robybaggio18 Reviews

Rocky II (1979)

A very good sequel

[8/10 · 8 August 2015]

Rarely do we see sequels which live up to the hype or stand strong against the original story, but "Rocky II" delivered on both levels. As someone here already mentioned, it does not bring in any new characters and it certainly does not change any of the old ones. It basically is a rematch film, going back to what worked in the original. Simple guy with poor background again gets a chance against the world champion. The first fight was spectacular, but both fighters feel empty after it. So a rematch is born! Apollo pushes for it and Rocky would grab it immediately, only his wife is stopping him.

The thing I like about this film is that in many scenes it feels real. Many of its characters feel real. Actually, I cannot think of anyone there who doesn't fit into the real world. Even the loud- mouth Apollo Creed is credible, he acts as the world champion. And he looks fit. I don't think I remember a boxing film where one of the fighters looks this fit. Hats of to Weathers for that. The relationship between Rocky and his wife can be felt by the audience, and I will give credit to Stallone for this because I think he is not the top of the lot when it comes to drama acting, but he found his spot here and he played it well.

The sequels which followed where bordering with comedy, so I think the first two films make a nice combination of sports, drama and action.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Don't believe the hype, the worst sequel by far

[4/10 · 2 August 2015]

Saw it in the theater yesterday, couldn't wait for it to finish. Became very boring half way through, the plot is just childish and lacks any credibility or seriousness. I know this should be a no-brain summer flick, but M:I films always go for the shocks and suspense. It was non-existent here, the lack of any seriousness meant that nothing really moved me. Even the high-profile figure being assassinated didn't really mean anything because it seems that the whole world forgot about it the second after it happened.

The first film had a somewhat complicated plot, a few really breathtaking scenes and Tom Cruise young enough to deliver a fresh performance. The second film had a really silly plot, but the no- CGI motorcycle chase scene and Limp Bizkit soundtrack at least created some legacy. The third installment had a forgettable plot, but a really convincing bad guy played by the late Mr. Hoffman. The fourth film was silly enough, but the Burj Khalifa stunts made by Tom Cruise really stood out. This sequel has none of that. It relies purely on CGI and no plot development, it seems like characters jump from place to place without any motive or any explanation. I am aware of the fact that this lazy approach sells tickets these days, but in order to have a mission impossible really be a mission impossible it needs to have a context where it really seems serious and impossible. People who watched the first sequel remember that the Langley heist was introduced to the audience, planning was made and execution was slow, but exciting. This director could not deliver any of that.

I hope they stop now, I guess in the next sequel they could go into space or make Tom Cruise might fight a tiger in a cage. Even if he does it will be a CGI tiger, or a CGI Tom Cruise. In a CGI cage, with CGI blood.

Big disappointment, really.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Gets better with time

[8/10 · 29 December 2014]

I have watched all "Star Wars" movies many times and I can consider myself a fan of the series. The hate this movie attracts is beyond me. It has 6.6 here and nonsense like "Interstellar" get 8.9? Now that's just wrong. "The Phantom Menace" is not a perfect film, but there was no way George Lucas could please all people by going all the way back and re-inventing the whole story. Out of 6 films made up to this date, I rate this one the 3rd best. Why? Because it simply feels that way after watching all of them so many times. It is a very good start to the story, centered around a young boy who is given great talent and an opportunity to make his mark in the galaxy. This is essentially what the whole series is about - rise, fall and redemption of its main character. And his rise must begin through a child prodigy subplot. The pod racing part remains for me one of the most powerful in the whole series. The whole film is a bit cheeky and childish, but which episode of it isn't? These isn't serious drama making and it never was. It's a space opera with good guys fighting the bad guys, with shiny space background, wonderful worlds and delicate music. I do admit episodes 2 and 3 had certain problems in storytelling, but this first trilogy nicely connects with the original one and they both together make a wonderful epic.

The only thing leaving a negative impression is the CGI. In some way "The Phantom Menace" pawed the way for all-CGI spectacles which dominate cinema today and (for me) this was never a positive revolution.

Interstellar (2014)

Wreck of a movie, hard to find anything good about it

[4/10 · 16 November 2014]

Christopher Nolan once again gives more than enough evidence that he is the most overrated director in modern Hollywood. How is it possible to have such a premise (interstellar voyage to save human race) and make such a boring movie? It beats me, but what puzzles me even more is how it is possible to make a movie with almost no character at all. What is this movie about? It's not about an interstellar voyage, that's for sure. It ain't about discoveries, either. (imagine a group of explorers who are some of the first people to land on another planet and they are excited as my 90+ year-old grandmother is when she cooks dinner) It ain't about aliens either. It ain't about saving humanity either, there is hardly any people shown except for one village somewhere in USA. Can you really tell a story that big by wrapping it around just a few people? In theory you can and it could actually work if it made any sense. But to end the movie they it was done here, by placing a portal inside a black hole which is designed to connect only two specific people, two specific people who have accidentally found NASA's basement top-secret James Bond project - it is beyond me. Once Cooper started texting his daughter in Morse code through this portal I felt embarrassed. I felt embarrassed for Nolan brothers. That's it? That was the grand idea which connects the loose ends and saves humanity? I wish Matt Damon had killed them all, it would have been more interesting and much more plausible than this mess. His anger actually makes sense, who wouldn't be frustrated with a plot like this?

I believe a big portion of estimated 165 million dollar budget went into paid reviews here on IMDb.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Nice, but suffers because it's just a sequel

[6/10 · 1 August 2014]

A kind of a pleasant surprise for me. I expected just another dumb CGI- boosted sequel, but the movie does posses some qualities which made me look at my watch only once during the whole screening.

It's nothing new, I have seen many movies which show clashes of civilizations, violent consequences of actions made by nervous and ignorant individuals. That part of the movie was a standard plot of that kind and represented a solid backbone for everything else. On both sides there were enough different characters to drive the conflict/truce plot. The power plant subplot seems like a good choice, not too complicated to grasp and gives humans a strong motive for insisting to come back to the woods.

The weak side of this kind of movie is its over-reliance on CGI. I never really believe in the ape side of the story. Apes become smart in this whole "Planet of the Apes" universe, but if screen is filled with hundreds of CGI animated characters which hunt CGI animated deer, which fight CGI animated bears it very easily loses touch with any reality. Deer and bears are real animals, it's kind of sad to see real animals animated for a motion picture involving cities and humans. With apes, it doesn't get any better because they are all animated. Not just 15% with the background characters being real filmed chimps (which I'm sure is possible to make). Such a cheap method, such laziness.

I give it 6/10, solid movie nicely executed. But not more than that. Maybe because it is just one of the numerous sequels. In hands of a capable director, with production focused on one movie only and more courage for live filming, there was material here for a masterpiece.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Very good, but not exceptional

[8/10 · 3 January 2014]

I'm not a fan of long reviews, but I am certainly a fan of long movies. This movie goes for the three hour mark and in my opinion it hold enough material to use those minutes properly. I went to an 11 PM screening which ended well after 2 AM and the movie actually woke me up. This is always a positive thing for a drama with many characters. So I cannot say it is not interesting or captivating. It is provocative and direct, not just because of nudity and foul language. The lifestyle it shows is a bohemian utopia - sex, drugs and alcohol with no limits. This is what many movies talk about, especially mafia movies which Scorsese is famous for. It has a very similar plot to what "Goodfellas" have. Shows the dark side of society as something desirable and worth fighting for, but as it evolves it shows that such life comes hand-in-hand with failures and frustration. It doesn't look 100% real, but I think this is actually done on purpose because the scene where Belfort drives his car waisted on drugs suggests that all we see on screen is just a hallucination. Yes, I believe they had lots of sex, spent most of their days on heroin and that sleeping pill they mention, but the party atmosphere which they describe is just a hallucination which makes a very attractive movie.

Margot Robbie - what a woman! The moment when she invites Belfort into her bedroom, completely nude, goes into the same book as the famous Sharon Stone scene from "Basic Instinct".

All in all, I find this a bit too similar to "Goodfellas", with a slightly weaker group of actors. So I can't give it more than 8. But it is definitely worth watching.

Gravity (2013)

Cheap action flick, nothing more

[5/10 · 11 November 2013]

Any action flick fan has seen this a thousand times before. Under two hours long, explosions are here, artificial tension is here, cheesy dialog is here, miraculous escapes are here, poor acting is here, happy ending is here. I can't see why this movie is any different from titles such as Stallone's "Daylight" or "Cliffhanger". Space environment and 3D effects? Please, lets be serious. If a movie tries to get all the praise for its visuals it means it has no depth whatsoever. I haven't even seen it in 3D, I refused to give my money for such a deception. I don't even care if it is cheesy, ridiculous and over-the-top. I actually love such combinations from time to time, but only if they don't take themselves to seriously. We are talking about 95% of movie critics giving it a positive review, people calling it a "movie of the year candidate"? I've seen porn movies with more captivating dialogue and more coherence. Many of my friends and film lovers tried to show me that there is something symbolic and subtle in this film, but I simply can't see it. There isn't. It is a short, impossible, cheesy and (at moments) hilarious action flick which I have seen many times. Like many have said before me - if you want a serious space movie watch "Apollo 13" or "2001 Space Odyssey". And I have seen them recently. They look like B-2 stealth bombers compared to a paper plane.

8.5 rating? The most overrated movie on the site, after this I can't take the ratings seriously anymore. I could easily give it a 1 just to fight the numerous positive ratings, but I will give it a grade which I believe is the accurate one - 5.

U-571 (2000)

The frame is nice, but the picture in it is far from a masterpiece

[6/10 · 25 August 2012]

I like WWII movies because they (like all other war movies) bring with themselves a lot of effort in cinematography and costume design, deliver action and drama etc.. This one doesn't fail in that, it is a good war movie with a good cast, fairly believable main story and good old submarine atmosphere. There is something about submarine movies which will always be appealing. The tension, the distance from the rest of the world, the fear which underlines every operation under water. All in all this movie had a good setting, what I referred in the title as "the frame". The final package is still far from impressive, it delivers too much action and too little subtlety. Some scenes are too excessive and far from real, like every scene where lots of bullets are fired inside the submarine. And the ending had too much of a cliché. But the main problem for me is the main character played by Matthew McConaughey. I feel it's an obvious miscast, he is too young and far too little imposing to be a convincing submarine captain. Of course, this is a part of the plot and it is intended, but I still feel the movie lacks the subtlety and seriousness because of it. Matthew is a good actor, but not for this type of role.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Went in a strange direction, shouldn't have been made

[6/10 · 18 August 2012]

Watched it last night again after a few years. It is not a bad movie and it can't be called a disaster, but I feel the original story presented in The Matrix was twisted too much and the whole trilogy now has a stigma of being very complicated and confusing (and after The Matrix that wasn't the case, it was very clean in terms of plot and characters, such movies should be very clear on the good guys/bad guys division). While The Matrix introduced a relatively believable plot and sci-fi concept, this third sequel spins out of control. That "world between the two worlds" makes no sense and also Smith being able to enter a human mind makes no sense. You could see machines reading peoples minds and creating dreams for them (which the matrix is, a delicately constructed dream for all humans), but not themselves becoming human minds. Also, too many characters, I don't see any added value in the Frenchman/Monica Bellucci subplot except for more fights and more loud music. While I can see that The Matrix "asked" for a sequel, I don't think it asked for a whole trilogy. The Matrix Reloaded was a nice one with some memorable scenes, but the third one is boring, dark, too slow and way to complicated for an action sci-fi flick.

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

One of my guilty pleasures

[8/10 · 14 August 2012]

It is not a masterpiece in general since it is not even close to being a serious movie. Still, it knows what it wants to be and it is wonderfully fine tuned to almost perfection. The plot is fairly simple and entertaining, it is nicely timed (not being a minute too short or too long) and it has a finale that stretches almost half an hour without a moment of boredom. All this makes a solid backbone for the strongest part of this movie - small details and dialogs.

Except for some Tarantino movies, you will hardly find anything modern in Hollywood done which such slick dialogs and chemistry between characters. There are dozens of small and funny attachments which put the icing on the cake and make you a fan or in my case an addict:

1. Rusty and Ocean together on screen 2. Rusty eating in almost every scene. There is (obviously) no need for that, but it is there. And you feel like it is natural that it should be there. 3. Amazing Yen and his conversations with others. 4. The whole joke about Linus (Matt Damon) being a rookie and trying to achieve reputation of Ocean and Rusty (and in real life Clooney and Pitt as a movie star). 5. Small, almost unnoticed comments like when Topher says "actually, they're both named Bernie" or "I'll never forgive you for the thing with the guy in the place". There are about a hundred of lines like that which people who watch the movie for the first time will not understand, but after several viewings they easily become insider jokes. 6. It's a heist movie and yet there are no dead people and no weapons used. Not to mention no CGI, no massive explosions and no sex on screen. It can be done and it was done. 7. Fictional Lewis vs. Klicko match as a background event, brilliant. At the time they agreed only for this fictional match for the movie, the real fight was arranged months after that. 8. Best advertisement for Las Vegas ever. My trip to Vegas would not be the same without first watching this movie many times.

Commando (1985)

Simple, direct and fun

[7/10 · 14 August 2012]

There isn't much one can say about this movie since it is far from complicated. It starts quickly, has a very clear goal and scores on time and in style. I don't think there is another movie which evolves around the main character as much as "Commando" does. John Matrix is an invincible one man army who kills every bad guy that comes along the way. He kills them because they kidnapped his daughter. Matrix is like a tornado that sweeps across the country and leaves nothing intact. Throw in a few memorable one-liners, a hilarious villain and several very uncensored methods of annihilating opponents - a classic is born!

Liam Neeson's "Taken" has used a similar formula a few years ago and again it was very effective. Now and then cinema needs such a simple and honest action flick without even a hint of apology. It's a guilty pleasure, both of them are.

I give it 8/10 not because it is high quality, I give it because it knows what it wants to be and it does that flawlessly.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Not a serious movie, could be good if you turn your brain off

[4/10 · 12 August 2012]

TDKR is not a bad movie if you paid the ticket to see cool vehicles, sexy cat woman on a motorbike, lots of punches being thrown and other no-brain content which you can easily find in any expensive summer blockbuster. It is a bad movie if you are looking for something more. A general problem with sequels is that directors must recycle everything and movies often spin out of their hands in strange directions. I don't think Nolan had any idea what this movie is about. In the end we have many plots of which many are completely redundant and this means that at least 5 characters should not be here in the first place.

The central plot of the movie is Manhattan being "kidnapped" by armed terrorists led by Bane. It means that are making 12 million people hostages for about 3-4 months (this is said in the movie). Where are these people? They are never shown, we never see any kind of suffering or logistical problems, only a few kids from an orphanage in numerous scenes, like they are the only people that matter. It is a caricature, the whole city is just a paper-board character which doesn't really exist and it doesn't really matter. Gordon says "send all officers in the sewer system" and in the next scene we see all of them running through the same tunnel. Nolan isn't even trying to make this a believable story. Same thing goes for the whole terrorist act, in the end of the movie we don't really see why this was actually planned and executed. The whole Wall Street episode also just serves to take money away from Wayne while it does seem like it would have some bigger-than- world purpose. It seems like 90% of the plot serves no purpose at all. For a 3 hour movie that's 90% too much.

I give it a 5/10 because it was filmed nice and some parts of the plot fit well (Bane and Miranda part), but everything else is just garbage.

Prometheus (I) (2012)

A perfect example of modern brain-dead cinema

[2/10 · 6 June 2012]

First of all, let me explain why I give these 2 stars in the first place - because of Fassbender. I think his presence and performance on screen (in some way) save at least one fraction of this very bad movie. Without him this movie is a clear zero, no questions asked.

This movie's budget is about 150-200 million dollars. 150-200 million. With that kind of money you can run a small city for a whole year. To waste it on this crap is an insult to human kind, especially in this time of financial crisis and austerity. This is nothing more than a very expensive mousetrap designed to squeeze money out of young audience. Why? Because young audience is caught with expensive, but not very complicated bait - CGI and advertising. After all, if you look at it from a financial perspective, why make a smart movie in the first place? 90% of target audience will not care, the smart ones who avoid the movie can't hurt the ticket sales that much. Play it safe, dumb and beautiful. It always works, you can't miss with that. I remember the Playboy interview with Jerry Bruckheimer a few years back when he was very honest about all this - they make movies for idiots because they see lots of idiots out there. It is not art, it is a product which needs to be sold to millions of viewers worldwide, preferably many times again. OK, I'm not dumb, this was always true about Hollywood, but somehow there was more intelligence in older blockbuster movies. Those movies produced stars, produced memorable quotes, there is some sort of legacy behind them.

Most of all I am disappointed with actors. I have watched the movie 3 days ago and I can't remember what the leading actress looks like (Noomi Rapace or whatever). Such a poor attempt to make the equivalent of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, such a poor character to begin with, was Ridley Scott on drugs when he made this? Some ridiculous plot where we have a fragile scientist who doesn't really believe in science, she chooses to believe whatever she wants depending on circumstances? Nonsense, complete nonsense. Everything, from beginning to end.

I don't know what is waiting for us in 10 or 20 years time, I'm not optimistic. But if it does get any better maybe I will be able to say that this was THE low-point. I hope for that, because otherwise there is no point in going to cinema anymore. I'll stick with books for a while, usually there is no industry behind it.