themonkey-4 Reviews

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

The only way it could have ended

[7/10 · 25 May 2023]

Yea it's good, but sadly, it's only good.

The charm of the gunfights and the world building take a back seat to endless action. While the action scenes are all okay only the final one brings a little creativity back and all the others should have been replaced by world building.

I'm more interested in the world and characters than the endless gung-fu fights. That being said the characters are rather flat in this installment and the movie focuses more on cool/striking visuals than actually building any depth to the characters. The strength of the Wick movies was always that they showed this world of assassins living in parallel to the normal world, like a good vampire movie, but this movie brings nothing to that lore.

S.W.A.T. (2017– )

Not worth watching.

[2/10 · 15 April 2018]

I was hoping this would be a show about SWAT shooting dogs, flashbanging children play COD and pepper spraying students. What i got was an 'merica HOO RAH propaganda show about how great American police are and how they are really good guys, racially sensitive and connected to the community.

The quality of the production is ok and it's shot well but the propaganda is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Uncanny (2015)

Something is off

[6/10 · 20 March 2017]

The movie is drawn out, and while it is a low budget, the whole movie is paced like the prologue to a story that never shows anything new. To make an AI story boring and standard is sad because there is so much interesting potential but the movie never dives deep into any of the concepts and fails to ignite the audiences attention.

The actors in this movie are fine, with a few moments that are good or very good. I have no serious complaints about any of the characters or actors as such. However, the story somehow never lets them do anything interesting, every part of their story unfolds at a steady pace without bringing anything interesting to the mix.

The movie needed more intrigue and a faster pace, and the twist the movie tries to throw is extremely unremarkable. There are 100 more interesting things that could have been done that would have thrown the audience for a loop in a satisfying way.

Moana (I) (2016)

Remember Brave?

[6/10 · 24 February 2017]

Me neither, and i will forget this movie soon as well.

The movie is colorful and it has a somewhat catchy song but everything else about it is sub-par. The majority of the music is bland, the animal sidekick is overly pointless, the "hero" is a very bad Han Solo and this movie will quickly be forgotten.

I managed to peg Disney's Frozen movie right on the nose that it was an OK movie but that the song was catchy enough to become a hit, nothing is certain but this movie is trying to hard without taking any risks.

Some further problems are that the facial animations are sometimes a little off, there are no real stakes since the undefined power of the ocean is a deus ex machina that has carte blanche to do whatever it wants when it feels like it without any in-universe limitations.

Spectral (2016)

Sci-fi action movie number 5801

[6/10 · 13 February 2017]

This movie is "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" (enemy design) crossed with "Battle Los Angeles"(story, plot and characters) and seasoned by a little hint of "Enemy at the gates" (the city feels very Stalingrad at times). Putting all those movies in a blender doesn't create a fantastic movie but it is very much the sum of it's parts making this a not bad action flick.

It's not a good movie, it feels a little disjointed and the more you think about the movie the less things will start to make science, combine that with the ending punchline being "I guess there are some things Science can't explain" and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth in many ways.

Warcraft (2016)

A good fantasy

[8/10 · 13 June 2016]

The movie is good, however it feels a little disjointed.

My Background: I have played some WC3 and WoW so i recognize the names but I have no idea how close the movie follows the source material.

Overall: The movie has some good moments that feel epic and fantastic, however the movie is very forgettable, partly due to how fast it moves between goals and characters. I am not a fan of The lord of the Rings movies but they did manage to have more buildup to the battles and made the encounters feel epic. Warcraft suffers from that a lot of the battles and fights feel like a series of skirmishes with various amount of importance

Costumes, makeup & CG: The Costumes and CG were great, I loved the Orcs and the armored humans. It all felt just like the video game and lent the movie a fantastic feeling that a lot of fantasy movies lack by feeling like just medieval history movies with a few fantastical elements.

World: The movie is beautiful, the 3D is good but probably unnecessary. The dark portal and the few scenes we see of the orc camps are fantastic with a lot of recognize-ability for fans. However it feels under-utilized, for people who are not familiar with the world (read: those who don't squee at the Murloc cameo) it is generic and doesn't give you a clear idea of where things are happening on the map.

Final: In all honesty the movie feels like scenes from the RTS game with the game-play bits in between cut out. The story was better told and more engaging in the WC3 manual and the world was more exciting in WoW. It's hard to tell if the movie would have been better as a TV series or a trilogy to allow the world to grow but as a stand alone movie it fails to live up to it's potential. In a few years the movie will probably be forgotten and will only be viewed if it leads to better sequels.

The Expanse (2015–2022)

Best Sci-Fi series since Firefly

[8/10 · 21 March 2016]

Firefly was a perfect storm of director and actors who came together to make something never seen before or since. This show is not as visionary as Firefly was and the actors are not as fantastic. However, if this show keeps going as strong as it has been so far, it will be among Farscape and Firefly in great space series.

Firefly, Farscape and The Expanse all cover renegade crews on a ship caught up in something big, The Expanse has as of Season 1 had very few self contained episodes and as such almost require you to watch them in order. I have not read the novels this series is based on but I think it can work in this era when it is possible to binge watch these series and they are not tied as heavily to a TV broadcast.

The Expanse does a good job of setting up a universe one can get invested in without over-explaining the universe or politics (with a few exceptions of heavy-handed plot dumps). Everything feels right in this space epic and i hope it Keeps Flying for a long time.

The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019)

Terrible Laugh Track

[4/10 · 16 February 2016]

I had friends who recommended this show to me and while i found the show watchable what made me stop was the canned laughter. I swear, if you removed the canned laughter the show would be 10 minutes per episode.

The jokes are not very funny and most revolve around Sheldon breaking some social convention, failing to understand a social convention or the people doing nerdy things. As a TV comedy show you can forgive a mediocre premise and standard jokes because sometimes you want something in the background while you raid or do some grinding in whatever game one is stuck in, but even at that level the laugh track is to annoying and you realize that if you remove the laugh track the characters stand around grinning for 5 seconds after every line they spout which may indeed be accurate of how incredibly stupid every character is.

The Last Ship (2014–2018)

Better than it should be!

[7/10 · 8 August 2014]

The show has way to much American propaganda and Christian overtones in it to be enjoyable if it was not for the ability to fast forward. However with the ability to skip all the parts when an American flag is in the frame the show is rather enjoyable with lots of good actors(read actors and actresses) doing a very good job. The acting is by no means very good, but all the actors seam to know what kind of show they are in and do exactly what is required of them to keep you from taking them to seriously. They all have that gleam in their eye and seam to be dedicated to making this a funny, stupid little piece of action/drama gold.

There are a lot of similarity to shows like Battlestar Galactica and while this show is a lot of see-it-before about it, there is enough charm in it to keep it going. I'm very happy they did not make it in to a World War Z TV-series and populate it with zombies since the desperate and dying humans are a much more interesting obstacle than the mindless monster.

Frozen (I) (2013)

Frozen Solid!

[7/10 · 9 January 2014]

It's better than average, however this could be small praise considering it must inevitably be considered alongside other recent princes movies like "Brave" who despite some charming moments was overall rather poor.

However frozen does stand on it's own legs and while it is predictable for a cold hearted movie critic it is still charming and full of personality.

A lot of this is the excellent voice actors/actresses, OK songs, and nice animation both in the characters faces and in the ice effects, even if the majority of the snow does have a little plastic look over it.

My only problem with the movie is that the plot is just a little to thin and uninteresting, i expect that this movie despite it being good may be swiftly forgotten if another similar movie comes out with a little stronger plot. If we boil it down there is a complete lack of Horror/Terror in this movie, while it does pull on our heart-strings a little and rather effectively it has nothing akin to *SPOILERS* Simbas dad dying or the massive DRAGON FROM HELL we saw in Snow White */SPOILERS* and due to this lack in emotional range the heart warming moment have no contrast.

In conclusion i can say that it is a good movie and in 20 years i can see 30 year old girls singing along to some of the songs.

Gravity (2013)

Okay in 3D.... but not a good movie.

[6/10 · 25 October 2013]

This movie starts out very good and is absolutely stunning in 3D. It is well worth renting if you have a 3D TV just to get the experience however the movie is bad. In this regard it is very much in the same category as Avatar, cool spectacle that works well in 3D but nothing you remember.

I have never been the biggest George Clooney but the fan but he does have some charisma it is therefor a shame that he isn't in more of the movie, i was fully ready to accept his absolutely retarded return to the move if that only meant we could have had more of him but alas it was all a dream. The movie goes very abruptly from cool if a little stupid space survival epic, to psychological study in dealing with trauma. And this is where all my interest in the movie stops. The idea in itself is not bad but it is so shallowly exploited and explored that no enjoyment can be had from these moments.

This along with the fact that there is a stupid amount of "narrow" escapes and way to many "SYMBOLISM" moments that reminds me more of 2012 a space odyssey than anything else.

Soldiers of Fortune (2012)

Some potential but not enough to cry when it is squandered.

[3/10 · 18 July 2012]

There are a lot of grate actors in this movie, and even the ones who are not good are entertaining. However the movie is horrible! It would not surprise me if this was intended as Uwe Boll's sequel to his Far Cry movie.

There are no words to describe how bad the script is to this movie, it flips between "war is hell" to "video games cause evil" and then comments about how bad bankers are.

It feels like someone took the top 5 list of topics on Fox News and then asked some one to make a movie out of those in a world where guns work much like in the A-Team TV series.

The Silent City (2006)

worth the time

[7/10 · 21 February 2009]

The short doesn't say much but it would have been a grate trailer for a movie based on the comic "Gone with the Blastwave".

The movie in itself is very beautifully done, and while it doesn't do anything new or unexpected it is still worth looking at. The movie does resemble Enemy at the Gates a fair bit only in a future setting.

It's hard to say what overall point of the movie is it seams to joust throw together some different scenes to make something happen and while successful it fails to make you attached in any way to the characters.

The costuming in this movie is also very well done, the suits do actually look like futuristic combats suits if you are not to picky but i am surprised why Cillian Murphy was not given a larger role thou he is rly good and yet does not like say a single word. =(

Postal (2007)

Boll is right on the ball with an excellent movie!

[10/10 · 8 December 2008]

I have not played the postal games a lot only demos but i have to say that this is a really good movie. The movie is offensive to every one you care to mention (Terrorists, Muslims, Americans, Germans all get riped on) but it is done in a rather clever way so only stupid people would get offended. The movie swings back and forwards a bit and it is not perfect all the way but the ending is better than that in the game Portal! Yes this movie is defiantly a must see, when boll says "i hate video games" i rly loled.

This is the best movie to come out in at least 3 years. It's fun, entertaining and crazy and the movie has more in common with more Asian movies i have seen and not a classic Hollywood style.

puck America, puck humanity (and puck the pucking language filters) and long live Postal!

Heavy Metal (1981)

No weed smoking experience is complete without this movie.

[10/10 · 2 July 2008]

During this movie me and a friend drank 1 bottle of vodka and smoked a bag of weed and there has never been a better experience.

This movie has excellent script, beautiful animation and is generally enjoyable and it is defiantly a movie that should be viewed by all because you will never forget it no matter what substances you smoke or inject during it's viewing.

The movie is somewhat inconsistent in it's style, being made in separate parts drawn by separate studios some parts are very much humor orientated while others turn more to a horror mode. This means that the movie isn't necessarily best viewed in one sitting but can watched almost in episodically form.