daryahorenko Reviews

5 Headed Shark Attack (2017 TV Movie)

Not even so bad that it's good

[1/10 · 5 June 2018]

The basic story of this movie is exactly what you expect from the title, a five-headed shark is attacking people on the coast of an island, except that there's a stupid twist that the shark is shown to have four heads throughout half of the movie until we see that its fin is a fifth head, which makes this movie even more stupid. This is a terrible movie with terrible dialog. There's one scene though that's so bad that it's good. The boat of the team trying to kill the shark is disabled and a helicopter is coming to rescue them and as it arrives, the shark jumps out of the water straight up into the air, grabs the helicopter with its jaws and pulls it into the water, which was ridiculous. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie isn't that entertaining.

I know that this movie is not meant to be taken seriously, but the shark showed up way way too early and it's in the movie way too much. Every single one of the "characters" is stupid. In the beginning we see the policeman scrolling through photos on a camera and he doesn't even notice the picture of the five-headed shark at first. They're so dumb that they even visit our marine biologists to find out if multi-headed sharks can exist. Our main character, one of the marine biologists, whose friend has just been killed by the shark in front of her eyes changes her mind about not going out into the water again for no reason and decides that she wants to study the shark despite what just happened. And she just happens to know a fisherman who has advanced weapons to... I guess to kill big fish, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend and the romance concludes as stupidly as it was set up because they decide they want to marry after killing the shark even though they only knew each other again for like one day. That guy might be the worst character in the movie. Not only is he sexist, he also says words like "yo" and "boom" all the time. The whole team is stupid. They should never have let the head of the research team on the boat again because he was responsible for the first shark attack even being possible.

All of the acting is terrible. Especially the policeman has terrible line delivery, but in a movie like this it really doesn't let him stand out from the crowd because everyone is at this level.

I'm surprised to say that the quality of the shots above the water is actually not that bad but the CGI destroys that only redeeming quality. The CGI water looks fake and the shark looks atrocious. The attack scenes are terrible, nothing about them looks real. When the camera is underwater you can totally tell that it's all done on a computer and the few halfway-underwater shots are somehow even worse. The opening credit sequence with the over-the-top music was stupid and abrupt. Everything is edited so awkwardly.

And the shark can growl like the one in "Jaws: The Revenge"...

Jurassic Park (1993)

Very well written and executed, yet underwhelming

[9/10 · 4 June 2018]

This was my first movie from the Jurassic Park/World franchise and after this experience I'm planning to see the sequel "The Lost World". This was quite a good movie, however it has some issues.

Now that the fifth movie of this franchise has just hit theaters it might not seem that way as much anymore and I wasn't alive in 1993, but this was a very original idea, mostly executed very well. The script had many strength, a few weeknesses and great dialog.

The first act of this movie sets up a great, interesting and intriguing world. The buildup to the first time we see a dinosaur is so well done using great cuts between the characters and good camera angles. Our two main protagonists are paleontologists and they sold their amazement of seeing real dinosaurs for the first time so well! There's a scene where what looks like a T-Rex hatches from its egg and it looks cute at first but they foreshadow the danger that is to come using really good dialog and character interactions.

The second act is underwhelming, it has two strengths however. We know that one of the employees of the Jurassic Park hacks the security systems, but the idea is executed much better than it looks on paper. We also get the first scene where a dinosaur is an immediate threat to our characters, which is one of my favorite scenes from the movie. Despite that, the fact that the dinosaurs weren't in the movie that much until the third act make them seem like a little bit less of a threat.

The third act on the other hand is great and it did most things right. It had great action, yet not too much of it, a great finale and my favorite scene. There were two scenes intercut , which meant that one group of characters was not aware of the consequences of their actions while the other one isn't aware of the danger they were in, those two scenes being intercut made for so much suspense.

The special effects are very very good and ILM did a great job with them, as always. The dinosaurs look so gorgeous, every part of them looks real. There wasn't a single poorly done piece of CGI, not one.

The main message of the movie is that humanity might be orchestrating their own extinction and that we should be careful with what we use science for, but there's also a message telling us that nature will have its revenge if we don't treat it with respect and it's very well-integrated, but they don't portray nature, especially the dinosaurs as purely evil, they show that nature can be both dangerous and peaceful.

Most of the characters are realistic people you care about and you want them to survive. It's not their profession that makes the two paleontologists so great, it's their concerns about the whole idea and their actions and the fact that they try to save everyone. Scenes like the kids being so interested in their work is what endears us to them and what makes us root for them. And I know that we're not supposed to like the park owner, but he's my biggest flaw with this movie. In the third act we see three of our characters working on their plan, so the movie should let us think that he's becoming reasonable which would be good character development, but he literally tells Ellie, one of the paleontologists, not to do something because she's a woman and that he should do it because he's a man. This was a very bad decision in the script, especially because we're that far into the movie. How are we supposed to at least support that character? This movie wasn't released in the 70s or 80s when moments like this were unfortunately accepted amongst the public.

All of the actresses and actors are giving really good performances, especially Samuel L. Jackson even though he wasn't in the movie that much. I always praise kids though when they are doing well in movies because giving great performances at a young age is a higher accomplishment than doing so as an adult. Ariana Richards is doing an amazing job, even when she doesn't speak, her face expresses so much of the fear that her character is experiencing and her screams of pain are even more convincing than those of Carrie Henn from "Aliens".

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

The remake is an insult to this masterpiece

[10/10 · 1 June 2018]

At the time the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast came out last year I haven't seen the original animated movie. I was a huge fan of the remake until the Nostalgia Critic's review destroyed it for me because he was right about almost everything and he made me realize many of the remake's flaws and he opened my eyes. Fortunately I've seen a lot of movies during the past year and I'm not that easily impressed anymore.

So today I saw the animated original, which is much better than the remake from the very introduction scene. In the remake they say that the enchantress erased all memories about the residents of the castle from the minds of the people who loved them so he became forgotten, which is a hideous way to fix a plothole. This line does not exist in the original, which I liked very much. I'll get back to that later.

From the moment the "Belle" song started I started to realize just how much better this movie is. The dialog in between the strophes makes more sense, Paige O'Hara can actually sing (she's just one of many characters whose singing is much better, not only the singing is, but so is the instrumentalization of the songs, especially "Be Our Guest"). In the remake the three alike-looking girls who fell for Gaston sing dreadfully and so does Emma Watson) and there's better camera focus on the characters who are currently singing (and the score is better in the original. It's not bad in the remake though.). Another thing that's better in this scene is that Belle doesn't get her books from a church, but from an actual bookseller because it makes absolutely no sense that a church lends non-religious books to people in the village. The sheep sitting next to Belle and biting her book is just one of many little moments that add to the movie that gives it the magic the remake doesn't have. It also makes sense how they animate Gaston. It's very odd that so many girls in town would fall for the live-action Gaston who is really not as attractive as the remake wants him to be. This movie doesn't have as much unnecessary zoom as the 2017 B&B does. Why did they use it in the new movie? Because Belle didn't stand out from the crowd because she wasn't the only one wearing blue like in the original. And I still don't have any idea why they zoomed in so much on Gaston in the new movie.

Gaston is much more of a dick in the original and it makes perfect sense that Belle is afraid of him because he's a stalker. In the new movie he's just some really annoying douchebag. Gaston's plan on how to become Belle's husband is much better in the original. Instead of getting her father locked up in an asylum so she would even marry Gaston to get him out of there, the writers of the remake decided to insert a boring scene where Gaston and Lefou follow Maurice halfway to the castle until, and there's no explanation why, Gaston changes his mind, ties Maurice to a tree so Belle has no one left but Gaston... That's his "plan" in the remake. Even Lefou's crush on Gaston is much more apparent here. Disney made such a big deal of it in the marketing of the 2017 remake, so it's pretty pathetic that they hardly got it right. In the original Gaston is much ruder and more violent towards Lefou so the fact that he's still on his side makes his crush much more apparent. In the remake Lefou even turns against Gaston in the end.

Another chemistry that works much better in the remake is the one between Lumière and Cogsworth. Little moments like Lumière burning Cogsworth's arm are not in the remake. They make the original so special. Yet another moment from the 1991 version that is not in the remake is Belle's father doing all kinds of everything with Cogsworth when he first meets him. It's funny. It's adorable. In the remake they don't meet at all, the only time Belle's father meets any of the enchanted objects in that movie is him sitting at the dinner table, Chip moving towards him, saying that his mum forbade him to talk to strangers, Belle's father saying that it's alright and immediately running away from the castle. That's all we get in the remake, no fun, nothing. It's really not that great that Belle's father is afraid of the enchanted objects in the remake because there's so much chemistry in the 1991 version that make for great moments.

Why is Belle's father a horologist in the new movie? It's not necessarily a bad thing but it's just an unnecessary change. The scene in the remake where we first meet him is really boring despite being much shorter and the original scene makes him much more adorable and interesting. His invention in the original (that doesn't appear in the 2017 version) is really nice, too. In the remake he's just a scatty old man. The way he gets to the castle in the 2017 B&B makes much less sense as well. I really don't like that they cut the signpost, the bats and the cliff from the new movie.

In the original Chip made it possible for Belle, her father and the whole castle to be saved and he freed them before they were brought to the asylum. All of that has been cut from the remake where Belle and Maurice have freed themselves.

In the remake the beast is really nice and friendly, which is the opposite of what he's supposed to be. In the original they got the beast right. In the beginning he's frightening and evil. In the remake the beast looks cute and beautiful, which was a huge mistake.

Another character who's so much better in the original is Belle. In the remake she knowingly puts the whole castle at risk. In the original she doesn't know that the only way to redeem the castle is loving the beast in return. She doesn't learn that until she gets it over with. In the remake however she learns it about halfway throughout the movie, so she shouldn't hesitate trying to do something to fall in love with the beast. But that's exactly what she does, she spends so much time with the beast as if she had a lifetime.

Another character that the remake turned into a lunatic is the enchantress. The remake added a whole sequence to the movie where we see the families of the residents of the castle return after the castle has been redeemed, which means the enchastress has kept families apart for ten years! This is why this movie didn't say that all memories about the people who live in the castle have been erased from the minds of those who love them, it's because those people didn't exist in the 1991 B&B!

As you can see, the remake destroyed literally every single one of these amazing characters.

There's so many more great moments I could point out that aren't in the remake, like the first scene in the library of the castle. There's so much nice buildup in the original and it makes for a really beautiful scene. And of course no comparison of the two movies may avoid mentioning the horrendous "adaptation" of the date night. In the original we see the enchanted objects planning and preparing it, we get a song about them looking forward to being human again, we see them washing the beast and cutting his hair and we see Belle and the beast having dinner. What part of this remains in the remake? Nothing. All they do is dance to "Tale as Old as Time" (which they renamed to "Beauty and the Beast" in the remake for no reason at all) for three minutes. The whole sequence is magical in this movie, but in the remake they cut so much of it that none of that magic remains. Yet another scene that's just so much better in the original is the scene where the villagers attack the castle. In the original it's fun and entertaining, in the remake it's overly serious and trying to be suspenseful. The final confrontation between the beast and Gaston is much better, too.

The animation is great. However, I have hardly seen any of the Disney fairytale classics. The only one I've seen is the Lion King and I saw that one years ago, so I can't compare the animation to the other Disney classics, but all by itself the animation looks really good. And this movie doesn't have any terrible CGI like the remake does.

The main problem with the remake is that it's a whole 38 minutes longer than the 1991 B&B, which is astonishing considering how much is cut from it. There's so many unnecessary additions in the new movie that destroy the pacing. The very few things the remake does better than the original is the fact that the enchanted objects look better and more alive, I really like "Evermore", the "Be Our Guest" scene looks gorgeous and the remake has a very beautiful end credits sequence.

The only flaw I'm having with the original is that I still wonder why the dog is enchanted. The dog didn't do anything wrong at all.

The remake is not a remake, it's like a re-imagining by someone who hasn't seen the original in 25 years and hardly remembers anything. This movie however is great. Please see the original if you haven't, it's so magical. Please do NOT see the 2017 remake. And please send Disney an e-mail telling them to stop destroying their old classics in the live-action "adaptations".

Moana (I) (2016)

Sets the bar for animated movies higher

[8/10 · 30 May 2018]

The main reason I saw this movie is because Alessia Cara sings one of the songs. Sure, she sings it during the end credits and the same song is sung by Auli'i Cravalho during the movie, but that's the main reason I wanted to see this movie. I admire Alessia Cara, check out her songs, she's great! I also listened to some of the other songs from this movie on YouTube and I really liked them, so today I sat down and finally saw "Moana".

I loved this movie from the beginning. The opening scene where we're told the mythological history of the island is beautiful. Little moments like Moana's scene with the baby sea turtle make her character even more adorable. Little moments like the adult sea turtle swimming next to Moana in the water, the chicken tripping and walking into the fire, the pig and more are beautiful as well and they add so much to the movie.

The animation is gorgeous. Even though I didn't see it in 3D (but I would like to some day), at times you just wanted to grab into the screen. Everything in this movie looks so pretty. I saw this movie in full HD which was perfect. You could feel every single leaf of the flowers and trees and every single hair of the characters and the lighting they integrated into the animation is really nice.

The soundtrack for this movie is amazing. I really like the Polynesian score, but what's really special are the songs sung by the characters, especially "How Far I'll Go". I might actually buy the soundtrack soon. What I don't like about lots of modern musical movies is that the lyrics are mostly irrelevant to the story, but here they are part of the story and they are meaningful.

The story is great, interesting and continuously unpredictable, this movie has realistic characters, I cared about all of the main characters and I was invested in Moana's journey and the fact that she's clumsy (like me) makes her more interesting and relatable. Maui and the chicken are great comic relief while Maui is also a very serious character. This movie has a great screenplay. There's great funny and light-hearted scenes contrasting with emotional, sad, meaningful and tense scenes and the transitions don't feel abrupt. I also liked that this movie poked fun at the fact that people use "men" as a gender-neutral word for "humans" in one scene. The dream sequence isn't fooling us either which is a rarity these days. Another thing this movie does well is using slow motion with a purpose, there's a beautiful slow motion sequence towards the end.

Another thing that I really liked about this movie is that the location is not irrelevant. The culture of the island is distinctly Polynesian and I love to see that culture being portrayed on the big screen.

The voice acting is great, particularly Auli'i Cravalho is doing a great job, especially considering that this was her movie debut. I like that they cast voice actresses and actors that match what you think the characters would sound like.

This movie also has a great message about people not being what they seem like on first sight, but actually being really beautiful inside even though you might not see it at first, it has a great message about believing in yourself and it has a great message about forgiving.

I have a few flaws with this movie on first viewing, mostly little things that don't make sense but don't really have an impact on the story, like some gimmicks in the animation that don't make sense if you think about them, but they're pretty little moments which enhance the movie in the long run. Also, it's unlikely that Moana is doing that well escaping the pirates' arrows. And Moana has no access to food and water while she's off the island, yet she's never shown to be hungry or thirsty. I think the movie started off really good, but I thought the monster character who appeared an hour into the movie was really boring. Fortunately it's only in the movie for a few minutes. In the long run, "Moana" is a great movie with flaws. The second act was good, the first act was great and the third act was just beautiful. It was a little boring towards the middle, but the middle part that I didn't like is so short that I'm not going to downgrade it because of that and I give it a 10/10. I hardly ever felt that invested in the characters, emotional and at times even tense in an animated movie. This definitely sets my bar for my ratings of animated movies higher.

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Terrible, yet better than "Alien: Resurrection"

[1/10 · 29 May 2018]

I know that the AvP aren't canon to either franchise, but there's so many things that don't make sense in regards to the Alien universe, like the movie takes place in 2004 and Mr. Weyland is played by the same actor who played Bishop in Aliens. It doesn't help that he's called "Charles Bishop Weyland" in the movie.

That's not the only things that don't make sense. 1) When we first see our main character she's climbing up a frozen cliff on a mountain. There's a wide shot where we clearly see that there's nothing but snow on the plateau above. By the time she gets there there's a helicopter and its pilot up there who... flew there without her noticing!? 2) Mr. Weyland gives his speech at the briefing while standing on a bridge inside the ship's hangar BEHIND the characters 3) Our main character and I will just call her by her name Alexa Woods (*great name*) from now on is taking a helicopter to fly to the icebreaker where the team is located. Why not land the helicopter on the ship while it's still in a harbor and save gas? 4) It's never explained why Alexa decides to stay on the ship.

The story of this movie is really not that special. Who thought it would be a good idea to make this a archeology movie? In the beginning we go from one place to another over and over again within minutes. "Rogue One" did the same, but in that movie it worked because the things that happened in those different places were actually relevant to the story. Here they're not.

All of the actresses and actors except Lance Henriksen are really bad in both their line delivery and facial expressions. The acting is better than the "acting" in "Alien: Resurrection" though.

Let's talk about the "characters". We're supposed to care about Alexa the most, yet we don't know anything about her. Oh well we do, there's a ludicrous ATTEMPT of an emotional scene where we find out about the story with her dad. We're supposed to care about Graeme, yet all we know about him is that he's OBSESSED with taking photos to the point where it gets really annoying. This is my first Predator movie. In this movie they do nothing but kill humans and xenomorphs. The xenomorph queen looks amazing of course, but why is there visible electricity all around her? And she's tied up, laying spores/eggs, whatever you want to call them but I'd rather call them spores because that's what it says in the menu of my Alien Blu-ray, similar to "Alien: Resurrection", where the xenomorphs are caged. This movie takes so long to get to the point which makes it really boring. Aliens did that, too, but it worked because the team we spent our time with was interesting and they were good characters. The human characters in this movie are hollow, boring and uninteresting and they suck at acting. They are really dumb as well. Once they're trapped in the pyramid they decide to enter its even lower levels.

Once we get the facehuggers they jump out of the spores in slow motion for some reason. That was absolutely pointless. There's a lot of overuse of slow motion in this movie.

In the original "Alien" there was quite some time between the facehugger leaving the host's face, the host waking up and the xenomorph bursting out of the person's chest. In this movie it's taking minutes or even seconds. The moments we've all been waiting for, the xenomorph and predator fighting look like garbage. It's just shaky cam, which is a shame because they have really good xenomorph props and the predators look really cool, too. And why can xenomorphs fall through the floors of the pyramid? I don't think they're THAT heavy. By the way, why can't the xenomorph queen outrun a human?

And there's no way I can review this movie without mentioning the jumpscares. For example there's a scene where we're made to think a xenomorph is about to show up but it's a penguin. SECONDS earlier Alexa touches Graeme from behind with the most clichéd loud music.

This was my first Paul W. S. Anderson movie and everyone says his movies are terrible and he's a terrible director and this movie was written by him as well, so I was very concerned about what I was going to see. And here's my opinion: He's a bad director, but he's even worse as a screenplay writer. What I hate most about his writing is that there's so many exposition scenes. Or maybe it's the stupid twist that the character have to team up with the predators. It's ridiculous when they say "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

I think Pepsi and National Geographic regret their product placements.

Oh and the credits go on for TWELVE MINUTES.

Alien 3 (1992)

Not even so bad that it's good

[2/10 · 27 May 2018]

Let's begin by talking about the opening sequence. I don't like it. The cuts are so awkward that you have no idea what's going on. With the knowledge of what happened at the end of Aliens we find out what happened a few minutes later, but the opening title sequence is just awkward. The slow motion that we see a few minutes later serves absolutely no purpose to the story (this is not the only time there's unnecessary slow motion). The voice of the prison staff member who makes the announcements is annoying. Also, why is it a prison for people with YY chromosomes? No matter how much sci-fi you throw in to this movie, this is absolutely impossible. The biological mother of a human has two X chromosomes and the biological father has an X and a Y chromosome, so where does the second Y chromosome come from? The prisoners all look like men, so why call it a YY correctional facility? And why do the jailers have the logo of Weyland-Yutani on their clothes? If you look closely you will see that the Weyland-Yutani symbol is all over the prison. Why do Weyland-Yutani have the authority to arrest criminals?

As Ripley asks the exact same question I'm pretty sure the writers were aware of this, why doesn't this maximum security prison have any weapons? The movie itself acknowledges this problem, I have no idea what the writers were thinking.

Something I won't blame this movie for is that Newt doesn't appear in it. For those who don't know, that's because Carrie Henn chose not to be in anymore movies. On the other hand, she's really lucky not to be in this movie because it's really really bad. And I'm really glad I didn't have to see how a child would've been treated in an environment like that.

After Ripley wakes up we get a really good emotional scene. Unfortunately, we go back to the religious aspect of the prison very quickly, which really doesn't fit into the movie and slows it down. This happens so many times.

I didn't care about the problems the prisoners have with each other at all. Neither did I care about any of the problems the staff members had with each other. One of the main problems with this movie is that we WANT the prisoners to die, we WANT the xenomorphs to eat them. They're rapists, murderers and child molesters, that's why we hate them and they don't deserve saving. The dialog in this movie is really really bad. There's so many lines that sound like the writers came up with them while being drunk in a bar and listened to what the other drunk people were saying. And why would Ripley want to live amongst the prisoners for a week? Why not be protected by the doctor for a week?

I didn't even get to the jumpscares yet. There's so many movies the music gets louder and dramatic to tell us something scary is about to happen and then it's just a person showing up. Alien and Aliens perfectly understood not to do that.

And what's with the score in this movie? It's really loud and over the top and in two scenes it's just really annoying rock music...

The scene where we get our first look at the xenomorph is really bad, too. There's blood everywhere and that's it. Nothing builds up to this moment, there's no suspense, it's a scene that's supposed to be scary but it's really not. The other xenomorph attack scenes are exactly the same. It's nothing but blood. The idea that the xenomorph doesn't kill Ripley when it first has the opportunity is ridiculous and the explanation is absolutely nonsensical. She's carrying a xenomorph queen inside of her and she says that the xenomorph that's running around is not going to kill her because it won't kill any of its kind. The xenomorph running around doesn't know there's another one inside of Ripley, it can't see inside of her and none of the previous films indicate that they have some sort of x-ray vision. In fact, there's ONE shot in Alien or Aliens (I don't remember which movie, but I'd rather say Alien) where the camera shows what the xenomorph sees and its vision is just like a human's vision, just a little worse. We also get several shots from the perspective of the xenomorph in this movie and nothing indicates that they have an x-ray vision.

I should also mention that the way the leader of the rescue team is dressed looks ludicrous. He wears some white plastic onesie with ridiculous glasses, he looks like he belongs in some tasteless 80s music video. Just some moments after we see him for the first time two prisoners run into each other, which is probably the most ludicrous moment in the entire movie. No, just wait a few more minutes because the xenomorph literally... blows up!? *What a great idea* What exactly did they pour on it to make it *cough cough*... explode? I guess the answer that makes the most ""sense"" is acid because we see cracks in the xenomorph's head right before it... explodes, but that doesn't make any sense either because xenomorphs have acid blood themselves and can therefore resist acid perfectly. And of course, Ripley has to die in the most clichéd way possible. And her death scene looks like utter garbage because of terrible terrible CGI. Her sacrifice was supposed to be the big moment of the movie, but it just comes off as stupid.

I'm currently watching all of the Alien movies. I've seen Prometheus once and I've seen Alien: Covenant, Alien and Aliens multiple times. I own these four movies on Blu-ray. Alien and Aliens, Aliens in particular is the absolute best cinema has to offer. This movie however tries so hard to be Alien with ONE xenomorph taking out all people in a place one by one with the action of Aliens, but it fails on so many different levels. The only redeeming qualities are some good performances and I guess the xenomorphs. I rated this movie a 2/10. This is by far the worst Alien movie that I've seen so far. I haven't seen Alien: Resurrection and the Alien vs. Predator movies yet, the latter ones aren't canon.

Aliens (1986)

Aliens > Alien > Other Movies

[10/10 · 26 May 2018]

Aliens > Alien I don't wanna make Alien sound bad, it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. EVER. And it just gets better on rewatching. Alien was directed by Ridley Scott, one of my favorite directors. Aliens was written and directed my James Cameron, also one of my favorite directors. Both are suspenseful beyond your imagination. While Alien is a little better than Aliens in regards to story and originality, these are just some of the reasons Aliens is superior to Alien: 1) It introduces my favorite Alien character, Rebecca "Newt" Jorden. It's the only Alien movie she appears in and she has a LOT of screentime in Aliens. Carrie Henn was an amazing casting choice for her character. She gives one of the best, if not the best child performance I've ever seen in a movie (and yes, I've seen The Shining and I know that Danny Lloyd is amazing in it. You can feel her emotions through every ounce of her facial expressions, voice and actions. It's so so sad that she didn't pursue an acting career. 2) They got Ripley even better than in Alien. I love how James Cameron always puts very strong women in his movies and she is such a badass in Aliens. 3) Alien doesn't have a twist like Alien does. The twist that there's a xenomorph queen is awesome. I thought that xenomorphs are the coolest-looking creatures in all of science fiction, but this thing looks even better! 4) Alien has a great finale, but the finale of Aliens is the absolute best and I couldn't take my eyes away both times I saw it. 5) Aliens contains my favorite line from the entire saga: "Get away from her, you bitch!" 6) Despite not having something like a big theme, the score of Aliens is even better than the score of Alien.

Aliens is the best movie of all time in my opinion. And now that I've seen both the theatrical version and the director's cut I can say that the theatrical version is better. I like the director's cut's addition that Ripley has a daughter who died while she was in hypersleep, but I like that Rebecca's first scene is not in the theatrical version. It slows the movie down a little bit.

American Graffiti (1973)

I'm the wrong audience for this movie, but it's still enjoyable

[7/10 · 24 May 2018]

I probably watched this movie for the same reason everyone else did, because it was Lucasfilm's first movie.

It just wasn't for me. I'm the wrong demographic for this movie. The humor in the movie just wasn't for me and the male characters acted so much like machos that I couldn't connect with them at all and they're kinds of douchebags. Except Terry, who I kinda liked and I liked most character developments. I know this movie was released in the 1970s and it takes place in the 1960s, but if a guy was hitting on me in such a rude way as some of the characters did I'd probably feel intimidated and run away. I don't like machos and I don't like them in movies either. It's a movie made for young men. Men might enjoy this movie more than I did, but it's just not for me. The female characters were relatable, especially Carol, even though I don't get why she stuck around with John for so long as he was so rude to her.

There's a few really funny scenes in this movie, such as one scene that involves buying some high-percentage alcohol and a scene that involves a police car. They were really good comic relief.

This is by no means a terrible movie like you think I make it sound. The cinematography is good for its time, the acting is great, especially Harrison Ford's, and the Beatles-like score was great. I noticed a flaw in the cinematography though. I don't know if this was intentional, but near the end we see a lot of cars driving on a road and the lights of the car Terry is driving are reflecting in the camera lens. And while I found the first act kind of unlikable the second act surprised me, I liked how the characters got themselves into trouble, it was entertaining. The third act was really good, the movie went in a direction I did not expect and I really liked the ending.

Snowpiercer (2013)

One hell of a plothole compilation

[3/10 · 21 May 2018]

The plot of Snowpiercer basically goes like this: The opening text sequence explains that the use of some sort of gas has caused an eternal winter on earth, which killed almost all human life. The last survivors of the human race are on board a very long train. The people in the back of the train are being oppressed by those on the front who are in control of the engine and they're being treated like prisoners, so the people in the back want to get to the front to start a revolution. This was an idea with very high potential. Unfortunately a lot of very stupid things happen in this movie and it ends up being a trainwreck. If you thought that was a pun you're wrong, that's literally what happens. They chose to go with that ending.

Let me explain to you the stupid things that happen in this third act. Throughout the movie, when our characters get closer and closer to the front, we see the living conditions of the parts of the train they reach getting beter and better. Finally they get to a HUGE door in front of the engine. For some reason, the last wagon before that is sort of a hookah bar, just with some other drugs, which is stupid enough by itself. Why would they put a hookah bar in the last wagon? I don't know what the writers were thinking. Even if we accept it as it is, I don't get why the people who smoke those hookah-like drugs don't try to stop our characters from breaking in. I really don't think they're THAT high.

One of the revolutionaries is a Korean man who designed the doors for the train and opened them along the way so our characters can move further. He tells his daughter how to open the door to the engine room while he's occupied with fighting. They eventually succeed at opening the door. I suppose the government rooms that we haven't been shown yet are behind that door, right? No, it's just a dining room for the one person in charge. So where do the people on the train make their decisions, where do they have meetings, where are the government rooms? Nobody knows because the script is stupid! So a woman who works for the one man in charge gets out of the engine room and shoots the Korean man and there's no reaction from his daughter whatsoever. She then tells our revolutionary leader, the only other person left to come in because the man in charge wants to have dinner with him. Let me get this straight, how did our man in charge know there's someone outside that door? There's no windows. And why don't they lock the door after he comes in? Anyway, a lot happens during this dinner conversation, but this is where we get to the most stupid part of the movie: The man in charge tells our revolutionary leader that he wants him to be in control of the engine because he's old and he will die soon!? Why in the world would he do that?? Why in the world would he give control of the engine to this man who just tried to overthrow him?? As the snowpiercer represents all human life left, what in the snowpiercer were the writers thinking? If you think the man in charge were fooling our hero, that's never shown! For what I can tell he's serious! Even if he were joking, letting him come in in the first place is a huge risk. As he says, he's the only person to ever walk the entire distance of the train (Seriously? The staff never did that? Then how do they enforce orders from the front in the back of the train?), so he will know how do defeat him. But that's what our """villain""" wants, we're supposed not to concern ourselves with this plothole. The Korean man, who told his daughter to place a bomb at the door,... Hold on, why do they have to blow up the door? It's already open! Anyway, they place the bomb and blow up the door. I guess because it's not explained, rather vaguely implied the bang of the explosion triggers an avalanche which hits the train and causes it to derail. Everyone except the Korean man's daughter and a little child that has been taken from his mum at the beginning of the movie die. The two eventually wake up. The two leave the train for the first time in their lives, which is a really beautiful idea, Unfortunately, that scene also falls apart when you think about it. Earlier in the movie we've been told that some years ago a few people left the train and died of the freezing cold after what looks like 300 meters (0.19 miles). This means the last surviving humans will die in a minute and humankind will be extinct. But let's go back to this scene. They see a polar bear on a hill very nearby and smile about it in amazement of seeing an animal for the first time. But girl, polar bears eat humans. That thing is looking right at you. You will be eaten. Run! Run far away! Anyway, that's the ending of this movie.

Before I get to my conclusion, let me point out some positive things: 1) This movie mostly has great cinematography. They worked very well with restricted sets and the movie looks really good. A notable exception is the frozen city they pass by at one point. 2) The performances are great, especially Ko Asung did a really good job. A notable exception is Tilda Swinton. Her performance was AWFUL. 3) This movie has some good protagonists. I like them.

Unfortunately, that's all things that stand out as positive things about this movie that I can think of for now. In conclusion, the story of Snowpiercer had a lot of potential, unfortunately the script is one hell of a plothole compilation and the movie starts falling apart completely if you think about it. It has some redeeming qualities, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a really bad movie. If you want to see it, go ahead, but don't expect anything that actually makes sense. I don't understand how this currently has a 7.0 rating.

Alien (1979)

As close to perfect as movies get

[10/10 · 21 May 2018]

Alien is one of my favorite movies. In fact, it might even be my #1. There's three movies that are pretty much tied for my #1 spot and Alien is one of them and not just because I'm a fan of science fiction and science fiction horror. This might be THE best science fiction movie ever.

This is a very unique movie and I can't really compare it to any movie outside the Alien franchise. The idea of an alien monster growing inside your body, planted there by what they call a facehugger that has acid blood that attaches itself to your face after jumping out of a giant egg-like spore is so unique and fascinating. I'll get back to that, but for now let's analize some the other elements of the movie.

The cinematography of this movie is amazing. The lighting is flawless. When they're exploring the ship that sent the distress signal it might be too dark to see things clearly, but it makes for a realistic setting because the only light in this location is coming from thr crew's lamps. The pseudo-sexual imagery on the walls of said ship adds a creepy feeling to the scene. But the truly fascinating ship is the one our crew is using to return to earth, especially the inside looks great and it looks like a real environment that people actually live in. It looks so polished but used up at the same time. The editing in this movie is great as well, there's so many times we cut to the next shot at the perfect time, which basically happens throughout the entire movie.

The acting is top-notch, especially the performance by Sigourney Weaver deserves a lot of praise. There's not a single dull moment of acting, not one. I also really like the characters. At first I thought the subplot that Ash is a robot wasn't really necessary, but his "death scene" made for a very scary moment and his last lines gave a lot more depth to his character. I also like the fact that all of the characters are individual people and not just "the team", which leads to several argument scenes that I really like and you always side with Ripley, because she's the reasonable one who tries to keep everyone safe. What I like most about Ripley is that she's highly aware of her responsibilities and that she's fearless. Even though Alien is the superior movie by a tidbit, she's even better in Aliens.

I said I'd get back to the spores, facehuggers and xenomorphs and I am getting back to them right now. Each of these creatures, and they get unveiled in the order I just named them is more mysterious and menacing than the previous one. The spores, especially with their slimy inside are gross in a great way and intriguing, so you understand why Kane is so curious about it and touches one of them. The facehugger is menacing. We're stuck with it for a considerable time of the movie and it makes us as the viewers concerned with the characters, especially with Kane. Its design is awesome and it works well as a "character" because it's an unknown entity to our human characters. I think that the fact that it has acid blood was added in order to fix the plothole that the crew could just kill it, but it doesn't come off that way because it makes the facehugger even more creepy and gross and because it turns the facehugger into an actual dangerous object. But the best creature in this movie is the xenomorph. That thing is so perfect! The way it gives birth is disturbing, it's an incredible antagonist, and obviously the xenomorph doesn't have a single line, but considering that it's one of the best antagonists to ever be put on screen without saying a single line just shows how well it works. The design is hands down without a doubt the best Alien design I've ever seen in a movie, it looks incredibly unique, slimy and most of all, extremely fear-inducing, menacing and SCARY. Speaking about scary, the first scene where we see the xenomorph emerging from Kane is scary as hell, even though the xenomorph is just a baby in that scene, even though it only makes two or three sounds and even though we only see it for a few seconds until it disappears. The next time we see it it's grown to its full scale and the scene is scary, too, and again, we only see it for a couple of seconds, later we get one very good shot of it that lasts less than a second. The fact that the xenomorph is hardly in the movie creates so much suspense and it keeps us waiting for the big reveal. All of those amazing short scenes and I didn't get into all of them build up to the finale which I absolutely love. The score highlights this incredibly suspenseful movie even more.

This is a have-to-see movie, check it out as soon as possible if you haven't!

Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)

Fails at trying to be like the first movie

[1/10 · 19 May 2018]

This is a complete rip-off of the first movie, the first half of the movie has nothing to do with the plot, in said first half we concern ourselves with the dating lives of our characters, there's a crossfade in the middle of a conversation that has no purpose at all, there's hundreds of hidden and unhidden messages about the environment and global warming, there's a black guy singing an awful song in a bar, there's naked scenes of our female characters (this time we even see their breasts while they change and we see them fight the birds toplessly), a hot girl we spent some time with gets killed, the characters run out of gas near the end of the movie, they try to fight birds in stupid ways (I should point out that while they tried to scare the birds away with hangers in the first movie they use an umbrella, ?parasol sticks?, their feet and hands and T-SHIRTS!! this time) and the movie ends with the birds leaving with no explanation why whatsoever.

There's hardly any difference between the two movies to point out, but one of them is that all the ads on the streets, all the faces of people walking around and all the numberplates of cars are blurred out. The most obvious difference though is that this movie has zombies who can be killed even though they're already dead climbing out of graves during the red rain...

The plot is even more stupid this time. While in the first movie birds were flying into town and started attacking, this time around there's red rain that they emerge from and they can enter buildings for some reasons... Oh and the death scenes look even worse this time and so do the fake wounds.

There's so many ludicrous unlikely events, like our main character, who of course is a movie director meeting an actress AND someone who finances his new movie in a bar, the director running into the same actress from the bar on the street, just like in the first movie and our characters meeting the man living in the woods again

Another thing that's JUST ludicrous is that our characters are concerned with discussing their next movie right after the first wave of the birds attacking

Remember how the first Birdemic hat constant short moments of complete silence after the characters got their lines out? This movie improved on that, it only happens two times. Talking about sound, the car sounds are so loud at times that you can't understand what the characters are saying.

There's a subplot about a woman being attacked by a jellyfish while she's swimming in the water near the beach. We actually see the jellyfish attack her in an underwater scene made in front of the fakest greenscreen ever. It's hilarious when the incredibly fake CGI jellyfish shows up. The attack was animated so lazily, they didn't even take the effort to animate the jellyfish's tentacles, they just move the jellyfish back and forth in front of her legs. For some reason she can run to the beach and out of the water even though she's severely injured which we see some seconds later. One of our characters says the ludicrous phrase "giant jumbo jellyfish", they call the ambulance and the CGI anbulance car that escorts her to the hospital looks almost as fake as the CGI birds who look even worse this time around. To be honest, that scene was hilarious.

I took the liberty of writing down some subplots: The movie our characters are planning to make, the jellyfish, the semi-sex scene of the two stone age people being interrupted by birds attacking and the three most stupid high-fives you will ever see in your life

Birdemic 1 was unintentionally hilarious because it failed at every possible level even though it was people actually trying to make a good movie. That's what made the first Birdemic so funny and entertaining. Birdemic 2 was people trying to make a bad movie on purpose because of the hype about the first Birdemic, that's why it's NOT funny and entertaining and just even worse than the first one.

I want to end this review with a funny fact: During the bird invasion our characters stop in front of a movie theater. There's a poster of the 2011 movie "The Abduction of Zack Butterfield", which currently has a 5.0/10 rating on IMDb, no rating on RT and a 6% rating on Metascore.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

Boring, atrocious, ludicrous

[1/10 · 19 May 2018]

This review really has no purpose because everybody knows that this movie is terrible, everyone expects me to say that it's terrible because everyone else says it's terrible so I'm here to tell you that it's terrible. But I HAVE to get my thoughts about this movie off my chest. So you're in for spoilers!

Even if I never heard of this movie before I would know I'm in for complete s*** from the opening shot! There's really just one way a movie should open - slow-paced shots and subtle music. A great example of a movie that doesn't do it this way but does it right is Rogue One. But in that movie it works because we cut to subtle music and slow-paced shots right after the bang that the movie opens with. This movie on the other hand starts with fast-paced shots and over-the-top music, and this is not the only time the music is completely over the top, it is over the top throughout most of the movie and some of the tracks sound like instrumental versions of children's songs. At times the music is so loud that you can't understand what the characters are saying.

This movie opens with very weird shots of a street being shown from the inside of a driving car. For some reason they thought flipping the camera by about 30 degrees for the first half of this sequence is a good idea and showing the edges of the windows and trees for the other half of the sequence were a good idea. During this sequence they show us the opening credits which look like they were edited in Windows Movie Maker. Those opening credits would've been acceptable in the early 80s, but this movie came out in 2010.

The sound editing in this movie is the worst! Some of the first scenes sound like they didn't film them in the order they're shown but like they filmed each character's lines in one take and cut the takes together, that's how different the white noise sounds (there's a lot of white noise in this movie). There's a scene where two characters are talking on the phone, but there's a lot of background noise in the environment of one of them. Because there's none in the environment of the other one, the two characters talking being intercut sounds so off, even "The Room" put a better phone call scene on screen. Also, so many lines are followed by like half a second of complete silence. Speaking about editing, I noticed there's a simple crossfade during said phone call scene to... I guess indicate a passage of time? No, it's there for no reason at all. The CGI birds are borderline torturously atrocious! If you haven't seen them, google them! Do it now! And the sound they make is hurting my ears. Besides, according to this movie, eagles have acid poop!...

The acting is downright horrible. Most people are somewhere in between Greg Ellery and Juliette Danielle. The news lady has the charisma of Hayden Christensen and the """best""" actress in this movie is our main female character's mother whose skills I'd like to compare to those of Robyn Paris. Unfortunately, the worst actress in this movie is the little girl they rescue who for some reason is shouting most of her lines.

There's a scene very early on where some woman working at a model agency tells Nathalie on the phone that Victoria's Secret wants her to be their cover girl. I snorted at first because it felt so out of place. Like what I just said, there's an insane amount of subplots, none of which have anything to do with the movie. We see our characters date, we see them driving, we see them playing basketball, we see them buy and discuss solar panels, we see them at work etc. The first half of the movie concerns itself with nothing but the dating life of our characters. The most hilarious thing is that there's a double date where they watch a movie called "An Unconvenient Truth", a documentary about global warming. *Must've been romantic*. The only purpose the dating subplot being in the movie is so the director can show off the female characters in underwear and he does that at times. For the first half of the movie I was bored out of my mind.

You think maybe the one redeeming quality of this movie would be its message about global warming, but you're wrong. The basic """plot""" that tries to convey this message is absolutely ludicrous and even more so is the way our characters react to the attack of the birds. Every single little moment that tries to convey the message is laughable, such as the news on TV that we cut back to quite often. Every. Single. News. is about the environment or global warming. Later on there's literally a scientist telling us about the "bird flu virus" and global warming. There's so many more examples I could point out. This movie is pushing its message way too hard. In fact, the first time we see a bird is 23 minutes into the movie and the first time a bird has anything to do with the plot is 39 minutes into it. And what do you want me to tell you about the dialog? Of course it's nonsensical and atrocious.

There's so many plotholes I could point out, like how the characters are so good and precise at shooting, but I will just tell you the obvious that this is the worst atrocity I've ever seen but I will probably say differently when I've seen the sequel. In conclusion, there's no redeeming quality. Not one. I found the first half of this movie boring as hell and the second half of this movie hilariously bad. It's actually worth checking out in the so-bad-it's-good way.

2010 (1984)

Great, however very disappointing

[8/10 · 18 May 2018]

Let's get the obvious out of the way first and compare this movie to its predecessor What made the original "2001: A Space Odyssey" so special was its cinematography, the extremely elongated shots, the use of complete silence in outer space while the camera is "outside the austronauts' helmets", the score made up of strange noises in the second half of the movie and the insanely slow pace, all of which drew the viewers into the movie and hypnotized them. This movie however is "just" a normal science fiction movie, the length of the shots is normal as we know it from most movies, not noticable to someone who hasn't seen the original movie in this franchise. We do get shots that attempt to recreate the silent shots from the first movie, however we're inside the astronauts' helmets, so there's several sounds - transmissions, talking and breathing. The score features classical music, just like the first movie did, however it features it throughout the whole movie, there's no strange noises that made the second half of the first movie so mystical. This movie is in no way the hypnotization the first movie was.

However, I was still drawn into "2010: The Year We Make Contact", or as you might call it, "2010". Besides the first line that I genuinely thought was a glitch in my copy of the movie, which was very distracting, this is quite a good science fiction movie. You might be invested in it mostly because you want to know what happened after the original, but there's a few more reasons to care about the movie, such as the political climate that is set up in this movie or the family of our new main character. There's a creepy scene involving them that I really enjoyed. The best thing about it however is the suspense and we get a lot of it.

In conclusion, this is quite a good, however very disappointing sci-fi movie. As it's based on the sequel novel on whose predecessor the first movie was based on, the story is still great, but it suffers from its biggest flaw - not letting Stanley Kubrick, the director of the original direct it, which led to a very different movie that didn't understand what made the original so special. It's definitely worth a watch though, but do NOT watch it if you didn't see the first one. You would hardly understand anything and it would spoil the ending of the first movie for you.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

A perfect-looking masterpiece of science fiction

[10/10 · 18 May 2018]

This is hands down one of the most special movies I've ever seen. Despite the fact that the story is pretty good, what really makes it so outstanding comes to live in the cinematography, which is so good, there's so many beautiful shots, even in the beginning where there's no CGI. This movie looks top-notch amazing! Yhe sets are perfect, and I know it's sets, but it all looks like they're in real space ships, like they're actually in space, like they're in an actual savannah. Despite being released in 1968, this movie looks almost perfect and it's tied with another 1968 movie for the oldest movie I've ever seen, but despite all that, it looks gorgeous! The score is really great as well, the main theme is memorable andit seemed familiar and it tells us we're in for something extraordinary. I also like that they used classical music in the first half of the movie, it's so calming and the music in the second half of the movie, which I should call noises, make for a mystical vibe. The use of silence in later shots in outer space make those scenes even more gorgoes.

I have some flaws with this movie though. At first I thought that the antagonist is Hal, the dictator-like arrogant computer, but then I realized it's the off-screen aliens. I don't really like the face that we have off-screen antagonists. Also, I thought that the intermission was entirely pointless. And a minor flaw is that I would've liked to spend some more time with the chimpanzees in the opening sequence.

I'm a 100% certain that George Lucas and Irvin Kershner were heavily inspired by this movie. There's so many things in this movie that resemble "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back", especially visual elements, such as the outside of the ships, and I saw two or three similar shots in "Alien", too. Also, there's a shot on the lunar surface that resembles the shot in "Revenge of the Sith" right before we see Yoda medidating being interrupted by Bail Organa.

If someone else made this movie it would be like an hour long without all the elongated shots, but it would lose so much, it would hardly be special anymore.

I'll go watch the sequel immediately, I have sooo many questions, this movie leaves you thinking! I highly recommend it!