All User Reviews

Nothing really woke here. Much like chapter one this isn't so much a terrible movie as it is mired in mediocrity and bad writing. This starts out where the first one left off and it had a lot of promise. The first 30 min or so are a throwback to classic slashers of the 70's and 80's with the survivor being stalked in the hospital. This does have the cliché empty hospital with no one around but that's a staple of these types of slashers so can't really complain to mush about that. However once she leaves the hospital the writing starts to fall apart. The entire premise to this franchise as a whole is random senseless violence by strangers. But here they feel the need to give them all backstory by way of flashbacks scattered through the movie. It's just not necessary and goes against the
entire point of the franchise. There's also the problem that the killers identity is telegraphed very early on who the killer really are so there is no mystery there either. The acting is ok, and the first part in the hospital is genuinely disturbing and creepy but after that there's really nothing much to see. The kills are run of the mill and should of been far more brutal to give more impact to the senseless violence killers. It ends with a to be continued in the middle of a scene so there's no resolution to this part either. I made it all the way to the end so it is somewhat watchable and after this much will be back for part 3 just don't expect mush going into this franchise reboot.
So for the bad
writing-some spoilers ahead............early on one of the killers is run through the leg with a pitchfork yet this scene is immediately forgotten as the character is running around not limping afterword's like it never happened. Then there is the boar attack scene, probably the worst most pointless sequence in the entire movie. She would have been mauled and most likely dead if attacked by a wild boar of that size. They even went so far as to give the boar a flashback origin scene for some reason.
After the attack she is dragging her leg struggling to stay upright then 2 scenes later barely limping like she has a mild sprain.

Maybe watch the middle of the movie

The problem with Heads of State is it starts and end preaching not so subtle liberal virtues and, Jesus, this film is DEI soup.

The middle of the film a fun, explosion-filled, action packed CGI blast fest.

We check every DEI box needing to be hit in the first action packed 5 minutes. Girl Boss is Salt. Like, Angelina Jolie in Salt. Angelina wasn't a girl boss. She was Salt. Noel (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) is the unstoppable girl boss and, yes, she's kind of bossy too. We also have supporting girl boss as the Vice President and Olga the Killer, each with less screen time than Noel. I didn't find them as egregious as they could have been. The bad guys, however are white and evil as can be. Every. Last. One of them. Including the most evil one of them all Stephen Root as the hacker with a flying toasters screensaver. Nice touch.

The adoration of President Will Derringer, silly hats, tattoos and pop culture all screams Trump except Will kind of reminds me of Jimmy Kimmel. It took me a while to get up-to-speed on Will. He is the class clown, laughable and a stupid Internet meme making jokes and screaming at the sky, some might say similar to Trump, until his liberal world views are exposed and we learn to love him in our hearts! He transitions from a MAGA goon to a real human.

And why is the British Prime Minister black? Lazy, stupid, DEI inclusion by dim writers. Could I do better? Yes! How about we make Sam and Will rival professional wrestlers. Sam is Eskimo or Native American. The two have a long and sorted past. Sam hit Will in the head with a folding chair years ago and Will still holds a grudge. That is not inclusion just for the hell of it. That's writing!

In the end, Heads of State almost comes off as a feel good movie, but it's kind of a let down. I want to keep it for a rewatch, but it's preachy and the adrenaline filled fun is always brought down right after by political jabs.

Surprisingly good

I remember seeing set images with a bunch of DEI but the movie doesn't reflect those i personally didn't see any (there might have been in the background) but still impressively accurate demographic wise for a movie this days.

Absolutely great

Been waiting for this since Breaking Bad. Overal a really good first 2 episodes. The LBTQ community is already pissed off as the first and only ‘lesbian’ character dies in the first episode. Calling it ‘buried its gays’ (Techradar article). Meaning it does not really play into the woke thought.

All in all, the first 2 episodes, woke-free.

Just browsing on Wokernot

I love this film. It is one of my favorites.

Freddy Krueger calling. Says he already did the swing around stuff.

Damn. Now I have to re-watch the first Black Phone because I can't remember what it was all about. I can't even remember if Gail (Madeleine McGraw) was in the first film and, if she was, did she have the little boy haircut. Why didn't she object to that haircut? No harm. This film has zero, absolutely none that I saw, crazy leftist propaganda in it.

I enjoyed it. Kind of annoyed that they did the whole "Nightmare on Elm Street" dream thing. The film isn't all too original, like it takes pieces from many horror movies, but there's a plot to keep us entertained, blood and a creepy Ethan Hawk.

Black Phone 2 has an evil entity that I really like, you know, there are horror movies where you just hate the evilness running around but this movie, very much like Nightmare on Elm Street, has a bad guy who's cool. Who's up for some Grabbin'! I'm The Grabber! I wasn't hoping for him to win and get out of hell, but I was neutral. If Black Phone 2 monster got out of hell and killed everyone, I'd be cool with that. It does kind of take itself seriously, so that's a minor deduct, but it's a good film all around.

Bollywood X-Men!

about as good as a Corman movie, but with more singing and dancing.

The script is drunken copy and paste, special effects are Tsui Hark, Chinese Ghost Story level but without the charm, and the acting without nuance.

Chopra is extremely attractive, Roshan is India's hunk (could easily pass off as Italian or Spanish, though), they both can dance, but it does not make a movie.

Made a killing at the domestic box office, though.

1 woke point 'cause the morality expressed in here doesn't sit well with me. Might be a culture thing. Well, morality _is_ cultural. Arguably.

Not any better

This one was sold to me with "Aamir Khan is the Indian John Malkovich" and "You need to see the full trilogy to really appreciate it".

Well, not convinced. Although this movie is among the highest grossing ever. Indian domestic.
Kahn and filming on location in northern America must have ballooned the budget, though.

The script is heavy handed, but yeah, I'll probably, at some point, take some time to try Khan more serious movies.

The cinematography is surprisingly decent, actually; the director got better with practice.
The discount Moore's era Bond special effects and vehicles are, well, Moore had the charm to sell them. It's a rare gift. The twin (practical) effects are not too bad.

Oh, it's almost 3 hours. It feels slow and repetitive too. A 2-hour cut would have earned an extra point.

More of the same

First opus made heaps of money, so a sequel was inevitable.

Cookie-cutter script, one dimensional characters.

The two leads have a WTF attitude that make their characters funnier, at least.

Rai is ludicrously gorgeous, and Roshan is stupidly handsome. They both can dance. But they sure can't play ball.

It's a long movie. Not only the runtime. Acceptable when second screening, but would not recommend.

You can tell very quickly where this was going right at the start. It opens with a CIA team spying on the movies villains. The team is made up of 3 white males 1 black male, 1 Asian male, 1 white female and 1 Indian female. Way to check the DEI boxes. The Indian female is of course the one in charge and is a total girlboss. Naturally the villains are white and there are the usual feminist 'badass' females characters everywhere. The op is compromised and all the males are easily and quickly
killed off while the girlboss is superhumanly invincible and amazing. We are then introduced to the POTUS John Cena. Once your done laughing at the absurdity of that bit of casting we meet the black Prime Minister, never mind there has never been a black prime minister. Naturally the president is a complete buffoon and an unqualified joke and ex-actor who is an abrasive loudmouth who only cares about popularity. It seemed to be trying to make fun of Trump but honestly I'm not sure if it's that or just the U.S. in general. The prime minister on the other hand is smart, intelligent and capable. Some of the acting is pretty bad, the action scenes are poorly done and the jokes just aren't funny. The DEI casting in general is through the roof and white people are a minority unless their villains or stupid. I couldn't take any more and gave
up about 30 minutes in.

Rapidly paced and mildly angered

Watched this on the (repeated) recommendations of a friend; predictably, half Indian himself.

I would say Temu Fast & Furious knock-off, but I haven't seen any F&F movie, and it's more of an odd couple buddy movie I guess.

As with many of my forays into Indian movies, it's mostly average form and little substance.

The people in there are better dancers than actors. The 2+ hours runtime includes probably half an hour's worth of dancing and singing. They're all quite fetching too, as expected from Indian movies.

The cinematography is comparable to late 90s direct-to-DVD. Better than 80s direct-to-VHS, I guess. Except for the musical pieces. They're much better quality than the rest of the movie.

The plot is very forgettable (I already have), standard fare. Not to put a too fine point on it, but I second-screened this (all three, really, I'm a masochist) while doing repetitive, non-demanding work, and I don't think I missed any twist.
I don't even speak the language this was shot in ...

This being Bollywood, no explicit violence or nudity while coming as close as censorship will allow, but also a strangely lenient moral relativism despite being ostentatiously manichaean in its presentation.

As for representation, this movie is full of Indians. Joke aside, every character is very light-skinned, so, yeah, colourism is still going strong over there. Well, was, 20 years ago.

If you can survive the Super Cringe

Cringe movies, in this case, where a weak couple from the "city", usually writers or bootlicking leftist socialists (whatever that entails) encounter powerful, evil tricksters that play mind games with them and attack them and make them cry are a tough watch. Think: Dark Night of the Scarecrow or Straw Dogs. Bone Lake is no exception.

I had to fast forward to near the end when the obligatory blood started flowing. We all knew it would. I guess we could consider Alex Roe's character Will a soy boy of sorts, and that contains woke elements, but I think it's part of the plot. I like Maddie Hasson. I can't tell if she's an excellent actress or if audiences like her, I guess, but she's great to look at. As for Bone Lake, Beavis and Butthead jokes aside, I'd skip it.