Change Your Image
ash-57223
Reviews
Halo (2022)
They took the stupid to 11 with this one
+6 stars for the first 15 minutes which were actually good. -4 stars for using that to hook me into enduring the awful show that followed. -2 more stars for Kwan, but imdb won't let me go to zero. Anyway, you should probably listen to the low reviews on this one. They all say the same thing and 40 minutes into the pilot I can easily see they aren't blowing the cons of this show out of proportion. Starts out awesome with lots of action. Then... nothing. Well actually worse than nothing. It turns into a really bad drama with boring and nonsensical dialogue in which the 'admiral' (who looks like she couldn't pass a PFT if her life depended on it) of the UNSC actively hamstrings and threatens the Spartan program because...well just because. Then there is a bunch of focus on a little girl who I had a feeling would draw the ire of many people other than myself (and the reviews prove that suspicion correct) and a nonsensical standoff between master chief and the USNC because they ordered him to kill said annoying girl because...well apparently the USNC is evil now. Why? Because. Nope. Too much stupid too quickly. They took the stupid to 11 and I'm not here for it. And if that weren't bad enough Master chief takes his helmet off almost immediately. Come on man! Way to destroy the character Paramount. That writing error alone is reason enough to bail on this show, but coupled with everything else... you couldn't pay me to continue watching this.
Spider (2002)
Awful
So little happens in this movie that it was halfway through before I realized I've actually seen it before. I can't remember where or when, but it was that forgettable. I love most of Cronenberg's movies, but this one is not good. It's way too predictable and the main character is just annoying. Instead of sympathizing with him I found myself asking "Why would you ever let this wackjob out of the asylum?" I will say that some of the supporting performances are quite good, but no level of acting is enough to fill the void left by the nonexistent story. People rating this movie 9 and 10 are crazier than the main character. Sadly I own this on blu ray now, but it's going to the pile of shame where, hopefully, nobody will ever watch it again.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
A solid 6 but could have been so much more
Movie starts out great. The slowness some reviewers complain of is actually it's strength. Beautifully shot and well paced with some interesting scenes related to sailing. The sets are awesome as well. The acting is also actually very good considering the genre. No over-actors in the lot which was refreshing. So yes, first 1/2 or so of the movie was easily an 8. Where it loses itself and the viewer is the length. Multiple events occur and each one strains the viewers suspension of common sense and disbelief more and more. Eventually you are just left shaking your head. The sad thing is that this could have been completely avoided with a very small amount of clever writing which explained why the creature could remain undetected, but they didn't do that. Were there a directors cut that added just 5 minutes of reasoning and explanation the film could easily be an 8. But that doesn't exist so a movie that could have been brilliant must be consigned to a "watch it once" then forget about it.
Stargate: Atlantis: Search and Rescue (2008)
This show has the worst writers
The plot armor of the main chars in this show is 3 miles thick. The writers sacrifice all credibility and completely destroy any realism or immersion to make them survive the dumb scenarios they write them into. There is a part of this episode where their most important battleship has their worst enemy severely outgunned, disable his hyperdrive because they can't destroy the ship because it *might* kill one useless girl from their team (Teyla aka the worst actress and character in SG history)...and then lower their shields and let themselves be pummeled in order to save the main chars. What!? No military commander would EVER do that! The writers of this show were absolute trash. They didn't care what they wrote because they would just create some ridiculous plot device to undo what they had written. The only reason I've made it this far is the fast forward button. Most episodes are a 4 or 5. A few are 8's. The show as a whole is mediocre.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Mission Impossible: Maximum Stupid
I loved the last few movies in the franchise, but this one is without a doubt the absolute worst. I'd give it a 3, but I am trying to compensate for all the people giving this trash a 10. Speaking of 10, It has an interesting first 10 minutes and then it's all downhill from there, and believe me it's a loooong hill. Way too long.
The writing belongs in a Fast and Furious movie, not a once great spy franchise. None of the characters' actions make any sense. They just do things because the plot needs them to. People try to kill Tom Cruise and he just kind of...lets them go for no reason. Then they come back later and, yup, you guessed it, try to kill him again. Most of the movie is wasted on a slapstick back and forth routine between Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell (who is absolutely awful in this movie). Even the driving scenes suck due to too much shaky cam and bad angles. I've wasted enough time writing this. The movie sucks. Rewatch Fallout instead.
The Creator (2023)
Wish I'd watched it sooner.
In a world where a mess of a film like Oppenheimer is praised as a masterpiece and a genuinely well told story like The Creator is torn apart for minor flaws, one thing is clear: You can't trust reviews anymore. I avoided this one for a while thanks to other reviewers, but it turned out to be one of the better movies I've seen in a while. Yes, it's predictable, but so is everything else if you've seen more than 10 movies in your life. This isn't the Sixth Sense. It's a moving and generally well told and acted story of redemption that takes place in an impressing array of settings in a thoroughly detailed and imaginative world. If you've been avoiding this one due to the lukewarm reviews I'd recommend giving it a shot. For reference other movies I love include Gattaca, Bladerunner, The Fountain, Fearless, and Edge of Tomorrow.
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
Okay beginning, awful middle, great end.
The first 30 minutes is a 6. The last hour is an 8 or 9 and is what you came for. Everything in between is a 4 at best and is what reviewers are talking about when they say things like "like a video game" or "repetitive". They are completely right and it ruins the immersion and thus entertainment of the film.
The truth is I would have loved this movie if an hour of it had been left on the cutting room floor. The movie is too long due to a poor attempt to sandwich what appears to be an homage to previous John Wick films and even some of the Matrix movies right in the middle of this film. They went way too far with that idea and it regretably brings the movie down quite a bit.
It could have been great, but that wasn't the case. This movie would benefit massively from a directors cut. Hopefully the talented team behind JW leaves it at Chapter 4 and moves on to something new.
Safe House (2012)
Supremely stupid
2 hours of ryan reynolds' character being the dumbest CIA operative to ever exist paired with some of the dumbest writing I've seen in a movie to date. Most things happen to create an excuse for another badly shot action scene, and the film is full of those. Denzel is great, but everything else sucks. Repeating for char limit. 2 hours of ryan reynolds' character being the dumbest CIA operative to ever exist paired with some of the dumbest writing I've seen in a movie to date. Most things happen to create an excuse for another badly shot action scene, and the film is full of those. Denzel is great, but everything else sucks.
Black Sails (2014)
Your guide to efficiently watching Black Sails
As my 4-star rating suggests, not all of this show is terrible, but most of it is. So, if you want to see the best it has to offer while simultaneously saving precious hours of your life, follow this handy guide.
Season 1: Watch episode 1 and then skip the rest entirely.
Season 2: Watch the episodes but fast forward through every scene with Max, who is both terribly written and acted.
Season 3: See season 2
Season 4: This one is an absolute trainwreck of bad writing and stupidity. Either skip it or if you must know how the story ends, research key scenes ahead of time and only watch those. Seriously, this is some of the worst writing I've seen in any show to date. Just awful.
And there you have it. Season 1 is slow and boring. Season 2 and 3 are actually pretty good. Season 4 is borderline unwatchable and I outright skipped chunks of it or preocuppied myself with other activities during it. And Max, well Max is just 100% awful 100% of the time.
Underwater (2020)
Trust the low reviews. Wish I had.
This could have been a good movie. Sadly that was not the case. Zero build up to the chaos so you don't know or care about any of the characters in the movie. When it isn't too dark to see, the camera is shaking too much to tell what is going on. Really bad acting. Characters have no continuity and will go from running for their lives to chatting about their dogs or some other inane subject. Also, you need to either not know anything about water pressure or forget everything you know about it. Because this movie doesn't even try to realistically depict what would happen during a leak 7 miles underwater. As others have said, give this one a pass and watch The Abyss instead.
The King's Man (2021)
Let's Just Pretend This One Was Never Made
Everything that made the original great is absent from this movie. So where to begin? It's extremely disjointed. Characters don't act rationally. History is butchered, and not in a fun or interesting way. In fact, aside from a good fight scene with a russian guy, fun is pretty much absent from the entire film. Conrad Oxford is a spoiled moron who spends the entirety of his screentime moaning and complaining about how he wants to join the war. He finally gets brought into the inner fold where he goes on a special mission during which he basically does nothing while everyone else gets their asses kicked. He then elects to quit the special unit he has been privileged to join and signs up with the army where his dad again bails him out from his own stupidity through a favor with the king, only to have Conrad switch uniforms with a much lower ranking soldier who is being sent to the front lines. Thankfully there is a happy ending to all of this pointlessness as Conrad gets shot in the face by one of his own men for...you guessed it...being an idiot. For that I should give this movie two stars, but I feel I need to do my part to help get the score on this turd as low as possible, so 1 star it is.
Anyway, the rest of the movie unfolds very predictably with the competent members of the gang rallying around the memory of moron, I mean Conrad to take down the extremely uninteresting and corny main villain who calls himself the Shepherd but spends his time wailing on goats with machetes. It's. All. Just. So. Stupid.
Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
Good Movie. Lots of bogus 1 star reviews.
The movie isn't slow or boring. It's well paced and well acted. What it isn't is politically correct which is why you see so many 1 star reviews. The level of violence is similar to that of Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" movies. Apparently that is too extreme for the snowflakes of today. If you want to see a modern movie that reminds you of the good ol' days when everything wasn't cgi marvel feelgood garbage then give this one a watch. Would have been a 9 but I felt the ending could have been better.
The Batman (2022)
Thank God I didn't pay money to see this.
As you may have noticed, most consensus in the digital realm these days is fake. This movie's score is apparently no different. This is an awful awful movie. It does not deserve an 8. More like a 3 but I gave it a 1 to try and bring it back down to reality. Anyway, I liked the Penguin. Everything else is awful. Pattinson is a terrible Batman. The writing sucks and has him doing very stupid things over and over. The cinematography actually sucks. Shaky cam galore and hard to tell what is going on in many scenes. Not that you really care that much though. The story is legitimately boring. And why are celebrity's kids being cast over actual actors and actresses that have studied and practiced at their craft for years? That trend needs to stop. I don't care how edgy it is, Zoe Kravitz was a bad cast. Catwoman shouldn't be 90 lbs KOing 250 lb dudes. It just looks dumb. Also, Commisioner Gordon reminds me of Mac's portrayal of Danny Glover in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's "Lethal Weapon 5"... Also, is Alfred the worst Butler ever? Doesn't answer the phone and opens other people's mail. Oh well...I really hope Pete Holmes does some satire sketches about this film.
Arizona (2018)
Starts out alright but goes downhill with too many stupid actions by protagonists
Danny McBride is great in this. The other actors aren't bad, but their characters are very badly written. All of them make unbelievably stupid mistakes over and over in order to allow McBride's character to continue on his rampage. After a point it stops being entertaining and just comes across as very poor / lazy writing. By the end I was rooting for the antagonist just because the protagonists had wasted so many golden opportunities up to that point. Decent for a rental. Not worth buying.
Dune (2021)
Much better than the original
I never saw the trailer for this, but judging from some of the reviews they may have made it look a bit too "x-treme". The movie is by no means slow and the sheer scale of the scenes is mesmerizing. It also does a much better job of explaining Herbert's universe than the original. Thought the pacing was very well done with excellent amounts of both exposition to carry and develop the story and action to keep the energy level up. It's sad that many of the top reviews seem to be written by idiots who were apparently expecting a Michael Bay movie, but as George Carlin once said, "Think of how stupid the average person is, then realize half of them are stupider than that."
Tenet (2020)
Terrible Movie
There's good time travel with thoughtful continuity like Primer, and then there's trash like this that thinks it's smarter than it is. There are multiple times in the film where they deliberately pass up chances to explain how the hell this all works. As if to say, "we're not even going to try". That's not "brilliant" or "ground-breaking". That's lazy. All the criticisms about this movie are accurate. There is dialogue you can't hear because of the blaring of a terrible soundtrack. There is terrible acting from Washington. There is a completely nonsensical explanation for the motivations of the story's antogonist. This movie just plain sucks. Big fan of Memento and Interstellar. This one is a hard no. Avoid it.
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
Successful at what it wants to be: A fun/mindless action movie
In my opinion they nailed it. Just enough time put into the story, likeable actors that you actually kind of care about, and nonstop action. Leave your brain at the door and it's a highly enjoyable movie with a ton of great kills ("See honey? There's no monst-" BAM!) I watched it on an OLED and the lighting was fine. Zero issue following anything on screen. I think the low score is all the purist fanboys who are appalled by what has become of their precious Alien franchise which has mostly sucked anyway (the original is overrated as hell). Anyway, for what this is i.e. A mindless action movie, it succeeds.
It's becoming increasingly apparent that imdb reviewers have a ridiculous perception of themselves as high brow movie connoissuers. Apparently many went in expecting a sequel to the Shawshank Redemption and not a sequel to a movie about two made up alien species trying to murder eachother as well as humans. It's to the point where I have zero faith in an imdb score anymore. I don't normally write reviews but I'm just sick of the pretentious people dominating this platform. Rant complete.
Vivarium (2019)
Lazy and Pointless
Could have been decent but they take the easy way out and ask you to believe complete nonsense with no compelling evidence to support it. Very much an art house film which desperately depends on a "deep" message to hide all of its flaws. Recommend giving this one a pass.
Point Break (2015)
Some great action but movie goes downhill hard in the 2nd half
Some great cinematography and snowboarding, wingsuiting, surfing scenes in this one, but the actions of the main character don't make sense in the second half of the movie. Destroys the theme of camaraderie that the film had been building. Ended up hating Utah and rooting for the bad guys. Original was much better.
Blackhat (2015)
An important look into the world of cyber terrorism
This is the most surprisingly accurate demonstration of how hacking works that I have ever seen in a movie...and apparently people were bored by it. Its sad to me that audiences are basically demanding hollywood dumb everything down for them. The same people that rated this low are the same people who struggled to understand "Inception". "Primer" would make their heads explode if they managed to pay attention. Anyway, if you've made it this far then go into this film with an open mind and you will learn the premise of the majority of hacks that you hear about in mainstream news. Its also well acted and directed.
Infinity Chamber (2016)
Nothing like the films people compare it to
Hardly ever write reviews, but this movie merited a review...a bad one. What you have here is a lot of reviewers trying to justify their own perceived intelligence by seeing greatness in a film where there is nothing. For the astonishing lack of character development the movie moves extremely slow. The viewer is asked to care about the non-events of the film for most of the film without saying why. This is nothing like Source Code, Primer, Sunshine, Moon, or any of the other good films people compare it to. Obscure camera angles and still shots are substituted for plot, acting, and overall substance. If you like a movie that makes you think and reflect, look elsewhere. This one just makes you sleepy and gives you a headache.