stephen-ellwood
Lifetime Total
1+
IMDb Member
10 years
Reviews
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Startrek gets touchy, feely
I initially liked this franchise but commander Burnham is far too emotional to be a star Fleet officer. The latest episode where she is reunited with her thought to be dead mother was so full of angst I almost had to turn it off. Its the worst kind of American smaltz which also turned me off "the day after tomorrow" and the new rendering of "lost in space". If she spent less time acting like a rabbit in a cars headlights and more time shooting to kill in the great Startrek tradition then it would be worthy of the genre. Besides all of the above they seem to have spent the whole series preventing a clearly conscious AI from gaining consciousness. Spock and Sarek are a welcome relief.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)
Do not understand of the 10/10 brigade with respect to this film
-- this review may contain spoilers --
How can a reviewer say "not the best in the series" and then give it 10 stars? 10 stars is perfection, not as good as perfection is not 10 stars... In my opinion it was far from perfect though not terrible.
I have loved the Hunger Games franchise but this film let me down. For much of the film it reminded me of Frodo's (boring) journey to destroy the ring except that Frodo actually does get there in the End. Katniss sets off to kill the president and spends most of the film trying to get there but then doesn't, in fact she is beaten by the resistance, who managed to get through all of those traps that she could not and still get there quicker. She then wakes up to find the war is over. The twist at the end is so well signposted that it doesn't take much inferring leaving the happy ever after.
Special effects and infinite arrow archery skills ultimately don't make up for the lack of story and obvious plot holes. I cannot fault any of the actors, they did the best they could with a bad script.
How can a reviewer say "not the best in the series" and then give it 10 stars? 10 stars is perfection, not as good as perfection is not 10 stars... In my opinion it was far from perfect though not terrible.
I have loved the Hunger Games franchise but this film let me down. For much of the film it reminded me of Frodo's (boring) journey to destroy the ring except that Frodo actually does get there in the End. Katniss sets off to kill the president and spends most of the film trying to get there but then doesn't, in fact she is beaten by the resistance, who managed to get through all of those traps that she could not and still get there quicker. She then wakes up to find the war is over. The twist at the end is so well signposted that it doesn't take much inferring leaving the happy ever after.
Special effects and infinite arrow archery skills ultimately don't make up for the lack of story and obvious plot holes. I cannot fault any of the actors, they did the best they could with a bad script.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)
I suggest you skip this "second of a trilogy" movie an wait to the next one
I did not read the book, but I did see the first film and thought it interestingly different. This one, however, is not. In fact if you miss the first 5 minutes would not think this was a sequel at all but just some generic future apocalypse horror.
Having escaped the maze in the first film the runners spend more than 2 hours getting precisely nowhere. There is no story, only running about in a CGI world taken straight out of Bethesda's fallout games. However at least in a computer game you can interact with the world; in this film you are stuck in an anxiety dream you can't escape from, forever pursued and unable to get away from the bad people who want to kill you. The plot twists are lame, for instance the group at one point get separated because a person, who was specifically asked to prepare for departure has to go back for a trinket she apparently forgot to collect earlier. I wrote better plots (and was chastised for them by my English teacher) when I was 11.
The characters one dimensional, spending most of their time "caught in the headlamps" staring at stuff when they should be running. The dialog is painful; I'm used to those ubiquitous words "Hang On" being used in almost every film, but this film is just full of such stuff.
Having said all of the above, the cinematography is pretty good and full marks for the type casting of "Baelish" (Aidan Gillen), an actor I never tire of.
Having escaped the maze in the first film the runners spend more than 2 hours getting precisely nowhere. There is no story, only running about in a CGI world taken straight out of Bethesda's fallout games. However at least in a computer game you can interact with the world; in this film you are stuck in an anxiety dream you can't escape from, forever pursued and unable to get away from the bad people who want to kill you. The plot twists are lame, for instance the group at one point get separated because a person, who was specifically asked to prepare for departure has to go back for a trinket she apparently forgot to collect earlier. I wrote better plots (and was chastised for them by my English teacher) when I was 11.
The characters one dimensional, spending most of their time "caught in the headlamps" staring at stuff when they should be running. The dialog is painful; I'm used to those ubiquitous words "Hang On" being used in almost every film, but this film is just full of such stuff.
Having said all of the above, the cinematography is pretty good and full marks for the type casting of "Baelish" (Aidan Gillen), an actor I never tire of.
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
Perhaps its just British humour?
I was amazed by the many low scoring reviews this film received. This is the director of Kick-ass, one of the most seminal, "ultra- violent" films of recent years. I loved Kick-ass and I loved this film for the same reasons - It doesn't take itself too seriously! For instance:
1) Samuel L. Jackson's character is a wonderful foil to Bill Gates efforts to save the world. He actually hits the nail on the head - there's just too many people in the world - and sets about rectifying it in hilarious fashion.
2) His bodyguard is a double amputee with weapons for her feet. A great steal from Oscar Pistorious and Kill Bill.
3) The use of a radical Christian church as a test case. Most reviewers missed the irony of this one but for me it worked on many levels.
4) The opening scene features a suave James Bond character who knows not only the type but also the year of a Whisky with just one sniff - he dies in a spectacular way. Later the Colin Firth character is treated with the same contempt.
5) All the corrupt heads-of-state who colluded with this arch villain at the expense of the masses get their just desert
6) The masses themselves queue up for free SIM cards for their smart phones without ever asking "what's the catch?". We are so used to expecting everything for free we seem to forget that people don't actually do -anything- for free.
I could go on as there is loads of subtlety in the film, the mother's fall from grace, the dog shooting incident, the bullet- proof brolly etc. Most of this seems to have been missed by the other reviewers who were just interested in judging the ultra violence. Personally I laughed through most of it as it was plain silly, just as it was in Kill Bill and Kick-ass and completely the opposite of John Wick (which really is violent).
1) Samuel L. Jackson's character is a wonderful foil to Bill Gates efforts to save the world. He actually hits the nail on the head - there's just too many people in the world - and sets about rectifying it in hilarious fashion.
2) His bodyguard is a double amputee with weapons for her feet. A great steal from Oscar Pistorious and Kill Bill.
3) The use of a radical Christian church as a test case. Most reviewers missed the irony of this one but for me it worked on many levels.
4) The opening scene features a suave James Bond character who knows not only the type but also the year of a Whisky with just one sniff - he dies in a spectacular way. Later the Colin Firth character is treated with the same contempt.
5) All the corrupt heads-of-state who colluded with this arch villain at the expense of the masses get their just desert
6) The masses themselves queue up for free SIM cards for their smart phones without ever asking "what's the catch?". We are so used to expecting everything for free we seem to forget that people don't actually do -anything- for free.
I could go on as there is loads of subtlety in the film, the mother's fall from grace, the dog shooting incident, the bullet- proof brolly etc. Most of this seems to have been missed by the other reviewers who were just interested in judging the ultra violence. Personally I laughed through most of it as it was plain silly, just as it was in Kill Bill and Kick-ass and completely the opposite of John Wick (which really is violent).