Reviews

It really is. And that's ok. There's nothing wrong with stories for children. It just gets a bit awkward when you're an adult and expect to relive the same magical experience you had when you were twelve. It's not gonna happen. And because you're an adult you then start to rationalize your disappointment- oh, the character development is lacking, oh the plot holes, oh the pacing, there was no 'spark' or 'emotion' or 'spirit' or whatever euphemism you find for the bright & fuzzy memory of your lost childhood. None of those things are the problem. The problem is that you're 35 watching a movie aimed for the emotional and intellectual expectations of a 12 year old audience. OF COURSE it will have cheesy lines and plot holes and deus ex machina and one-dimensional characters. If you had first seen a New Hope at 35 you would have said the same thing about it too.

Much bigger fans than I am will dissect and analyse the story to death, so I will limit myself to what is really my only point: this idea that every new episode since like the Phantom Menace is some sort of a betrayal of the 'real' Star Wars should be called out already for the nostalgic man-child syndrome that it is. It's a kid's movie people, we are all watching a kid's movie. Some episodes are better, others are weaker, fair enough. But it's still a kid's movie. Enjoy the battle scenes, laugh at the silly jokes, eat popcorn and be happy for your 10 year old nephew who thinks this is the most awesome thing ever. But for the sake of your dignity please stop holding these movies up to the impossible standard of turning you back into a child.

I like this movie.

I know it butchers history. I realize it makes an unconvincing attempt to convert 12th century ideology into sth that 21st century audiences can relate to. I am aware of all the plot holes and inconsistencies.

And still.

You have to take this movie for what it is: a fantasy, an adventure- flick, a superhero comic. Those of u who are interested in history: go read history; those who want realistic character development: go and watch independent cinema. This is a Ridley Scott movie. It features awesome battle-scenes, cool aerial shots and some epic acts of badassery. That is what I was expecting, that is what I got. The cast was great- except maybe Orlando 'Wooden' Bloom, I have to give u that-, but u have Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, Eva Green, Ghassan Massoud. Even the minor characters, like David 'Professor Lupin' Thewlis or Nikolaj 'Jaime Lannister' Coaster-Waldau are spot-on. It was entertaining, it was fun, it was cool.

That's it, but that's enough.

This is a decent & funny road-movie even by international standards, the characters are cool, but to be honest, all I was looking at was the scenery. I live in Transylvania I know it and I love it, so this film was like a home-made video for me. It was just so awesome to watch an actual story taking place in places I knew too well; I was having fun by trying to identify where exactly each scene took place. I stopped many times in the same parking lot in the Bekas-straits, I know where that gypsy-palace is, I knew where that mine was and I kept recognizing the roads they were driving on. I know this is hardly relevant to anyone, I just felt like sharing, cause I sure had fun.

I don't get what's the fuss about this film.

To me it seemed like an excuse for a straightforward action-flick from the very beginning. The basic idea- people killing each other as part of a show- dates back to Antiquity. We've seen it countless times, in all settings and styles imaginable. As far as original ideas are concerned, this film- or the book, for that matter- doesn't even qualify for the competition.

But that's OK. I like a straightforward action-flick. To be fair, it was a decently entertaining movie. But that's about the highest praise I can think of.

The whole idea of a tense, psychological manhunt, with believable scenes and a careful pacing- that I was sort of hoping for- quickly ended up as a B-movie for kids. I just couldn't take any of it seriously. The whole 'world' in which this story takes place is all-too-obviously artificial, built hastily in order to give some supposedly-needed context for the whole 'Hunger Games'. It doesn't have any depth, any identity or personality. I don't know about the books, but I have a feeling I wouldn't like the written background story very much either. It's like... would anyone give a s**t about the whole imagined universe, unless the Hunger Games? It's just a decorum, but one I couldn't care less about.

But that still would be OK. I just wanted a show. A cool manhunt, one where characters have to make tough decisions, where their true strengths and weaknesses come to light. Instead I was treated to the above mentioned kids movie. Genetically modified bees, gigantic dogs and godly f***ing firestorms coming out of nowhere, with no previous hint that they even exist. Rules randomly changed in the middle of the game. Characters eagerly conforming to their assigned unidimensional roles as 'arrogant bad guy' and 'nice kids who actually couldn't hurt a fly'. The nice kids are then conveniently killed off by bad guys or poison themselves only leaving the heroine the task to mourn them. Ridiculous, stupid tactics that no one would use, like placing all your belongings in the middle of a mine-field or sleeping like you're dead while the person you're trying to kill is camping on the tree... wtf was that?? All too often, the heroine was just saved by pure luck and lack of sense; I mean, seriously how far could she have wandered after being bitten by those bees? The others had all the time to arrange stuff around the mine-field, but not to walk like 100 meters further and kill one of their most dangerous opponents (supposedly).

Anyway, I'm not trying to be overparticular, but the originality and the story being clearly not worth for consideration, about the only criterion by which this movie could be worth something is how cool, ingenious and smart they made the manhunt. It seems to me that everyone just took the safe way and piled up a bunch of clichés and/or ultimately dull scenes. I mean were you once surprised by the turn of events? Do you remember thinking wow, I wouldn't have thought he/she/they would do that? What a surprise?

Ps. In spite of this all, Jennifer Lawrence rocks, I hope to see her in some cool movies over the next years. After she finishes this trilogy, I mean.

The premise of this movie is that a father becomes convinced that the kidnappers of his son will kill his boy even if he pays up; in his desperation he goes rogue, offering money for anyone who helps find the abductors instead...

... which might seem like a good idea on screen, but is a horrible one if you have the slightest demand for realism. It was quite ridiculous to watch the ruthless kidnapper-boss getting himself all pumped up over Mel's strategy. In real life Mel would have probably received an envelope with his son's fingers each day he wasn't paying. I mean come on- there are plenty of things one can do short of killing that would have made anyone in the world pay in half an hour.

So yeah, the acting was good, the action OK, the movie as a whole entertaining, but it's hard to give it a good mark if its core idea doesn't work.

Good premise, decent characters, an enjoyable movie, sloppy plot holes and a script that loses itself somewhere along the way. But ah well, you all knew this.

Why is it that every time a movie is made with the theme 'average guy suddenly becomes extraordinary' and I'm like 'that would be sooo cool', the script consummates his powers in the most cliché-like and uncreative scenarios? He might be super-smart, all-powerful, able to read other's minds, a superhero etc. or can get some strange tool like a universal remote control or an invisibility cloak or WHATEVER... but what does he do?- he uses all this to pick up chicks and resolve his petty household issues. This is the 'Bruce Almighty syndrome'- the guy was literally ALLMIGHTY and he used his powers to become a local TV celebrity and to enlarge his girlfriend's boobs.

In this particular case, the situation is somewhat better; yet still. Is playing the stock-market and running for senator really the best thing one with a limitless mind can do? How about SCIENCE? I mean it's the first thing on one's mind as far as super-smart is concerned. Wasn't this guy interested in giving the 'Millenium Prize Problems' or the 'Theory of everything' a shot? How about trying to cure cancer or AIDS? When you literally have one of the greatest intellects in history you just shouldn't waste your time on being a goddamn senator... I just find it surprising the script doesn't even think of such a possibility instead focuses on the guy impressing some chick in a club by speaking French. You don't need a limitless mind for that.

Well, I haven't seen the original 1969 version nor I have read the book, so I couldn't say what of what I like & dislike about the movie is 'new stuff' and what is copied/adapted.

To me this seemed like a decent western, but I was left with an overall ambiguous feeling. It was entertaining but it didn't seem realistic at all and sometimes it seemed to go nowhere.

For instance could one conceive a bigger 'deus ex machina' than the post- 'the trail is cold'-discussion 'oh look there they are watering their horses a couple of hundred yards off our camp'-solution ?!? It just make no sense. The whole falling into the hole thing + snakebite was also very theatrical. And one guy against four? First Matt Damon in what was a clear suicide attempt than Jeff Bridges being Superman.

Don't get me wrong, it's a just story, sure, and it shouldn't be overanalysed, but maybe I started off with a wrong expectation of realism.

I usually read the 'Hated it' comments when I like a film, only to get a different point of view. This time though most of the comments just made me laugh. Racist? Insulting? Are you guys serious? I mean sure, there were a lot of parts that could be interpreted as such, but come on- they were in a context, they were supposed to be understood from a certain perspective. Sure there were many stereotypes, but that's not the same thing. Then again the characters expressing racist views- like Danila saying in Brat 1 he doesn't like Jews, or his brother shooting the Ukrainian ('You'll pay for Sevastopol!')- does not mean the film promotes those views. Maybe some people are hyper-sensitive and require immediate and thorough moral condemnation of every non-PC phrase uttered on screen. I for one like to watch films without the plot constantly reminding me of what is right and what is wrong, as if I was a kid- I can make the judgment myself. I welcome morally ambiguous characters, and I don't feel the urge to take offense at any given occasion. Also if this film was racist then so are 90% of American action-movies with their completely stereotypical and ridiculous portrayals of virtually every other nationality from Germans to Chinese. But we all get the point there. So what's wrong here?

On the other hand this was not necessarily a great movie. I loved it and I was entertained- but it obviously has its flaws. Compared to the first one it was certainly not very realistic- Pop star-girlfriend, shooting scenes, TV-reporter etc.- but I didn't feel they went out of line. Still its success is not due to its artistic quality, but due to that it's cool- which was of course the purpose and which is totally OK.

One final point. Maybe it is difficult for people in the West to understand the often exaggerated success that a film of this type can have in other countries- from Russia to Brazil, from Mexico to Turkey, or in Romania-my country. I have grown up watching mostly American movies, as did all of my friends, as did all my generation. I've never been to America and yet I've seen countless movies set in New York, LA or San Francisco, sometimes it seems I know those cities like I've walked their streets for real. And yet there are only about a handful of films about the places where I really do live; about the people here, about our point of view. Of course it feels great, of course it is something significant when an actually cool film is made locally- a mainstream film, with a little national spirit, with a little self-irony, with some making-fun-of-Americans well placed. It is still a strange feeling - for me at least- to see a mainstream movie with all the American action ingredients but with familiar places and familiar kinds of people who are speaking my language; to look at the whole thing as an insider. I guess this mix between the American way of entertainment and a kind of local pride is responsible for the success of a great number of films in many countries. I for sure liked Brat a lot partly because I could relate to the situations and the people very well.

The debate is usually between Alien being more subtle & darkish while Aliens more full of action. I personally liked this one better, but think that the first part is the better movie- it is more balanced, obviously more original and, if the term has any sense in this genre, more realistic.

All in all Aliens had the atmosphere, the feeling & the courage it takes. I think the story was great, the characters each added something to the plot & the relations between them were well built-up and believable. Since I enjoyed the movie very much I won't go on listing all the individual elements I did like, instead I'll just note a few I didn't.

1. The movie should have ended when they get off the planet. The climax was consumed by that time: Newt had been saved through a daring incursion to the alien-nest and the surviving characters just narrowly escaped the big explosion. This is the natural ending of the story; everything that comes afterward feels like a bonus action-scene, so that viewers are satisfied for their money. Not necessary.

2. The marines should have been given some better lines. At some points they were becoming pretty ridiculous & stereotypical. And by the way, how on Earth can soldiers act with so little discipline? I mean you f**k around with your mates- OK; during instruction- still no problem; while being given direct orders by your superior- come on?!?, and even while in action- I mean these guys were professionals and yet were sometimes acting like children.

3. This is just a small observation: what happened to the girl interpreting Newt? Why didn't she continue acting? She was appreciated, awarded, probably would have had a great career...she's a schoolteacher now...what a waste.

I really liked almost all aspects about this movie: the plot, the setting, the cast & the way of the storytelling in general. {+ Leonardo Dicaprio is probably one of the coolest actors of the recent years- The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Departed, Revolutionary Road etc.- quite a long way from his vulnerable Romeo-characters around the Titanic-era }.

That being said, the sole reason I wrote this comment is to nag about one single thing- the predictability. I am sure that I'm not alone with this: but well before the middle of the movie I knew all too well where it was going. And I'm really not the guy to predict unforeseeable plot twists very often, so it must have been something else than just me. Several elements emphasized too much, many things pointing in the same direction, few other -satisfactory- options left open ... I don't know, really, but I am so MAD for being stripped of the pleasure of THE GREAT TWIST IN THE END. I mean the big-shock was obviously a major goal of the movie and yet it was so OBVIOUS what was going to happen and more and more elements to support the theory kept piling up.

Otherwise everything was very cool, hence the 8 note. I just wish I had been dumber this one time.

This picture features debaters with crappy, transparent arguments ACCEPTED as right by the movie (and a classroom just in the place to nod whenever a point is, apparently, made). In Lions for Lambs I found the subject exciting, but the arguments childish. The two guys volunteering for military service were not only unconvincing, but stupid all the way along. Two point I'm trying to make here:

1. In spite of all the internal problems it might have, the US IS one of the most free, good-to-live in countries in the world. Don't think anyone is contesting that. Therefore it sounds hypocritical to be SO desperate about the situation, that you are willing to actually sacrifice yourself just that you might have the CHANCE to change something. I look around and see people who who barely live from today till tomorrow- THEY WOULD sound genuine willing to risk their lives for a change. But not these well-fed, occasionally-debating-at-school guys with every possibility to learn, work and make a good life for themselves. Even if they come from a poor background, by no means they have NO other options.

2. Even IF accepting their willingness to make a difference, maybe even their despair that they are not being listened to (who didn't listen? how many times could have they possibly tried to make themselves heard? they're schoolboys, for God's sake! what should "they" do, elect them president?! ), so even accepting this: what's the point in being a soldier? "Maybe this way they'll listen to us?" Come on! How naive can you get? How few history can you know? How little can you assimilate of the world around you?

The movie was trying hard to make the volunteering look like a very understandable, well-thought, MATURE thing to choose, in the given situation- yet all I have seen were 2 kids who destroyed their lives because of a child-fantasy. It WOULD have been OK with me if they went for the right reasons- a military career, money, adventure, whatever. They did not, instead they tried to apply Disneyland in practice.

It doesn't work.

My theory is that every piece of art, thus every movie, has to be evaluated, judged from the inside, by its own rules. This might be understood in many different ways; basically I mean that one should not start watching anything with an already prepared frame which he will then try to force on the movie. It's not possible to simply start from zero- we're human after all, and are influenced by our life up until the moment of watching a new movie- what we CAN do is throw aside stereotypical expectations and struggle to look at the movie from a multitude of points of view, in an open-minded way.

"Pulp Fiction" is for me the perfect example of a movie where clichés just don't work. The "I hated it" part of comments here is filled with complains about the poor plot, the lack of character development or the pointless dialogs. But even if their observations are all true, they're missing the point: none of those expectations are valid o Pulp Fiction, therefore the movie should not be judged based upon them. Wouldn't it be silly to complain about James Bond for not being realistic? or to underrate Harry Potter for being childish? A movie can be regarded from many alternative angles- not all of them are sensible.

Watching -and of course re-re watching, frame by frame- this movie was simply a pleasure, a major source of cinematic satisfaction. I didn't care about the storyline or the morale, if it was any; instead I couldn't stop enjoying Samuel L. Jackson reciting his classic Bible-quote, or Mr. Wolf doing his job, or Marcellus Wallace talking to Butch, the music, the moves, the full-of-flavor acting and lines, making every moment so enjoyable that it made me watch it over and over again.

This movie is not about what it's about, it's about HOW it's made. Dialogs seem stupid on paper- brilliant on tape (of course that doesn't mean that dialogs ARE stupid, but in this film they do not have the purpose to take the action forward- they are not a means to communicate, but have an inward value of themselves ). I have not enough words of praise for the acting; God bless Sam, John and Bruce for what they did.

Never again will another movie like this be made- masterpiece, reason to live, whatever you want it to be.

I am very interested about wars and the movies about them and I must say I had pretty high expectations for Platoon. I was hoping that this would be the ultimate Vietnam-war movie, with all that it takes, with a mature yet challenging view of the reality of war.

Well…it wasn't bad but I definitely expected more.

My first sensation after I finished watching was this sense of surprise. I actually can't say I have learned anything new from Platoon. It struck me as a too predictable and due to that not very convincing. Yeah, I knew people were killed in wars, I knew that there were atrocities, I knew some were accepting them and some weren't- what I lacked was some kind of higher self-consciousness of the characters, some above-average assessment and assimilation of the things, because this movie seemed like a bunch of robot guys acting, doing the first thing that came into their minds, everything happening exactly the way you think it would.

This takes me to my second point- I really felt that some of the "explanations", or ideas were stereotypes or lacked substance. Like the letter in the beginning: with "this place feels like hell", or with the lines about duty for your country…I don't know, I'm no veteran, but this doesn't sound very realistic to me. What was again very freak, Bunny killing that guy, or Barnes shooting the woman- it is supposed to show the degrading effects of war, but I can't look to it just like that. Those guys, especially Bunny, would have probably been psychos outside the war; their attitude is not one war can explain, it's a lot sicker than that. OK, we can understand that war brings out the worst in a human being or that it offers the place for otherwise restrained sick behaviors - yet as an other commenter on IMDb put it, too many things happen to that small platoon in a very short period. Of course movie time is limited, but this way we might get the wrong idea about that war.

I think racism of any type is simply crazy and stupid, however it just doesn't have the same meaning in different situations. It is not the same whether you have racial views in Africa or in America, whether you belong to the major ethnic group or you are part of the minority. The manifestation of racism might be the same but the substance and the motives are different. In American history x I felt these motives were pretty much unconvincing.

To begin with Derek is not a cattle-like asshole, like many of his skinhead friends, who only embrace racism because they are too limited to think any further; neither he becomes a racist solely for the benefits of being part of the gang (like the majority, I suppose). Derek actually does think, he is a leader- at least that's the idea. As a result when he does become a racist he does it because of an internal belief that this is the correct, sane thing to do. He arguments, he has an opinion based on facts, he is becoming convinced because of these facts- the point is not that he misinterprets things, the point is that he is not a racist because of the emotional trauma, not because his father died, but because he thinks things that way.

In addition his prison rebirth is very unlikely to me. So what was that about after all? He saw one of his gang's members buying pot from a black guy, or a Mexican, i don't remember- so what, is this thing capable to destroy his whole world-view? What did he think, that all white guys have the same ideas as he has?

He met a funny, sympathetic black guy- OK , now don't tell me that Derek, intelligent as he was, thought that all black people were jerks. He was not a racist before his father's death, he actually liked Sweeney!-that part was very artificial, I mean, what is this supposed to mean, that Derek forgot just like that everything he had known about people, just because his father died? It was a trauma, his television interview-outburst might be explained with that, sort of a "homage" to the racist dad, but why did he start to hate EVERY black person all of a sudden from then on? Like I said before it wasn't just an emotional thing-it couldn't have been. Derek had his theory of black people being more likely to commit crimes, of taking the jobs of decent white people and so on-there was nothing in the movie that made a counter-argument to these, accepted by Derek; he simply forgot these at the end.

All in all, my observation is that the movie is very well acted, well structured, but not very realistic. Derek's-and for that matter Danny's- sudden changes of their view are totally unconvincing, because they do not come from the right place- Derek is a nazi because he believes in the theory, and there's nothing that should change him so radically, because every experience he has is mainly emotional. Danny probably never was very convinced of anything, so he is actually much more credible than his brother.

My friend warned me not to watch this movie, yet I decided to be open-minded. I really tried- I've in fact struggled for almost an hour and a half to keep myself watching- eventually I was defeated by the horrendous amount of BOREDOM this movie has emanated.

I can't say I'm very pretentious about movies, I like all kinds of them, classic or artistic movies too. I simply cannot remember any other occasion I have had such a boring time watching something. I DO remember a lot of stuff-probably because everything went on so slooooow, and that tape- OMG, after one hour I was sure I'll be dreaming it for a month. How many times was it repeated after all???? Not integraly, OK, but still, some parts just kept on going again and again with pauses of 10 min between...

I did like the atmosphere, old technology stuff, things in the house, music- really fine- but that was abut it. By the time something happened- I was almost asleep. Then, waiting full of hope for some development of the plot...again long, long pauses of nearly nothing...I mean I'm not an action freak, have no problems with listening to conversations, for that matter- but that thing was repeated so many times I thought it was some kind of coded language. Then when I realised it's just about some moral choice Gene Hckman must make...that's the point I've turned the DVD off and went to have a cold shower.

I don't know the ending, I might have lost some great unforeseen stuff- I just hardly can imagine anything capable to compensate me for that boredom this movie has caused me.