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rnelis
Reviews
Trigger Warning (2024)
netflix kind of movie
The best possible talent, a decent concept, a great production team: all ingredients are present for an awesome, action-packed, thrilling, memorable movie: yet all the forced, contineous normalization of smoking, drugs, alcohol and the other typical Netflix things makes this a bit of a dissapointment. I expect better from rolemodels. Lets hope James Cameron gives Dark Angel another try, some day soon 😛
speaking of Dark.. most of the movie takes place either during the night, or in a dark cave: and you can hardly see anything because of this.
Long story short: good potential, but only watch if you can stand the Netflix influence.
Hidden Strike (2023)
finally a proper action movie again
Lately i have been struggling to find good, entertaining movies that can keep my attention. Movies that are worth my time, that positively surprise me, where they still really put in the effort and went for quality. Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO, Disney, i scroll through everything and most of it is quite boring tbh, except for older movies but i already watched all of those. And, i did not expect a Jackie Chan movie to be any different. He's an amazing guy, legendary even, but his films are not on the same level as big blockbusters, typically. So you could imagine my surprise when this movie proved me wrong! From beginning to end, i kept on watching: action, comedy, amazing unbelievable crazyness, all there, and all done in the right way. You can really see these guys put in the effort, all of them. Unexpectedly good.
Expend4bles (2023)
not what you would expect
With this cast and brand, you expect a classic action movie: tons of hard hitting puns and amazing action like john wick meets rambo, that kind of level. I would also have been OK with just a decent action flick, but sadly due to the missing postfx / visual fx, the blue screen outline effect was more visible than a weatherman of 1999. Usually i dont mind bad vfx that much, but in this case it was so distracting that the movie lost its magic. It made it all very unbelievable. At some point i almost thought i was watching a pre-edited, unreleased illegal copy but I just rented it on Amazon. On the positive side: they added 50 cents and megan fox to the roster.
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
this is how it's done
In my 44 years, i've seen countless action movies: every classic action movie, every low budget film, all blockbusters. From classic Enter The Dragon to modern Avengers Endgame, from top-10 of all-time Leon to '80s American Ninja pulp. Many thousands of action movies.
Now, i can safely say: John Wick 4 is the best action movie i've ever watched. The camera work. The lighting. Doing the things you would think they wouldn't do because all -other- movies take the easy eay. The locations. The weapons. The way you, as viewer, -feel- each blow, kick, blast: the effects, the music, the cast (every each of them), the tension from start to end, and, finally, the amazing choreography and Action. This is how it's done.
The Witcher (2019)
the good, the bad
+ geralt of rivia
+ ciri
+ great concept, genre, potential, lore, monsters, fights.
+ 2-3 other actors did their best, incl the dwarf and the bard.
- season 3 has the worst, distracting focus blur. This heavily distracts
- writers got gradually worse, season 3 especially
- if you read the books, better forget'em now since only few characters look / are like in the book.
- the atmospheric medieval eastern europe setting has been replaced by north east african culture and setting in season 3: distracting. Props and costumes look very fake and cheap too in this season.
- be warned: season 3 is filled with mandatory 'netflix' propaganda scenes that have nothing to do with the witcher.
- kept watching because geralt and ciri.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
If you like TF1 and TF2, not sure if you're going to like this
The formula that made Transformers 1, 2 and perhaps 3 memorable great, true classics; you won't find that here. No amazingly designed, super impressive robots like those sandstorm robots, no megan fox-style shots, not the coolest cars, and optimus ain't the super hero warrior knight.
But, if you can ignore the first hour of mandatory 2023-era propaganda, it gets better over time. The action is still good, kids still loved it, and overall the film ended with me thinking "ok, all in all it's not bad, I just got to see through the many weird and illogical things that just happened, sit back and enjoy the ride". And that works. Can't wait to see the next installment.
The Sandman (2022)
Only watch if you dont mind low quality and wrong aspect ratio
I looked forward to this series for quite a while, but when starting to view i noticed the aspect ratio was all off. First i spent 15 min to fix my 2022 TV, which didnt seem to be the cause. I googled it, and turns out its an artistic decision to use intentionally wrong aspect ratio for this series. I tried to watch and follow the story, but was so distracted by the faulty aspect ratio i could not focus on the story or characters or anything else and stopped watching eventually. I can just hope this is not going to be a 'trend' to use all kind of faulty, wrong settings for the sake of being different. Shame, i looked forward to this.
Hellboy (2019)
Worthy sequel if you make it through the first 30 min
Ok, so you read all the crushing reviews and you think this sequel must be crap. But it's actually a really well executed sequel, Hellboy worthy and everything. I genuinely enjoyed it (eventually) and it's definitely worth watching if you liked the first Hellboy movie or Milla's Resident Evil movies. Milla's performance was pretty awesome in this Hellboy. But all this jolly fun is only true IF you make it through the first 30 minutes.
At first glance, you may notice the plastic mask of the new Hellboy (about the same quality and budget as if you would make a Halloween mask yourself, using nothing but red clay) but if you just imagine you're watching a stop-motion Pingu clay figure, you'll get used to it real fast and then you can start enjoying the rest of the movie. I mean, who doesn't love Pingu. He's friggin awesome. Robby is too. And now Hellboy joins their little tribe too. After a while, it feels like this new actor-guy finally starts to grow the shoulders to fit Hellboys so-far-almost-empty raincoat.
Hopefully they'll make another Hellboy! :D