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Blacklight (2022)

Blacklight (2022)


 3/10


Starring

Liam Neeson

Emmy Raver-Lampman

Taylor John Smith

Aidan Quinn

 

Directed by Mark Williams

 

Blacklight is panned by critics and seen by some as one of the worst things to see on screen and as I do not agree that it is the worst thing to see on-screen, I do know that it is actually bad.

The movie for me was like a bad episode of the Jim Caviezel series, Person of Interest. The movie has the same theme, a guy that is called upon by someone higher up to help those who are in a jam, whether the caused it themselves or it fell on their lap. The difference here is that our guy Travis (Liam Neeson) is the FBI fixer who helps secret agents undercover when there are in such jams.

The movie was like an elongated 20-minute short film, the dialogues are poor, the fight scenes laughable and just hits the nail on the head that Liam Neeson is too old for this.

His movements were stiff, and the movie I think would have felt better in younger hands. The sad thing is will I have seen it if it wasn’t Liam Neeson on the cover? I guess that’s why he was cast.

To expatiate on the plot, Travis was asked to go fix an undercover agent (Crane) who seems to have gone off the books with his character. Crane went to see a reporter and tells her he has evidence on the FBI boss killing civilians. This information or meeting with the reporter is unknown as of yet, and Crane met Travis when he got arrested for beating up four officers. When Travis interrogates Crane after getting him out of jail, Crane seems bent that his boss, Robinson was killing civilians. He escapes from Travis and plans to take this evidence to the newspapers. When Robinson hears of this, he sends his men to silent Crane. Travis is not in the know of this as his mission was still to find Crane and bring him in to Robinson. When Travis finally meets up with Crane in one of the saddest excuses of a fight, Crane gets killed in front of Travis and almost got killed himself. He confronts Robinson and his life too was now in danger.

With a poor plot, over-exaggerated consequences, and a bad guy whose plan/motive seems to be so vague that the movie does not bother to fully elaborate, I feel this movie should have best been done with a lesser budget. If this was a B-movie and a direct-to-video stuff, then there will be less reasons for complaints. But with a $43 million budget and theatrical release which will include marketing, this movie is so disappointing, and you will be left to wonder where the $43 million went.

And can we just say, bad guys keeping evidence of their evil deeds in safes is one thing I am fed up of seeing.

Ambulance (2022)

Ambulance (2022)



5/10


Starring

Jake Gyllenhaal

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Eiza Gonzalez

 

Directed by Michael Bay

 

I will give this movie an average rating for basically being all out there to make you have fun watching an action flick. The movie’s fast-pace shoot-em up style, is something you will enjoy if you are into, gun shooting and car chases. The acting of the leads and the story not that much, the holes in the plot are so much, that you just have to ignore much to enjoy this movie. I feel Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance lacked conviction for the character he was playing. His co-lead, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II character was poorly put together and his behaviour at times were more annoying than they should. That aside I enjoyed a bit the action ride and furthermore liked how Bay decided to kill one of the officers leading the pursuit. Even though the movie had some predictability all over it, that aspect of killing the annoying officer leading the case halfway into him doing his job, I did not see that coming. Movies always have such annoying characters who you wish someone will just get punched in the face, but Bay went one up, killed him. Another plus for the movie is the cinematography, I enjoyed it.

Ambulance is about a bank robbery gone so majorly wrong that you could not think of another way it could have been more messed up than this movie did. Danny (Gyllenhaal) and Will (Abdul-Mateen II) are adoptive brothers who were raised by an abusive criminal father. Danny went down the same path as Daddy, while Will joined the army to get away from it all.

After his was done, he comes back home to nothing. He is now poor and unable to care for his family. His wife needs $231,000 for an experimental surgery that his insurance will not cover. He reaches out to Danny for help, and Danny decided to bring him into his gang of bank robbery. We come to understand that Danny has been robbing banks for years and has been doing so very successfully. This one with Will did not go as planned.

Everything went up in smoke when an officer named Zach, who has a crush on a bank teller wanted to get her number to ask her out. It so happens that Danny and his gang were robbing the bank at that instant. The LAPD shows up quickly on scene and kills all Danny’s gang, leaving Will and Danny to escape. The two hijack an ambulance and hold the paramedic and the cop Zach hostage.

They drive off in the ambulance while being chased by cops and Danny starts to call in favors, hoping that he can get away with the $16 million he and Will still have in their possession.

I can only say watch this if there is nothing better to watch, other than that it is just another Bay movie with lots of noise and less than average coherent thinking by the actors.


Memories of Murder (2003)

Memories of Murder (2003)


 

7/10


Starring

Song Kang-ho

Kim Sang-yung

 

Directed by Boon Joon-ho

 

The idea that back in the late 80s and early 90s many people were able to get away with murder because of the lack of good DNA records can be scary. The movie takes us back to South Korea in the late 80s where a man committed a series of rape and murders of women. The movie shows us how deeply involved and engrossed by the case were two detectives who wanted to catch this criminal and bring the killings to an end.

The movie’s biggest selling point is the whole setting. The movie does well in posing like something from the 80s, with great acting and actors who carried their role with almost clear perfection.

As said, the two leads were detectives Park and Seo who were ready to do what they can to bring this case to a close. Park was a much older detective whose choice of solving the murders were crude and the younger detective Seo was more polished. Park was used to beating suspects and forcing them to confess which led to him believing he already had the murderer. His initially suspect on the case was a young man who was mentally challenged who described the crime like he was the one who committed it. You can tell by his behaviour that he did not have the mental capability to be as precise and as cunny as the person who would have conducted this killing spree.

It was later that the two realised that the man was a witness, and his mental ability and the beatings from Park made it harder for him to comprehend that he was a witness not the perpetrator. But by the time the two ran around and came to that conclusion it was a bit late.

The murders were cruel as the murderer goes out in the rain, catches his victims, ties them, and gags them with their underwear. Before he rapes and eventually strangles them.

The case was dragging and eating away at these two as the delay in catching the man meant more women were dying.

The movie is based off a real case which happened in the late 80s and early 90s in South Korea. Even back then they case went on for decades before they were eventually able to catch the killer who was at that time serving time in jail for a rape offence.

Memories of Murder is regarded as a cult classic in South Korea and seen as one of the best movies to come out of there. Written and Directed by Bong Joon-ho, the movie is see as one of the best movies he has done for which he won numerous awards for in Asia.

The Bubble (2022)

The Bubble (2022)

 


2/10

 


Starring

Karen Gillan

Iris Apatow

David Duchovny

Keegan-Michael Key

Leslie Mann

Pedro Pascal

 

Directed by Judd Apatow

 

 

I think the best way to start contemplating existing at all is watching this movie, so if you love your life avoid seeing this movie. It is obvious that the world is struggling for content. This movie even states this in the start. The lack of good content is the reason studios now greenlight nonsense like this. Before Netflix was the home to see great movies that other studios dare not do. Now, Netflix and other production companies and straining for good movies. Is like all the great writers, directors and producers have been stretched thin across too many production studios and streaming services. Because there is no other way to justify why this movie got made.

The Bubble is a movie that is meant to be silly, funny, and entertaining. It has a swell cast, with all of them great when it comes to comedy and it just had one job to do, get the right script and story to make it happen.

Now this movie is not funny nor entertaining. It is not even silly enough to be worth saying, “see this movie so we can discuss how bad it is.” This movie is so not entertaining and the only thing I can say about this movie that is a plus is, how they manage to do absolutely shit-all for two hours.

Not one joke made me smile or a moment that made me go, oh… in two hours. That to me is the amazing thing about this movie. This movie is so bad, it blows my mind how bad it really is.

You will think, making fun of a movie production set and the ridiculous things that happen on there will be easy. Add to that the constraint of the pandemic, as this movie production time was at the time when the pandemic was the highest – will be easy.

The whole idea is, the pandemic is at the highest level, so this movie production is going to be done in a bubble, where the casts do not get to leave the set until the movie is done.

There are so many ideas that these people could have pulled together to make this work, but they strained the juice out of useless sex, strained the juice out of confinement and made even supposed to be weird characters even more annoying.

The movie plot is about the production of a franchise called Cliff Beast 6. They have gathered all the casts together in what is supposed to be a three-month shooting.

With actors being actors (as this movie is trying to play out) in this movie world. Actors are dumb people with no personal life and everything about them is all going down a drain. Add to this studio executives who just need this to happen and hoping to win new audience by bringing in a social media influencer on set.

Things never go as planned; the actors lose their minds on the set. They start behaving in ways that you can only see on TV in movies talking about how horrible actors behave, the whole thing then goes up in smoke. Here is where I stop writing about the movie plot so you can go see it, but please do not.

How anyone of the cast decided to sign up to do this movie is beyond me.

This movie is written and directed by Jude Apatow and he has his wife (Leslie Mann) and daughter also in this cluster shitshow.

The Perfection (2018)

The Perfection (2018)

 


5/10


 

Starring

Allison Williams

Logan Browning

Steven Weber

 

Directed by Richard Shepard

 

The Perfection is some psychological horror like thriller that I feel some will see as a form of movie art. Especially the ending where we have some form of amputee performance for the amputee. I for one did not see this movie as such, I did not see it as art and felt he whole incident that led to the final show was a little over the top. Although I appreciate how the movie got into the state of the matter from the start and keeps that as the forefront until the end.

As far as surprises go, the movie did shock me with the direction it took when the two female leads ran off and the repercussion of the drugs. The movie starts with a woman called Charlotte (Allison Williams) calling a couple that she is now able to come back and work for them. Charlotte plays the chello and is the star pupil of a couple (Anton and Paloma) who runs a music school. When her mother fell ill, Charlotte had to leave to go care for her mother. After the mother died, she called the couple and returned to the music school to discover she has been replaced with another star pupil called Lizzy.

At this point you get the idea of where the movie is taking you, you can start to worry of some jealousy coming to play. This is solidified when the movie then reveals some scenes from Charlotte’s point-of-view. There it shows the plot for Lizzy’s downfall and making sure she will no longer be able to perform again.

Charlotte’s unstable mental behaviour is not hidden, as flashbacks show there is something eating deep inside her mind. Then the plot then turns around and does 180 degrees on who Charlotte is and her reasons for her actions. This flip is ok, but this is where I feel her actions were just way over the top, even though she was able to justify it. Now, discovering that Anton and Paloma’s music school is more than just what you see in the surface was not a surprise. The movie drops that vibe right from the moment we see them, and in that aspect, I was not surprised.

The movie ends in a way that some will see as art, but I feel is just annoying. It had no point and even in my mind I could think of worst things.

Anyways, The Perfection is on Netflix. It is there for the ones who find such movies interesting. I will advise though, that it is best to read the synopsis but not the whole plot before you dive into this movie.

The House (2022)

The House (2022)


 6/10


Starring the voices of

Mia Goth

Claudie Blakley

Matthew Goode

Mark Heap

Miranda Richardson

 

Directed by Emma de Swaef, Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr and Paloma Baeza

 

this is a short review

The House is a Netflix stop-motion animated anthology film written by Enda Walsh. The animation tells three different stories cutting across three different worlds and it all centres on a house. The plots are engaging and set in a Twilight Zone feel. Not much can be said about the quality of the animation other than for stop-motion there were good, but the stories they carry is what I admire.

What I like the most about this animation is when you think you know where the story is going, it takes another turn. The stories leave many strings untied making you wonder why this was mentioned, why was this done? There were all this strings deliberately to make you confused never knowing where the movie plot is heading.

The stories, like that of Twilight Zone has a dark ring around it especially the first story about a family of four: father, mother and two daughters.

The family of the man are cruel and when the last child was born, they came to visit and made the man feel small and miserable. He went on a drinking bend and took a walk. There he met a man who claim to be a friend of his father. The man gave him a proposal, he would build him and his family a magnificent house if they agree to move in immediately after construction is done. In addition, they must sign off the deed of their old home.

The couple signed the papers and moved in the moment the house was ready. It was a fully furnished home where they did not have to do anything. Strange things start to happen to the couple and the lawyer was acting all strange also. Only the young child Mabel, seem to notice these and tried to warn her parents but in the end, they were so engrossed in making the house very comfortable for themselves, that by the time they knew what had happened to them it was too late.

The second story takes place in a world populated by anthropomorphic rats. The developer trying to flip the house has financial problems and his only Hail Mary is tied to the sale of this house. He did everything to get the house ready for potential buyers who will come and see the house, but when the time was near, he noticed the house was infested with bugs. He did the fumigation himself (which didn’t work well enough as some were still about) and got the place ready for potential buyers. Only a weird couple seemed interested in the house, but the developer had another problem, they would not leave. They did not sign any papers, nor would they leave. The made the developer care for them and keep promising they would buy.

The third tale is about anthropomorphic cats. The house these three main cats were living in was falling apart and one of them was the owner. She has big dreams of turning the house into a wonderful residence of choice. The problem is the area she lives in is flooded all round and nobody is coming. Her current tenants refuse to pay, and she was at her end needing money to make the house beautiful so she can fulfil her dream, but the area is becoming more flooded, and her current tenants are too broke to pay rent.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

 


6/10


Starring

James Marsden

Ben Schwartz (voice)

Tika Sumpter

Colleen O'Shaughnessey (voice)

Idris Elba (voice)

Jim Carrey

 

 

Directed by Jeff Fowler

 

For someone like me born in the 80s and going through the SEGA Sonic games the joy in finally seeing some aspect of the games and character depiction from the old animations shown in this film was beautiful. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has the same magic as the first Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). The animation of the characters is wonderful with the three (Sonic, Tales, and Knuckles) looking like they do in the game.

The addition of Knuckles added another comedic feel which you will not attribute to the character Knuckles as he was charactered to be the dumb muscle of the group. The movie pulls off some fine gameplay shots, we have Tail’s red plane with Sonic on it, Sonic snowboarding, Dr Robotnik looking more like Robotnik from the game dawning his red lab coat and accurate moustache look.

The Knuckles character lacked understanding of culture and was all macho talk, which was just fun. Jim Carrey as expected out did himself in his portrayal of Dr Robotnik and all the supporting cast in the movie did a fun job of just getting out of the way of the main event.

This is the second live-action adaptation of the beloved Sega game of the 90s. As the first one was a huge success there was no reason for there not to be a second.

Miles Tails Power addition to the movie an almost similar back story to that of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 game. With Tails admiring Sonic and coming to find him, and Sonic adopting him as his sidekick. The movie starts with Knuckles and Robotnik teaming up to get Sonic and find the Master Emerald. Sonic and Tales must stop these two from finding the Master Emerald as Robotnik has plans to use the Emerald to wrap the world as he pleases.

As you would expect like in the game story Knuckles switched sides and worked with the duo to stop Robotnik.

In the end even though I liked the movie, I feel there was too much mushy stuff going on. It was like the movie had too much runtime and just wanted to fill it with something.

If you enjoyed the first movie you will have many more reasons to enjoy this one also, after you have dealt with what seemed like a quarter of the movie wasted setting up the four main characters to meet. Sonic’s lack of maturity at times were annoying, but you can say that was part of the reason it was put in the movie the first place.

 

Spoiler alert

The movie’s post credit scene shows us the plans for a third Sonic with the introduction of another of the characters from the game Shadow the Hedgehog.

Morbius (2022)

Morbius (2022)


 

3/10


 Starring

Jared Leto

Matt Smith

Adria Arjona

 

Directed by Daniel Espinosa


Morbius is a totally lazy movie script brought to life, no matter the look this was not a horror dark tale as you would have expected. The movie is so lazily put together with a script that lacks any form of creativity. The movie runs its own race in drafting out an origin story for Michael Morbius and it does play freely with the powers of the living vampire. This freedom is abused by bad directing, no form of character depth at all and bad editing. It created its own villain and with such space has time to make the best of everything but made a mess of it all. I think Jared Leto’s play on acting with Morbius was just too intensely serious for this script, so the magical colors that Matt Smith brought to his character Milo helped a lot. Other than that, I feel this was a bad job, done badly.

The effects of the bats in the fight against Milo in the end was anticlimactic. The movie plot has similar starts to that which we are familiar with concerning Morbius, a Nobel award winning biologist with a rare blood condition. In this Sony’s Morbius, Morbius has an adopted brother named Milo with whom they share the same blood condition and met in a hospital wing when children. While Morbius is alone, Milo comes from a very wealthy background and now that they have grown, Milo became Morbius benefactor for his experiments to find a cure for their sickness.

Morbius finally found a way out, a fusion of vampire bat DNA with that of humans. He tried it on himself and as you know from the comics, things did not go as planned. Morbius woke up hungry and killed everyone in his lab draining them of their blood by sucking them dry, except his lover Bancroft who was knocked out in all the commotion.

Milo gets wind of what has happened and ask Morbius to inject him too, but Morbius refused. This led to Milo breaking into Morbius lab and using a nurse he was able to get himself injected with the spliced DNA. He too became like Morbius a living vampire, but unlike Morbius who is struggling to keep his urges in check, Milo is running crazy causing chaos. Now Morbius takes it upon himself to stop Milo.

The movie for me tried to ride the waves of Sony’s best Marvel attempt so far, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). No Way Home gave Sony some ideas. They can use the liberty caused by Doctor Strange’s spell to tansport characters from the MCU. This is limited to characters they have license on, which was something they did in the end. They transported one of Spider-Man’s villain from the MCU into Sony’s Spiderverse.

I do have regrets seeing this movie and I hope nobody has to go through the same struggle.

The Batman (2022)

The Batman (2022)


6/10


Starring

Robert Pattinson

Zoë Kravitz

Paul Dano

Jeffrey Wright

 

Directed by Matt Reeves

 

In summary the movie is average, and I can say it is better than Batman and Robin (George Clooney), but does not step up to any of Keaton's. I expected to this movie to be better than Keaton's but it does not come close.

This movie drops us right and center to what many will see as the ideal feel of what Gotham is like. The villains are all about without us not having to go through an origin story for them all. We have Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) and in the end a glimpse of the Joker. The main character causing mayhem in this movie is, the Riddler (Paul Dano). Matt Reeves (the director and also writer) did well with the Riddler’s characterization and did poorly at the same time. Yes, the riddles and the running around is something that is expected when dealing with the Riddler. But his mannerism is what you will expect from the Joker. So, the Riddler’s behaviour is 50% Riddler, 50% Joker. Which was annoying.

Reeves has a hard job. The Batman is a known character whose story has been given many takes in animated features and movies. He was tasked with bringing the Bat into the light again with a form of ingenuity that will make us look at it in a new light.

The main plot has Batman (Robert Pattinson) trying to stop the killings of the top people of Gotham, like the Mayor, the DA, Police commissioner (not James Gordon played by Jeffrey Wright) and others. The person killing them is the Riddler and he is taunting the Bat with is constant riddles and not planning to stop his killings until he exposes all the corrupt officials of Gotham. Then he struck too close to home to someone the Bat cares about, and now the Bat wants him bad.

This noir adaption is very dark and does try to give us a new way to look at the Bat. But this is a well-known character, so in that area even though it starts well it soon falls in line with the familiar.

Pattinson did a good job as Batman when in costume, his Bruce Wayne though needed a little work.

I do love how the movie dives into the narrative and leaving behind any need for an origin story, since we all know the origin story from as many angles there is to find.

The first half of the movie has Bat investigating, deciphering codes, and trying to link himself to the Riddler, doing actual detective work. The other half of the movie, is boring. By this time you start to understand that there are way too many scenes in this movie that could have been removed. The movie is too long and if they trimmed of the unneeded to make the movie’s runtime shorter, it will make the movie more enjoyable.

Colin Farrell’s makeup as the Penguin is just out of this world and it is worth seeing. I like the idea and direction of this movie and I hope they follow this path so we can have an enjoyable trilogy. There is no need to try and compare this to the Nolan trilogy and putting them side-by-side cannot be done, until we see the full picture of Matt Reeves.

You should see this movie if you want. Will advise to not try doing it at the cinema because of its length - it is way too long and the story is not near good enough as you would expect it to be.