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jessefelt
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The Artifice Girl (2022)
Strong start, poor finish
This was a solid 8 for me in the first act. Act 2 brought it down to a 6, and by the end of the film, well, you can see for yourself.
I'm willing to set aside the technical inaccuracies when a movie is interesting or entertaining. I would say that as far as technical accuracy, this was written for the kind of person who thinks that ChatGPT or Google bard has even a remote speck of a chance of being sentient, that is to say, people who don't know anything about AI. There's nothing wrong with this, really. Fiction is fiction, and is not required to be technically accurate, and while I would find a movie that is highly technically accurate regarding AI, I suspect that the typical writer who knows AI would probably not produce a script that is interesting or entertaining the the vast majority of audience members.
Unfortunately, once we close on act 1, this film begins it's downward crawl from interesting. It's filled with the typical forced drama that can only happen as a result of everyone making the worst possible decisions, including the AI. Act 2 is also where the acting starts to dip, maybe this is a result of poor direction or poor writing, or most likely a combination of all three aspects being less than amazing.
And then we get to act 3 which feels a lot like victim blaming for the sake of victim blaming, fueled by an understanding of AI that has gone from "ChatGPT is sentient" to "oh, was this supposed to be about AI?". Had the film ended, even on par with act 2 I would have happily dropped 6 stars on this film, closed the tab without reviewing, and then forgotten about it until the next time I saw it show up, started watching the first few minutes and then gone "ohhhhh yeah, nevermind". But act 3 was so poorly written, with some questionable direction choices, and some of the least believable acting in the film (why is it that the AI that is convincing enough to get people who knowingly are risking criminal charges to trust it, 50 years later suddenly sounds like an AI reading one line at a time with almost not honest emotion? This HAS to have been a writing or direction problem)
Ultimately, I have to give this one a hard pass. It had a lot of potential at the beginning to dive deep into two important topics, and sadly failed to dig into either one at all beyond the same things people were saying 30 years ago.
Red Notice (2021)
I'll give it 5 for Ryan Reynolds
This was a fairly average heist plot with an interesting twist. Unfortunately the actual execution wasn't amazing. The first half hour is plagued by "that's not how that works" about every 30 seconds. Every once in a while is excusable, but when major setpieces are bathed in it, even the most capable disbelief suspender would be challenged.
It does eventually pick up a tad, though leaves plenty of wide gaping holes in logic for the sake of convenience, and even ties up a couple of early bits that felt jaw droppingly convenient, but ultimately even Ryan Reynolds couldn't bring this beyond average at best.
I'd say it's a decent popcorn flick, and has some good points. Just don't go into it expecting anything revolutionary.
Pig (2021)
Strange at first, excellent by the end.
It starts out feeling weird as balls, with an almost cognitive dissonance invoked by the similar vibes to existing properties such as John Wick or Taken. At first I was not sure whether to take this movie seriously or to view it through a lens of tongue in cheek fun-poking at a film industry that all too often resolves to copy catting successful properties rather than bringing something new, interesting, and risky to the table.
It would be too easy to see Nick Cage on the poster and assume the worst, that this is just some oddball little movie that made for an easy payday. Maybe that is what it was, maybe not. But I wholeheartedly feel that Pig has managed to be more than the sum of its parts. Nick Cage puts in a tremendous performance that feels like nothing I've seen from him before. His character feels legitimate, vulnerable, and grounded, even while surrounded by the sometimes surreal setting, such as the underground chef fight club.
You could say that this film has all of the Nick Cage with none of the Nick Rage. By the end of the film I found myself completely empathetic to each of the characters despite there having been no drawn out exposition to inform me of their past or what brought them to where they are today.
Don't let the trailer fool you, this is not your typical Nick Cage vehicle, filled with over the top ridiculousness. This film is definitely a character drama through and through. It's a sometimes slow burning journey into the soul of our main character and those around him. Fueled by what seems to be a true passion for food, almost akin to the level which we saw in John Favreau's Chef (2014). While I would place that film a step higher on the "food lovers films" list, I was constantly reminded of the care and attention given in that film and suspect that at some point in the production process someone who loves food was involved.
One Night in Bangkok (2020)
A below average copypasta.
Being practically a carbon copy og Collateral isn't really enough to warrant a poor score. It may be lazy, but I've seen it result in the copies being better than the copied.
No what really kills this is the acting and writing. The dialog was written by either a grade schooler or an alien who has never had a conversation with another human being. Nobody in the cast even approaches "actor" level of skill aside from Mark Dacascos, and even his performance is subpar, "doin' it for the paycheck" level.
Mechanically the film is well shot, though pretty standard fare. There are no glaring issues with the audio mix. The score is inoffensive, if bland. The pacing is decent, and the film does not push the boundaries of holding one's attention.
Stowaway (2021)
And interesting idea that falls apart under its own premise.
Like many other reviewers have noted, the inciting event lacks any sort of logical foundation. Everything leading up to the final moments of the film rely solidly on a fundamental gap in reality. A gap large enough that suspension of disbelief just can't bridge it.
As a film it is well made. The acting is primarily solid with only a handful of problem moments, that were most likely directoral or writing decisions. Though I found myself not connecting with the characters much at all. I liked that these were normal people with normal, realistic outlooks on the situation, and they didn't decide to fall into the typical hollywood "drama" trap. Unfortunately, I think that in an attempt to make the characters as believably normal as possible, they sort of forgot to make them interesting. This resulted in characters who mostly just exist in the story. Since this film is a character driven story, that kind of leaves the ending events a bit flat.
A 5 star rating means average, and despite the rather huge plot issue with the setup of the premise and the basic lack of fulfilling the goal of a character drama, I feel that the other elements manage to add up to counter its shortcomings, and we are left with a mainly average film that I will unfortunately forget about, and 6 months from now will see it and start watching, only to think "oh yeah..." then stop playing and move on.
Star Trek: Discovery: Terra Firma, Part 2 (2020)
The best episode of the series.
I have always seen the original Mirror Universe from TOS as merely a fun diversion for the sake of being a fun diversion that was taken FAR to seriously in later series. This two parter is the first time that I have found any modern mirror universe episodes even slightly entertaining.
This and the previous episode feel almost as if they were written by an entirely different team. So much of the god awful, amature writing appears mostly absent from this two parter. Further they seem to focus on actual character development for Georgiou, and an excellent sendoff of one of the fwe interesting and well acted characters in the show.
I didn't even mind them playing fanservice bingo with the Guardian of Forever. It didn't feel shoehorned in like so many of their previous attempts at garnering nostalgia likes, and made perfect sense within the established story.
It was these two episodes when it finally clicked with me that the Mirror Universe Michael is the real Michael, rather than the emotionally immature "space jesus" character that we have in the prime universe. It was actually interesting to see that character actually behave in a consistent, motivated, and active character, rather than the inconsistent passive character that is unfortunately this show's main character. Even Sonequa Martin-Green's terrible acting didn't manage to ruin Mirror Michael.
I feel like these two episodes really drive home the point that had this series not tried to leverage the Star Trek label in an attempt to bolster initial fans, and had instead created its own identity, it would have been significantly better, even if the writing and producers were still just as awful. It's unfortunate that Star Trek was handed to a group that doesn't have any respect or understanding for the IP and their best episodes were two that didn't even come close to dealing with this season's story, or really Star Trek in general, outside of some labels and costume/set design.
Breach (2020)
Bad on so many levels.
This film should be used as an example for some film class. Budget special effects and sets aside, this film fails on so many different levels.
The writing is bare bones soulless drivel, but that's pretty typical among these low rent scifi movies. To make the poorly paced writing worse, however, is some absolutely awful editing. The first 30 minutes of the movie feels like someone went at it with a chainsaw, leaving you wondering if you dozed off and missed something. It's possible that the script alone may have been merely bad if it had decent editing, rather than truly awful.
The walls are papered with flat characters that serve nothing more than to become fodder later. Character motivations are flimsy at best.
The camera work is at times passable, and at times seem like someone forgot they were operating a camera.
Color grading ranges from jarring and off putting to "I recognize that preset".
It's so predictable I could have told you the ending at the 30 minute mark.
It's entirely forgettable. I just finished watching it about 10 minutes ago and already can't remember any of the character's names.
This film basically offers nothing memorable or noteworthy, not even brainless action fun. A solid skip in my book. If it's on someone else's dime, perhaps it may be worth the time investment if you just need some background noise.
The Signal (2014)
A Technically Competent Almost Failure.
As I was wrapping this movie up I was already thinking "5 stars" And then they end it with two unrelated still images presented like an image screensaver. I hope they at least credited the artists they got those images from.
The movie opens with some basically needless and overly drawn out "character development". Initially I thought that they had done a decent job of showing the relationship between the three in an efficient manner. Then it just kept going, introducing a pointless conflict that adds nothing to the movie but run time and some awkward interactions immediately following.
However, it does an okay job of establishing who these characters are, even if none of that matters for the actual movie, which does start until almost 20 minutes in. I had to check that because it felt more like 45 minutes while watching it.
Unfortunately, the main characters are basically unlikable. Their actions feel unmotivated and forced. Not sure if that is the actors or the writing at fault here. I suspect the latter, as I am fairly certain Fishburne's direction included "Just like morpheus, but secretly evil". I mean, he did that well because he's a great actor, but it wasn't very surprising when he turned out to be, what I can only assume was, the "bad guy".
What follows is a compilation of the main character behaving irrationally angry in conflict to his established character in the opening scenes and Fishburne's character doing everything possible to try to misdirect the viewer.
Characters seem to all make the worst possible decisions and communicate with other characters as little as possible in order to move the plot along. Characters also seem to just not react to the reality of the situation they are in, electing, rather, to behave in whatever manner will push that plot forward, regardless of whether it is logical or makes sense.
Still, despite the problems, it was made technically well. Given the budget they seem to have done a decent job throughout the movie of keeping it looking good. Well, except for the art slideshow at the end. Also, the audio mixing was horrid early on, with dialog in some scenes quieter than the ambient room noise of the scene. I abhor having to turn up movies for dialog, only to get blasted out of my seat when the scene changes.
I didn't find myself rooting for anyone, or even really caring what happened to them, but I was intrigued by where the story might be heading. Up until the somewhat predictable ending it felt like a technically competent movie that suffers the typical problems that many modern sci fi movies fall into. The story and plot rely heavily on convenience and common sci fi tropes, but I never felt the need to just turn it off. Maybe I was getting a bit impatient for the film to just get to the point, but it managed to keep me watching, even if just to see if the movie could offer anything substantial.
Unfortunately, The Signal ends up a mostly forgettable somewhat disappointing example of amateur filmmaking.
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
Not as good as the first one, but not bad at all.
In a lot of ways, Zombieland: Double Tap feels like it's trying a bit too hard. There is a real sense of "we have to out do the last one" at times and the addition of so many new characters can result in a somewhat crowded feeling to the cast.
Two characters in particular are so one dimensionally cliche (something that the first film managed to avoid) that I have to wonder why they weren't given a bit more depth to make their inclusion feel a bit more important.
That being said, I do not feel like these ruin the film so much as lower its overall appeal just a little.
Technically speaking, the film is well made, well directed, well acted and well written, just as the first film was. Nothing felt jarring, like often happens when a sequel tries to move away from the prior film(s) stylistically. Everything was competently done, though I wouldn't expect any awards. The film doesn't really do anything new or interesting, and can feel like it's simply retreading the previous film, but it delivers on the same entertainment value of some quite funny moments mixed with some very real feelings of suspense for the characters.
It was nice to feel like the characters were in danger. This is something that can only really be done with properties like this that aren't part of a massive universe or extended canon where you know that the main characters are protected by plot armor. With a film like this there may easily never be another sequel, so it is much easier to get away with killing off major characters. The payoff to this sense of danger is much stronger empathy with the characters.
Ultimately, I would give this film a 7/10, however I gave it 8 simply to combat some of the ridiculous 1/10 scores (very very few films deserve a 1. Even fewer films deserve a 10).
The Event: I Haven't Told You Everything (2010)
Starts off bad and only seems to get worse.
The opening moments of this episode presents some sort of terrifying event taking place, but the footage on screen denies that. It's just people running and screaming. There is no hint of anything that would suggest "what is that?" For all intents and purposes, it appears to be a lovely day that people are just running and screaming during.
Now, this does seem a bit nit-picky I realize, but this is just the beginning of an episode of television that seems directionless and intentionally obfuscated. It has all the hallmarks of some low budget schlock that was greenlit as the result of some kind of nepotism.
The acting seems fairly standard for network television. Nothing too amazing or egregious happening here. The camera work is likewise pretty standard network television fare. Nobody is going to be winning any awards for this series, but not everyone has to be a winner.
The real problem is the writing (and maybe some blame can fall on everyone else for agreeing to be a part of this). The most obvious issue is the erratic time jumping that the show does. This can work, but the story needs to work before you toss it in the blender first. The result here is that you never have a solid grasp on what is happening when other than some (definitely not all) of the major plot beats. This also results in the characters never getting enough time on screen to start to give a crap about any of them (assuming you can even figure out who they are).
There's plenty of plot convenience and holes as well as multiple instance of "are the writers aliens who have never been to earth before?" level conflicts with how reality works.
Overall, I will not be watching beyond this episode and can not recommend anyone else does.
Another Life: Across the Universe (2019)
I made it to "holocall"
Like so many other reviews point out, this is a mission made up of the least qualified people possible purely for the sake of "drama"... I use the quotes there because "who is screwing who" and who is made and who is NOT drama. I mean, it is in the High School sense, but once you grow up and stop spending your days being babysat this kind of crap ceases to be an important or even interesting part of life.
But let's be honest, I wasn't expecting much more from a show that casts Katee Sackhoff. Nothing against her personally, she's a decent actress and has done some good work, but she does seem to gravitate to this kind of sub-sci-fi schlock.
No what broke the straw for me was "holo call". As if everything up to that point wasn't evidence enough that the writers for this are bottom of the barrel, lowest common denominator types. If you have to resort to renaming something to make it sound "sci fi" you don't know what you're doing. There is a reason why the only time you see this done is in low quality garbage and comedies.
Rim of the World (2019)
A confused affair.
This film seems confused about what it is trying to accomplish.
On the face of it, the premise seems like a fun movie that you can watch with your kids. Unfortunately, I would not call it a kids movie at all. Aside from the obvious things that parents might take issue with, much of the humor is childish, but obviously aimed at adults.
The movie is also filled with continuity errors, bad editing and pacing, and questionably decent photography. The acting is okay for the most part, with only a handful of examples of egregiously bad performance, and in most of those instances, I would wager it was the result of the poor writing and direction.
As others have pointed out, the vfx are not stellar, but I am going to assume that this was done on a very small budget, with the bulk of the budget going to some of the cameos and gaining access to some of the locations.
The real issue with this film, however, is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to do. One minute it seems to be a tongue in cheek commentary on the film industry, poking fun at typical movie tropes, the next it seems to want to be a "stranger things" type nostalgia trip (somehow set in modern day, but surrounded by props from every modern time period except today). Then other times it seems to be trying desperately to be a comedy, despite there being zero humor in the script.
It's not the worst film ever made by any stretch, but it is definitely a forgettable film that you will see listed somewhere a year or two from now and think "that sounds interesting" until you start watching and then realize you've already seen it.
Infinity Chamber (2016)
Technically decent, but ultimately meaningless.
I love the idea of this movie, and if I were to rate it purely on the technical execution, it is pretty decently done.
Unfortunately, that's about all it has going for it. The twist (if you can even really call it that) relies on lying to the viewer, rather than building something that shows the truth upon deeper inspection. almost 90% of the film is just a waste of time, trying to convince the viewer that something deeper is happening, only to have the ru pulled out from under you when the "big twist" ending happens and you are left wondering why things just don't fit.
I'm not sure if the script was a dud, or if the production of the movie ruined a good script, but I suspect it's both.
Honestly, I wouldn't bother with this one. There is nothing about this movie that stands out as notable, not even notably bad.... It feels like just another forgettable tax shelter film.
Origin (2018)
Probably worth half a star more.
***I try to avoid outright spoilers, but marked this review as containing spoilers just in case.***
I always make a point of ignoring 1 star and 10 star reviews. Very rarely is a movie or show honestly bad enough to warrant a single star, and even more rarely is one worthy of 10, and Origin brings some good things to the table.
The photography is good, if fairly run of the mill. While it never does anything to stand out, that isn't a bad thing. Often creative camera work can get in the way of story telling if it isn't done as part of the story telling. There are a few moments where the camera work gets a little off kilter, but these are few and far between.
The acting is mostly good. I wouldn't look to see any awards for acting in the future of the cast, but they all play their parts adequately, especially when compared to the normal television acting we see. A few stand out moments elevate their scenes and a few scenes are brought down by some questionable acting, but by and large, it is all performed well.
The effects are done well, and appear to have been done with a healthy budget. There are a couple of moments of "CGI" that show up here and there, but nothing to get overly nit picky for.
There are a couple of legitimately excellent bits here. One involves an airlock and the acting from Fraser James is excellent! This scene is hands down one of the best in the series, by far.
Second, episode 8 (Funeral Blues) is great! Unfortunately not for anything that happens on the ship, but for Fionnula Flanagan and Tom Felton. Mia was an excellent character, and I loved her. This episode builds so much more character than any of the other backstories. It builds a very solid backbone for Logan's character. Hands down the best episode of the series.
So why only 4 (and a half if we could get that granular) stars?
Well, it really comes down to the writing, and at least a little bit direction, as well as some annoying little things that sort of piled up for me.
This show is incredibly derivative. Shun's flash back scenes are trying so hard to blade runner that you have to wonder if they watched blade runner for guide on what props to buy and what colors to pick out and what notes to play in the score. I mean, they ape it ALL... I was constantly reminded of OTHER shows and movies throughout the series. Each character seems to have some show or some movie that their story is ripped off from, stylistically.
It's one thing to take inspiration from, or pay homage to another show or film, but there is a big difference between that and just copycatting. I honestly think that this hurts the show in a major way, because these things prevent the show from having it's own identity, and the recall of other (better) shows and films leads to immediate comparisons that make Origin feel worse than it is.
The overarching plot is pretty obvious from the get go, with characters telegraphing things through the (generally) sub par dialog in many scenes quite obviously. So by the time you make it to the last shot, it doesn't pay off. You can tell that the final shot was done very intentionally to show the audience how they've been "gotten" by the clever writing. Unfortunately, you can see it coming from a mile out. I actually wrote down my suspicions before the first episode ended, and was quite close to spot on.
The dialog can be very lackluster at times, with characters speaking more like high school students, or some middle aged person's impression of what high school must be like these days. It's not persistent throughout the entire series, but there are a few lines that just made me groan with how bad they were.
This brings me to another point. This is really something that is just a general problem with episodic writing overall. Much of the character writing seems to have been done from the perspective of someone who has zero life experience to inform character actions. Characters behave in ways that serve the plot, rather than in ways that works to build their character out. Like I said, this is really a problem with writing in general, and not specific to Origin, however Origin is certainly not holding back in this regard.
For example, a character who was the only person to support another character suddenly treats that person as though they are the worst human being alive for no "in character" reason, but merely to push forward the person's flash back sequence of feeling guilt. Rather than using an already antagonistic character for this purpose, the writers seem to have decided that it would carry more weight coming from the one person who had been supportive previously. Unfortunately, this undercuts both characters in the process.
And again, this touches on another problem. Another problem that is increasingly common in episodic writing. I call it the "battlestar galactica 90210" problem, where every character hates every other character and nobody in the show is likable by even a stretch. I think most television writers call this "edgy". To be fair, Origin doesn't suffer as much from this plague as most shows do, but it definitely rears it's ugly head often enough to be fatiguing on the viewer.
Another example is some silly idea that having epilepsy makes you the target of hatred or something. I can't even imagine how humanity would have gotten to that point. The worst part is that it is a completely useless thing in the first place. It is never even explored in that characters backstory episode, not even mentioned.... Why is this in the story at all?
I think my biggest issue with the writing is the cheating. Instead of coming up with creative ways to mislead the viewer, they just outright lie to them. The appeal of the "twist ending" is being able to catch clues and hints throughout that point to that outcome without giving it away or telegraphing things, so that viewers can have that "oh MAN!, I THOUGHT that was weird" moments, or be able to go back and re-watch to catch these things with a sense of "wow, they did their homework on this one!"
Origin, however, portrays everything with no clues or hints. They lie to the viewer in order to hide the twist. They then come back in at the end and fill in the missing pieces to make it appear as though this was some intricate web of crafty writing. The test is to see if you can take out any of the "revelation" scenes at the end and have the twist still make sense. In the case of Origin, it doesn't. It falls flat on it's back and flounders there on the shore gasping for air. Combine all of this with the cliche telegraphing that happens, and you end up with a twist ending that isn't a twist, and has zero payoff. The show just ends and the viewer feels like they've been robbed.
Lastly, the nit picky things that some will say ruin the show, and others say "get a life, suspension of disbelief!"
The design of the ship is ridiculous. The first episode shows the characters looking out of the window standing on what should be the floor in a rotation ring false gravity environment (ignoring that this may not even be feasible in reality anyways). If you are using rotation to simulate gravity via centripetal force, you would be standing on the "outside" of the ring with your head pointed toward the center of rotation. I don't understand how so many shows seem to be getting this wrong lately. All you have to do is ride a merry-go-round to understand how this works.
THEN, we see the central shaft elevator, where the characters are standing perpendicular to the rotational direction of the rings, as though gravity is being simulated through the forward motion of the craft, with the floor on the engine end and ceiling on the bridge end (nevermind that on the bridge we are looking out as though we are entirely perpendicular to that).
Then in scenes shot in the crew quarters we see stars moving vertically out the windows, indicating that the rooms are arranged along an entirely different axis.
And let's not even get started on how silly an escape hatch in the air lock is.
Absolutely zero thought was put into any of this, and it is obvious. It's not a case of an "oops, we didn't think of that". There was obviously zero thought put into the actual layout of the ship. It's lazy, and lazy is not something that is okay in Scifi. Lazy is what you do when you just want to label something scifi in order to get the audience numbers. Everything is as it is merely to move the story along, rather than to build a world that feels real.
Next we have the ship itself. Is it a solar sail, or does it move with the massive engines at the back? Wait, it has an FTL drive? And if that's a solar sail, why is it tiny and made up of even tinier bits? Did you just write "solar sail" because you saw it in an IFLS post on facebook? AHA, that's precisely what you did, isn't it? You didn't even bother to do even the most rudimentary research. In fact, you didn't even use common sense to work out that a SAIL needs to be able to catch wind, and a sail with a bunch of holes in it doesn't work very well.
And why would you have a solar sail on a ship with an FTL drive anyways? The purpose of a solar sail is long distance travel at speeds nearing the speed of light. It takes a very long time for the craft to speed up (50% of the journey, in fact) and then another 50% of the time to slow down. If you have FTL a solar sail is completely useless and a terrible thing to spend money building.
Bird Box (2018)
A sadly missed opportunity.
Bird Box appears at first glance to be an attempt to cash in on the success of A Quiet Place, however the timing does not support this idea. Neither does the existence of the original source material that this movie was based on. A Quiet Place, however, is a significantly better film unfortunately.
I think the biggest issue with this film is that it destroys any sense of tension right off the bat with it's present day/5 years ago flashback method. The moment any other characters show up on screen you already know that they die because you've already seen the future, leaving the viewer in a state where none of the characters matter, even if they are well acted. Everything else being equal, if they had simply told the story in chronological order, I might have given this 6 and a half or even 7 stars. Unfortunately, the film ruins any suspense or surprise it could have had.
The acting is solid to good. Personally I'm a fan of Bullock and I feel she pulled of the character well, even if it was a generally unlikable character. Malkovich turns in a pretty standard Malkovich job, playing the typical insufferable genius trope character. Still a trope, even if they hang a lampshade on it.
Trevante Rhodes puts in a good performance. It's just unfortunate that the character is pretty flat and meets a completely predictable end. I would have liked seeing more of the character interaction between Tom and Malorie. They could have easily removed the silly "totally not intelligent zombies" and just focused on actually showing us the relationship growing between these two a little more.
Danielle Macdonald did a good job of playing the sacrificial lion. I really liked her character. She came across as genuine, even if she really only existed to die and provide Malorie with the tools to grow.
By contrast, Sarah Paulson serves as the sacrificial lamb, and seems to turn in about as in depth job as one would expect from someone who knows their character is gone and forgotten by page 10. She's not bad, but she's not good. She's pretty much just there until she dies.
The last of the characters who are more than just set dressing, we have Tom Hollander playing the obviously evil wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't have a problem with his job on this character, so much as the existence of the character at all in this form. Maybe it's a result of the aforementioned dead giveaway that everyone dies, but this character's actions are so blatantly obvious that I just sat there waiting for it to happen, surprised they managed enough restraint to not just do it i the next scene.
I think this really pinpoints the second major reason why I am rating this film so low. The script is just so obvious and trope-filled. Nothing about it is unpredictable, and that just makes it boring. It's one thing to follow a formula when making a movie, but this just comes across as lazy and uncreative. I don't know, maybe the book is just a bad? I had never heard of it prior to the movie, so I can't say.
The characters are all pretty flat and one dimensional, none of them particularly memorable outside of the performance quality of the actors. There is honestly zero earned character growth, with Malorie basically being a terrible mother from start to 30 seconds before finish, when she suddenly turns into a warm and caring person for some reason. Maybe the book goes into more detail about WHY she is so detached and cold toward the children, and at a logical level I can completely understand the intention behind the character, but the character we get in the movie never comes off as deep enough for it to hold water. She flips a switch at the end of the film with no development or growth of the character prior. It's just... POOF, literally 30 seconds before fade to black.
The camera work was good, if fairly standard fare. I can't really knock a film for having standardly executed camera work. It doesn't make the film any more memorable, but it also doesn't detract from the film. It seems to have been done by a pro... and nothing more.
The big evil feels a little.... convenient as well. It is presented as some deep mysterious force, then suddenly it affects some people differently and turns them into smart blindfold zombies (or religious zealots, you choose). Then later we are shown that not only are these people affected similarly, but they can apparently turn off the freaky eye job in order to infiltrate the resistance. It all just feels contrived, especially when at the end they check the eyes to make sure Malorie and the kids are safe. We are also shown at the end that this mysterious force can cause physical damage to things in the world, as they knock over trees chasing after Malorie. This really causes one to wonder why it doesn't just come through the door, or easily breakable glass windows instead of playing this long con with crazy people smart blindfold zombies?
Lastly, I feel like I have to point out the completely flat ending that not only does nothing to resolve or even hint as resolution of the baseline threat in the film, but a huge continuity error actively interfered with the ending in a way that made me THINK it was going somewhere actually interesting, rather than just the sappy saccharine happy ending we got.
That moment was after Malorie falls down the hill on their way to the commune at the end. When she crawls back out she finds the bicycle bell that Girl had on the ground and picks it up. She then proceeds to call out for the children until she hears the bicycle bell being rung by Boy. Immediately I thought "where did he get the bell from? she JUST picked it up seconds ago?". I then started to wonder if maybe they were going to work in a twist where this is all in her head, she opened her eyes after falling, and they are giving us a peak at what people see right before they suicide or go crazy pants. For the first time in the film I felt like it could be something interesting. And then we got to the school for the blind and everything is happily ever after.
It's not a terrible film. It is, overall well made, with the technical parts of film making done adequately. But it is a lackluster, poorly written and ultimately forgettable film that fails to live up to the slightest level of tension that it purports to deliver.
(seriously, I mean, a school for the blind, in the middle of the woods, only accessible via the river? And how "poetic" that it's a school for the Blind. In a world where seeing gets you killed! HA! it's deep and meaningful!)
2036 Origin Unknown (2018)
Trying way too hard to turn clickbait headlines into hard sci fi.
This movie is not good. Aside from the obvious no-budget cgi and vfx (let's be honest here, a high school kid with a copy of blender and after effects could do better), the script is poorly paced and filled with unimportant filler that lacks any connection to the end goal of the film.
It takes itself very seriously, and you can tell it is trying as hard as it possibly can to be deep and meaningful like the various films it rips off (some WAY more obviously than others). Unfortunately, what you end up with in this movie is an hour and 10 minutes of irrelevant meandering dialog, so unaware of reality that it often becomes painful to listen to. Then 20 minutes of the film masturbating to its own cleverness.
I go in depth as to how wrong the technical details are, or how the writer was obviously inspired by IFLS clickbait "science" headlines on facebook and did basically no actual research into any of it. But rather than harp on about something most people probably don't care about or won't even notice, I'll just leave it at that.
Sackhoff turns in a typical performance. I get that a lot of people like her, but I have never found her performances much more than adequate. Every role I have seen her in has been the same basic character. Maybe she's just unlucky and is continually sucked into terribly written schlock. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt here. There is nothing offensive in her performance, it just lacks any depth or soul.
The supporting cast is your average b sci fi fare. They have so little screen time that it's hard to even justify mentioning much about them.
The overall story and writing is where this one falls hard on its face. Almost none of the character actions have any established reasoning. Everything each character does happens simply because the script says so, and the script never once bothers to question whether or not a character would have any reason to act in such a way. The ultimate conceit of the film is propped up on this illogical reasoning, as if the characters WANT terrible things to happen. This is most likely because the film was written in order to achieve the last 10 minutes of the movie, with little or no concern for whether or not that would create a plausible story.
This ultimately results in a story that you just simply have no reason to be invested in. No character is written any deeper than what it takes to push the plot along, and you never have any reason to connect with them.
I cannot recommend this movie, even as a "so bad it's good" because it's just not entertaining, and if you have any amount of pedantry in your for science and sci fi, you will actively dislike it. I, myself actually did a facepalm multiple times as just how terrible it was.
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (2016)
A Paint By Numbers Sci Fi flick.
Another reviewer put it well. This is a B movie that doesn't realize it's a B movie. There is a sense of quality sitting under the surface throughout the entire film, like there is a pretty good movie trying to get out.
The camera work is adequate, and sometimes even manages to push into the territory of good. The set pieces, while obviously budget, are quite well done, as are the props.
The monsters kind of fall on the goofy side, both in appearance as well as design and concept. Their existence really doesn't make much sense even within the story being told. The ability to "self replicate" is a feature that would have never been incorporated, and since the story seems to imply that they were engineered by "evil company name here", this feature feels more like a tacked on way to push the plot. A "Oh crap, how does he become a monster at the end?" type of thing.
The out of order scenes don't really work within the pacing of the story and feels like something done after the fact, rather than as part of the writing. Overall the editing feels pretty bog standard "I learned Adobe Premiere!" and lack any sense of artistry.
I will say that the ending "twist" I did not see coming, though that could as well be simply because the monsters and their transformation is never developed. They are portrayed as basically mindless killing machines, with the exception for the flashes of the one that kills the warden, however this does not establish that they have any level of intelligence that would make the ending make sense.
The acting is okay, though some of the dialog is a bit stilted at times. Whether this is due to the writing, direction or acting, I am not entirely sure.
At the end of the day, I get the impression that this film was done by someone who knew how to do everything, but lacked a real understanding of WHY to do everything. It's like they learned everything from film making for dummies, or from YouTube tutorials, and have only a grasp of the technical aspects, and none of the art. This ultimately makes the film feel very pain by numbers. Everything is there, but nothing feels like it really matters to the story.
The Titan (2018)
Poorly written. Meh Execution. Tonally Challenged. At best, amateur.
I can never stand "sci fi" that ignores science to this degree. That being said, I typically don't walk away from a movie on that alone. The premise is preposterous and feels like the entire concept was someone's random joke movie concept that someone else took way too far.
Beyond that, we are met with a film that steadily pushes the boundaries of credibility. I lost count of the number of times the story seems to have forgotten dialog that came before, or characters behaving completely contrary to their established behavior earlier. The story seems to want to be making some kind of grand statement, but ignores and invalidates everything it says at some point later.
The story has no idea when to stop, and has no idea what any character's motivations are. It seems to want to pull a fast one on the viewer so there are many false leads (or maybe those are just an artifact of how poor this whole thing is). And in the end the twist is... well what the bad guy said he was going to do at the beginning of the film... or maybe it's that after apparently refusing to the point of requiring a "chemical lobotomy" to go to titan, the film ends with him standing on titan. I guess the movie needed a bad guy, and someone forgot that they had to "beat the bad guy" so they shoehorned in somie comeuppance for him or something.
Multiple times the movie seems to shift tone from being a serious potentially interesting character study of what someone might experience going through something like this, to a scary thriller, to an action flick, and finally ending on something that feels like a wanna be iron giant/disney movie type of thing.
At the end of the day, this was mostly just another letdown of a film. It never delivers on anything it sets up. It lacks the depth or creativity to be meaningful, but falls way too short of being just another "popcorn movie". It's 100% predictable, except where they either intentionally do something to mislead the audience, or just have no idea what they are putting on screen. No character feels more than flat and no story arc finds any resolution. This is, at best, an amateur writing endeavor.
Moontrap: Target Earth (2017)
Truly a disaster
When I happened across this on Amazon video, I decided "Sure, let's watch a terrible scifi flick". I promptly informed my room mate, who loves terrible movies, and I started up the movie.
First impression was "wtf?" which incited some laughter, when the main character subsequently responds with "wtf?"
The first interaction between the two main characters was surprisingly acceptable. It actually felt like real people talking to each other. Unfortunately, this ended up raising expectations. Expectations which were promptly dashed.
This film has zero flow, massive holes in the story and plot, and I'm fairly certain that at least one scene was edited into the wrong place. The story has no substance or investment, and merely happens. Not much at all happens in a realistic or natural way. Most of the dialog is dreadfully bad, to the point that some scenes felt like random words were thrown at the page until a word count was met.
There is no depth to any of the characters, and many of the characters just show up out of nowhere, add nothing to the scene, and feel entirely like set dressing. It's as though someone thought "There's not enough movement happening in the background, we should put something there to keep people's attention."
At times the movie feels like it is taking itself WAY too seriously. like this was going to be the next 2001 or something, then at other times, it feels intentionally bad. This is precisely the kind of movie that makes me think "How come I'm not making movies? I can do better than this at least."
The effects are particularly bad. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect much from these low budget sci fi movies that have become so prolific in recent times as a result of cheap CG effects that literally 10 year olds can get into now, but this was on a whole new level of bad. I would be ashamed of myself if I ever let anyone see something like this with my name on it. Actually, that might be why I don't make movies... I'm terrible at CGI.
Finally, the acting is typically terrible for a low budget film. Honestly, the acting was probably the best part of the film, as bad as the acting was. I just hope that nobody was expecting this to be their big break or anything.
Bottom line, if you're into terrible B movie scifi, you might get a kick out of this, but there is better terrible movies out there. I would never pay to watch this, but it it's free, most people might still find it overpriced.