dv-rec Reviews

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

A demonstration of bad writing, incompetent directing and awful movie making

[1/10 · 26 December 2017]

You can certainly enjoy this movie, nothing wrong about that. If you don't care about everything Star Wars was about, don't care about plot, character development, believeability and are not interested in how a good movie may work.

The list of awful decisions they did with this movie is amazing. Tons of plot holes and a complete mislead humor on their own destroy any story. The main plot is stupid, i'd rather watch the original Battlestar Galactica, which had more tension than this 2 hours slowmotion space-chase. Commander Adama, please help!

The poliltical agenda in this movie is just too obvious and awfully injected. This leads to the complete opposite of what Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy may wanted to include. George Lucas always included some politics in his movies, especially in the prequels, which are far from great, but in these this was done far better as in The Last Jedi.

There are so many scenes, that are a complete waste as well as characters. There are "surprises", which are just included for the sake of "making things different". The humor was out of place most of the time and felt like borrowed out of the Marvel Universe. In fact this is a streamlined mess. An obvious mix of Ep5 and Ep6 and left me empty and hollow, as the movie was itself.

Here's the thing with the score. On general standards this movie needs to have at least three to four stars, the CGI was good, Mark Hamill was great and you have a 2.5 hour popcorn movie, which is not as boring as Transformers, at least. But due to the total insult this movie represents it only deserves one star if not zero.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Unbelievable waste of money and time

[1/10 · 17 November 2008]

Some people say, that the first try of a new Hulk Version from 2003 was too much intellectual driven, which gave the film a too complex story and emotional background to believe in and not enough room for action.

In fact this new Version of the Hulk theme could not even keep up with the first one in any possible discipline. It lacks nearly anything, except a slightly better CGI. The cast was really promising, but the whole story is totally empty and lacks of any surprises at all. The whole intention of a movie with a believable plot supported by actors and good directing is simply not used in this one.

You can easily skip the middle 70 minutes of the film, because everything is so obvious to happen. Compared to the storyline of the first one this new version lacks of any depth and drama. It's like being told a story with a 10 point plan what is going to happen now and then and finally the good spirit wins.

So, what is good in this new version? Nothing at all. There is even no real humor noticeable, no emotional ups and lows, and we will never know why Tim Roth did all this silly stuff. I did not like the first one too much at the time i saw it, but in comparison to this new one it's a quite good movie after all.

I don't know where the good screenwriters are gone in Hollywood. For this new Hulk there was definitely none involved.

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

Trying to keep up with the spirit - half failed

[4/10 · 16 November 2008]

There should be everything in there. There's lot of action, the established character, typical humor and mystical story, excellent visuals. So's the concept that Spielberg and Lucas were trying to convert into the new century.

It's good to see Karen Allen in this movie, since she brings a little bit of the first Indy into this one. The action is well done and there are quite a few good jokes in the movie too. Indy looks old but still Harrison Ford acts like there were no time gap between the third and the fourth one. The CGI Action is relatively rare, since this movie is filmed and edited not digitally, which gives it a good "old fashioned" look and not the "Star Wars Ep1-3 clinic digital" look.

That's all good, but the script really is awful. OK, the idea behind it all is OK, but there is no tension at all through the whole film. You never get the feeling that there could be something really serious happening to the characters or the world itself. The final sequence is totally ridiculous and it lacks of any surprises at all.

For the action and the characters this film is OK, but it could never keep up to the spirit of Indy 1-3 at all. This Series lost it's innocence, which makes the first three ones worth a look again and again.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Excellent FX - Awful unbelievable storytelling

[3/10 · 2 August 2008]

after the first episode turned out to be a kids-movie and the seconds one a love story with a not noticeable plot, the third could have been the turning point of the whole beginning of the saga. the story, based on the many secrets the episodes 4-6 created, could have been epic and dramatic. and we all have expected this, regardless the disappointments of the first two episodes.

and lucas tried, well he did, but he failed. The complete transformation of anakin into darth vader is just not told very well and believable. on the contrary, most of the good intentions of the movie are destroyed by awfully story telling. It's only the final fight, which does have this dramatic atmosphere, and some really great fx which are worth mentioning in this movie.

maybe the problem was simply to put such an epic plot into just one movie and keep it up with enough action. the beginning of the film, in total about 25 to 30 minutes are a complete waste of story-telling-time, and only meant to show how a big space war should look like.

I was hoping the dramatic transformation of anakin is told with real depth and with enough drama in it. making the jedi responsible for the death of his wife with all the consequences could have been a good way to go, but instead it's all based upon a pointless fear of loosing her with no real cause behind it all. So all the anger and fear came basically out of nowhere which makes the whole movie unbelievable.

sorry george, we all know you have done your best, but you got lost in too much compromises and fx technologies.

Rush Hour 3 (2007)

Silly, implausible and boring - one of the worst

[1/10 · 8 December 2007]

well, i liked the first one of this series. Not as much as the more better HK Jackie films, but nearly as funny as Jackie cooperation with Owen Wilson.

This movie has nothing; no humor, boring actors, boring action scenes and an even more boring plot. The chemistry between the actors has completely vanished, and what's left is some good shot movie sequences in Paris, which looked more like an alibi than really necessary for the plot. Jackie's talent for comedy, which was really excellent in US movies like "Shanghai Noon", is simply not existent in this one. The rest is an under average action comedy without and funny gags at all. Most of the attempts of the movie to be funny are simply embarrassing.

Overall there is nothing in it that could possibly be remembered, and this is very low for a Jackie Chan movie.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

Too much from everything results in "nothing to remember"

[4/10 · 19 November 2007]

Well, just how it is with all monster trilogy/sequels "Pirates..." has to be even more bigger and spectacular as the first two ones. And it is, the movie is far more than two hours long, there are more characters, more tricks and more plot lines.

Everything starts really cool and after the first 30 minutes without Johnny Depp we feel still fine with what's happening. And then, Sparrow arrives, does weird one-liners, jokes, moves and everything, and we still feel fine, because we liked the first movie - in a way. After about 50 minutes we still believe there has to be a believable story behind all this, and after about 80 minutes we were confronted with even more mysterious plot lines and desperately hope that everything fits together in the end...

But, this does not happen. Instead we are confronted with lots of "this is my ship, get your own crew, get off my ship, let's enter the other ship, and where is the plot anyway?". The result is really boring after half of the film and continues 'til the end, which is even more disappointing. In conclusion, there is nothing we can follow through the film, just the hope that a final showdown will solve all our problems. But if even this showdown fails, the whole film remains in our minds as just an bombastic pirate movie-clip with nothing to remember at all.

And Johnny Depp? Well, we plays his role just like before, which was basically great in contrast to the other characters and a quite simple plot. But this time - within all this chaos - his character somehow lacks any believable profile, so that he emerges into "something weird".

Overall, this movie lacks too much of those basic things that makes a movie really watchable over and over again.

Monster's Ball (2001)

Just as many open questions real life offers to us

[2 March 2003]

This movie is outstanding and one of the best dramas i've ever seen.

Some might ask why, because there seems to be nothing really happening at all during the whole movie. Some say the plot is predictable and flat, and the characters too. In my opinion this is just not true. Try to tell the story in one or two lines. Most of the movies can be told in just a short summary, but this does not work for "Monster's Ball" at all. E.g. : "A prison guard falls in love with the wife of a prisoner he just executed". This is a simple tagline, but if you think of what could have happened to this basic plot with other directors, actors or script writers, the feeling of the movie goes in ten thousand different directions. But none of them matches this version. And this is, what makes "Monster's Ball" extremely outstanding.

This movie offers so many different plotlines, questions, and in-depth-characters you simply cannot describe the feeling of the movie and what is really happening here without telling every little bit of it. Yes, it's sad, and it's depressing, and it gives absolutely no answer to any problem at all (which we basically all want, while watching a movie). But in the end, despite all the drama, it's full of warmth and hope. And this is what it's all about. Just after the credits begin to appear, you sit there and think - about anything.

Technically "Monster's Ball" is nearly perfect. There is not a single scene, which could be missed and everything is at it's right place. The excellent music goes with well played characters and the timing makes the whole athmosphere so intense you cannot escape and switch off, even if you know that there will be no "great solution" at all. Some might say it's boring, and yes, you're right - but in this case "Monster's Ball" is simply not the movie you expected.

This one plays with anything we expect from a drama, and this is why most of the other dramas fail and "Monster's Ball" works. Other "so called drama" try to give us solutions, great feelings, great moments in life, and all the other rubbish. But "Monster's Ball" is so slow and intense and ignores all of the standard "drama issues" you have to think for yourselve what this is all about.

For me it's about love, hate, hope, racism, father-son/mother-son relationships, escaping from your past life, death, depressions, failures and many other things. Everything is shown and nothing is really explained. Just like life basically is - full of complex problems we create for ourselves. Some of them can be solved in one or another way, most of them we just ignore, and life still goes on, because we are able to exist with a whole universe of lies around us.