NoWo's Reviews
Sophomore slump
Script is a mess, extends in all directions and doesn't find its way.
Brolin and Del Toro reprise their characters, but with arguable success this time around.
This opus tries to imitate the style of its predecessor, but mostly pales in comparison.
Watch the first one. Skip this. No point.
Created: 06-22-2025
I found myself liking this
Watched this on several friends' recommendations.
Starting with the negative, it's a pretty cookie-cutter story about black ops on Mexican narcos, with out-of-the-box, ready-to-wear characters.
Then again, the actors manage to salvage their paper-thin alter egos. Del Toro and Brolin are excellent as usual, in their favourite register, as usual.
Blunt always brings commitment to her work (from what I've seen), and sells her Clarice Starling rather convincingly. And she's easy to look at. Not the most sugary of eye candies, but she does it for me. Probably not being objective here.
The script is unsurprising, but tightly focused and well paced. I have reservations regarding Villeneuve, but he does know how to tell a story.
What really surprised me, though, was the insane visual quality. Until I checked, and identified the director of photography as Sir Roger Deakins, Knight Bachelor of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Check him out, the bloke's got legit bragging rights.
As for wokeness, well, bad is bad, morals are grey for they who stare into the abyss, and the boss babe trope is completely avoided: Blunt's character gets manhandled by the bigger fellows around her, as expected given her small frame, and her character's lack of sheer malevolence.
All in all, not a fantastic movie, but a smashing watch.
Created: 06-22-2025
As real as it gets on the big screen
This movie depicts an engagement far from my time or place. Full disclosure, I never was with the US Marines or SEALs.
Still, most of the details ring true to me. Especially non-operational. What the blokes think, how they deal with the escalating situation, most of it.
Regarding tactics and procedure, well, it's still a movie. Proper distancing sometimes makes for poor cinematography, I guess. But it's mostly good, as far as I can tell. Which is not very far.
Square pins, UK sockets in Iraqi apartment, though, not so sure.
This movie does not have much a plot, beyond the pitch. In this case, it's a feature, not a bug. The plan is always the first victim of contact with the enemy.
Making good plans is a desirable quality. Making them fast is better. By the way, the movie feels real time. The vehicles ETA sure are.
I've seen criticism arguing the movie depicts the US military as incompetent. I'd argue to the opposite. The situation management depicted here is solid, at all levels. The men get showered in shite, and they push through. Might not be glorious, might not look good, but any combat you walk off from on your feet has a seed of victory.
The cast is solid, and have good, natural interactions. Natural in the context.
Jarvis from the Shogun series makes a comeback in this. Still excellent, but so are all the others, in admittedly not overly demanding roles, ie: ensemble cast and military operation context.
As an aside, one of the young actor is a D'Pharaoh McKay Woon-A-Tai. I'm not usually into taking the piss, but that is one hell of an unlikely name there. Could be a story behind it. Anyway, the guy is pretty good too.
This movie tells its story at the tactical level. It's about losing men, not troops. Time and place may have changed, but war remained the same for the muddies. Infantry's harsh.
Created: 06-22-2025
The Wakanda of the chess world ...
They don't have heroes, so they invent them.
Steal them, actually.
The main character is, in my opinion, Bobby Fischer, with small boobs and a tight little arse. Also, strangely, less insane.
But basically stealing the life story of a straight white male, and reskinning it as a strong independent female. Lesbian, obviously. In the '60s. Which still happened more often than a woman dominating chess. For those not familiar: same feeling as those 90 pounds waifs beating up 250 pounds commandos.
It's a touchy subject with me, considering how 'they' have successfully erased (Pierre) Curie from history, and are trying cancel Watson & Crick to push (Rosalind) Franklin instead.
The show is well made. Very much so. Taylor-Joy is good, undoubtedly.
But it crosses its Is and dots its Ts. Every white male a combination of stupid, crass and 'oppressive'. Every female perfect, because of course.
It's a sad thing that, being late to the party (the Party?), I give this only a 3/5 woke score simply because no character spontaneously breaks into a song about the joy of socialism.
Well, I haven't watched to the end ...
Created: 06-20-2025
Adkins falls short once more
As much as I like him, I have to admit Adkins will probably never star in a good movie.
Even the Undisputed flicks were all style and awkward substance.
Again, he proves he falls short as an actor. Not bad, just not good.
The actions scenes are competent albeit very artificial, as in 80s level of bad guys waiting for their turn to get punched in the face.
See the Terminator-like scene in the bar for an egregious example. The whole character is ludicrous, really. El Corvo. The Crow. Because why not.
The script itself is another throwback to the 80s. Crochet. More holes than matter. There are probably better written pornos out there. The filler between the money shots.
At least, the director of photography is having a blast, and it shows. The movie is probably a low budget endeavour (produced by Adkins and Zaror themselves), but it's simply gorgeous in a quite few scenes, and assuredly adequate the rest of the time.
As for wokeness, well, there's no message in here, political or otherwise. I suspect Adkins himself is quite left of center, but he keeps it under wraps. Male feminist ally, I would say. Disgraceful.
Still, he believes in equal opportunity face bashing: females get their noses kicked in the same way males do, quite similarly to Chinese movies of, well, the 80s. Actually, more so: the movie features several violent, close up female deaths, which must have Hollywood's collective pants in a bunch of knots.
Not advocating anything here, but at least it's realistic. Mindless killer is gonna mindlessly kill. Everyone. Not just white (mostly Hispanic here) males, as per usual American fare.
All-in-all a forgettable but somewhat enjoyable popcorn film. Could have been somewhat good for the paltry price of one decent screenwriter ...
Created: 06-20-2025
Funny Asterix remix, with retro-woke add-ons
This short series is pretty obviously a labour of love, or at least passion, from Chabat, and (most probably) friends.
It mixes elements from different Asterix stories, although I'm not versed enough in the lore to identify which, for a fast-paced, pretty comical result.
It's visually creative, adds some more modern elements (Fastanfurius the legionnaire ...), and a pretty good watch overall.
It's also very French, you probably need to dock 2 stars if you can't watch it in the original, so, there's that.
Sadly, it has the greatest blight of early 21st century wokism, namely morally and intellectually perfect female characters.
Well, supposedly, they just come off as bland, predictable, and frankly nagging, but hey, nobody ever accused your average leftist of self-awareness.
Thankfully, the pacing is brisk and well-controlled, meaning those extraneous characters have very little screen time. Silver lining.
At least Asterix and Obelix are indeed the main characters in their own show.
Also, and I have no idea whether these were imposed on the script writers, quick plugs of climate change, covid1984 being accidentally transmitted by eating bats, and such.
Ah, le sigh. Being funny requires more wit than intelligence.
Created: 06-12-2025
Slop
I gave in to my youngest wanting to see that.
This movie lacks a script, a director, and maybe someone to red-light the project before this mess was made.
Giving it a 1 for a few jokes slipped under the radar.
Momoa does his best to save his character, but polishing a turd only gets one so far.
Black is, well, par for the course in this dog and one-trick pony show. Crude over-acting, stupid singing and awkward homosexual overtones. Pinnacle of humour.
Not rating wokeness too high, as there's no overt political agenda. Except the white girl-boss. And the black loud female. And ineffective, stupid males. White, obviously. Even Black.
All-in-all on par with the Hoskins Mario movie. Or Dacascos' Double Dragon. Or the later Mortal Kombat installments.
It's so bad, it should have been directed by Uwe Boll.
Created: 05-28-2025
Average, but who's the target audience?
I watched this one not knowing the Japanese original, beyond that it existed, and assuming it would relate to the Japanese gambling genre, so, unabashedly over the top and hyper-intellectualized.
This American adaptation is not.
The depth is on par with a puppy’s piss puddle. The plot is a rather bland fare, and the twists are easily anticipated.
It does have a few things going for it, though.
First, it’s a short watch, at ten 30-minutes episodes. And attention is not completely required (although I may have missed some subtle plot points).
Second, the pacing is correct, and there is enough creative cinematography for the show to not be boring. Some visual cues are probably lifted from the original.
Third, the actors. They’re young, apparently unknown, trying their collective best, and they get off pretty well, considering the very peculiar script.
Solanke does honourably with a weak character, O’Driscoll and Alexandrova are quite adequate, despite maybe too much posing (but it goes with the genre).
Martineau is, to my mind, the hot chick version of Chow Yun-Fat. I don’t mean just being Asian; she does have the same sort of face, and tend to mimic his facial expressions.
The result is both very pleasant, and somewhat distressing. I’m never watching Hard Boiled again.
She does have the enthusiastic psychopath down pat, and will probably improve her femme fatale with a few more years on her. The rest of her acting is rather lacklustre, but this could honestly be due to a weak script.
On the bad side: Americanized. And not the good-ol-days America.
So, first, blackened. Or blackified. Black-faced? The Japanese have opinions about the darker-skinned denizens of the world, and very few of them in their art.
To be fair, Solanke’s character is not your typical ghetto/gangsta caricature, so there’s that.
On the other hand, Edwards’ Mary is a typical girl boss. Not Japanese ice-queen boss bitch, as the other females. American girl boss. And Edwards herself is a clear DIE casting choice, and blends very badly with the rest of the rather gorgeous female cast. No shade on the actress, she looks like the director forced her to pack weight for the role.
Also, weak males. Left and right. All around. And also stupid. But somewhat handsome. Seriously. Is something in the water turning the frogs gay?
Third, gender fluidity, strawman mockery of “traditional masculinity”, and pervasive sapphism, which could very well be in the original. None of these are pushed very hard, tough. Almost as if boxes needed checking, but reluctantly. Weird.
So, a triumph of form over substance, not a bad watch, but not memorable either.
Created: 05-21-2025
Everybody's got something to hide, except for him and his monkey
Like Billy Elliot, but straight. Mostly. With a monkey. Chimps are technically apes, but monkeys are more cheeky. And more fun by the barrel.
The lads speak like proper blokes. Like Harry Potter, but fun. Might be exotic for the Yanks. I think the Yankettes like that. That's a lot of likes. Channeling my inner Jersey girl. Normandy, not NJ.
The whole movie is pretty much apolitical. Williams comes from back when entertainers knew not to alienate half their audience. Fancy that.
As a movie, it's well-crafted, energetic, unapologetic, slightly self-reflective, sans the angst. The musical pieces also reminded me why I never was into boy bands. Or girl bands. Not the audience. Williams somewhat comes off as a Jamiroquai wannabe with Oasis envy, in a male Spice Girls act. Dreadful.
Being unfair here. From what little I've heard, he's a genial chap. Certainly seems so from his biopic.
Still, I enjoyed the movie. Probably means it's good.
And well, monkey.
Created: 04-26-2025
It's good, but not great
Well, the bar is now so low, simply not having Streep play Jesus in the Old Testament is almost enough.
I don't consider myself a scholar of the Bible, bit I'm pretty sure the writers played a bit loose with the source at times. Pretty sure monogamy wasn't a thing for the kings of the times.
At least, they did not introduce non-sense: men are men, with beards on their chins.
The cast is a solid ensemble of could-have-beens: talented enough that they could have had a bigger career, but not lucky enough.
Or too ethnic: they (almost) all look appropriately Semitic. No black-washing this time, go figure.
Visually, the series is adequate but uninspired. Or inspired, actually. Mostly Lord of the Rings (Lang's Samuel is very Gandalf-y), with some Dune, and a tad of Shogun.
Again, I'm not an expert on the period, but the clothing might be off part of the time, jewelry is sometimes suspicious, weapons are anachronistic more often than not, and the architecture, especially in wide shots, often looks Medieval, Central to Eastern Europe to me.
Anyway, the script flows well, narration is clear albeit not inventive, and the cast works hard at selling their parts.
Uloom and Fehr are stand-outs (always liked Fehr), Lang, well, is about as good as he was in Conan. Or Braven. He really should avoid filming with Momoa.
Created: 04-19-2025
