Reviews

It looks good and has a familiar space opera story. Sure, it's not designed to be a part of Star Wars Galaxy, but it's pretty similar, just adds bits and pieces of other space operas (Dune, Robot series...). Unfortunately, it's not very interesting, or original, innovative or fun or profound, or, at long last, entertaining. With The Book of Bobba Fett, each episode was not very long, so it was better used as "something to look at while resting after work", while Rebel Moon is way too long for such use.

There are also many smaller issues. None of these actors is very good. Some of the fight scenes are pretty bad, at times Sophia Boutella's opponent visible waits for her to get into position, rather than striking her while she's vulnerable. The "genius General" is built like a competing body builder after spending years as a bump on the street! And, really, it's completely implausible that Sophia Boutella would be "the most dangerous warrior ever".

The story is very slow for no particular reason. They spend most of the movie collecting the "Dirty Dozen", but then just a bit actually doing something. Sure, it's designed to be Part I, but a good Part I would be more complete. Original Star Wars was also designed to be a part of a long saga, yet it was fine on its own.

It's not so bad as to make you not want to watch Part II, but it surely doesn't make you eager for it.

It's not bad. It's much more mature than previous Guardians. Unfortunately, more mature doesn't mean better.

The best part of Guardians was they were fun. First one was also pretty funny. This one is almost no fun at all and it's certainly not funny.

A lot of it has to do with music. Now, sure, 90s music was way worse than 80s (used in previous installments), but, still, I'm pretty sure several good songs could have been found.

The girls are not hot, while they used to be. It's strange, 'cause Gillan and Debicki are actually in their prime, but actually Saldana is the least "cold" of the three.

The only ones trying to have fun are Dex and Mantis, but it just doesn't work, they just get points for effort. Starlord was probably the funniest, yet he's just pinning about Gamora the whole time, which understandably angries her. Gamora is also no fun, she's just angry.

Adam Worlock is a buffoon, but not a funny one. The villain, High Evolutionary, while being a little interesting as a more realistic foe, doesn't pose much of a threat and is not fun.

Even the Nathan Fillion appearance is not very fun or funny.

The story, while more mature, is also underwhelming. A lot of time is wasted in the silly interaction between Rocket and his caged genetic experimented companions. That time could have been used to show just how deep of an impact Rocket's predicament has on the Guardians.

The ending is the most underwhelming. There's no substantial reason for the band breaking up, except for Gamora, but this Gamora was not part of the band to begin with. Why does Nebula suddenly decide she wants to be the mayor? It's fine for Starlord to visit his grandpa, but to forego the team he created in order to "learn to swim"... the metaphor is actually not very clear, which might be fine for a poem, but for a superhero movie?

All this leads to the "most important thing". Groot finally says something other than "I am Groot"... and it doesn't work! It's very disappointing and underwhelming.

At the end, it says that Starlord will be back. It would be nice for him to come back for one last laugh, as this doesn't really work as a goodbye for him (nor most other Guardians).

It's a jumble of stuff. None of it is very good, but few are truly bad. So, all-in-all, it's watchable, but only barely.

First part is more fun. It has a few jokes that work, even though they are not very good. The problem in this part is that De Armas' character is completely ridiculous. This is a small girl, almost slender, so when she hits or kicks guys thrice her size with little leverage and they fly away, it makes no sense, nor is it interesting or funny, as everybody seems to take themselves too seriously. The plot is also very implausible, for no good measure.

Second part tones down the implausible, but it also tones down the fun. The thing is, what you get is not good enough for a thriller/action movie and it's not fun anymore...

The Chris Evans' Marvel co-stars cameos are not nearly as fun or funny as advertised. Ana de Armas is not hot, not even cute, as much as advertised. Chris Evans can do much better comedy (and, ladies, I'm afraid to say, does not take off his shirt even once!).

Basically, the only reason to watch this is if you're a fan of the leads and you've seen all their better movies already.

In short, this is a survival movie in which we don't get to see how the main character survives.

In more words, while the idea is interesting, it's full of implausible things. This young woman of regular build, doesn't work out much, but can climb a metal rod without equipment for 30 feet, in the terrible heat after a day (or more, because who can really know - it's that bad) of being stranded up in that same sun and cold desert night, without much water and nutrition. Did you ever try to merely touch a metal rod standing in the summer heat? Not only that, but she can than hold herself there with her slender arms and legs for a time to charge a medium sized drone from what seems like a regular charger, which seemingly takes hours. I mean, this movie is full of such things.

In the same sequence, as a pivotal moment, when she gets up, she can't connect to power source, because the plug is to short. So, to fix that, she uses her wedding ring... but, this can't possible work. The ring would have connected the phase and the zero lines, causing a short-circuit, that would have blown out the fuse. I mean, these are basics, people learn about this stuff in primary school. FWIW, it would have actually been an interesting, if implausible, idea that she causes the fuse to blow, which is then detected remotely and a crew of electricians drives over to fix it and then sees her.

Acting is very bad, these two girls are just overacting all the time, being completely unrealistic and uninteresting.

While it's OK to have some implausibility in survival movies and some ignoring physics can be excused for dramatic purposes, this goes over way to into complete and utter nonsense. We might have as well seen a Klingon flying from the tower using her Kryptonian induced abilities from the Yellow Sun.

Frankly, I only watched through because it has a good rating, hoping that it would surprise me, eventually. But, no, there is nothing worthy in this movie. Even the idea/premise is merely interesting, not really good. I have no idea why so many people give it good ratings... hell, the girls aren't even hot. I mean, they are hot in the Sun, but they are not hot as in attractive.

The idea of not taking oneself too seriously when it comes to a vampire movie is good. It's _not_ a horror movie and if you expect that, you're up for a disappointment.

Casting is also good. The three main girls/sisters are cute, the oldest one is hot, the middle one is interesting and the youngest one is very cute. The main guy is tall, dark and handsome.

There are other things that makes this a good idea, but are minor. The problems come from several areas: apart from the hot and interesting sisters, the other actors are not doing a good job, except for a few supporting cast with little screen time. The main girls (the third one has much less screen time) don't do a great job, but they are OK.

Story also suffers in several places and there are a few focal points which are a complete miss (like when they poison the vampires at dinner, at a time when the conflict has already started and it's really unlikely that the vampires would not suspect something's afoot when out of the blue there's a peace offering from the girls and thus the vampires would not just drink it all in one shot).

There are also too many flashbacks, some of which don't work so well and some are repeated for not much effect.

At long last, even though there are several jokes, a few of which are good, and for the most of the part it's fun, it's too little for such a movie, where the whole point is to have fun and crack jokes.

All things considered, it's a way to rest looking at some cuties having some weird fun. There are better movies like this, but, this one's OK, you don't need to look for another one.

It's bad on so many levels.

Foremost, it's actually the simple things. Little Leia seems to outrun men twice her size all the time. Has any of these people actually chased a 10-year old girl? It's not that hard, really. Not to mention that at one point she gets within an inch of Obi-Wan, a great Jedi Master and he just lets her slip by, later keeps loosing ground as she runs away. Yes, there are a few tries of her taking advantage of her small size, but, it's way too little.

The big elephant in the room is that Ewan McGregor is in way over his head. He's not that good of an actor and he's trying to portray a great, yet broken man, with still some juice left in him. This would be a though job for anyone, so we can't blame him, but, still, he does a bad job. It's his Episode I level bad, we just keep seeing completely wrong emotions and reactions for this character. Yeah, we hoped that the progress he made towards Episode III would continue, but, unfortunately, what we got was a reboot, sort of.

The story is also bad because it doesn't make much sense. Sure, the idea that someone would think of kidnapping Leia Organa to have Bail reach out to Obi Wan for help makes sense. But, if the Inquisitors do have such ideas, why not just kidnap Bail himself and probe his mind?! It's been 10 years of Empire already, surely Bail's political clout in the Senate has diminished by now. It gets worse. Suppose they were afraid that doing that without Vader's or Emperor's permission would be met with harsh punishment, so they go down the kidnapping route. But, why don't they track Bail when he goes to meet Kenobi? As we can see, Bail's security is terrible, so it would have been easy to track him...

It's been only 2 episodes, so we don't know yet, but, a duel between Obi-Wan and Vader is announced. That's just terrible, because it makes a very pivotal moment in Episode IV almost silly - when Vader states that he senses a presence he has not felt for a long time. Sure, 10 years is a significant time, but, it just didn't feel like Vader was talking about 10 years, but of much longer - even 20 years, as established by prequels seems a bit of "stretch", but, workable.

Also, the plot of Episode IV has Leia record the famous message "You served my father in the Clone Wars"... shouldn't this have been "You saved me 10 years ago... now I need you to save the Galaxy", or some such thing? I mean, isn't that much stronger bond between the two than "During the war my paps and you..." and what a politician (albeit a young one) like Leia would seek to explore?

So, what's the point? Sure, a turning point for Kenobi, who decides that he still wants to fight... then just goes back to his cave to keep not fighting? We see that Leia is stubborn, but she's actually not very smart, she's a bad judge of character, mean towards people, very impulsive... This puts a very different spin on her, which is very much pointless (it's also almost implausible, but, hey, people change, she might have changed in 10 years, partly because of the kidnapping). When Obi-Wan implies that he sees Padme in her, it makes no sense. Young Padme (just a few years older than Leia) was regal, poised, smart, great judge of character, kind to people, calculating. And she was cute. This young Leia is _not_ cute.

With the risk of the remaining 4 episodes fixing some of the above, most of the damage is done and can't be fixed. Really, they should stop doing stories that involve the original characters, they are just terrible. Stick to Mando and his sidelines adventures - not that those are very good, but, they are not bad and don't diminish the primordial Star Wars.

There's a lot of humor in here. Not all of it is very good, but, it's mostly OK. A lot of it is Latino humor, so, if you're not fond of that sort of humor, this will probably not be a movie for you.

The story is pretty derivative, there are obvious traces of Nothing Hill and many other rom-coms, but a lot of it is to lead you astray, to start thinking this is a rom-com about the unlikely romance of a middle-aged valet guy and a super-popular young actress. Which it is not.

The French original didn't go down this "misdirection" route nearly as much. It was also a lot shorter.

Actually, being a little too long is one of the movie's problems, a long with several other minor direction/pacing issues. The other is that it's nearly as funny as it could have been. Sure, its entertaining, but, there are quite a few situations where much more jokes and funny situations could have played out. That is, there could have been more stuff like when the valet's brother-in-law sees valet's emerging love interest (the charming bike shop owner) kiss him in the same bar where his pretend-girlfriend kissed him a few minutes before.

Then there's the leading actress. In French original, she was a supermodel and was much hotter than Samara Weaving, which is kind of the point of this story. Don't get me wrong, Samara's fine, but, it's just not that good a fit. They tried to make her more pretty, but, it didn't really work and she didn't act very well most of the time - luckily, it improved towards the end.

Other than that, it's good, nothing special, but, good. It's much, much better than most modern comedies. Compared to good comedies from the 20th century, it would not fare nearly as well.

It's actually boring most of the time. When there's something actually going on, it's mostly not interesting. I mean, for stuff to be interesting, there has to be some semblance of sense, but none of this makes any sense, not compared to the real world, itself, or other stuff in this MCM (Marvel Cinematic Multiverse). I mean, we have Wanda destroying the Multiverse and very, very few people show up to defend it. And that's just the most obvious thing, there's like a gazillion things that are utter nonsense.

Jokes are almost all one-liners and only one really works, with just a few others which are OK. America Chavez is not nearly as cute as everybody wants her to be. Rachel McAdams is way past her primer and it shows that she was never that good of an actress, she was just playing on her cute. Professor X cameo is pretty wasted (it's like seeing a bad episode of "Picard" show) and would have been better if he just came in, said "Hi, and sorry, I must go". Similar goes for Hayley Atwell. John Krasinski cameo as Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four is such an obvious nod to fans that it doesn't have much impact (and Mr. Fantastic is much more interesting character). The "action" scenes are so silly one can't say they are good or interesting, except in a few interesting action moments, but, in 2 hours, that's way too little.

Towards the end it goes into horror movie mode, but, in this setting it feels more like a parody or simply "so bad it's not scary, but not so bad is funny" such as the Evil Dead; which kind of makes sense, giving that Bruce Campbell has a cameo.

Quite frankly, I don't see the "emotional impact" that critics are talking about. Sure, there are attempts, but, they are bad, superficial, badly acted, unrealistic and nonsensical.

Unless you are a big fan of Dr Strange or of horror movies, I can't think of a reason for watching this. The one good one-liner will surely make its way to social media soon, so you won't miss anything.

It's almost 3 hours long yet not much happens and that little that does happen isn't interesting. It really doesn't show why this movie exists, since we've seen Batman so many times. The only thing one could surmise is that this is going for a more realistic approach, but that is destroyed at the end with the silly anti-Trump finale. Not to mention that the whole idea of the Batman, Catwoman, Riddler and the rest of them is silly and it doesn't make much sense to try to make it realistic in the first place.

The weird vampire from Twilight is terrible as Batman, even in the suite and mask. Yes, he's worse than Affleck, Kilmer and Clooney put together. It's not just that he doesn't look the part, hell, neither did Michael Keaton, but Keaton's Batman made sense, especially in stylized movies. This "realistic vampire Batman" does not.

Zoe Kravitz isn't interesting enough as Catwoman. She looks good, but she's no Halle Berry or Michelle Pfeiffer, or even Anne Hathaway for that matter. Much worse, Catwoman is an interesting character, nuanced, torn, unstable, yet Zoe's Catwoman is just angry.

Others simply get caught in the gravitational pull of this giant bore-hole that is the center of this movie.

Quite frankly, they could have ended it after Riddler is caught. It would still be boring, but, almost an hour shorter, so much less of an impact. The whole silly anti-Trump finish would be lost, keeping more in line with the "realistics". While still bland, it would have at least made some sense.

Unless you're a full-blown Batman fan and need to see all things Batman, skip this one. Or, if you're somehow forced to see it, go watch an episode of Adam West's Batman, to see what Batman is actually all about.

It's bad enough that they have to explicitly state both references. Essentially, neither element works well, though since Indy Jones is much more pronounced, it feels worse, but they are actually just as bad.

Antonio Banderas is wasted and his story is pretty pointless. The girls are neither hot nor cute. The black-badass one is very unrealistic and uninteresting. The brunette, which was supposed to be cute, is neither alluring, mystique, devious or interesting in any way. Tom Holland does a strange take on Nathan Drake - Spiderman, which isn't even complete and his attempt at humor fail so much it hurts. Mark Wahlberg simply tries to be funny too hard. He has the most success, though, and his character is certainly the best rounded one.

There are a few good jokes, mostly by Wahlberg. Some action scenes are somewhat interesting and original. The idea of combining Indy and Sparrow is also interesting.

But, what we got is not good or interesting. What's worst, for a big-budget movie, the special effects are simply terrible. The fan film with Nathan Fillion had better (if of much lesser fidelity) effects.

So, if you're a fan of Unchartered games, maybe this is worthwhile. Otherwise, watch a good Wahlberg comedy, such as "Ted".

That "after end and before the credits" piece is the much-expanded sequence from the first part of the movie. Her sing-along to the "You make me feel like dancing" on the back seat of a car are very cute and funny.

Unfortunately, everything else is pretty bad. Except maybe the casting. Affleck and Armas are well cast as the weird-but-goodlooking couple. But they do a bad job, even by their standards. The bad news is that others are even worse. Even the little girl isn't very good and in general, ain't very cute either. Of course, that little number at the end makes it all up for her, but, not for anybody else.

Given the "why the hell should I care" story of a couple in a deeply toxic relationship, there's no payoff. The ending is ambiguous - they do stay together, but in what capacity, it's unclear - which was on purpose, but, it's not clear _what_ purpose?

The bits evoking the sexy-thriller trope of the 90s don't work well either, mostly because Armas is just not that sexy, but also because Affleck is too plain, however dopey, to be an interesting participant.

They could have saved everybody a _lot_ of time and money and just shot the girl singing "You make me feel like dancing" and posted it on Youtube.

While this is not as bad as Catwoman, it's very, very close. It's truly terrible, too long, makes no sense what-so-ever in any way, is not fun or funny, though not for a lack of trying and the special effects, while grandiose, are borderline cartoonish per today's standards.

The only two things going for it are Halle Berry, who looks _unbelievable_ for her age and the sense that it's a little, strangely, interesting. It's not so bad it's good, it's so bad it's interesting, you want to see how all this nonsense plays out.

Mind you, Halle Berry acts bad, too, just like everybody else, but, she's so hot that it also doesn't make any sense, really. It's kind of interesting that her acting reminds one of Bruce Willis' acting in the last several years.

So, if you don't have anything better to do, you can watch the first 20 minutes to see Halle Berry in regular clothes and be amazed. Then watch the last 20 minutes to see the nonsensical plot. Everything in between is a colossal waste on time, even for Halle Berry fans.

While not a typical chick-flick, it's still a chick flick. Rosie is the protagonist and Alex's girlfriends, Bethany especially, have a lot more to do in the plot than anybody else - almost even Alex. Also, the story is told from a girl's point-of-view, the "my dad's the best and there's the man of my dreams, who's an idiot who doesn't see what's right in front of him, the rest are terrible". And, yeah, "my mom never understood me and I won't make the same mistake with my daughter".

It doesn't help that all these people are as mature in their early 30s as in their late teens.

So, the story is not very good and it gets worse as we go along. Forget it, it's one of those movies that's made for watching not for listening to.

Foremost, it has a lot of heart and just enough of humor to pass through. Especially the part where Rosie's daughter is a baby/little girl. That, too, fades by the end, but, it's too late to ruin it by then.

Music is fine, great at times. Acting is OK, these are no great actors, but, with director's help, they do a decent enough job.

Directing is the main point. It's great not because of some grand scenes, transitions and angles and such. It's great because it's extremely well done. All the aspects, the positioning of the camera, the actors, their interactions, the flow between scenes... Aspiring directors should learn from this movie, really.

And yeah. Lilly Collins was still cute way back then.

In first third of the movie, it's OK. It's silly, but, it has a few good jokes and points some of the crazy of today's world. Cate Blanchet does a great bit doing your "blond American TV host", extremely well kept, always cheerful and playful, without actually knowing a thing about a thing.

But, it then starts to take itself too seriously, while also obviously blasting Donald Trump and his theatrics. It starts to feel like a movie about how Donald Trump will ruin the planet. Even if you believe that, why would you watch a movie about it?

The fun stops about the time Cate Blanchet jumps all over Leo DiCaprio, telling him to talk dirty to her saying "we're all gonna die", which turns her on. After that, even she does a bad job, rather flat and uninteresting, she might as well have been cut from the movie.

In the last third, it even becomes pathetic. Until then, you're kind of interested about what's gonna happen, but, suddenly, you know. The problem is, the only thing that kept you going in the second part was this anticipation... While some of what it tries to say there has some merit, it's done very poorly. Meryl Streep should have done that, rather then Jennifer Lawrence and Leo Di Caprio, while those two should be doing crazy stuff.

For good measure, it even has a mid-credits scene and an end credits scene. That doesn't even work well in recent Marvel movies, let alone a solo one like this.

And yeah, the Russians, Chinese and all the others fail miserably in trying to save the Earth (their rockets didn't even start from Baikonur), while Americans could have done it, just not if Trump was elected.

Even as-is, if they just cut-out all the politics, the ~80 minutes of what's left would have been a mediocre "comet coming to hit Earth" comedy, worth a watch. Sure, it would be silly to have so many big names in the movie of mediocre quality, but, worse things have happened.

But, the ~140 minutes we got is a just a wealth of missed opportunities. I guess the only thing it shows is that the modern movie makers are about as out of touch with reality as are the powers that be in this movie.

Original Matrix was a very interesting movie, pretty original and with real artistic value.

The second was an attempt to go deeper on the same theme(s), but, it didn't work out very well.

The third one was an attempt to wrap things up. It got a little silly near the end, but, it still had _some_ sense of purpose and meaning.

But, this... it's completely lost in... well, it's own matrix.

Yes, there are a few interesting ideas, like Thomas Anderson making a gaming trilogy that is like the real Matrix movie trilogy and (some) machines siding with humans. But, there are very few.

There's one joke that works, but is ruined shortly afterwards. Many attempts at mocking Laurence Fishburne's take on Morpheus land very, very badly. The whole concept of "The One", which is the whole point of the trilogy is shattered to pieces with the concept of "The Pair"... Actually, the whole conclusion of the trilogy is essentially thrown out the window. Just because it wasn't very good and a lot of people didn't like it, doesn't mean you can just pretend like it didn't happen - at least, if you want to do that, explain it somehow, like, make it a dream or some such thing.

It's boring a _lot_ of the time. Barney Stinson of HIMYM fame is completely wasted here, even though the general idea of casting him as the Analyst makes some sense, but he both has a few jokes and gags and they are so bad, nobody could pull them off. The next generation leader, which is, of course, a girl, speaks very fast and strange, I could not understand her most of the time. The end with Trinity performing meaningless violence against Barney Stinson is meaningless (he's a computer program, it has no real effect), out of character for her and for Neo who's being a voyeur of the whole silly thing...

And, at long last, Priyanka Chopra ain't no Monica Bellucci, not even close.

It kind of feels like a very high-end fan film. Yes, those are the characters and that's the setting/environment, but, it's done by people who both don't understand them very well and don't know much about the movie making.

Since it's not _terrible_, just bad, if you're a huge Matrix fan, I guess it would make sense to see it. For others, especially if you are a non-huge Matrix fan, it's better if you don't, it's gonna make you think a lot less about the first three movies.

Rock is simply wrong to play a con-man. Gal Gadot is way past her prime and even at her prime, she was not a good fit for a hot, seductive, master con-woman. She ain't hard on the eye, but she's not "the hottest woman" in any high level party. They both are barely actors and it shows, badly.

Ryan Reynolds does act, but his acting has become too boring and predictable.

The story is weak and silly, but there's no payoff. At one point, Ryan Reynolds even whistles The Indiana Jones theme and wears the Fedora, but, other than an obvious pop culture reference, there's nothing there.

The worst part is, they try to crack jokes _all_ the time and fail _almost_ all the time. There's a nice, even if not a very good or funny joke, every half an hour. Since it lasts just under two hours, there's three of them.

Sorry to say, this is worse than The Hitman Bodyguard's Wife. Selma Hayek, even at her age, is hotter and more interesting than Gal Gadot and Sam L Jackson is way more of a character than the Rock.

Apart from the said three jokes, the only good thing about it is that it's not boring. It is not interesting, fun or engaging either and you don't feel a sense of wanting to see how this plays out, but, while it all goes on, you're not being bored.

Bottom line, watch the Fast and Furious or Wonder Woman w/Gal Gadot, any Rock vehicle, Deadpool or earlier Ryan Reynolds comedy instead of this one.

It's too long. It's not interesting enough. It has no style. It's not fun or funny. Bond girls are not hot enough. Bond has a kid and dies at the end.

At times, it's more like Mission Impossible. At other times, it's more like Fast and Furious. It's always less like Bond.

A Bond movie has a story. It's silly, but that's kind of the point. There's action, but, it's just to make things more interesting. Bond seduces all the hot women effortlessly. Except maybe one, which should be the least hot one. All the good ones that he seduces die, except maybe the one he ends up with.

Here, there's no story, really. It's just pauses between action sequences. Put in a bold guy saying "Family" all the time and it might have passed as another F&F installment.

What little story there is seems like a draft for the next Mission Impossible.

There are three hot women. Bond is in love with one and has no effect on the other two. Ana de Armas even laughs him of, even though he doesn't even try to seduce her, only to charm her. And she's not even that hot to begin with, I don't care how silly her coctail dress is. None of them die.

The new 007 is a woman who's built more like a shot putter than a secret agent.

But, even forgetting that it's not a Bond movie, it's not a good movie anyhow. There are several meaningless sequences of Bond driving around that last far more than the death of Felix, Bond's dearest friend - a brother, as he puts it himself. The main villain is smart enough to wipe out entire Spectre, the most powerful private organization in the world, yet can't handle two 007s and a blonde psychiatrist, who don't have a plan really, unless you call "come in and shoot everybody" a plan.

And yeah. The CIA idiot agent, a Trump appointee, is actually a Russian double agent. Really? Still with the collusion?

Towards the end, you're thinking "what's the point of all of this"? The only thing that keeps you going is that you feel Bond will die and you never saw that. When that does happen, it's underwhelming to say the least.

To be fair, it's not all bad. Daniel Craig seems to finally be getting the point of Bond and is having some fun. Given a few more movies, he might had even gotten it right. Too bad it's too late. He has most fun with Ana de Armas, which is why this is the essentially only fun part of the movie, even though de Armas is not very good and not nearly as fun or hot as intended. Apart from that, there are two jokes that actually work.

It also looks pretty good and there are some beautiful sequences of Italian coastline.

It ain't the worst in the series, but, it's among the worst few and it's the least Bond, even less than Lazenby's In Her Majesty's Service.

Dune is a very interesting and vivid novel and story. David Lynch understood this and created a movie accordingly. Said movie was flawed in many ways, but, it got the main point correct.

This variant of "Dune" is much less flawed. It's CGI is top-notch. There are no silly things. It smartly avoid showing the Navigators, which is so hard to do, and both Davind Lynch and the Dune mini-series do a pretty bad and kind of silly work on that.

But, that's about it, for the good parts.

Casting is _very_ wrong. Timothy Chalamet is too old to play Paul. He's also too tall, too skinny. Oscar Isaacs is no Leto, I don't care how big a beard he grows. Jason Momoa as Duncan is simply not sophisticated enough. Josh Brolin is probably the smallest miss, but, he, too, is simply not the high-ranking military type.

By far the biggest miss is Lady Jessica. This is a woman of extra-ordinary beauty and grace. Rebeca Ferguson is not hard on the eye, but, that's simply not it. She's good at portraying skilled fighting women, which Lady Jessica is, but, it's subdued for her, and a lot of her success stems from it being such a surprise to everyone. Also, Rebeca Ferguson plays Lady Jessica as an emotional woman, which she is underneath, but she's very poised and almost stoic on the outside.

Lynch did a _far_ better casting in 1984.

The acting is also not very good. Lady Jessica we already touched, by Chalamet is simply too weird as Paul. At 25, he has no business being so childish, even though Paul should be 15 at this time. Even so, Paul is very much his mother's son, poised, but also takes a lot after his father, being ceremonial and a little stiff. Chalamet's Paul is a lost boy in a young man's body, disconnected from his parents and just about everyone else. Others don't do much, but what they do do is not very good or interesting. Aquaman has no place in this, especially not of Duncan Idaho.

Story is not that much different than Lynch's first half of the movie, so we can't honestly say that it's closer to the source material. There's much, much more going on in the original novel and the choice of what to show is very similar in these two movies. Presumably that would be changed in the second part, where Lynch was forced to provide a more "impactful" ending.

The pace is very slow, most of the time, but for no particular reason. Again, Lynch did a much better job. Conisder this: this is about 2.5 times longer than the first half of Lynch's movie, yet it gives only about 10% more content.

The idea was probably to immerse the viewer in this world. But, it doesn't work. Not just for stuff already mentioned above, but because this world is too bland and uninteresting.

Really, everything is grey, brown and dark green, with a few blue spots. There is no red, yellow, orange... Probably this was intentional, but it does not make sense, except maybe on the Harkonen homeworld.

Also, everything is just so damn big. It makes no sense to create such large structures, it's simply way too wasteful.

And what's with Navigators "finding way through stars" rather than "folding space"? Aren't the people who created this movie aware that there's a ridiculous amount of _empty_ space between stars, way to much to be hard to navigate? I know that "folding space" is not where mainstream SciFi went with regards to inter-stellar travel (it's warp engines, hyperspace drives and such instead), but, "folding space" is actually an important piece of the Dune universe.

I'm doubtful that a sequel could fix all this and it is the only reason I could think of to see this first part. Just watch Lynch's variant instead, ignore the silly special effects and some cringe-worthy dialog and go with it. It's much more fun than this and it's also more interesting and a better adaption of the original novel.

It's OK in the sense that it's not bad, but, there's too little substance in there. There's not much fun, it's not very funny, there's not much in there really expect two kids finding themselves attracted to each other and then being awkward about it until they have sex, then being even more awkward about it. And then there's the happy ending "we deserve"...

Since it all goes well, nobody's really hurt or anything, it feels like an instructional video "This, kids is how you should have sex... sure, it's gonna be weird, but that's gonna happen however you do it".

It has a few moments and things going for it. Britt Robertson was very cute. Victoria Justice was hot. The big black guy was _very_ big and cool. He actually has the best few moments, comedy wise. In the first half there's actually a noticeable comedic element to it. To little to be a full-blown comedy, but, still, it's there.

But, when it tries to become serious, it falls apart, which was not very hard given how not very together it was in the first place.

I guess it only makes sense if you watch it with some teenage kids. Otherwise, pick another "teenager sex (adjacent) comedy".

It's not funny either. I mean, sure, I'm glad for them. But, what's in it for me? I guess having a snippet of this movie, say, some 15 minutes, in a larger movie, would be OK, might even serve some purpose. But, as-is, you rather quickly loose any idea of why are you doing (watching) this?

One could forgive such a movie/premise if it were more funny. Certainly there are times that good jokes could be cracked out of this. The thing is, they do try. A lot. Unfortunately, they always fail - yes, maybe somebody actually liked one of those jokes, but, I'm pretty sure that the majority felt flat for everybody, not just me.

For what it's worth, I actually like Tina Fey and her comedic style and that's probably why I gave this movie a shot and did not just stop watching after ~15 minutes. But, feelings can fool you, obviously. Maybe Obi-Wan was wrong. Searching one's feelings is not such a good idea?

Maybe, and that's a big Maybe, if you're a middle-aged woman in need of some fun, this movie might be OK for you. Maybe. Otherwise, pick a good Tina Fey comedy instead, there's quite a few of them out there.

There are interesting ideas in there. The story is somewhat interesting, there are parts in the middle where you're actually eager to see what's going to happen, like in a good thriller you should.

But, it tries too hard to be more than it is. This is not some Blade Runner level story about the human condition. Nor is it some epic tale like the Matrix.

Also, it aims to high, with too many metaphors and "bigger than life" plots, twists and loops and way too many social commentary. No, there are no time loops, thank god, there have been way too many tries at striking the Groundhog Day gold in the last few years. They are story loops, much like many others, but, still, with an interesting perspective.

It's also too long. There isn't enough of a story or suspense for almost two hours in there.

Casting is decent. It's nice to see Hugh Jackman stepping away from Wolverine. He's still struggling to do so, but, he's getting there.

Rebecca Ferguson is miscast. She's no femme fatale, and the way her casting works in Mission Impossible is that she's a "tough, sexy spy", that is, more of a Tom Cruise's female counterpart than a Mata Hari. She does do a decent job, though.

Of the rest, only Thandie Newton has a significant part and she's also decent. She does miss several opportunities to do better, but, unfortunately, one learns to expect that from her.

Director/writer/producer Lisa Joy obviously took on too much here. Even doing only one of those jobs on an adventure like this (which aims high and tries hard) would be tasking, let alone all three. It might have actually led her to believe that she can do it, because she has total artistic control.

One does find it very refreshing that a movie that is a complete artistic product of one woman does not have a touch of feminism. Sure, there are few jabs at men, "who don't see what's right in front of them", but, that's to be expected and, hell, it's often right, actually.

Story wise, the ending is kind of bad. It takes too long, does not make much sense and is too "poetic", in a way.

Streamlined to something under 90 minutes, without social commentary and with more "making sense", this could have been a solid sci-fi thriller. As-is, it's only somewhat interesting if you want to see what happens when people try to hard and aim too high.

In movies like these, if you're truly original, a lot can be forgiven. Take TRON for example. But, by now, movies with transitions between video games and real world aren't new. Sure, using a "free world" like GTA as the setting is not so much explored, but, still, not truly original.

So, we have Ryan Reynolds goofing around. He does a decent job, but, his routine is getting a little old. Not every character should be played like Merc With a Mouth.

Jodie Comer as the female game developer and the "second protagonist" is a little interesting, if for nothing else, then for the fact that she does look much better with black hair and sunglasses than blonde and without them. But she's also the only one who does a good, if not great, job here.

There are a few jokes that work, but, it's not nearly enough for 2 hours, especially given how many times they try. There are several fun parts, but, there's much more time spent trying to look as having fun which don't work.

The cameos and pop culture references are pretty good and it's good that there are but a few of them.

But, the story is thin and full of holes, the relationship between Comer and her male game developer partner is terribly done, the ending is rather lame, the gaming setup is a little too much if you're not a gamer, given that that it didn't work as much as intended to make jokes and fun. Taika Waititi as the main villain has a bad case of over-acting and his character acts rather stupid for a guy who's smart (if evil).

The forced feminism and other "social justice warrior" elements are truly bad, out of place and look as if someone "from corporate" was making sure there's the prescribed amount of them so they can ship the movie.

All in all, a strange mixed bag. Worth a watch if you like similar video games or one of the main actors.

Most of this movie is just barely OK. A few things are not OK, and a few are better than OK.

The worst problem is the pacing. An action movie needs more action and suspense, less buildup. The story is not so good either, but, most action movies don't have stories that are very good.

The best aspect is the leading lady. She's in great shape and looks very much the part. In the fight scene, she's much more believable than most actresses including Jennifer Garner, whom she somewhat resembles (similar height, hair styles, both in great shape), though Butler is not as cute as Garner can be. Unfortunately, they kind of ran out of ideas, and the end of the ultimate fight ruins it.

In general movie looks pretty good, but the acting is sub-par. Malcolm McDowell has a nice small supporting role, but, it's nowhere near as good or interesting or fun (although rather similar) as his great cameo in "In Good Company".

Essentially, it's watchable, but, just barely. There are other better action movies with a kick-ass leading lady that looks good doing it (rather than silly like Charlize Theron or Brie Larson).

While it's quite obvious that Ben Affleck did not listen to Yoda ("Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering..."), it's well known that very few people do.

This is a story of a man who's afraid to confront the tragic loss of his son. Yoda's famous path leads him to suffering, losing his wife and developing an alcohol addiction.

His road to redemption is bumpy and intentionally not on a "happily ever after" note at the end. Yes, it's a positive note, but, there's obviously no guarantee that there won't be another bump down the road.

But, the main thing is that he confronts his fear, and manages to admit his failures to his soon to be ex wife. Sure, it's too late for them by then, but, this is the hopeful turning point to go back down the Yoda's path, back to the light side.

So, the movie is OK, but, it's not very good.

Foremost, this is one man's drama. Other people are there to frame the picture, but, it's his picture. And that man is played by Ben Affleck. While this is easily his best performance, it's, unfortunately, not very good. It's not bad either, though, and that's why the movie works. It just doesn't work very well.

He kind of "did his brother", that is, he played in a way similar to the way the Casey has made his career on. But, he has much to learn on this from his kid brother.

The story, while not being too "rosy", is not great, either. We do see a little too much of Ben suffering and we don't really see how/why he started to care about his coaching and turned the team around. It's OK that the coaching was kept low, since not everybody is into sports, but, it misses some important moments/events that would have explained our protagonist better. It's as if the authors were _afraid_ that putting that in the movie would put off too many people. They should have listened to Yoda.

All things considered, it's worth a watch, if not for anything else, then to see Ben Affleck deliver a decent performance for once.

It's not interesting. It fails on all it's jokes. It's not fun. The acting is bad. The story is bad. The special effects are bad. OK they don't look so bad, but, they are mostly pointless and highly inconsistent. The fight scenes are bad. The action, in general, is bad, though, admittedly less so than most other things. It's so weird it's bad. Really, it's an almost endless spring of badness. Hell, it's not even a "so bad it's good" movie...

Essentially, this is like a promising young high-school student making a movie to "show all the thing that he can do". OK, impressive, but, the end result is useless for anything else.

See, in bits-and-pieces, there are some spots that are OK. Sure, I may be poking some fun on the polka-dot man, but, still, it's true. A few nice shots of Margot Robbie's eyes, or her hanging figure-four lock of her captor and torturer, some nice pieces with the Ratcatcher 2, who's also very pretty even being dirty all the time, the half-joke that all American women love men with accents, and quite a few more.

Can't really say that this is better than the original Suicide Squad. It's just a different kind of bad. For one thing, Margot Robbie looked _much_ better in the original.

I can't think of any reason to recommend to anyone to watch this, and that's rare, almost all movies have something for somebody.