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Reviews
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)
What was that all about?
I am one of those who have never read the books on which these movies are based, so I have absolutely no idea what they are all about. The first movie at least was interesting and held out some promise, at least of an explanation of the purpose of the maze. So, I have now watched Scorch Trials and I still have no idea what the maze was for and I have absolutely no idea what this movie was supposed to be all about. Sorry, but I really do not care if everything is going to be cleared up in the next movie because this one was so unremittingly depressing and awful that I would not watch the next one if you payed me to do so.
From what I have read here, the books are nothing like the movies. So you have to ask, why bother? And thus, why bother watching it? I got no connection to any of the characters, so the best thing that could happen to them would be if they all die in the final movie. Flat acting, meaningless plot, cheap location filming, no special effects worth a damn. Don't waste your time if you have not seen it yet.
Knock Knock (2015)
a remake of dumb, dumber and dumbest
Keanu Reeves has only one character depth so asking him to play something outside of that was pretty desperate. His doting father was way over the top and most kids would have run from him screaming 'my father is a dork'. In fact, the best actors in this whole movie were the two kids and the dog.
Keanu really needs to stick to his monosyllabic roles such as John Wick, John Constantine and Neo. As soon as he tries to stretch his repertoire of characters, it comes off as really false.
As to the story, what a pile of steaming dog poo. The direction was awful, the acting terrible and the storyline stunk to high heaven. The only saving thing in the whole movie was that Reeves ended up buried up to his neck in dirt, a situation that he should get used to if he signs up for any more garbage like this.
Finally, just what did these two stupid girls think was going to happen once they did all this damage? Did they really think that they would get away with it? That is perhaps the single most stupid thing about the whole movie. There is no reason for their actions and there is simply no way that they would get away with it. Did they think that the film of them shagging would stop someone pursuing a prosecution, hell, it is evidence not a deterrent.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)
No more games, no more story. Tedious and boring.
Unfortunately it seems that without the Games there is just no longer any point to this franchise and it just sinks into tedious bloodletting mediocrity. Katniss now comes over as mentally unstable and President Snow is simply an over-the-top homicidal lunatic. There is no way that even the pampered poseurs of Capitol (or whatever it is called I have now lost interest in the names) would put up with their leader's carrying out such murderous activities in their name. Yet, even with all of the bloodletting going on, none of it visualised of course, this movie is a bore from start to finish. It is an illogical bore too. Snow has gone from being a cold but efficiently ruthless ruler to a parody of a dictator deliberately setting up his own downfall. Instead of taking the opportunity to destroy the mockingjay, he decides to play into her hands by wasting a hospital (no spoiler needed as this is clearly shown in the trailer). Don't waste your money going to see this movie as there is nothing to learn about the events that will end in the second Mockingjay. You will be able to go and see MJ2 and pick up the storyline immediately. The feeling of 'something is missing' are all in this movie. How did all of this suddenly come about? Sophisticated underground bunkers, rebel presidents, captured technology, etc., ad nauseum. You know what is truly annoying? It has all been done before and done much better. Can you say Matrix?
The Nines (2007)
Entertaining enough but ultimately disappointing
I give this a 6 because it is actually quite good fun and entertaining, but it is not the intellectual exercise that some here seem to think it is. The film is divided into three parts and of the three the first part is the only one that is entertaining and gives you some mystery. The way the first part ends, however, just does not make any sense. Why does the world disappear when the 'being' steps back over the line? There is just no need for such dramatics. The second part is where they use metaphors to explain what exactly is going on, not that it needs it once the world disappeared. If you have a functioning brain you could have figured it all out from there. The absurd floating numbers at the end of Part 2 and the fairly explicit explanation from Melissa totally dispel whatever mystery might remain, for everyone surely but the most hard of thinking. The third part is just totally pointless. Reynolds is supposed to be a video game designer in this part, but nothing is actually made of this which renders the whole subterfuge pointless. The actor and the writer were given some prominence but not the video game creator, which is about as close as you could get to the god process. With the 3 parts you get a comedy, followed by a documentary, followed by a piece of cod philosophy. The writer then denies that the 9s are actually gods by implying that there is a 10. The numbers are just stupid, because if they are suggesting that humans are 7s and koala bears are 8s (so what are tricking dolphins and mice then? (yes Douglas Adams did it better)) and then the very next beings up are the creators of the universe who are 9s, suggests that there is nothing in between. So you go from a telepathic teddy bear to the creators of the universe in 1 number, not very imaginative then. One final point, the character played by Melissa, who is of course a 7, knows all about the 7s and the 9s and even the putative 10. How come? Did a careless 9 tell her all this? Worth seeing, maybe. Worth any intellectual capacity, not a chance. I am, of course, an atheist so all of these god type movies, like Lucy, leave me with a hugely stretched credulity. The real universe is much more awe-inspiring than any religious type mumbo-jumbo or meandering cod-philosophy could render.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012)
Oooohhh dear!
2 hours of my life I will never recover. Can I sue?
The worst thing that any director can do to an audience is to create the 'event that never happened'. Any director that still does not get that has no business directing.
What do you get in this movie?
1hr of nothing happening at all except puerile dialogue. Perhaps the worst example of CGI (I simply cannot believe they thought that baby was OK) in the history of lala-land. One brief moment of bloodlust, sanitised by making it justifiable because the victim had the temerity to be an English musician plying his trade in America (way to go you yank twits). Then a 20 minute battle scene which looked promising as it looked to decimate whole populations of useless actors, quickly followed by a horrible retraction. Then finished off with 2 or 3 totally pointless and puke-inducing endings.
Even Sheen could not put a sheen on this pile of dogs droppings. I hope that Taylor Lautner gets fat.
The Book of Eli (2010)
The Road meets The Fifth Element
with Gary Oldman reprising his role as Zorg, Denzel Washington instead of Bruce Willis and Mila Kunis instead of Milo Jovovich. Even the supporting characters were there: Jennifer Beales as the Diva, Michael Gambon as the rather ineffectual Cornelius and Ray Stevenson as Aknot.
Only, this movie lacked any of the originality or entertainment value of TFE. Washington was not bad, but he should never have played this part. I don't know if he IS of a religious bent, but even so he should have seen that this was a total parody of religious faith.
As an avowed atheist, I hate movies that try to preach that religion is a good thing. It is not. If we had never been ruled by it, mankind might have achieved much more and might not have suffered the huge divisions that plague us to the present day. Still, we will never know.
The one thing that I do know is that if there was ever a chance to get rid of religion for ever, then mankind should grab on to it with all our power. The logic holes in this movie have already been picked up by many other reviewers, so I am not going to repeat them here, no need. Suffice to say that this movie, while not the total depressive loss that The Road was, could have been so much better than it turned out; there is no big message here. Don't go to the movies to see it, wait until it is out on DVD and borrow it from a friend.
Zeitgeist (2007)
Total rubbish. Are people really this gullible.
I will be getting a reputation for being someone who only gives negative reviews at this rate. However, this movie stinks big time. The only reason it gets a 2 instead of a 1 is because you can download it for free so you are not being ripped off financially, just intellectually.
Part 1 tries to draw parallels between the Jesus myth and other mythologies. Unfortunately it picks one that does not remotely correlate and that is to Horus of the Egyptian pantheon. If you have studied Egyptian mythology there are absolutely NO parallels to be drawn between Horus and Jesus other than that, in English at least, their names contain 5 letters and the last two are us. That is about the only parallel that I could come up with. Now, there is no doubt in my mind that Christianity is a made up religion, but then they all are. I am even fairly sure that there is no firm evidence that someone called Jesus Christ ever existed at all. But the religious parallels between him and other religions just do not exist en masse as this movie implies. Do some research folks.
Part 2 and 9/11 is bunkum of the first order. I have no doubt that incompetence was rife, but to stretch that to the US government making plans to kill 3-4000 people on it's own soil is absurd. There are many other ways they could have started the war on terror without resorting to something as insane as knocking down the center of New York. A conspiracy such as that could never have been kept secret. This movie underestimates the guilt factor that this would have generated. Somebody would have talked. That Bush and his cronies made full use of this to create a profitable war is indisputable. But that is not to say that they created the situation, that is a stretch of the imagination. All the so called scientific or engineering evidence given is simply nonsense and has been shown to be nonsense. Just because Bush was an arse, does not make him a murderer of his own people.
Part 3. More of the same. Just because you don't like the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, et al, does not mean that they are conspiring to control the world. They are rich enough already.
The Lovely Bones (2009)
A terrible terrible movie
You expect rather more from someone with the presumed talents of Peter Jackson, so it is something of a shock to be presented with something as poor as this. He really must learn to put away the CGI stuff when it is not needed. This could have been an enormously strong story, if you can suspend your disbelief in the religious gobbledygook, if it had focused on the family and what was going on there. I cannot believe that Susan Sarandon agreed to appear in this. Her treatment was appalling, a caricature of a drunken slut of a grandmother with absolutely no saving graces. And what was Rachel Weisz for? Window dressing! I hope that they sue Jackson for this pile of crud. Take away some of his money so that he is forced to produce bare bones (no pun intended) movies for a while. He really needs to learn proper movie craftsmanship before being let loose with any more big budgets. I think that the success of LOTR has gone to his head and that he thinks he can get away with anything. On the basis of this, I think I will be giving the Hobbit a wide berth.
Orphan (2009)
Sorry folks, not hardly
Scary movie yes, but the suspension of belief was not possible. This couple would never have been allowed to adopt a child and were actually lucky still to have their own kids. Mum was a recovering alcoholic who had been guilty of neglect on a previous occasion and had lost a baby of her own just months before?? Father was so dim that it was painful to watch him. He was also an admitted adulterer. The shrink spun nothing but clichés and had already made up her mind about her own patient, er, I think not. She was clearly not a child psychiatrist either.
But the father, just how dim can you be. Lots of accidents, not to mention a frigging murder, going on around the new arrival and yet he still did not twig anything was wrong. Even when the kid tried to seduce him he did not catch on that something might be not quite right about this child. And what is this about faces swimming in and out of focus after a couple of glasses of wine? Puhleeze.
Nope, the scare factor was there, but the movie itself was totally illogical and irrational.
Seven Pounds (2008)
Not the best of films then.
I am not really that fond of feel-good movies and, in essence, that is all that this movie is. It was a bit like watching Forrest Gump but without the saving grace of humour. Really, Will Smith made his name with humour and he should never allow himself to be involved in a project where he has no humorous lines at all.
As for the title of the movie. I am rather surprised that nobody seems to have worked it out and some people even thought it might be the weight of the average human heart. Not hardly folks as the heart weighs considerably less than a pound. The title, I surmised, is a literary allusion to The Merchant of Venice where Shylock demands a pound of flesh in payment from the hapless Antonio. Only in this case, of course, the character forces himself to pay recompense of seven pounds of flesh. So far as I can tell, he donated, while still living, his kidney, one of his lungs, bone marrow, his house and all possessions and his sense of humour. On his death he gave away his eyes and his heart.
I read in some of the reviews the claim, 'Wait until the ending, it will surprise and shock you....blah blah.'. Er, well no actually. I worked out what was going to happen as soon as I saw him taking the jellyfish into his motel room. Will Smith played the most miserable character I have ever seen portrayed in film, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He even put his best friend through a living hell just to satisfy his desire to 'make amends'. Anybody who would help his best friend to go through with an act such as that without stopping him should seek help. That is the single glaringly most obvious thing wrong with the whole scenario. There is absolutely no way that any sane person would get themselves involved in something like this. I also think that the police would take a dim view of this.
I give this film a 6, because all in all it was well acted. But the script was utter rubbish and the writer should never be allowed to script another film as long as they live. Ridiculous.
I think I even preferred Hancock.