Before jumping into this review, I do need to admit my possible bias – I’ve watched this film about 3/4 weeks after it dropped on Disney+ (that doesn’t seem that bad, but in today’s world, where you are supposed to watch everything the first minute it comes out and have a review ready the second minute it’s out, it almost feels forever ago). I haven’t read any reviews for the movie, but I’ve heard pretty much everybody and their grandma saying that this was a huge misfire on all cylinders. So I’ve braced myself for the worst and one Saturday afternoon, pushed the play button… what I’ve gotten was something so uniquely bad, I couldn’t believe and it brought me back almost two decades.

Why? Because at the beginning of 2000’s, I do remember these movie being really popular (even though I’ve never seen it), I remember similar movie called Agent Cody Banks (2003) existing and again, I’ve only watched the trailers for that movie, that to this day stayed with me for being so cheesy and bad, that while watching Artemis Fowl, I got a reminder that set me back almost 20 years ago. I can’t comment on quality of Agent Cody Banks (maybe it’s a hidden gem for all I know, even though the IMDb rating of 5.0/10 says a different story) but I can comment on this movie and… where should I start?

This movie feels like there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen, as you won’t convince me for a second, that Sir Kenneth Branagh directed this in the exact way he wanted. I’ve seen a few movies in my relatively short life to be able to tell when the studio interfered too much, and this is unfortunately the prime example of that. Which is something I’ll never understand – they (studio, in this case, Disney) buy the rights to really popular book series, and than they kind of ignore the story of each book and do a bit of the first one, a bit of the second one… this approach always puzzled me, as I don’t think this approach has ever worked (The Dark Tower (2017) has entered the chat). And I am not saying the need to adapt the books precisely in the way they are written, no, as even Harry Potter movies leave out bunch of details, but the main reason the movies worked as well as they have, is they respected the story elements! If something happens in the second/third book, there might be a reason to use it in those movies, not trying to mix it into the very first one, because it’s a cool idea. I have read the Harry Potter books before the movies were done and I am a fan of both.

And I am writing this as a person, who has never read a single Artemis Fowl book, but from what I’ve read after I’ve watched this movie from the fans who love it, that’s exactly what they have done here, they have taken certain parts of first 3 books and mixed them together. Unfortunately, it does feel like that.

This movie just feels like a childish wanna be adventure, where some parts of it are inspired by Harry Potter (ferries/magic exists) mixed with Men in Black series (where they need to keep it a secret, so they can manipulate time in order to erase our memories) sprinkle some big budget on top of it with Colin Farrell and Judi Dench and you have… a big mess of a movie, that’s all over the place tonally, story wise (plenty of times I wasn’t sure whether I’ve missed something, or movie relied on me knowing the books…?) and it just feels more cringey than the filmmakers intended.

What pains me the most is I 100% believe that the books are way, way better than this and if Artemis Fowl was done right, we could’ve had a new franchise on our hands. But this has flopped really hard, where the chances of this movie getting a sequel are slimmer than Kanye winning the 2020 presidential race (even though, with 2020 being the year of everything goes, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore).

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

As weird as this might seem, I’ve loved Rambo ever since I saw the first movie when I was about 11/12 years old (you know those uncles, that show you what they grow up on…? Exactly.) and that is why I was looking forward to the latest, and from the looks of it, the last Rambo movie (at least with Sylvester, somebody will probably do some sort of “son of Rambo” or “third cousin twice removed, whose dad kind of knew a guy, who once looked at Rambo from a distance) they will make. And the results is… a pretty mixed bag.

Rambo: Last Blood doesn’t feel personal. Let me explain what I mean by that. Plenty of people have this franchise associated with Rambo being this undestroyable killing machine, who’s taking out fools by hundreds, has muscles on top of muscles and doesn’t really talk that much. But they seem to forget that the very first movie (who’s often miscalled Rambo, but its actual title is simply First Blood (1982)) was actually a really good drama/reflection on Vietnam war, focused mainly on treating the Americans, who fought there by the general public right when they came back. I dare you to re-watch it, and you will discover, that it’s more a drama than anything else. The sequels made Rambo into the “punchline” we all know and parody now, but even those sequels still felt “personal”, where it was about him and dealing with the trauma (in a very bad way, don’t get me wrong) and the darkness in his soul.

This movie tries very hard to play with that, and if done correctly, this could’ve been so great. But instead of centring the story on Rambo in his later years and how he deals with everything, we get a story about him living on a farm (ok) with some maid (ok…?) whose granddaughter just needs to find her real father in Mexico (… I mean what?), even though she’s warned by every single character in the movie (meaning her grandma and Rambo) not to do it, yet she goes and of course get kidnapped and sold (?) into a sex slavery, so Rambo needs to find her… If you are thinking “well, that seems random”, you are not alone. And this is where this movie fails the most – why should we care, as an audience, about these random people in a RAMBO movie…? Even the sequels, no matter how ridiculous they’ve gotten, were always centred around Rambo and his Vietnam war experience. This didn’t feel like that at all. You could take this script, take the name “Rambo” out of it, and make it with anybody, and it would probably work slightly better, as it has no tie or relation to Rambo whatsoever. It’s interchangeable. Instead of being more like the very first movie, this ended being much more like the sequels. And as much as I can enjoy them in their own way, that’s not a way to say a goodbye to this legend.

The last 30 minutes or so, when Rambo actually kicks ass and defeats pretty much every single bad Mexican there is (I swear, if this movie was a reality, Americans wouldn’t need any walls or anything, as Rambo just cleaned up Mexico once and for all) were actually entertaining, but it was a bit too late at that point. And the ending with the “Rambo over the years” montage felt so undeserved. Don’t even get me started on the scene right after that montage…

What could’ve been a proper “back to the roots” ending of a franchise, that would honour the previous movies, just kind of fallen flat, with the last 30 minutes or so being the clear highlight of this otherwise average, not personal movie. For a screen icon such a as Rambo, it feels underwhelming. This also points out one clear fact – we could only be grateful that Creed (2015) and Creed II (2018) were as great as they were, as they had somebody behind them who actually understood what that franchise was about. And, with all all due respect to the creators of this movie, they didn’t seem to understand what made Rambo (mainly the first film) into such an icon. Shame.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Before getting into this review properly, I need to start with a bit of a story from my life, that should shed some light on why this movie (despite all its flaws) is one of my favourite action movies of the late 2000’s.

When I was in high school, I was pretty decent student, but math wasn’t my favourite subject in the world, to put it mildly. And there was a real chance that I’d fail my math class in my first half of the school year (in the Czech Republic, high school works in a way that you’d get 2 result cards, one at the end of January and one at the end of June, and if you fail one subject both times, you need to repeat the entire year) so you can imagine it was fairly stressful time for me. So I’ve stayed up and studied for this really important test, and the night before, couldn’t even sleep for the most of the night, that’s how nervous/terrified I was. After the test was done, we’ve had a decently “off” day, as Xmas was approaching, so we didn’t really do much rest of the day, as the other subjects were already finished for that half a year, so we’d watch movies in school. And somebody brought this one.

I remember thinking, even though I have loved movies even back then, then I’ll just try to take a nap, as after the test, the nervousness finally disappeared and the restless night caught up with me. But the moment this movie started, it pulled me in and pumped my veins full of adrenaline, that lasted to the very end of it. I’ve felt like I’ve just had 6 coffees poured straight into my veins and the rest of the day I’ve actually felt amazing. Because that’s what this movie is.

Death Race should be judged by what it is trying to be – an adrenaline ride, that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, with some pretty great actions sequences, where the destruction of a particular large vehicle is just breathtaking, especially the first time I’ve watched it. That was my very first experience with this movie and even though it might sound weird, in relation to this movie, this is why I love movies. They have the power to take you and transport you some place else, give you the spark you might need. I don’t think I had a similar situation happen to me prior, or since that time, definitely not to that extent.

Couple of days ago, I’ve decided to re-watch this, as I haven’t seen it in about 10 years, and I still had a blast. It wasn’t anywhere near as “meaningful” of an experience as it was to me that one December day, but I still had fun with this movie, as I really respect when film don’t pretend to be something they are not. Death Race knows this movie is not an Oscar winning drama, or some sort of high art. It knows this movie is just a pure, simple “dumb” (in the best possible sense of that word) fun, that if you let it, it will entertain you too. Plus, where else you’ll see 3-times Oscar nominee Joan Allen go up against Jason Statham? Exactly, that’s what I thought 😉

Realistically, I could see this movie is not that great, but honestly…? I can’t judge this film harshly, if only because of that one day, it helped me get through something that wasn’t easy and sometimes that’s all it takes.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Terminal is a strange movie. On one hand, I really liked the aesthetics, some of camera work is great and the movie has a perfect length, where it doesn’t drag on for too long, but… everything else is so heavy handed, or predictable, that it knocks the movie down.

The main crux of this movie is – bunch of assassins going after each other, in unspecified part of the world, all situated at train terminal. Very roughly, without going into any spoilers yet, that’s it. This modern film-noir then takes the route of being really stylised, dialogue heavy movie, where nothing is as it seems, and there are a few twists coming your way. Some you will see from the very beginning, some will only surprise you because movie wants you to be surprised (doesn’t give you plenty of clues, so you know there is something else coming, but don’t know what).

It’s difficult to go into why it didn’t work for me without going into the spoiler territory, so…

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

This movie has several twists. And as I’ve mentioned, plenty you will see coming a mile away (identity of Mr. Franklyn, the fact Margot Robbie‘s character might have a twin sister) and others you won’t really see as you had no way (who Simon Pegg‘s character really is, or the “main” twist of Mr. Franklyn being related to Margot’s characters). And where the movie was meant to be great because of these, it just felt… meh. I don’t know why, because I need to repeat myself, stylistically, I did enjoy this movie. But I don’t think it’s as clever as the movie thinks it is. Some parts of the screenplay reminded me of Quentin Tarantino, but without any of his “magic”. And some visuals, and editing reminded me of Edgar Wright, but without any of the genius, that would give the movie anything extra.

Most of this movie almost felt like it knew, it might not be that strong or clever story, so it tried to “hide” it using these visual crutches that would work for the filmmakers mentioned above, but they didn’t and here’s why. Both Quentin and Edgar, use these in a way that elevates something they already thought of, not as a distraction. Or it never feels like that in their movies. Especially the visual gags and editing style of Wright’s movies often add an extra layer of enjoyment for some jokes, or even story points, so when you re-visit his movies second, third time, you’d notice something new each time. With Terminal, you notice everything almost immediately, and if you didn’t, the movie makes sure it hits you over the head with it, so even if you only paid attention half the time, you’d get it. It’s almost like the movie doesn’t trust its viewers to be able to handle this story. And for a movie, where several times different characters mention “Who says mystery is a lost art?”, that feels slightly disappointing.

I did like the cast, mainly Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Dexter Fletcher who were all great. Even though, towards the end, Margot’s performance felt little too over the line, where I understand her characters called for her being off the chain, balls to the walls crazy, but last 20 minutes or so, it felt like overacting from her, just a tiny bit. And I’m a huge Margot fan.

I can honestly say that if this movie came out in mid 2000’s and if I were to see it when I was around 15 or so, I’d have probably loved it. And there will be people who will see it at the right time in their life, where it will be their version of how great a mystery noir film can be. But not for me, unfortunately, as pleasant aesthetic is not everything and the story feels like something I’ve seen before a few times with 2 extra twists, just to mask the fact everything else is re-hashed. And with IMDb rating being 5.4/10, it looks like I am not the only one thinking that.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke