cucony_'s reviews

Like some other reviews said it's not exactly a sequel but then again it's 28 years later. Things have become weirder. It's strange and weird but I still loved it and hearing God Speed You Black Emperor was a nice icing on the cake. It's not fast, and the main focus is not action or even zombies. It's deeper and more philosophical.

I can see how some folks who are more used to conventional films have problems understanding it. I totally get it.

Edit: First, I said it was not a proper sequel but then I watched the previous two movies and I realised how wrong I was. I think the problem is that we don't actually remember the previous movies well because we saw them a long time ago. So after watching both movies I can confidently say that this in fact is a real sequel. Go watch the previous movies again if you really want to compare them.

It's a commentary on how messed up society is, how thirsty for a good shot of violence we have become and how desensitized we have become to it. The final scene makes this clear by servings as a poignant culmination of this theme. It likely underscores how violence has become both a commodity and a source of voyeuristic satisfaction. Garland seems to be asking viewers to reflect on the dangerous implications of this desensitization, where the line between reality and entertainment is increasingly blurred. The fact that society consumes violence without questioning its impact is a sobering reflection on our collective moral decay.

Definitely a great film. Acting performance is superb and pacing hits the sweet spot.

Black Dog is a hauntingly beautiful exploration of human resilience and the complexities of morality. Directed with remarkable subtlety, the film masterfully blends psychological depth with poetic storytelling, creating an experience that lingers long after the credits roll.

The strength of Black Dog lies in its characters. Each one is richly drawn, with motivations and struggles that feel deeply authentic. The protagonist's journey is portrayed with such raw vulnerability that it's impossible not to empathize, even as their decisions veer into morally ambiguous territory. The supporting cast elevates the narrative further, delivering performances that are understated yet profoundly affecting.

Visually, the film is a masterpiece. The cinematography captures both the starkness and the beauty of the settings, using light and shadow to evoke an atmosphere of tension and melancholy. The use of symbolism is subtle but powerful, adding layers of meaning without feeling forced or pretentious.

The pacing is deliberate but never dull, allowing the story to unfold organically. This measured approach heightens the emotional impact, drawing the audience deeper into the characters' world. The soundtrack, too, deserves special mention-it complements the narrative perfectly, blending traditional and modern elements to underscore key moments.

At its core, Black Dog is a meditation on survival and redemption. It challenges viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about human nature while offering a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness.

Excursion aspires to be a gritty exploration of societal disillusionment but ultimately falls flat due to its clumsy execution and lack of depth. The film attempts to tackle weighty themes like youth alienation and moral decay, yet its treatment of these issues feels shallow and heavy-handed.

The characters are frustratingly one-dimensional. Instead of nuanced individuals, they are walking stereotypes that fail to elicit empathy or interest. The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic, often veering into melodrama. This detracts from the film's supposed realism and makes it difficult to invest in the story.

Director's choices in pacing and structure are also questionable. The narrative drags painfully, with numerous scenes that serve no purpose other than to pad the runtime. The editing is disjointed, leading to a choppy flow that further hinders audience engagement.

The cinematography, while occasionally evocative, cannot compensate for the film's overarching flaws. The visuals are marred by overuse of bleak, washed-out tones, which quickly lose their impact. While the intent is clearly to reflect the film's themes, it comes off as unoriginal and uninspired.

Overall, Excursion feels like a missed opportunity-a promising premise wasted on poor execution. Instead of offering insightful commentary or emotional resonance, the film meanders in mediocrity, leaving viewers with little to take away.

Joe Rogan's Burn the Boats special is an agonizing exercise in mediocrity that somehow manages to be both lazy and obnoxious. What's most striking is how utterly uninspired it feels. Rogan seems to believe his name alone will carry the weight of what is essentially a cobbled-together series of shallow observations, outdated references, and recycled jokes that barely scratch the surface of humor.

The special feels more like a podcast segment gone wrong than a stand-up set. His punchlines are predictable, his delivery flat, and his attempts at being edgy come across as nothing more than a desperate grab for relevance in a world that has moved past his brand of bro-centric comedy. The pacing is uneven, the transitions clunky, and Rogan's overconfidence in his own charisma only highlights the glaring absence of genuine comedic substance.

If you're looking for insight, wit, or even just a good laugh, look elsewhere. Burn the Boats doesn't burn anything-it merely sinks under the weight of its own laziness. A disappointment even for die-hard fans, this special is a reminder that not every popular figure can or should rely on their fame to sustain a career in comedy.

He really thought this would work if he just yells at people. He's not funny. He knows he's not funny and that's why he's so nervous on stage. Cringe at it's best.

From attempts to be the next big thing in mystery-horror but ends up feeling like a poorly written, meandering mess that squanders its intriguing premise. What could have been a gripping exploration of fear and survival instead devolves into a frustrating slog of half-baked ideas, shallow characters, and lazy storytelling.

A Promising Concept, Ruined

The premise-a town that traps people and unleashes monsters at night-sounds thrilling. But instead of building on this foundation, the show spins its wheels with endless cryptic nonsense that goes nowhere. The narrative is stuffed with vague, ominous hints at a larger mystery, yet it never delivers anything remotely satisfying. It's as if the writers are making it up as they go, hoping viewers mistake incoherence for depth.

Pacing? What Pacing?

The pacing is atrocious. Entire episodes pass without anything of significance happening. Characters spend an absurd amount of time talking in circles or staring pensively into the distance, dragging the story to a near standstill. The series feels like it's stretching 10 minutes of actual content into hour-long episodes, insulting the audience's patience and intelligence.

Flat, Forgettable Characters

The characters are lifeless. Most are either irritating or forgettable, and their decisions often defy logic. Harold Perrineau tries his best to carry the show, but even his solid performance can't salvage the cardboard cutouts surrounding him. You'll struggle to care about anyone's fate because the series never gives you a reason to. Sometimes you will want some characters to die because of how annoying they are.

Cheap Horror and Lazy Writing

The horror elements are laughably generic. Jump scares and creepy monsters can only take you so far when there's no substance behind them. Instead of genuinely unsettling moments, From relies on tired tropes and predictable scares. The writing, meanwhile, is riddled with plot holes and unanswered questions-not in a tantalizing way, but in a way that screams "we have no idea what we're doing."

Verdict: A Waste of Time

From is a colossal disappointment, a show that confuses vagueness with intrigue and filler with storytelling. It's the kind of series that thinks dragging out its mystery indefinitely will keep viewers hooked, but instead, it leaves you annoyed and regretful for wasting your time. Unless you enjoy watching a show flounder under the weight of its own ambition, skip this one.

I don't know why but a lot of us keep expecting much more than this director provides... He's just a mediocre director with mediocre movies. That's it. There's nothing more to it.

This movie had so many plot holes that it gave me a headache. He's trying to be smart or make a smart movie but somehow fails. He's either not that smart or he just doesn't have enough patience to make a smart film.

Even the thing where characters stare directly into the camera was at first interesting, but soon, you realize that there's no point to it. I suppose it was there to build tension, but it's just random.

On the one hand, this is a family drama about some boring German family and their everyday mundane life. One the other hand, it's a serious story about genocide, one's complicity in it, and one's ability to ignore and justify that complicity. Unfortunately, the story is very contemporary.

The movie never shows what's happening behind the wall, it never shows the camp, but sound represents the bridge between the mundane life of the family and the suffering happening on the other side of the wall.

For that reason, I recommend watching this in the cinema. If this movie wins an Oscar, it's going to be for sound.

Interesting at first but later becomes boring, some of the decisions that characters make in latter episodes are unbelievably stupid. A grown up man takes the child out of his crib, leaves it on the floor and falls asleep in the baby's crib. Mom finds him inside and is totally fine with it? What the hell? Who does that?

It's alright but nothing special, so typically Western and empty like one of those books that teach you how to be happy in 10 steps.

It's full of clichés and stereotypes and it's a bit insulting. Living in a poor, undeveloped or dangerous country doesn't not make people happy.

The movie is amazing, acting is superb, no childish action or CGI superhero nonsense. It's pure acting and pure cinema. Joaquin Phoenix should get an Oscar for this.

Everyone is comparing it to Heath Ledger's Joker, I don't think it's comparable. I mean it's the same character but that is all, it ends there, this is much deeper and much more serious, we should compare it to Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro who also plays here (was that intentional?). Joker is a 150 years old character, he's the Underground Man and the he was created by Dostoevsky. Watch it.

That's really all that this movie is. I mean it's not a bad movie, acting is not bad, it's done well but it's just too much Superbad coloured with a bit of 2019 politics and ideology. The characters resemble those in the mentioned movie, the story too, even the setting of the movie... Nothing special.

Someone's upset by bad reviews and keeps reporting that they contain spoilers even though they don't. Neither this nor the review below contain any spoilers, so feel free to read them.

It goes to show how desperately they want to portray this as a good movie and deter people from reading reviews that they don't like.

Anyway, I just saw this movie at the Sarajevo Film Festival opening night and it was bad, it was really bad.

There is no plot, acting was horrible, especially by the main character (at times it reminded me of The Room! It was that bad), some of the side roles had 10 times better acting than the lead.

Characters lack background or any substance whatsoever, we never learn anything about anyone, they have no emotions or if they do them (and yes, they really "do" emotions in this film, they don't have them), it is so exaggerated and out of place that it just doesn't look convincing. You just keep asking yourself who these characters are and why they are here.

You suddenly get a scene where they introduce a new character and you think, okay something might be happening and the character disappears never to be seen again.

Most of the shots are still, camera rarely moves anywhere, there are no closeups or filming from different angles, the shots are so unnecessarily long and dull. Locations keep changing constantly. They use at least three apartments that are so obviously different and try to present them as the same place. It's so clearly visible that it's not the same apartment.

Some of the scenes look like they were used to fill the empty parts to make the movie long enough.

It seems like the idea was to introduce different parts of Sarajevo and Bosnian culture and somehow try to come up with a story that would fill in the gaps between tourist ads of Sarajevo. All in all, it's very disappointing. Bosnia has so many good movies and this is not one of them.

After the movie, there was a short speech and someone, I am not sure who, (maybe the host?) made a very funny self-patting comment, she said that the movie was obviously very good because majority of people remained in their seats. No one was interested in hearing anything the crew had to say about the movie. People started leaving right after the screening, it was kind of sad.

Don't skip it, watch it, just to see what a bad movie looks like.

If the had an intention to present a typical life of someone with borderline personality disorder, I would have given this movie a higher score, but they didn't do that. The movie is shallow with poor dialogues (I'm a native Croatian speaker) and very annoying and unconvicing characters, it's impossible to relate or feel close to them. The main character is just erratic, showing typical behaviour of a BPD person. The musician guy is horrible, he's a desperately clingy romantic. This is definitely not an arthouse movie and this high score is a bit surprising.

This movie is great! I won't comment on other reviews because there seem to be a war going on and it doesn't have much to do with the actual movie.

So, it's good, actually it's excellent. I don't usually like remakes but this is something different. Excellent acting, excellent edgy humor, I especially liked Melissa McCarthy, she was brilliant as usual. I won't compare to the original because it wouldn't do justice to either, the original was filmed in different time but they are both really good movies.

So if you want to spend 2 hours relaxing, having fun, laughing definitely go for it. You won't regret it. And word of advice, before starting to watch leave your prejudices and expectations outside :)

The worst thing is that this is incredibly unintelligent movie, it's insultingly unintelligent, its so bad it made me cringe few times. Acting is terrible, characters are annoying and very synthetic, they are not believable, very poorly developed, only the kid has few bright moments, terrible dialogues, really cheap and predictable jumpscares, overall really bad movie.

Initial idea is good but its really poorly done. I'm sorry but I don't recommend this.

Im not sure if I should have expected more, this is not this directors first bad movie, he made couple of bad ones before.