Change Your Image
simplifiyourlifenow
Reviews
The Beekeeper (2024)
Shameful Statham
I've generally liked Statham as an actor. In my mind he's akin to Bruce Willis in his prime.
This mind numbing cruedly written film is a stain on his career.
One must consider this movie is made to teenagers and the mentally infirm.
The acting was wooden with cheesey one liners that went out of fashion in the 1990's.
The colourful monkey type creature with the South African accent near the end typified this train wreck of a movie.
It was brash, unintelligent, unbelieveable action scenes where Statham carves his way through SWAT and Speicla Forces teams like they're new recruits.
If I was 13 I might be in awe of his Superman like skills. However as an adult that's mastered the ability to tie my own shoe laces I watched this nonsense from start to abrupt finish like a stunned mullet.
I gave it a 5 just because of the action scenes. Then thought about it more and lowered it to a 4. Then thought about it again and lowered it to a 3.
It's a downward spiral really, just like Statham's possible career path.
Watch this movie with a good book.
Meg 2: The Trench (2023)
Don't listen to any review over a 4
Literally, it has the worst, and I mean the very worst writing I've endured in a modern movie.
I'm a big fan of Jason Stratham but I've lost all respect after this.
The lines are cheesy, unintelligent, old and all done before.
There's no build up. It just gets straight into what is a pathetically over done plot.
This movie is written by twelve year olds for 12 year olds.
I'm astounded to see ratings of 7 and 8.
Are these people insane?!
It's so dumb it sucks any possible entertainment right out of the movie.
This is an embarrassment for Hollywood which is churning out more and more rubbish.
I wanted to write a witty review but I've lost half my IQ after watching this salty nonsense.
I hope I recover soon.
Please don't participate in this audio visual labotomy.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
An honest review
Four stars is a stretch
I'm not going to try and be clever and witty
This film had oodles of potential
It failed on nearly everything it was assumed it tried to achieve.
It was either written for or by twelve year olds. Seriously.
Any adult that gave this over 5 stars was either part of the crew or are on heavy medication.
The writing was embarrassing because adults were playing the roles yet with tweenage sentences coming out.
It tries to be funny and it may have been for a young audience in the 1980s.
It just swings at everything and misses like a drunk homeless man swatting at imaginery flies.
My 8 year old loved it, bless him, that should be enough to tell you the level of quality this missed opportunity has in store for you.
Halloween Ends (2022)
Not as awful as the previous Halloween but.....
If this isn't the last Halloween movie it certainly is the last for me.
Mr Myers has been a frightening bogie man for me from when I was a kid.
The movies were state of the art suspense and horror.
The last two instalments of the movies have been an insult both to our intelligence and the history of Halloween.
This had promise until it didn't.
The writing was sloppy. The storyline and characters were rushed as in their dialogue and relationship forming.
It's a movie without the soul of Halloween.
My partner and I laughed and rolled our eyes when we should have been scared.
It's the little yappy dog that thinks it's bigger than it is.
Watch it if you want yet another reason to never watch Halloween movies again.
A 3 star rating only because it was a slight improvement on the disaster that was the previous movie.
Beast (2022)
Yes, most of the reviews are correct, but......
Yes, most of the reviews are correct, but......
.....it scared me.
Kicking a lion, punching a lion, sleeping next to an open car window when a lion is stalking you, etc etc
There are flaws, but that lion is the best cgi lion I've ever seen. It's life like and it's scarey as hell.
It has an interesting twist, almost clever at the end.
There's no plot whatsoever but are you watching this for the twists and turns or the underwear soiling terror?
It's a smaller version of Ghost and the Darkness but with a lion that looks more real than cgi. They need to convert this movie into 3d and watch the ratings rise. Boy oh boy.
Watch, enjoy, and be scared.
The Originals (2013)
For a particular genre, no more
I was urged to watch this and the women raved about it.
After watching 20 minutes I tyurned it off.
I'm a 50yr old male and this is made for females between 16 and 35.
It's also a soap opera not a drama. It's like Days of our Lives with less screen smudging but the same music at emotional/meaningful parts.
All the actors and actresses are the same age. Weird. Tehy're all too polished like presenters on the evening news. This makes it feel staged. The men have almost as much makeup as the women.
If you're looking for a gritty, 'believable', intelligent production this is not for you. If you're in the audience that watches trashy day time soaps you'll love it.
Pinocchio (2022)
Masterfully mediocre
Some kids movies stay with us and can be enjoyed again and again.
This is forgettable.
The cast is all mismatched with the characters.
The writing is awful.
It's made for a very young audience but has scarey parts that seem at odds with the demographic.
Tom Hanks is a strange choice and makes him look like he's desperate for work.
The cricket's voice is grating and sounds like a pubescent boy with a cracking voice.
The cgi is below par for 2022.
It's a semi musical and I cannot remember one tune from it. It's like the actors made up the songs as they went along.
We turned it off half way through.
Even our seven year old boy thought it was nonsense.
Hollywood's velocity on a downwards spiral continues.
A good movie is getting harder to find no matter how old you are.
Samaritan (2022)
I like Stallone but....
......he's really the only part of the movie that kept me going to the half way mark. I couldn't risk losing anymore IQ points watching the rest.
It's not an atrocious movie, it's just made for a younger audience.
It's cliched, simple and been done before (narration wise).
The dumbed down sewage spilling on to our screens from Hollywood is never ending.
Finding a two hour worthy memorable movie is becoming more and more elusive.
If you're 13 and have less discernment than a hungry labrador you'll mark this in the upper quartile.
Stallone will be remembered for many movies, this will certainly not be one of them.
Tales of the Walking Dead (2022)
Just what is this?
This isn't the Walking Dead or Fear the Walking Dead.
I've only seen one episode and I don't know if it's a comedy/take the mickey spoof or poorly scripted.
Totally new cast so far.
The lines are cheesey and hark from a 1980's tv era.
It seems aimed at a young audience if it wasn't for some graphic violence.
It doesn't seem to fit in any genre.
It's a stand alone enigma that has all the opportunities for greatness but after one episode has missed the boat to prove it's worth.
As a die hard Walking Dead fan I'll watch the second episode but if it displays more of the above like the first I won't be watching more.
If you're 12 and your parents let you watch this sort of thing then it may appeal.
Any rating over 5 from an adult is cause for concern.
Queen of the South (2016)
Hard to find flaws
It's not for the faint hearted
Brilliant characters you start 'caring' about.
A clever ever changing plot with copiuos suprises
I'll be watching the entire series again at some stage.
Ozark (2017)
It's actually moire like a 9.9
Brilliant on every level
Brutal
Clever
Devious
Top acting
Highly recommend and I'm not impressed easily
The only grips is that it'sd over
Sniff
Sniff.
The Northman (2022)
Meaningless dressed as meaningful
I was looking forward to this 'epic' tale of viking revenge.
My wait was in vain.
I can only wrote half a review because I only saw half the movie. Myself and the friends I watched it with unanimously decided to end our misery and walk out.
If:
you like small scale battles
you like continuous scowling and brooding from the main actor
you like unbelievable foreign accents
you accept the lead characters father, the king, has state of mind to say a speech after half a dozen spears are impaling him and half as many arrows are jutting out of his organs
you like poorly done CGI animals, like a fox, that make friends with main characters because it has some obscure link to Nordic folk law
you don't think it's weird that nobody recognizes the mian character simply because he has a haircut
you rate mystical dribble over well written scripts
you get fooled easily by trailers that are nothing like the actual movie
you've recently had a full front labotomy and rate this movie above a 7
then this is the movie for you.
The Last Kingdom (2015)
Vikings it's not
It's difficult not to compare it to a series like Vikings. The lead character Uhtred is epic. He acts and looks like you would expect a hero in this type of story.
But, for me, what lets it down is that it's not a big budget, big name, big battle scene, big anything production.
It's raw and akin to a live play compared to a polished edited film version. Hard to explain. I get this feeling when I watch high quality US series compared to English series. The latter being a more raw and less well rounded ensemble.
Usually the US produced series' with deep pockets has that sense of professionalism. This tries, albeit with less funding (I assume) and less known actors and actresses but comes across at times as being that poorer, less fed, not as well mannered cousin of something like Vikings.
The scale is smaller, the acting isn't as good, the cinematics is a b+. If other good series weren't on offer I'd give this a 7 but they are and I can't.
I enjoyed the first three seasons as there seemed to be more honest struggle.
The fourth season, unfortunately, has become more political with 'me lords and ladies'. Yes, this may be more historically accurate but just makes it somehow watery.
I'd like to give it an 8. But comparison highlights its production value at a lower level. Currently having a top echelon score of 8.5 on IMDB when there are tv series that almost make this look like a high school production suprises me.
It's not awful but it's also not a wow.
Eternals (2021)
When special effects trumps acting and storyline
I'll keep this quick so you absorb the movie faster than the arduous 2.5hrs I spent.
I wanted to like it. I tried.
Acting was wooden bordering on cardboard.
Special effects were pretty good and that's all this movie had. And that didn't pull it out of the rubbish bin.
It seemed like the writer got most of his/her ideas from their tweenage children.
So much mindless mouth moving that masqueraded as meaningful educational dialogue.
In the words of Kim Jun Il to his son Kim Jun Il 'I am disappoint'.
The memory of this movie will disappear into oblivion with only a trail of poor feedback on our beloved IMDB website.
Halloween Kills (2021)
The Halloween franchise dies tonight
To show you how strongly I feel about this movie I'm writing this review weeks after I watched it. I'm hoping my small part will help people avoid the movie like a bomb sniffer dog helps soldiers avoid IED's.
No matter how much brushing and gargling I just can't get rid of the bad taste.
I remember watching the first movie when I was a kid. I couldn't close my curtains quick enough in my bedroom afterwards.
The theme music would give me chills right into adulthood.
Now, deep sigh, head down, shoulders hunched, that theme song conjures up fear as much as Christmas carols do.
The franchise, like the Berlin wall, came crumbling down.
From one Halloween enthusiast to another I implore, borderline beg you not to watch it. This isn't just to save you time, but to hold dear the memories of the previous movies.
My anger compels me to give it a one star, almost as a warning that it may interfere with our memory of our beloved Mikey boy Myers.
The nonsensical crowd chanting 'evil dies tonight' by, what I can only assume, is a drift net of unsuspecting late night walmart shoppers thrown on to set with just one line, summarised the swift and painful death of Halloween.
I could write on the review all the inconsistencies, all the, and I can't think of any other word other than dumb lines but that would entail me copying and pasting the entire script of which the friendly review team at IMDB would not stand for.
I'm not a harsh person. I'm just helping you not waste hours of your precious time and keeping that theme song as the background to all your future nightmares as it should be.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
I wished I hadn't
Having being enthralled with the previous instalments of the Resident Evil franchise I sat down with my sons and a box of scorched almonds gleefully anticipating some undergarment soiling horror/action.
A dozen almonds in I waited...and I waited...and I...
It's a challenge to build well on an already great set of films. One's that pivot around Milla Jovovich. When you replace leads like her it's like having a Rocky movie without Sylvester Stallone. But alas, she's nudging closer to 50 and has probably bought a 7 seater to cart her children to and from school so we can't expect her to drop all that to face and defeat evil for our viewing titillation.
With that grudging acceptance I trudged on with the watery regurgitation splattered on my tv screen.
I'd like to tell you it's worthy to stand proudly with chest out next to the other movies. I really really would.
I'd like to tell you the new actors are believable in their roles. In all honesty I feel they deserve some slack, or at least commiseration. The script was written in the dead of the night by a 12 year old after he found his Mum's sherry bottle collection.
I'd like to tell you it's aimed at the younger audience but, and after engorging myself with almond chocolate coated yumminess (in order to dull my pain) I witnessed my children between ages 14-16 one by one excuse themselves sheepishly throughout the movie.
The most interesting part was the cow being thrown in the air at the end when the town imploded.
If thrown cow's are not your idea of the pinnacle of movie making success I would suggest you side step this movie just as the tweenager who wrote it should have side stepped his mother's liquor cabinet.
I don't often write reviews, but I feel it an ethical responsibility to offer some sane feedback for those, like myself, that trust other reviewer's opinions before I settle myself down to 2 hours of movie russian roulette.