Reviews

I would have never thought a movie about an old west sheriff and a posse going to rescue captives from cannibal cave dwellers could actually be boring but this movie was...it was oh so boring.

Very little at all happens for the first hour except David Arquette getting shot in the leg which of course I'm all for. Then he's kidnapped along with a deputy and a woman by some "troglodytes" who apparently live in a cave in the desert and are angry with Arquette for violating their sacred burial ground. You don't actually see the abduction though, that would have been too much excitement for this movie. Then it's followed by an hour of the four dumbest old west types on earth crossing an empty landscape to rescue them. First they're riding horses...and riding horses...and riding horses some more. And then, because they're too stupid to post a guard at night their horses are stolen and so they're walking....and walking...and then walking some more. This is about half the movie; walking and camping and talking and then more walking. It was really gripping....that's sarcasm, it wasn't.

Then, after all the riding and walking (and talking) they find the valley that the troglodytes call home and basically just walk into it in broad daylight. This genius move gets one of them killed and oh yeah, another one, the abducted woman's husband, has a bad leg so they left him behind...could that factor into the plot later?? Gee I wonder...

Anyway, so now there are two left and they are immediately captured by the cave dwellers (was tired of typing troglodyte) because they're still stupid, and are locked in a cage across from the deputy and woman so not only was the rescue mission boring but it was a total failure too. Arquette has already been eaten though so that was cool. Then the movie turns into Texas Chain Saw Massacre only with knifes and clubs made out of bone and they butcher the deputy because apparently he's on the menu for dinner. So 90+ minutes of mind numbing boredom and stupidity are spiced up with some gratuitous gore and violence that's really only there for the shock value but it's over quickly and we're back to the boring parts again....lots of inane dialogue and not much happening. Finally crippled husband shows up after killing a few cave dwellers and figuring out that they have some type of bone or something in their throats to communicate with and uses it to lure them to their deaths. Why and how is it there...who knows; it's a movie about cave dwelling cannibals in the old west so don't put too much thought into it.

So that's the movie; old man, wife and crippled husband are saved while a mortally wounded Kurt Russell stays behind to finish off the last of the troglodytes before he dies. Thankfully we're only shown the three survivors walking back to town for a few minutes which actually surprised me because most of the movie was the walk out, I would have thought the director would at least be consistent and subjected us to the entire walk back....probably ran out of money.

I gave this two stars only because Kurt Russell was in it. It was incredibly boring except for the few scenes that were unnecessarily gory and over the top. Don't buy all the high reviews here, this movie was bad.

Hell on Wheels was recommended to me by a friend, I'd actually never heard of it before that. So I began watching and for most of the first two seasons I'll admit, I was in. I never thought it deserved a ten rating, the characters are either two dimensional or completely over the top but the story was good and the scenery is great. And it had the awesome Wes Studi in it, at least for a bit. The writing was just ok, the bad guys tended to be simply written and the good guys were unsympathetic to the point that you didn't become all that invested in them. But it was holding my interest.

But sometimes a series will do something so dumb, and demonstrate such bad writing and character development that it pulls you completely out of the story. The Swede's character was interesting at first, then it became stupid and finally he simply turned into a cartoon. And I understand his back story; Andersonville etc. But that didn't merit any sympathy because by then the character was so over the top that it didn't matter. I just couldn't understand how he kept surviving episode after episode, like a really tall energizer bunny.

Then the last episode of season two happened and it was finally clear; the writers needed a plot device to get rid of Lilly; maybe the actress wanted out, or she wanted more money, or whatever. So they ratcheted up the cartoon level of Swede's character and had him kill her. Then, to double down on their amateurish writing does Bohannan simply shoot him, like he should have done four episodes ago? Or does he simply beat him to death in a rage? Oh no no, they have him take the Swede out to the bridge, alone, to hang him...in a scene that was so lame it actually reminded me of that scene in Austin Powers where they leave one inept guard to watch Austin thus guaranteeing his escape, it was really that bad. So the Swede throws himself off the bridge while Bohannan is trying to tie the rope to something, or picking his nose, or whatever. And gee, we don't know if the Swede is really dead do we??? I mean, he IS the western version of the energizer bunny isn't he, so he could show up at any time in the future. Wow, what incredibly amateurish and lame writing.

I understand that good writing is hard, and this show has been better than most of what's on TV these days but, sometimes they foist something so galactically stupid on you it's really hard to want to keep watching....

I hate lazy writing and absurd characters in a series. This episode displayed lots of both but the breaking point for me was the Swede (but I'm from Norway) killing Lily. It was absurd, it was bad writing, it was insultingly obvious in it's intentions. Intentions that were as subtle as a hammer and just as sophisticated. And it just got worse after the fact.

Swede's character was mildly interesting in the beginning but by this episode he was nothing but a energizer bunny cartoon character. His story arc was first implausible and then nonsensical and then just plain stupid. And yes, I know he was in Andersonville and was a deeply flawed and psychotic character blah blah blah. His character and his story were so over the top that they were absurd. I really couldn't understand how he survived for so long until this episode when it all became clear; it was because the writers needed him to dispatch Lily in what they thought was an impactful and deeply meaningful way. Trouble is it was neither of those things, what it was was lazy inept writing and an insult to the viewer.

And then....once again Bohannan's character does something stupid...does he simply walk up and shoot Swede? Something he realistically would have done episodes ago, or does he beat him to death? Noooo, he takes him to the bridge to hang him, all alone....please. More lazy inept writing to set up a scenario where gee, maybe Swede isn't dead at all! Maybe he'll be back to escalate his absurd character's plotline to new levels of stupidity. I probably won't be around to find out....

Maybe Lily had to go because the actress wanted out, or she wanted more money, or the writers were tired of her....fine, but the way they wrote her exit only shows that they were unable to maintain a high level of story telling forever, and in the last episode of season two they fell flat on their faces. As I said at the beginning; I hate bad writing so...I'm out.

I was singled and dating the first time I saw this movie and had actually just recently gone through a breakup so maybe that forever influenced how I feel about the film but it's always been one of my favorite "date movies". Even now that I've been happily married forever.

I think the main reason for my fondness of the movie is the chemistry between Short and O'Toole. I've always like Annette O'Toole and she's great in this movie, so is Martin Short. They play off of one another in a great and engaging way. The story is a bit convoluted in spots but it also hits home on many respects; who among us hasn't stretched the truth...or omitted parts of it, when we first started dating someone? This movie plays that up in a funny and heartfelt way that's really engaging.

Lastly, this movie has one of the funniest lines I've heard in a movie, ever. After making love Short and O'Toole are talking and she asks him if he remembers the best sex he's ever had and he says of course he does. She then asks him if the woman did things she didn't do and Short answers; "Actually I was alone at the time". I still laugh every time I hear that.

We were really looking forward to this movie because the trailer looked good so we sat down with high expectations for a funny evening. Turns out that while our expectations were too high and it wasn't that funny an evening it was at least mildly entertaining.

There are a lot of funny and talented people in this movie (and Amy Schumer who isn't either of those things) and some of them are great while others just kind of fall flat. Bill Burr was awesome as JFK and Hugh Grant was pretty good too. Surprisingly Jerry Seinfeld on the other hand wasn't that great. Another thing I noticed was that a lot of the jokes come fast and furious and before you even have time to think they were funny the cast is on to something else. And actually the ones who really steal the movie are the two dumpster diving kids, the girl especially. With this high powered a cast that's not good.

There are also a lot of spoofs of cultural events, some that are really funny and a couple that I found to be in incredibly bad taste. Making fun of Gus Grissom's death is not ok, I don't care how much time has passed, it's simply in bad taste, very bad taste. There was one other similar reference that was just as bad that escapes me at the moment.

But overall the parodies of actual events and people ranged from funny (JFK) to mildly amusing to some that just landed with a thud. I didn't find the parody of the January 6th riot as offensive as some apparently did but it wasn't funny and it detracted from what was an otherwise funny scene.

Actually watching all the characters dance and the little girl hijack a truck were some of the funniest parts of the movie and they happened during the end credits. Probably not good either.

Overall not a bad movie, it was funny in places and didn't take itself too seriously which these days is refreshing but considering who wrote and directed it, and the cast, it should have been much funnier. In the end you probably won't regret watching it but you'll also probably wish it had been better.

I should have seen it coming but foolishly I thought this episode was about ghosts. And then Netflix did Netflix and went off on a tangent about slavery and white supremacy and discrimination...I honestly think that the people at Netflix who make these "documentaries" really can't help themselves.

There it was, tooling along about the hauntings at the plantation and doing a just passable job of it; they kept flashing ghost photos on the screen for a second without any explanation of what they were. They interviewed ghost hunters and people who worked at the plantation, it wasn't bad, I was at least marginally interested.

And then on comes a "historian" or "cultural expert" or whatever he claimed to be but basically a white guy wallowing in white guilt and launching into what a terrible place plantations were, and are. Cut to a couple of African Americans who wonder how anyone can appreciate the beauty or architecture or ghost stories about the place when...a really long time ago...there were slaves there. We all know slavery was terrible, we all know it happened, and we all know that plantations were bad places back then, this country tore itself apart in a civil war that was at least partially about slavery (I know, states rights etc.).

This episode was about GHOSTS! Not slavery or anything attached to slavery. Even the famous slave ghost attached to the property, Chloe, turned out not to exist. If you want to make a documentary about slavery and the anti-bellum society of the pre-Civil War south then by all means do it although I'm pretty sure it's already been done This show is about the paranormal, It was already weak, as most of your documentaries are, before you pulled this. But as I said, I suppose you just can't help yourselves. If nothing else at least you're predictable.

I watched this movie when it was first available on Netflix several years ago. Last night I was looking for something to watch and decided to watch it again. Only, I didn't know I was watching it again; I was a good 30 minutes into it before I realized I'd seen it before. Now, I can remember movies and lines from movies I watched a decade ago, two decades ago, just ask my wife. Yet I'd completely forgotten watching this movie until a particular scene jogged my memory...apparently it's that forgettable.

A lot of reviewer here are comparing it to Wind River and they're right, the plot is very similar and they're also right that Wind River is a far superior movie. But what's so egregious here is not so much that they copied that movie, it's that they did it so badly. If you're employing the writers they did here don't even attempt to copy a great movie like Wind River.

The writing is lazy and nonsensical and really just stupid. Characters do things that make no sense throughout, especially the two main characters. There are no consequences or lasting effects for anything they do or anything that happens to them. Major injuries are shrugged off, laws are broken with no consequences, characters do things no even marginally intelligent person would ever do. A prime example of this is the main character finally identifying the killer and just walking into his house without a thought...with a screwdriver from his truck his only protection! No one is that stupid, except apparently the people who wrote this movie, or they think the viewing public is. There's a lot more of that type of thing but after awhile it all seemed to blur together.

So after realizing I'd seen it before but still not really remembering it I watched the rest of it. Ok, I was probably just too lazy to look for something else to watch and let's be honest, Annabelle Wallis is not hard to look at. But that brings me to another major flaw in this movie; Who thought it was a good idea to cast an English actress who looks like a supermodel as the sheriff of a backwater mid-western town??? Ms. Wallis is a good actress but even she couldn't pull that off. She looked absurd in the role and off the top of my head I can think of so many other actresses who would have been a better choice...dozens of them.

Coster-Waldau is much better as the drunk washed up hunter. His character does some galactically stupid things in this movie but that's not his fault, he didn't write the script. He does the best he can with what's there.

Zahn McClarnon also does a pretty good job in his role and his character isn't called upon to be quite as dense as the others in the movie so he's got that going for him.

Overall the plot is just bad, in the end the killer comes out of nowhere and we're given absolutely no explanation about how he became such a skilled hunter and why he decided to kill young girls and cut their vocal cords. His daughter was killed by a drunk driver not a young girl. And as far as we know that drunk driver wasn't a mute. I kept thinking that there must have been additional scenes explaining all this that had been edited out. The movie only has a 90 minute run time so if that's true they really should have left them in...or shot them in the first place.

Worst of all though is that the writers resorted to the most amateurish trope in writing; having a character that's barely in the film and that we know nothing about end up being the killer.

So I watched this movie twice and while it did have a few good points that was still two times too many.

I've been fascinated by the battle of Midway since I read a novel in grade school called "Flight Deck" by an author named Robb White. Mr. White had actually been there so while the book was geared toward adolescents he knew what he was talking about and the detail was excellent.

One of the things that's always haunted me about this battle was the number of aircraft crews that were lost because they were shot down, survived but were never found (this story) or ran out of fuel before they were able to return to their carriers, something that occurred more than you'd like to think in this battle. I read somewhere that the last crew picked up in a life raft was found nine days after the battle. The thought of all the men who were never found and died slow, lonely and horrible deaths either in the water or in life rafts has always stuck with me.

That's what this movie tried to portray by focusing on one SBD Dauntless crew who were seen to land in the water but were never found. There's an attempt at back stories but they're very poorly written and aren't very effective. The main thing the movie is trying to portray are the fates of all those lost men. So when I read other reviews here that complain about the movie not focusing on the actual battle or there being "too much water" I have to wonder if those reviewers actually got what this movie was about. Seems that they really didn't.

I'm glad someone tried to present a story about all those lost flyers. I just wish it had been better than what this movie is. The acting is terrible throughout, Other than C. Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson (neither of whom did a great job either) I've never heard of any of the actors here. The story lines are poorly written and developed and as already stated here multiple times, the dialogue is bad, to the point of being cringe worthy at times. The dynamic between Nelson's admiral and the Enterprises captain is terrible and completely unrealistic to actual events. The crew of the Catalina are mostly caricatures of what the actors thought sailors in the 1940's would act like when if fact they come off more like 1950's greasers. And this may sound a bit petty but most of the main characters were a bit odd looking. I can't really put my finger on exactly why, they just were. The pilot who ended up in the water looked like he'd botoxed his entire face prior to filming. The Catalina pilot looked like his eyebrows and five o'clock shadow were painted onto his face. Not a major point but just something that added to the lousy impression you got while watching the movie.

The historical accuracy as far as the aircraft and ships go was fine, though the CGI left a lot to be desired. The interactions between the characters was another story, it didn't come across as very authentic to the period or very sincere but with so much bad writing and bad acting it was kind of hard to tell. I'm glad someone thought this story was worth telling because it is, I just wish it had been done better, a lot better.

Netflix has perfected the art (I use that term loosely here) of churning out cliqued, ho hum action movies that usually try to see how many earlier, better movies they can steal ideas from then use those ideas badly.

Rebel Moon a sci fi version of this formula just as The Grey Man was a spy thriller version of it and Extraction Two was a shoot-em-up version of it. But here it's really pushed to the nth degree. The plot of this movie is lifted from several other, better movies, there's really nothing original here at all and you know what's going to happen way before it does. Throughout it's 2+ hour run time (!) you keep getting the feeling: "where have I seen all this before?"

Add to that an incredible number of cliques and worn out plot devices and characters who are so two dimensional that if they turned sideways they'd disappear and you've got Rebel Moon.

And once again we have the 100 pound woman who can kick the butt of any guy twice her size with twice her body mass. God this has been done to death! It's so overused that it just looks stupid now but here it's made worse by the fact that Sophie Boutella looks like a strong wind would blow her away and her fight choreography is really awful, almost as bad as her acting. She really just doesn't have the chops to carry a movie, even a good one and this isn't one of those. That she's backed up here by a cast of cliqued, uninteresting, two dimensional and badly acted characters just makes it more noticeable.

The "story" just moves from plot point to plot point through holes in the that plot big enough to fly a space ship through and characters doing nonsensical stuff because the script tells them to. Everything that happens is boring and predictable and at times an actual insult to the viewers intelligence. Bad story, bad acting, bad action scenes and bad CGI are all you're going to get here. If that sounds like fun to you then enjoy and wait eagerly for part two. Personally I think wasting over two hours on part one is sufficient.

One thing Netflix is great at is churning out an endless stream of mindless "action movies". Shoot em up's that are un-original, riddled with cliques, oh so predictable, and a waste of your viewing time.

I'll admit that they sucked me in again, even after I'd recently watched The Gray Man and Extraction II. You would think I'd know better by now!

This movie uses an old and well worn plot device; lets rob a drug cartel guy because he's a bad guy anyway so it'll be ok. Oh, and also the standard motely crew of ex-special forces guys who can't adjust to the world and have money troubles. Throw in a disillusioned DEA Agent and there's your clique cast of characters. And anyone who didn't know that by the end of the move they would learn an important lesson about it not being ok to rob and kill because it's just drug guys hasn't already seen many of these movies.

My biggest problem with this movie was it's predictability. Ben Affleck drops his daughter off at school and they share a bittersweet moment where he says he loves her and she says she misses him. Translation; he's going to die.

They steal the money then talk about the weight in regards to their helicopter getting over the mountains to facilitate their getaway. Translation; they're not going to make it over the mountains.

They crash in a small village and end up killing a few villagers, one of the dead villagers sons gives them the hairy eyeball as they leave. Translation; he's going to turn up later and do something bad to them. And he does; he kills Ben Affleck, because someone had to.

There were more, many more but those are the ones that immediately come to mine. God I hate predictable writing!

Another problem with this movie is that the hardened SF guys act like just that...sometimes, other times they do really stupid stuff or miss really obvious stuff because the script tells them to. And still other times, like when they find the money, they act like high school kids jumping around like idiots. No thoughts of the Cartel leader still loose in the house, or perimeter defense or anything else. Finally they time and again make absurd decisions that no one with their backgrounds would ever make; sure we can lug six hundred pounds of cash across the Andes Mountains, no problem at all. Or; omg, one of us got killed, really didn't think that would happen while robbing a cartel boss in his own country, darn.

The characters in this story change from one thing to something else at the drop of a hat because the script tells them to. They're all badly written and not all that well acted.

And of course in the end Affleck's character does die, they loose most of the money (gee, didn't see that one coming either!) and realize that what they did was just bad, even though they knew exactly what they were doing and that someone might die, one of them I mean, because they didn't seem to have any problem at all with a lot of locals dieing. And they give the money they managed to keep to Affleck's daughter and ex-wife because gosh darn it, it's the right thing to do. Please, another plot line that's older than movies themselves and that like most of the other plot developments, I saw coming way before it arrived.

Oh, and to extend run time there's a very long and very boring journey through the mountains as they're trying to escape with the cash during which they have an epiphany about stealing, and killing, and maybe cheating on their taxes too, I'm not sure because by that point I was actually debating whether I would even finish watching this drek so I fast forwarded through most of that to finally get to the end.

I knew everything that was going to happen in this movie before it did, and I felt like I'd seen it a hundred times before, usually in much better movies with much better acting. But hey Netflix; you just keep churning out these poorly written, clique riddled, poorly directed and acted pieces of junk.... I'll be watching something else.

I'm from Boston and work in the city but I just watched this movie yesterday for the first time. Several reasons for that; I don't care for movies about criminals and this partly has that aspect to it. I also don't like the way Hollywood depicts neighborhoods of Boston being populated only be uneducated white trash losers. Do they exist, sure, but they're a very small part of Boston and yet that's all that anyone in Hollywood seems to know about the city. And I realize this movie is from a novel by Dennis Lehane who is from here too and Mr. Lehane can write about anything he wants. I'm just pretty tired of it. I haven't read Lehane's books for that very reason.

But I finally did watch it and to be honest I wish I had trusted my initial instincts and continued to pass on it. It's a depressing dysfunctional story that I really didn't need to see. From my point of view this movie has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Not a single character is likable or sympathetic, I honestly didn't care about any of them Not to mention two hours of watching Sean Penn chew up scenery and overact until I thought his head would explode. The last movie I liked Penn in was Racing With the Moon and that was a very long time ago. He is such an over-rated actor.

Kevin Bacon was just ok, I've seen him do much better in other movies. The rest of the actors were just ok with the exception of Laura Linney who with one or two scenes nailed the portrait of a psychotic wife who was probably one of the scariest characters in the film. Kudos to her at least.

A lot of Clint Eastwood directed movies are dark and not very much fun to watch, Million Dollar Baby comes to mind. And I know what he's trying to do and the messages he's trying to get across...he just went way overboard here. I will say that it's well directed and filmed, and those are the only two good things I can say about it.

This movie has no redeeming qualities that I could see but hey, if you're looking for something to watch on a Saturday night and think your life is just a little bit too happy and you're feeling a tad too good about yourself then watch Mystic River; it will depress the hell out of you in no time at all.

Like a lot of iffy movies on streaming services I watched this one while home sick. It's two hours of my life that I wish I could get back. I also think it made me relapse, it was that bad.

The story is a joke, never mind that it's a total rip off of numerous other movies and TV shows; Falling Skies for one. But I could have let that go because the aliens invading earth plot is as old as electronic media. I could have let it go...if the movie wasn't so god awful.

The writing is amateurish and clumsy with plot twists that strain credibility to the breaking point, even in a movie about invading aliens. The direction and editing is just as bad. The characters are all cliques and the acting is simply atrocious throughout. But the prize for bad acting has to go to Stephany Jacobsen, she was so bad that her scenes actually pull you right out of the story, not that there was much story to be pulled out of.

Characters do absurd things just to fit plot points. Characters miraculously come back from near death injuries at the drop of a hat because they're needed for the next absurd plot line. The action scenes make no sense and are very badly put together and filmed, and events are telegraphed to the point that several times a character did something and I immediately knew they were going to die. And last but certainly not least, the aliens are just incompetent enough to allow the puny humans to triumph in the end. Wow, didn't see that coming.

But the action scenes were the absolute worst. They were so cheesy and clichéd and over the top that I lost track of how many times I actually laughed out loud while watching them...pretty sure that's not the reaction the dolts who made this movie were going for. It's about the same amount of times scenes went to slow motion in a lame attempt to make them more impactful. What it did was make them more laughable.

And of course in the end we're subjected to the same old crap about us ruining the planet and that the aliens aren't really that bad once you get to know them, after they've wiped out half the human race. I really can't believe anyone would put up the money to make a sequel to this movie. Maybe that's a sign that we really do deserve to be wiped out by aliens...

I watched this movie on a streaming service after 30 minutes of surfing through several of them looking for something to watch. Finally I saw this and said what the hell, if I don't pick something soon it'll be my bed time. And it had an interesting cast so...

The movie is basically a boring half hour lead up to an hour long shootout where everyone apparently showed up that night with cases of ammunition because no one ever runs out and people are shot multiple times but hang in there until they arrive at the page in the script with their actual death scene. You're never sure anyone is dead until it's made glaringly clear that they're dead because the characters are all like the energizer bunny, they just keep going. The only guy I was sure wasn't going to get up again was the one who's head was run over with a van.

And I saw the twist ending coming a mile away and I hate that in a movie. There's only one female in the movie...gee, do you think that signifies something important??

Another thing was that besides Armie Hammer all the actors, including Cillian Murphy and Brie Larson seemed like they were sleep walking through their roles, no one put in a lot of effort on this one. And the characters were also so similar it was hard to tell some of them apart, they were all cookie cutter hoods. And that was another thing that made Brie Larson's character stand out as in; she's there for a specific reason, could it be....a plot twist??

All in all this movie was mildly entertaining but barely. I didn't bemoan the fact that I spent an hour and a half of my life on it but it was close, very close. If you've been rooting around looking for something to watch forever and are about to give up...give it a shot. That's about as strong a recommendation as I can give...

This movie moves at a glacial pace made worse by the plodding and often nonsensical actions of the characters. It takes them minutes, a lot of minutes, to do something that should have happened immediately.

The story is simple to the point of being nonsensical as well; someone had a simplistic but heavy handed message about we terrible humans destroying the planet but didn't know how to make it interesting or even coherent. So they made this movie instead.

There are only four characters. None of them are particularly interesting and they all do things that make very little sense, some that are actually an insult to the audiences intelligence. And in the end it turns out that one of the two real main characters is a cold blooded killer but the other one forgives them instantly because....well, for no reason that makes sense other than it's necessary for the silly, and I do mean silly, ending to occur.

Very slow movie with a very poorly written script. About the only good thing I can say about it is that the cinematography wasn't bad. Don't bother unless you want to be lulled to sleep while having your intelligence insulted all at the same time.