draikinator Reviews

Ghost Team (2016)

I loved this movie!

[10/10 · 6 December 2016]

So, I saw this movie on Netflix today, and while I was checking an actor on IMDb I noticed the low rating, which had me worried... but by the end of the film I was utterly dumbfounded BY that low rating. This movie was so enjoyable! At no point did I think to myself "Oh, I didn't like that."

This was not a comedy that got a lot of big laughs from me- but I was always smiling. It wasn't a big show of making me laugh, it just made me enjoy it. I loved the casual jokes from Stan, I loved the way everything tied together so well, I loved the weird and quirky ensemble and I loved how LONG the set up was and how I really got to get involved with every character by the time the danger set in. And on that note, I noticed something I hadn't in a long time- genuine concern for a characters safety! In an odd, roundabout way, it did something so many horror movies have spectacularly failed to do. Because the characters made me laugh, made me happy, I had an emotional connection to them, and I was WORRIED they might die! When I watch a horror movie, I'm generally so uninvested in the characters I forget which ones HAVE already died.

This movie had good, smart humour with likable characters and a fun and interesting premise. I liked every second of it, it never felt too much or too little. It was a damn good movie and I would 100% see a sequel.

Transformers: Combiner Wars (I) (2016)

Good god not a single person in production was on point here

[1/10 · 1 October 2016]

This is going to go down in history as the worst transformers serial of all time. This is worse than the bay movies. The plot makes zero sense, if there is a plot at all? The animation is embarrassing, the voice acting is cringworthy, the mixing is unbearable, the writing is just.... bad!!! it's bad!!! How anyone could call this a finished product baffles me. Supposedly "Combiner Wars" is about combiners but never once do we see anyone combine!!! in fact there's no indication that combiners are actually multiple people combined into one at ALL! it's literally never mentioned!

Optimus's va would have done much better to bring his own interpretation of the role instead of trying to do a lazy impression of peter cullen, the constant mixing problems of quiet music and weird loud screaming, oh my god, everything about metroplex's voice and mistress of flame's weird tinny resonance is just embarrassing. Who let this happen? What is the plot of this show? Why should I care about anything happening? the only thing good about this show was when i thought starscream was actually showing character growth and being interesting and seemed like a totally new take on the character- which they then threw out the window for pandering no one even wanted. And oh, my god, setting it up for a sequel in the last eight seconds? how dare you.

so yeah. combiner wars is bad, nothing about it is redeeming, you're better off watching the bay movies.

Surrogates (2009)

It's too bad, since I wanted to like this movie.

[1/10 · 26 September 2009]

I really, really did want to like this movie. I went into the theater excited, hoping to see a movie with some decent plot that MIGHT just touch on some issues in humanity.

This is not what I saw.

I was sorely disappointed by the over-done action scenes that took away from the basic 'plot,' of the story, if you could say it had one to begin with. The story was very hard to follow on many parts, and on other, it was only for the gullible. The random, spontaneous and sometimes stupid plot twists had be sick to my stomach within the first half hour, and especially by it's conclusion.

And though I was willing to accept many of the idiotic twists and turns this movie took concerning the protagonist's family life, or the side characters relevance to the plot, it was the ending that really got to me. The entire investigation that the movie was about was started because people were dying while connected. Because the 'virus program' that the gun 'shot' at the surrogates somehow overrode the fail safes and 'liquified their brains.' But when the program went worldwide and the protagonist made the very confusing and monumentally anti climatic decision NOT to stop the virus that was being broadcast to every surrogate in the world, that little fact was forgotten. Everyone exited their houses, happy and alive, astounded by the world around them and strangely ready to give up their lovely surrogates.

The story was unfounded in logic, the plot was confusing, and the characters were flat, boring, and nothing more than cookie-cutter. In all regards, watching this film may have been one of the biggest wastes of my life I've ever experienced.