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nkasherov
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Hold the Dark (2018)
No clue
Basically this movie had potential to be a great (supernatural or crime or psychological) suspense thriller. Intriguing plot albeit slow most of the time, great acting, dark mood, wolves, some surprising out of the blue action, a lot of murders, hints about wolves having great importance/influence...
HOWEVER, the movie lacked 2 things:
- coherent enought story to put everything in context and to give it some meaning... or
- meaningful ending to explain it all - after two hours of things happening in a very interesting way you hoped the ending will wrap it in a way to explain the events taking place. BIG NO. I am relatively intelligent. I understand there are artistic movies out there that leave you hanging after the end, that leave more questions than they answer or that try to make you figure out about the deeper meaning of what you saw. Well this movie just ends, no hits at all, not enough material to speculate why you wasted 2 hours of your life on this title. One literal WTF was all that about. If they had definitely suggested in a more trivial/banal way that the main characters were actually wolves born humans or that they were psychopaths I would give 7 or 8 stars... they barely touch the mystical/supernatural hypothesis here and there... in the end they just left me infuriated and sick
The Dragon Prince (2018)
Absolutely lovely
This is a fantasy adventure set in the context of epic war between humans and elves (and dragons). I do not know why other reviewers keep comparing it to Avatar: Last Airbender; for me The Dragon Prince managed to create its own unique universe and setting despite not deviating too far from classic Kingdom/Magic/Elements/Evil Mage/Dragon etc archetypes.
The series is clearly targeted at younger audiences, however everything is so well put together (despite many drawbacks) that most adults would find it very intriguing and entertaining. What makes it work really are the varied and interesting characters. The villain, while power hungry, believes he is doing it for the survival and well-being of the human race. He has two children - a mage and a knight, which are important and well developed personalities of their own, who do not suspect as of yet about their father's true nature. There is the obligatory funny animal pet (its kind of a magical frog) and it works well since it is not overdone and is well integrated/used in the storytelling. What I loved most are the elves and the main elven character in particular. She is beautiful, sexy, fierce. I would marry her in real life :) Very important - she and all elves speak with Gaelic accent which really contributes to the story setting.
Why do I give it 8 instead of 10 rating then? As indicated by other reviewers the animation, while captivating, is not that impressive compared to other titles. Furthermore, at some point in the story, they start putting a few too many jokes. While I enjoyed almost all of them in a good lighthearted way and even laughed out loud I think they overdid it and diluted character development. Yet again, the Dragon Prince was clearly meant for children and teens so I get it. However, if you are an adult with a weak spot for addictive fantasy epic go for this one - the characters and action scenes are worth watching enough. As I wrote above, despite some mediocre elements in the mix, it is so well put together that it makes me want more!
Scramble (2017)
A "bad" movie worth watching
This is a low budget action-thriller attempt to be one of those hipster funny violent movies such as Pulp Fiction and Two Smoking Barrels. The script is a chain of over the top cliches, the protagonist is (intentionally?) hilariously miscast, acting is all over the place (overacting mostly), the camera is gently waving most of the time. There is a twist in the movie! Served in advance so casually that by the time a certain character says"I am not the bad guy!" you already know what is going on...
However, I gave this movie a 7 to pay respect to the people who made it happen. I usually get bored by low budget nonsense but Scramble ... the title itself suits it perfectly and makes me smile having watched the movie already. The team did really put great effort to make this project entertaining and fun. If you stay through the first 20 minutes it gets so amusing, interesting and hilarious that you extend the benefit of the doubt and will not get disappointed.
For me actress Marissa Von Bleicken performed the best in the movie even if we barely see her in action.
626 Evolution (2017)
A TV commercial of Danielle Chuchran
626 Evolution is a low/no budget project with relatively cheap equipment acted by some obviously professional stunt-men, not all of which have acting talent. The end result is a TV-like, low budget, home-made action video. I cannot, in all good faith, give this project a 6 (above average) despite all the obvious efforts of the crew who made it. The whole story and its seriousness plays out as pretentious, try-hard attempt to convince us that it is more than an under- financed love child of the ... director I suppose. They tried really hard to make it more creative and professional - first- person and security/drone/satellite cameras point of view for the great majority of the viewing... and approximately the third of the movie is ruined by the teenage girl narrating some clichés behind camera. Thus, successfully and consistently irritating you due to either the shaky or pointless first person camera view or by the annoying girl reading her lines heartlessly.
Why would you want to watch this movie? Danielle Ryan Chuchran. She is sexy, athletic, knows how to fight and acts well, within the boundaries of the script available. The guys do their best with serious expressions to do their part but, well, not really great actors or at least not with that storyline and budget constrains. The teenage girl presence and acting are underwhelming.
Respect to all involved but it is not a great stand alone project. Danielle Chuchran - now I know you exist :)
UPDATE: After watching Alien:Covenant I give this move movie a 6.
A Dark Song (2016)
Low budget lets this great effort down
I am giving this project a 6 despite being ultimately very disappointing.
The good: The movie has this gripping, real life occult realism - the build up is very slow but you are immersed in the atmosphere, it really follows the occult procedures for conducting a very long, intricate and dangerous ritual. The two main characters are damaged material, each in his/her own unique way. You soon understand this cannot bring anything good, the lies, the emotional instability, changing motivation ... all in the middle of this unnerving opening to the other world process. Catherine Walker gives a great performance.
The bad: it builds up very slowly to establish a great promise, only to disappoint in the end. Initial effects and demonic presences are very convincing, however when things are supposed to go downhill we are treated with a bunch of wrapped actors-pretending-to-be- ehhmhm damned souls? Demonic spirits? In material form? Should have used some old fashioned effects instead. The final scene made no sense to me...Forgiveness, really? All this mess finishes with some shallow naive excuse disconnected to the whole premise?
In my view this is a great effort worth watching but ultimately failed by the low budget that did not allow for a more creative, coherent ending with better special effects illustrating the demonic manifestations.
Terre des ours (2014)
An amazing and intimate insight into the life of bears
Yes, there are spoilers in this review hehe.
This documentary is for all of you and your children who want to learn more about bears; for all who feel connection to nature and our little brothers and sisters. It shows the life of bears during their life-cycle throughout the year with its hardships, challenges and simple joys of being and survival.
The movie can be watched in a kind of meditative state accommodated by the smooth voice of the narrator, Kamchatka's beautiful scenery and the pleasant soundtrack.
What is different about this movie compared to all other bear movies? First, it takes place in Kamchatka and not Alaska or Canada so there are some new amazing spots such as the hot springs valley surrounded by yet frozen landscape and the great lake bears gather around to fish for salmon. Second, it is the intimate connection with the bears this movie manages to effortlessly inspire in you. While you don't exactly follow the life of one particular individual throughout the year, some "muzzles" remain a constant and a familiar presence. Moreover, the filmmakers captured and focus your attention to certain cute and adorable moments that make you relate as a member of a/the bear family. A brother and sister meeting again, playing and being happily reunited for a while. An old male hugging trees and rubbing like a little cub. And yet a sad moment of orphaned young bears stealing food from younger cubs in order to survive.
I give this movie a 9 out of 10. Some nature documentaries are very interesting but this project engages you on both intellectual and emotional level. It is also great social and educational experience for the entire family and especially little children.
NH10 (2015)
The hype is unreal... I mean movie is not that special
OK, I had relatively high expectations for this movie due to the positive reviews and promising story. However, I was disappointed. The protagonist to begin with was very annoying - a moody career obsessed female. The actual action is preset with a random criminal attack and acts of violence plus people in the office seems to disrespect her. Then she and her boyfriend go for romantic trip to the countryside, get lost in a detour and encounter some thugs. The boyfriend is @smart@ enough to go back and confront them and all hell .... loose. I assume that having a strong woman in an action movie instead a sugar coated Bollywood heroin is impressive in India but I also assume the movie would not be appreciated that high internationally. I give it a 6 as it is a decent movie nevertheless.
Skin Trade (2014)
Surprisingly fun and entertaining!
OK, I am not a studio guy but whoever tells you this movie is trash is really pretentious. I have seen many B movies and most are just plain boring clichés. This one is not original but is a solid, well made piece of entertainment. Redundant and extra cheesy dialog at times, however action scenes are very good, including the martial arts ones (Tony Jaa and Michael Jai White...enough said). Great cast (Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman and several other well known names...) with very decent acting at the very least. Production value is excellent.
On the bad side, movie is indeed a cliché with a very formulaic dialog. Acting is ... overacting to wooden at times. However, for what it is - a surprisingly fun and satisfying B movie I give it a 7 with no regrets.
Northmen: A Viking Saga (2014)
What a pleasant surprise of an adventure!
The movie is about a band of vikings stranded on the coast of Scotland after a mighty storm. Soon after there are some clichés thrown at you - a noble viking leader, a stubborn maiden in distress, bad king, evil warrior villain, a Christian fighting monk... However the movie far surpassed my humble expectations. While not related to anything remotely historic, it is well executed with realistic combat, costumes (no horned helms yey!), great cinematography...The music is very well suited to the tempo and helps submerge you into the story. I liked how the combat is very frequent yet naturally blended into the plot and when there is no combat they mixed in some intense character building scenes. I give it 7 out of 10 as it is not the best it could have been, not the great adventure saga it aspires to be.
Fist 2 Fist 2: Weapon of Choice (2014)
A clichéd throw back to the past of bad action B movies
A typical story action movie about a close relative kidnapped and a father assassin going on a crazy killing spree against the bad guys.
Good about this movie - great to see real life Hapkido put in some use The protagonist acts well and is a convincing serious guy. The villain acts as good as is possible with the script given. That is about it
Bad, really everything else. Especially the annoying semi hard rock music typical for some 80s action trash movies. Also the sudden zoom ins just when the bad guys are to die. The bad guys cannot act even with the black masks put on.
Overall it is a low budget B movie with bad camera work, annoying soundtrack, clichéd script.
Outpost 37 (2014)
Low Budget Not Alien Outpost
The idea - a documentary footage movie about the last anti-alien invasion outpost on Earth is great. However, the low budget execution makes the movie not worth watching. The movie in fact is showing us a USA military outpost in Afganistan - the setting is the same, landscape is the same, 95% of the time the enemies are human veiled Muslims. I am not kidding. If you watch this movie for its 98% of length not knowing anything about the Alien part of the title...well even if you know the title and they keep talking about the aliens you will still be convinced they talk about the Muslims. The meager few minutes showing us actual aliens and their base are not enough to redeem it, even if the effects are convincing. The low budget fails the movie even as an Afgan war movie - too many one on one interviews with soldiers to make it look more documentary-type and realistic. Too many shots of soldiers yelling and screaming and shooting at something we do not see - where is the action in that? When we see it, the enemy are actually other humans (Muslims) shooting ordinary weapons. Acting is good for what it is. I would really like to see this movie redone with a proper budget, better editing and more actual aliens in it.
Everly (2014)
Over the top unoriginal low budget Tarantino wanna be - Kill Bill it is not
Movie is so bad, any review is one giant Warning! Spoilers!
OK...hmh so in short it is a low budget attempt to create an original violent movie in the category of Kill Bill, Sin City, Machete and the like. Low budget - literally all the movie takes place in one apartment. So low that some scenes were literally acted through phone conversations. Most of the actors are not very good or over-react badly so I assume they did cut corners in the budget there too. Salma is acting well though. In the first ten minutes we are set in some sort of a cliché - bad criminal boss, child daughter in danger, bad ass chick alone vs the world. This is the story line. From there it just gets into ridiculous illogical acting and turn of events only to justify a great number of senseless not very interesting murders. Dialog formulaic and clichéd. For some reason somebody thought it would be very funny if there are a Christmas carols in the soundtrack.
Some scenes were pointlessly stupid or gross. Only shock value. Like the scene in which the heroine survived a grenade in the face. Or when her mother was killed. Twice. Or when she takes out a machine gun and start shooting against a sniper that has her locked from 50 meters away. Oh she misses. And yes, the sniper guy then pulls out a grenade launcher and misses her in turn.
I give this movie a 5 for all the effort Salma put in it.
47 Ronin (2013)
Terribly disappointing
I knew this movie was bad from reviews, but I went to see it anyways because I like Reeves and hoped for some good entertainment. Well, the movie happened to be really... bad.
First of all, movie starts stupidly with a narrative of Reeves raised as a child from tengo-demons yet a minute later you are told he is so... gentle. In a few minutes they tell you the daughter of the clan leader and he are deep in love and this is character development the movie is based on. I do not mind if they put a white guy as the lead and tainting the real legend with some love story if executed well. But because of dull, stupid, clichéd dialog and bad acting the movie is predictable, mechanic, unconvincing and damn straight stupid. It is an insult to the original story of the 47 ronin. It is a movie telling to you "I am a legendary movie because I am telling you so". They added fantasy fairy tale twist to the original story. This could work if the ronins were trying to reach the enemy castle fighting waves of enemies and assassins, falling in traps, having heroic deaths ...but actually ALL the fights in the movie besides the final battle are short, dull and irrelevant to story line. In fact the trailer contains all the good moments. And no, there is no cool tattooed guy to fight with. There is no real demon monk fight as shown in the trailer. By the way, Buddhist tengu demons training killers to protect their "beliefs"? I mean, really? Next - the BIG guy in the movie everyone expected to serve as a minor boss and have a great eye candy duel with, gone in a second blown by a bomb. The enemy clan leader - running and fighting like a pussy in the end. The final boss fight happened with the dragon-witch...and our hero used his magical power cheat-cheesy move to kill the dragon, the same magical power he has from the start of the story but never used before? All those fights from the trailer are so short and unimportant you just know they put it there as fillers. Probably for this reason you see no more than ten ronins in most scenes. One of the guys specifically says they are 47 because you would never believe they are more than 15 till the final scene. Where nobody is seen to use the magical swords they were given by the demons in any special way.
200 ml dollars spent on this movie? Hollywood product placement idiocy. They should rather have made this movie a psychological drama with an epic real played battle in the end rather than waste cash on computer animations.