daddy8ball Reviews

Bunker (II) (2022)

Actors weren't bad. The movie however...

[2/10 · 14 June 2023]

In my best Joe Biden voice: 'C'mon man!' It's WW1. Trench warfare. Acres of black mud. Rotting bodies. Flies.

The uniforms, the trenches, the faces, the props -- all cleaner than a mall display at Abercrombie and Fitch. Seriously, if you had A&F do a little mannequin scene in their store in a WW1 theme, it would look like this movie.

It took me right out of the movie. Little things like accurate ranks, dirty uniforms, squalid environment, would go a long, long way. Takes minutes of research.

Guess the crew just didn't care.

I think the actors and the director have potential. Maybe put a little more research into future projects.

Prey (I) (2022)

Disregard Rotten Tomatoes -- Or better yet: heed the score, BUT

[2/10 · 5 August 2022]

...understand RT scores for what they are in the modern age: A woke-meter. The higher the score, the woker the movie.

Regardless of one's politics, it beggars the laws of physics, common sense, and belief that a small, slightly built human (regardless of gender) can 1v1 a 7ft tall 600 lb. Alien hunter with advance armor and weaponry. Especially member of an alien race that we know has cut down entire special forces teams (equipped with modern tech) in past films.

The writers, in their fanatical, obsessive, wild-eyed frenzy to create a 'stronk woman' abandon any and all creative credibility on their politically charged mission.

It really sullies this IP and squanders this opportunity. This could have been done much, much better.

Sad indeed.

Ad Astra (2019)

About as exciting as a trip to Neptune.

[3/10 · 6 December 2019]

And I don't mean the excitement of getting on the spaceship and launching into space.

I mean the sheer, mind-numbing boredom of being locked in a space capsule the size of a closet for years on end traveling through vast, empty space.

I never got hooked into Pitt's journey. I simply did not care what happened to him. As the minutes crept by I kept telling myself, "There's got to be some twist." , "His dad is going to be eaten by a giant alien from Neptune's core!"

Alas, nothing like that even remotely happened. No twist. No massive reveal. Just bone-jolting disappointment and the sense of rage that accompanies being suckered into a massive waste of time.

Avoid this at all costs, unless you're on Death Row and you want your last day on Earth to creep by very, very slowly. Then grab this film -- it will deliver.

The Irishman (2019)

Not much works here. Big miss.

[4/10 · 3 December 2019]

The 10 star ratings and gushing reviews are a joke. They cannot be serious; they are not credible. The blind loyalty is hard to fathom.

The script itself is boring. A snoozer. Time creeps by so slowly that you not only look at your watch, you shake it too to make sure its still working.

JUST BECAUSE THIS TEAM MADE GOOD FILMS IN THE PAST DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MAKE THIS A GOOD FILM.

Yeah, Pacino, Pesci, DeNiro, Scorsese -- a legendary combo. No one denies this. But this film is garbage: Scenes that don't advance the plot. Half-hearted acting. Drab dialogue. Thought experiment -- replace the main actors with unknowns. What would you give this title then? 10 stars? Best film of the decade? A masterpiece? Lol! This wouldn't make it out of 2 star range.

And here's the thing: Aside from Pesci (who holds this film together with an amazing turn) the acting is average. That's a fact. And a fact that is noted in other reviews here grounded in reality.

And the absolute worst thing about this film-- as noted in other reviews -- is that the de-aging simply does not work. IT. DOES. NOT. WORK. AT ALL! This leads to bizarre, jolting scenes that rip you out of the story and have you looking at people around you like "WTF???".

The grocer scene comes to mind. A 100 year old DeNiro, de-aged to (something? Its hard to tell, he looks like a Sleestack from Land of the Lost) beating up on a grocer that outweighs him by a 100 pounds is comical and strange to behold. DeNiro hits about as hard as a 2 year old boy fighting for his favorite dinosaur. Scorsese would have done better to have young DeNiro TOTALLY rendered in CGI like the Hulk. Seriously.

Get a grip in reality 10 star people.