Reviews

Lucy picks up the long debunked urban myth that humans only use a small fraction of their brain capacity. But even if that was true no amount of additional brainpower would give you the power to control electromagnetism, gravity and even time itself. The fact, that the premise is utter nonsense, however, is not the main problem of this movie. The main problem is that the writing is terrible, the characters are not relatable at all and that I had fever dreams with a more cohesive plot than this abomination of a script.

That's all the more disappointing as Lucy doesn't start out too bad. The first 20 minutes or so would have provided a good setup for a crime thriller or action flick, but after that it all goes down the drain. Scarlett Johansson's and Morgan Freeman's talents are totally wasted here. They hopefully had a word with their agents after this. On the positive side the movie is over after only 90 minutes, although it sure feels like 120 as the story is so thin they had to to put in unrelated nature documentary footage to stretch it to this runtime. Never seen a movie do this before and hopefully never will...

The first Doctor Strange movie had its weak points but was still enjoyable for the most part. This one not so much. It very much feels like written by AI. The individual scenes kind of work on their own, but don't make a lot of sense when put together.

Neither Strange, nor Wanda, nor Wong behave all that believable. The worst is the character of America Chavez who is nothing more than a walking plot device. The pacing is totally off, the CGI is not the greatest either, it all feels very rushed. The whole Multiverse setting means that everything is interchangeable anyways, so why should the audience even care?

The old wisdom still holds true: Once time travel and parallel universes are introduced in an existing franchise, it is best to walk away because it gets only worse from here.

A woman with an interest in science and her brother find a map to an ancient treasure and enlist a somewhat shady adventurer who just happens to be in a desperate situation to get them there. Sounds familiar? You're not wrong. But while the Mummy could leverage this setup with good character development a strong antagonist with a believable motivation and just the right blend of suspense, action and humor, jungle cruse suffers from lazy writing, questionable casting decisions and barely concealed identity politics.

First, you can clearly tell who is good and bad in this movie by their diversity score, which ruins at least one major twist as you see it coming from a mile away. And while Emily Blunts character isn't a full blown girlboss (she is allowed to make the occasional mistake) her smugness is hard to stomach at times. Dwayne Johnsons character is probably the most interesting here but is very much held back by The Rock's limited acting range. At least the action scenes do work mostly work and save Jungle Cruise from running aground completely but the whole movie feels very passionless and derivative.

Dune is visually stunning and features a great cast of actors. It certainly does the books justice. The problem is that it moves at the pace of a literal dune and it ends at the midpoint of the story, just when things start to get interesting.

Sadly the film doesn't use its impressive runtime for world building. How does interstellar travel work in this universe? Don't know. Why is spice so important for it? Don't know. The old film, despite all its flaws, did a much, much better job at this. Politics are at least hinted at but if you don't pay close attention and fill in the gaps yourself you'll likely end up confused by all the different factions.

All of this leads to a film that only fans can truely enjoy as they already know what is going on while others migt find themselves struggling to watch it to the end.

Yes, the first Star Wars film was a smash hit but would have been forgotten by now if they continued it with a bunch of rushed, lazy written, mediocre movies. Thankfully they didn't. In Fact the second entry to Lucas' science-fantasy saga is universally seen as even better then the already great first movie.

Rightfully so I'd say because it expands the world building massively as well as the character development which was rather basic up to this point. Of course, effects and action scenes look dated by now but this doesn't really hurt the viewing experience all that much. The only valid criticism I can think of is that as the middle part of a trilogy it doesn't really work on its own. You obviously should watch these movies in order to really enjoy them.

I'm still not sure that making a sequel to Ghostbusters 30 years later was a good idea but if you're dead set on doing it you better do it like this.

Unlike the dreaded 2016 remake, which just replaced all the men with women and called everyone not liking it a misogynist, Afterlife really tries its best to stay true to its heritage while at the same time adding its own spin to it. And that spin is essentially a kids on bikes story wether you like it or not. For me, it works surprisingly well. Especially the younger actors do a pretty great job, whereas the older ones really aren't that involved in the story and feel a little redundant during the first half of the movie.

The pacing is rather slow and the nostalgia seems a little heavy handed at times but all in all it is a movie that can be enjoyed by fans of the orinial just as much as by a completely new audience. And honestly what more can a sequel at this time and age hope to accomplish?

Encanto is beautifully animated and has a pretty neat musical score. At least in the english version. I've seen a dubbed one and the singing was very hit and miss. And apart from the songs the movie sadly hasn't much to offer.

While we get introduced to a plethora of relatable characters, most of them are just not important for the story and accordingly have very limited screen time. The whole mystery they build around the lost brother Bruno and his prophecies ultimately leads nowhere. It's just a huge distraction to pretend this film has a plot. The tension is completely artifical: if little sister, big sister, pretty sister and Grandma sat down and had a honest conversation, the film would have been over in five minutes. Nothing is at stake either. The worst possible outcome would be that the family members lose their magical powers and continue their lifes as normal people. Not really a bad ending considering that half them didn't use them for anything important to begin with.

Recent ripoffs like Rebel Moon once again reminded me why the original Star Wars is so damn good.

It's not the special effects, which were of course mind blowing in the 70s but look very dated by now, it's the storytelling and the world building. It's the little things e.g. When Luke is playing with a space ship model or just wistfully watches the double sunset that do so much for characterization with so little effort. It's the masterfully crafted sets, be it the dusty streets of Mos Eisley or the cold corridors of the Death Star, that reveal so much more about the world than the movie is telling us vocally. It's the love and dedication that went into every aspect of this production and is sorely lacking in many modern movies.

Yes, Star Wars has so far stood the test of time and still has a lot to teach to present day filmmakers.

Doing the Magnificent Seven in space with Warhammer-like aesthetics should be an easy feat to pull off and be right up my ally but somehow this movie fails on every level. Pacing is bad, dialogues are bad, acting is bad, VFX looks subpar, world building barely happens, characters are dull and boring, only the action scenes are somewhat ok. If the movie just wouldn't go in slooooooow moooootion all the time for absolutely nooooo reasoooooon...

It's baffling why Netflix wasted an impressive 160 million dollar budget on this when it must have been obivious to them that the script isn't good. It's even more baffling why the pulled off a massive marketing campaign, advertising it to the general public in subway stations, when even a blind fool can see that the end result is just as bad. This is nothing you want to draw attention to, if you want to attract new subscribers. To be fair, I still see this a notch above Disney Star Wars, as Zack Snyder thankfully doesn't ruin the creative work of others but that is not a bar by which you want to be measured.

Well this is a though one to judge. On one hand it features some really awesome over the top action scenes and iconic camera shots, on the other hand the pacing is off. Way off. Considering how little plot there is, the movie is just too long and when you think it finally reached its climax you realize you're in for another hour and now get the watch the backstory of your second main character. At that point you likely figured out most of it anyway.

Seriously, as a 3-part television mini series this would have made much more sense and the cheap CGI wouldn't be as glaring in that format. All in all, while not without some appeal, there are just too many unimportant scenes that add too little to the movie to thoroughly enjoy it.

I always disliked Peter Pan. All these innocent childish adventure vibes shaded with the bittersweet undertone that at one point you have to grow up... I'm glad the makers of this movie did away with all of this.

I love how in this movie Neverland is a bleak, barren, de-saturated island so boring no one would want to stay there longer than necessary. You know, I'm a boring person, too, who always dresses in grey and really hates colors. I also like how they finally made this annoying brat Peter Pan the true villain of the story and Hook a tragic anti-hero. Luckily a very grown-up looking Wendy is here and brings with her the attitude of a 21st century feminist to boss him around. I hate nothing more than characters who fit into their supposed time period.

I also love that they didn't spend any money or effort on special effects. If you don't constantly pull your audience out of immersion with cheap cgi you run the risk of being too entertaining, and might not get your political message across. This certainly doesn't happen here.

Anyway: if you loathe the source material like me and the writers of this masterpiece do, you'll probably love this movie.

This movie was a little bit of a let down. It's called Captain America but it really is more of an Avengers movie, meaning if you didn't watch all the marvel stuff up to this point you'll be lost. It's also called "Civil War", but rather feels like a sandbox tussle most of the time.

The film heavily banks of putting our heroes against each other but the narrative around it feels pretty forced. The battle itself takes place on a grey empty airport under a grey empty sky with piles of cardboard boxes conveniently placed everywhere someone gets tossed. It is really not as epic as it could have been.

At some point the movie fortunately remembers that it had a plot and that plot is actually pretty decent. The final confrontation between Cap and Iron Man feels much more believable and emotional than the big brawl beforehand and it's nice to see a smart villain with a believable motivation for a change.

Captain America's second installment is one of the best if not the single best marvel movie in my opinion. It came out shortly after Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that US agencies are spying upon hundreds of millions innocent citizens around the world, violating their basic rights on a scale that prior to this was waved off as conspiracy theory.

Like in the real world, the supposed good guys in this movie turn out to be the bad guys and the actual good guys are suddenly hunted by the authorities. The Winter Soldier is a great antagonist and the action scenes are among the best in the franchise. It's also arguably a better Black Widow movie than the actual Black Widow movie as Scarlett Johansson is very present in this one without taking anything away from Chris Evans. A must watch for any super hero fan.

Initially I wasn't very interested in a movie that I wrote off as some cringeworthy example of American patriotism. Despite the name though Captain America isn't all that much about the self perceived greatness of god's own country but rather about a humble man with a strong moral compass who wants to do the right thing, even if he has to sacrifice everything for it

I really like Steve Rogers, as he reminds us that, even in a world that seems very grey, there are still universal values worth fighting for. This very likable and relatable character is enough to pull you though the otherwise rather cliché-ridden and predictable plot full of cliché-ridden and predictable villains.

There are a lot of sci-fi movies which pretend to be complex but are in fact just confusing and don't make much sense upon closer inspection. This is not one of them. Inception tells a story about shared dreaming, manipulation of the subconscious and the difficulty to tell dream and reality apart.

The movie does have a complex plot as well as lots of characters and demands full attention at all times but it does a very good job to introduce you to the rules of the world it is set in and than build upon them. Not all of the claims the movie makes are true (e.g. Time doesn't run faster when you dream) but at least the inner logic works and isn't contradicted by lazy writing like it is in so many other stories.

The brilliant plot and world building are accompanied by awe inducing visual effects, a beautiful musical score by Hans Zimmer and a cast of very competent actors. In my opinion one of the most outstanding movies of its decade.

Dredd is hereby judged guilty for delivering a hyper violent no-nonsene sci-fi action thriller that doesn't try to be more than it is. The sentence is to be watched by fans of the genre unconditionally.

Based on the same comic book source material as the 1995 adaption with Sylvester Stallone but otherwise not related to it in any way, the film depicts a typical work day of law enforcer Dredd (Karl Urban). Well not that typical as he has to assess a rookie with psychic abilities (played wonderfully by Olivia Thirlby) and accidentally angers a powerful crime boss who is flooding the city with a new kind of drug.

This movie is very focused on the plot and the main characters. It doesn't try to do much but what it does, it does very well. Script, acting and cinematography are pretty much on point, although the world building is a little underdeveloped. It's a real shame that there never was sequel to this to explore the concept further.

As great as Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1 had been, its successor is without a doubt the weakest film pre-Endgame. The delicate balance of drama and silliness heavily collapsed in favor of the latter with only a small fraction of the gags actually being funny. Most of this film is so cringey though, that it made me wonder how to leave the cinema without being seen.

Volume 2 has some redeeming qualities though. First of all Nebula has quite an interesting character arc and becomes a welcome addition to the ensemble. Second there is Yondu. He really is the saving grace of this messy movie and kind of steals the show from everyone else. To bad you have to endure 2 hours of nonsense and a guest appearance of David Hasselhoff as himself before he finally gets his moment.

I honestly didn't expect much of this adaptation of some c-tier comic no one ever heard of, but as all Marvel films had been at least decent I went into the cinema to check it out. Boy was I blown away. I cried within the first five minutes and during the last five while laughing my head off in between.

Guardians of the Galaxy is not really a super hero movie like you would expect from Marvel but rather a space opera or space western that is reminiscent of Star Wars or Firefly but much more anarchistic than either of those classics. The humor is a bit adolescent at times but kind of fits the characters which are a bunch of misfits that double cross each other constantly before finally getting their act together.

And while this movie is a must see in the greater context of the MCU it is also a great stand alone watch that requires no prior knowledge. It's a shame, though, that afterwards Marvel tried to stuff this very particlar humor into other movies where it didn't fit, and went into full parody territory with the successor.

Thor Ragnarok is one of the first marvel movies that left me rather disappointed. While the first Thor introduced us the the character and the second expanded the lore in a meaningful way, while leaving a lot of interesting threads to pick up on, Ragnarok throws this all out of the window and instead tries very hard to be its own parody.

With the exception of Heimdall, the whole support cast is either missing for unknown reasons or gets dispatched rather unceremoniously. At no point does Thor even asks what had become of his life long friends. Probably because he just replaced them with a diverse female girl boss, a cheap cgi stone monster and an imbecile with two machine guns. Loki has the worst of it though, as the once most charismatic MCU villain gets reduced to a running gag for most of this movie. And yeah, Hulk is in this film because... he didn't get his own one I guess? Also there is a completely pointless (but at least amusing) brief guest appearance of Dr. Strange.

There are a couple of things however, that save this Movie from disaster: Cate Blancett is phenomenal as villain Hela, the choice of music is top notch and the cinematography is pretty awesome as well. Thor finally gets his character defining moment he should have had in this movie in "Avengers: Endgame" but that is another story.

A lot of sequels struggle to live up to their respective predecessor, this one not at all. Thor: The Dark World beautifully expands on the world building of the first part once again combining Norse mythology and sci-fi elements. It brings back the whole support cast in meaningful way and fleshes out the main protagonists in a believable fashion.

Like in the first film the complicated relationship between Thor and his brother Loki is an important theme here and its nice to watch it one last time before the writers turned both characters into complete jokes. I'm aware that a lot of people see this as one of the weaker marvel movies but for me it sits comfortably in the top five and is without a doubt the best Thor movie. The only real criticism I have is that the main antagonist stays as pale as his make up and and only exists because plot has to happen.

Why are there bees in the middle of a radioactive desert? What do they live on? Are there some hidden flower meadows, they didn't show us? Or are the bees replicants too? That was about the only question I pondered after watching this, as the rest of the movie made so little sense that I didn't bother. Something about pregnant replicants and a wooden horse. Or maybe the horse was pregnant and the replicants made from wood, I don't remember.

Yeah the visuals were kind of artsy but at no point did the fictional world feel as if it could be real, something the original blade runner film managed to pull off quite well in contrast. I didn't really care for any of the characters either, with the possible exception of the holographic girlfriend. She was nice but didn't have all that much screen time.

A lot of people seem to like this sequel, but aside from the obvious production value and the fact that Harrison Ford is in it, I don't get why.

A lot of people seem to prefer Iron Man but for me as a big fantasy fan it was Thor who draw me into the MCU. I'd say of the early movies this was the most original and the one that I personally enjoyed the most

The weird mix of Norse mythology and super hero tropes, science and magic, as silly as it is on closer inspection, works surprisingly well. Like all the early marvel movies it strikes a good balance between humor and drama. Thor's interaction with modern society is pure gold and his brother Loki is for sure one of the most fleshed out and interesting antagonists in the MCU.

Some twists seem a little cheap, however, and the powers and limitations of each character aren't always clear, which may cause confusion and makes this movie fall just short of achieving true greatness.

Simply put: if you're one of those two people out there, who never played a Mario game, you probably won't enjoy this movie all that much. The plot is shallow, the characters rather one dimensional and it doesn't touch on any deep philosophical topics. But to be fair, neither does the game.

If you, however, did enjoy playing Mario at any point in you life, even as far back as the 16-bit era, you WILL be entertained. This movie doesn't try to turn Mario into something it isn't or to cater to the proverbial modern audience that doesn't exist. It just brings the game to life on the canvas in the best possible way and gives the fans (and their kids) all they want and then some. Revolutionary concept, I know.

Set in the nineties (the best decade since the 80s) featuring aliens and space ships a young Nick Fury and fan favorite Phil Couleson, this movie was set up to be awesome. Sadly the main character is probably the most unlikable in all marvel movies.

Captain Marvel starts out arrogant and ruthless but unlike Iron Man she never gets humbled and shows no character development at all. And as she is able to soundly defeat her foes with her hands cuffed in the first quarter of the movie there isn't really any tension involved afterwards. Of course she succeeds at anything once she is wielding practically unlimited power.

Luckily this movie gets carried over the finish line by its great support cast - Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn in particular. I'd say it is still worth watching in the greater context of the MCU despite being rather mediocre on its own.

It is no secret that nine out of ten attempts to revive old movies or TV shows fail miserably because the people in charge have no clue what made them good in the first place let alone how to improve on that.

Cobra Kai is a notable exception and a real surprise hit. Made with the deepest respect of the source material involving most of the original actors it manages to not only reach but clearly surpass the quality of the original Karate Kid movie. Don't get my wrong, the movie was alright (its successors to a much lesser extent) but not really something I thought I needed more of. I was wrong, this show hits like a kick in the face. Great writing, great acting, great humor, no hidden agenda.

This is especially true for the first season but also the second and third. I think it loses some momentum after that and starts to get a little repetitive but I still felt entertained.