Anton_Klink

I love animated movies and I love Sam Rockwell, but this was one of the most boring, unfunny, clichéd and predictable animated movies I have ever seen. It is full of juvenile fart and butt jokes, yet not a single joke that could be enjoyed by anyone above the age of 12. For a movie that's supposed to be a comedy, I didn't even chuckle once, let alone laugh out loud and an unfunny comedy is always a pain to watch.

You know exactly what is going to happen in the next scene based on this previous scene and you know exactly how the characters are going to act, react, say and do from one scene to the next. Nothing surprising or unexpected ever happens, you can see all the plot twists coming from a 100 miles away, the life lessons the movie tries to instill are generic and a boring movie is also a pain to watch. If you've seen any amount of animated movies or even movies in general, you've seen it all before done much better in previous movies.

The premise of the world is also super confusing. I don't think I've ever seen an animated movie where animals live alongside humans as sort of proto-humans as well. How did the animals become humans? How did the humans react to animals becoming humans? In the world seemingly Inhabited mostly by humans, how did they elect a fox as the mayor? None of this is of course, ever explained or addressed.

On the positive side, the voice acting is good and the animation is at least passable but it's unfortunately that's about it.

Let's start with the positives.

• Most of the action scenes are absolutely glorious and some of the most inventive and exhilarating ever put to screen.

• Same goes for the dance numbers, which are a catchy explosion of color, movement and wonderful choreography.

• Extremely charismatic leads all around (except for the two white British ladies, but I'll get to that later). The stunts, action scenes and dance numbers performed by the male leads are simply superb. Even the late Roy Stevenson chews the scenery as the evil governor.

Now the negatives.

• The British villains are laughably and ridiculously evil and cartoonish. With the movie so clearly stacked against them, it created the opposite effect from the intended one, so I actually ended up rooting for them instead of the heroes. Probably not what the film-makers intended or expected.

• Even the one positive British character, the love interest of one of the heroes, is just a shallow two-dimensional cutout and their love story has zero credibility or believability.

• To Western sensibilities, this movie is very clearly a gay love story - a notion, which Indian audiences seem to take offense with. I know the intention was to show a strong male friendship but I guess it comes down to cultural differences on how male friendship is perceived. The supposed love interests of both heroes are there just as token characters with no depth at all, whereas the strong emotional bond, intense "brotherly" love, the longing looks, the caressing, the physical contact and dancing between the leads throughout the movie suggests way more than just friendship. I only put this down under negatives, as both the film-makers and initial intended target audience seem to be shocked by the suggestion, but honestly, this movie is just as gay if not even more than "Rocketman", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Moonlight", "Call Me By Your Name", "Power of the Dog", "Brokeback Mountain" etc.

• In between the action, the constant emotionally manipulative tear-jerking and insufferable melodrama with endless slow-motion panning shots of the actors and their eyes yet again about to burst with streams of tears due to outrage and injustice caused by the cartoonishly evil British colonists just made me want to throw things at the screen.

• Endless proto-fascist military propaganda with no Gandhi-like peaceful protest anywhere in sight. In fact, I don't think Gandhi was mentioned even once, even though the final dance number wheeled out countless images of various other apparently nationalist historical figures. I guess Gandhi's peaceful policies did not sit well with the militaristic propaganda aims of the movie, so he was swiftly sidelined.

• The unequal statuses of the two leads, with one being a Hindu warrior and hero with a grand vision and the other being a short-sighted brute tribesman who is initially pretending to be Muslim (but to the relief of everyone in the movie, "thankfully" is not) and who by the end of the movie ends up asking for wisdom and guidance from the first. Looks like the caste-system is alive and well.

I approached the movie with tepid anticipation but apart from the dance and action scenes and the charismatic leads, the movie was otherwise a sour disappointment. Without the dance and action scenes, I might have rated the movie 2 or 3 out of 10, but since the action and dance choreography were undoubtedly some of the best I have ever seen, it pulled this otherwise melodramatic, militaristic, nationalistic, proto-fascist tear-jerker out of the gutter so 5 out of 10 stars from me.

I remember seeing this episode as a kid and couldn't believe how thrilling TV could be. The episode was the culmination of the excellent first season of "Wiseguy" and better than some of the best movies still being watched today. It is quite sad for fantastic TV to fade into obscurity whereas even mediocre movies still get recycled and watched. The episode was full of edge-of-your-seat suspense and hearbreak. It was fantastically written, directed and acted. I wouldn't even know where to rewatch it today but I might not even need to, as I can still remember images from it from over decades ago. This was honestly some of the best TV I have ever seen.

Low expectations can hugely increase the enjoyment of some movies it seems and "Rambo: Last Blood" is probably one of the most striking examples of that. I already knew going in, that fans were disappointed by the movie. I already knew, that Sly himself had apologized to the fans for letting them down and dropping the ball on it Not to mention what all the critics thought. So I figured, what the heck, let's see how bad it is then.

Admittedly based on the initial 2/3 of the movie, I was ready to give the movie 5 stars out of 10 at best and often wondered, why is this even a "Rambo" movie, as things were progressing painfully slowly, not much was going on for large parts of it and the few action scenes were mostly just the odd regular beating up in a dark alley which could have come from any movie. Mostly it seemed to be a sort of "Taken" movie with Sly standing in for Liam Neeson and lumbering around in some Mexican shanty-town.

Well, little did I know, that all of this was just a buildup to make the audience really, I mean REALLY start to hate the despicable baddies of the cartel, so that when they make the mistake of going after Rambo and meet their inevitable, gloriously varied and satisfyingly gory demise (I assume it is not a spoiler to say that baddies die in a "Rambo" movie), it turns into one of the most satisfying final acts I have ever seen. Having been at best lukewarm throughout most of the movie and found some if it even questionable, I even surprised myself to be hollering and cheering for Rambo and fistpumping with a "hell yeah!" each time another cartel thug was impaled, dismembered or blown up into a red mist of showering intestines in what was probably one of the most climatic "one man vs an army of bad guys" final battles in a revenge movie.

With most of the movie being 5/10 but the final battle being 10/10, I give the movie an overall score of 8/10.

I was fully prepared to hate-watch this Russian WWII movie about Stalingrad from start to finish. Having seen Soviet and Russian WWII movies before, where the Germans are usually cartoonishly evil Nazis while the Russians are all laughably heroic, I am already familiar with traditions and tropes in Russian movies about the "Great Patriotic War". But especially now, during the era of the Russian so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine, which is really just an unprovoked war of aggression against a neighboring country along with a full list of war crimes being committed just like Germany did during WWII, the tables have turned and trying to see the villains of today as heroes of yesterday is a hard sell.

Yet the movie managed to dodge many of the worst tropes in such movies and surpass my (admittedly low) expectations. The characters on both sides of the conflict had more nuance and dimension than I had come to expect. On the German side, the movie focuses on an officer, who you can actually sympathize with to a degree, which was frankly shocking to see in a WWII movie made in Russia. On the Russian side, the soldiers were no angels either, with many of their decisions either questionable or even shocking. They were characters with an actual believable human quality to them.

Most of the movie plays more like a stage play than a movie, but when the action kicks in, it really delivers. As I saw the movie in 3D, the battle scenes looked fantastic and production was top notch. The only real downside of the action was the complete overuse of slow motion, but luckily reliance on that gimmick mostly subsided as the movie progressed.

I was fully prepared to mark this movie as a rare win for Russian cinema, if it wasn't for the very last sentence in the movie from the narrator. "Thanks to my fathers and their comrades, me and my fellow people don't even know the meaning of war". Well that sure didn't age well.

All in all, if you imagine the Russians in the movie to be the Ukrainians of today and the Germans in the movie to be the Russians of today, the movie makes sense even in today's context and as such is not only palatable, but recommended.

The centerpiece of this documentary is the 3D photos restored and put to film for the first time. They are not really color photos but sometimes colorized photos, however the detail in those photos is amazing. The faces staring back at you in these 3D photos from over a 100 years ago really make the people seem to come alive again and make the viewer feel the pain of the lost generation and the senselessness of the war more than any regular photo or video would. I am assuming the filmmakers were able to access the original glass plates of the photos, the quality really is that good. The difference in detail and quality is essentially stark when compared to movie clips from the same era, which are low quality and grainy as expected. However the occasional movie clips are essential in bridging to story and have been sped down to fit the sombre mood. Unlike most documentaries, there is no retelling of mostly well known historical facts and dates, but instead the movie relies on "testimonies" in the form of often very touching letters written by participants of the war and replies from their loved ones. This touching and moving documentary is perfectly fitting for a 3D presentation, which makes the latest demise of 3D all the more regrettable, as that means this documentary will inevitably remain obscure and accessible only to 3D fans and owners of the necessary equipment to enjoy it.

I just rewatched the opening ceremony 10 years later in 3D (a TV capture from BBC back when they still broadcast in 3D) and it was even better than I remembered, and also better in 3D. A beautiful colorful production full of surprises and happy emotion, it just put a smile on my face. It also made me nostalgic for a few reasons. First is the sad demise of 3D broadcasting. Even in the era of UHD 4K HDR, the 3D broadcast from ten years ago looks absolutely fantastic on the right screen. Second is that in hindsight 2012 feels like the happy pinnacle of modern times. No hint of Brexit, or bitter partisan politics, or populist leaders, or fake news and misinformation, or Covid, or war in Ukraine. Just looking at the opening ceremony makes me want to teleport back in time into that happy place, where everybody and every nation celebrates together as one. Since there's no actual way to do it, rewatching the London Olympic games opening ceremony in 3D is probably the next best thing.

I was looking forward to seeing another "Best Picture" candidate after the heartwarming "Coda", riotous "Don't Look Up" and thrilling "Nightmare Alley", but boy was this movie a disappointing stinker. There is no plot and no story, just random scenes with no point to them and almost no connection between them other than the female lead hopping from one guy to another to the envious and jealous dismay of the male lead. It just looks like someone reminiscing about his youth but the trouble is - nothing much really happened apart from some business hustling and lusting for an older woman.

Speaking of which - the central theme of the movie is that of a 25 (or probably even 28) year old woman hanging out with a 15 year old boy, who is clearly in love with her, is frustrated by being in the friends zone and keeps trying to become the lover and boyfriend of a woman 13 years his senior. Cutesy and sweet, right? If the roles were reversed, critics and audiences would be up in arms about it instead of singing their baffling praises.

The movie and the people in it certainly look like the 70s so production design is spot on, but unfortunately it suffers from the same problem as most movies shot in the 70s, meaning the movie is long and boring. As for the people in this movie, it is certainly an interesting choice to cast decidedly average or even unattractive people to be in the lead, but instead of making them more relatable, it just becomes distracting and annoying, especially when they are supposed to be "hot". I could even live with the fact that the male lead looks a bit too old to be 15, but by far the bigger problem is that the female lead looks way too unattractive to be supposedly this desired by almost every male character in the movie. A girl this ordinary and average looking being treated like she was drop-dead gorgeous kept breaking the suspension of disbelief to the point of making the movie almost unwatchable.

So a best picture candidate? Well, at least it is better than the mind-numbingly boring previous winners "Moonlight" and "Nomadland" or this year's unfortunate likely winner "The Power of the Dog", but that really is not saying much.

Yes, you read that right - and I never have nightmares. I tried to approach this movie with an open mindset, but grew from mild boredom to disgust to eventual active hatred for the movie which I couldn't wait to end, but as a stubborn completionist still refused to stop watching until the credits rolled. A night full of nightmares that followed was just a final FU from the movie which must be one of the worst movie experiences I have had in years.

But let's start with the good stuff. The setting of the New York of the roaring 1920s looks gorgeous and art direction is top notch. The Polish baker side character is heartwarming and lovable and really someone to root for. Ezra Miller is great as the suppressed freak (even though he telegraphs the "twist" of the movie from a mile away). The character design of the fantastic beasts is imaginative and varied.

Unfortunately that was about it for what I liked about the movie and now the nightmare-inducing stuff. As I spent the rest of the night seeing constant nuclear detonations going off on the horizon in my sleep and the resulting shockwaves obliterating buildings and people, apparently the endless demolitions of walls and houses going on in the movie were just too much for me. As good as the recreated New York of a 100 years ago looked on-screen, the setting itself felt inappropriate as well considering that the whole Harry Potter legacy is essentially a quintessential British thing. Bringing it over to the US felt like trying to please an overseas audience just to milk additional money, but instead of bolstering the brand, it flees like it is diluting it.

Even though I loved Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything", his portrayal of a similarly shuffling and nervously blinking weirdo was completely out of place here and grew tired very quickly. Unlike Hawking though, his character was also rubbish at what he was supposed to be good at in this movie. Not only was he kicked out of Hogwarts, so must have been a rubbish wizard-to-be, he was also absolutely inept at controlling his beasts, thus being a useless zoo-keeper as well. Telling each consecutive unruly beast a ridiculous "Mommy is here!" when approaching does not make one a competent beastmaster.

But by far the absolute most ridiculous scene of the whole movie was when Eddie (I don't care much for his character name, which sounds like cross between Isaac Newton and the James Bond villain Scaramanga) approaches an overgrown rhino of sorts with a "he's in heat, he needs to mate" and then proceeds to bend over and show the beast his bum while making strange snorting sounds and convoluted faces - presumably in order to induce the beast in heat to mount him from behind? I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and how through the arduous process of bringing a movie to screen nobody was sane enough to say "enough of this, we're not doing it". Countless people greenlighted a scene of implied beastiality and zoophilia fit to be shown in a children's movie. Seriously - WTH?

And what was that bit with Dumbledore being very fond of Eddie, which Colin Farrell said during Eddie's interrogation? Since we now know that Dumbledore was gay and seeing how inept and uncomfortable the protagonist was with his female "love interest" in this movie - was that a hint at an illicit former relationship between a teacher and a student?

Speaking of which, was I the only one who felt a more than strange vibe going on in the secret back-alley meetings between Colin Farrell's head investigator of sorts (an older man) and Ezra Miller's nerdy freak (a younger boy)? All that submissive shivering and sense of shame from the younger passive participant and the cuddling, touching and encouragement mixed with constantly growing pressure from the older active participant? Is it still a children's movie I am watching?

As I already mentioned, Ezra Miller is fascinating to watch on-screen, but anyone who has seen "Carrie" or even read about any bullied kid taking a gun to school to execute a massacre saw the twist coming from a mile away. Neither was any of it very clear - where'd he come from? What did he want? What did Colin Farrell want from him? Why was Eddie Redmayne carrying a clearly very dangerous similar black blob around in his suitcase? Is it all supposed to be revealed in the next movie?

Aside from Ezra Miller and the Polish baker, the other characters in this movie didn't add anything positive to the movie either. The protagonist's pseudo love-interest, the bumbling magical detective served as a cutesy diversion and nothing else. Her nauseatingly over-sexed sister was just an offensive caricature of a flirtatious woman. The president of MACUSA was there only for the filmmakers to be able to check off "inclusive diversity". The rest of MACUSA looked like a bunch Gestapo agents. Johnny Depp popped out of nowhere (yes, I understand that he was Colin Farrell all along, but it was still ridiculous).

For a supposedly children's movie, maybe the most jarring moment was the summary execution sentence of the protagonists after a two-minute non-trial by Colin Farrell, which the MACUSA seemed to be more than willing to carry out just like that within seconds. Based on that alone, it is clearly an absolutely criminal organization, so maybe the whole Gestapo feel was not so wrong after all - but all of that was forgotten by the end of the movie, when somehow the MACUSA were still the good guys?

And finally, even though imaginative, I did not find most of the namesake fantastical creatures lovable at all. The kleptomaniac mole we are first introduced to and kept pilfering anything shiny throughout the movie was annoying to the point of me wanting to step into the movie and splatter it with a spade myself. When we were introduced to the zoo that lived in the protagonist's suitcase and are paraded an endless stream of beasts, all I could think of was - what this movie really needs is good dose of Space Marines from the movie "Aliens" to come and mop up this ungodly mess of freaks and monsters. Seriously - I find nothing cutesy or lovable about Predator, Facehugger, Alien Queen or those gigantic brain-sucking bugs from "Starship Troopers", the flashier versions of which this movie essentially presented us with to "love". Their only purpose for existence in those other movies is to get torched by Ripley or carpet-bombed to smithereen by battleships in orbit but unfortunately none of that happened in this movie.

Not only have I lost two hours watching the movie, followed by a night of nightmares, but now spent an additional hour writing a review here on IMDB so it is probably time to cut my losses but I felt I just had to add my contrarian view to balance what seems like an completely unwarranted positive reception to this mess of a movie.

It has been a few months since I saw the movie so my take is not fresh, however the rating I gave was straight after the viewing and I still stand by it. I was thoroughly engrossed in the movie and found it captivating with superb performances by the actors, however there were two issues with the movie which I was able to overlook, but many others probably are not. The first is the need to suspend disbelief about how a middle-aged woman who clearly also looks as one is not recognized as such and so easily passes for a boy or a man. The second is the need to suspend disbelief about how such a middle-aged woman seems to be desired by almost every man from teenagers to middle-aged men who recognizes her as a woman. I hate to be saying this, but wonderful as the lead actress is, she is unfortunately miscast as she is not the right age for the role at all. Regardless, if you can overlook these hard-to-explain aspects of the movie, you will find an otherwise excellent movie underneath.

I am your atypical action movie fan, as I usually fall half asleep during chase scenes, since I really don't care for the usually accompanying shoddy shaky-cam camerawork plus I find cars and speeding utterly boring to begin with. For me, car chases are the low point of any action movie and half of the time, I am tempted fast-forward to the "good parts". Sounds like I'd be in for a most disappointing movie experience with this movie, since Fury Road is more or less a two hour car chase. Boy was I wrong. I can't recall when was the last time I was so enthralled with the relentless on-screen action. What I especially like about the movie, is that while battle fatigue is always a concern with heavier action movies and could easily set in even within a few minutes in lesser movies, but not this time, as George Miller manages to keep things constantly fresh, interesting and exciting throughout this relentless two hour chase. Not only that, but he also manages to rev up the engine ever so slightly throughout the movie, that even though the action already starts on high speed, it just keeps gathering more speed right until the very end. As for the the car chase, apparently most other action movies just don't know how to do a proper car chase but finally someone has done it right. While other movies have iconic action scenes, this movie is just one colossal action scene from start to finish. An absolutely towering achievement in the genre of action movies, I hope this movie will shine a path for many like-minded movies to come.

It takes skill from a filmmaker and actors to evoke an emotion from the viewer and thus Aronofsky and Crowe have done their respective jobs well in this regard. However, I don't think I have ever hated a protagonist so much as I did with Noah in this movie and I am not sure that those were the emotions I wanted to feel. A religious fanatic, trying to pursue a vision that came to him in a dream supposedly from god, Noah tramples on everything and everyone. A hateful man, pursuing a hateful vision, sent by the cold, distant and hateful god of the Old Testament - I couldn't wait for someone to throw this self-righteous Noah off his ship and into the sea. The mindset represented by Noah is usually that of psychopaths and the murderous religious conviction with which he pursued his vision just reminded me of the worst dictators and tyrants in history. At least Emma Watson and Jennifer Connelly were there to make this despicable story watchable. What the movie set out to show, it did well - but if you hate the story and you hate the protagonist, there are only so many points you can award. Six points is plenty generous and most of these points are thanks to Watson and Connelly.

Bad acting with constant intolerable clowning by the lead actor, a sappy script with plot holes you could drive a tank through, a farcical comedy about... getting killed in a Nazi concentration camp? What the...? How was this nominated for an Oscar, let alone was able to win one? And how is it the 26th highest rated movie of all time on IMDb? One of the worst movies I have seen in a long long time.

The protagonist Charles Kane is a brash and jovial woman-grabbing, wife-cheating, promise-breaking, populist-talking, election fraud claiming, gilded and opulent billionaire of inherited fortunes, who is a "champion of the people" and who's favourite pastime is to manufacture and spread fake news. When campaigning to become governor, he even makes a promise in a speech at a rally to appoint a special district attorney to investigate, prosecute and convict his political opponent. Not to mention that he has a fabulous retreat in Florida by the name of Mara... I mean Xanadu. Does any of that sound familiar? I cannot believe I am watching a movie from 1941. Ever since the movie's release, people have been talking, how much ahead of its time "Citizen Kane" was. Boy, if they only knew.

Apart from the uncanny coincidences with modern times, the virtues of the movie itself are numerous. The script is witty and the mystery keeps us guessing. The direction, cinematography and camera angles look modern even today and must have been ground-breaking back in the day. Jumping back and forth in time keeps the viewer on his toes, which also brings us to the age transformations displayed in the movie, as those are simply marvelous. Especially believable is Orson Welles himself, either as an energetic young man, a more reserved middle aged one or a visibly aged old one. This must be the first movie, where I don't get the jarring feeling of seeing a young man play the part of an old man or vice versa (although the same can't quite be said of the actresses, who must have resisted being made up to look old). Having pulled together all the different parts needed to make a movie work, you really feel like you are seeing the work of a genius here. No wonder this movie is considered one of the towering masterpieces of cinema. If my hunch is correct and a certain political figure has taken away and implemented all the wrong messages from this movie, it is still having a very real effect on everyone's lives today. How many movies from the 1940s (or even at all, up to the most recent ones) can claim that? A unexpectedly tremendous achievement indeed.

Great cinematography and a top notch performance by Henry Fonda, but as a movie - unexpectedly weak. Mainly sunk by the "based on a true story" premise, which just was not gripping enough for a feature film. Maybe a slow case of mistaken identity was what passed for suspense in the 50s, but these days we have another word for it - boring. Plus don't you just hate it, when the bad guy gets introduced a whopping three minutes before the final credits roll. There is not twist, no surprise, no cranial satisfaction. Just a lame "deus ex machina" resolution and a "then they lived happily ever after". What a let-down and not up to Hitchcock's usual standard at all.

Oh no, not another wasted two hours of my life. I wanted to turn it off 15 minutes into it, but since I was entertaining a guest who seemed to be enjoying it, I just sat through it.

The singing and dancing was plain annoying. The supposedly talented tap-dancing of the lead penguin looked to me exactly like it looked to all his fellow penguins - stupid. And why on earth the female lead penguin felt so attracted to the obvious loser slow-developing twitchy-leg squeaky-voice male lead penguin, when there were plenty of buff penguins around, I have no idea. Too bad all the penguins looked alike as well. Or what was the point of those five short hispanic penguins? Why five? Two would have sufficed. Or was the point to reaffirm, that hispanics only travel in gangs? Anyway - hispanic penguins? Or Scottish penguins? Australian penguins? Please. Or how come all the different species (seals, penguins, birds) were able to talk fluently to each other, yet they couldn't communicate with humans? As for the voice acting, I've never understood the point of hiring well-known actors to voice animated characters. There was a Nicole Kidman? Where? Elijah Wood? Really? On the other hand, it was beyond annoying to hear Robin Williams' voice come out of more than one character's mouth. His voice is just too distinctly recognizable for that to work. The point is - "superstar" voices either get lost or become distracting, whereas hiring talented voicers without big names lets you just concentrate on the movie without having to guess who's who or becoming annoyed by the too recognizable voices.

Oh yeah, and wait till you see the most twisted depiction of a seal. Killer sharks don't even hold a candle to the seals that seem to be living on the south pole.

And the conclusion? Humanity decides to stop fishing where penguins live, so that they'd have more food available - because people discover that penguins can tap-dance and they think its cute and funny. Oh and the penguins are sooo happy to please people with their tap-dancing too. Disgusting. Because what about all the other endangered species in the world? Do they have any hope of survival only if they learn some circus acrobatics or clown tricks to amuse humans? And if they don't, they'll be driven extinct because they are not "cute and amusing" enough? My god. Who on earth came up with this plot.

My rating - two stars. One for the effort - I mean people did work on this movie after all, so that has to account for something. The other for when the lead penguin was small. He was kind'a cute, even with those annoying twitchy legs.

I love action movies and the parkour (urban running, climbing, jumping etc) stunts in this movie are amazing, but the movie itself is... well if you love improbable action, don't mind that the main characters are invulnerable superheros who hit every time, while the villains are blundering idiots who can't hit a barn door from two feet away, you'll love it. But personally I prefer action movies with a plot, tough almost unbeatable villains, and vulnerable heroes at a disadvantage, who only triumph at the end against all odds. So to each his own, but for me this was one of the worst action movies I've ever seen - at times infuriatingly dumb and at times just mind-numbingly boring.

If you've seen any, better yet, all of the Bond movies, then you know what to expect when you go to see another installment of the franchise - the wise-cracking one-liners, the always perfect hair, the gadgets that border on the ridiculous, larger than life villains and their evil world domination plans, disposable bond-girls, "shaken, not stirred" and of course, the spectacular finish, where everything explodes and collapses.

Yeah. Go expect that. And be blown away. For I certainly was. Honestly, this is not just the best Bond movie I've ever seen (and yes, I've seen them all), this in my opinion is one of the best action movies I've ever seen period. And a very, very welcomed reinvention of the whole saga.

So what's different? For starters now we have a short and blonde Bond, since that is what Daniel Craig certainly is. An abomination you say? That's what I thought as well, until I saw the movie that is. In light of Craig's performance though it becomes apparent that Bond doesn't need to be tall, dark and "handsome" at all. Craig takes the caricature of what Bond had become and gives it a completely new, revitalized substance.

I do remember when Pierce Brosnan used to talk about making Bond more human. Unfortunately he never got around to it (though no doubt a decision of the producers rather than his). The Bond of Craig however is as human as he is tough (and believe me, he is plenty tough). Unlike previous Bonds, who mostly only cruised through even the most dangerous of situations without breaking much of a sweat, Craig sweats, bleeds and hesitates like anyone would. Yet he is still heads and tails above all the pretty-boy Bonds of the past or as the character played by Eva Green so aptly put it: "Even if all that's left of you is your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever met".

Which brings us to the female lead of Eva Green, who is anything but another disposable bond-girl. Smart, witty, tough yet frail and in my opinion the one of the most beautiful beautiful girls ever featured in a Bond movie, both her presence and her dialogues with Bond are some of the highlights of the movie.

The story will keep you guessing and assumes you actually have a few functional brain-cells, the main villain is wonderfully sinister but not over the top where he become laughable, the suspense is played out perfectly and the action is exactly what you'd expect from a true Bond movie and not another "action comedy".

In conclusion, whereas previous Bond movies were increasingly becoming forgettable "action" comedies, which kept moving through the compulsory scenes of the comic-relief Q and his gadgets, the cardboard Bond and his impeccable hair, the bumbling Moneypenny and her futile flirting, the improbable final action with explosions and collapsing (well actually you still get that, but it's not what you expect) and all the other clichés we've seen to the point of total boredom, this new Bond is a raw, gritty and tough action movie with a perfect blend of suspense and yes, human emotions, added to the mix. It is a human Bond - and as such, a very welcome one.

So all I can do is thank the producers, writers, director and cast for this completely reinvented Bond - a very welcomed update for the 21st century of this great franchise.

This could easily have been a disaster. With James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Brad Fiedel (composer) nowhere in sight for this movie and Arnie's career in the gutter for the past ten years, the whole project had a feel of "let's try to save Arnie's career one last time" and "let's try to make a quick buck off the Terminator franchise".

I had serious doubts the 56-year old Arnold could still command the screen like he used to. And I had grave doubts about the idea of a female villain - with T-1000 from T2 being one of the ultimate movie villains of all time in my opinion, throwing in a woman seemed like something the movie-makers were trying to do just to be "different". Plus her being robotic again seemed like a step down from T2's polymorphic terminator. Nick Stahl didn't seem like an appealing choice for John Connor either. And the idea of Claire Danes seemed like an artificial drag-along in order for our hero to "have a girlfriend".

The only sign of hope was the big budget. With an accepted budget of $170-$200 million, they HAD to make a movie which can rely on more than just the opening weekend box office. And I was relieved to find out that they DID!

Of course I realize that with such low expectations, it would have been easy for the movie to exceed them. But that is hardly the case here - T3 is not only the action movie of the year, it is without a doubt one of the BEST action movies of all time. I was happy to see Arnie back on top - even if it is for just this one movie. I was happy to see the female terminator was actually a step up from T-1000. I was happy to see Nick Stahl being just PERFECT for the role. The eerie atmosphere of T1 was back and the action (especially the fighting and car-chase sequences) absolutely DECIMATED Matrix Reloaded even without having to rely on either CGI slow-motion, bullet-time photography or dangling from wires. The movie was even able to handle the usual stumbling-place of all action movies - the ending - surprisingly well.

As far as action movies go - 10 out of 10.

I'm a movie-lover and I don't get bored easily. And I especially don't get sleepy when watching movies, in fact I can't remember the last time I fell asleep during a movie (if ever).

But looks like I failed the test with this one. I fell asleep right in the beginning. Those who've seen the movie, you guessed it - during the car ride scene. Or did that take place already one hour into the movie?

After that, I didn't dare to continue for a week. When I finally managed to convince myself that this movie was CLASSIC and a must for every movie lover out there, I picked up where I left off and man, this one was a fight! A fight to stay awake. But I did it! Unfortunately, as all my efforts were spent trying to stay awake during the whole ordeal, I understood almost nothing of the movie itself, its meaning or finale.

Tarkovsky should have gotten the Nobel prize for inventing the ultimate cure for sleeplessness. And I'm off to find some information on what actually happened in "Solaris".

Having seen the two previous Lecter movies, but not having read any of the novels, I watched "Red Dragon" and "Manhunter" in a row (as you might already know, both of these movies are based on the same novel).

As a movie, "Manhunter" was A LOT better. "Red Dragon" was disjointed, forced & artificial, while "Manhunter" was smooth, logical and stylish.

"Red Dragon" felt like the makers were desperate to cash in on Hopkin's Lecter - and indeed, Lecter was the highlight of the movie with Hopkins delivering the most chilling Lecter to date. The role has really grown to him and in "Red Dragon" he refines it to chilling perfection.

The rest of the movie however felt like idle filling between sparse (and very obviously forcibly lengthened) Lecter scenes. Which was all the more annoying, as Lecter was in fact only a minor subplot in the move.

In almost everything that "Red Dragon" differed from "Manhunter" plotwise, it was worse. While watching "Red Dragon", I can't remember how many times I said to myself "that's stupid! that just doesn't happen!" or "that's weird? how come he got from A to B without any logical explanation?". Whereas I never had the same feeling when watching "Manhunter" - I only remember thinking "now this is logical, this I can understand! how come the makers of 'Red Dragon' managed to make a similar thing look so stupid?".

I really didn't care for the "extra" stuff in plot that "Red Dragon" offered over "Manhunter", while I still can't understand why "Red Dragon" left out or changed so many important things which were vital to the story and were present in "Manhunter".

In conclusion, watch "Manhunter" instead, its actually a movie by itself whereas "Red Dragon" is just an obvious "cash-in".

I really didn't want to see this movie. "Oh great, another singing and dancing horses drivel from Disney" I thought. And when I was practically forced to watch it, I did it having prepared all my wits and irony to completely and utterly destroy the movie with my scornful remarks throughout.

The first ten minutes or so I was more or less successful in my hatred. But the further the movie went the more I realized that I was actually liking it and then ultimately completely loving it. And there I was, with tears in my eyes out of sympathy for the main characters and worrying whether everything will be all right in the end. How pathetic is that?

I really wanted to hate this movie. It should have been easy. Somehow, I failed. Or did the movie simply just succeed instead?

As for my background, I've seen all the Bond flicks except for Dalton's last, License to Kill (but from what I've heard I haven't missed much).

After a long silence, the Bond series was renewed with Brosnan as the new Bond with Goldeneye in 1995, a movie that marked a new era in Bond movie-making. Having long run out of Ian Fleming novels to base the movies upon, original stories are now being used and on the whole, I'd have to say this is doing the series good.

Although flashy, the older Bond movies were always way too drawn out in various unnecessary directions, often resulting in a hard to follow plot - the novels just didn't translate too good to the screen. Which is not to say, the new Bond movies are a stroke of genius scriptwise, far from it, but at least they now have a sense of direction and a coherent flow.

Unfortunately the movies that followed Goldeneye suffered from other weaknesses (Tomorrow Never Dies from low production values, The World Is Not Enough from cardboard action), so I'm delighted to say this newest installement in the series takes all that's good in Bond movies, manages to avoid most of what's bad and emerges as one of the best Bond movies ever.

Production values are high, effects are excellent, conversations are witty and even the usually horrendous one-liners are stingy this time around. The villain's are formidable enough, the women are some of the most beautiful ever seen in the series, explosions are well choreographed - all in all an excellent performance from the so far relatively obscure director Lee Tamahori.

Some say director M. Night is trying to hammer in a message of some sort with this movie and it will sit with those generally in favour of the idea and not that much with generally opposed to the idea. I don't want to reveal too much about the movie so I won't tell you what the idea is, but let me tell you this much - I'm one of those generally opposed to the idea that is supposedly being hailed but I ABSOLUTELY LOVED this movie!

The handling of tension and alien terror is superb - I've seen all the Men in Blacks, Predators, Aliens, Independence Days etc etc that have been thrown at as within the past ten years and let me tell you, this is BY FAR the among the best alien invasion movies to date.

Director M. Night has some of the most amazing directorial talent that has surfaced in recent times in Hollywood and all of his past three films (the two previous ones being Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) have been fantastic, each in its different way. It is just amazing how this guy manages to craft three so different yet so absolutely intriguing and perfect movies in a row.

As for this specific movie, I cannot remember when I was last gripped with so much suspense I had skin crawling all over during the climactic finale (must have been The Matrix). Additionally, this movie produced some of the best startling scenes in recent memory - a truly innocent situation involving a dog which almost made me spill hot tea all over myself. It's been years since any movie has truly and honestly startled me. Forget all the "SLAM! (door shuts unexpectedly)" or "oh my god, it was only the cat!" el-cheapo thrills "horror" movies seem to be relying upon more and more these days (just finished watching "Halloween Resurrection" a few days prior, a prime example) - Signs has directorial talent written all over it, it grips you and never lets you go until the satysfying conclusion, or maybe even not then.

The one thing I'm ambivalent about is the director's continual references to India throughout his movies. In a way its cute, the director himself being a Hindu, but sometimes his Hindu characters (including those played by himself) appear out of place. In a way its a nice Hitchcockian touch, in another it is a bit distracting.

The other thing I was initially taken aback was the lack of Bruce Willis or Haley Joel Osmond and their substitution with Mel Gibson and another kid of the seemingly endless stream Culkins. I know Willis or Osmond weren't even considered for these roles, but it would have been nice to have a pure-blooded trilogy complete with the same excellent actors. It didn't take much for me though to accept Gibson and Culkin, they were excellent in their roles.

The conclusion itself though, I do admit, may be lacking for some. Those people probably loved Independence Day and were waiting for something similar. I for one HATED Independence Day (an embodyment of stupid film-making taken to the extreme) so I cannot express my thanks enough here to mr M. Night for giving us such a perfect alien invasion movie, truly worthy of the more demanding and intelligent yet still fun- and suspense-loving movie-goers out there. Its about time someone took a different approach and told a different story than the hopelessly dated "kill mothership/main alien during the finale thus saving the world" dribble which has been told just way too many times already.

Once again, thank you mr M. Night, for this movie experience to remember - needless to say, I'm breathless in anticipation for your next movie, but even if it's not worthy of your three previous ones, you will still have made movie-making history with your existing trilogy as it is.

The first time I saw Alien 3, I was disappointed. The second time I saw it, I was strangely fascinated. The third time I saw it, I absolutely adored it - and it gets better with each viewing! I didn't know about Fincher then, but a few movies later (The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room) I now know what it was - a first glimpse of a coming genius. If you've liked any of Fincher's later movies, you might want to check this one out - disappointment, fascination, terror and beauty all in one! Not bad for a big-screen debut, not bad at all.