Tweetienator's reviews

The first Knives Out movie was an excellent whodunit, but the second felt like a step down, especially regarding the story told. The third movie, however, is a massive disappointment. The plot falls flat, and the comedy lacks any real spark. Honestly, this is by far the weakest of the three movies; the exposition alone bored me to tears. Sadly I got to say: this one is rather a huge letdown.

Much like the first John Wick, the original Sisu was top-tier action entertainment, even accounting for the hero's arguably superhuman abilities. Unfortunately, the sequel is little more than a string of nonsensical action set pieces. It remains an unsolved mystery, for instance, why no one thinks to simply shoot out the tires of Sisu's truck to stop him. The film moves from one action sequence to another in a way that left me rather numb. Ultimately, it feels like a B-tier trash-action movie that takes itself far too seriously; a bit more self-deprecating humor would have gone a long way. While Sisu: Road to Revenge is still watchable, it is a significant step down from its predecessor.

I really wanted to like Tron: Ares, but it left me cold - and honestly, a bit bored. The plot is just a thin excuse for a mind-numbing barrage of CGI action sequences overkill. All (or most of) the original magic has vanished, leaving behind a hollow cash-grab that's all filler and no killer. Like so much of what we're seeing from Marvel, DC, and Disney lately, it feels hollow and soul-dead. After the solid Tron: Legacy, this is a massive letdown.

I don't hate Predator: Badlands, but let's be clear: it's little more than a generic, Disney-varnished sci-fi-action-blabla. If you're a fan of CGI, you might appreciate the production value, although the entire flick feels less like a movie and more like an fan made extended cinematic cut from a computer game.

What else is there? Eerily little. The only genuine suspense comes from me waiting for Grogu to make a cameo appearance... Seriously, this production received the full Disney Star Wars treatment with a shot of everything generic Disney conjures up these days. My final verdict: I strongly suspect I lost more gray matter watching Badlands than I usually do during a two-hour reality TV trip - so if you got too much brains you may put this one on your screen and lose some ;)

The Running Man flopped rightfully-it's a boring affair. While the cheesy '80s version starring Arnold "the Mighty" provided cheesy fun and action, this one delivers not much. The humor doesn't fit the story told, the angry dad character just got on my nerves (the whole time I just thought: that guy needs some anger management), and the action is mediocre at best. The whole movie works best as a sedative - all the dialogues, just filler time, the family scene in the beginning unnecessary too, adding nothing but to fill some screen time. Final words: the story by Bachman, a.k.a. King, has a lot of potential, but this movie fails to utilize it. My recommendation: skip it - after The Long Walk another bad movie adaption of a King story.

To watch Emma Stone is always a pleasure; sadly, Bugonia is a rather mediocre movie, or better, a mixed experience. For example: the "twist" is no twist. After the "theory" of our two "heroes" was exposed, I did know what was coming. My main trouble with this movie is that it is too long, and having to listen to all that "blah blah," especially in the beginning, was rather a nauseating experience - just compare it with the start of Fight Club, and you know how interesting and even mind-blowing such an exposition can be. Some cutting may do wonders to this flick. Anyway, there are a few funny and even great scenes, and I liked Emma Stone's performance a lot. But whereas, e.g., Poor Things I will put on my screens again, this one I doubt. Verdict: not too bad, but not too good either.

Sadly, Besson's vision of Dracula is an ill-conceived mix that sometimes - unintentionally - crosses the line to parody.

These parts seriously undermine the dramatic and horror elements. In the end, a mixed impression remains: the movie certainly has some good moments and entertains to a certain extent, but clearly exposes its weaknesses when compared to Coppola's vision.

Last but not least, the changes compared to Shelley's story, in particular, are mostly unsuccessful and weaken the story presented. The most charming performance was delivered by Matilda De Angelis as Maria. The rest of the cast works solid. Christoph Waltz reminds me of Johnny Depp lately; both seem to be trapped into playing always the same or at least very similar characters, no matter the movie.

Strongest part of Toro's Frankenstein are the visual quality and the cast (which is really good). Sadly, the longer the movie runs and the more Mr. Toro put in his own ideas to the story, the more the story fell apart. In the end we get, I dare to say, some kitsch served - the ending is really sentimental kitsch par excellence including the music score. Anyway, Frankenstein is not a bad movie or failure, just not really good. Verdict: watchable but soon to be forgotten.

Deathstalker is pretty stupid but fun: It's kind of a mix of Xena and Hercules (fantasy setting, quest, humor) spiced up with a good dose of gore 'n' splatter. The production is not bad for a B-movie; the cast looks like they are having fun. The gory moments are great fun too. So, if you like sword 'n' magic flicks and you like splatter, you get an entertaining cheesy piece of cake. No doubt, only a special breed of audience will get this one, but if you belong to that family, you will find some fun and entertainment. My rate: five overall, one bonus for the effects.

Like many others, I found The Long Walk to be a long, boring slog. Also, the changes to the original material are a poor choice, but the real issue is the agonizingly slow pace and general tedium, which put me on the verge of a total shutdown of all my brain activities. Production and acting are also nothing remarkable. Having read the book many years ago, I regret that this adaptation arrived at a time where every hired writer seems to think he or she must make major changes to the source material. Rule number one: you should think twice about it, and then some more. While adapting a story for another medium necessitates some alterations, the core essence of the narrative should remain intact. Anyway, my verdict is simple: not recommended.

The Naked Gun 2025 is another proof that comedy is no easy business - there are a few funny moments, but compared to - especially - the first The Naked Gun movie this is an at best mediocre attempt and never reaches the high octane level of comedy and fun the original movies do. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger is Conan the Barbarian and Peter Sellers is Inspector Clouseau, Leslie Nielsen is the one and only Frank Drebin. Period. My recommendation: watch the original movies, your time is way better spend.

A fine production and a really fine cast make Wednesday a funtastic (sic!) great show - I'm really happy that the second season is (almost) of the same quality as the first one. No doubt, the true star is our heroin (superb Jenna Ortega) but the rest of the cast is also top notch. Some of the characters really grew on me. Hopefully, we get some more seasons with the same entertainment/story quality like the first two seasons. The only weakness, in my opinion, is that the Nevermore Academy (teachers, classes, interactions etc.) remains somewhat thin and unexplored - there is still some untapped potential here.

The Red Sonja movie with Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger, despite its many flaws, got at least the mighty power of cheese. This Red Sonja? I watched episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess who are masterpieces in comparison. First of all, the character of Red Sonja and the story got not much to do with the works of Robert E Howard. So why call it Red Sonja and not something like Gen Z Warrior Princess? Anyway, if you like the works of Robert E. Howard, do yourself a favor and skip this one, you won't miss anything. As I do not know the comics I can't compare those to the movie, but to be sure, this movie is no recommendation to put those on my reading list. The production is also no invitation to watch this one - the budget is limited to a more or less rather cheap done episode of a generic fantasy TV production. Disappointing.

The production is solid - and that's about it. Rule number one before watching: abandon all brains at the many gates to hell. Example: a spaceship crashes into Earth, smashing right into a major city and everyone is somehow surprised...

The side story (or better major plot) with our heroine doesn't help either - she got Marvelesque superpowers and I'm just waiting for Captain America and the Justice League to show up.

Writers these days seem even unable to craft anything worth watching even if they got epic source material, let alone invent something original. If you put your brain in sleep mode, this might fill some spare time. But be warned: the endless blabla is hard to endure. I mean hard. Last note: I read a lot of pulp fiction comics whose stories are (almost) Shakespearean-stuff compared...

My rating: 3 - plus 1 point for the production only (which is good).

Very last note: maybe there is really a world wide conspiracy in action to transform us all (but the very few) to brainless zombies ;)

The movie is so stupid, that it is almost good. Almost. Sadly it misses the power of cheese... What you get is some Robin Hood in Switzerland, okayish action scenes, and words spoken you can't remember a few seconds later, but it doesn't matter. You can see that there is some production value but instead of making some European cinematic historic piece a la La Reine Margot (a fine movie by the way) or take the tour of a theatrical approach (Schiller, you know) you get a movie that tries to copy everything bad and ridiculous in many American movie productions these days: stupid behavior, the always same characters put in every context imaginable, blabla that is just blabla to fill the time to the next action sequence, which is of course unrealistic and exaggerated in every possible and stupid way. Anyway, if you need something to lull your brains to a peaceful stupor, this Wilhelm Tell will do.

A few gross/disturbing scenes make no good story nor a good movie. Story-wise Bring Her Back is very generic stuff we were served many times before. The disturbing scenes are well shot but just a few and nothing the real gorehound would regard "extreme". What else? Bring Her Back reminds me a lot of Hereditary (2018) but the latter one is the way better movie - in all aspects (story, cinematography, acting). Verdict: watchable but (imho) overpraised - maybe all those raving reviews got my expectations too high for this one, so it just got to fail...

Abandon all brains, ye who enter here - this must be your rule if you watch Osiris. The logic failures are too many to count: the aliens are heavily infected with the well-known Stormtrooper syndrome (like the terrorists in the beginning), and our heroes seem to have the unlimited ammo cheat. On top of that, they most of the time forget they got grenades to use or take the powerful alien guns from the dead and just use them... Anyway, if you're able to switch off your brain, you'll get some B-trash action that's entertaining to a certain degree. But in the last third, it runs out of steam and gets boring - too much bumbum and nothing else. In this sense, it reminds me of the last Wick movies, including Ballerina.

Still, the production isn't too bad, and the entertainment factor - if you like this kind of action movie - is okay. Like many movies these days, Osiris mostly lacks a well-written script, and the story and ideas feel like they were just "glued together" by some AI from other action and sci-fi films. To mind come movies like Predator, Pandorum, Doom etc.

The first John Wick movie was real fun, cool and entertaining, and I enjoyed that one a lot, but after that the quality got downhill quick 'n' fast - the second one was still good, but the last two movies left me cold and bored. Anyway, Ballerina is a new low - one action sequence after another, well shot, I admit, but, still boring till my mind got numbed and frozen. The only redeeming factor of Ballerina is the production quality, the "story" is so redundant and generic, it (almost) hurts. Last but not least, movies like the first John Wick or e.g. Collateral (featuring Tom Cruise) are way out of league of this generic flick. On top, it gets really tiring to see all those butterflies beating full grown and trained man in close combat (there may be a reason why women don't fight man in the ring, I guess). Anyway, Ballerina: recommended to all those lost souls who want or need (for whatever peculiar reason) some lobotomizing operation on their brains ;)

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End is one of those movies I wonder why bother to make them? We get nothing really good or interesting and compared to movies like 28 Days and Weeks Later this one is just looking rather weak. I also wonder why this movie got so many good reviews, maybe I missed something, but the whole movie through I was just bored. My recommendation: wait for the 28 Years Later movie and/or put some of the well known classics of the genre on your plate again. You won't miss much but spend your time a lot better, at least in my opinion. Anyway, Apocalypse Z is not a total fail, so if you are in great need for something "new", you still may bother to watch this one.

First of all, I don't know the game, so I got no opinion on the matter if the movie adaption will satisfy or disappoint those who played and love the game.

The movie itself is a solid piece with some fun scenes of gory deaths but story-wise this little flick does just deliver a mash up of well known horror tropes. Anyway, cast and production are rock solid (the explosions are good fun), so if you want something in the wake of movies like Final Destination, Silent Hill, Haunter, Happy Death Day and all those zillion slasher movies, Until Dawn will provide some entertaining moments. But I'm pretty sure there is no reason for me to watch Until Dawn a second time. To sum it up: a solid horror ride.

Last note: the clock would make a nice piece of merch.

Ash is no new space horror classic, but it features some nice gory scenes-which, in my opinion, are the strongest suit of this little flick. The acting is solid, and the production is decent for a movie without a big budget.

The weakest part, in my view, is the rather predictable plot and the use of the retrospective storytelling technique. I would have preferred a straightforward, linear narrative in the style of Alien-simple and direct. That could have worked wonders for the story's pacing and overall dynamics.

Still, if you're in the mood for a flick reminiscent of Alien, Life, Event Horizon, and the like, this one might offer a few entertaining moments.

Rating: 4 + 1 for the gore factor only.

First of all, the idea sounds fun. Second, the execution sadly is not - although an episode just runs around 30 minutes per episode I felt quite bored sometimes. The reason for this state of boredom is easy to detect: too much of personal/family drama (and very mediocre dialogues) and the demon hunting felt sometimes just like background noise. Anyway, The Bondsman is okay if you are in need for some horror comedy, it got its moments. Last note: Ash vs. Evil Dead (some reviewer compare those shows) is the way way better show in all aspects (cast, action, gore, comedy, production etc.), so if you think you get something of the same level, you will be most certainly disappointed. Verdict: mediocre with some good moments here and there.

Mickey 17 in short: a decent production value struggling against weak executed comedy. The tone of humor or elements of comedy did not work at all for me - I was just bored, and the introduction of our hero with all his redundant babble (to explain what should have been introduced by story-telling) is the best example. All the characters, including Mickey are caricatures and never gave me the impression this is a glimpse in a possible future. Anyway, I did not expect something dark like Blade Runner but Mickey 17 is another example or proof that comedy is no easy business. How to do it the right way? The Fifth Element is a fine example. What else? Mickey 17 is not totally crashing but something you could stream while you answer some emails or do something else, you won't miss much. Background noise, so to say. All in all a rather disappointing affair.

American Primeval is for sure one of the best TV-shows on Netflix lately - a dark and gritty tale in the West with a fine production and a solid working cast. The story got a similar (or same) tone like Mark. L. Smith's well known The Revenant (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) - so, if you liked that one this show is made for you, if not, don't bother. What you get is a lot of riding and running and killing too, the story itself is rather a simple one. Anyway, I dare to recommend the show to all lost souls who like movies and shows like The Terror, Taboo, The North Water, Bone Tomahawk, and The Revenant, of course. Decent stuff.