Chiller7 Reviews

Black Adam (2022)

Below average, a step down from the earlier DC films

[6/10 · 10 November 2022]

Avengers director Joss Whedon has no involvement in this movie, but his brand of comedy is all over it and I blame him for starting this trend spawned from the popularity of Avengers (2012) which continues to plague so many movies trying to emulate its silly style. All the dialogue throughout Black Adam is overloaded with self-aware sarcasm meant to remind viewers that the movie realizes how silly it is and they just have to keep reminding you again and again. Whenever the movie starts to get a little serious you know some joke or gag is going to interrupt the scene and ruin the mood. Characters never seem never express much concern or fear, no matter what dire situation is going on, preferring instead to constantly trade silly one-liners back and forth, like they are self-aware that they are in a silly superhero movie.

The cost of so much focus on having fun is that the stakes are never high. There's almost no tension, no sense of danger throughout the film, the bad guys don't even feel like threats because you already know they're not going to succeed at hurting people. Even when an evil undead army rises, any potential for the scene to be frightening is immediately interrupted by silly comedy yet again, instantly deflating any potential for the audience to ever be afraid for the safety of anyone on screen. Why can't these new DC movies ever recreate anything remotely as terrifying as the Kryptonian invasion of Earth from Man of Steel (2013) back when the villains were actually allowed to be intimidating?

And Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam has the same facial expression throughout the entire movie.

All that said though, I didn't hate it. If there's something to be praised, it does get better towards the end when the joking-around starts to die down and the movie actually allows itself to get a bit more serious.

The History of Time Travel (2014)

Concept had potential, but ended up being dull

[3/10 · 27 March 2022]

I like the idea of this mockumentary, an alternate history of a world affected by time travel, but this ended up being kinda dull.

This looks and feels like someone's student project, not convincing enough to believable as a real documentary. Based on their acting, I would bet some of the actors doing all the interview scenes are just random friends of the director, not people who do any serious acting, especially the bearded guy who looks silly trying to convince us he's a college astrophysics professor. Also unconvincing were some of the black and white footage/photos that we're supposed to believe are old, but looked like modern people simply photographed in black and white.

Also, problematic is how the film doesn't stick to one narrative as far as the timelines go. By that I mean at some points in the mockumentary, it's told from the perspective that our history has already been altered, e.g., we live in a timeline where the Soviets landed on the moon first and that's all we know. That could have been more interesting, to tell it from a world whose history was already altered. But throughout the fake interviews in the mockumentary, the people being interviewed seem to fully know all the before-and-after details of all the events that had been altered by time travel, as if the changes to the timeline didn't even affect them.

If this had been more focused on how world history could have been altered by time travel, that would have been more interesting, but instead this mockumentary focuses mostly on a fictional story of a family of guys who invented time travel, but the story ended up being overly long and dull.

Blade of the Immortal (2017)

Not as good as Kenshin

[7/10 · 29 December 2019]

I don't know anything about the manga on which this was based. I watched this more as a martial arts movie fan. If the fight scenes were good, I'd like it, that's my main criteria for judging this movie. I was hoping for something on the same level as the awesome live action Rurouni Kenshin movies, an excellent manga based live action adaption by the way, but sadly the fights in Blade of the Immortal were just mediocre, nothing in particular that stands out as spectacular. The action here was more about butchering people and exaggerated gore - lots of scenes of slaughtering useless hordes of opponents - than showing off the performers' skills in martial arts/weapons/stunts.

As for the rest of it: The main characters, Manji and Rin were likeable enough. I did like the weird cast of freaks comprising the bad guys. The plot, though, was pretty convoluted, with subplots that apparently went nowhere, and confusingly too many competing factions to keep up with.

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

Iron Boy Jr. doesn't feel like he's Spider-man

[5/10 · 6 October 2019]

It doesn't feel like Tom Holland is Spider-man. He's a kid with Iron Man tech. He's Iron Boy Jr.

This movie made sure Tom Holland wore the Spider-man mask as little as possible throughout the movie, It's like he had some kind of clause in his contract ensuring that his face gets way more screen time than the Spider-man mask, so that's why he's constantly taking off his mask even when inappropriate, like when he's in full view of the public, who can see him with his mask off (but for some reason, no one around him cares). I don't think Tom Holland as Spider-man even climbed up a wall like a spider once in the entire movie.

The characters, from the villains to the high school kids and teachers to Spider-man's allies, are largely hard to believe as real people.

I mean, for instance, a new superhero, Mysterio, shows up, and no one even raises a question or starts a discussion about what his powers are or how he got his powers or anything like that. They just accept him like he's a new guy with unexplained powers, cool.

The high school kids and teachers feel like comedy caricatures written by comedy writers, but they're not believable as real people at all. Everything they say or do is to aid some comedy gag, not to make us believe them as people.

As for the plot, it's predictable. You can see where Mysterio's story is going from a mile away.

But it's not all bad. There are good parts here. MJ, the weird sarcastic girl, was the most likeable character. And there's a trippy CGI-heavy sequence where reality gets warped and confusing. That was very creative and visually impressive.

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

A superb adaption of the best manga ever

[10/10 · 16 February 2019]

As a longtime massive fan of the Battle Angel manga (a.k.a. GUNNM), which I consider a masterpiece and my favorite comicbook of all time, this movie gets full approval from me. This is a superb adaption that largely faithfully recreates what made the original manga great, a perfect coupling of badass sci-fi action with a story that's full of heart. It's clear that the people behind the movie, notably James Cameron who made sure to secure the movie rights himself because he loved it so much, are fans of the original work as well, considering their care in preserving what made the original manga work so well.

This movie looks great, from the well-shot action scenes - with, thankfully, none of the disorienting rapidly-edited shaky-cam that plagues too many action movies these days - to the superior quality CGI that seamlessly blends what's real with what's not. Director Robert Rodriguez handled all this well.

I love that Alita is a character who defies the conventions and clichés trending now in recent movies, as embodied by the currently popular superhero genre, because Alita is not some defender of justice who simply fights the bad guys for the sake of the innocent or anything like that. It's more like she doesn't really know what she's fighting for and that's what makes her such a compelling, complex character.

I love that this is a movie that dares to take itself and its own themes and story seriously at a time when the most popular comicbook-based and/or sci-fi type movies are afraid of taking themselves too seriously these days, as most prominently evidenced by Disney's Marvel & Star Wars movies, with their constant stream of silly humor, like they're winking at the audience every few minutes, reassuring us they're not taking themselves too seriously. I'm glad Alita: Battle Angel does not adopt the silly tone that's become standard today. Unfortunately, it's this reason that I'm afraid the rotten critics with their rotten ratings are being unkind to Alita, like how dare something in the lowly sci-fi genre aim to be something greater than it deserves. If you like the critic-friendly Disney style of treating everything like a silly lighthearted joke, feel free to side with the rotten critics, but if you can appreciate a story that dares to be serious, give this movie a chance. You will love it.

The Founder (2016)

Good root-for-the-underdog story

[10/10 · 23 January 2019]

There's an interesting historical educational aspect to this movie that draws you in, since McDonald's is pretty well cemented into American culture and, by now, that of much of the world. But simply learning about history isn't the only reason for watching, because this is also an entertaining movie. It's a story where we find ourselves rooting for this guy because he's an underdog, but it's hard not to admire his drive to succeed, even while he tramples over other people on the way to the top.

Glass (2019)

Give James McAvoy every acting award of 2019

[10/10 · 18 January 2019]

This is a thinking person's movie. It's largely dialogue heavy and not afraid to take its time. It's a movie that takes itself seriously. It's the kind of smart movie that confuses critics who prefer light easy-to-digest popcorn entertainment. When it shifts into full thriller or action mode, brace yourself, because it gets totally intense.

Director Shyamalan doesn't get much respect from the critics, but screw the critics, he did brilliantly here from writing to directing.

And James McAvoy deserves every acting award for 2019. Might as well just give him all of them now, best actor, best actress, best child actor, etc., all of them, because no one's topping this performance.

And about the action, I saw director Shyamalan talking in an interview about how he's mainly interested in drama and that action is not his strong point, but he was really downplaying his handling of the action, because the fight scenes here are legitimately awesome. Glass thankfully features none of the shaky rapid-editing style that plagues so many other action movies. It is all well shot, so you'll have no trouble following the action. We even see lots of unusually artistic camera shots during the action, such as showing long close up shots of people's faces while they're in the middle of fighting. My favorite was a long held shot from the point of view of being inside a van while we're seeing a fight happening outside, as the combatants are circling around and slamming into the van. That was just plain cool, the kind of shot that's just mind-boggling to think about how they managed to pull it off.

And don't trust the rotten critics. Just don't. They're so worthless, those critics. They're wrong about almost every movie these days. Glass just continues the critics' rotten streak of being totally out of touch with what's really good or bad.

Mortal Engines (2018)

Spectacular. Everything is gigantic and breathtakingly grand in scale.

[10/10 · 14 December 2018]

Most beautiful, spectacular, epic movie I've seen in a long time. They've built an entire incredibly unique world for this movie. Everything on screen is gigantic and breathtakingly grand in scale. It looked like a live action Final Fantasy game.

I loved that it was a story where we didn't really know where the main characters were headed and so it's unpredictable where the story's going to end up. And I appreciate that this is a story that takes itself seriously, unlike certain other big movies these days that keep trying way too hard to be funny, by constantly sticking in forced comedy.

And the music is beautiful, continuing Tom Holkenborg's streak as one of the best film composers today. Everything he's done that I've heard has been great.

And the lead actress has a very unique sounding, soothing voice. I liked hearing her speak.

If I had to complain about anything, it's that the couple of hand-to-hand combat/sword fighting sequences were hurt by some overly choppy editing. Hollywood action directors, please learn to hold your shots during fight scenes. Quit cutting every split second. But anyway, those couple of fights weren't the focus here though, to be fair. This movie was all about the vehicular action, tanks, planes, and such, which all looked spectacular. I'd say this looked better than anything the last couple of Star Wars movies have been doing.

And ignore the rotten critics. Ignore the wannabe critics as well, the ones who've been whining and complaining about seemingly every movie for the past couple of years except Disney/Marvel, just because that's the trend these days.

Overlord (2018)

Pretty good from beginning to end

[10/10 · 19 November 2018]

It was mostly pretty good, even though it never quite rises above pretty good. I'll give it 10/10 stars anyway, because I enjoyed it enough, but the zombie aspect of the movie was a little more subdued and minimal than I expected. I kept waiting for the gore + zombie action to build up to something a little more balls-to-the-wall crazy, but even by the climax, it still felt like we hadn't gotten enough zombies.

Anyway, the action was shot decently, so that's good. Thankfully there's none of that bad shaky-cam + rapid editing style that plague too many other action movies these days.

Peppermint (2018)

Garner was good, but average-quality action scenes keep Peppermint from being truly great

[7/10 · 2 November 2018]

The most important part of an action movie is, of course, the action, so I'll be mainly discussing the action. Garner clearly trained for this role. She has the physicality to be believable enough as a competent vigilante. And she handles herself well enough with guns and in fight scenes. Garner herself was good, but there's just something lacking in the way the action scenes were choreographed, like they lacked style or spark, so that Peppermint's action scenes are, at best, only average in quality overall, not outstanding, which is a shame because the ingredients for a spectacular action movie like John Wick are here, but this movie just didn't quite achieve it. I'd rank Peppermint's action below the superb quality of great recent action movies like John Wick or Atomic Blonde. That's not to say the action was all bad though. An example of bad action in a recent movie I saw would be Mile 22, where the camera shakes so much and the editing is so choppy that we can barely see anything. Thankfully, Peppermint doesn't resort to that style of choppy shaky-cam action, so at least Peppermint can be praised for holding the camera relatively steady during its action. The highlight of Peppermint's action, I'd say, would be a scene where Jennifer Garner infiltrates the bad guys' heavily guarded base by creatively using an SUV for cover. That scene was pretty good.

And I watched this whole movie and never learned what the title means. What does "Peppermint" have to do with anything in this movie?

Soul Plane (2004)

Kevin Hart himself is funny, the rest didn't work so well

[4/10 · 10 October 2018]

It's a bunch of comedy bits stitched together. Some of it is actually pretty funny (most of Kevin Hart's scenes, Snoop Dogg as the unqualified pilot, Tom Arnold as the hapless white guy, the musical safety instruction video), but the embarrassingly bad bits (the toilet humor, the gross mile-high club couple, the perverted blind man, etc.) drag on way too long and ruin the movie overall. There's bits of a funny movie in here, but it would have been a huge improvement if they cut out about 30 minutes or so of the unfunny stuff out of this movie.

The Godfather (1972)

Overrated by critics and old men

[1/10 · 22 September 2018]

I don't see why this is supposed to be one of the greatest films of all time. I think this is just another one of those cases where everyone's convinced themselves it's so great only because the pretentious critics told us it is, and you're so afraid of being considered a philistine that you go along with it, telling yourself, yeah, this really is a masterpiece, even though you were bored by it too.

The movie's pretty boring. None of the characters are likeable. All the big moments of the movie build up to nothing more than "Let's shoot him" and then they do. That's it. That's all that keeps happening throughout the movie, in between long drawn out dialogue scenes. And the story's not even told very well - so many long conversations that don't really convey anything of any significance; so much pointless stuff happens that doesn't really add to anything to the plot.

The movie dumps like 20 characters onto us all at once at the wedding scene at the beginning of the movie and then expects us to keep up with which Italian guy is which for the rest of the 3 hours. I constantly had to pause it to search on the Internet for their names to figure out who they're talking about, which ones are Al Pacino's brothers, which of them are family, which are his in-laws, who is not related to the family, who works for the old man, who works for the rival families, etc.

I'll give this film 1/10, not because it's quite that bad, but because it's been severely overrated and deserves to drop down a few stars.

The one good thing here is the music is good, I'll give it that.

10,000 BC (2008)

Cool concept. Dull characters.

[6/10 · 16 September 2018]

The concept of a fantasy-action movie with cavemen in a prehistorical world full of ice age beasts seemed pretty cool to me.

I was hoping this would be my kind of movie. I tend to like movies that a lot of other people seem to hate. I don't scoff at CGI effects-driven spectacle kind of movies, like a lot of snobby critics.

And I couldn't care less about historical accuracy either. This is essentially a fantasy movie, barely rooted in reality, so people complaining about how it's not real are wasting their time.

The thing that doesn't work for me here are the dull characters, particularly the main caveman guy and his girlfriend. The plot revolves around them and yet they barely have much personality beyond the guy being just a very simple determined hero, with nothing more to him, and the girl simply being wide-eyed and scared almost the whole time. If they were a little more interesting, this movie could have been good.

For a better, proto-civilization era fantasy epic, watch Conan the Barbarian, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger instead. There's quite a few similarities between the plots and settings of 10000 BC and Conan, but Conan did everything better.

Gringo (2018)

Kinda like a wannabe Guy Ritchie movie

[7/10 · 16 September 2018]

This feels like some filmmaker's attempt at imitating a Guy Ritchie-style crime comedy movie, like Snatch or Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, where a variety of different criminals in initially unrelated plot lines end up hilariously crossing paths by coincidence and bungling each other's plans, although Gringo falls short of achieving quite the same level of rapid pace and witty humor. Despite that, I was mildly entertained enough by Gringo to give it a decent rating, even if it could have been better.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

It's confusing nonsense, but that's not necessarily a bad thing

[10/10 · 16 September 2018]

This is a movie that essentially pulls the rug out from under you and gives you the middle finger when you're down. It's deliberately confusing and baffling, full of plot points that apparently go nowhere, disjointed vignettes that are entertaining while they last, but leave you wondering how they're possibly connected to the rest of the movie at all, and mysteries with no explanation. I kinda like this movie, because weird nonsense like this - stuff that makes you ask "What the hell is going on? - appeals to my personal tastes, but I'd totally understand anyone else who hates this movie and doesn't understand it at all.

Everly (2014)

Ridiculous, gory action fun

[10/10 · 4 August 2018]

It's a pretty good movie in the extreme action violence exploitation film genre, where it's bloody to the point where it's more ridiculous than actually realistic. Blood and gore galore. This is for fans of movies like Hobo With a Shotgun or Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.

It's a very simple but entertaining premise, where Salma Hayek is stuck in an apartment, while she fights off waves of bad guys coming in trying to kill her. The entertainment comes from the variety in the assassins being sent in to kill her, from gun-toting hookers, to katana-wielding Yakuza guys, to evil SWAT guys, to some bizarre sado-masochists. Ridiculous stuff.

If I had to complain about anything, I'd say I would have liked to see maybe fewer shootout scenes and more martial arts instead, which would have been perfect for a movie like this. Swords and knives do come into play, but not enough for this to be considered a martial arts movie.

Upgrade (2018)

Cool robotic fighting scenes

[10/10 · 31 July 2018]

Pretty good, smaller scale sci-fi action movie, with better-than-average fight scenes. A good diversion from the usual big budget blockbuster fare.

The highlight here is the unique robotic fighting style of the main guy. I watch plenty of martial arts action fighting movies, but I've never seen anything quite like this. Just when you think you've seen all the fighting styles there are to see onscreen in action movies, they come up with a fighting style that's completely original like this. Very creative and impressive for the actors/stunt performers to be able to figure out how to choreograph these fight scenes, where he's clobbering his opponents, while only barely moving his body and his limbs any more than necessary and in a precise and robotic style of movement. These fights were good enough that my only complaint is I wish they found room to insert a few more fight scenes.

Also, the camera work is totally unique in the way they've figured out how to have the camera track one guy perfectly smoothly, as he's moving around in an intense fight scene. I briefly read about how they built a completely unique camera rig system for this movie just to pull off these shots and it sounds incredible that they were able to do it. It's so admirable to see filmmakers continue to come up with creative new ways to astound us, especially on a smaller budget film like this.

Skin Trade (2014)

Dolph tried

[10/10 · 30 July 2018]

It wasn't great, but I'll give it 10 stars anyway, because Dolph tried. An A for effort.

All these guys, Dolph + Tony Jaa + Ron Perlman + Michael Jai White, are talented action movie guys, but they've all been in way better action movies than this. Yes, they're getting old, but they can still do better.

The action scenes in this movie unfortunately just kinda fell short of being considered to be that great overall. There's a couple of pretty decent fights. One of the Tony vs Dolph fights was pretty good, in an abandoned factory. Tony vs Michael Jai White was probably the best scene - very impressive that a guy as big as White can move like that. But, as for the rest of the movie, the abundance of dull shootout scenes just weren't very interesting or shot in an engaging or dynamic way.

But in a weird way, it was amusing enough seeing Dolph try so hard to make this good that even though he mostly failed, I somehow still kinda enjoyed watching it.

Batman Ninja (2018)

10/10 from this lifelong Batman fan

[10/10 · 22 July 2018]

I say this as a lifelong Batman fan, since I saw Batman (1989) as a kid, Batman Ninja is one of the best things Batman-related ever made. This is a film that's remarkably superb in every way, from beginning to end, extraordinary in all its qualities, visually gorgeous and massively entertaining. This is not only one of the best things from DC Animation ever, but one of the best animated movies, period, I've ever seen.

This is a story oozing with love and respect for Batman's mythos and characters. This movie coming from a foreign source, Japan, does not diminish that at all. The Joker/Batman relationship is especially well executed here, two characters eternally at odds with each other, who couldn't be more different, but completely understand each other. It's a story that manages to surprise us regarding what direction it's headed in; it's not as simple as it may seem at first. It's not all over-the-top ridiculousness either, this movie surprisingly manages to feature perhaps some of the most truly emotionally powerful scenes in anything Batman related ever, in particular one sequence involving the Joker, which I won't spoil for you, but you'll know it when you see the art style abruptly changes to a hand-drawn water-color looking style.

Do not trust the negative reviews and low ratings. I'd like to say the unfortunate prevalence of low scores and angry ranting reviews are baffling, but I think I've got those haters figured out. I've scrolled through the low ratings and, on top of the obnoxious Internet-spawned trend of mocking everything DC-related, started by movie critics in recent years, most of the negativity towards this movie seems to be essentially just scoffing at the basic concept of even putting Batman in Japan at all, or simply at the thought of letting Japanese people make it - a Batman anime? How dare they?!... Yes, it's a ridiculous concept, but if you have the willingness to move past your own mental hurdles, rooted in misguided purist restrictions on what Batman should be and learn to enjoy this movie for what it is, you will marvel at the extraordinary quality of this movie.

And the beautiful musical score by Yugo Kanno deserves special mention and praise. This is what beautiful music sounds like.

Kill Zone 2 (2015)

This is how fight scenes should look

[10/10 · 21 July 2018]

This is more proof that the Asian masters of martial arts cinema are on another level. Because, holy s#%!, these fights scenes are spectacular.

Everything from the choreography, to the martial artist actors, to the stunt performers, to the camera-work excel. You'll see none of that standard Hollywood style excessive shaky-cam and rapid editing here.

Even as a lifelong martial arts movie fan, there are sequences in this movie where I was genuinely blown away by the quality of the action, in particular the big prison riot fight, featuring very impressive looking long unbroken shots, and, of course, the ultimate showdown fight with the villain. I love the martial arts movie trope of the overpowered main bad guy who dominates the fight, despite everything the heroes throw at him. You'll find yourself asking, how can they possibly take this guy down? I love it, this kind of stuff never gets old.

Good to see these martial arts movie heroes I've been a longtime fan of, Tony Jaa & Wu Jing, still as awesome as ever, despite getting older.

Coherence (2013)

Impressive

[10/10 · 7 June 2018]

Very unusual, but intriguing, thought-provoking, concept. I watched it knowing nothing about it, just that I was in the mood for a thriller movie and I happened to stumble across it on Amazon Video. This is certainly a movie where I'm glad I had no idea what the premise would be. From the trailer, it just looked like a bunch of people going crazy, but I'm glad it was way more creative than that.

I'm impressed it was shot in an apparently improvised style, with very natural sounding dialogue, like it's just a bunch of real people talking, with a natural flow to the conversation, instead of reading lines that had been written for them. It certainly makes the characters feel real. There's even people trying to be funny by inserting lame improvised jokes into the conversation, just like in real life. These actors certainly deserve bigger roles, for sure, in particular the lead actress Emily Foxler (or Emily Baldoni, as she's now credited).

And as a side note, this movie is proof that it's entirely possible to make a very good movie for a relatively very small budget, shot almost entirely in someone's house. I see so many critics bragging like they'd be so good at making movies, like they know all the tricks to movie making, yet they're never willing to actually prove that they make any movies, despite having the nerve to act like experts on how to do it. If you've genuinely got the talent for filmmaking, there's nothing stopping you from doing it.

Anyway, I liked it a lot. Good smart original sci-fi thriller.

Let Me In (I) (2010)

I'm scared by the choice of director Matt Reeves for Batman now

[8/10 · 6 June 2018]

I saw the Swedish version, Let the Right One In, years ago and loved it. I finally gave the American version, Let Me In, a chance and I can see why you'd like this movie if you haven't seen the original, but sadly I just found it to be inferior to the Swedish version every step of the way.

First of all, so much of the subtlety of Let the Right One In was lost in Let Me In. Let the Right One In allowed us as viewers to figure out certain mysteries on our own, for instance, the disturbing aspect of the true nature of the relationship between the girl and her "father," whereas Let Me In is more content with all but spelling out for us what's going on. I definitely prefer subtlety, since that's so much harder to pull off, so it's impressive when a movie like Let the Right One In manages it.

And I don't get the choice of starting off the movie by spoiling something that happens midway through. Doesn't that just ruin the tension of the early part of the movie, by simply letting viewers know where events are headed?

It's not just subtlety in storytelling that I admire about the Swedish version, but also in how it was shot. The Swedish version, for instance, used quite a lot of long takes with a stationary camera, especially during the vampire attack action sequences, whereas the same events in the American version tended to be shot with a ton of cuts and shifting camera angles. I get that they were probably going for a more chaotic look, but I found the wide-angle long takes to be more effective, by allowing the horrific events onscreen to sink in, rather than shifting the camera all over the place.

Plus the American version makes some questionable use of CGI effects and I'm not even the type of viewer who usually complains about CGI. There was a scene with a fire that somehow looked a whole lot more real in the Swedish movie than in the American movie. And then there's the rubbery-bodied vampire attack scenes. I see what they were going for, making the vampire's movements seem inhuman, but it ends up looking cartoony and silly compared to the Swedish version, which I'm sure opted for real stunt performers instead.

And finally, the musical score in movies is very important to me and I'd say the music of Let the Right One In was easily superior to Let Me In. Johan Söderqvist's score was absolutely beautiful, some of my favorite music of any movie, in fact. Listen to the track titled Eli's Theme, if you want to hear an amazing piece of music. Let Me In's score, in contrast, just seemed to be there to set the mood, but doesn't stand out as beautiful music in the same way.

Overall, I don't think Let Me In is bad, but I just thought Let the Right One In was so much better.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Stop shaking the camera

[6/10 · 5 June 2018]

Shaky-cam + rapid-edits + zoomed-in-too-close tight-angle-shots = the worst style of action/fight scene. This movie is plagued with this excessively shaky camera style. Frankly, I don't know why viewers tolerate this kind of thing. It looks horrible. I prefer to actually see what's going on during a fight scene, to see the fighting moves the stunt performers are pulling off, and not feel like I'm having a seizure. Let's count the Russo Bros directed Captain America movies among the worst offenders of this style, alongside the Taken and Bourne movies.

I blame the directors, the Russo Bros, because the first Captain America movie in this series, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), which was made by another director, actually did not have this problem. That's why the action scenes in that movie are so much more watchable than in Winter Soldier or Civil War, both directed by the Russo Bros.

To be fair, the visual effects shots in this movie actually look fine. I'm convinced that different people were in charge of the effects-heavy shots vs the hand-to-hand combat shots, because whenever there are a lot of visual effects onscreen, the camera doesn't suffer from the shaky problem; for instance, when the visual effects-heavy characters (Iron Man, Spider-Man, Ant Man, etc.) are fighting, it looks fine. It's when the hand-to-hand fighters (Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky, etc.) are fighting that we're subjected to excessive shaky-cam and choppy editing. Stop shaking the camera, please!

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

It should have been Anthony Ingruber

[10/10 · 5 June 2018]

Sorry to lead actor Alden Ehrenreich, he tried his best, but Disney made a mistake casting him. Watching the movie, I just never once found myself convinced that this guy was supposed to be the same person as Harrison Ford. I'm not even attacking his acting; it's just that no degree of acting skill can make up for having the wrong face and voice, not to mention height, for the role. People trying to be positive about the casting kept saying, "He's just doing his own take on the role! We don't need an impersonator!" But the big problem with that stance is that this is a prequel, not a reboot. We're supposed to be convinced that we're watching the same person as in the other movies. This isn't the right situation to be doing an original take on the character. Ewan McGregor, for instance, was a great Obi Wan because he mimicked Alec Guinness's voice and mannerisms perfectly and also looked like a younger version of the same guy. We just can't say the same about Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo.

That said, I'll give it 10 stars anyway, because it was mostly entertaining and that train scene was especially cool.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

A refreshing animated adventure not afraid to take itself seriously

[10/10 · 10 December 2017]

Very refreshing to see an animated film, outside of Japanese animation, dare to present us with an epic adventure story that takes itself seriously, without the need to stuff every other scene full of excessive cartoony slapstick fluff and desperately witty comedy dialogue, just to lighten the mood and remind us that it's a kids movie, which is the trend that modern Western animation seems stuck in lately. Kids absolutely can engage with serious stories that are not afraid to go a bit darker in tone, as I remember quite well from my favorite fantasy movies as a kid.

A story featuring owls as characters is a little unusual, for sure. But aside from the unusual owl theme, this is a classic epic fantasy at heart. Epic fantasy is a genre that I love and one that I can forgive for reusing some of the same old clichés, such as the good guys vs the evil empire setup, or the classic hero's journey tale, because it just wouldn't be epic fantasy without some of these same old things.

The one thing, though, that makes this movie stand out more than anything is its director, Zack Snyder. It may seem a little usual for a director who specializes in adult-oriented CGI-heavy action movies to handle a kid's animated adventure like this, but upon seeing the movie, it's clear that he made this one special in a way no one else can. His trademark eye for breathtaking visuals and exquisitely-handled action directing is on full display here. In the hands of someone else, we may have instead gotten the silly cartoony slapstick style more typical of animated movies these days, and not the epic quality action that we see here; so, thank you, Zack Snyder, for making this movie.