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Heart of Stone (I) (2023)
2/10
Comically cringe
16 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
So many things are lifted from other action-spy franchises that it's hard to note a single original idea in the film, except for any of the ones that make absolutely zero sense even within their own universe's rules.

If everyone in the Charter is assigned a playing card ID, what happens when the Charter expands beyond 52 members? Does Netflix pay Mattel and just assign them Uno card values? (Think of the potential IP cashgrab: future sequel titles could include, "Skip Stone 2", "Wild Heart: Draw 4", but I digress...)

The AI is supremely powerful but can't 1) outsmart a young hacker; 2) recognize a double agent in the same team where they themselves have placed a double agent, AND was literally commissioned to kill along with his team in an earlier flashback - thus creating his entire evil backstory - but through movie-magic the AI doesn't have facial recognition for this one supremely evil character so no alarm bells despite having ample time to unmask him.

The super spy can be amazing enough to be a part of this secret organisation, but repeatedly unable to follow the organisation's every founding principle, which directly leads to every death in the organisation afterwards - including the assassination of two of the top brass - with absolutely zero repercussions...

The young hacker outsmarts the not-so super secret organisation & its powerful AI, but she can't outsmart her revenge-obsessed partner in crime. The hacker then teams up with the spy who was so far outsmarted by them, and through magic the two of them now manage to outsmart him.

Oh, and this hacker who is directly responsible for multiple deaths in the organisation is by the end of the film recruited into the organisation with zero consequences for her actions throughout the entire film.

(Honestly the second star of this rating is because there was potential for a decent finale with the hacker being the supreme villain, and they wasted it...Of course that's only if you manage to make it through the first hour and a half without laughing at all the nonsense up until this point.)

None of this addresses the awful fake "action" work...This sort of green-screen / CGI should be banned for anything costing this much.

It's hard to understand how any of this was greenlit, unless they knew there was potential for a profit by making the laughably worst action film in recent memory.
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9/10
Hilariously original! Genuinely guffawed multiple times!
28 September 2022
When the Screaming Starts is first and foremost an extremely well-executed original idea!

Original ideas are such a welcome change from the zeitgeist of regurgitating existing IP (*ahem* Star Wars et al.) #Spaceballs2TheSearchForMoreMoney

Honestly, with true-crime also currently being popular (dare I say too popular?) and financially viable for big production houses -- despite the genre's inherent inability to divorce itself from the public records, thereby retraumatizing the communities of said tragic stories (*cough cough* Dahmer) -- I am absolutely delighted to see writers & creators such as the WtSS team thinking outside of the box and pushing themselves to generate a truly original concept in an entertaining & recognizable mockumentary format. In many ways this film does for murder cults what What We Do in the Shadows did in 2014 for vampires...which I suppose are their own type of murder-cult, but I digress.

Great production values, solid casting all-around (special mention to the Haugholt twins who are perfect!), plenty of jokes to balance out the darkness of the subject material, along with a fantastic plot twist leading to a splendid denouement, When the Screaming Starts is an excellent example of independent filmmaking at its best.

Kudos to the entire team!
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