apollosdei Reviews

Earwig (2021)

A road to nowhere

[3/10 · 3 March 2023]

It's a visually attractive movie that makes you think that there is some goal or explanation, yet this never arrives. The environment is dark, dim, damp, old, ghostly. The characters behave in ways that only a writer can force upon, as their behaviors don't match with real people. You could bet that there is some bigger secret or explanation for such artificiality, yet nope. Again, there isn't.

The ending is a whimsical and random and slightly disgusting as the whole movie and you could play games about the explanation. But this is faux depth. Is trying to make the viewer or reader the creator, and that's a horrible technique.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond (2020– )

It's like they didn't even try

[3/10 · 14 October 2020]

Logic is out of the window even for a supernatural fantasy show. The characters are not believable (not the actors' faults, that's how they were written) the personal stories are ludicrous, the acting is School-level, the plot is outrageously stupid (how come a community of almost 10.000 was so easily taken and killed, even when at disadvantage and after so many years? And that's the merely a detail, How come the characters are inside a VERY TOXIC burning tires' deposit and even sleep there without any sign of asphyxiation?) they take the most dumb decision ever, they can't kill one zombie (here called "empties") for their life and even when (purportedly) they are raised for that, the gay character is so unconvincing (let along bad actor) and his story so trite you feel embarrassed (me, being gay, that's specially mortifying: why even try such clumsy tokenism?). My gosh, the fake teenage angst, cheap and cheesy drama, the MUSIC (oh gosh), the whole thing is a bad recipe.

G-Loc (2020)

Cheap doesn't mean foolish, but in this case....

[4/10 · 16 August 2020]

In this case you have low budget and unintelligent plot, plus many things that don't make sense given the sci-fi premises. If you want to wade the waters of space sci-fi you can at least have an intelligent plot (not one that seems written by a 14 y.o. who also has no idea how physics work). New sci-fin fans are way more informed and demanding than in the past, that's why this is unforgivable. Some parts are so bad you pity the actors (by the way, this movie has one of the worst forced CPR's scenes you will find in the world of cinema, so trite and overused). The only thing they avoided (just by a hair) is making the male and female protagonist fall in love but only because there was no enough time or because she is one of those new woke female characters who is physically as strong or stronger than men and that would be offensive to some people).

Sputnik (2020)

A good find

[7/10 · 7 August 2020]

Usually you don't expect much from non American sci fi movies. But this one is a good find. It's like seeing those movies of the 80's or 90's that still weren't that formulaic and doesn't try either to lecture you on morals or is totally devoid of any moral standing. The pace is slow but not boring (something American movies have lost the ability to keep) and the story evolves naturally and never fails to its own logic (there is no "you gotta be kidding me" moment as it all matches and fits without foolishness or absurdity, given the preset premises). Maybe it needed a little more or a little else to excel but it's quite a good product and the special effects are perfect (on par or even surparssing the American CGI's).

Proximity (II) (2020)

Only if you are 10 y.o.

[2/10 · 3 August 2020]

Maybe (only maybe) if you are a child you would find this movie slightly palatable, interesting and logical. Otherwise is a complete mess, a School project that lacks all what would make a movie digestible, as if someone had a dream (or a trip) and decided that, untouched, was the argument for a movie (and not even an original dream). Yes, you see that there was some money poured on it (modest, but still) that actors aren't horrible (but with such script what could they do?) but that is all that is worth.

War of the Worlds (2019– )

Even the actors seem bored and not convinced of the plot

[3/10 · 30 December 2019]

Let's forget for a moment all the technological and pseudoscientific inconsistencies these types of shows may have, as usual: that's no excuse for unrealistic characters who behave in poorly believable ways; on top of that, they have no depth and whatever authors try to do to give them some humanity, is trite and pathetic. For example: You would see people with more angst, sense of urgency and perspective of reality on people who lost a fly abroad than with these characters. The plot is stupid too and makes no sense on top of the aforementioned lack of alien (and human) technological consistency. You feel sorry for the actors because some of them, at least, have to deal with a useless material to work with and obviously the direction is horrible. There are film shorts that work miracles in 10 minutes, this TV show doesn't know what to do in so many episodes. And, of course, there is no War of the Worlds of anything close to it.

Hanna (2019–2021)

Don't look for surprises or an intelligent plot

[5/10 · 15 April 2019]

It's like they neither knew how to exploit and expand the movie's plot nor how to improve it to another level. The rebellious teenager who doesn't hesitate to kill (no matter whom) it's a kind of cover for today's anger driven sensitive teens, or at least for a while when the show (that, as I said, doesn't know how to resolve its plot) turns into another goal when Hanna's putative father thinks he can play hero again (how can he not, he is almost immortal until he isn't). The show is awash with deus ex machinas and gross mistakes from the baddies (that of course are never clever), allows the characters to keep going (and going and going), though, to be fair, the actors are quite good (all of them) and this is the only thing that keep the show from turning into a ruin. In the end we see the culmination of the "we invested billions on some obscure thingy but can not do anything right or be unnecessarily and pathetically villainy" (real villains know how to invest in a psychologist or two). The special effects, the stunts and so forth are well done (luckily, given that basically that's the soul of the show) though, to be fair, sometimes they get ridiculous (in favor of those we know they have to be, of course). So, the verdict is: watchable, well acted, good effects, sometimes quite slow and too drawn into pseudo teenage angst, not very intelligent (although it has many "at least we are trying to be" moments) too cartoony on its evilness and well, of course, predictable.

Replicas (2018)

What is Keanu doing in this thing?

[5/10 · 12 February 2019]

The plot seems like it was written by a 14 y. o. with plenty of money to spend. And I don't mean an intelligent, well informed, clever 14 y. o. Luckily for the movie, Keanu's acting skills (and the decent ones of some of the other actors) makes for a case of some engaging tension going, though at any given step there are SO many plot holes it's almost ridiculous. Suspension of disbelief has its limits when the plot is purportedly happening in the current era (you could stretch one of the premises, but not so many at once, whether robotics, cloning, transferring minds, and the list goes on and on). If you just want something to watch and forget the minute it ends, it's good, if you are looking for an intelligent sci fi movie, don't bother.

Project Almanac (2015)

Suspension of disbelief is not enough

[3/10 · 5 December 2015]

Suspension of disbelief is not enough to take you away from so many impossibilities. Let's forgive the cheap-time-machine-in- the-basement one (without it there is no plot, so let's allow that) but the whole paraphernalia of dumb teenagers rushing into stupidity without apparent control, mixed with some cheap and fake teenager love drama, some butterflies effects (how not), makes the plot barely fit for a 6 y.o. . The actors are good, the cinematography is OK, but the plot is extremely weak, it's like throwing brainless people to the unlikely position of doing brainy things (because, er, they built a time-machine nonetheless) and do random and immature stuff afterward, there is not even a small epiphany of responsibility before the craze. As if someone had made a poll among kids about "what would you do if you had a time machine?" The ending is also as predicable and dumb. The characters never even make an attempt to understand the whole theoretical physics thingy let alone a philosophical one, it's like the simply found a toy without analyzing the context and the main character is at the end portrayed as a poor time-jumping addict whose only solution is, well, you guessed it, solve it all with the same trick. The problem with time machine movies is originality; this one is merely an essay where the author seems to think that connecting the dots is enough (as if we hadn't seen that before).

The Day the Earth Stopped (2008 Video)

Easily avoidable bloopers and mistakes.

[4/10 · 23 March 2009]

Even if it was cheap, there were big bloopers that could have been avoided and weren't. You can do cheap an good. Or cheap and careless. How come the completely naked alien woman had a heavy noticeable make-up? And that's the beginning. Just a little brain and those stupid mistakes –that required not money, just common sense- would have been adverted. How about when "every car in the town is paralyzed" and you can see far away a car racing through the street? Just to point the camera in a different angle. The robots were cool, even if almost they didn't move, and even if they were anthropologically useless in form (why such a machine had legs?). The actress was beautiful, obviously not a great performance and worst direction. The plot was bordering with a teenager script, but could have been forgiven if the long list of easily correctable mistakes were fixed.

Jason X (2001)

No brain at all

[1/10 · 11 June 2005]

How can someone make such a stupid movie. Not even a 4 year boy can make such a bad script. Awful. What happened? Wasn't anyone on charge to read the story of the film to advice that this piece of puke was not edible? And the end was so bad, so "I leave it to make you think that this crap can re-emerge once more" that you can not less than laugh. So much money, so few imagination. The crappy movie is made of a hundred little thefts from a hundred movies. The only reason to stay to the end is to see how farther such a lack of ideas can go. And its amazing, it keep on going with the same stubbornness of Jason to clinch to life. I pity the actors who took part on this movie.