Change Your Image
markwoo
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Fallout (2024)
I COULD NOT FINISH THE FIRTS EPISODE IT WAS SO BAD
Against my natural antipathy towards post apocalyptic stuff, I was intrigued by a 5 star rating this series was given by Lucy Mangan in the Guardian.
The plot was paper thin. It was so obvious what was going to happen and the level of insult to anyone with a brain was appalling!
For example the Lucy Maclean stabbing survival was unbelievable. A stab in the gut is always serious and one should not remove the knife if it is still in the wound. This was followed by the even worse idea that her 'husband' came back to attack her.
Equally stupid was the fact that her wrist mounted radiation as well as everyone else's did not go off the moment they met the people from Vault 32. It was clear radiation level awareness was high, but to fail to have automated alarms was, frankly, alarmingly moronic.
I skipped forward a few scenes to the army camp and the arrival of the men in suits and immediately thought 'where was the airship built and where were the suits made?'. I had already been wondering about the construction of the vaults themselves, but the industrial level the airship & suits implied was far too farfetched.
I could go on but I hope the foregoing gives you enough of the flavour of silliness which clearly is only going to get worse.
My advice is avoid like the plague.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
WOW! Appallingly bad
I am often asked to suspend disbelief when watching a film, but this has become a weaker and weaker argument for accepting naked drivel this bad. Weirdly, though the cinematography was excellent and the basic premise held some promise, although this was soon lost by a total failure to deliver even a remotely credible backdrop to the action. The level of unintelligence underpinning this backdrop plotting failure was so bad it defied belief. For example, in the product placement scene with the crashed and crashing Tesla's, the simple expedient of Julia Roberts' character leaving the road would have solved the apparently terrifying prospect of a headlong collision with the stream a Teslas. One also has to wonder how the cyber attackers were controlling the Teslas in the first place and to what purpose? What was with the other highway being filled with a load of multi-coloured cars, were they also self-drivers? If not, where did they come from and if driven by humans where did they go? I could easily go on.
As to the rest of the film, where to start? There are almost too many faults in this film to list without running to an essay length tirade. The top four would be:-
Zero character development.
A barmy survivalist cameo of disturbing idiocy. Hang your head in shame Kevin Bacon.
Totally unbelievable scenes featuring animals (as it they somehow understood what was going on).
The worst ending since 'The Italian Job'.
All in all, an absolute travesty of a film - avoid at all costs. If you do, you will probably wind up later on thinking that it was smart to do so; as, hopefully, more people react in the same way that I did. I hope I am your vanguard.
Cold Blood Legacy (2019)
Unbelievably Bad
When i see a film as bad as this i despair of the film industry as a whole. Some people somewhere read this script and agreed to finance the production and the cost of a big name actor and i cannot believe that during this process, no one said this would be a complete turkey.
There is so much utter stupidity it would take almost as long as the film to list the idioticies. I have watched it so you don't have to.
How It Ends (2018)
ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE - AVOID IF YOU CAN
This was one of those films where the title sucked you in and at the end left you feeling utterly astonished at how bad the film actually was. When a film is this bad it makes one wonder how on earth it ever got made. Imagine the scriptwriter hawking this script around and actually finding anyone to agree to finance it and you can hardly believe that anyone would. What were they thinking! Coupled with a truly terrible ending, I could almost believe it was a group of film people having a laugh at the expense of anyone who watches this turkey.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
An awful and stupid plot saved by compelling central performance
Another film that insults one's intelligence by disguising a ridiculous plot with a fine central performance and slick editing. I had really hoped this film would live up to its hype, but it did not and I sat watching in a state of increasingly disbelief. Spoiler alert - stop reading now unless you want to as my questions will (probably) ruin the film for you.
Why would a poor person undertake to spend $60,000 to rent 3 billboards for a year?
Why would an unknown stranger then pay one month's rental?
Willoughby would never pay another month's rental and his suicide added nothing.
Why attack the dentist?
Why would Peter Dinklage's character lie to provide an alibi?
How stupid is Willoughby if he does not know that Mildred Hays torched the police station? Perhaps they were that stupid and that is reason the daughter's rape & murder had not been solved.
How stupid does Mildred have to be to burn down the one place that has the records of her daughter's murder?
Why have Davis save the (tiny) file detailing the daughter's murder and then do nothing with this twist?
Why would David attack Red Welby? All he had done was rent the billboards.
How unbelievable was the scene with the stranger coming to where Mildred worked?
Off the scale unbelievable was the same man then winds up in a bar talking about his crimes.
Very lame having the stranger's DNA leading to a big fat nothing.
How likely is it that Mildred would team up with Davis to go a 'murdering?
We learned almost nothing and the mystery of the daughter's rape and murder remained.
All in all a hugely frustrating film. I gave it a generous 4 stars because it was compellingly done. However for the awful plot I would want to give it a negative score
Unbroken (2014)
terrible, avoid - you have been warned
It is rare that I stop watching a film part way through, very rare. I like to give all films a proper look but this one was so very bad I could not face any more clichéd scenes. Just to let you know I stopped when Jack O'Connell's shouted at his fellow prisoners to hit him. I suppose it may have happened that way but Japanese POW's were by and large treated appallingly and usually starved so seeing well fed POW's doing this stretched credulity too far yet again, hence the switch off. For yet more unbelievable scenes see the (1) catching, killing, and eating a seabird & then vomiting (2) catching a shark and punching it to death (3) patching the shot up life raft and the shark attack – all too ridiculous for words and so predictable. However, the worst thing about this film was its incredibly boring plot line. Louis Zamperini would probably be spinning in his grave over this turkey of a film. Take my advice avoid if you can.
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
On a par with x-men first class
I enjoyed this film and would recommend it as one of the better films of late. Anyone who has read my other reviews will see that I am a harsh critic of dull, unintelligent films of which I have seen far too many of late. I loved Apocalypse's ability to boost the power of other mutants and who can also resurrect himself via other mutants whilst at the same time gaining their powers. Unfortunately some of the other powers he demonstrates are laughable; like plastering people into walls. Anyway here you have a well-paced film where mankind gets breather from Apocalypse by interrupting the resurrection process trapping him in limbo. Fast forward to now and lo and behold he gets free again and the stage is set for another good v evil ending, but what x-men story doesn't have this? Nevertheless and despite knowing this, the film builds to a fine climax. It is a shame that the ultimate victory over Apocalypse was so predictable. I would have preferred to see it play out as follows:- Have Apocalypse take Xavier's powers then find that Jean Grey has more but in attempting to get hers inadvertently releases 'Phoenix' who wipes him off the face of the earth, followed by the saving of Professor Xavier by some means (possibly using 'wolverine's' recovery powers. What do you think? Afterthought: It is such a pity that special effects have become so dominant these days because it clearly makes it harder and harder to outdo what has come before and there is little that is refreshingly new here.
Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Horrible, given 2 stars only for some of the dialogue
This is a very unpleasant film and I would not recommend it to anyone. From the sordid opening of watching two murderous bushwhackers at work the film hardly improves and some of it frankly ridiculous. The supposedly smart sheriff allows a badly injured husband to accompany a rescue mission that is destined to last at least 4 days on horseback –never going to happen. Then there is the question of how the troglodytes got to the town and back with three captives as they seem to lack horses – daft. Of course you then have to have some unidentified Mexican baddies to steal the rescuers horses forcing the crippled husband to hobble for miles – unbelievable – and surprise, surprise he lags behind but still heroically presses on despite aggravating his injury more than once – even more unbelievable. The three leading rescuers get to the troglodyte hideout and promptly get attacked and one is killed and the other two caught and hauled up to their cave. Oh, I forgot to mention that the troglodytes cannot talk only make a completely weird call which of course they do repeatedly to alert all and sundry to their presence. The two remaining rescuers find that the gimp's wife and other deputy are still alive (after what 5/6 days) and of course their presence brings about the near instant and horrible butchery of the other deputy. But at last the cavalry arrives as gimpy the husband finally gets to the cave area. He manages to kill two troglodytes and immediately realises that they have something in their throats so he cuts this device out of one of the troglodytes and uses it to make those weird calls so more troglodytes come running towards him so he can shoot them. The last and final idiocy has gimpy arriving in the cave crawling having climbed up to the cave (which, by the way looked pretty inaccessible) unseen and unheard and effects a rescue. Utter tosh.
Bullet to the Head (2012)
Another film that indicts Hollywood for its lack of respect for film goers
A sad and depressing little film which shows how badly time has ravaged Stallone. He has never been that much of an actor but as an ageing hit-man he simply is not credible. The axe fight is about as stupid an idea for a climax as I have ever seen and the idea that Stallone's character could ever prevail against someone of Jason Momea's physical prowess defies belief. The scene in the car where the bent local cop is holding his gun to Sung Kang's head before getting his own head shot by Stallone is, perhaps, even more far-fetched. How could Stallone approach the car unseen and line up such a difficult shot i.e. one that did not also put Sung Kang at risk of being in the line of fire. The rest of the film is full of clichés so familiar that I cannot help but think that film scripts are being written by a machine based solely on what was in films that made money before and repeating the same ideas in a slightly different combination. Brainless plotting, poor acting a real turkey. Anyone who rates this film is deluded!
The Theory of Everything (2014)
An astonishing 'bore de force'.
This is the dullest film I have seen in the last 10 years, probably even longer. I think the main problem is that most people know who SH is and how disabled he is, so wasting time on his illness and SH's deterioration over time was stupid. There was no drama here - he has motor neurone disease and you don't get better, surprise, surprise. So instead the film could have explored the characters in much more depth but sadly, the characterisation is so shallow there is nothing to applaud here. For the actor portraying SH to get the Oscar for Best Actor is laughable. Save your money by not going to see this film and instead use it to buy 'Untouchable' (Intouchables) by Olivier Nakache & Eric Toledano if you want to see a beautiful film about a disabled person.
Johnny English Reborn (2011)
Appallingly bad
Do yourselves a favor and trust me when I say you must avoid this film.
When I see a film as bad as this one I despair of the film industry as a whole. I wonder how on earth anyone would finance such an unfunny, banal, formulaic, unoriginal and almost completely predictable (apart from keeping the token black actor alive) film, but then I remember that the British government has been giving huge tax breaks to encourage the film industry to invest into 'British' films. if this cow pat of a film is a typical result, then the British taxpayer has been robbed blind. This money ought to be paying for higher risk productions (i.e not based solely on getting financial reward) to engender new talent especially in writing and direction.
One day I hope that cinema will start reaching the heights that currently only seem to be being reached on TV - watch Game of Thrones, quite superb!
Gone Girl (2014)
very disappointing finale
I want to say at the outset I am not a Ben Affleck fan but went to see this movie anyway as I had been told the book was very good. Despite my prejudice and a slow start, I found myself enjoying it much more than expected, but sadly the finale was a real let down that left the main protagonists all looking much more stupid than the film had, up to that time, made them appear. It turned a believable plot into an unbelievable one. The ending was so bad that it retrospectively downgraded the first three quarters of the film which had me wondering how it was going to end. I should know better by now; few films these days end well.
A Serious Man (2009)
Awful, awful, awful!!
I have a couple of friends whose opinion about films I often respect who both said (very recently) that this is a great film. My response was 'but it's a Cohn brothers film and I have never thought any of their films were much good (this is the polite version of what I actually said)'. Both of them said this one was different. Both of them were wrong. This is a truly awful film, full of unsympathetic and unbelievable characters with no worthwhile plot and an ending that ranks alongside 'The Italian Job' for being an arrogant, audience insulting cop out. Save yourself 106 minutes of your life and never, never watch it (unless you are thinking of killing yourself, in which case this film will probably help you overcome any last minute doubts you may have).
The Wolverine (2013)
moronic script
Very disappointing. Yet another moronic script that appears to have been written with by a committee made up of people how cannot communicate properly There was a singular lack of originality as there were a lot of it re-hashed ideas from earlier X-Men series. The ending was so predictable it beggars belief that the film industry still turns out such insulting rubbish.
Obvious idiocies.
How would Wolverine know anything about the Nagasaki nuclear bomb if he had been in that pit.
Yashida would almost certainly have been permanently blinded by the nuclear flash.
The idea that security would be so bad that such a large number of 'baddies' would be at the funeral is an insult to anyone with a brain. Surely Wolverine would not be the only person to notice those tattoos. Ditto re Harada on the roof.
The scene on the top of the bullet train was just silly and totally unbelievable.
How did the baddies find Mariko again and why didn't Wolverine slash the car tyres instead of grabbing a baddie? How can he go from seemingly being smarter than a whole security team (at the funeral) to being so dumb? When the ninjas harpooned him at the village below the mountain research facility I nearly laughed out load. What sort of cretin thought that made any sense? Also how did Yukio get past the ninja guards a few minutes later? I am sick of such idiotic films.
Prometheus (2012)
A truly awful film - moronic!! Avoid like the plague
From the incomprehensible opening (that never gets explained) one descends into a morass of witless clichés with a plot line that leaves one in a state of disbelief that such a rubbish script ever made it to the screen. No amount of special effects could lift this turkey off the runway for me. There is no explanation as to why some aging mega-mogul is driven to fund a one trillion dollar expedition just to ask where we come from. The first time we meet the scientific team the geologist turns out to be a tattooed aggressive money chaser. By any normal standards, a team like this would have done plenty of familiarisation before departing on such a mission so they would all know each other extremely well. The idea of introducing yourself at the end of a two-year sleep was just so hopelessly unbelievable and set the tone for a downward spiral of further stupidities thereafter. The lack of any sort of contamination/contagion protocols was also totally stupid – why do filmmakers seem to believe we are such idiots. Then there is the android re-run (see Alien for all you need to know about this witless and unbelievable addition to the plot). Once again, it is completely incredible to think that humans would allow any android the degree of freedom accorded to the one here. There would always be some sort of 'off' switch. The other fundamental flaw to the android plot line, is what was he doing for the mega-mogul? Then there was the only slight improvement in the weapon systems (over those portrayed in Alien), some rifles and better flamethrowers. Do me a favour and recognise what a horribly untrusting species we are and know that we would not venture into hostile and unknown space without carrying every conceivable weapon we could devise. Equally laughable and sadly pathetic was the automatic operating theatre. Programmed only for males – how crass. In addition, no one is going to believe that Noomi Rapace's character could recover so soon from her operation. The final scenes are the last nail in the coffin of a travesty of a film that was so unintelligent as to defy belief. Firstly, how on earth are the android head and Noomi Rapace going to survive the journey to some unknown planet and just to deliver the alien humanoids own biological weapon back to their home planet. So we are to accept that a scientist goes from wanting to know where we came from to setting out to destroy where we came from? Come on scriptwriters – surely you can be more inventive than that. Secondly, how did that silly little squid grow into such a monster without food? Why does the squid offspring then turn into an alien? Utter biological nonsense.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
Good, but not good enough
It is a truly sad reflection on the film industry that, with the commercial success of this film practically guaranteed, HP8 was not far better; especially with amount of CGI thrown at it. If you have read the book, then, most likely, you will find HP8 a rather pedestrian stroll through the main scenes, nothing more. Where there are changes, these detract from the book and some are positively dreadful! Potter fans beware. As for the final scenes with HP versus Voldemort, what an awful distortion of the book. I am astonished that JKR allowed such a travesty. The exploding bodies and snake were laughable. A scene that more closely followed the book would have really lifted the film but I guess the people behind the camera realised (if they had not had this horrible realisation ages ago) that Radcliffe simply could not have pulled it off. It is such a pity he was chosen the role he is far too wooden. That said, Radcliffe does perform slightly better in this one though, sadly that is saying very little. The final scene – 19 years later – should be cut, it was pathetic. I watched the 3D version and it added nothing so save your money and go and see the 2D one. The stand out performer of the series is Alan Rickman. It is a pity that Richard Harris died he was a far superior Dumbledore. I have given the film a very kind rating of 5.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
A bit of a drag
One always knew that, as the length of the HP books increased, turning them into films was going to get harder. So to be fair, one must remember that the Order of the Phoenix is a heavily padded book lacking the tautness of the first three novels as well as their clever plots. With the Goblet of Fire one still had an excellent plot but the padding had begun.
Thus it is no surprise that first four films got better and better. They also showed a steady progression into the battle between good and evil, with each one being 'darker' than its predecessors. I had hoped this film would continue that trend and to a limited extent it did, it was certainly gloomy. Sadly though, here one has a film that despite having some exciting interludes, ultimately did not deliver. We already knew from HP and the Goblet of Fire that Lord Voldemort was back; this film left me thinking 'so what?' Where were the real surprises? There weren't any.
Where was the climax? There really wasn't one because nothing was answered properly.
What one can see is that the switch of screenwriters from Steve Kloves (SK) to Michael Goldenberg (MG) was a big mistake. SK understood the essentials of the first four novels and put together excellent screenplays with the author. With MG, I think the main problem is that the screenplay tried too hard to stick to the book, with the result that so much was left out, the plot seemed full of holes (perhaps the author had something to do with this as well).
Looking to the future I am greatly relieved to note that SK is back as screenwriter for the Half Blood Prince and I really hope he will write the screenplay for the Deathly Hallows and we can forget about the Order of the Phoenix because that is what this film is; FORGETTABLE.
Gangs of New York (2002)
do not waste time or money on this film
This film had good reviews but turned out to be one of the worst I have ever seen! The plot was pathetic and entirely predictable. The scriptwriters deserve much (all?) of the blame for this. They also failed utterly to bring any characterisation to the film thus making judging the acting very difficult, nevertheless the acting came over as very one dimensional. A must avoid at all costs film.