NoWo's Reviews
Never reaches the summit
An excellent direct-to-DVD movie (there, I show my age).
As a theatre movie: seriously? Why? Why shoot your whole movie with no depth of field? Why film with a potato?
Also, why does Neeson keep acting in these action flicks? Bloke's past 70 now, and rich as can be. I'll admit he still holds up well for his age, though.
Fan is devastatingly charming, and goes 110% into her role. Morrell is more fun than a barrel of Aussie monkeys.
The storyline is full of holes and less than griping (watched this as a 3-parter, doing something else); exterior shots are nice but could have used professional photography. They're unexpectedly grounded in realism, though; almost part documentary. Or amateur travelogue.
I've watched worse in the 80s. It's still a rather bad movie. But it has a quirky charm.
Created: 07-06-2025
on par with episode I
So, as Star Wars episodes I-II, it brings shame to the original trilogy, while appearing not so bad compared with subsequent efforts (Rings of Power comes to mind, but thankfully briefly).
Full disclosure, I have not watched the 6 latest SW.
Inexplicable ethnic diversity grows worse, extraneous girl-bosses too.
The elf CGI are atrocious, worse than the oliphant-surfing scene in RotK (I think).
Gandalf looks cool, though. Smaug's alright, although the economics implications of his gold stash are, well, it's fantasy.
Let me not forget Frye: as much as I like the chap, his attempt to portray the evil right-wing capitalistic despot of Laketown is incredibly heavy-handed, and evokes only infamous right-wing dictators such as Stalin, Mao or Pot.
Seriously, Laketown's problem is not free market, it's obviously its socialist utopia, its historic charismatic leader having been overthrown by a garden-variety populist communist.
Visually impressive but regrettably forgettable, my youngest liked it, we bailed out before the end.
Created: 07-06-2025
Not everything is better reheated
The Hobbit is a children's book, short and self-contained (originally).
It does not contain enough material for a 9-hours trilogy.
This movie massively reuses assets from the LotR movies, not only to reduce costs, but also to score sympathy by association.
By necessity, it adds huge amounts of original material. Original, but lackluster.
What it fails to capture is the epic dimension of the previous movie. One of my gripes at the time was treating the dwarf as a comedic sidekick (because, dwarf tossing).
13 times the dwarves (eat your heart out, Snow White), 13 times the tonal dissonance. It's jarring.
As many movies in the decade since, this one oscillates between heroism and deconstructive, meta-"humour".
The joks are predictable and fall flat, taking with them any aspiration to grandeur.
Because heroism is masculine, and we don't like masculinity, do we.
1 point for wokeness, mostly because irresistible urge to introduce 'original' one-dimensional girl-boss characters, and inexplicable ethnic diversity.
Worse shite has been written around Tolkien (Rings of Power, anyone?), but this is tedious, and made somewhat palatable only because of its forebears.
Created: 07-06-2025
Tired, try-hard and boring
With the French bloke out, it's all females and their gay best friends.
The Noriko - sorry, Quynh - subplot fares barely better. Leaves some room for secondary character to breathe, which they don't really do. Except Booker. Schoenaerts is clutch.
Lots of sudden cuts in the first part, lots of exotic locales.
This movie felt to me as though it was trying real hard to whip itself into a good mood.
Trying - and failing - to establish a lore. The result is muddled, conflicts with the previous movie, and builds nothing.
In that way, it really does emulate the Highlander movies (although there can be only one).
I suspect Rucka's also trying to draw from Vampire the Masquerade lore, in an attempt to bolster his flagging creativity. Metuselah and stuff.
Thurman has grown old. Unkindly so. Especially compared to Theron, who's only 5 years her junior. And she's less than a decade older than Ngo. She still has that effortless elegance, and that genial charm, but not that unexpected beauty. Still a top notch actress, though.
Theron works hard to carry the movie. She's an excellent actress, but still sluggish in fight scenes. Atomic Blonde worked because the choreography was tactical, not physical. And she was younger.
Layne is still young. Meaning she's either badly coordinated, or just lazy with her training.
As a note, the "walking through the ghosts of the past" scene is just brilliant. A minute of grace in an unispired movie.
The rest is trudging through the motion. Anybody with two brain cells knows what is going to happen. But it comes slowly.
Also, this opus is less aggressively anti-male and anti-white than the previous. Studios must be starting to realize which side of the toast is buttered. Maybe they shouldn't grow too lucid, lest they realize most of them are the walking dead.
All-in-all, not bad, just tepid and directionless. Oh wait, this means bad.
Not sure the third movie this is desperately trying to build up to will be made.
Created: 07-05-2025
Here we are, born to be yaaasss queens of the universe
The Old Guard is, in its own way, an attempt to spin off the Highlander mythos. It does add some interesting character building to the immortal theme. Although one should probably go to the comic for that. Most were 'simplified' (dropped) for the movie. Like most of the old guard being technologically retarded.
Rucka, the original comic book's writer, is a proud Portlander. Guy has always been something of a lefty, but I still liked some of his stuff. Mostly Queen & Country, not into super-heroes.
He did seem to come down with full-blown TDS in the last decade, and turn complete male feminist to boot. Lovable chap.
So yeah, somewhat woke, although it used to be he wasn't too overt in his writing.
The cast is ethnically diverse, as per the comic, although the opposite would be weird in context. Some race-swapping, though: incidental good guys are suddenly non-white. Dr. Menguele is suddenly female, though, go figure.
Still, what are the odds of an openly gay couple among 4 characters? Also, Rucka's not big on details: homosexuality did exist, but definitely not in its modern form, especially around the Caroline Renaissance.
The Scythians had (probably) female soldiers, but mostly in the form of mounted short bows (possible origin for the Amazons legend), not axe-wielding maniacs. Plus the axe is some sort of weird ass labrys, and not a sagaris. Why a woman of the steppes would carry a Minoan symbol of divinity is beyond me. On par with a Scottish goat-herder swinging a katana. Well, she does have a Greek name and a Norman face, so there.
Rucka's an avid practitioner of historical revisionism anyway.
Unburdened by what has been, indeed.
The movie adaptation does add wokeness. Andromache, very much hetero in the comic - basically a sex fiend - now sports a butch cut and a sapphic sub-plot. Complete with that old feminist dog whistle (bitch whistle?), of witch trials. Which killed many more men than women, but hey, victims, amirite? Also, the women in STEM one.
Theron is, by what few accounts I've seen, a revolting human being, but she does put in the work.
The rest of the cast is on par with her: no glaring shortcomings. Ejiofor is the stand-out, expectedly.
Quite a few good, albeit semi-original ideas, competently set to film, but strong female possibly homosexual boss babes, black female saviour, weak, homosexual and corrupt males, usual anti-historical talking points. It's Hollywood, baby.
Created: 07-05-2025
Could have been excellent
Hoult and Cage are brilliant - for once, Cage is not the only main character. Hoult is shaping up to be consistently good.
The movie itself is tongue-in-cheek, colourful and irreverencious.
Sadly, it's marred by girlboss syndrome - which could make sense in context - but males are uniformly bubbling incompetents. It's played for comedy, but, white blokes exclusively.
Awkeye final - Aqua fina - the female lead - seems close to developing an acting ability. Also, comedic timing. Same character, same act as in Shang-Chi.
It's wonderful that her career began before she was ready. I mean, for her, not for us. Must be her physique. Or not. I hear she's a rapper too. Hopefully, it's all I hear.
I really liked the photography. It is, as previously stated, colourful. And expressive. Far from the usual Hollywood orange and teal.
Good movie, sadly trying to trend toward the 'modern audience', which I am not part of.
Could have been excellent with a less sexist/racist script, and a better actress.
Created: 07-03-2025
Lost its spirit
Cage is fat and tired, Elba is off his pace (French? Seriously?), rest of the cast is mediocre, character parameters have radically changed, the camera work is jittery and chaotic, the colours are weird in a bad way, and everything feels cheap.
The excavator scene even feels cheap with money. Nouveau riche.
The movie trudges through the motions. Even Lambert fails to behead anybody. Head fails to guide anyone.
I was doing something else during the second half.
Created: 07-03-2025
Grindhouse Ghost Rider
Cage's weird as a blonde. Well, weirder. And he finally stole that black Mustang.
Fichtner is an absolute blast. He seriously deserves better. Heard is hot as it gets (it's an old movie), and an absolute bitch. She plays one too.
A bit heavy-handed. Milton. seriously? Low budget too, but it's part of the charm. Well, hopefully the budget was low.
And the cinematography does not compensate for it.
Well, they do get 8 shots from a six-shooter. Fanning the hammer's its own kind of magic.
All in all, not so bad.
Created: 06-30-2025
This has no right to be this good.
Well, it's mostly due to Malkovich, who steals the movie despite the paper-thin character he's been given. Buscemi does a smashing job with his own caricature of a character, though. Add Cusack's solid performance, and Cage is out of his depth in this.
Bonus short role by Chappelle.
It's an action movie. It's stupid but enthusiastic, and a pleasant watch.
Created: 06-30-2025
