Change Your Image
moviejaysin
Reviews
The Dark Tower (2017)
An insult to the epic
This movie reminded me of nothing so much as World War Z. Great source material used as branding for generic action scenes. The Dark Tower went one step further and actively turned the character of Roland into a joke. I loved the idea of Idris Elba as Roland, he's a great actor and it allowed for a new exploration of the character, instead, it was wooden acting and dour facial expressions.
They took an epic story told over decades in our world and years in King's and boiled it down to a bare bones generic action movie with little action and less character development. The Dark Tower deserves better than this.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Best opening in a long time that sadly does not hold up through the rest of the movie.
While Valerian was truly not good, it had some amazing visuals and one of the best opening ten minutes of any movie this year. If you like weird space operas, great creatures, and don't mind when a movie doesn't quite come together then you should see this in theaters. It's stunning, just not always for the best reasons.
Also, the weird French/African race relations with the savior aspects seemed a little heavy handed. Not sure how much of that is Besson and how much is the source material, as I have not read the books. I'm going to now as the universe intrigued me, just not the execution of this film.
American Sniper (2014)
A colorful story, a mediocre movie at best
Right of the bat, Bradley Cooper is amazing in this movie, far better than I thought he was going to be. He brought feeling and gravitas to a role that was sadly one dimensional and not well written. Sienna Miller is as always forgettable and many of the other actors are sadly interchangeable, with none of the character development seen in other great true war movies like Saving Private Ryan or Blackhawk Down.
I din't think any of this is the actor's fault, Director Clint Eastwood has made some amazing films in the past, but seems to be losing his grip lately (J Edgar was terrible and Jersey Boys was not as good as it should have been).
It's a shame because I wanted to love this movie, despite the controversies surrounding Chris Kyle, this is an important story about a war many of of don't fully understand. Generation Kill ad Hurt Locker both did great jobs of bringing home what our soldiers are facing for us in Iraq, and Lone Survivor showed the camaraderie or the Seal Teams in modern conflict. American Sniper failed to build on any of those films and instead was merely a propaganda piece with one stellar performance and a few well shot scenes (although none that will stay with you). It will be forgotten soon, which is not what Chris Kyle deserved.
Z Nation (2014)
One of the biggest insults to Television viewers I've ever had the misfortune of seeing
This is bad, it's not funny bad like Sharknado, it's not so bad it's good like The Room. This show was just awful, bad special effects, bad acting from some people who honestly should have known better, but above all bad writing. We live in a time with some amazing shows, some of the best writing for TV ever is happening right now and SyFy spits in the viewers face with the "writing" of this show. I've rarely posted a bad review, but watching the pilot for this show (expletive) me off. Whoever green lit this for a series after watching that pilot should be fired, taken out back and beaten for crimes against the viewing public!
I won't post any spoilers, but the end of the pilot was predictable to a fault. I turned to the person I was watching with and said what was going to happen 20 minutes into the show. Add to that the complete 180 of DJ Qualls' attitude, which made no sense, it was like someone sat down to do a social experiment to see how bad of a show they could make and then try and get made. Was this a dare? Did someone at SyFy lose a bet and had to put this on as payment?
Shame on SyFy for disrespecting viewers with this garbage. I miss Eureka and Haven, shows that gave the viewer some modicum of respect.
The After (2014)
Trying way too hard to be something it never comes close to.
I tried really hard to like this as I love Alpha House & Betas and really liked Transparent. Amazon is doing some great things with their original content, but I have no idea how this got a pilot.
There is no structure, bad edits, nudity and cursing thrown in for no reason. Don't get me wrong, I like nudity and cursing, but they need to have a purpose in the script or be used sparingly to have a shock effect. When every 3rd word is F###ing and there are just a random pair of breasts in a scene that feels completely out of place to the rest of the "story" it just takes you out of the moment.
The lazy writing and ethnic stereotypes are worse than most, I almost felt this was a satire at times with the overblown Real World does the Apocalypse vibe thru out the show. The drunk cursing Irish man, the French model, the Latino Cop, the gay clown (yes a clown), the rich old white lady and the black thug prison escapee who has to tell us how the prison system only works if it has black men to destroy.
This was a pure disappointment, I gave it 3 stars for the idea this could have been, but bad acting, writing and storytelling leave it a mess that I regret watching.