Lima

The villain is resolved very early, with an hour to go and you just wonder what else they're going to fill that small space with? What follows are random situations that make absolutely no sense, and then the climax comes. Another twist that sends the whole thing into a tailspin. It's popular these days to say that even AI could have written it better. But I'm afraid even AI has its integrity and wouldn't let this kind of stupid stuff out. Otherwise, I have to tip my hat to the filmmakers - the entire film takes place in a snowstorm in some truck stop, and you almost don't even realize that 99% of the film was shot in a studio (while outside the temperature was 30 degrees in the shade), with artificial snow, a house built just for the purpose of filming, and artificial trees all around. That's where the WETA guys are really unbeatable. The creation of a false reality is the only interesting thing about the film, one of those cases where the circumstances of the filming trump the film itself.

Without the slow motion, it would have been half the running time. But okay. Let's just say I had a pretty decent time for the first half at the expense of Zack Snyder trying to embrace the concept of The Magnificent Seven and graft onto it some mythology that would stand up to many sequels. It didn't annoy me, even the graphic sequences from the panels of some overstuffed comic book somehow survived unscathed. But then it starts flying around planets, making do with a few ugly CGI settings, even darker, perhaps to make the digital clutter not so in your eyes. Snyder stuffs in a few generic fights that won't get a normal viewer out of their chair, without any suspense, let alone a hint of atmosphere, and with a villain that looks like out of a classy S&M club. Everything that happens after the scene of the monster taming is one big visually ugly waste, and that's pretty much the entire second half, with one slow-motion sequence after another, where Snyder must have thought that if it worked in 300, it must work here. No, Zack, it really doesn't, maybe in your wet post-pubescent dreams.

Praise for the first four chapters: It's as if elements from the best disaster flicks of the last three decades came together. The suspicion of something dangerous, like in Take Shelter, and the view of a global catastrophe through the microcosm of ordinary people who have no influence on the situation, like in Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Sam Esmail builds the tension of each scene fantastically (I'll remember the tanker for a long time), with clever camera rides that make it all look very cinematic – I couldn't count the iconic scenes with the fingers on one hand. The actors are all man great, except for the young boy, and Mahershala Ali gives it his best performance. With him, all it takes is one scene of him telling his ominous tale to Juliet over wine and it gives you the chills of a first-rate horror film. The daughter's adoration of Friends and her main concern for how the last episode turned out, even though everything is going to shit around her in real life, is such an apt satirical dig at the need of some shallow-minded individuals for whom even the slightest banality is enough to fulfill life. Unfortunately, it loses it's previous mojo in the last instructional chapter. The mystery evaporates and its explanation is like something out of a Trumpist paranoid pamphlet about how the whole world is against the US and that the truth is in the hands of the preppers who have had their packs of basic necessities ready for years, or who have thrown their entire savings into an underground bunker. I think that on Judgment Day I’ll be taking a quiet nap :o)

And the prize for the year's best acting trio goes to ... the chef, Paul Giamatti and his student. Alexander Payne is unique. He always picks a serious subject and wraps it in subtle and sometimes biting humor, and throws in an interesting point on top. The main thing here is how it is possible to humanise a grumpy and strict professor into an understanding and sensitive being without smacking of some cheap scriptwriting crutch. Giamatti absolutely shines in his role, reminiscent of Payne's best film to date, Sideways. There, Giamatti lived only for wine and everything related to it and women were rather on the fringes of his interests, here he lives only for his ancient Greece, for ancient history and women are again on the sidelines for him. Thanks his skill as an actor and his physiognomy, no one would be more suited to the role than the slightly chubby Paul – an Oscar nomination probably won't jingle from this, but it certainly should. And it's not just Paul, but the captain is back in full force after the botched Downsizing, proving why he's a star of independent filmmaking. Payne gently slides between the slightly depressing moods and the feel-good ones, and even though it ends the way it does, you get an awfully good feeling from it all.

I didn't fall for it. At its very core, Barbie is as shallow and superficial as what it mocks all along. I can totally see the brainstorming sessions between the Mattel and Warner Brothers executives, in roundtables similar to the one Will Ferrell had in the film: "Hey, we need to boost the sales of our rubber dolls, how about we make some seemingly socially critical pulp fiction, wrap it in basic lessons about the workings of the patriarchy and the status of women in society, and just take a little dig at our corporation on the side to make it look self-aware to the naysayers of our product line.... ". Well, what comes out of a corporation making fun of corporatist? Yes, just corporate toothless humor, created on commission, and made to answer to those at the top who pay for it. PS: I'll slap two stars, for the opening (really funny) reminiscence of A Space Odyssey and then for the brief scene where Margot tells a naturally aged woman that she's beautiful. That's what the Botox princesses, led by Nicole Kidman, should be playing in a loop to light up their barbie heads.

The Italians were a lot of fun in the '80s. As far as "originality of authorship" goes, they rode the same wave that studio Asylum have been doing for the last two decades: they picked up on a film trend, probed its most prominent representative, and quickly made a shameless ripoff, and to make it look good on store shelves (and in its day on VHS rental shelves), they changed the title slightly, but in a way that was still familiar to the viewer. So while today the Asylum guys are churning out treats like Transmorphers, Atlantic Rim, etc., some of the most prominent 80s trash masters, Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, worked in tandem to concoct this total rip-off of Predator. Here, they copy the characters (the leader, the Indian/Latino with hunting instincts, the tough black guy, the intellectual, the fighter with no pain), the scenes (the attack on the mercenary settlement) and their succession, even the camera shots and the actors' perspectives at precise angles. Only the tension-filled final half-hour of John McTiernan's film, when Arnold wordlessly sets traps for the predator as in the days of the Neanderthals, was omitted, and instead a female element was inserted, a silly motif of a supposedly deceased comrade from the war, his transformation into a super robot, his later epiphany, and a plea to the Italian Arnold of Wish to send him out of the world forever. You can take this as a spoiler and it won't hurt anything, because I don't believe anyone can take this cockeyed approach to making movies seriously and be interested in what's happening on the screen. And more than anywhere else, the saying "When two people do the same thing, it's not always the same thing" is true. These are two completely different universes - the legendary one, with top action and full of invention, and then the Italian one, where a bunch of nobodies run around in the woods and play soldiers, with a production design like a second-rate TV studio. Actually, not even that.

Gojira as a serious war drama? Yes, a return to the classic roots of the first two episodes. It's a terrible shame that most people associate the brand with Hollywood's Monsterverse, or that goofy Emmerich flick with Jean Reno that had nothing to do with Godzilla. They have no idea about the Godzilla phenomenon in the country of its origin, Japan, where TOHO has made a total of 29 feature films starring the overgrown lizard across six decades. Sure, the SHOWA era in the 50s and 60s in particular was very cringe, with Godzilla facing aliens and a monkey and making friends with a little Japanese boy. But this latest installment, essentially an homage, is a return to the rawness of the first two films from 1954 and 1955. Gojira is no pet this time, but a fierce creature happy to bite people in half and throw trains through the air. I was surprised by the screenwriting focus on human characters. Basically the entire first half doesn't leave the setting of the slums on the outskirts of Tokyo, dealing with a sort of small family micro-story, with a momentary detour to the sea, where the mines left behind are being fished out at the cost of their lives, only to have Godzilla start destroying the city after an hour or so, with a familiar musical theme from the TOHO films that brought a smile to my face. There are four action sequences in the film with each one getting better and better. It's unbelievable that this film cost less than Jákl’s Jan Žižka, yet it has the parameters of a big budget film, and by alternating the closed micro environments of one room with lavish CGI scenes, it very cleverly masks its budgetary constraints. Also, fans of the franchise will find references to old standbys, with Gojira's luminous shell playing a major role in this regard. There's also a noticeable sense of the lingering post-war and Hiroshima trauma of the Japanese in the film, just as you'd sense in the old films. It's a great homage, and if it is a reboot, I love it to.

I would never cast young Washington in a leading role again, his acting bad (and I'm taking off one star for that). Otherwise I found this film terribly rich, both visually and emotionally. Gareth Edwards takes us through several locations with a succession of gorgeous images, whether it's a city with dozens of glowing neon signs like in Blade Runner, an Asian landscape where ancient Buddhist culture clashes interestingly with modern sci-fi elements, or the Nomad super spacecraft that Kosinski seems to have invented for Oblivion. I was especially impressed with Asia and how thoughtfully and seamlessly the modern architecture builds on the old buildings, creating such an interesting contrast, and the viewer immersion is incredible. I'm not a fan of AI, but I still didn't mind that Edwards relativizes it and actually puts it in the position of a positive element, just like Blade Runner did 40 years ago, the story thus gets a charge that kept my attention throughout and the few logical lapses didn't ruin it for me. Unfortunately, Edwards is a misunderstood filmmaker. Whether it is with Godzilla, which was a clever homage to the TOHO's films, or here, with the heavy-duty sci-fi that isn't being made much these days. I can only be comforted by the fact that Blade Runner was also critically panned and rejected by audiences in its day, so .... maybe it'll come out in a few decades too, Gareth.

Considering that this at its core it is a long, slightly intrusive commercial for a Sony product, it's very good. Although it didn't cost much, it manages to disguise itself thanks to Blomkamp's skill and looks like a substantial piece. The racing scenes have verve, they have fantastic sound design, and the editor gives a superhuman performance during them. The scenes that don't involve racing also manage to grab you by the heart thanks to the acting. Leaving aside Orlando Bloom, who looks like the witch from Hansel and Gretel with that impossible haircut and scowling expression, you can believe the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and her maternal feelings (very unexpected casting), Hounsou is fine and his tearful reaction when meeting his son is a very nice scene. Harbour makes a poem out of his mentor role (and I like his old-school penchant for walkmans and Black Sabbath), but I’m especially surprised by the unknown Archie Madekwe, the boy does a great job. I wouldn't have expected to be so invested in a gamer story, but it happened. Blomkamp is like a magician who can pull golden rabbits out of a hat for little money. PS: I was looking forward to seeing the basic idea of the film "video game gamer turned professional racer" being fucked up as nonsensical, only to have the final photo collage slap me in the face and knock my jaw off. I really had no idea.

In the future, on a repeat, I'll always prefer Lester's Musketeers anyway, because it has enough juicy popcorn to feed all of Nigeria, it doesn't skimp on the humour (which is almost absent in this French version) and the vivacious Michael York is like the finest wine as D'Artagnan. On the other hand, I like this French unpolished concept. Especially the magnificent production design! Muddy, unpaved, sandy streets, men sweaty and dirty (and with yellow teeth ), when, as we know, hygiene was a priority in the 17th century, even among the high classes, and the camera with muted colours adds a lot to that realistic impression. And what can we say, cherchez la femme Eva Green is after all a sexier milady than Faye Dunaway. So actually, when I sum up the comparison, I come out with a tie, and that's not a bad mark at all.