Most disappointing movies I watched in 2015

It would be hard for me to narrow down an "objective" list of worst movies for 2015, since I watched -a lot- of low-budget, badly rated movies this year, but at the same time, I'm not sure I'd want to put them on such a list. See, while I'm not drawn to actors or characters like many movie viewers, I'm a sucker for world-building, unique story elements and a strong visual style - leading me to love several "objectively not very good" movies like; Demolition Man (amazing world building), The Postman (some very interesting ideas about an image overpowering the person), Wanted (love the stylistic choices, wish it'd done less story), The Grinch (world-building, visual style), the Matrix sequels (there's so much depth hidden between the overly-long fighting scenes) and Hellboy 2 (visual world-building, creature design).
But most of all I'm a story-oriented viewer.
Show me something, anything unique, creative and/or complex and I'll forgive most other technical faults because I can see the original intent of the writer/director, and can appreciate the ideas that were lost during production.
This year was for me filled with flawed products featuring interesting, unique and creative story-elements I didn't expect to find in cheap made-for-tv movies.

No, what really gets me going are movies that failed to do anything with their set-up, movies where I went in with low expectations and still ended up disappointed, movies where I turn off and sit there seething with frustration and anger over what I just watched. Most of the movies on this list stuck with me for days after as negative emotions, and the top three managed the impressive feat of making me both exceptionally bored and incredibly angry at the same time.

Presenting; the most frustrating, irritating, disappointing things I watched this year

9. Man of Steel (2013)

I really, really disliked Superman Returns, and wasn't especially intrigued by the Man of Steel trailers, so I went into this movie with a sort of "I guess I have to see it some day" attitude. And I was still disappointed. I found most of the movie boring, Zod's characterization two-dimensional and underdeveloped, but the final peg in the coffin for me was that it just wasn't a Superman movie. That ending both rewrote everything Superman has been - and removed any chance of a sequel.
How do you one-up the villain that broke Superman?

8. Equilibrium (2002)
Equilibrium was well-received (by audiences, critics hated it) when it released in 2002, and maybe I'd have given it more leeway at a time when Matrix-rip-offs weren't such a dime a dozen as they became in the following years, but I just had no patience for this "trying to be more poignant that it really is" visual slog of a movie. Everything is symbolic in an incredibly obvious, in your face way, the "twist" was much better realized in Half-life 2, and most of all; ANGER IS AN EMOTION!!

7.Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

You could have been good Terminator 3!! I didn't like the "happy every after" ending of Terminator 2, so I was all up for the "Rise of the Machines" plot-line, and the script had quite a few interesting elements in it, it's just.. The action is boring, the acting is meh, there's several lines of dialogue that directly contradicts both the movie's plot and the character's personality, and I do not understand the weird, sexy female Terminator!
I wouldn't have minded a female Terminator who played on her sex-appeal if she was a Terminator built for infiltration and blending in, but she's not, she's a Terminator-killer, and while she has a scene where she "fixes" her breasts to look more appealing, she doesn't actually use her new "attributes" when dealing with the cop, she just shoots him. I'd also accepted a Terminator-killer that's a sadist, that I could see Skynet programming, but I do not accept a computer programming a Terminator to almost get an orgasm when she DNA-tests blood!
There's no in-movie reason for her behaviour, just as there's no plot reason for her to drop the "boyfriend-disguise" she puts on to trick Kate Brewster when she does, besides the production requiring its actress to be on screen for most of the movie.

The biggest disappointment is the ending. The ending is so good at first - the slow reveal when we figure out what's happened together with the protagonists, and watch them slowly accept their predetermined future and that everything they did was in vain - and then it's totally undermined by the insulting narration explaining everything like we're a 9-year old watching a sci-fi movie for the first time.

Stop insulting your audience!!

Also, where is my scene where Arnold pulls of his stripper pants? You had fun with the silly sunglasses, why not use the stripper clothes you had him wear the entire movie?!?

Such a wasted opportunity.

6. Robocop (2014)
See Robocop, I could have been one of your biggest fans. I'm not a big fan of the original movie (having barely seen it at the time and not liking hyper-violence) but I am a big fan of exploring what it means to be human, AI and robots. I came into it with low expectations and no baggage, and you still pissed me off!
Robocop is one of the new crop of "sci-fi" movies that doesn't like exploring its own sci-fi elements. It introduces a lot of concepts and questions (some of them being "why is he in such a cumbersome, heavy suit when you -just- showed us advanced prostheses and much slimmer, sleeker robots" and "why did you show him having most of his body just to remove it for no reason, also what happened to his eye??") but never bothers to show us enough to even try to answer any of them.
We're never shown both sides, we're never shown what could be problematic about robot soldiers (the first scene does not count! Just increase their threat-level detection a bit! "Don't kill people with knives" - fixed. Also "they won't feel bad after killing someone" is not a good argument! What, the most important part of using humans in combat is that they'll get PTSD and mental problems afterwards? How is that good for anyone? Besides, you seem completely naive about how humans manage to kill other humans) and we're never shown the "bad guys" motivations or goals.

Android Cop, Hammond and Helen from Android Cop

What's worse, Robocop is a character-driven movie without any character-development. Alex Murphy is a robot before he's put in the suit, and he's a robot after he's in the suit. I couldn't care less about him as a person, and I'm never given enough time with his family to care about them.
I'm also never given enough information or characterization on any of the other characters to even understand what they're trying to achieve or what their jobs are.
I love Jackie Earle Haley and while I thought he had the only interesting character in the movie, he's not given enough time to develop his character or the plot surrounding him, leading to him just portraying a 2-dimensional specieist(?) baddie.

And WHY do the scientists keep getting confused and surprised by their own deliberate research???

"I changed his serotonin levels. Huh, he's acting like a robot now, I don't understand!"
"This serotonin gauge which is the main part of the screen I've been watching this whole time is increasing at the same time as Robocop is behaving erratically, I don't understand!"

Having just watched the Asylum-mockbuster "Android Cop" I can confidently say that Robocop (2014) was outclassed completely by its low-budget, shot-in-2-months counter-part.

Android Cop (2014)

5. Gåten Ragnarok (2013)
I was so happy when this was announced, I love low-budget, not-very-good adventure movies, so I was really excited to get a Norwegian one. I wasn't expecting much, I know from experience that when we stray into a genre Norwegian cinema isn't known for we end up with a regurgitation of common genre tropes, but I was expecting something like The Librarian, Macgyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis or Voyage of the Unicorn (a Hallmark mini-series I watched when I was young).
The Bluray was purchased not long after release, but when I sat down and watched it this year I was so disappointed. This isn't an adventure movie!
Gåten Ragnarok is a generic low-budget monster movie, that seemed like it didn't have the money to feature its monster in all the scenes it had planned to.
If you've seen films like Jurassic Park: the Lost World, the direction of the plot loses all semblance of suspense and mystery. You know exactly what's going on, why it's happening and how it will end, complete with "monster doesn't kill the kids immediately, just stares at them" trope.
Most of the actual adventure and lore elements are delivered through exposition and dialogue (show, don't tell movie!), and the movie keeps changing locations without ever explaining or justifying the scene/time-jump.
Did the movie mean to have them arrive at Bodø airport or was it using it as a generic air-port stand-in, hoping we wouldn't recognize it? If it is Bodø, do they really think you can drive from Bodø to Finnmark in a few hours? There's no good way to tell because someone thought a sense of time and explaining scene-transitions was unnecessary.
How did he get down again into the cave after the rope broke? How are they suddenly on a raft in the middle of the river? We don't need these in-between scenes, that would be -boring-. ...

Replicant and happy endings - a rant

First of all, this movie should've been called "Stockholm Syndrome the movie" or "How to be an abuser - a visual guide"...

Replicant is the story about Jake Riley, favourite detective of serial killer "Torch" (Van Damme), known for murdering single mothers and torching their bodies with the child still in the house. After failing to capture him one last time, Jake goes into retirement, but is picked up by a clandestine government agency who are planning to clone terrorists, and have cloned "Torch" to use him as a test subject.
The Replicant (he's never given a name) is telepathically connected with his murderous source, and Jake is tasked with activating the latent killer in the Replicant, any way possible.

The tag line on my Bluray "Think twice before you clone a killer" is just blatantly lying about where the story goes. Actually, cloning a killer works pretty well, though making it a much darker and more uncomfortable movie than I expected.

The intro is ludicrous; exposition, extremely fast cutting and jumping to our main plot after 5 minutes, never even -trying- to defend its idiotic set-up, while the end is even stupider than anticipated, ending on the most unrealistic happy ending you would never guess.

Everything in between features naive, newborn replicant Van Damme being abused, manipulated and scared by his "daddy" - the supposed hero of our story, and struggling family man (maybe. We could never figure out if he was related to the fellow police officer/mother he keeps visiting. The kid called him "uncle", he sends his mother to stay with her, and yet, in a deleted scene, they were making out. O.o)
Jake might not be doing it on purpose (we weren't sure), but the way he treats the Replicant is basically a blueprint for creating a dependent - he ignores the Replicant, is overly violent, blames him for any tiny mistake, and just when he's ripped all the footing out from under his feet, he shows him just a little bit of kindness. (Rinse and repeat)
It's depressing, uncomfortable and sad, but not bad. Van Damme absolutely shines in this role, and every time his "daddy" gets angry with him it is heart-breaking to watch.

It's just that nothing else supports the amazing performance and moral lesson presented by Van Damme's Replicant. His serial-murder version is not especially fleshed out or interestingly played, Michael Rooker as Jake just phones in his role, the dialogue is incredibly ham-fisted and likes hammering its points home (while not following up on them. At all) the one-liners are weak and the Van Damme/Van Damme fight scenes are not on the quality level they should have been.

There's a scene in the deleted scenes showing Jake going back to his whatever-their-relationship partner's house and receiving a drawing from her son - illustrating him standing over the beaten up replicant (he brought the replicant to her house, because of course he did, handcuffed him in the basement, son found him, offered him a snack, came running out from the basement, mouth bleeding. Jake went ballistic and savagely beat the replicant - turned out the kid had knocked heads with the dog) which I understand why they cut (it was part of a larger scene with family drama), but really wish they hadn't, because it would have been the -only- indication in the movie that Jake's behavior isn't okey.

I was assuming the movie would be either funny-bad or forgettable, but it's neither, solely because of that replicant performance. It is sad, touching, heart-breaking, infuriating and meaningful, and the movie insults everything it is, it could have been, and its viewers with a bullshit ending that ignores everything that's happened to give replicant Van Damme a girl friend.

About halfway through the movie serial killer Van Damme finds out about his clone and starts manipulating him to turn against Jake because they're "brothers", so I was expecting the movie to end with replicant Van Damme having to choose between his "daddy" and his "brother", killing serial killer Van Damme to save Jake.

It doesn't.

What I wanted to happen was after we'd dealt with serial killer Van Damme and everything is over we enter Jake's house at night, Jake is on the floor, dead, while replicant Van Damme is sitting in a corner, crying, covered in blood.

That definitely doesn't happen.

What happened to bad endings? When did we decide that all movies, no matter what age rating, how dark the story is or what the movie is about shall end on a happy note, ham-fistedly inserted or not?
Some times a dark ending is more meaningful, more poignant, more likely to make an impact, and yet I feel I haven't seen a bad ending in.. 15 years?
Give me my unhappy, terrifying, heart-breaking periods back!

This was a story about a new-born clone given the genetic make-up of a killer, reliving every bad thing that'd happened to the original, every murder he'd done and even being telepathically linked to the guy while he does his deeds - all the while being abused and hated by the first, and only human he's connected with, and we still felt this was the perfect set-up for a nurture over nature ending?

Transmorphers - More than meets the eye, but your eyes will hurt

I'll always prefer movies/creators that try to do way more than they have the capability to and therefore fail miserably, over movies that just couldn't be bothered trying more than the bare minimum (I'm looking at you Birdemic, the only movie (so far) I've ever rated a "1" on IMDB), and Transmorphers definitely falls into that first category.

This Asylum mockbuster, trying to look like Transformers (released the same year), is actually in the vein of Matrix/Cleopatra 2525 with elements from Demolition Man, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Terminator and Transformers (the animated ones), and some (inadvertent) social commentary.

- A hundred years after mankind blew up the skies to combat the rising army of robots, the remaining humans have been surviving under the earth, keeping a stale-mate by not engaging the robots, and prosecuting anyone who suggests fighting. Finally scientists think they have found a way to fight back, but the team sent out to test the new device were all slaughtered. Seeing no other option, the military defrosts known pro-war vigilante Warren Mitchell and his friend "Itchy" to launch a final, desperate attack at the robot overlords. But is there more to Mitchell than meets the eye?

The script is trying way, way too hard, with so many sub-plots and characters that it's hard to keep up (I only mentioned about half the plot threads in my summary), not to mention the amateur editing that rhythmically flashes "lightning bolts" at you and runs both the sound effects and the music over the voices when we're outside making it impossible to hear what anyone is saying (which unfortunately is almost half the movie), and yet, there's a certain charm to the whole thing.
While none of the plot elements are unique or new, the way the story is grafted together is pretty well done, and the lesbian sub-plot (from not having enough male lead actors) blends quite well with the futuristic, dystopian setting (though she is a really bad general). It just doesn't have time to develop any of the story threads since it's basically forcing 5 films into 1.

The ending is genuinely almost good, and Matthew Wolf as Mitchell is head and shoulders above Asylum's usual actor quality, while Griff Furst (Itchy), Sarah Hall (trooper), and Shaley Scott (crazy person, see above) all deliver quite entertaining performances.

If you can handle the headache-inducing flashing and the inept sound editing, and like different takes on known sci-fi plots, this asylum mock-up is actually worth a watch.

P.S - Leigh Scott, you can overlay the countdown over all the scenes, even when we switch to people/places where the countdown wouldn't be heard. We would understand that it's an editing choice to bring all the different plot elements together.

Impressions: I Am Omega

I've been positively surprised by these 2007 era Asylum movies, there's some genuinely good ideas hidden behind the low-budget and shoddy editing/acting, and I am Omega was no different.

First half of the movie details Renchard's solitary life after a zombie/mutant apocalypse, trying to retain as much normality he can - shopping for groceries, keeping up routines, communicating with his "companions" and pretty much pretending everything is okey, while the second half deals with an independent military group who kidnap Renchard and force him to help them get hold of a girl, who might have the "blood"cure to the outbreak.

The second half is a lot weaker than the first half (possibly because it doesn't just directly follow the book? I haven't read "I am Legend", just watched the meh movie), with Geoff Meed (Vincent) interpreting his role as "the most insane, evil, horrifying asshole possible", but even this part has some (terrifyingly, creepy) unique ideas with Vincent almost raping the girl with the corpse of his friend.
(I know. But genuinely unsettling scenes in an Asylum movie? That's worth something)

I'm disquieted just looking at this image, that's how much these scenes stuck with me

It's marred by the same zombie-mutants reappearing after having been killed, repeatedly, but most of all it's lacking a sense of time.
I have no idea how long it's been since Renchard lost his family (seen in the intro) and the zombie apocalypse began. Renchard acts like he hasn't seen a human in a decade when he's first contacted, but that doesn't match the soldiers, who state they used to be part of the military when the outbreak started, and Mike is so young this can't have been more than 5 years ago.
There's also no way to judge how many days passed since Renchard first heard the "skype call" until he finally answers.
And the bombs that're supposed to go off after 24 hours fluctuate wildly in time, lasting at least three nights after the first we see activated.


Best part? Peek-a-boo zombies who inexplicably hide in the sand or wait around out of sight for the best moment to scare the protagonists.

Stuart Little ramblings

(Small note: I'm trying to actually post everything I write, so this is my draft of a review of Stuart Little)

Stuart Little is a cute, safe movie. Though the story (Shyamalan? Really?) won't win any awards, it also doesn't feature any problematic scenes, and seems like it would shine as a family movie you can just put on when you want some safe mid-day entertainment while you get stuff done.
There's a few things here you don't usually see in children's movies.
I like that none of the adults are bad guys. Stuart's adoptive parents really try their best and love him for who he is, they make mistakes, but they wholeheartedly love their sons, and the rest of the family are supportive and good guys too. Even the orphanage manager and Stuart's "real" parents are good guys, leaving this as one of the few children's movies that doesn't feature adults as bad guys.

What makes the movie stand out among the crop is the team behind it. Everyone connected to this project treated the movie seriously and with respect. From Hugh Laurie's amazing performance as mr. Little to the great New York score, the movie features interesting direction the whole way through. The set pieces (especially the Little house) have a very deliberate design that makes everything a bit otherworldly, the boat race in Central Park is very interestingly directed, using either stop motion or puppeteering, and all the cats are played by actual cats with only their faces cgi'd, which lets the movie focus on Stuart's animation.

But what really makes the movie worth watching, even as an adult, is the amazing cinematography by Guillermo Navarro, most known for classics such as Pan's Labyrinth, Jackie Brown and Hellboy II. There's wide lens shots, pan shots, creative camera angles.. There's one scene in particular, where Stuart is contemplating life with his real parents and the loss of the Little family, where he looks out of the window and the camera slowly pans out from his close-up to show the New York City backdrop in a way that could rival any emotional moment in any classic.
I have never seen this level of cinematography in a children's movie, and I sorely appreciate how much love, care and quality Navarro put into his work.

Osmosis Jones ramblings

(Small note: I'm trying to actually post everything I write, so this is my draft of a review on Osmosis Jones which I wrote the day before Nostalgia Critic posted his review. See that for a more coherent take on this stupid thing)

Osmosis Jones..  OMG. Just why?

This 2001 movie with Chris Rock in the main role featuring obscure buddy-cop movie humour, references to 80s and early 90s movies like Blade Runner and Titanic, a surprisingly good performance by Shatner channeling Nixon, and the worst performance by Bill Murray I've ever seen.

Horrible 90s rap music and an extremely invasive orchestral score make this one of the worst musical film scores I've heard.
Bill Murray muddles through a character who seem to simultaneously be trying to get both the "worst father of the year" award and a razzie award, with just gross-out humour after gross-out humour and nothing else, while the animated sequences (inside Murray's body) are playing out a buddy-cop setting, that unfortunately never manages to push past the established cliches.

The majority of the movie (the animated part) has some good ideas, and features some good performances, notably Drix and the major's aide, but is marred by its lack of focus and too-adult humour.

By the end of the movie we've totally lost track of our target audience, featuring a scene where the villain strangles the protagonist, and then threatens to kill the 9-year old girl.

Sharknado has been seen!

So, we finally sat down and watched the “cult B-movie that attracted a whole fan base of not really b-movie fans” and it was.. much better than I expected (in a bad B-movie way). 
I think it manages to straddle the line between wink-wink and just low budget necessity really well, and while there’s some scenes that try too hard, I felt enough of the movie was trying genuinely to make its idiotic script work for it to be entertaining in the “bad B-movie” way. 

Ian Ziering does a surprisingly good job, playing his role totally straight - loving family guy estranged from his wife, and Cassie Scerbo does a passable job as Nova, the action hero of the group. Minus points for killing off the best character in the movie early (George - John Heard!). 

Don’t get me wrong, the movie is bad; stock footage with only passing similarity to where the movie is shot, obvious stationary studio shots when in the car/helicopter (where we spend most of the movie), inconsistent editing, bad dialogue (nobody knows each other’s background/history even though they’re friends/work together), horrible CGI, reused shots (so much repeating!), sharks acting like mindless killing-machines (and shark species from all over the world all fall down in California)… But it’s fun. 

My 2 favourite scenes are: 1. the guy who has his arm bit off by a fly-by shark, falls to the ground and has his leg chomped by another shark, and then, after he’s dead, he’s hit in the face by a Hammerhead shark that fell out of the air. That’s jumping the shark so highly that it works again. 

2. The ending. Not spoiling, but it was exactly what we wanted and where the movie should have gone. It was campy, it was ludicrous and excused everything else. I’d recommend the movie just for that scene. 
Though it should have ended on the “I fucking hate sharks” line. 


We watched “Into the Storm” before this, a high-budget tornado disaster movie, and Sharknado was a lot more enjoyable and memorable. Into the Storm couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a “ramp-up” disaster movie or a character driven lower-budget disaster movie, and ended up being neither. Its storms just don’t have any impact or show any signs of actually being “the biggest tornado ever” (ex: it only uproots specific trees to then throw towards our cast), and there’s no character development to speak of. A camera man who wanted to quit his job does a 180 and decides to sacrifice himself for a dangerous shot and his camera, and the conflict between the father and the youngest son never reaches a climax or solution. 
There’s just nothing there. 

For all of Sharknado’s faults it at least has charm. It feels like it had something to build off of, it’s just that the end result is a mangled mess with “funny because they’re bad” scenes. I’ll take that over big-budget “meh” any day.

Talking about Homeward Bound

Rewatched Homeward bound last night. That movie still holds up today. The editing and cinematography is great, there's no special effects, the pets don't move their mouth when they talk, and they don't understand the humans, making them a lot more animal-like than other family pet movies. Also the dog that plays Chance is such an adorable doofus. He keeps crashing into things and tripping over his own legs. 

There's this great subtle side-story where the new father (who married into the family) stands alone to the right in the shot while the family grieves the lost pets, but at the end he's playing with the children and standing with the family when the pets come back. In the time we've followed the pets' journey to get back to their family (and becoming their own little pet family, with Chance being the "New one") the human family has become a family too. 
Totally love the subtle, visual pictures that give depth to the movie's story and moral.

Impressions: Retrograde

Time travel is always a difficult subject to get right, it's especially difficult when you have a low budget B sci-fi movie that apparently couldn't afford a continuity checker.. 
If nothing else, Retrograde gave me a bigger appreciation of Dolph Lundgren as an actor (since all the others seemed to have been hired on a clause of "no out-acting our main lead"), and managed the rather impressive feat of making me want the sole female cast member dead, more than any of the others. 

Also, they exploded a flying helicopter with one pistol shot. 

During the movie I was seriously annoyed by the casting choices; why was the only other good actor playing a security guard/secondary romantic interest for the lady instead of the main villain? Well, according to Imdb he had been cast as the main villain, but Lundgren demanded him downgraded. 

Way to be confident in your acting ability dude.

Broken Age thoughts

Finished Broken Age. It's fine, cute, extremely pretty, well animated, gorgeous art-style, amazing voice acting, and in the end just like Double Fine's other games; it lacks impact and staying-power. 

More than the art style, or the animated sequences, the story is what makes it a "kid's game" for me, it's just so light, so shallow, and what started as a really interesting story about breaking the mold and rebelling against family and societal constructs just turns into a bog-standard sci-fi plot, where everyone switches long held opinions and beliefs on a dime. 

Most jarring is the supposed "connection" between the two main characters who never meet face-to-face (until the end) everyone seems to be harping on about, and the rewiring puzzles that require knowledge you as a player have acquired from playing both stories, but the protagonists themselves would have no way of knowing. 
It's just so crude, a desperate attempt to make sure you alternate between the two characters, to make sure you follow the story parallels (though it stops being a parallel a while in, and just turns into the same story told with 2 different people) 

Don't get me wrong, it's a worthwhile play-through, several side-characters are fun to interact with, with their own small story-lines, and the best voice acting I've ever heard in an adventure game, and it's such a pretty game to look at, 
but in the end, what I'll remember from this game is the small side-story about the Dead Eye God's guards, which I thought was cute, funny, adorable and genuinely surprising. 
I was left with more warm, fuzzy feelings after that little section, than the entirety of act 2.

Impressions: Pillars of Eternity

Damn you Obsidian. I just want to help people, foster peace and save the world, not judge impossible situations, try to pick the lesser of 2 evils or be forced to choose sides in bloody conflicts.

Was it right to end the zealot, insane, witch hunting lord, so that his ruthless, megalomaniac cousin could take the rule instead? Was it right to save a selfish, small-minded man's reputation, ruining my rep with the rebels and forcing me into a collaboration with the status-hungry knights? Was it right to kill a whole team of guards and the daughter of the ruthless, dominant trading house to save a black-market dealer (they did attack me, but I did go against them)?
I have no idea!

I spend most of my time in Pillars of Eternity being indecisive, trying to help where I can, being as diplomatic as i can and constantly wondering if I'm not just causing more harm than good. And being perpetually poor..

I just gave a hooker 6000 copper for a medallion she stole off a nobleman, so that she could start a new life, and so that a poor refugee can take his sacred relic back to his old hometown and try to rebuild his lost community (unless he lied to me).

As you can see, I'm totally invested.

First impressions: Hatoful Boyfriend

I expected a branching, stereotypical romance story with some humour inserted, but there's actually a lot more to Hatoful Boyfriend than it seems at first. I really enjoyed the murder mystery and the hints to a larger meta-plot you slowly gather by playing the different romances. The fantasy sub-plot I ended up on by accident was also quite unique. It seems you can beat "the evil tree" by being stupid but fit..

Also, the Doctor romance really demands that you ignore all the signs and keep going down a path you know will end badly, and fully recognizes it. I was so happy to be told I was an idiot for following that path.
(And I ended up doing both the teacher romance plots first, even though I don't normally like student/teacher romance stories, heh)


Addendum 8.9.2015 - Having finished this game this first impression is really doing a disservice to the full game. I really should write a proper review of Hatoful Boyfriend and its BL story.

Care Bears: Oopsy Does it!

I expected a very simple, 2-dimensional story and characters for little children, and it was, but with one of the best realized villains I've seen in a long time (in animation). Yes, he was cliché, but he did it so well! 

Didn't expect anything from the movie, so an awesome villain was way better than I thought, and was what made me keep watching.

The Mutant Chronicles - Why? Just... why.

Argh, this movie had such potential! The animation and digital effects/backgrounds are great (For their budget), the main actors are all capable, and still it ended up as this horrible train wreck. 
And poor Perlman's talent was wasted up until the last 10 mins, where his mask play was the best thing in the whole movie! 

The plot, the effects, over the top violence and the script all seemed to lend itself to an over the top, spark-in-the-eye sort of film, but instead we got a very serious, trying to be epic, slow-shot, philosophical discussions mixed with splatter action scenes type film. 

It's not even a good, funny train wreck, it's just sad, because you keep seeing what it could have been.  

Bah!

The Dark Knight Rises

It's a good film, a strong film, Gordon-Levitt does an amazing job, and Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is really a new start for a previously muddled character (give her a film!), Gordon and Fox are still amazing, as is Alfred and Bruce, but the ending let me down so much.

I was waiting for one sentence, one sentence the whole movie, and it never came; "that's the Question"

Where you overridden Nolan?

Also missed several characters that deserved an appearance, at least a cameo: Barbara, Renee Montoya, Maggie Sawyer (!!), the Penguin (somebody would have taken care of Gotham's richest) and Harvey, whose been missing the entire series.

The ending felt like such a cop-out, it just... It made me really, really sad.

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Prometheus

When Ridley Scott makes strong female characters, Ridley Scott makes strong female characters!

A genuine psychological and philosophical film, exploring what it means to be human and the big questions about life, creation, alien life and where we come from.

If you go in expecting an action-filled horror film, or the answers to the Alien-quadrology you will be disappointed.

The film asks more questions than it gives answers, and features some strong, stereotype-bending characters.

I especially liked Janek, the pilot, who uniquely is one of the smartest persons abroad the vessel, and the most caring.

Elisabeth Shaw is an extremely strong woman, without being butch or the "all-business" type. She has a dimentionality to her character I rarely see in movies, and especially not thriller/action-type movies. She's also uniquely treated as the boss the entire film without anyone drawing attention to it or questioning her leadership (well, besides her boss).

Michael Fassbender does an amazing job as David, the best acting performance in the movie, and the best I've seen in a long while, in a very challenging role.

Dr. Holloway is the weakest character of the main cast, and his "Indiana Jones"-type and brash behavior makes him more annoying than charming, and you might find yourself hoping for his death after a short while.

Some of the smaller roles are a lot less fleshed out, with diffuse roles and one seriously idiotic biologist, but they do not get enough screen time for it to be a serious problem.

The environments are beautiful, from the sterile Sci-fiesque space ship to the grey alien world, and there's a lot of subtle details in the design of everything they see. Everything from sound to lighting and colour blended together to create the otherworldly world, and I can't remember either music or digital effects, like it should be with a good movie.

The film felt much closer to its predecessors; 2001 and Alien than it felt to any modern movie. It had a quietness and slowness you rarely see these days, and might, unfortunately not be a good thing for it. The two closest modern equivalents I can think of would be Sunshine (which wasn't a good film at all) and Moon.


In the end I felt it was a beautiful, strong and philosophical film, and I enjoyed the whole experience (besides Dr. Holloway, bleh!). I think I'd rate it 8/10.

Black Mirror 3 - Adventure Game review

Good ending to the trilogy!

Ended up enjoying Black Mirror 3 a lot more than I thought I would do, the second game was a bit all over the place, but the developers obviously listened to the criticism, and Black Mirror 3 goes back to the feel and story of the first Black Mirror game.
I absolutely hated Black Mirror 1's chunky controls, progression system, and protagonist, but Black Mirror 3 really expanded on the original story, kept referencing even minor characters and even explained some of Samuel's behavior, and I ended up wanting to go back and play Black Mirror 1 again, a game I swore never to touch with a six foot pole. 

Pros: Updated, strong story, new characters interesting and unique, main protagonist grown a bit more likable, nice backgrounds, good art and good animations, strong horror feel, true to the original in every way 

Cons: Some weird progressions, puzzles seem thrown in and out of place, most do not give enough feedback when solving (Read diary!!), fortune teller felt like a tacked on help system without any impact on game (almost like there were many more death moments that were taken out), voice actors are all over the place in quality, Ralph story comes to a VERY un-fulfilling end. 

The ending sets out to really explain and expand the history of Black Mirror and the Gordon clan, and while I enjoyed both the end puzzles (besides the skeleton-puzzle!) and dialogue, I was very dissatisfied with the epilogue, which just continued explaining unnecessary things, instead of showing the future like I wanted, and hoped for. 
For an ending with so. much. dialogue, it still ended up ending abruptly, and leaving me wanting more. 

Still, it's absolutely worth playing, and Black Mirror 3, as a whole, was both a fitting ending to the trilogy, and the best game in the series (in my opinion).

World Invasion: Battle LA

So, World Invasion: Battle L.A:

U.S military film with the alien invasion really just being an excuse for fighting in America. Immensely American, patriotic and arrogant (America only country managing to fighting back of 20 cities/countries attacked).

Way too big cast of indistinguishable marines and few known/good actors.

Main role - the staff sergeant carries the film; kamikazes himself through the plot, and is the only one showing some initiative to learn about the aliens.

Token though girl (Michelle Rodriguez) having to prove herself as a worthy soldier.

Not the worst military film I've seen, bot not very unique or creative either.

Disney's 50th animation is worth watching

Tangled was great! It drew inspiration from the whole history of Disney fairy tales, keeping a very traditional art direction and story telling.They managed a classic fairy tale that, while not having a very original plot, managed to tell an original story.

Loved the return to a more musical driven film, loved that they weren't afraid to tell a very traditional story, with a traditional ending, and I love that they distinguished themselves from Shrek and Dreamworks, while still keeping faithful to the Disney heritage.

I'm also fond of Disney's continuing path of creating secondary characters with depth, heaps of personality, and flat out lovable. Though, Rapunzel was very fleshed out, and was really created with respect, kudos to Disney for honouring their female lead.

Emperor's New Groove

Decided to rewatch this one recently, and it's still one of my favourite Disney films, and surprisingly so, because I don't usually like that form of humour.
It's also the only film I know of that I actually think has a better name in Norwegian than English; Et kongerike for en Llama, A Kingdom for a Llama, which is much more descriptive and suitable for the film.

A Kingdom for a Llama is one of those films I go back to and rewatch every time I'm sick of pretentious animation trying to be more than its plot/humour opens for. Kingdom is nothing like this. It's a purely silly and funny film, and it's fully aware of both its humour type and its target audience, which makes it able to pull off humour, plot, character development and touching moments without jarring from the overall feel.

More than any other Disney film, Kingdom is carried by its actors, and would probably not have a place among my favourites without David Spade. He's funny, arrogant, and pulls off Kuzco to perfection. His comic timing is also totally on point, and works really well together with John Goodman (Pacha). Warburton is also great as Kronk, though rather type-cast.

Some of the physical gags don't work that well on repeated viewings, especially after having seen the Disney channel series, where the "wrong lever, Kronk!" and "I didn't order any [soft or bouncy objects]" gags are rehashed every episode. But, the film is still funny, Kuzco is still a really interesting character, and the plot is well-written (I love the whole "we're totally aware of this big plot hole and we're going to comment on it instead of ignoring it" when Kronk and Yzma reach the lab before Pacha and Kuzco).

It's interesting to watch how they manage to develop lovable, deep characters in a gag comedy like this, and it's also a very good example of good script writing, both plot and lines, within a physical-based humour film.

And my favourite line is still, after at least 4 viewings; "Yay, I'm a Llama again! Wait.."