézia ask them to, Hadik's hussars doesn't even know where they are going to while riding and what is the purpose of their campaign.

Characters are one-dimensional, they hasn't any personality, any specific motivation, they are featureless heroes with no memories, wishes, so you can hardly identify with them, and can't feel excited for them, too.

The film is full of sentences aiming to sound cathartic but these statements don't fit the actual situation where they are pronounced in, furthermorme, they are lifeless, meaningless, they are not told to others to express the character's current emotions, thoughts, wills at the moment; heroes speak directly to the spectator.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

What is the main theme of this film?

[5/10 · 2 September 2023]

This film talks about very much themes, but none of them is developed enough: quantum physics, moral discussion, political intrigue, love, cold war, Marx, Freud, etc. Moreover, at the beginning of the film Oppenheimer reads the poem of T. S. Eliot, looks the painting of Pisasso, so you expect that the film has something interesting to tell about the connection between modern art and science, but is hasn't.

Jill is an exciting, fascinating character, full of ambiguity - but you don't know enough about her to understand what she do and say, and first af all: why she kill herself? Robert Downey is magnific, but I was disoppointed enough when I realised Strauss characterized by him did everything against Oppenheimer only because the scientist once made him ridiculous. This is one of the main confilct of an 3 hours film?

Jung_E (2023)

This film has no idea what to do

[2/10 · 22 January 2023]

This film is intended to talk about everything, but hasn't any idea what to say or what kind of story wants to be.

It starts as an action movie. Shortly you find that the movie wants to be more of a philosophical fable , but the theme of clones, perfect mechanical soldier or the self / consciousness of a real being contains by a mechanical body is cliché, and the film has nothing any new to talk about these questions. You don't know anything about the real Jung E's identity, life, nor about her copy's actual emotions or consciousness, instead the story quickly switchs to other themes, for example the female protagonist's mourning and emotions towards her dead mum, or abusing sex robots etc. There are plenty of themes, but any of them has proper elaboration. So what the hell was the purpose of creating this film?

Characters are totally stylized, it's hard io identify with them, you can't feel too much sympathy for them, their problems has hardly any effect on you. Kronoid Lab's director Kim Shang-hoon keep joking, laughing, jumping, but he hasn't any sense of humour, he is an obnoxious character.

Dialoges are boring, missing any wit. Colours are not too vivid, everything is greyish.

M3GAN (2022)

Mostly interesting and intelligent film, but horroristic end is so stupid

[7/10 · 15 January 2023]

I really enjoyed most of the film, but not the last 15 minutes.

When Megan comes to life, and begins to learning about the world and making decisions on her own; and when Cady traits her as she would be a real girl, the story was so interesting. By representing these events the film articulates big questions: What makes you be a human? What is the difference between a human mind and a computer's mind? How can a thinking machine (or any subject) interpret the world, human society, morals, emotions, and how can produce its own self, build its own consciousness? Or can you love a machine? (Because of this this latter theme M3gan reminds me a little bit one of my favorite film, 'Ex machina', in which the protagonist falls in love with a robot.) And: should be exist on Earth a being (as in this case Megan) who loves only you, with all the emotions of her heart, and forever? Life is a hard lesson to learn: if you want others to love you, you must make efforts to love and help others, too, and realise that the world and other beings doesn't exist for the main purpose to make you happy. You are a part of a big world, and must keep interpret what others want, think, etc., and keep adapt to others.

These questions are exciting, so from this aspect the film is valuable, and therefore horroristic events at the end are totally superfluous, don't fit to the previous events, maybe the creators would have misunderstood their own film; furthermore, this end is a cliché. It would have been an intelligent work of art, at the end it shouldn't have copied Terminator, Annabelle or other films.

Finally, my question is: what makes Megan go mad? She protects Cady against a threatening dog or a foolish child, I can understand it, but why she kills a man who doesn't hurt Cady? It hasn't any sense, it is not a logical end, it isn't result from previously events, nor from the identity and attitudes of Megan.

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

This film is boring enough

[4/10 · 8 January 2023]

Bale and Melling are great actors, scenery has great atmosphere, too: you can feel the cold of the dreary winter; blue and grey, melancolic backgrounds are beautiful.

But the story is boring. Characters keep speaking but hardly act; storytelling is slow, investigation of the crime keeps stalling. The female protagonis, Lea (or antagonist, as you like it) has no strong identity, you can't feel enough in her nor vulnerability and majesty (she is epileptic and a gifted pianist) nor mistery, nor demonic attitude.

It was superfluous to get E. A. Poe in the story, any other fictional character would be done in this role. This film has not too thought to talk about Poe.

Aranybulla (2022– )

This is not a work of art

[1/10 · 30 December 2022]

This is not a work of art. There is no srcipt, no scenery, backgrounds are missing. A dozen horseman crawl on the meadow (episode 4, 5), the king passes laws with three (!) lords on the meadow, too (end of episode 5.), sometimes you can see a wall of a cathedral, a well or a tree. Experts relate what happened instead of showing it on the screen. From time to time drawings, maps, little banners or tin soldiers subtitute the real scenes.

Narration is boring like some kind of a dreary lesson from an old and dusty textbook; dialoges are lifeless, they aim only to illustrate the ideology of the producers: King II. András was a great and wise christian leader, hungarians are christians, they protect Europe against the islam. This message directly refers to the ideology of the recent political power: Orbán Viktor protects the christianity against the rotten liberalism of the western countries.