vincewansink Reviews

Civil War (2024)

So boring

[1/10 · 13 April 2024]

This was not a war movie. This was a road trip movie, and not a very good one. By the time the action came around, during the last ten minutes, I found myself not even caring anymore. I just wanted it to be over. The soldiers were poorly acted and the battles poorly written. It was almost laughable but what really stood out to me was that the film, presumably in trying to show "the horrors of war", ended up showing only war crimes. All these soldiers seemed to be heartless psychos eager to murder unarmed people and finally the president. The other war scenes showed bodies hanging from bridges, and rogue soldiers filling a mass grave with civilian bodies. It wasn't a depiction of war. It was a depiction of madness.

And of course, the predictable death of the veteran journalist while the young prodigy looks on, was so dumb. The young one steps into the hallway to take a picture while bullets are flying, which was dumb of course, and the veteran, recognizing her stupidity, jumps up and pushes her down to save her, then she herself stands in the middle of the hallway waiting to get shot, which is even more dumb. Duh! If you know it's not safe to stand in the hallway, why are you standing in the hallway?? Is this what the writers went on strike for? To give us more garbage like this?

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

Boring and confusing

[5/10 · 6 August 2023]

I really wanted to love this movie because I am a history buff and I wanted to see the story behind the bomb, and in a way I did get the story behind the bomb, but in a very confusing and boring way. The movie kept jumping around between time periods before the war and after the war, showing all kinds of scenes out of sequence, which if done right can be very effective, but in this movie it was done wrong, very wrong. A simple "1939" on the screen would've made things clear, but I guess we're just supposed to know. Even at the end of this three hour long marathon I was still confused about many of the scenes, and it wasn't just about the time periods, but the dialogue itself was confusing. Half the time I didn't know what or who they were talking about, and the last hour, after the bomb exploded, was not only boring and confusing, but also entirely pointless and the movie would've been better without it. In addition, they added in these scenes, presumably for dramatic effect, that were intended to show the character's emotions or thought process at the time, showing us what he was feeling but was not actually happening, and that too missed the mark for me. Much of it was just awkward and annoying. It wasn't all bad. The acting was very good, and some of the scenes were very powerful, but overall I'm still very disappointed in this movie. It could've been so much more entertaining.

Army of the Dead (2021)

A few stupid scenes ruin an otherwise good movie

[5/10 · 4 December 2021]

This is a sequel to Army of Thieves which I thought was an excellent movie. The holdover from that movie is the Sebastien safe cracker character and he's the best character in this movie as well, by far.

If it were not for a few stupid scenes I would've really liked this movie. For example.

1. When one member of the team gets separated and is fighting a horde by herself, then jumps through a window where her team is, she continues to fight for her life while her team is standing about 20 feet away and instead of helping her by shooting the zombies around her, they just stand there and watch as she kills another ten zombies by herself and finally gets overwhelmed. They could've easily saved her. So stupid.

2. At one point they kill the queen and say "if they find her body, we're screwed". So instead of hiding the body, they walk away and leave her body lying in the middle of the street where she is of course found. So stupid.

3. When the zombie boss comes at them with a bullet proof helmet, they shoot him in the helmet a few times as he's walking towards them and realize it's pointless, so they lower their weapons. Zombie boss then takes off his helmet, and instead of trying to shoot him in the head again they try to fist fight him, and of course lose. So stupid.

4. When they finally reach the rooftop helicopter to escape, knowing they have just a couple of minutes before the nuke lands on Vegas, instead of jumping in and flying away they stand outside the chopper and have some witty banter with the pilot, wasting valuable seconds. Then zombie boss comes out and they finally jump in and fly away, but instead of flying up away from the zombie, they fly down off the side of the building so zombie boss can jump down into the helicopter. So stupid.

Scenes like this just ruin a good movie. Why don't producers see this? Do they think their audience is stupid?

Chicago P.D. (2014– )

Easily the best cop drama I've ever seen

[10/10 · 7 October 2021]

I love this show because it's so smartly written. There are none of those yelling at your TV moments when the cop goes in without backup or lets his guard down at the worst moment or tries to be a hero all by himself. In this show the characters act like a real cop should. When they get shot at, or they find a body, or they see something suspicious, they immediately radio it in and request backup and backup arrives in a realistic amount of time. The investigative tactics they use are realistic and smart. They don't just "figure things out" or solve a crime on a hunch. They follow real leads, and sometimes those leads are dead ends and sometimes they run out of leads and don't get the bad guy. That's why I love this show. It's realistic and smart. Oh, and I give this show bonus points for keeping the woke stuff to a bare minimum. They did a couple of shows with a side story about racism last season, but it's not too bad (unlike SWAT).

Coming 2 America (2021)

Bad story, unfunny jokes, awkward cameos

[2/10 · 15 March 2021]

I wasn't expecting much and I didn't get much, although the second half of the movie was mildly more entertaining than the first half. The dancing general was ridiculous. Are they catering to five year olds? Also bringing in En Vogue, Salt 'n Pepa and Glady Knight was not only unnecessary but actually awkward because they were clearly trying too hard to improve on the magic of the throne room dance scene of the first movie but in doing so made it seem absurd and forced. The original dance scene was spectacular because it was authentic, but here they tried to merge authenticity with modern pop culture and it didn't work. In fact, they tried to do that throughout the whole movie and that made for one extremely insensitive scene in the barber shop where they said "Obama united this country" (no he didn't) to which one character replied "Ya, but it's not like that anymore, now there are Nazis everywhere", which I immediately felt was directed at Trump supporters who've been accused of being Nazis since 2016 and not only was it not at all funny, it insulted half the audience. How stupid can you be to put something like that in your movie Eddie! I used to be a big fan and was looking forward to this movie, but you've lost me.