groovyuniverse's Reviews

Ghostbusters (1984)

5/10

7 April 2020

Ghostbusters was one of my favourite movies as a kid in the early nineties. It had jokes, scares, great special effects, four nerdy cool guys shooting lasers, a scantily clad babe...what else can a young boy wish for?

Fast forward to twenty-five years later, with me viewing the movie for a second time. An uncomfortable truth wriggles it's way in my head as I watch: that some nostalgia doesn't stand the test of time. I notice my stubbornness to critique the movie but contemporary reality quickly illuminates how dated the movie is. Sure, it's still a big budget spectacle and some of the effects are still cool, but effects being dated can be forgiven. What ruined the overall experience is mainly how sexist and adult the movie is. I wonder how Bill Murray, obtrusively sleazebagging his way thoughout the movie, nowadays would reflect on his role here. What I used to look up to as child disturbs me now. The movie sets the sexist tone early, particularly with a bad joke that correlates menstruation with mental derangement. I watched with dumbfounded amazement. It might be pure speculation but I also got the impression that lots of cocaine where being used while making this movie. There's an exubarant vacancy to it all. A celebration of American culture that is loud, and too often cynical and hollow.

While watching I started to view the movie as a cultural time capsule that through it's charicatures exposes some of the more appalling aspects of American culture in the early eighties. Women are mainly being played as puppets and black people are at best 4th option sidekicks and are most often seen as background figures doing low level jobs. Maybe as a kid this black sidekick showed me that black people can actually contribute to saving the world. Or hang with the cool white guys. So, in defense of nostalgia, maybe there is a spin to thiis. Do I devaluate the movie too much using my contemporary lens? My younger mind was better suited to appreciate it as pure entertainment. My older self is better suited to view it as a ideological object of study. If I balance these two out I would rate it a 5, with my younger self giving it a 9, and my older self giving it a 2. The ghosts of this movie have been busted.

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Aanmodderfakker (2014)

7/10

Charming

31 July 2018

Feeling aimless, being spoiled by your parents, and doing a generic job at a big electronics company that doesn't match your specific talents at all: I think this profile fits quite a lot young Dutch people of my generation. I liked how the movie painted this vibe, with it's decent actors and a hint of mild absurdism. It made the predictable story acceptable. A predictable but entertaining movie with enough subtle charm to create a satisfying viewing experience.

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Her (2013)

9/10

Two tears on both cheeks

26 April 2018

I cried. There, I said it. If this movie doesn't tug on your heartstrings it will be impossible for you to enjoy, since empathy for the human condition is at the heart of it. It possibly explains the 'like it or hate it' sentiment towards this movie: either you fall for it or you resist to it. I can imagine how people would deem it too sappy but, as is said in the movie: you can't please everybody. I did at times feel that Phoenix portrayed his character as a bit too pathetic, moments where I found myself not knowing if to loathe or to love him. But then, due to his convincing performance, i quickly started to sympathize with him again. The love story feels doomed from the start but I still really wanted it to work. That is what made their growing love so beautiful and tragic to me.

To me this is a modern classic, a movie that made me deeply reflect on being alive, a truly touching love story intertwined with an aura of prophecy to how technology might influence humanity in the near future.

By the way, what was up with that dead cat? I didn't really understood that scene.

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Annihilation (I) (2018)

3/10

A sterile bag of missed opportunities

11 April 2018

Warning: Spoilers

The world of the Shimmer could have been truly intruiging. Instead we get a forest with some rainbow coloured fog and a few mutated animals. The last part ramps up the weirdness but couldn't dampen my disappointment. It doesn't help that the special effects are surprisingly lackluster, taking you straight back to the middle of the 2000's, with the look and movement of the first digital animal that was introduced being so mediocre that it had me and my girlfriend laughing. On a few imaginative moments the movie reminds you of what it could've been, such as when the double deer appears or when the crew encounter the mutating flowers. It's those moments that the movie makes you want to see more. Instead we get more wooden dialogue from a set of predictable characters that don't evoke any sympathy. There's no soul here, a waste of my time.

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Lucy (I) (2014)

4/10

unintentional comedy

19 February 2018

I had no expectations before watching this. Okay, I saw Johansson and Freeman played in it, so I thought it had to be decent. Suspicions started to boil during the sluggish first dialogue and the following crude montage of nature clips. From then on I knew this was popcorn. Despite it's ridiculous premise and pretentiousness i was still entertained somewhat. The movie quickly goes so overboard that you can't but laugh at all the fast-paced madness that unfolds. If it hadn't taken itself so serious it might have worked. Now it's just a failed attempt at making a good philosophical sci-fi action flick. It was so bad that me and my girflriend repeatedly asked each other what the hell this movie was trying to be. Laughable and forgettable.

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Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

5/10

Star Trek: What Could Have Been

15 January 2018

Warning: Spoilers

The first two seasons have some good moments but seasons three and four not so much. Funny thing: when I was halfway season three I accidentally watched two episodes from halfway the fourth season without realizing it until I was halfway the second episode. I have to partly blame my scattered attention but the series is at fault as well: both seasons center around a similar cosmic riddle that needs to be solved. I found them to be quite dull.

Some of the characters do have charm (Saru's and Trina's arc gave me the giggles) but wooden Burnham was difficult to watch for me, and that's a pity since she is featured so prominently. Discovery also feels like a pretty static show, without a lot of places/races/ideas to explore that are exciting. I also cringed at the contemporary sarcastic smartassery and all the characters cooly exclaiming that they "got this". Really tried to love it but it got more and more of a drag.

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The Sinner (2017–2021)

6/10

Intriguing but flawed

24 November 2017

First the good: Biel excels as the 'innocent killer', confused and afraid of her past. Some other actors put on fine performances too. The unraveling of the intriguing murder mystery kept me hooked throughout and made me live with the bad, being: some of the dialogue being very wooden. The scenery is beautiful but also a bit bland, it's mostly forests, lakes and tidy American towns with a generic upper class vibe around them. A bit of a depressing reality. Last, the role of memory loss in the murder mystery legitimizes unnecessary plot stretching. A decent series overall, nothing too special but definitely worth the watch.

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Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016)

3/10

a lot of loose ends that don't connect

25 February 2017

Just like the internet, this documentary talks about everything but doesn't adhere to a coherent main story line. The ideas and dilemma's that are presented are often intriguing but all deserve a deeper view, instead of just being shown for about ten minutes, with sometimes no obvious connection shown between then.

It feels like the director had a bunch of random observations and decided to throw them together. Later on, an idea of universal connectedness and eco-awareness gets thrown in and throws you further off from what you expected when you started to view: a history of the internet, grippingly told for the masses.

Instead you get a lot of loose ends that don't connect, with the grand narrative as a forced way to tie together a set of random examples of the implications of internet in our world. It also doesn't help that the narrator has a weird pronunciation that quickly got on my nerves.

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Still Flowin': The Movie (2014 Video)

10/10

One of the weirder things on planet earth

1 January 2017

As you might or might not know, rapper RAED, who chronicles the story of his rapcareer in this movie, is somewhat of a cult phenomenon, having attracted hundreds of thousands of Youtube-views for his atrocious songs, each one of them a sonic mess of barely intelligible off-beat rapping and very crude electronic beats.

What's wondrous about him is that he still persists to make music despite thousands of people shitting on it. He just can't stop. Drugs play a part in this. He posts video's on Facebook of him smoking a crystalmeth pipe with some scruffy other fellow. In the movie he and his friends start snorting cocaine for no reason, guess they had enough budget for this ' movie'.

' Movie' is a big word for this document. RAED, who directed the thing, frames the story of his rise to (dubious) fame in one of the weirder documents you'll see on this planet, a wreck plagued by bad camera- work, inaudible dialogue, terrible music and unexpected sound effects that sound like a robot experiencing psychosis.

Go see for yourself, you have been warned. It's just a mess beyond belief, a sight to behold. I know i belong to a minority in this regard but this movie actually made me laugh more than most big-budget comedies. A very good bad movie.

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Manufactured Landscapes (2006)

9/10

Where does nature end?

20 November 2016

Watching this in 2016 i realized that the industrious images shown in this documentary are ten years old. All the people you see have gone somewhere, developed, aged, some died. They are all shown as tiny cogs in this man-made machine that's called industrialization, mostly seen in the specific context of China, early 21st century. You see them doing monotonous work in the most efficient way, Marx' nightmare, barren landscapes ravaged by pollution, cities being destroyed for a new dam.It's a sombre portrait that doesn't forget the human factor. The shot of a lone man in a giant factory sleeping at his workbench after everybody left is typical, sad and beautiful at once. These and other images made me emotional, without being forced to feel that way.

The film tells you that the scope and character of what you are seeing is unprecedented in history. It has an eye for the innate bizarre-ity of the shapes created in industrialization, captured in beautiful photographs that regularly show up. There is commentary, yet sparsely, a loose narrative of the films' creative process and some musing about the way how we as humankind transform nature. It's an intellectual take on industrialization, instead of immediately jumping to condemnation. Pessimism still prevails though, and by witnessing what the filmmakers witnessed it's hard to disagree with them.

The music was the only thing that disrupted my attention at times. It's a dark form of Ambient that can be too present in wanting you to feel depressed about what was being shown. It's not needed, the sounds of the locations themselves are interesting enough by themselves.

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Ravenous (1999)

9/10

Uncompromisingly original

11 November 2016

Wow. Just wow. Saw it an hour ago. Right now I still feel overwhelmed by this movie. Certainly one of the best i've seen in the past few years. Some reviews here have already perfectly outlined what to admire in this film; so i am content with just sharing some of my genuine enthusiasm with you.

First off the music is fantastic. When early in the story my mind was still trying to grasp the intent of the movie, it's distinctive music was the first thing that stood out to me. It sparked and fueled my intrigue. The soundtrack showed to be pretty unique and effectively conveys the essence of the different visual moods it accompanies throughout the film.

Like others mentioned, this movie is witty, violent, cynical, hopeful and humorous at once, in no specified order. It shocked me and disgusted me, but also made me laugh and think deeper when it presented me it's philosophical questions.

I'm already pondering on how to do this movie justice when telling my friends about it. It might be smart to not raise their expectations too high, as not knowing what to expect certainly did not hurt the process of me slowly getting in awe with this movie.

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Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

7/10

The charm of low expectations

10 January 2016

Let's first make it clear i'm not a devout Star Wars fan. But like the rest of mankind I do like the old trilogy a lot. I also hugely enjoyed the phenomenal Nintendo Gamecube games. So, i can still say I am a fan. The second trilogy was disappointing and lowered the status of the franchise. Still, watching it a year back, i couldn't say I wasn't entertained by the second and especially the third movie. I don't take a Hollywood product too serious. My expectations for The Force Awakens weren't that high due to the previous trilogy and maybe that's the reason The Force Awakens was a pleasant surprise to me.

In retrospect many people seem to regard the first trilogy with a reverence that appears religious. Often they seem to forget that those movies had their flaws and goofs too. When I see the shitstorm of negative reviews here I get the feeling too many people are plain drunk of nostalgia. Most of these reviewers were young when they initially saw the original trilogy. Now they are adults who vent on IMDb. How would you have rated TFA when you would be 10 years old instead of 40?

Face it, Star Wars always has been a movie that felt like it had been made for kids. Cool swords, cool spaceships, good versus evil, not something that was designed to get your adult braincells racing. Knowing this it was easy for me to enjoy TFA. The movie clearly payed homage to the first movie, sometimes even a bit TOO much. Despite the lazy death star reincarnation and the very clichéd looking dark emperor (generic Hollywood CGI ogre number xxxxxxx) I felt like the movie was fine nostalgic fan service while still starting enough interesting story lines for the next movie.

But hey, if you want to act like Star Wars is your religion, go ahead. Just don't expect to get that warm fuzzy feeling back from when you first started believing.

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Victoria (II) (2015)

8/10

A ride I won't soon forget

9 September 2015

One of the most exhausting movies I've ever seen. When the credits rolled I felt empty and fulfilled at once. What a rush. The style of film and the lifelike interactions of the characters made for an intriguing watch that really felt intimate. The violent and hectic latter half of the movie often literally had me on the edge of my seat, a rare thing as normally I happily comply to the comfortable seats in the cinema. I wasn't entirely happy with this escalation of the story, as it felt a bit forced, to make sure we would receive our dose of dramatic violence. It also postulated some questionable choices the characters made after the plausible start of the movie, where the whole situation still feels natural.

That was me as a movie critic, because I can't say this critique bothered me much when I saw the movie. The acting and camera-work made for such a compelling watch that I readily accepted the more or less predictable violent turn of events. This is an exciting and intimate movie that I will recommend to everybody, even to those that I not expect to be immediately interested in this kind of movie. It's that good.

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Appleseed Alpha (2014)

4/10

Metal Gear Appleseed

17 July 2015

I'm not too knowledgeable about Appleseed. What I did know is that it's from Japan and that there's a guy running around in a very cool cyborg suit. Enough reasons to watch! The movie left me a weird taste. It's from Japan but overly trying to be American in the story department. An attempt to appeal to the overseas market? Or is it intrinsic to Appleseed since it's origination? I don't know why they chose New York as location. Tokyo would've felt more appropriate for a cyborg with bunny ears. Furthermore the design of the main villains feels really different (read: Western) from the classic Appleseed design of Briarius. Designwise it felt they were from a different movie. It has to be said they look pretty awesome though. Other things gave me flashbacks to legendary video game Metal Gear Solid, like the hidden super weapon, the big elevator leading to it, the design of the sentry robots. Apart from the clichéd plot the characters did feel lifelike enough to sympathize with them. Ultimately it's a movie that mildly entertains but fails to impress apart from the cyborg designs.

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Borgman (2013)

6/10

Mesmerizing but vague

14 July 2015

Before writing this review read some other reviews written here. Some of them clarified some of the movie's symbolism, which was useful for me as I felt rather confused when the movie unfolded. I do like surrealistic movies now and then but the second part of the movie and the ending left an unsatisfactory feeling. Besides being unable to really grasp the symbolism the movie started to feel predictable after a while. Never did it felt like Borgman's intentions could be stopped. After the first cracks appeared it was obvious that the castle would crumble. By not being able to connect to the victims I couldn't really care too much about it. I did love the acting and the whole atmosphere of the movie. What made it even more memorable was that I am Dutch myself. The language that was used sounded very archaic at times. As a viewing experience a mixed bag overall but possibly worth watching a second time after reading some more interpretation.

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The Raid: Redemption (2011)

6/10

Violins and Violence

7 June 2015

One of the most violent movies i've ever seen and not always an easy sit, as i watched people get murdered in a seamless flow of pretty graphic choreography that battered the senses in such a frantic pace that it made me long for the non-violent intermissions that drove the,bare-bones story well enough. In this simple but effective story there were enough characters I got invested in, with their intense interaction in the hostile atmosphere being convincingly performed. Apart from feeling that some fighting scenes dragged on for too long I also often experienced genuine excitement to see the perilous situations unfold.

The downside of the movie were a few moments wherein the emotional became melo-dramatic, especially in the flashback scene from the protagonist where he regains his focus. I don't necessarily dislike clichés but it being depicted through hazy 'dream images' just felt a bit corny compared to the streak of killing i had already witnessed. Like a piece of soap in a bath of blood. I still enjoyed the acting overall and to hear the (vulgar!) and rapid use of the Indonesian language.

In an unforeseen way i came to compare the movie to Game Of Thrones, sharing it's brutal violence and high deathtoll. The crucial difference to me is that The Raid feels it has to answer movie dogma: the protagonist will live. He has to. It gives the movie an air of predictability that somewhat lessened the impact of the convincing acting, effective story and countless crunching kicks and punches.

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Tha Eastsidaz (2000)

3/10

Hastily produced and quickly forgotten

2 March 2015

As an 18 year old I was a big fan of the music Snoop made with Tha Eastsidaz. Sure it was obnoxious and ignorant but the P-Funk influenced beats and gritty vocal tones of Goldie Loc and Tray Deee proved to be an irresistible combination for me and my friends. Despite being fans we all had to admit this movie was sh*t. It's weaknesses are all summed up in the other reviews here. Most notable are the horrible camera-work and some messy dialogue . It's clear they were to lazy to rehearse most lines. I can imagine their reasoning, like 'Ey cuz, let's make this seem...natural, just do how we do, you know'. Sadly this doesn't work at all, with lines being mumbled and interrupted by others.

When me and my friends first watched this we knew we had something bad when we saw the second scene. The first one isn't all that bad, as it sets the premise for the story and contains some graphic violence. The next scene destroys all this momentum as it takes far too long to pick up the story: we first have to watch minutes of Snoop and his homies smoking blunts in a depressing small storehouse. Still, this movie is a weird time capsule of a document. Four years after this Tray Deee (who plays the bad guy in this movie) would become disgruntled with Snoop Dogg and Tha Eastsidaz were disbanded.

The sloppiness of this movie also gives it an awkward charm, making it so obvious this thing was made by a group of guys who were meant to be musicians...but not movie makers. It's just a forgettable piece of work that's memorable for fans only. Or maybe also for 22th century students studying cinematic depictions of early 21th century Los Angeles gang culture. We'll see!

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Fruitvale Station (2013)

9/10

Empathic, raw, so good it made me cry.

5 October 2014

When I started watching this movie i had no knowledge of the shooting incident this movie is based on. I thus knew virtually nothing about the movie and was in for a surprise. The very first impression the movie gave me was 'amateuristic'. Witnessing the first scene i felt like I was watching some cheesy soap. This was mainly due to the simplistic camera-work that I had to get used to. That the acting was good i could quickly notice and the simplicity of the camera-work later showed to be one of the strong points of this movie.

What really drew me into this movie is the heart it possesses. The interactions between people feel as real as it gets. They range from ultimate frustration to the deepest love. The tragic premise of the story makes the impact of these emotions all the more piercing. It made me painfully aware of the frailty of life and deeply touched me, especially when the movie headed to it's inevitable tragic climax. It's been a while that a movie made me cry but this one pulled it off. What a great feeling it was to be swept away by a wave of empathy.

Another thing i really liked about the acting was the way the lead character interacts with his friends, who are being introduced pretty late in the movie but still managed to arouse my sympathy. Their interaction felt similar to the way i interact with my own group of friends, jesting back in forth and with banter that can be inconceivable for outsiders. Their togetherness truly felt organic like friendships do.

Summarizing: a incredibly warm movie with convincing characters and a slow but steady pace. As negative points i can point out a few overly sentimental moments but they are easily forgiven in light of the overall quality of the movie.

R.I.P. Oscar Grant, even if in reality you might have possessed half the charm your fictive imitation does.

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Evil Dead (2013)

4/10

Jane Levy is beautiful. The movie not so much.

1 September 2014

Warning: Spoilers

(contains MINOR spoilers.)

Confession: At the end of the movie my attention drifted off to the point I started googling images of the stunning lead actress Jane Levy. This example of the movie's failure to captivate me is the sign of it's mediocrity. Or that maybe i need a girlfriend again. Marry me Jane, i'll promise i'll never lock you in my basement.

Good points of the movie: the imagery is great at times, take for instance the scene in the beginning where Jane Levy (there she is again) shows up for the first time, sitting in the yellow smokey haze of the woods smoking a cigarette on a wrecked old car. Her beauty and charm instantly struck me and throughout the movie she showed up to be the best actor of the bunch.

Added to this I enjoyed some of the early scares but that's about it. Like other people already wrote, this movie feels too generic and completely lacks the humour of it's source material. Someone else here also criticized the 'music' and I completely agree. The frequent use of the airhorn was particularly annoying. It is intended to accentuate the more hysterical moments but the sound just doesn't fit and should be left for war movies. It gets worn out quickly and even laughable after a while.

For some people the gore-factor of this movie will serve as a gruesome attraction. I can enjoy a dose of gore myself, when used sparse like in Aliën or completely over the top as in Braindead. The problem for me with the gore in this movie is that all the severed limbs and cut faces are rapidly thrown in your face without any other purpose than to depress you and make you turn a sour face confronted with the gruesome images. It quickly loses it's shock value.

Well, what's there left to say? A forgettable horror movie with a beautiful lead actress.

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Merantau (2009)

7/10

Simple plot, convincing action

5 March 2014

Let's start with the bad: the movie is too melodramatic at times, with the use of slow-motion and predictable piano keys making some scenes feel a bit corny. I also found the main villain a bit too simplistic. Those are my only complaints in an otherwise enjoyable movie, that has convincingly 'raw' action scenes and two charismatic lead actors in the distinct and interesting setting that is Jakarta. It's refreshing to see an action-movie situated somewhere else than America and this movie proves that a country as beautiful and rich as Indonesia suits an action movie just as well. Other good points: I liked the camera-work and the ending took me by surprise. Looking forward to see more movies from this director!

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Pacific Rim (2013)

2/10

Curse of the thousand clichés.

13 August 2013

Warning: Spoilers

Big spectacular looking robots? Check. Even bigger generically designed alien Godzilla-lookalikes? Check. Fantastic special effects? Check. Predictable romance? Check. Traumatized hero sent into self-imposed exile? Check. Glorification of American global power? Check. Militarism again being the answer to a world crisis? Check. Cringe-worthy dialogue? Check. This list could go on and on and reflect my slight disappointment with this movie. Despite being disappointed i must say I did enjoy the designs of the robots and the sense of their gigantic scale. Especially in the beginning of the movie, when their appearance still feels fresh. The fighting between the robots and aliens is also well done. It's a sight to behold to see how well the animators succeeded in making the fights between these giants seem realistic somehow.

The big problem with Pacific Rim to me is that the plot, character progression and dialogue are so dull and worn out by continuous use through decades of action-movies that they started to annoy me more and more as the movie progressed. I could follow other reviewers and celebrate Pacific Rim's 'campness' but to me this predictability seemed more like laziness and a sense of complacency by the director. Imagine him like this; sitting in his director chair, lurking on a cigar, watching the work of his special effects crew, thinking out loud: 'Damn these guys are doing great work! My movie is going to AMAZE people! I don't even have to make an effort to create an interesting storyline and dialogue! ALL HAIL TO CG!'

Don't get me wrong, i can enjoy a cheesy plot now and then but in here the unoriginality is so blatant it hurts. The consequence of this predictability is that it makes Pacific Rim 'lack a soul', as in a memorable humanity behind the awesome robot-designs. It would have helped if the acting wouldn't have been so wooden at times. The protagonist Raleigh is just a generic looking dude with no memorable traits at all. Even more stupid is that his rival looks quite a bit like him so that during one action scene I actually was CONFUSED which of the two guys was actually fighting. At least give one the guys a beard so that they differ from each other! It's sad that the role of the antagonist is dwarfed under the weight of the mankind/alien conflict because he has a distinctive strong appearance and could have spiced things up a bit. Another annoying highlight was the 'peeping hole-scene' and almost every other scene between the hero and his Japanese love interest, who, apart from admittingly looking beautiful, acts like a 10-year old girl experiencing her first lovecrush. And the hero? He stays cool offcourse, like a hero does, while the woman almost drips liquid from pure confused excitement. Oh please.

The lack of soul can also be found in the design and character of the aliens. Sure they are big and imposing but they reminded me a hell of lot of the monsters in recent videogames like Crysis and Resistance. What makes things worse is that despite having two brains they have the most predictable alien monster-mindset known to cinema-goers: INVADE. DESTROY. MOVE ON TO NEXT PLANET. There is no deeper psychological layer here. These beasts merely serve as apocalyptic canon fodder to mankind. I actually felt sorry for them when they got blown up at the end, just like I felt sorry for Godzilla in 1998 when he got killed. I wish directors would learn more from a movie like District 9 who shows that it can pay off if you try something new with the depiction of alien enemies.

Things i will remember from this movie in some years? Hongkong being destroyed by a badass he-robot and an evil beast! That was awesome. With the city as a crumbling backdrop the scale and power of the robots/monsters truly shines through. This is Godzilla on American steroids anno 2013, which is cool if you monster movies like me. When the memory of the action subsides the boring look of the militarybase where 80% of the movie happens might come back to my mind. Yellow. Brown... Boring dialogue. Oh yes..this movie was quite shitty! Now I remember...

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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

7/10

A little compressed but highly enjoyable overall.

14 July 2013

This review starts with a confession: I never really loved TOS. As a now 28-year old I instead used to watch TNG, DS9 and Voyager in my mid-teen years. In the time I was really immersed in ST I could still feel the strong echoes of the impact of TOS, but the series seemed outdated to me when I watched it. All I occasionally saw was a vision of the future that had become prehistoric and a chubby Kirk being a silly pervert. I did watch all the Star Trek movies including the TOS ones and especially enjoyed the second and fourth ones. To sum it all up, I have grown some affinity with TOS but it pales in comparison with the newer series.

Recently I watched the 2009 movie for the second time, but not after I reintroduced myself to the second and third Star Trek movies first, to get me immersed in the TOS universe again. I did not do this when I watched the 2009 movie for the first time and I was happy to notice that I liked the movie better than the first time I saw it. It's full of nods to TOS that fans will grin upon and has an engaging storyline, convincing cast and nice pace overall. My only complaint was about the villain which didn't really left a powerful impression on me.

Star Trek Into Darkness succeeds like it's predecessor in similar fashion but has a much more intriguing villain. To truly appreciate him you have to watch the second Star Trek movie before you go watch this one. The plot kept me invested throughout the movie while being entertained with some nice head-butting dialogue between Kirk and Spock and an even higher pace than the 2009 movie. This high pace comes with a price though. Acknowledging that STID possesses a far different style than it's spiritual predecessor from 1982 and has all the hip traits of a modern action movie (continuous use of CG, exaggerated colours, high pace of scenes) this pace sometimes makes it feel as if the movie runs past itself sometimes. After two hours of enjoyment I still felt as if the movie was rushed somehow, as if the whole thing should have lasted longer. This feeling is in stark contrast to what I felt watching the second movie, which is far more subdued but still peaks tension-wise where it needs to. So, this sense of 'hyperactivity' is my biggest complaint regarding this movie. Smaller ones are things like a particular rushed emotional response of a certain character after what probably should be most shocking event of her life.

That being said, I truly enjoyed this charming and entertaining movie. It makes me yearn for the return of a Star Trek series, but without a dull captain with a stupid beagle. Woof. STID has a cool villain, great action scenes and a Kirk-Spock emotional dynamic that feels like a worthy tribute to the older movies and hopefully a cause for continuing the TOS reboot!

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Dinocroc (2004)

1/10

Dinocrotch

10 March 2013

Warning: Spoilers

I like me a bad movie now and then but this one was TOO BORING. Can't say too much really about this one, noteworthy things are the slow pace, mediocre acting and the crappy CG effects. I mean, if the beast would have been made with a rubber suit or something it could have worked better but by using prehistoric CGI they waste the opportunity to give the beast some creep-factor. The dumbest scene was the one where the little boy gets killed his severed CGI head gets catapulted into the camera. It's one of the first kills in the movie and a bad way to kick things off. Why does an innocent boy does have to get brutally murdered like that, with the flying head as a vulgar exclamation mark?

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Inception (2010)

6/10

Drowns in its own ambitions...swim along while you can!

20 October 2012

Two years after its release I've watched this movie. My expectations were high and I couldn't help thinking back to the big impact The Matrix had on me 13 years ago. It blew my mind. I'm not going to try to compare the movies in detail but there is one big similarity: the 'world in a world' concept. Inception takes this idea a lot deeper than the matrix and this is the main draw of the movie as it keeps you intrigued throughout it. But brace for impact: for I must rant a little.

The problem with the whole dreamworld thing is that sometimes everything goes so fast that it often gave me the feeling I was missing half of what everything was about. I appreciate the movie trying to be smart but it should have contemplated it's own smartness a bit more, as to give the viewer solid ground for the next scene. Now it felt like my topics of confusion were just piling up throughout the movie and this left a unsatisfying feeling in my mind when the credits rolled.

For example: more than halfway the movie there is a chaotic chasing scene with a lot of snow speeders and I was thinking 'who the f*ck is chasing who?'. All the while montage is shown from what happens to the main characters in other dreamworlds. But where was the focus? About whom should I care?? The overload of scenes made me feel disconnected from the story. I had this feeling of chaos way too often. Also 'jumping from worlds' felt too casual and the dreamworlds seemed too unrealistically realistic to me, despite a few awesome scenes where the dreamworld gets warped.

Everybody who dreams knows how weirdly fragmented and incredible dreams can be but in Inception the dreamworlds look just like 'the real world'. This helps strenghtens the feeling of confusion about 'which world is more real' but to me it feels more like a conservative choice in artstyle whereas the director could have done so much more with the weirdness of dreamworlds!

Other issues i had with the movie is the characters seemed pretty flat to me. This is due to the confusing nature of the movie which for me made it difficult to bind with the characters. Or maybe it's that I don't dig DiCaprio that much. He has to carry the movie but he is just too smooth for my taste. Only in the end i genuinely felt moved by the climax of his emotional complex but it took me the whole movie to really felt moved by it.

For me, as a Science Fiction fan, I love it that this movie creates some intriguing adventuring in dreamworlds but i just wished the movie would've cared to explain itself better, also that the dreamworlds would have been more bizarre and that the 'real world' in the movie would have been more futuristic. I mean, the movie plays in the future but besides the dreaminfilltrationequipment being used I never saw any sign of it portraying the future. Offcourse you can say 'it's in the near future' but for me that would be a lazy excuse. I don't expect the movie to be like the matrix but a little effort would have been welcome.

Excuse me for nagging so much but I just feel mixed about this movie and would like to make a point in contrast to the heaps of praise this movie gets. It might be that a second viewing will shift my mixed feelings to the positive side because this roller-coaster, in all it's confusion, is perfect for a second ride. I just wished it already would have been awesome the first time.

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The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

6/10

Uhm, did i miss something??

27 August 2012

After the Dark Knight was released I couldn't avoid the hype that surrounded it and decided to give the two first movies a watch. I thought both movies were okay but not spectacular, apart from the memorable Joker. The thing is, i can't just name exactly what caused it but both movies just bored me a bit. I think this feeling is caused mainly because the world of Gotham doesn't get a lot of attention. Sure, we see skyscrapers, Batman's mansion and an occasional location for a fighting scene but it isn't enough, it makes the city feel like a cardboard background, which for me just kills the atmosphere and chance to immerse myself in this fictional world. Besides this, i like Christian Bale in most movies but as Batman...he just can't convince me! The fact that he changes his voice when being Batman doesn't help, it just sounds silly.

But okay, I was entertained enough to watch the close of the trilogy and i must say, it was the best movie of the three. Bane is an awesome bad guy and the movies has some 'big moments' (that collapsing stadium!) that shocked me. My biggest complaint is that the pace of the movie slows down considerably after the stadium scene. It seems that after Bane conquers Gotham he just does NOTHING! Then it is just a matter of time before Batman saves the day. The ending was cool though but again...this trilogy just isn't for me. In most cases i can understand/share the love for a movie/trilogy but here it seems i am living in a different dimension, a dimension in where i think Gotham should be portrayed as a vivid but grimy city, with things like crazy nightlife filled with shady characters and a Batman who talks like Batman..even when he is off duty.

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