NeilJThomas Reviews

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Offensively dumb (SPOILER WARNING)

[1/10 · 24 August 2022]

Suspending disbelief - and switching off your brain - is necessary for all sci-fi, but the transformers series takes this to an unprecedented level. Only children and those who can't even spell "plot holes" can possibly watch these without cringing, and "the last knight" is the worst culprit.

First of all, there's been 4 movies so far, so plenty of time to establish lore (and we're just going to skip over the cartoons). We've gone back in time all the way to the extinction of dinosaurs and yet not a word that transformers have been on the planet multiple times, including "the dark ages". Not a word that they're behind "saving civilisation from barbarism" because apparently only England was civilised and the saxons were cavemen.... Let's leave that for the moment. Merlin promises to be present at the final battle, then runs to beg for transformer intervention in the war; against the saxons, of course. When he made that promise, how did he know that they would agree? Why would a race of INorganic aliens go fight on behalf of an organic race of aliens killing each other over the trifling issue of land ownership? Why would they care, they've travelled the galaxy and on this little island these hairless monkeys are destroying each other over a few miles of land? Have at thee!! Well apparently they DO care, and will intervene, and of course on the side of "civilisation" whatever that word could possibly mean to a race of tremendously advanced machines looking at a group of people who haven't even worked out electricity yet. Where's such civilisation exactly, in the language they speak? So off to war goes the trans-dragon-er without a single word exchanged. Where the battle is, who are the "civilised" and how to tell them apart from the "barbarians"? Nope, the dragon-former is omniscient. At the same time, a transformer passes a staff to merlin telling him to guard it with his life as "evil will come for it". A mighty, well armed machine passes the most powerful mcguffin in the universe (it can't be just "essential" or "deadly", it always must be the most powerful mcguffin in the universe) to a tiny drunk fraudster so that his squishy body will somehow shield it (merlin lied and cheated throughout his life, he has no magic). Why not hold on to it and defend it yourself? A staff is either a walking aid or a human symbol of power, so it makes no sense for a shape-changing machine to have one in the first place. Should they have one, though, it would be transformer-sized, not human-sized, right? Nope, it's small and light enough that a drunk old man can wield it like it was a nunchaku. The dumbness of this, I'm losing IQ points just acknowledging it.

Then there's the backplot of the shady human agency that destroys all machines regardless of group affiliation. It KINDA made sense in the previous movie as it was driven by greedy men who wanted power, but not in this one. Here apparently the shady agency and its people missed the decepticon attacks over the entire decade as well as the very obvious difference between them and the transformers. They want them all equally destroyed. And yet, regardless of this and the amount of man and firepower they throw at the task, they only succeed in destroying a single transformer. One, and of course, we've never seen it in the 4 previous movies so we have no emotive attachment to it. Disney level script-writing.

Should I continue or is it already brain-dead enough for you? Not quite? FINE. Tell me what sense it makes for an ultra-advanced, ultra-intelligent alien machine to believe that another machine is the creator of ALL machines AND their planet. Who dug up the ore, who separated it, who smelted and shaped it, who assembled her pieces, and who infused those lifeless pieces with life and intelligence? Nope, Quintessa created all machines.

More dumb as a post? Not a problem. Throughout the series we've heard of the machine language, Cybertronian, and in this movie in particular, Old Cybertronian. So what sense does it make for them to have human names, not just using our alphabet which would be impossible, but either latin or english names: Starscreem, Optimus, Quintessa.... There's not a single one that has a cybertronian name. Even worse, why would an ultra-nationalistic, ultra-patriotic, ultra-racist like Megatron not only take an English name but speak ANY human language when addressing his own kind? Why would ANY decepticon call themselves "decepticon" in the first place? It's like a human thief asking everybody to call him "Thieferino", a liar "Mendaciferous". Why would the decepticons use not just human, but black-african-american street language?

Dear bob, this stuff has really hit the discount barrel of movie production, and you people just lap it up. That's why they don't make scifi like "Donnie Darko", "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys" anymore.

Temple (2017)

Terrible, abandoned movie

[1/10 · 2 October 2017]

a couple of minor spoilers are included, but just so you know, i assure you that it's IMPOSSIBLE to further spoil your enjoyment of this movie.

I know people have said it many, many times before but while not actually at the top, this is now on my list of the worst movies ever.

it's yet another movie about a group of arrogant tourists to a foreign land - japan this time, ignoring a mass of actual warnings that they're about to do something terribly stupid, do it anyway, and pay the price.

i only wish i had heeded the warning given by the terribly low score here on IMDb before i decided to watch it anyway.

you may also choose do so if you wish, and i won't "spoil" the movie for you, but just so you know: the movie doesn't have an ending, it looks like it's been abandoned, possibly in frustration, which i would totally understand. do stay and watch after the credits kick in as you will be treated to a totally necessary last minute revelation.

also, note that this must be the only horror movie EVER where nobody dies... well... sort of, there are certainly a few injuries here and there, but death? on screen? nope, not a one. although due to the nature of one injury we can safely assume that one person died offscreen. on the other hand they were in a hospital... "a kind of hospital" (you'll understand if you choose to watch it) and there were both a brave nurse and a cowardly doctor in attendance, so he could also have survived. Yep, it's THAT bad!

to be fair, there are a couple of decent bits and you'll know them when you see them; both involve eyes: the tale of the eyes with the tangerines as a prop was a good one, but if I understood what the guy was saying, and i don't speak a word of Japanese, how could he fail to is beyond me. the 2nd is, what happens every single time you meet a Japanese shapeshifter, which apparently is also all-knowing and has been on these people's trail before they even got to the temple in the first place (watch carefully and you'll spot it's hands failing to menace the guy with the camera).

finally, note that while the "wise locals" were smart enough to figure out that staying away from the temple would be good for their health, they were effing dumb enough to kill the poor innocent guy that lived in it, starting the curse in the first place. this is especially true considering that AFTER the curse got started and people began dropping off (in theory, because they actually don't, they just return with... injuries) , they were still dumb enough to allow the temple to stand, where a few matches and a few hammers (for the statue) would have solved the problem once and for all.

yay wise locals!

It Stains the Sands Red (2016)

Excellent, a must watch

[8/10 · 1 October 2017]

If there's anyone from the team that made this movie, here, reading this: THANK YOU. it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience in a sea of barely watchable nonsense.

the other reviewers will have already provided you with the movie's plot, it's pointless to rehash it once again, except to tell you that it's really, really good.

it takes a while before it starts tugging at the heart strings, so be patient.

rent it, you won't regret it.

Evidence (III) (2012)

Slightly better than similar movies.

[4/10 · 29 September 2017]

Just so you know, there are minor spoilers here.

Unlike some of the claims here, it's not actually a "found footage" movie. It's filmed in that style though, portraying events which are purported to be real, from a 1st person perspective. however if you watch closely the last 10 minutes or so you'll realize it can't be found footage. I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, unless it's absolutely necessary.

there's some good ideas here, some of which i'm sure we've all had while watching yet another horror movie made in the wake of "the Blair witch project", you know the sort, when you think "if they had shown that (censored) there, the tension would really, really go through the roof". well, they finally did, you'll realize what I mean when you see the bit about the trees.

That's the good part, the bad part is that it's yet another of those movies that can only scare that class of viewers that cover their eyes at the first sight of anyone that's simply running in the dark screaming. i've already watched this movie 12 times in the last month, all of them with different titles, all of them with the same plot:

"remove protagonists from the perceived safety of urban life, and throw them into an isolated, unknown location. have them hear and even glimpse a threat, but never clearly enough for them to understand exactly what it is that's after them. never show the threat clearly enough that the viewer can identify it either. reveal that the threat is strong and fast enough that it can run them down and tear them apart if it should choose to do so, then reveal that they're obviously facing the son of a scooby-doo cartoon monster: whenever they're out in the open and vulnerable, the monster stands there and watches them, listens to them ... does things to the trees around them ... but otherwise leaves them alone. when they see proof that the monster is lethal, get them to run like headless chickens from a to b to c, in the dead of night (hardly ever a good idea) yet the scoober never quite manages to catch them, only showing a desire to do so if and when they reach shelter."

unfortunately they've made so many of these movies that it's become virtually impossible to come out with an innovative conclusion to these events, or even an innovative plot twist. they've been repetitive up to the very end, they might as well have a rational, if repetitive, denouement, but somehow that doesn't satisfy the filmmakers. fortunately for them, the found footage genre gives them an easy out, and this is "close to found footage" enough that it can be bent into the same kind of ending: EXPLAIN NOTHING. NO. THING. to be fair, in this particular movie, at the very end an unseen man's voice actually puts a name onto some of the things you see, SOME, and it's more of a hint to get your brain working in the intended direction. if they had shown some restraint about what to put on screen at that point, it would even have worked, but they chose to put a large number of people behaving inexplicably at the end (the message apparently being that they're either mental patients, or at least they've gone mad) and that doesn't work well with the (SORTA) explanation provided by the unseen man...

it's just another mess of a movie. there are a few decent special effects at the end (up to that point there had been only three moments with special effects) but they're off the screen before your brain catches up with what you've seen, and personally I wish they'd invest more money into coming up with a coherent and believable script throughout, rather than for special effects in the last 10 minutes of the movie.

like all the rest, it's a lightweight horror movie that only easily scared people will appreciate, you know the kind: they will invariably tell you that they've "watched it from behind the sofa".

Alien: Covenant (2017)

What the hell happened?

[4/10 · 3 August 2017]

It appears that Scott is done with the Alien saga, whether out of understandable displeasure with its direction in later movies, or "been there, done that". I'm not inclined to watch many interviews in the hope i'll find out why he's murdering a franchise that I thought couldn't be butchered any further.

It has the same basic plot of a 100 D-grade sci-fi movies with a touch of Alien lore sprinkled on it, but understand this: it's not an Alien movie, it's very much a Prometheus movie, so the original title: "Prometheus 2" would have been more apt.

Scott has decided to throw away the accumulated xenomorph lore of ALL the movies that followed his own. Everything you learned about aliens, from Aliens onward, has been jettisoned. So, for instance, you learn who created the xenomorphs, and why, but the moment you do, you laugh as it's impossible; not if you saw the entire saga, especially the Alien vs Predator movies. there's just a sliver of a remote possibility of shoehorning it in, but i assume you'll have to wait for "Prometeus 3" to see whether he's clever enough to bring it all together. However, as things stand right now, i'm not hopeful, the alien origin he's woven is simply incompatible with the rest of the lore. He's simply added several more plot holes.

i won't tell you how the aliens are created, or by whom, but as in the original Alien, there's no queen in the life-cycle, destroying all following "Alien" and "Alien vs" movie lore. it's in the "Alien Vs" movies that you see the earliest encounters of mankind with the xenomorph, brought along millennia ago by the predators to create the perfect hunter in order to battle it. "Alien: Covenant" sets the creation of the xenomorph not long before the events of Alien, maybe some 20 years earlier.

Not content with this, Scott also reduced the xenomorph subspecies from runner, warrior, praetorian and queen to a single being, an assassin. The life-cycle is interfered with in more than one way, while the facehugger is basically the same, there isn't a chestburster anymore, the alien emerges fully formed from its host, a perfect miniature of the fully grown beast. finally, you can't tell from the clip because the camera lingers little on the xenomorph, but it has only a vague resemblance to the beast we all know and love. it no longer has lips, for instance, so its face is frozen in a permanent snarl. the tubes on its back, which H.R. Giger made specifically for the purpose of supporting that massive head, are now there for cosmetic purposes. Scott decided that in this version of the xenomorph, the tubes should be shorter, thinner and should radiate outwards from its back, therefore they're no longer capable of supporting anything. the ugliest change, however, is that the alien used to have tubes that curved from its back over the shoulders, framing the neck, but these grew out of its body organically, while in the new alien, they are actual pipes, thin, separate and pointless.

aside from the changes above, the alien's creator made them to destroy a humanity he hates, yet that same person also wipes out a planet full of engineers he seemed to be rather impressed by, both the people and the technology, so what's the reason behind the genocide? it's never addressed. there's also the problem with the inconsistent look of the engineers: you remember their white, flawless skin? you get to see them like that in flashbacks to the events of Prometheus, yet when you see the flashbacks to the genocide, they are identical to humans except they have the engineer's nose. this change in their look made it necessary for Scott to specify in an interview that the people on the "heaven planet" were engineers. imagine that, needing clarification because otherwise people wouldn't have understood.

AFAIC there were some odd choices in the casting: maybe it's because i find Danny McBride a poor actor, and unpleasant to boot, but to me he's an odd choice for that character. i find that he's best suited to comedy roles than drama or sci-fi. i also dislike Billy Crudup, who unfortunately has quite a lot of screen time. Katherine Waterston is a beautiful young woman if not a good actress, however, in this particular movie, i din't even recognize her and despised her presence; this may be partially due to the makeover she was given, which makes her look like a teenage tomboy. of course, Waterston and McBride's characters are the only two survivors, so two unlikeable characters are the only ones who are in every single scene.

finally, the cgi is variable in quality. impressive and unbeliavably life-like in some scenes (only logic tells you that you're watching a composite shot with bleeding edge cgi in it ) yet devoid of depth in others, robbing the shot of believability. most shot of the huge trees are pretty bad.

For the first time ever, i am at a loss about how to rate a movie. This isn't bad, in fact there's a lot to like there, it's just a BAD ALIEN movie. I would have given it 5 stars in the hope that Scott can bring it all together and close all plot holes in the next installment, but the choice of cast and the variable cgi bring the movie down yet more. I would give it 3 stars if not for the fact that i've seen movies that truly were worth only 3 stars, and this one has so much more to offer, just not another installment in the Alien saga.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

puddu!

[1/10 · 5 June 2016]

Warning, spoilers.

So, the movie started off well enough, but that ended the moment the two main characters escape back to the planet they came from, so, what, 20 minutes in? The new shi... i mean sith... Kylo Ren, is RIDICULOUS, actually laugh-out-loud funny.

As long as he kept the mask on, he was not too bad except for watching him stomp, stomp, stomp around with that awful, gangly, shoulder-swaying walk of his; but once he took off the mask i actually burst into laughter. This movie takes the prize for the absolutely top, can't-be-beaten miscast actor since the introduction of talkies. this is not hyperbole, look for the character reveal online and judge for yourselves.

In any case: the sawed-off with the bad teeth was "Darth Maul", Backstabicus Palpatine was "Darth Sidious", Dookie The Shi... Sith i mean, SITH.. was "Darth Tyranus", "Mannequin" Skywalker of the sinful children was "Darth Vader", the logical progression is that Kylo Ren will become "Darth Gooph"...

Interesting that it's a different galaxy, with a different language (seen on screen) that we hear as English for convenience, yet all these names as well as those of several jedi, are either drawn from Latin or typical human (that is, terran) concepts.

Kylo Ren aside, the movie was VERY, VERY LONG indeed, and quite tiresome, since the only action worth watching can be compressed in less than 30 minutes - having said that, note that those 30 minutes are of the usual high standard for Star Wars cinematography and effects.

Even the obligatory lightsaber battle, the highlight and redemption of even the worst Star Wars movies up to this point, was in fact boring and unlikely. An experienced powerful sith, titled "Master of the Knights of Ren" (whoever or whatever they should eventually turn out to be) that gets wounded by a soldier with no training and 2 minutes of practical lightsaber experience? and then defeated, badly wounded and nearly killed by someone who's never even held a lightsaber before? Preposterous.

Lucas really needed to step away from all things Star Wars, and i am truly glad he did. between the constantly dropping quality of the script for each new release and the constant - constant - manipulation of old material, the series had become a constantly evolving bad joke.

When the franchise was sold to Disney i rejoiced, i'm a longtime star wars fan (saw the theatrical release of the 1st movie - a new hope - at a cinema when i was 12) and i had so hoped that in somebody else's hands we would finally begin to see some decent plot lines, or failing that, at least nothing approaching that wind-up of a movie: "Revenge of the Sith" with its annoying plot about over-the-top, childishly obvious yet -incredibly- successful pantomime style manipulation.

Unfortunately i forgot that whoever sits at the helm, it's still the same Hollywood money-making machine, and we are their walking wallets.

Avoid like the Plagueis.

Final Prayer (2013)

the reason why people no longer go to the movies

[1/10 · 17 January 2016]

--major, MMMAJOR spoiler alert-- . . i seriously do not understand how movies of this sort achieve 5+ rating, i'm not venting right now, i wish i could ask some of the people that rated it as such, 'cause i truly fail to understand this. well done, once again you made me waste time and money on this horrendous, childish nonsense.

the characters are flat and meaningless, deacon and michael especially who are just both awful, unlikeable and poorly acted cardboard cutouts of people, why would you care about anything that happens to these two is beyond me. gray likewise gives the impression he just popped into existence: no story, bland meaningless character with a single, recurring 1-sided phone call that links his character to anything happening beyond the perimeter of these "borderlands", and to whom it's given the sad task to inject an attempt at pitiful humour into the story, and what story? what is it that happens in this movie, exactly? a single, exceedingly (no. not enough. Exceedingly. nope. EXCEEEEEDINGLY, better... i so hope never to see this man in movies again. EVER. AGAIN.) poorly acted and equally 2-dimensional character who's thankfully been on screen all of 3 minutes total commits suicide, and a single, actual gem of brilliance gives me hope (yet dashed) for future development when gray goes out for a cigarette break and amazingly fails to see his own headstone. mhhh... sheep on fire? OK... that was a moment... but why? who were those guys? what motivated them? why do they wear hoods? why do they harass the protagonists? why does anything happen here AT ALL? well, viewers, that's why it's a horror/"MYS-TE-RY" movie, get it?

no.

once again, Once a-freakking-gain, another movie that, having just had a scene with a sliver of genius that makes you hope for something better to come, then devolves into a senseless, pointless underground chase for a character who just refuses to stop or at least reply, and who's always just out of reach (see: "as above, so below", the twin to this reeking pile of dog doo, and a dozen of the other 2p movies i've watched in the last 6 months) with nobody ever questioning why would they do that, or where are we going here, 'cause of course it's a friggin labirynth... leading to what i believe is the scene for which the entire movie was greenlit, the "final minute".

i would bet my "final dollar" they made the entire mess of a movie on the back of that last minute, they even changed the title, right? from "borderlands" (which borderlands, what are they on about for the love of Bob) to "final prayer"? the directing writer obviously couldn't find a sane a-leads-to-b-leads-to-something-plausible reason for why "our" characters all of a sudden find themselves inside Satan's rectum (...AH YES... (note 1)), so have them blindly follow someone and just find themselves there, OK so we manouvered ourselves so that there's no-one left to "lampshade" the stupidity of it for the viewers, let's just throw it out there, it'll work, they're horror watchers, so morons after all.

well, yes, if you managed to give a 5+ to this movie, yes, sorry, but yes, you are.

Neil, London, UK. (note 1) and now that you've read that you're going to rent the movie aren't you? aren't you? i'm warning you, don't, it's not going to be even half as much fun as this post was.

Scooby-Doo! And Kiss: Rock and Roll Mystery (2015 Video)

The embodiment of everything that's wrong with kiss

[1/10 · 11 August 2015]

I *loved* kiss. Once.

Anyone old enough to remember them in the 80s? going to one of their concerts back then was still amazing, but not because of the show and the music any longer, it was because of the audience.

after licensing their image for anything that made them money, from comics to toys (a practice that still persists, only these days few care about kiss anymore), you'd go to a concert and you'd see children as young as 3 made up like one of the band, on the shoulders of their parents (also made up, and generally as peter criss/the cat), and the punchline of the joke was that a great many of these parents did not generally like either the band or the music outside of a couple of tracks.

it was their kids, that playing with kiss toys, reading kiss comics and buying into their stage personalities, became "fans" of the band.

seriously, i lived it, but you can look it up.

this was the very reason for the beginning of their decline, which then forced them to abandon the make up in an attempt to reverse the trend and return to their serious rock band days; which at that point didn't work, because by that time their mind set had switched from musical excellence to commercialism, so they lost that spark that made them special in the 70s.

things like the kiss casket, the kiss condoms, the terrible commercial lectures of ... some of the less wise members of the band, the return to the times of makeup, the GODAWFUL movies, either with the whole band or just with Simmons, and now, in the 2010s even after recognizing what a mistake they were, we're back to that. absolutely anything to make a cent regardless of its wisdom, quality, value or lack of it; it's disappointing in the extreme, also ridiculous and sad.

they were an unstoppable musical juggernaut with one of the best live shows ever, these days they might as well change the name to "MISS", not to mention the harsher alternative.

seriously avoid.

I Am ZoZo (2012)

Zozo-Boringly-Awful

[1/10 · 18 July 2015]

If you believe that such a movie can in any way be spoiled (it can't) then know that this review contains spoilers at the bottom.

I wish I could give this a 0 rather than the minimum 1 star.

I don't even understand why it's classified as "Horror, Thriller", as it contains no horror and no thrills. Also no suspense, no scares, no plot twists, and no special effects of any kind...

The *presumed* "evil" (what?) in the movie is simply suggested, and absolutely nothing of any kind happens.

If you watched this without knowing the title, genre or synopsis, you would come to the conclusion that you're watching a group of people filming themselves while on a weekend trip (to a remote cabin, of course) where they get so drunk they start scaring themselves after using a Ouija board.

In case you're still wondering: definitely. no. horror OR thriller.

The only blood you see here comes when one of the characters cleans a fish before cooking it; there's no violence of any form, nobody dies (on camera) nobody gets as much as injured.

The acting is as bad as it comes, the directing is awful, and you just won't believe how bloody silly the ending is.

It's also filmed in the style of - and with the unsteady hand of - a "found tape" movie, however the actors never interact with whoever is holding the camera or acknowledge their presence, which makes the experience just weird and unlikely from the get go.

Don't bother watching it, you'd regret it ==== "spoilers" after this===

Reason breaks down at the end, when one of the protagonists, revealed to be in an asylum (and playing the cello) says:

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BOARD? NO-ONE CAN FIND IT"

to which another character (glimpsed briefly at the beginning of the movie but never introduced, for the love of zozo) replies:

"I'm here, I'M GOING TO TAKE THE BOARD WITH ME"

... so, yeah, not all that difficult to find was it?

1st, psychiatric institutions will absolutely not allow you to keep an object (or be in a situation, if at all avoidable) that causes you anxiety or fear, so the board would be an absolute no-no.

2nd, I've yet to see a psych hospital that allows you to play a musical instrument (she's not even supervised by staff), but the setting is American, so they might, in Europe forget it.

Imaginaerum (2012)

A terrible movie, steer clear.

[1/10 · 8 May 2014]

I can't believe the current score for this movie is 6.2. This just goes to show that the vast majority of fans, especially young girls, who are of the "can't we just get along" mindset have absolutely no objectivity about anything made by their favorite musicians. The though of screening their latest material before buying, or not buying at all if it's not up to their usual high standard doesn't even enter their heads. they'll buy anything and tell you how great it is.

this movie is horrendous, what little plot there is is nonsensical, there's no motivation for anything people do ("tom, let's you and me take a trip, who knows? maybe we'll bump into someone you know", is a great reason to go flying in your pajamas during a snowstorm?) they talk of past events as if it's something you already know, discuss neglect without ever stating how Tom neglected his family, and on, and on and on. Let's face facts. Holopainen is a movie buff and soundtrack lover, and this movie is simply a platform to deliver a soundtrack, but note that only the worst of Nightwish's later material appears here.

As for fanatic apologists: I remember a thread on a forum after Tarja's firing where I stated that Annette Olzon was the wrong replacement for her, as she did not have either her vocal range or skill. While the thread had posts from hundreds of people, those who held a similar opinion were a handful only. I remember one post in particular, where a... girl... opined that having heard samples of Olzon's singing she initially doubted that she could fill Tarja's shoes, but that "after watching an interview with her and the band on you tube i've now grown to quite like her, how can you not, she's a sweetie".

So her job in the band was to spread sweetness was it? that's what she thought Olzon was hired for? PR? when I pointed this out I was booed by everybody. this deprive artists the chance to learn from their mistakes, people will buy anything so they start to think they're infallible, their material steadily declines until finally after a string of flops it's too late to recover.

please be smarter about your purchases, buying this movie because it has the name Nightwish attached to it is throwing away your money and support more products like these being made in the future.

who would have even rated this movie at all had it not been attached to Nightwish's name?