corinebarella-66-364119 Reviews

The Passenger (2014)

Misogynous thriller

[7/10 · 27 December 2016]

A relatively good thriller, the suspense was not killing me but I did stay on board and followed it thru. What exasperated me, to be franc, was the character of the lead female detective who is totally incoherent for a cop. I really thought portraying the lead woman as a really damaged, unstable woman did not make the story stronger. I found it hard to believe in a trained detective that would disregard her skills and get subdued by her emotions so that her investigation would always end up one step behind. I guess now I've been used to #nordicnoir where female characters are more interesting, complex and less "helpless that needs saving", I'm having a hard time watching and caring for female roles who fall back on the old stereotypes.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Very boring unless you're a teenagers and don't know any better

[4/10 · 15 December 2016]

Let's be clear, it is not up to the level of entertainment, and expectations, of the last installment of the revived franchise. Last year, there was trepidation at the thought of a new star wars movie. This episode goes back in time thus it is pretty well done as far as the times it describes but frankly, it was pretty boring. I do love my fair share of spaceship battles or ground fights, rebels against the evil forces of the Empire but this episode is not much fun or entertainment although I would not accuse it of being badly done. It is only its lack of "soul" if ever entertainment had one, or more precisely humour and relationships between the characters whom have just met and are engaged in a battle for their survival. So it is clear there was no time to build relationships or give much depth to the characters. Even the robot wasn't as cute as most of them in the franchise, and R2D2 is more fun to listen to, even though we don't understand a single word rather than the humorous lines of this one. So it was well done, professionally, but flat and, rather boring. I was particularly disappointed in the lack of "scariness" of #DarthVader, of all evil ! The magnificent voice is there but it's the allure, the frightening allure of the least human of all dark forces that did not match the usual way we see him. I felt I was being sold a video game (and I wanted to play with it to be honest) but I was not watching a great star wars film.