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Lord-Voltemort
Reviews
The Acolyte (2024)
The Acolyte, Episode 1, The Phanton Poopies
Hahaha!!! Cringe AF yall. Too to bottom. It's like going down a waterslide made of sandpaper. Absolutely the nerdiest thing ever. The thing that sets Star Wars apart from say, GI JOE or other kid's based products is that it was made by serious film makers and actors. They can say made up words like, metacloreans, and not make every adult turn it off to go back to watching Seinfeld reruns because it's so silly. That's why SW sold for 5 billion and GI Joe would sell for about 200 million. Universal human themes delivered by professionals so it has mass appeal. That's all over. The new writers write like children. The new directors direct like children. The undertones have no kick ass cool vibe. The actors feel like people who never liked SW but like the idea of being part of SW so now they're doing bad impressions of characters. Every line is written way too melodramatic and then the actors deliver them like they're hoping they'll be revered like Obi Wan Kenobe by the fan base. Well, whatever fan base they're going for in this. Young females if I were to guess and that won't work out of course because girls aren't dorks. Dudes are dorks and we stay dorks for life. Thats how SW has 60 year old male fans. Women usually grow out of being dorks. Thank god for that because we can't just have a whole planet full of nerds walking around. Anyhow, it's an unserious show trying to fool you into thinking it's serious about being good.
The French Connection (1971)
An 8 in 71. A 5 in 2024
Cleary this movie was revered because of it's contrast to how movies were made at the time and I get that. One of the first attempts to not glamorize or fictionalize a story for the sake of movie magic and it nails it from that aspect. I imagine had I seen it in the early 70's, that alone would have made it an experience worthy of a lot of praise. I still enjoyed it to an extent now even though by the time I was watching movies, gritty cop dramas were the norm and all probably took their cues from this flick. But as far as actual story telling, it's one note all around. Characters were flat, story arch was flat, drama was flat, everything was just, uninteresting. Cool vibe, no substance.
Road House (2024)
All you had to was not do this but you did it.
Look the movie's not great. That's pretty well established. The quality of the fight scenes is subjective. I actually like them. But this could have passed perfectly well as a "fun" movie that you can enjoy if you don't take it too seriously. It didnt have near the epic awful cheesiness to have a chance at becoming a cult classic like the original but light and fun it had a shot at. I love those movies. Can totally get behind those movies. All you have to do to have that movie is not do anything to take the viewer out of the story. No moments where the viewer says," that's not something that would happen here" or "it doesnt make sense for that character to do that". Even if your plot and characters are lame, you still got a shot at fun if you just dont force stuff in just because. And this thing does that in spades right from the start. It all just feels forced from the setting to most of the casting to the bad one liners. Example, The corrupt cop, Mr bad ass I run this town cop guy first meets Daulton and says, "Your name reminds me of that Johnny Cash song Boy Named Sue where the dad names his kid a girl's name so he'd have to grow up tough." Which doesnt make any sense because his name is Daulton. Elwood Daulton. Not a girl's name. Not even a very weird name. Pretty masculine, cool name actually that won't cause any problems. So why does it remind him of Boy Named Sue? I'll tell you why, because the writer was itching like a hound to throw in a Johnny Cash reference because anything Cash is cool. They could have salvaged it if Daulton would have replied, "do you have some kind of learning disability? Are you an actual moron? Because it would take an idiot to make that awful comparison that's neither funny or accurate." The movie does this dozens of times and therefore doesnt even get to the "fun" mark. Shame too because it would have been easy to get atleast there with all the tattoo'd knuckle throwing and an over the top Conor McGregor who's definitely thought he was going to be shot like a villain in a Guy Ritchie heist movie. All slick and what not.
Ready Player One (2018)
6.79, the only man who read the book who didnt hate it.
It's not the book. It's never the book. Let's just all accept that. The book was way better. Of course it was. It always is. After I saw it the first time I was like, why did they just swap out certain things for other things that really didnt change the story. Probably because they knew it was gonna be super nostalgia driven and needed it to be more recognizable member berries than others. Like King King and the BTTF Delorean instead of Lady Hawk and Rush. I dont know. Anyhow, so I didnt like it the first time for that reason. Had to detach myself from it. The second time I was able to watch it like a normie and it was fine. Fun flick, crazy graphics and Spielberg shooting a movie good. Not surprising being as how the movie is based on a world that he helped create over 50 years. Actors, pretty good. Dialogue, pretty good, not amazing. Comedy, kinda missed. TJ Miller being TJ Miller but a PG-13 version so its not belly laughs, it's light chuckles. Where the movie fails to break the 7 star mark is in that the main character is pretty one dimensional. Probably because the movie's gives you a really quick first act and to set up the world and narrates a quick back story and then right into the second act except we pick up basically in the middle of the second act. The hero's journey has been going on for a while and we're just plopped down into it. Anyhow, if you dont go in needing it to be Shakespeare, you'll have fun and be like "Oh Hey, the Delorean!!!" But you wont come out thinking wow, I loved that story and those were memorable characters. Its a Friday night popcorn flick after a long week. In a word. It's cool.
The Abyss (1989)
6.5 with managed expectations. Maybe 7.
Here's the thing. The dialogue is so steeped in late 80's/early 90's cliches that it can almost be considered a period piece but if you go in knowing that's what this flick is, it's fine. Its odd. The movie feels like it knows exactly what it is while also not knowing what it is at the same time. If you think you're getting an action movie, yeah sort of, its a bit clunky but it's high tension action with the added element of water and claustrophobia. If you think you're getting an under water alien movie, yeah sort of, they're not there much and when they are you're kind of like oh, shouldnt this be the whole movie?l and a bigger deal? But they're not the whole movie. Outside of their service to making the ending happen, they're kind of not needed. In fact, I think it's probably a better movie without the aliens. If you think it's a love story, which I guarantee J. Cameron does, yeah it sort of is. Problem is the characters arent fleshed out enough for you to really know or care why they're separated or if they reconcile. It's the exact same love story from Twister but with out all the stuff that makes you want Paxton and Hunt to work it out. Anyhow, go in thinking its more of a late 90's Armageddon type flick with managed expectations and just enjoy the impressiveness of filming a whole movie under water and you'll be like, yeah ok. 6.5. 7 if you want to give a bump for sheer effort to make.
The Equalizer 3 (2023)
They've gone too far with the dumbing down.
First 5 mins were good. They should have stayed with that story line or even made that the end scene and told the story leading up to it. But they didnt and the opening scene becomes a way for them to basically bring the CIA into the movie and cast Dakota Fanning prob for some Denzel plus Dakota reunion marketing. She really serves no purpose for the actual plot. The real "Big Bad" ends up being The Camorra mafia and he fights them because they shake down this town that he's become partial too. Ok fine, if that's your super simple revenge story plot, great. None of us are gonna care that much about it but we're here for the ass kicking. So you gotta pack your story with ass kicking to make up for the lack of interesting story. This does neither. No action happens for about an hour. The bulk of the film. If you're going to make his adversaries incompetent idiots that he goes through like butter, there must be a lot of them. Like 50-100 of them like in most John Wicks. And don't build up a bad guy as being some super bad ass mean guys that are a threat to be reconned with only to have this 70 year old man go through them all in 5 mins without breaking a sweat and not in any sort of interesting way. I gave it a 5 because Denzel is cool. Otherwise, it's a 2-3 because this should be the easiest movie to pull off. Its super low hanging fruit. When in doubt, make it kick ass and bare minimum it's a 6.5.
Love Has Won (2023)
This is not a cult, it's an anti cult...of dorks.
Ok so this gal does ecstasy once and friggin loves it so much that she starts banging the old guy that gives her dope and names her self god. Then a few hippies show up over time and are like ,"hey are you god?" and she's like "sure I guess, wanna get hammered?" They do. So they all get hammered, a lot. Especially the god lady. Pretty sure she didnt even care-nor want to be a cult leader. She just wanted to party. Naming herself god right out of the gate was a bold move because that was the most effort she put into any sort of brain washing or cult leader type behavior the whole time. She let that one move carry her on for years. Then she dies from alcohol poisoning a few years later, as you do when you pound screwdrivers 12 hours a day and blast LSD to the dome constantly. The best part was the first feller that showed up to meet her after she left the old guy giving her drugs. He clearly was not the type to be into this sort of natural mystical thing but there he was. Shortly after they started selling hippie type products on Amazon and used her hippie god persona as the main means of marketing. Clearly this was all his idea and she was like probably like, "will it make us enough money to buy more shrooms?" And he was like, "yup!" And she said, "Im totally in" and then it went from there. Every video of them all congregating around the cult clubhouse, dressed in tie dye and smoking the peace pipe and this guy is in the corner dressed like an accountant running sales numbers on his laptop and I said, that guy's definitely grifting and gonna steal all the money. Guess what happened in the end, he stole all the money. Actually he didnt steal all the money, everything was in his name so the money was his the whole time. I wish they'd do a doc on him and how he conjured up this whole scheme. Anyways, that's it, that's the movie. It's very mediocre.
Haunted Mansion (2023)
Overall a 6, but enjoyable with the right expectations.
The only thing I wanted in this movie was a bit of fun and nods to the ride and it delivered those. Its one of those movies that at the end you say, "that was cute". If you expect more you will be sorely let down. It has about two or three too many characters that are just there to get the plot moving, which is fine but then they stick around the whole movie. The laughs are 50/50. Some are quick but some are corny and are just there to donwhat all Disney movies do no whichnis to make sure nothing is serious. If they would have cut out about 30% of the irrelevant nonsense and used that time to build up the back stories to the things that would eventually be the climax events to make us care more, I think you'd have a classic. But they didnt, so it's just fine. No one will watch it twice.
Ahsoka (2023)
It's not good. But here's who will like it.
Hi. Star Wars normie here. I like SW but am in no way a fanatic. I have not seen every show but I've seen a few.
Here's who will like this:
Kids maybe. The ones on the lower end of the appropriate watching age. Being as how there are zombies and witches and killing though, that might make the minimum age viewer too old to not notice how bad the show it. So kids that dont really understand what makes a good story yet but are also old enough to watch dark stuff. That's about it. No one else should enjoy this.
A big Star Wars fan should demand more from their beloved franchise and a normie should not be invested enough to accept such poor pacing, character development, sanctimonious directing and lazy writing. It's corny and the characters react like they're in an after school special. Your time should be more valuable than this.
I gave Disney SW one more shot with this but the franchise just isn't cool anymore. Its always been nerdy but the impressive thing about SW was that it was nerdy and cool at the same time somehow. You could choose your level of nerd you wanted to be. Disney SW just isnt cool, at all. For this reason Im out. Its all John Wicks and Equalizers for me from here out. For better or worse.
Peaky Blinders (2013)
Starts entertaining. Falls off quick
Pretty typical business model for an epic type show here. Season 1 good, 2 ok, 3 eh, 4 bad, then you have to choose whether you're going to give them another 15-20 hours of your life to see it stumble through over the top scenarios that are just there to keep up the shock value and limp across the finish line. I used to. Not any more. I cut my losses after the train heads down hill as it always does. Season 4 was the kicker. I can just see the writer's room, let's bring the Italian Mafia in because that would be bad ass. Aawww yeah!!! High fives all around!!! We did it again!!! But then Adrien Brody tries to be menacing but ends up doing a bad cartoon character version of Vito Corleone and real life Al Pacino and it's so comical that it almost makes the show a comedy. Its the same as Yellowstone, Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead, Lost etc etc. Starts strong, runs out of gas.
Glass Onion (2022)
If you fell for this movie's tricks, you are likely to join a cult one day.
This is a poor movie. It's 3rd grade level writing and story telling parading around as genre bending and original thought by putting some weird audacious props in it and outlandish characters to trick people who listen to K Pop into thinking it's cool and edgy. The murder mystery genre formula has been the same for 60 years for a reason. If you want to disrupt that formula, it's going to take some real talented writing and you'll either get a masterpiece or complete garbage, but it's a respectable endeavor to take on none the less if you actually go for it. This movie thinks it's doing that but it's just doing the old formula so poorly that it's almost unrecognizable. They added a huge tattoo'd Dave Bautista in a fedora, a bikini clad Kate Hudson in a wide brimmed hat, a Foghorn Leg Horn accented Daniel Craig in an ascot parading around a private island with giant glass onion atop an opulent mansion there to make you think it's slick. It's not. It's just a bad movie. Don't fall for it.