samukaresma Reviews

Heart of a Lion (2013)

Finnish History X

[7/10 · 21 June 2022]

I instantly got the feeling to compare it American History X, as Heart of a Lion was presented with a similar premise. Heart of a Lion, however, focuses a lot more on the relationship between the two characters, rather than (mostly) one character having an existential crisis.

The beginging was a bit odd and boring. The relationship with the main character and his future girlfriend felt very awkward and unrelatable. I just kept thinking why on Earth would she want to be with him, and the chemistry felt forced. The chemistries and relationships between the main character and the kid and the brother were a lot better, great even. Those and the acting was really what carried the movie. Otherwise it could have been better.

The neo-Nazi group as well as the plot in general and its events were all very unconvincing and unbelievable, as in unrealistic and over-the-top. Seven guys coming to beat one guy up just because their kid's shirt was stolen at school? Things like that really broke the immersion. All the other characters aside from the three main characters felt over-exaggerated caricatures and stereotypes.

Despite its flaws, the movie still managed to be emotional and after the first twenty minutes the pacing and directing were good. Acting was great and overall the movie was okay.

Against the Ice (2022)

I don't get the negative reviews

[7/10 · 28 March 2022]

I don't know what the other reviewers were expecting, an action flick with explosions? Of course a survival movie like this is going to be slow and sometimes a bit hard to watch. Isn't that kind of the point of these kind of movies?

Sure it was not the best, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The first half of the movie had a couple boring scenes, but it gets better towards the end when the pacing picks up. True, maybe the passing of time wasn't very visible from the characters (like for the whole movie their beard and hair was barely growing). But the characters were well made, they felt authentic and relatable, also the acting was good. Especially at the end I loved Nikolaj's small micro expressions almost akin to what Brian Cranston can do. I love to see these Game of Thrones actors shine outside GoT.

Also, why do they speak English? Half of the cast were Nordic people if not Danish themselves. Why not speak Danish? Anyway, I think it's a solid watch for people who like slow and suspenseful and/or survival movies.

Have a Good Trip (2020)

Barely qualifies as a "Documentary"

[5/10 · 9 October 2021]

I was quite disappointed. I was expecting a scientific and informative documentary about the history and effects of psychedelics and drugs in general, but instead we got this poorly directed and childishly illustrated series of stories about good and bad trips.

I mean, sure, a few of the stories were interesting and enjoyable, but after a couple of them you get the idea what trips are and it really just got boresome towards the end. The re-actings of the stories were stupid and the illustrations were cliché and boring, and not even that nice to look at. The re-creation of old drug-offensive propaganda videos was just plain horrible and nothing but cringe and facepalms, and it was difficult to watch through it.

There was no real informative value regarding drugs. It would have been very interesting to learn about the history of psychedelics, how and when they were first being used, what's good about about them, what's bad about them, how they got popular and how they were eventually banned. There's a lot of politics and controversy around drugs and their legal state. You could do so much with all this information and turn it into a very interesting documentary about any of these subjects. But no. We get just some random celebrities sharing their first times taking acid. I don't recommend this and it is not worth a watch.

Midnight Mass (2021)

Intelligent? Thoughtful? Give me a break.

[4/10 · 30 September 2021]

Who wrote the 10/10 reviews? Whoah! Exactly the first 2 episodes were okay, even if very slow. They had tension and some horror elements. The premise was interesting, but the downhill after that is fast and steep.

After the first two episodes and show just becomes rediculous. I was expecting an intelligent psychological thriller, not some non-sensical fantasy drama with no logic and pretentious drawn-out boring monologues. The plot is somewhat okay, but it's not well executed.

Just no, don't waste your time to this. The four star are solely for the first two episodes. After that it's a steady decline towards zero.

The Godfather (1972)

Honestly? It's a bit over-hyped

[8/10 · 15 August 2021]

Now, I have to start by saying I just watched it for the first time ever, so I am definitely looking at it with fresh, modern eyes. And that being said, I just don't see it. Maybe it was this masterpiece in its time, but I don't actually think it holds that well in today's standards.

People seem to praise its directing and acting, but I don't really see how they are that special, to be honest. Goodfellas is definitely the better one at both of these. The directing and acting were good, yes, but a masterpiece? You can't even hear half of the words Marlon Brando speaks.

The strongest point was the interesting plot and it is great, even if it lacked a few good twists. The story arc overall is good and Al Pacino's character goes through a good development. On the other hand, the pacing could have been better and one or two times it felt maybe a bit boring even. The runtime could have easily been cut by 10-20 minutes or the boring acts could have been improved.

In general, I kind of didn't like how they romanticized the whole mobster life. And this is indeed why I prefer Goodfellas over this: that movie showed what kind of maniacs and psychopaths criminals and gangster must be to survive in that underground world. This made it look like anyone could have changed their career to become a criminal.

Anyhow, it absolutely is worth a watch and it's one of the most important parts of cinema history and I am embarrassed to admit it took me all these years to watch. But I finally. And if you like well acted and well directed gangster/mobster/crime cinema, I would definitely suggest to also turn to Breaking Bad and Peaky Blinders (even though they are not movies, but series, they are the modern day masterpieces of directing and acting).

The Expendables 3 (2014)

I don't get the hate?

[8/10 · 30 July 2021]

This was definitely the best of the trilogy. Sure there were some issues and the new, younger members weren't as good, but it was still a solid action flick with some good laughs. This is meant to be a movie you watch with popcorn and your home theater boosted up to 11. Sit back and just enjoy-it's not even trying to be the next Shawshank Redemption. The actors were great! I loved to see Ford and Gibson on screen again and they do good performances here. The action is fun, well executed and thrilling. The plot is not too special, but overall the movie is a lot of fun and the one-liners work way better in this one.

The first one had the problem that it didn't really know whether it was supposed to be a serious or a funny movie. There were some attempts for a serious scene, and there were attempts for a laugh, but both fell a bit short.

The second movie was better: it knew it wanted to be a less serious one. There were a couple a-bit-more-serious scenes, but overall the action was entertaining and the plot points were stupidly funny-mostly in a good way.

But the third one finally found the balance and turns out it was better when they dialed more to the serious side with some funny bits added. I know these movies are meant to be these throwbacks to the 80's, but in this movie they mixed it a bit and for the good; it didn't feel too cliché and still managed to put some those nostalgia bits.

Bird Box (2018)

Dull and badly executed

[6/10 · 27 December 2018]

It's okay. The premise was good: some strange creatures that make you want to kill yourself, when you see them, but it was just executed very badly. The premise could have been expanded upon something great, but it turned out to be just yet another A Quiet Place and The Happening.

The story is boring, predictable and stretched way too long. With a running time of two hours, it's just a dull watch. The characters were non-memorable, there was no character development. The plot was very straight-forward and I could just guess every coming event. Also the end was very anti-climatic.

My biggest concern was the plot holes and just leaving so many things unexplained. Like, what were the creatures? All we see is just wind blowing. What did people see, when they saw the "creatures"? Why did some go mad and kill themselves, while others went mad and killed others? There was a little hint, that the people not killing themselves had escaped from an asylum, but why? If you're mad already, the creatures just make you homicidal? Why weren't birds (and apparently other animals) affected by the creatures? What happened to the two characters who stole the car? Why did the main characters have to go into the river, when they could have just walked the shoreline? What did the characters eat for 5 years? It's not like they were growing their own food. Why couldn't the creatures come inside buildings?

If you can get past things like this, it's fairly watchable, if you have nothing else to do. But if there's some other movie you're interested about, watch that instead.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

An amazing movie, don't believe the 1/10 votes!

[9/10 · 22 October 2016]

First I just want to say, don't believe the low ratings, because people just voted zero, when it turned out this is not Cloverfield 2, a scifi movie from 2008. 10 Cloverfield Lane is nothing like it, and it's a good thing it isn't.

10 Cloverfield Lane is (like Cloverfield) produced by J. J. Abrams and directed by Dan Trachtenberg. In the main roles we see John Goodman, who's pretty sure a familiar face to many, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, which I recognized from Die Hards as Lucy, and a bit less known John Gallagher Jr.

The movie tells about the triple's survival in the doomsday prepper's bunker, but that's pretty much all I want to say about the story. The whole movie is based on that you know nothing about it before-hand. It can seem a bit of a gamble, but trust me on this one - it won't let you down.

The movie is simply brilliant. I like the direction and the shaky hand- held camera of Cloverfield is replaced with tripod scenes, which is good. The use of the camera is amazing, and is one the main elements with which they achieved the claustrophobic and exciting atmosphere of the movie.

The story is very thrilling and I watched most of the movie not even leaning back, almost literally hanging on the edge of my seat. The story is very unpredictable and to the last minute you are going to rethink whether you are right, or not. The characters are done and portrayed so well, you change your own opinion back and forth all the time.

The acting is also great, especially John Goodman does an awesome job as the doomsday prepper and the character is very interesting. Mary Winstead's character is also good, but mostly I liked the actress' job, as it was surprisingly good.

I don't really find that much to complain about, and this is one those movies, that when coming closer to the end, you just think to yourself "no, don't end ever." It's exciting, with few even scary scenes, and just simply amazing movie to watch. Even though like 80% of the setting is in underground bunker, it doesn't stop or slow down even for once. The pacing is just a notch on, perfect.

I rate it 4,5/5 (or 9/10) - simply because I don't want to raise it among the "best movies in the world". Though it was great, you can always improved that one bit more. But, I assure this won't be a disappointment, just as long as you don't go in expecting a Cloverfield- like alien movie with constant explosions and special effects, because this one ain't like that.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check more reviews at http://radioaktiivistajatetta-en.blogspot.com

The Infiltrator (2016)

If you're into the genre: worth checking out.

[7/10 · 12 October 2016]

The Infiltrator, directed by Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) and written my his writer-mom, Ellen Brown Furman. The movies is based on Rober Mazur's autobiography of the time when he was working as an undercover in the 80's. Mazur played as a corrupt businessman that infiltrated the Pablo Escobar's money laundering organization. On the main roles we see the great Bryan Cranston, probably most well known from the TV series Breaking Bad, and Diane Kruger, who plays Mazur's undercover partner. You'll know her most likely from Inglourious Basterds and National Treasure.

The strongest aspect of the movie definitely is the acting. Cranston does amazing job here with all his micro expressions, which makes his acting very real and live-like. The character development is good and you do really grow onto the characters, caring for them, which makes the intense and exciting scenes more so - you don't want them to get caught.

The true crime story genre has is a difficulties: the makers have to balance between believable, but maybe boring and dramatized, but not-so- believable, and I think they took one step to the wrong direction here. It can be a bit boring at few times and I missed some more drama and exciting moments. Do we really want to see what actually happened? Not always. I think documentary is for that, a movie should be a bit dramatized.

From here we get to the worse parts of the movie: I think it was slightly too long, I one time had the thought: "hmm, how long is this gonna last again", which is in my book, not really a good thing. The pacing seemed also a bit off sometimes, as it seemed to jump from events to other and following the movie, at least at the start, was a bit difficult, if you didn't focus on it all the time. New characters were introduced pretty quick, and you were left wondering, who is this guy? What does he do? What does it matter to the story? It did, however, get better till the end.

In short: it's a good movie. If you like true story based undercover crime movies, this is a good one to check out. It was intense and exciting enough at moments, though could have been more of that at some scenes. Just don't expect an action movie, but a movie about characters, especially Cranston's one, in which we get to see how he grows and changes as a person, when he needs to live in the grim business world of drugs.

Personally, I'd give it 4/5, but more subjective rating from me would be 3,5 out of 5 stars (or 7/10). In it's genre, there are better options, so that's why I didn't want to raise it onto the same level with them. If you like precisely the true story based undercover criminal movie type, this is worth checking out, but if the genre is a bit off, I guess you will see some flaws in it.

The half star comes, because I don't want to drop it among the mediocre mass production stuff either. It has flaws, but is still solid and watchable, if you like the style.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check more reviews at https://radioaktiivistajatetta-en.blogspot.com

Lights Out (II) (2016)

A shallow movie of a jump-scare after jump-scare.

[6/10 · 22 July 2016]

Yeah, it was decent. I'll start with the good things: it had good acting. Nothing remarkable, but the I could say a bit above average. The idea and concept is good and interesting, a demon that can come out only in the dark. Sadly they didn't do that great job with it.

The problem is, that it's just 80 minutes of jump-scares: the plot is shallow and predictable - explaining the backstory by a character in a dialog to another character is lame (why not make some cool flashback? Hospitals can be creepy).

Overall it's okay, but maybe a bit boring - there was no tension and excitement in-between, just jump-scares to jump-scares, like so many movies before this, which I got tired of after the first twenty minutes. The constant squeaking and scratching got actually quite annoying too at some point.

In short: it isn't creepy and scary, it's got few scenes that will make you boggle, but that's it. There isn't just anything new or amazing in this movie: I recommend you to wait til it's on Netflix, watch it from there.

Deadpool (2016)

A try-hard trying to funny, but ends up being just lame

[5/10 · 20 June 2016]

Ironically enough, the movie's worst character was Deadpool himself, and the only good parts of the movie were before he was not wearing the red suit.

I don't get the hype. The story was lame - let's just say that really, there happened nothing in the movie, but badguys getting kicked in the butt. The action is quite boring, filled with stupid slow-mo's and still images, which were ultimately ruined with the constant yapping and really just irritating jokes by Deadpool. And the 4th wall breaking - geez, it just got so boring, that I wished I could have breaking the wall and yell at him to stop this annoying thing they called movie.

I guess the movie was supposed to be fun with the jokes and all, but most of the time I ended up with a facepalm. As said above, ironically the only good parts were the serious ones, which those too were usually ruined at the end by Deadpool saying out loud another lame joke. The whole movie felt like it was scripted and acted by a bunch of teenage kids, who found out that there are funny curse words.

The music choices were bad, even though I get their point, but it just doesn't work. Everything in this film that was supposed to be cool and funny, turned out to be lame and just stupid. I just don't get what people see in this.

The sexy scenes and blood were just fillers, because, frankly, there was nothing else to the movie. Was it fun to watch? If you left your brains on the doorstep, sure - there are worse movies. But there are also better choices, even if you just want a good laugh, nice action, and a couple of nude girls; this had all those, but only those, and even movies where these are not the main things, you can find better.

In the end, I don't know who are supposed to be its audience: surely it's not for any adult that has his brain activity functioning correctly, nor is it for children because of it's gore, sex and repeated use of the f-word. Who is supposed to like this movie?

Gods of Egypt (2016)

Even with very low expectations, this turned out to be just okay...

[6/10 · 17 June 2016]

I watched it with low expectations after watching the general score, but after reading the user reviews, I decided to give it a try, unfortunately.

The plot was very expected, and there really wasn't much to it:

• SPOILER: - Good guy is becoming the king, bad guy prevents this and becomes the king instead. Defeated good guy mourns in self-pity, until an unexpected nobody comes cheering the defeated good guy back on his feet. Together they fight against the bad king and defeat him, and everyone lives happily ever after. It just couldn't be no more a typical bedtime story, with no whatsoever plot twists. - /SPOILER -

The acting was mediocre, if not pretty bad. There were many new and unfamiliar faces, and I understand why (they were not remarkable). Some of the better ones (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) and Gerard Butler (300, P.s. I love you)) were average, but otherwise, meh. Okay, if you get past this, you could expect at least a decent and fun action, right?

Well, that didn't go so good either, as the fights were in fact most cases fun to watch, if it wasn't for the, occasionally even horrible, CGI. Most of the movie and fight scenes looked more like a video game, than a movie. Although the choreography could have included some surprises, it'll pass.

Okay, it wasn't probably as bad as I made it sound there, but overall is was okay, and watchable - have seen worse movies. However, there really was nothing new for a fantasy, or an adventure or for an action movie.

It's okay movie for a random movie to watch from Netflix when you are having a hard time making up something else to do. But I wouldn't recommend to pay for it.

Warcraft (2016)

Well positively surprising, even for a Warcraft fan

[8/10 · 10 June 2016]

I think it was awesome. The action was great, and it really kept me hanging on edge of my seat. Even though the story differed somewhat from the games, it was well executed and fitted the movie to make it good.

Though, in the other hand the cons of the movie were also the story. At the beginning of the film, the story started out good, but last fourth of the movie was story-wise ruined, in my opinion. It didn't, however, ruin the movie, but knowing the story of the game, it was disappointment. So 80% movie was absolutely great and awesome, but the last 20% story-wise was a huge let down: if you don't know the story of the games, don't read it. Or else the end will be ruined.

Overall, apart from the story and ending was just spectacular. The orcs were done amazingly and the movie was just beautiful to watch. The action was breath-taking and keeps excited to the very ending of the movie, though the last battle could have been a little notch closer to a bit more epic, but was still great.

TL;DR: It is a must-see in my opinion, a best fantasy action since LotR, and does a good job competing with that. You will love it, if you're a Warcraft fan (apart from few story changes), if you're not, you will love it even more.

Dinosaur 13 (2014)

It's not of a dinosaur, but of a law case about a dinosaur

[7/10 · 4 June 2016]

I think it was good, and very emotional. It still wasn't what I expected. I thought I was going to watch a documentary about excavation of dinosaurs and all that is around them, instead 80% of movie is around the law case that was built around the dinosaur.

If you want to watch a movie precisely about dinosaurs, how they are found, how they are dug up, what were they, and how to they study them, this is not your movie.

Instead, most of the movie involves only a huge series of law sues and dispute about the ownership of the fossils. Yes, it is still done well, and it's interesting and most of all very emotional and makes you think the official authorities, and I had no problem watching it to the end, even though I noticed it wasn't I expected. It's just that, I guess I would have given better score, or received it better myself, had I known what this really was about. About law and court rooms, not dinosaurs. That was kind of disappointing.

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Good and well done, but just something's missing

[7/10 · 17 May 2016]

I thought it was a great movie, but to me it missed something, or it wasn't what I expected.

The plot was good and unexpected, but somehow the intensity and tension everyone speaks of didn't get me. I just sat there comfortably waiting, what's to be revealed next. I don't know, maybe I just expected more action.

I dialogue was great, probably the best part of the film. The characters were done great and the fact how the viewer got to know little bits about everyone little by little was notch on. The acting of the main characters was as expected - nothing to complain here.

In short: I think it was a great movie, fun to watch, I will definitely watch it again. There was just the "awe-effect" missing: when it ended, it simply ended, I didn't just stay there sitting, fascinated by the movie I just had watched, as a truly awesome movie would.