Friday, January 30, 2015

Project Almanac is pretty complex
















5 second plot: A group of (smart) friends builds a time machine. They use it to improve their lives. It starts with small things but it quickly moves on to more important stuff. And everyone knows you don't fuck with time. Because it can turn into a puzzle nightmare.

5 second review: I don't really like these film-it-yourself movies, but this one's do-able because the visuals are really cool. With this story they've managed to make time travelling movies even more complicated than they already were. I will probably be thinking about whether everything adds up or not for the rest of the week. But I already think it will be impossible to wrap my head around it.

IMDb score: 6,3/10
Our score: 7/10


Friday, January 23, 2015

12 Monkeys Season 1 Episode 2: Mentally Divergent


















5 second plot: Killing Goines didn't solve anything. Now the people from the future are trying to figure out what the Army of the 12 Monkeys is and means. They send Cole back to 2015 to find a patient in a mental institution. This happens to be Goines' daughter Jennifer. And then there's also a mysterious man who seems to be part of a secret organisation.

5 second review: It's obvious the party had to get started quickly because our main characters get so many clues at once, they don't know where to look first. Everything that happens is either too convenient or too far fetched (the picture of the mental institution's address taken when he was sent wrongfully to 2006 in North Korea anyone?). I'm not buying it.

IMDb score: 8,3/10
Our score: 4/10




Mortdecai is hilarious, really it is
















5 second plot: A famous painting is stolen and Mortdecai, a famous art dealer, is assigned to try and find it.

5 second review: Not a lot of people seem to like this movie. But I absolutely loved it. I had a smile on my face the entire time. I don't care what everyone else says. Everyone else is wrong.  Johnny Depp is hi-la-rious. All the side-characters (wife, man-servant, cop, villain,...) are simply perfect. And the running gags are brilliant.

IMDb score: 5,4/10
Our score: 9/10





Black Sea a tiny bit unrealistic















5 second plot: Jude Law is a submarine captain who finds out the location of a German submarine from WWII filled with gold. He gathers a crew to go after it. But not everything goes exactly as he had planned.

5 second review: Jude Law looks awfully tough. The thing I liked the most about the movie is the occasional funny dialogue: 'This wreck's gonna sink. Well it's a fucking useless sub if it don't.' True that. The thing I hated the most is the fact that it's on a submarine. I really hate submarines. And one other thing: it's very very very unrealistic. Very.

IMDb score: 6,5/10
Our score: 5/10


Everly is hilarious


















5 second plot: Everly is a sex-slave for a gangster that owns most of the city (including the police). Today she decides she has had it and fights back. Her 'boss' does not take this well and sends every man he's got to her room to kill her.

5 second review: A scarcely clad beautiful woman, lots of weapons, lots of bad guys to kill and blood flying all over the place (also a little bit of guts): now that's an awesome idea. Too bad it turns into unintentional slapstick from time to time. And between the battles, it falls flat on its ass. It's cool and ridiculous at the same time. I don't think they were aiming for that.

IMDb score: 5,1/10
Our score: 5/10




Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Atticus Institute doesn't always make sense



















5 second plot: In 1976 the military investigated a possession. A real possession. This is the mocku, ahum, documentary about those events. With interviews from the people that were there. And real life footage. Seriously real. No, not really.

5 second review: The possessee is pretty awesome. The movements, the screams, the looks,... brrrr, creepy. The documentary style is a little bit stupid. Some of the archival footage is clearly not archival footage. But desperately necessary to fill some plot-holes. I first thought it was building up to a whole bunch of nothing, but that's not the case actually. The ending is pretty cool.

IMDb score: 5,5/10
Our score: 5/10


Friday, January 16, 2015

12 Monkeys Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot



















5 second plot: In 2013 Dr. Cassandra Railly gets a visit from James Cole, who was sent back from the future (2043) to find and eliminate Leland Frost. Because this guy is responsible for killing 7 billion people in 2017 by releasing a virus.

5 second review: It's a little bit less crazy than the movie. For now at least. The show is pretty decent: it's well made, it's got great actors and it seems very interesting. I think I'm going to follow up on this one, because I'm curious about how it's all going to work out.

IMDb score: 8,2/10
Our score: 8/10


Blackhat has its moments















5 second plot: China and the USA need help to track down a cyber-terrorist. So they 'hire' a convicted hacker who's serving 15 years in prison.

5 second review: All the cyber-stuff seems a bit easy. And his fighting skills are too awesome for a computer nerd. The whole thing just feels a bit 'off'. But I don't think I was supposed to be asking myself all these foolish questions. Sure, no problem, but don't take yourself so fucking serious then. There are a couple of great scenes though. And the actors are quite alright. It's not a hard watch. If you don't ask too many stupid questions.

IMDb score: 5,5/10
Our score: 5/10



What We Do in the Shadows is unlike any other vampire movie















5 second plot: For the first time documentary filmmakers get a sneak peak in the life of (four) real vampires. They are all very different (one of them is 5000 years old) but get along very well. Now a new young vampire arrives on the scene and he complicates things a little bit.

5 second review: I don't think I have ever seen a vampire movie that made me laugh this hard. It's all very silly, not to be taken seriously at all but taking itself seriously from beginning till end. It's filmed in documentary style with hand held cameras but with good effects and make-up. It would have fitted better in a 30-minute short though, as an explosion of funny stuff instead of being stretched out.

IMDb score: 7,7/10
Our score: 7/10


Thursday, January 15, 2015

The Man in the High Castle Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot



















5 second plot: The USA has lost WWII and the Germans and Japanese have divided the good old country in two. It's not a very nice place to live and of course there are resistance groups on both sides. From both sides two newbies to the cause go to a place in the neutral zone. They don't yet know what they'll have to do but they'll figure it out when they get there. So they think.

5 second review: The concept is great and the production design is too, but this first episode just didn't cut it for me. It did not spark my interest at all. I don't feel like there is a need for more ass-hole Nazi's on the screen.

IMDb score: 8,3/10
Our score: 5/10


Friday, January 9, 2015

Inherent Vice is a mind trip
















5 second plot: Doc is a private detective in 1970 in Los Angeles. His former girlfriend disappears right after she asks him for help. He goes on a quest to find out what happened to her. On his path to answers, he meets a lot of weird people and ends up in a lot of fucked-up situations.

5 second review: I didn't always understand what the fuck was happening in this mind trip of a movie. I seriously thought I was losing it at one point. I don't know whether to love or hate it. I guess it's somewhere in the middle. The thing that keeps me from balancing towards the hate-side, is the awesome cast.

IMDb score: 7,2/10
Our score: 5,5/10


Time Lapse is not all that bad
















5 second plot: Callie, Finn and Jasper discover a machine that takes a picture of the future every day (one day ahead). They start using the machine for their personal gain. But after a while it seems like the machine tries to mess with their heads.

5 second review: First up: that's a cool machine. Secondly: what is Danielle Panabaker doing with these two douche-bags? It seems like the actors had to warm up to working with each other as the movie goes along. And I had to warm up to them (not Danielle of course, she's awesome). But they get fired up somewhere along the line. It's a pretty interesting story and it's quite a decent movie.

IMDb score: 6,5/10
Our score: 7/10


Taken 3 is spectacular
















5 second plot: Cool cat Bryan Mills is accused of a murder he didn't commit. He doesn't want to wait for the police to figure it out, so he goes on a quest himself to find the real killer.

5 second review: I know what you're thinking: this crazy Taken-party can't last forever. I thought so too. But I was wrong. This third movie's got the same crazy energy as the first two. It's a simple but very cool action movie. What I don't like though is when a filmmaker 'interferes' with the positive outcome of the previous movie. That's a no no.

IMDb score: 6,2/10
Our score: 7/10


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Agent Carter Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot















5 second plot: It's 1946. Peggy Carter, Captain America's girlfriend, is working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. The men don't take her seriously. What they don't know is that she's secretly helping Stark Senior to recover a bunch of state of the art weapons that got stolen.

5 second review: I really liked Marvel's One-Shot back in the day so it kinda came as a surprise that I didn't particularly like this Pilot. It looks a bit 'fluffy'. I get that they try to create that '40s vibe, but the costumes and sets already do that. I do like the gadgets, the humor, the fighting skills and all that, but something feels 'off'.

IMDb score: 8,5/10
Our score: 5/10


Friday, January 2, 2015

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death is nothing new


















5 second plot: It's 1941, WWII is raging and we're back at Eel Marsh House. This time there is a whole bunch of kids staying in the house. Refugees from the big city to hide from the bombs. But we all know the woman from the title eats little kids for breakfast. So to speak.

5 second review: There are a couple of great jump scares, the dead folks are really scary and the sound is really eerie. But it's also a lot of the same. I don't think I will be checking out number 3 anymore (if they decide to make one). Let's leave it at this.

IMDb score: 5,1/10
Our score: 5,5/10