inc-10

This is a truly interesting show. Although setting (same nightclub for series, at least two "judges" admit to being seduction coaches) seems seedy and a sometimes feels like a grand advertisement of self-help fraud business called PUA, at the same it feels quite genuine, portraying the typical weekend hunt for 20-somethings across the globe. Anyone who's been in a night club will familiarize the types quickly.

Watching gelled-up muscleheads proclaiming to be alpha males, flashing jewelry and showcasing their villas, and yet failing to establish even simplest form of human contact (like exchanging names) is pretty funny. Sure, it generates lots of flame from feminists, but good television isn't a church mass, and doesn't have to uphold some fake moral values.

It's simply funny, realistic at times, tragic sometimes and even a bit educating.

You can also view this show as live testing of fake values injected into people by modern commercial infospace and find scientific value, as "required" body shape and wealth rarely is as important to find a mate in nature, although calling a 5-minute meet & greet, followed with phone number exchange is not exactly this. Or is it? "Keys to the VIP" sheds some light to the question, while no other TV- show has ever done so.

There's loads of downright idiotic errors in logic and geography in American movies, but they still pass more or less usually. Not on this one. My initial reaction was that target audience for this movie must be really, really dumb. After movie continued, I came to conclusion that world cannot really be populated by *that* stupid people, so it was simply written, directed and approved by men who have just received a lobotomy. I think I am right about this one.

Movie starts with embarrassing scene with a taxi driver. I don't know if it was supposed to be an ode to international friendship or try to emulate youthful taxi driver from first of the series, but it sure looked and sounded bad.

Dozen minutes later, you see a UAV Drone flying over Moscow. This instant is clear that you're watching science fiction. Even if you could travel back in time, to 1940's with much less advanced radars and anti- air systems, an American drone wouldn't simply be able fly over Moscow. Much less in 2000's while Moscow is over 700km from nearest NATO member border.

Then, in a capital of police state country that normally has policemen in every street corner and random ID checks are casual thing, next to the courthouse (!) a firefight occurs with no police to be seen, while perpetrators organize family reunions and take long time just wandering around the street, with no one to stop them. Okay...

The movie is jumping between shaky camera action sequences and father- issue drama constantly, while both feel out of place. Especially latter, since violin music and dumb stares feel artificial and forced.

I could go on, but I don't want to drag this review out. From the retarded mind of the writer we will also "learn" that:

* 3000 rounds per minute twin anti-tank machine gun works as 30 rounds per minute if you're shooting at protagonist of the movie.

* Ukraine and Russia have no border, much like the States, so you could easily drive from one to another with a stolen car and trunk full of Canadian guns (stolen from Chechen bandits, go figure).

* You can also fly around in both countries in a military helicopter or shoot up buildings in downtown Moscow, with no army to interfere.

* Car can scale 1000 km from Moscow to Pripyat in more or less same time as a military helicopter.

* Dozens of years of radiation can be easily dispersed with what looks like a leaf blower. Even from metal.

* Rain water doesn't get radiated. You can happily swim in it.

* Russian helicopters have magical power to grow back a tail rotor should you destroy one while crashing into building.

This movie doesn't have factual errors. It *is* a factual error.

John Mclane we knew was humorous, non-aggressive unless provoked, had street smarts and good intuition. In "Good day", it is thrown in only a pinch, to say "we had it too", but it is not the real content of the story in any way. It is quite noticeable here and there.

If you loved previous films, or at least first three, avoid this garbage. Keep the memory happy.

Watching this, I didn't know what to expect.

We have a rookie hothead cop who seems to be still reading "being a traffic cop for dummies" at work and transforms into generic main character from "The Fast and the Furious" on off-hours. Then we have old cop who's torn between nearby retirement and need for his high skills from "old times". This causes some drama, and I'm unsure if it enriched or ruined the experience.

Generally, it's pretty much like similar Hollywood movies (like one I mentioned above), but very, very dark. It reminds me "Crash" quite a lot. Slow music, dark city in neon lights, and despite quick cuts of insane horsepower - packed into plastic and chromed steel, under overpriced car hood, there's no hip-hop anthems playing or tanned girls anywhere to be seen. Neither is any dumb one- liners.

I liked that movie and yet hated it. I think it showed how weak Fast and Furious really would be as a movie if you removed MTV-styled clips and flashy people. As a cop drama it probably failed, because I really didn't believe that cops work like in this movie, leaving wounded behind, not reporting in, failing to catch a cop killer in week and never bringing out big guns, but send a rookie after notorious criminal instead.

Still, it was entertaining, and good break from formulaic stew that Hollywood constantly feeds us. Want to see something different, see this.

So, there's a dude that drives cars, does it well and doesn't ask questions. Also has rules and doesn't engage in the work his clients are doing, just drives them. Sounds familiar? Yeah, Transporter.

Only that this movie is no Transporter. The protagonist, instead of likable superhero Jason Statham, is a nice-guy psychopath, and not in the cool villain kind of way, but in very passive aggressive cuckoo-nerd way, with outbreaks consisting of stomping someone to death, drowning someone in ocean or using hammer to interrogate someone.

The love affair in this movie, losing a friend, all the other themes are very underplayed and unbelievable. The action is minimal and gruesome, there's no chase scenes or anything else you would expect from story and characters. Basically, it's still shot of protagonist's face with some dark ambient soundtrack for most of the time.

This... makes no sense. And isn't entertaining or fun in any way. I mean, it's a solid 5 or 6 out of 10. But nothing else.

Well, all kinds of things went wrong with this movie.

For starters, the opening sequence is awesome. One thing this movie really had was best camera crew ever. Everything feels very intense all the times, very close to the real war footage. Also, all the props, vehicles, uniforms, even explosions look very real. This is the good part.

The mediocre part is main story. It's a mix of Hotel Rwanda and Tears of the Sun, but feels like a bootleg version, a cheap knockoff of those.

And then there's the bad part. Just after awesome intro, you get "treated" with shots of Tbilisi, with landmarks, people smiling, and god forbid, trancey music in the background. It looked like a commercial for some travel agency, with only "Visit Georgia" message missing from the scene and was most tasteless thing I've ever seen in a film. I live in similar post-soviet country and I do understand the mentality in desperate desire to explain your culture to the world to get less looked as some remote hellhole, but this is outright tasteless and maybe Georgia hasn't come to this yet.

The script had generally no direction. Awesome war scene here, some corpses there, cameramen and photography director knew what to do... But director didn't. First, that simple shot with church and bloody river from 'Tears of the Sun' gives 10 times stronger emotion than whole pile of bodies shown in '5 days of August'. Even though latter tries sooo hard to portray Russians as savages.

Second, despite awesome camera and props, fighting had no point in this movie. You see soldiers shooting stuff and each other, but it's unclear why or what's their plan. I don't think any people who had any idea about how soldiers and military works were on the set. Mi-24 choppers shooting random buildings with rockets? And here I thought that every pilot is given orders and targets to waste expensive munitions on... Also, MI-24 sports a deadly cannon, but it's used only once, missing everything, and soldiers act as chopper had blind men for pilot and gunner, not taking cover. Tanks constantly missing targets and not using machine guns? Taking down a chopper with a single LAW rocket? SU-bombers taking down a restaurant residing in basically nowhere? This all felt very bizarre and pointless.

I could go on, but there's no need. Let's just say that this movie is very average, has some good moments, lots of unmemorable moments, and some outright stupid ones. So pick it up from bargain bin, but don't expect too much.

6 stars I give are for 2 reasons: Awesome camera work (it felt like live action at places) and the fact that despite being incredibly dumb, this movie IS entertaining... and that's good, even if it's for all wrong reasons.

...as for amount of propaganda, this movie is 100% okay, considering what comes from Moscow. Sure it's all bloated and overrated but this is how we rock in those former USSR satellite countries. Even 50 of such movies can't counter a single evening news show from random Russian TV-channel. For westerners, you just have to accept that rules are different, but watching all those Normandy landings in every Hollywood movie and video game, maybe not as much as you might think.

Can I name a better film? Yes I can. It's called "Art of Fighting" or "Ssaum-ui gisul" (Korean). But for a western watcher, "Klass" is much closer to the reality. Some things people from other countries take as unbelievable are actually more than real. For example, teacher in the class clearly smelling that something's up but not taking any act. I know because I had all those teachers... some choose to ignore, some to not notice and play dumb. Guns? Well, highly unlikely in a country with only handful of people with firearm permit, but movie clearly establishes Joosep's father, a testosterone bomb from Kaitseliit (US equivalent would be National Guard).

If anything, all adults were portrayed way better than kids themselves, because kids, especially bullies, somewhat held back and tried not to cross some invisible line in amount of violence, which helped to build up suspense gradually. During my school years and in my class, that line didn't exist, our "Joosep" was a girl(!) and she got punched into face from strongest boy in daylight, during a class with teacher present(!)... And there were no serious consequences to this...

"Klass" tells exactly how it is, but quite unlikely how it could end. Highly recommended! reduced 2 points from perfect score due somewhat dumb party scene and slow pace at places.

Btw, "Klass" has a sequel, 7-episode TV series named "Klass: The life after" (original name "Klass, elu pärast"), which is about ten times more emotional and disturbing. If you're lucky, it might be up on youtube.

This movie never takes off.

"Story is based on real life events" at the title scenes can be simply translated as "sorry".

Because that's how this movie feels. And weird enough, with all the interesting plot elements, nothing ever happens.

You have a Soviet spy! A 50-people FBI stakeout operation! An undercover rookie spy versus 25-year international veteran! Truck full of guns! Office full of hidden reconnaissance equipment! And then? Nothing happens. Kid chats with old man for a week, they attend church, kid makes up some lies, snoops around his bag, old man gets caught and then movie ends. I didn't left anything out!

It's like watching someone carry around a bag full of weapons and describing what weapons are inside and how he could use them. For 1 hour and 40 minutes. And then movie would end without a single gun taken out.

I've seen some decent real-story movies, but never something as dull as this one. I'd rather read a blog about day of a housewife than watch "Breach" again.

Well, the 'Mechanic' isn't very deep or complex, but it does deliver. You have your likable hit-man, some drama, some contracts and endgame.

It's not to be taken seriously though... for example, police simply does not exist in this movie. You have 2 killers blowing up a street, a gas station, leaving blood and fingerprints all over the crime scenes, never wearing gloves, dropping people onto street from high-rise building... list goes on.

But what's good about it is that all is played out in intense and exciting way, and that's what you expect when picking an action movie, right? Statham plays his ages old role of being bald, grumpy and superhuman, while other guy brings casual human being to the overall set. Even Statham's role justifies 100 minutes well, if you liked Transporter series, Crank, or any other movie of him starring, you get no less.

Never seen the original, but I rather enjoyed this movie. It's no movie of the year, but I don't get highly negative ratings given to 'Mechanic'. What the hell did you expect? And why? Just watch it for what it is and don't complain about what it isn't... and never intended to be!

My take on story - I will compare it to first film of Bumer, since I find sequel amazingly similar, unlike most people. It got really long, sorry for that.

First movie, "Bumer" was about fragility of freedom and tragedy of those, who decide to oppose law in such regime as it is in Russia. Bumer 2 tries to pass this message again, only this time, it's written in big letters, painted red and followed with memorable quotes & song "Svoboda".

Since many of messages and plots are subliminal, many might be confused with this movie, like who did this or why, so it's quite safe to say that to fully enjoy this flick, you have to think along and concentrate.

Apart from violent events (which I miss, really) Bumer 2 isn't very different from prequel: post-Soviet Russia still makes totally mysterious, unbelievable world where anything is possible, nature is still breathtaking and just like in first movie, once glorious civilization feels still sad, abandoned and broken, simple Russian village life sounds still so idyllic and stress-free, in comparasion with city-rush... minus local thugs, of course... and a BMW-series car is still only thing protagonists have left in this godforsaken world. It was all shown in first movie and it is amplified in this one.

Some more random observations: First movie played with word 'curse'. Four friends were cursed and whatever they touched or left behind, became tragic for others. Like Dimon's stolen Mercedes, which eventually killed a policeman, gift of a baseball bat, which turned youngster into crime, fake 2-dollar bill, which caused policeman to lose his hand, screwdriver from Dimon's wound - which later paralyzed truck driver, character "Rama" who left behind a child, etc etc.

I was waiting for similar subliminal plots from Bumer 2, but there wasn't much left for Kot. True, Dimon had his last bit of unluck, freeing a friend caused Dasha's brothers death. During whole movie, Kostya made only one mistake, that was - refusing Dimon's offer - and killed Dimon by this and by conclusion, himself also. So basically, the theme was there, but whole movie was built around only one event instead of many. Which is good, because from reviews of Bumer 1, nobody has figured previous part out, it seems.

Another interesting thing is that Bumer 2 feels like longest 2 hours in the world. And not in a bad sense. Some movies pass so quickly that it feels like 30 minutes. This one feels more like 5 hours. Is it because of thinking it requires to follow or are those 4 hours untold & unfilmed, and you add them in your head? Probably.

I personally missed violence. All that mystical, fragile and hopeless world movie created around characters felt a bit... unused. Whatever the grand, philosophical message in this movie wasn't, about freedom and Russia and whatnot, movies are still for some fun and adrenaline. And judging from drama, I'm sure that more adrenaline and action could have been added in a way it wouldn't ruin anything really. Producers feel really competent. Maybe their talent was wasted/underutilized a bit here too.

If you liked Bumer 1, and all the atmosphere, Bumer 2 delivers, and truckloads of it. Instead of brawn, wits are required this time, to fully enjoy it, but it's still as good - if not better - than first movie.

I approached this movie with really low expectations as soon as it was clear that whole movie will be shown from hand-held camera.

But I was really wrong. By the time plot gets moving, you've introduced to characters well enough, and also used to the camera technique.

It's not that bad really, especially thrilling parts. The main characters do usual teen-horror scream-run and -"what the f will we do now?" lines, and they do it quite well. Handycam technique and low field of view will make CGI if not believable then at least functional, and sound is really good on most parts.

Only thing that disappoints is the storyline. It doesn't go really anywhere aside from showing thrills, doesn't answer questions and leaves you with glass half empty. If there wasn't the documentary & handycam style, I'd be waiting for a sequel.

Apart from this, good average-class movie, intended to entertain about 70 minutes and really delivering here.

First half of the movie. Super! A heartless killer finally finds his peace in guarding and befriending little girl. Artistic editing worked here, artificially speeding up that would feel like too long and soapy romantic drama otherwise. You know, man being miserable isn't that cool to watch. Not for longer period. This is where editing and cutting worked fine to still maintain atmosphere. Dakota Fanning is a human bomb! She played better than anyone else in this movie. I really took a more comfortable position: everything I've seen so far looked superb and like a really well justified IMDb rating.

Then comes second half... And it's horrible. Like a good movie cut into half and other half replaced with much worse movie. Something from Steven Seagal's "movies that didn't even make to video"-collection?

The action-spoiling editing kills last bit of realism, those microscoping bits that somehow escaped from confusing and seemingly totally random and broken plot that covers action part of the film.

This mountain of a man, filled with hate and sadism, starts cutting off fingers and killing people in really painful ways. The character and plot that was so well built in first half falls apart in seconds. He can afford an RPG but not a Kevlar vest. Even though he already has more bullet holes than it would be healthy for a brick wall. He goes head-to-head with half dozen mobsters and doesn't have a single sniper to support him. Hi-class warrior? Experience in anti-terrorist unit? All we see is a black guy performing on Jackass episode "let's see how many bullets you can survive". Stupid decisions and editing confirm this MTV influence.

I love a good action thriller. I like gore and blood. But then it's must be produced a man who's not picking flowers in his free time. A gruesome killer is one thing a wannabe daddy or love and care is WAY another.

What a letdown. Final conclusion made me angry, but I when girl hugs him as savior, that man who's covered with blood of numerous people he has just killed and tortured, it really felt sick.

I hoped he survives and redeems sadistic half of the movie somehow. Not in this life. Not in this movie. Why did they end it like this? Why build up something decent and then set it on fire, especially if there's absolutely no need to, and the "event" is really a product of not thinking the plot through? I mean, there was zero excuses for protagonist to die. ZERO.

Extremely, extremely disappointing. Because all that power that was put to built into something really valuable - somehow fell apart like a card house. This movie needs a remake with totally different second half.

If I had to direct Dune movie, I neither would know where to start. But this ancient piece - or rather "Ruining a story 101" is failed beyond imagination.

First, Lynch tried to use up whole book of Dune. That's a mistake. Even bigger one is that he never grasped the content, it's all 1:1 replayed. So, viewer has no real idea what's going on. Did director?

To fit several hundred of pages into compact a movie, you have to know what to pick and what's important. None of this in movie. It's like he took every sub-story from book and cut off first and last quarter of it, so all subplots have middle part, progression, but no intro or conclusion.

Special effects are crazy. They're really "special" because if often feels like clay motion, not a movie. Nothing alive or fluid, especially painful for worms who yawn most of the movie. Strange enough, same goes for real actors, I guess they tried to catch up with static poses and acting of "worms". I don't think that some parts of the movie could be done without modern 3D technology, Lynch should have waited 20 years or so. Shields and explosions look REALLY bad, same for blue eyes.

For costumes, some were quite cool, like stillsuits and uniforms of Atreides. Then again, some downright sucked (Atreides/Harkonnen/Sardaukar solider suits).

I have no idea why Lynch pictured far future in noir style of 50's, and I think I don't want to. It's elegant, but not futuristic in any way.

And finally, gross. Why are so many things so gross in this movie? Dead walls of fremen hideouts, eerie makeup on most characters (especially irritating Thufir Hawat's mouth) rotting face of Vladimir Harkonnen and those awful, awful space navigators. It's like watching intestines of some animal for 3 hours.

I wouldn't want to go through this again. I think this movie would make a nice learning for cinema schools "How to mess up a movie".

Avoid.

There's only one good thing about this movie: It feels like a great movie. Everything has been paid for, actors, props and music. There's gunfire and love story. Sad moments and happy moments.

Unfortunately, this isn't enough for a good war movie. Although created by almost impossible-to-miss formula, this one misses its target by a mile. Why? It's boring. Even with 1,5 hours of tiresome explaining what's going to happen, some things still remain unclear. Even worse, viewer won't care a bit about those. The movie wastes about 90% of it to build something up, and it gets really boring and irritated, with all those string melodies to support this and flood of dialogs boring enough to be rejected by low-class soap opera director.

Then, finally, this something finally starts. And this "something" turns out to be a dark, quick, boring firefight without any action or content. Actually, it's made of 3 scenes: Gun fires in darkness, Japanese solider falls down, and something explodes. Repeating again and again. Well, and one tiny close combat scene. And thats it!

And that's it. A war movie? An action movie? A thriller?

Soap opera. And a boring one, by the way.

Huh, I don't know where to start. First, those who are against comparing movie to game series, I disagree. A movie based on a game, and so good game in fact, HAS to stick with the game. There's no excuse for what movie script did to the original game idea, simply because game is better in all ways. It would be reasonable to make changes in movie so it would be better, but this time (well, as always), every change made movie worse.

The way movie is presented is strange. Some points, there's simply chat. Just some boring, meaningless dialogues, worse than your casual soap opera - because they don't have any plot-important content. Then, empty footage, like someone walking. Or hit-man sniping. And then, unreasonable action. Whole movie is built using these three parts and every one of them isn't too good. Ah, and the fourth element is rare but nice humor relief moments. Like hit-man saying something funny or commanding prostitute into car trunk.

Timothy Olyphant really tries at some point. And it's nice to see, I even managed to forget that he looks like 15-year old at some moment. But awful, abysmal script doesn't leave him much to save: Hit-man in this movie smiles, cracks jokes, continuously fails to pull the trigger...

I have no clue why Russia and Russians were chosen for main location and folk for this movie. Throughout the movie, there was 2 lines of believable Russian language, apart from that, Russians in cinema needed to read English subtitles to understand what the hell was just said. I still haven't figured out WHY movie makers won't hire anyone who actually COULD speak Russians, and shoot the director into feet if he decides to actually screen something so unbelievably bad as Russian in this movie was. Did Americans really bought it as true Russian language? How many Russians live in US? Isn't there fluent speakers to hire?

There's also no believable connections in plot: FSB majors DO not let any Interpol commissars in their way. FSB special force troops are NOT clueless rookies as seen in this movie. And they definitely don't wear prototypes of US Future Warrior combat gear. And CIA won't never ever simply ambush anyone in the middle of big Russian city street.

This all was so utterly, painfully stupid. The plot was as loose as something could be. But the worst part was where 4 assassins met: Dual machetes? It was like watching Xena: The warrior Princess, or something even more idiotic...

To sum it up, No stealth was in this movie. No real hit-man. No understandable plot, and bad acting in most parts. Before going to see it, I knew that I don't want to see this, but as a fan of the game, I have to. I still regret this.

Humorous "Leon the Professional" did everything right. This movie got it all wrong. Go see "Leon" and skip this terrible waste of license.

This movie is a bunch of wasted ideas and material. In some places it really-really tries to be something, just to be ruined a second later.

The movie provides moderate amount of action, a functional story and some pretty actors. Directors totally failed with choosing the Rock though, even though he's supposed to be evil, he ends up being only annoying.

...And of course a first-person scene, which captures the real magic of first-person-shooter games quite well and is the best part of the whole movie. Even though enemies often just stand there to offer shooting practice and there's only 2 weapons used throughout that magnificent scene. It's still, very well done. And for people who don't play games or haven't tried yet, it should give a nice idea how immense and thrilling could playing one be. Just for the sake of the scene, go and see the movie. It's really interesting to see something like that.

The story could be functional if it was more sci-fi. I mean, these boring tongue-licking zombies could have been something more interesting, like demons from original game? If experiments were done to create superhumans, why not experiment with mechanics too, like crossing human and bull PLUS arm the result with mechanical legs and rocket launcher? It would hit the nail with appealing GAME fans, even when whole hell thing was skipped. There's only 3 types of enemy in the movie and that's probably the major letdown. Same goes to guns, all the cool weaponry wasn't simply used and to be honest, dizzy humanlike zombies weren't excuse enough to have more firepower anyway.

So whole thing goes like this: First half of the movie group of marines simply wander around in darkness, other half they cap some boring zombies, then the CGI scene and then - wtf? - a final FIGHTING scene. Fighting. Like it was low-budget van Damme or Steven Seagal action movie.

It's fun at times and there were some nice parts, but I would never ever waste another hour at this again. As I said, promising thing that has failed, but is still fun at times.