2 stars

The Way Back

The other day I watched “The Way Back” – a movie, allegedly inspired by real events, about a group of people who escaped a Soviet Gulag camp in Siberia back 1940s and walked their way to India. I’ve heard nothing of this film until a friend recommended it – no trailer, no nothing. When I read the brief plot description at IMDb, I got slightly worried that it would turn into one of those anti-Soviet propaganda movies. My wife shared the worries and even decided not to watch the film with me.

She turned out to be right. While there is plenty of breathtaking scenery shown in the film, and there is plenty of good acting, the propaganda makes it totally unwatchable. The film basically pictures the Soviet Union as one huge prison, where the government is after every single person, be he innocent or not, old or young, male or female, Russian or not. One doesn’t even have to know history to understand that that is a huge exaggeration.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining because the film pictured Russians (or Soviets) in such a bad light. It has nothing to do with whether they were Russians or not. Even if they weren’t of my own nationality I’d be complaining. I’m not even too sensitive to propaganda in the movies – Hollywood uses it all the time to praise the United States. The problem is that in this movie, propaganda is the primary objective. Everything else comes second. And it’s really a pity. Level down the propaganda and you’d have an excellent film on your hands.

As it is, I’d give it a 2 out of 5. It’s difficult to watch and it leaves a dirty aftertaste.

Gamer

Went to see “Gamer” in the movies yesterday. As you might know, I actually expected this film.

It turned out to be quite a disappointment – silly story with a lot of non-sense, very shallow characters, horrible dialogues, extremely annoying shaky camera and fast cut editing, and overall feeling of pop. There were some good special effects, but they were practically lost to fast cuts and horrible rush through the movie.

Overall rating 2 stars.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

The other day I went to see “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra“, which turned out to be the silliest movie I’ve watched in a while. Numerous special effects could feel the holes in the story and poor acting. And further down the road, all those special effects became nothing else but annoying. Things were flying back and forward, exploding, and flying more, without any reference to what is actually going on. Sometime it was even impossible to tell where the action is taking place – in space, high in the air, just above the ground, or under water.

On top of that, the dialogues were really awkward and unnatural with extreme levels of naivety. There was a chance for violence to redeem the film, but PG-13 cut all those changes.

Overall, the film is quite empty and visually tiring. 2 stars.

Punisher : War Zone

The other day I watched “Punisher : War Zone“. It turned out to be quite bad. Even awful at times. Yes, there were some special effects and action, but it didn’t make up for a complete lack of story, horrible acting, loads of nonsense.

The worst ever was the mafia boss, who was speaking half-English and half-Italian. Even without knowing any Italian, it’s obvious that he was way off the accent. For audience sake, didn’t the guy at least watch some other films with Itlalian mafia bosses? Crap.

Overall, a 2 stars. Try to avoid.

Pineapple Express

I just watched one of the worst films of the year, maybe even two – “Pineapple Express“. It’s one of those films which is not funny enough to be a comedy and not serious enough to be an action movie. All the main characters are stoned during the whole film, but being an average actors and not being actually stoned while shooting the film, that looks pretty bad. I mean, I’m all for people to do silly things, but people who badly pretend doing silly things, it’s just silly.

There were a couple of good scenes, but they were very short and far apart. There were some special effects, with explosions and such, but definitely not enough to save the film.

And on top of that, the film is rated 7.3 on IMDB, with more than 50,000 voters. I don’t know who all of those people are, but them being all in one place is actually scary.

My rating – 2 stars. Barely.