SocalSam

I made the mistake of having a glass of wine while watching this. Snooze.

Tried again, espresso this time. Felt like taking that useless sociology class with the good looking Professor. Nice on the eyes, but still useless.

Maybe I'll try LSD next time.

Read.the book, and seriously this would have been done quite well with a stage play and only a little CGI.

Be prepared to be bored. First off, violation of the Speed of Light. Communications speed of light could have been used to build tension but NOOOO. Later the speed of light shows up for the last few shows, too late.

Spaceship? Writers couldn't be bothered to see how the water filtration works on the ISS, and then use the ISS work that NASA would have helped with. But NOOOO.

Cuts between Earth and the Spaceship are multiple. Just confusing and made the show boring.

Emotional: Dang, each minute must have an emotional component. Look a second went by and we must make it emotional.

Overall, boring.

Boring and not intellectual too make up for the boredom. For some reason the captain/leader decides to leave their family and then we are bored by the captain/leader emotional worries. Stupid and although less than the "Away" show, but boring.

Then the captain/leader pushes their first officer into a electrical field killing the officer during a verbal confrontation. The captain leader then continues as if nothing happened. I would be upset that the leader just killed someone. Oh wait the captain has killed others so it is ok that the captain just killed the second in command. Also, where did that electric field come from and shouldn't there be a safety cone or something to protect against running into it.

This is a hot woke mess in need of editing and less useless emotional BS.

Boring, dumb killing of people, just a disappointing mess. Waste of time.

This is a complete waste of time. The character arcs are flat. Dialog is like it was written by a community college student taking a script writting class.

Like Solaris, Clooney seems to be moving through some sort of "woke" atmosphere that slows everything down.

Like Tomorrowland the movie's technology is out of whack and flat. Spaceships have gravity and a great deal of interior space, ruining the tension by not having the small spaces of a real ship, think ISS. Genetics seem to be ignored at the end for emotional sake. As usual Hollywood does not understand how a flight team has to focus when performing a space walk and has the crew singing Neil Diamond when they should be focused on a spacewalk, ruining a whole scene.

Really, this is a seriously boring video and Clooney has ruined yet another several million dollars. Attempt to make "woke" films are a failure, and fortunately Quebec paid for this piece of junk.

Seriously, keep Clooney away from being the main character for science fiction, he is ok as a side kick in sci fi, but he sucks wind otherwise.

Excellent sets, good acting, interesting stories. McCoy is the one sore point, doesn't capture the energy

Wow, depressing is an understatement. Clear view.of the result of all out unconditional destroy everything warfare.

Wow.

Why didn't this film get an Oscar nomination? After all Turdman or rather Birdman did. This film did one of the best presentations of Christian beliefs, as a Russian Orthodox Christian might appreciate, ever. So worth it from that point of view. If you don't get excited about well done Science/Engineering Christians, there is still a great deal to get excited about. Make sure to have a coat or blanket, because it is a cold, dark movie, as only Russians can make. For the US techie who likes to make things complicated, watch for the "stick" that the pilot uses to push buttons. Simple and does the job. On the other hand, if you are a rich liberal who believes in Communism, this is also a good movie for you. Communism is shown in heroic manner as well. Don't see this movie if you are easily offended or a useless Middle Manager. Why? If you are easily offended, there are the most beautiful furs worn by a beautiful cosmonauts wife. One of the Cosmonauts smokes a cigarette in the Space Station, and both drink some Cognac on orbit. The Cosmonauts act heroically and were shown as brave. If you are part of the vast useless middle management out there, well, your character just looks like s**t unable to make a single decision correctly. The field team, the cosmonaut do the right things. There is a great deal of fiction, the actual events were much more exciting but took place over too long of a period to make a good story. But the truth was that it was cold, as one of the characters states: "No Russian Man is scared of the cold", because it was likely around -40 C when the Cosmonauts popped open the hatch.

Go ahead you will want to see this movie, then you will regret it. There are three movies going on in this one movie. Trying to tie together threads, Thor here, Guardians there, Captain America over here, Ironman over there. Rerun bad guy type from last Guardian movie. Go ahead waste your money on this, likely you have looked forward to this movie. **SPOILER SPOILER** The main battle scene: Horrible. The battle scene looked like it was left over from the "Phantom Menace". Frankly, if you are in Africa, and you are a rich country, why not call South Africa to send some of their close support aircraft. Pretty sure the South African Gripen's would have dealt with the interstellar scum pretty quickly. The superheros and the Africans all seemed to be using military tactics without noticing that WW1 and WW2 had produced the concept of aircraft that deliver large bullets and bombs. Other items about the battle scenes just pulled me out of the picture time and time again. There is little room anymore in this franchise to recover. End of spoiler about battle scene.

Better than Birdman, about the same as Batman VS. Superman To long by 40 minutes at least, many of the scenes simply were not needed. Dialog was generally limited to a few words, mildly realistic but annoying Moody and excessive CGI. Frankly Robot Chicken would do a better job. On the other hand Disney has done a great job of marketing. And yes you will watch it on your home system feeling mild boredom with the whole thing.

This is a movie that you must see if you want to see science and the process of fail-success. The tension is built up with the exposure of two scientists, one of whom marries another scientist. The set varies between the nuclear test lab, which is likely a real life decommissioned ammunition bunker and production factory. External scenes are the usual woodsy and natural tableau seen in these Soviet propaganda films. Food is abundant, as is booze. Each night seems to be a party. People are a little more cheerful than I think the population was. The apartments that the scientists live in seems larger than what one thinks of in the Soviet Union. Camera work is sharp, with each image having a depth of field that you don't see in US films. Acting is focused, the actor eyes all seem to be lasers looking into the depth of quantum mechanics. During a visit to relatives, the scientist hitch a ride on a steam train with only flatcars, their feet hanging over the sides of the cars. There was no attempt to hide the primitive technology that resided in parallel with this insanely advanced technology drive. If you are science nerd see this movie.

Wow, I was ready to hate this movie and spoiler alert: It was good. Initially I caught it on a flight from D.C. and napped through parts but was impressed. And that is important as I was on an American Airline 737 with the little tiny screens a few rows up. So when I got home I watched it that night on my big screen and was WOW'd! OK, McGuire was a little off as Nick Carraway, and Daisy was not quite the girl I would have selected, Mia Farrow was so good in the last one. But no one asked me to produce, direct or cast the film and it worked as an integrated unit.

I usually do not give anyone a break (see my other reviews), and I am not giving the production a break here.

There were definite issues with the rendering into 2D, the background looked more unreal than the unreal look the production was attempting. The first 20 minutes was my favorite with the character animation and speed. The party scenes were my favorite. And the road racing scenes not so good.

Finally, I came to the end of the film thinking that maybe it was just a story written by a drunk. And guess what, it was.

OK, film violates the 3 rule, that is: do something 3 things and no more. The battle of witches versus Hansel and Gretel, seemed to follow exactly the same process. One would think that H & G would have a little debrief before the next fight and figure out that they would get beat up if they do... whatever they did against the witches in the individual fight.

This is a beautifully shot film and the editing is tight with good make-up, special effects and costume. But...the story was poorly thought out and the speaking parts were confusing.

Key mistakes: Old guy helping out the H&G pair is forced to shoot himself by a witch. This added nothing to the overall story, except it added about a minute of runtime. H&G get absolutely flogged by the bad guys, and then are all fixed up in only a few hours. Really? And where did the insulin come from? Did Hansel have be shown giving himself a shot through his clothes (a great infection vector)? Really, again didn't add anything to the movie.

If you watch this movie, catch on Netflix when it hits there, you might want to be doing a jigsaw puzzle or something while watching so it doesn't seem like a total waste of time.

Finally, the weapons were really confusing. Why a multiple shot cross bow with a weird shotgun, then cartridge shotgun, then a machine gun. Then the final scene is just mess.

But it is better then "Ted". You won't throw up or die watching it.

For most countries Nazism is difficult illustrate, but for Finland, since they sided with Germany during WW2, are best able to do so. Rather heavy handed treatment of the USA, but the USA is thick skinned. Wonder if the Russians would be? Wonder why they didn't use Putin as the butt of the jokes? Oh I know Russians might punish Finland. Well keep making fun of the US. China and Russia won't let you.

Improvement recommended: 1. Europe has many interesting and funny leaders. Sarah Palin wasn't all that humorous and she is fading so the jokes where weak even in 2012. 2. Dr. Strangelove characters of Russians are out of date. 3. Russians have evolved so why not make fun of them. 4. More time with one of the children would have been more interesting. Bottom line the lack of European characters caused the film to fall flat.

So you are a pilot and 51 flying a regional jet, sort of the last in the hierarchy of pilots, what is your life like? This is one view of the pilot's life. Sadly, if you flying a Regional Jet, your stay-over hotel isn't usually this nice.

Couple of items that could have been better: Why the Cessna 172 and not a Cessna 152 Aerobat, that would explain why Whip knew how to fly inverted. Not all pilots know how to fly inverted, in fact very few do. The hotels were a little high price for a regional pilot and crew.

Things that the film got right: Horizontal Stabilizer causes the exact situation portrayed! Very good job.

Things the film got wrong: If one of the pilots smells of Gin, the other officer is honor bound to report him at the time of recognizing the issue. That's OK though. Also, there are no co-pilots they are first officers for cockpit control situation. But so what, minor detail.

Overall, the technical detail was close enough to reality that it didn't move into "Airplane" situations.

Do not see this movie if drug use bothers you, there is a lot of drug use with needles, cocaine and so forth. So beware. Also Christians are shown respect and made fun of at the same time, but if you are a Christian you are use to the poor portrayals by Hollywood. So shake off the poor representation of Christians and view the film as a whole.

In the end it is a well done Hollywood film with death at the beginning of the film and redemption at the end. Nicely done.

Jeez! The repeating of the violent scenes where Holmes would envision what he would do and then the actual fight, was very confusing. Deleting the duplicate scenes would have made the film have been shorter. Then the munitions factory, what was that all about? Slow motion to distraction, what did this add to the film? Not much. The weapons, such as the gas piston type of weapon used by Watson during this part of the film was not in type of successful production till 1910 or so. The pistols where not in production till later as well. I only mention this because the pistol in production looked much more interesting and showed the general laziness about the writers then anything else. If the film was about a consulting detective then how did Holmes get the job? In any Holmes story he has to meet with the client, it is a basic rule of the Sherlock Holmes style. Consultants don't just jump into the job they have to think and review. Good pieces and actors where the wife of Watson and Mycroft, the movie was worth just for them. Professor Moriatory was well played and one wished for more of him. Downey acted well, just not as Sherlock Holmes and was fun to hang with. Jude was a good Watson, but without a Holmes. Mrs. Hudson, why not just have Paltnow take the part. Then it would have been truly Victorian Iron Man. The movie was enjoyable but it was not a Sherlock Holmes movie in any sense. It was fun to see the question mark at the end, but really did we need it? No. The deviation from the historical accuracy made the film more expensive to make and took away from the detective component. I am glad to have watched this on pay per view and not paid 15 us dollars to see it. Best I can say is that it too long for no reason but not a waste of time.

Sadly, this movie is a waste of time. Without reservation. Complete POS.

OK, if you show the connecting of the Transcontential Railroad, then you need to make sure that the historical event comes off correctly. If that is not a hard and fast rule it should be. Everything leading up to the historical event, can be fantasy. But the historical event has to be the exact event, otherwise the story loses any focus. This is the case with Wild, Wild West.

The idea of Will Smith as the agent, excellent, nicely done. Kelvin Kline, what was he thinking about? Oh, the money. But generally this is just a waste of energy and film.

Better to watch paint dry.

I liked the movie, but it was obvious that the movie was timed to come out to make the Republicans look bad. Too bad, if the movie showed the real facts, Kevin Spacey might have been nominated for a award or two. Sadly, the tale was extremely focused on making Republicans look bad, but should have made both parties look bad, and thereby lost focus.

Jon Levitt kills it, steals every scene he is in, and is just awesome. Good job.

Some of the other actors could have been exchanged for graduates from any film school and the newbies would have done better.

Overall, this film was much better then say the POS J. Edgar or Tin-Tin. If you are trapped on a plane say and this is on the free movie channel, catch it.

It was the story of Hurbis that Hollywood used to do well, but now that they HATE Republicans, they can't do at all anymore. Too bad.

Kevin Spacey, too bad. Like many of his recent movies, he gets lost in the poor storytelling. Hope Kevin got his jollies or made a lot of money on this movie.

Rate it: Not a waste of time.

Seriously, this is one of the worse movies I have ever seen. The dialog was disconnected, the characters were just poor.

Why was this movie made? Why didn't Stevie boy do more work on War Horse? Why was this green lighted? Who knows, but if you watch this movie you will wish that you did something else. Seriously, I simply blew off my 6 bucks on this movie and switched to Law and Order that I had already seen with commercials over this movie.

Bottom line: Appolo 18 was a much better film, but a long shot. Casino Joack much better.

However, this movie may help you if you are in the hospital, as it can act as a pain killer and help you with your pain.

Don't watch this film. Watch Wild, Wild, West before you watch this one.

I enjoyed this movie. It wasn't bad. The ending sucked though. If you watch everything up to about the last 10 minutes you will enjoy it. Otherwise it end in an unheroic manner.

There are a number of silly science that the writers show that they were generally stupid, but they did show a good hand at the craft.

Filming was excellent, the character interplay was good.

Engineering and science was quite bad.

Overall, you won't hate yourself for watching this film. But if you have to choose between any Star Trek movie and this one, choose the Star Trek film, even the first one.

J. Edgar, portrayed as a closeted homosexual in this film. OK. But there was absolutely no discussion of why the "Manly" men of the FBI felt that J. Edgar was such a great leader and administrator. Seriously, if you talk to anyone who had been in the FBI under Hoover, it is clear that this man had the highest respect of his agents. Didn't come out in this film, it was a repeat of the "evil" J. Edgar who had the goods on JFK and Nixon, like that was hard to do.

And why was the aging make-up so poorly done? J. Edgar looked like an alien in a low budget sci-fi film. The make up crew could have purchased latex masks that did a better job.

Academy award nod? I must have seen a different film, this is one of the worse films by Eastwood.

J. Edgar deserved better, and I don't mean that his homosexuality should have been hidden, but why in real life did the FBI agents have such respect for him? That question was never answered, nor even ask. Clyde implies at the end that J. Edgar was a liar about his history, so no one else ever thought more of their exploits than actually happened.

Sorry, but anyone in even the most basic film school could have done better. And my local Halloween store has better make up than the aging process forced on J. Edgar and Clyde.

OK, it's MIT and there are really hot looking girls? The girls of MIT might be good looking, but generally they aren't able to dress up like models. One down for 21.

Then, the real story was much more interesting then this one.

Kevin Spacey as a professor, not bad.

Casino's security folks? Bad choice, the actors chosen were a little too nice and pretty. They seemed to play at only a few casio's, well there a lot of casinos in Las Vegas, they could have switched casinos for 17 times 3 different ones every weekend and not run out.

Hotel scenes? OK, so they are worried about the money and then blow it on really expensive suites? Why bother, you are only going to sleep there.

The movie could have cut out 30 minutes easily and told the story better. Next movie like this, you might want to use USC students to do the production, they would do a better job.

Oh well, I watched it all, sure glad I didn't pay for it.

In 1989, Christmas Vacation was not viewed as a well done movie. In 2009, 20 years later, it is a GREAT family movie, compared to the junk like the "Squeakel" or whatever piece of chip...munk that is out.

Of all of the Vacation films, this is by far the best.

From the struggle with the lights, to the wonderful husband and wife relationship, this movie is one of the rare ones where the family all pull together in the end. Oh sure Griswold is a dunce, but his beautiful wife has her moments of silly dumbness as well. The children are both wise and dunces at times as well. Great balance.

Only one question: The family wasn't on vacation were they? Didn't Griswold have to go to work? Did I miss something? Oh well, fun and jolly, something you don't get anymore. Skip the commentary on the DVD, waste of time.

Wow, the plot for Sherlock Holmes could have been used in a movie without the special effects and the almost annoying fight sequences.

This movie was a fun house of plotting, special effects, and Downey channeling various actors. Jude Law as well as the supporting cast did their job quite well, I have never seen Jude Law act in anything that I liked, so this was surprise.

The plot could have gotten out of hand, ala Wild, Wild, West, but it didn't. I won't spoil the secret, but I thought that Sherlock was going to go off the track of being a realist.

Robert Downey channels Charlie Chaplin in few scenes, watch for the quiet moments and in one of the fight scenes. He also needs to send a check to Dustin Hoffman for stealing his persona in the scene where Sherlock states he is a professional while handcuffed to the bed. Other scenes shows that Downey understands the physical science of Hollywood and flows with it. Jude Law and the two female roles struggle with the physics in their movements, Jude often forgets he has a bad leg and it shows in some of the scenes, nothing major.

Speaking of physics, the movie does use "Hollywood" physics in a few scenes, not in the annoying way that most movies lately do, but they are there. For instance, a massive object like a ship that is propped up by poles isn't going to slide down a "way", it is going to fall on it's side. But the scene works, and no one except mechanical engineers will likely notice the physic problems.

Spoiler: There is one scene where the "Hollywood" science breaks down, Holmes holds up a rat tail that indicates that a gas will contain arsenic (arsine). Arsine, according to the plot, will flow into a chamber with good guys and bad guys in it. Then a little later he states that the bad guys have received an immunity to arsenic. Good luck on that one, there isn't an antidote to arsenic, if you are poisoned with arsenic, you will likely die. However, the concentration would have to be very high to kill instantly, in reality, it would take up to 3 days for arsine to kill the people in the chamber. But it isn't noticeable and certainly the plot wouldn't work without the bad science, I didn't think about it till I left the theater.

Villain's machinery: Poorly designed, lot's of failure points, but fits into the plot and flow of the movie nicely, unlike the awful ending in a movie like Wild, Wild, West.

Also, in a world that isn't used to what happens when you close the flue on a coal fire place, which Holmes does in one scene, the smoke accumulation seems OK. But the fact is that smoke goes up and doesn't lay along the floor. In the movie, the smoke is clearly made up of either a software particle cloud, water or dry ice which lays on the floor and then moves up. If it was a software particle cloud, hopefully the special effects people will fix that in future productions.

The special effects and background had the feeling that it was similar to the "Secret Adventures of Jules Verne", not a bad thing. The problem with that type of "blue screen" is that the actors have to be darkly lite, even in scenes that they should have angle lights. This seems to be lazy work on the part of post production.

Sound was well done, but loud, I'll be wearing ear protection to any movies that I go to the theater this year. The subsonic sounds were intense in the early part of the movie, so make sure you go before you go, if you get my meaning.

Overall, you need to see this movie in the theater, it is worth it!

I liked Independence Day, and expected some of the same kind of fun out of this movie. Didn't get it. Lot's of special effects and emotional playing around, but it didn't tie down the idea. After spending a lot of time on developing an interesting idea, the movie fails to generate the archetypical ending of "Worlds in Collision" that is: People get left behind and the Captain of the ship is the guy in charge, not civilians.

Spoiler here: An absolute deadline is coming, and you are the captain of a ship that has to make sure that the people on board are safe. An emotional passenger suddenly decides that you, as the captain, have to do something that can threaten the entire ship. You as a captain violate your checklist and do what the emotional passenger says to do. Umm, no you don't. It is the ship first, boarded souls second and forget about thirds. By failing to accept the natural momentum of events, the movie fails to show what humanity is all about: Survival.

If the writers hadn't tried to load the movie with phony emotional decisions, decisions that in real life would have ended in failure. As a result the movie lost it's center, that is: Hard Decisions that have to be made at the end of civilization.

Instead the movie becomes: Let's all play nice and it will all work out.

Sorry, physics, gravity and command decisions don't work that way during times of duress. With 15 minutes before an event that isn't well modeled is going to occur, is not a time to have to deal with unruly mobs.

So basically 2012 becomes a myth that demonstrates what is wrong with California and the United States: The inability to make hard decisions.

The movie run time could have been trimmed by 30 minutes if this concept had been followed, and it would have been more satisfying to listen to the conversations after the mob was destroyed.

Confusing discussions via video links with leaders also lead to confusion, and the emotional President scenes could have been cut with no harm to the confused story in the film.

Lot's of good flight scenes, really fun family, and good emotional roller coaster.

Finally, if it is the end of the world, I would take higher ratio of women to men then that which the film chose. Waaay to many males...

Powerful movie, made well, great character development. Compared to the summer of 2009 movies, including Watchmen and The Spirit, this movie is one you should watch. There are some continuity problems, but that happens whenever you use the ocean for a set. The characters though are solid and exist in a world gone bad. Leadership on board the ship achieve heroic levels in a universe where their work is not recognized. If you are sick of the crud that has been coming out of the movie production companies in 2009, this movie will bring you back to the love of movies and the stories they tell. I watch this movie and then watch Das Boot, these movies should be paired. Sadly, the current production houses are not capable of telling a good story, with a few exceptions like Lord of the Rings. The Watchmen, The Spirit and so forth are just an example of a story telling technology with no stories to tell. Watch this movie.

Unwatchable. No Spirit was contained in this movie. How could such big name actors participate in this mess of a movie? Was this movie used to laundry drug money or hide loses in the market? If anyone in this movie, or contributed to this movie has an MFA, you might want to contact the school that gave it to you and ask for your money back.

I liked Sin City, although found it to be without any kind of merit and bordering on porno. But there was a slight bit of merit in Sin City, as well as a story that somehow in the chaos stuck together. Not the case with 'The Spirit'.

If you can avoid this stinker, you will be a able to use the time to watch paint dry, a much better use of your time.