All User Reviews

Take My Breath Away

Based on a real hijacking, "Hijack 1971" is alas more fiction than fact. However, as you might expect from a Korean film, there is nothing woke.

This movie feels a lot like "Top Gun". Oh, now I see this website lists "Top Gun" in the list of similar movies below. With the movie replacing real events with Hallyuwood (Korean Hollywood) fiction, its artistic license is in danger of being revoked for reckless embellishment. Granted, the true events probably would not have made a good movie.

If you can view it as fiction, then it is a pretty good movie.

Griefing+Zombies+LoneSurvivor

Badass Lone Survivor learns how do deal with grief while helping others in his way to reach his sister that is in another state in the middle of a zombie break.

What the f*** are you talking about?!

Note: to find this film on this site you need search for "La bête", even though the title then says "The Beast"!

"The Beast" is a French film from 2023 that will leave you scratching your head. I am rapidly growing to hate art house sci-fi. Wokeness does not help.

I will endeavor not to spoil while trying to paint the big picture.

The film is set in three time periods: 1910, 2014 and 2044. The lead actress, Léa Seydoux, and lead actor, George MacKay, appear in each period as different but related characters.

In the film's reality, the "past lives" drivel espoused by gypsy fortune tellers is true and accepted scientifically. In 2044, an AI controls everything. It wishes people to become emotionless drones by purging their emotions linked to past lives encoded in their DNA. Not only is that absurd, but the lead characters don't seem to be direct descendants of their "past lives" counterparts. Thanks, I hate it.

Léa Seydoux looks like somebody hit Sydney Sweeney with a beauty stick. Alas, her good looks and acting are not enough to save this French mess of a movie. At one point her character yells to no one, "What the f*** are you talking about?!" Indeed.

Adding insult to absurdity is a body-positive, eye-spacing-positive, ghetto-chique, lesbian android of color. What the woke? This is enough to peg my woke meter, so I'll ignore the homicidal incel white male character.

And there are pigeons. Pigeons are a bad omen that indicate the director has jumped the artistic shark. I point to "The Remains of the Day" and the finale of Battlestar Galactica (2004) as other examples.

I expected David Lynch to do a cameo in a scene at the end, but no. The director says he was not drawing on Lynch for the final set. Sure.

In sum, "The Beast" is a mostly incoherent artistic rambling about nothing and everything. In the year 2044, we will have Robo-Lakeisha. We were promised Barbie-bots!

Low Budget Nonsense

Some DEI casting. Cheap CG. Acting and dialog are not so good. More bad writing. Terrorists blow up 2 bombs on a bridge trapping and cutting off the police van and they don't bother to immediately call in support even though the enemies take forever to work there way up to the actual transport they want to attack. The main character calls in 911 to report bombs going off and terrorists on the bridge and is told by operator they don't have the authority to dispatch anyone. Also if I'm understanding the badly explained story the woman being transported is a witness set to testify against the villains. That should be a WITSEC program with the U.S. Marshalls not a police prisoner transport as this is a federal military issue, and why would you put your witness who is a target in a bright red jumpsuit? Just one police van with 3 officers and no escort at all. The main villains terrible over acting is laughable every time he's on screen. There's not even any good action to save this low budget stinker.

Wasted Potential

The black friend is a token DEI hire. All the male characters are useless and just there to be killed. I actually don't recall a single female character dying or even really being hurt. Jester character is the highlight and has some creepy moments. The acting is not very good with a couple of average but mostly bat actors. Some awkward dialog and long conversations between characters hurt the pacing. Some jarring editing between scenes as well. Other than the F-bombs its all very PG-13. The blood is minimal with no real gore and the kills are pretty tame. The older sister is a nasty miserable generally unlikable character.

Within 3 min teen male character states he is a lover of boys. DEI heavy casting in the U.K. with an 83 percent white population. White girl is of course instantly attracted to the black kid who naturally the gay white male also wants. The straight white male is a complete p.o.s. who tries to assault a teenage girl and is killed. This is all within the first 20 minutes. By this time it's obvious this is going to be an agenda driven woke fest so that was it for me.

The panna cotta is the message

The Platform is a Spanish film with a straightforward dystopian premise that conceals surprising layers of complexity. I watched the dubbed version, which worked well. The movie isn’t overtly "woke" but is brutally violent and disturbing. It won’t be to everyone’s taste—obviously.

The concept is simple yet effective: prisoners on each platform level can only eat the leftovers passed down from those above them. By the time the food slab reaches the lower levels, nothing edible is left, symbolizing unchecked greed within society. Obviously.

Is this prison a metaphor for capitalism or socialism? Although most IMDb reviewers seem convinced it critiques capitalism, the setting reflects a welfare system more than a capitalist one. No one in the prison works; food is provided by the "state". This is socialism, obviously.

The film raises the question of whether it’s possible to change such a system to allocate resources more equitably. Here, it starts to feel like the director might believe socialism could work if only people made sacrifices for the common good, while at the same time the events in the film serve as an admission that this is a naive hope. Capitalism, by contrast, allows individuals to act in their own interest while benefiting others. Obviously.

In the IMDb reviews, user "TheKing87" provides an excellent analysis of the film's symbolism and rules. Honestly, it bumped my rating from a 4 to a 5/5. Here is a link to this insightful review:

https://m.imdb.com/review/rw5620229/?ref_=tturv_perm_7

Perhaps the film’s true message is simply, “Think of the children.” After all, the brutalities of our dog-eat-dog world impact them too. It’s an intense movie with much food for thought, but viewer discretion is advised.

Obviously.

Weird Science

Whereas in "Weird Science" a pair of teen boys create a hot older woman (Kelly LeBrock) to be their playmate, in "Poor Things" an old mad scientist creates a hot young frankenbarbie (Emma Stone), and sets her up with his sappy assistant. Hilarity ensues. /s

Although Emma is not very young here, 33 years old, her character has the mind of a child, literally. Sex with this woman-child is pedophilia with extra steps. She is surrounded by exploitative men. Even the one "good" guy in her life takes advantage of her, though ends up a spineless simp.

So, it's not looking good on the woke front, and then the movie throws in an honorable aristocratic dapper (gay?) black man, out of place in Victorian times. Also, the film sends the message that women are free to be literal whores, because some simp will still marry them after they decide to settle down. And pegging my woke meter is interracial lesbian sex where one is mentally underaged.

Compounding the problem is the cinematography, which makes the viewer feel like a voyeur who is trying to get off by spying on all this perversion. It is pedo-ception.

On the brighter side, the movie is set in a Dystopian steampunk timeline. Still, I felt they should have infused steampunk tech in many of the everyday items, not just the transport.

To sum it up, this quirky movie posits the question: "would you commit statutory rape on a retarded Emma Stone who has the mental capacity of a child?" It throws in so much woke (pedophilia, white man bad, DEI, lesbianism) that it would be difficult for readers of this site to enjoy.

Not Really Horror.

Nothing really woke. Main actress is actually pretty good, everyone else is terrible. The voice on the phone at the beginning is
notably awful. Sounds like someone reading of a cue card. Long drawn out awkward pointless conversations between characters that seem totally unnecessary. All of the dialog is poorly written and seems unnatural. The whole CPS interaction is nonsense. CPS cannot gain access to your home without a warrant. The likelihood of getting on based on 1 single generalized welfare complaint is pretty much zero. Even if you let them in voluntarily they have no authority to just run around your home looking wherever they want much less requesting to see behind a closed door then when denied open it anyway. Then when you find nothing just demand a follow up appointment with your child present. This writer knows nothing about CPS. The entire movie is shot
with minimal lighting making some scenes are to see what's even happening. I checked out at the 40 min mark but based on reviews elsewhere it gets worse as it goes.

Western With a Butch Lesbian

Lead villain character is a lesbian. Leading a dangerous group of men in the early 1900's. Lewis character's attemtp at being
threatening and sinister are a complete fail. She's just comes across as annoying and punchable. There's no real reason these men would follow her around and just take her garbage. Her voice is terrible making a lot of her lines incomprehensible. Multiple characters had chances to kill her and just don't for no reason. Dinklage opening scene is also laughable. He's 4 foot 5 and 100lbs but physically overpowers and beats up a large man with no trouble. The acting is hit or miss. The cinematography and atmosphere are very good, with some better writing and acting and drop the woke crap this could
of been a decent western.

Woke

A group of unsympathetic British hijackers taking control of a plane filled with passengers, primarily Arabs. The case is under the watchful eye of government agents – strong, capable women, of course. A young black protagonist delivering a pointed line to a police officer about buying a stationary bike to avoid random stops. A heroic black lead, and his wife – not just any partner but a distinguished physics professor.

Then there are the other characters, many of whom appear to check off various diversity boxes, feeling forced rather than adding depth to the story. Queer / gay characters whose presence seems intended to hit a quota, rather than contributing logically to the story.

And naturally, it’s made by Apple.

If any one or two of these elements were included, it might be no big deal. But the show seems intent on including everything, all at once. What was the name of that deep Chinese pan that holds everything together? Ah, yes – a wok.

P.S.
So, I decided to add my thoughts next day after I've finished watching it:
The three first episodes held a certain intrigue and felt somewhat realistic, even as the "woke-ism" was apparent throughout. But as the show progresses, the story loses plausibility, piling on unrealistic coincidences and deus ex machina moments that quickly erode its initial appeal, so I have deducted another point. And yes, it’s woke, woke, woke – practically to the point of parody.

Strong LGBT Narrative

The first season did a great job weaving the homosexual characters into the story so that they were a part of it. Now it's gratuitous.

Season 2 is spending so much time highlighting gay night life, you'd think it was Disney +. Paramount owns Showtime and they have long since bent the knee to DEI so it's no wonder.

They've taken a great narrative about Chief Harris and handed it over to a heaping dose of woke writers, with Game of Thrones level preoccupation with homosexuality.