elpresidente-4 Reviews

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Avatar: The way of sadness

[10/10 · 18 December 2022]

I have watched the first Avatar many times, and I had a huge anticipation for this one. Honestly I was surprised by how sad it was. In contrast with the first one, which also had its sad moments, but still had quite the upbeat tone and ended up on a victory note, this one is just hard to enjoy fully overall and is quite emotionally draining. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, most modern movies are completely emotionally sterile. I personally am very stoic person, but even I barely held it together by the end. Women around me were wiping tears from their 3d glasses. It was brutal.

In regards to the world buildup, the cinematography and the action scenes, as usual James Cameron delivers and overdelivers. I wish there was more in-depth self exploration of the feelings of the main characters, there was very little of the poetic self-observation that Jake Sully goes through in the first movie. Here, the emotions and reactions were mostly basic and primal, in response to what was happening. Too much fear, anger and uncertainty. Also, too little of the wonderful personality of Neytiry, who in this one was pushed too close to her primal instincts and emotions. I think there should've have been more quiet happy moments to contrast the ugliness and the threat coming from the human invasion. We barely saw the life of Jake Sully on Pandora after the first movie. There were some scenes but not enough. Overall, it does feel like the first part of two-part movie. Hope the next one gets released sooner and we don't have to wait years.

Hulk (2003)

A huge miss

[3/10 · 4 October 2021]

This movie is a mess, with a lot of boring parts and the interesting parts are very few in between.

First of all, when you are making a movie about a green monster that smashes things, why do you turn this into a psychological drama? Not only was the psychological drama completely unnecessary it also failed to create actual drama. It's like nobody supervised Ang Lee. He definitely needed some supervision. The direction and editing is very weird. Ultra zoomed faces everywhere, split screens and picture-in-picture. Annoying! Due to the aforementioned attempt at psychological drama the pacing of the entire movie is bad. There's a scene near the end where two characters talk some boring nonsense face to face for six minutes straight and nobody is smashing anything. In a Hulk movie! Someone should've had the sense to see what a bad script this is and throw it out before filming even started. And funny enough, the movie ends right when there was something interesting about to happen. The Hulk is in some South American country and delivering medicine to local peasants, but local militia intervenes and steal the medicine. You see, that is interesting - there is some actual stake here, something to care about. The Hulk can use his powers to do some good, instead of randomly smashing things that confuse him. Anyway, this movie was a huge waste of money and talent. I should give it a score of one, but I'll add one more for the action scenes and one for Jennifer Connely.

Pet (I) (2016)

Is this the dumbest movie ever made?

[1/10 · 13 July 2021]

This movie hit the bottom and kept digging down well past the point of absolute stupidity. Avoid at all cost.

Control (2004)

Surprisingly good story, but lacks that bit of extra effort

[8/10 · 11 October 2020]

In 2003 I saw Michelle Rodriguez from up-close when she was in my country to film this movie and this is probably the closest I've been to a real Hollywood star. She seemed like a very nice person. I was always curious to see what exactly were they filming, so I decided to watch this movie recently. I didn't expect much to be honest, but the movie had a very good story, the dialog held up and there were no stupid scenes or forced plot points. All the actors did a great job. The movie keeps you interested and thrilled enough. With all that being said, the script lacked true depth. Some elements of the story could've used more development and polish, and the ending was kinda lame, even if it was fitting for the character. Anyway I recommend it, it's worth at least one viewing, especially if you are a fan of any of the three major actors involved. For a direct-to-video movie, not bad.

Spirited Away (2001)

I have no strong opinion about this movie either way

[5/10 · 15 June 2020]

I've been hearing good things about this movie for years and finally decided to watch it, but I didn't quite understood it. There are things that I liked, like the expressive way the main character was drawn, the overall color palette and backgrounds, maybe some points for the original setting, but with that, I can't think of what else good to say. From all the things I've heard I expected the movie to be very emotional, yet I failed to notice such thing. I had seen the black character with the mask used in memes on the internet so much, that I expected he would play a really important part in the story, but in the end he was nothing special. The story really confused me, some elements didn't make much sense to me, and the ending was pretty rushed, like they ran out of money and had to complete the movie fast. I don't know, maybe I have to study Japanese philosophy and symbolism to understand what is happening. Don't get me wrong, I kinda enjoyed the movie, I just wish it made more sense. It sort of reminded me of the movie "labyrinth", but that movie has a very good structure and story, and you always know what is going on and why. In conclusion, I think the movie would be appreciated more by children.

Bachelor Party (1984)

Fails to live up to the expectations

[2/10 · 16 April 2020]

I've known this movie for many years but only got to watch it recently. I've always heard what a good comedy it was and how funny it was. I realized that all this is a lie in the first scene with Tom Hanks and the nun. The jokes are forced and rely mostly on shouting and obsession with sex. There are many scenes in this movie with people partying and having "fun". It looks very fake and from their forced cheerful expressions it's obvious most of these extras consider this experience a very low point in their career. There were only two moments where I laughed in this movie, so that's why I give it two stars. Avoid this movie unless you are a man-child with low threshold of amusement.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

The sale of Star Wars to Disney went as expected

[1/10 · 18 March 2020]

And by that I mean - went down in horrible flames. How did I knew it would come to this the moment I heard about it? Because Disney doesn't care about story. They aren't creators who have the deep need within to put on screen things very dear and special to them. Disney are people who have a deep and special need for money and financial success and they would ruin and walk over anything that stands in their way. It shouldn't be possible to guarantee financial success by buying out proven stories and franchises that audiences love again and again. Yet this is Disney's favorite modus operandi that works. Even now they are sharpening their teeth for the next story or characters that the audiences will love, so they can buy the rights and squeeze money out of it. This movie, had all the charm of a 60 year old hooker, all dressed up in the finest extravagant clothing, expensive makeup and perfume, which couldn't hide her wrinkled skin and horrible street personality. I spent the entire movie being annoyed, shaking my head in disbelief how can someone fail basic story-telling tropes. This movie was filmed like a trailer - one flashy scene after another, which is somehow supposed to make it amazing, and maybe it does look amazing if you are a five year old kid. But great movies aren't made by flashy CGI overburdened scenes. Great movies are made by story and emotion. Emotion was noticeably missing from this CGI fiasco. I feel sorry for John Williams. It was so obvious that he struggled to create anything beautiful for this so the only moments where the music is noticeable is where he uses his old Star Wars motifs. In short - this movie is a cinematic abomination. A carnival ride of mediocrity, that leaves a stale taste in your mouth and shakes your belief in the power of story-making. Just one great shameful experience for everyone involved.

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Extremely funny movie

[10/10 · 13 February 2020]

I love this movie. I've seen it at least ten times so far and every time it's as funny as ever. I literally have tears in my eyes from laughing when I am watching some scenes. It is a brilliantly written comedy supported by great performances by the actors. Definitely worth watching again and again.

Fantastic Four (2015)

Fantastically stupid

[1/10 · 1 September 2019]

This movie is extremely, aggressively bad. The script is like from a cheap tv show from the 60's but with larger budget (which went god knows where since the movie and FX look bad too). There was nothing likable about any of the characters, with the exception Sue Storm, because she is pretty. The main heroes are stupid teenagers that somehow make teleportation devices. The main villain apparently set the laboratory on fire before they asked him to return to the project, for which he contributes exactly nothing, besides being a sulky jealous rooster-blocker, and ironically ends up again setting the laboratory on fire and even more than that. Who could've guessed. The funniest thing is this movie ends up being many times worse than the first Fantastic four movie, which was enough already. Now the question is - can Fox make a third - even more stupid version? I bet they can.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

King of the stupid movies

[1/10 · 24 August 2019]

I guess, it should've been expected from a movie about giant lizards punching each other, but the letdown is still there. My enjoyment from this movie started sliding downhill in the first 5 minutes and by the end has plummeted way into the negative scores with blazing speed. This monstrous stupidity had it all - annoying kids, predictable script, cringy lines, stupid characters making stupid decisions, climate change propaganda. And it wasn't even a cleverly disguised propaganda. You know, there could've been at least a slight attempt to disguise it. But no, it was all in-your-face complete distortion of what ecology means, boiled down to "humans bad they must die". The director of this movie is some unknown hack who directed "Superman returns". This is all we have to know about him to learn everything there is to know. Too bad they probably paid him at least half a million for this, so he won't starve to death before his next movie. May God have mercy on us.

Downsizing (2017)

Horrible depressing movie

[2/10 · 21 June 2019]

I was avoiding this movie for a long time but eventually the boredom got me, and it was on HBO Go, so I watched it. Boy, what a mistake. I was expecting funny high jinks and gags based on the "little people" premise, but this movie carefully avoided them in order for the viewer to not have a single laugh. The entire plot develops like a nightmare for the main character, who is the most boring pathetic character ever. Even other movie characters tell him that. I have no idea what this movie was trying to say. Was it a mocking satire against the climate change propaganda or simply a climate change propaganda? I can't tell. What was the point of the main character dealing with horrible women? It's like the director was a misogynist or something. The only redeemable feature in the movie was the Vietnamese woman, whose straightforward view on life was refreshing to see in this dystopian nightmare. I bet in the first draft of the script the main character went into the stupid tunnel at the end, but test groups didn't like that ending so they changed it to a slightly less stupid one.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The unpleasant task of surpassing yourself

[8/10 · 25 April 2019]

Let me first start by saying that Endgame is a fine and entertaining movie that does the job. However I expected quite a lot more. Infinity War was fresh and unexpected, emotionally powerful movie. Endgame is typical Hollywood. The creators had to please everyone, from the shareholders to the audience and it amounts to a movie that takes a standard approach towards resolving the problem created in the first part. I think the biggest mistake was the use of time travel as a plot device. It stifles creativity. But I guess there was no easy way to solve the problem of facing an enemy that is basically an omnipotent God. The creators put themselves in a corner, by creating an unbeatable enemy and had to use the cheap trick of time travel. In essence, all-stone Thanos remained unchallenged and unbeaten. I would've preferred a story-line that somehow didn't use time-travel to fix things. Definitely a thankless task for the writers, but this is not science, I think it was still possible. Anyway, with Infinity war for a moment we forgot we're watching a silly superhero movie, but Endgame brought us back to reality.

Mother's Day (I) (2016)

Routien annual interconnected dramedy movie

[2/10 · 17 April 2019]

Everything about this movie was so forced and pushed, the director, the writers and the producers probably all got hernia. Why try to make all these subplots run together in a single movie? None of them got serious development. I bet these were all single script rejects and someone decided to make a Frankenstein movie out of it. Well it sucks. It was boring and tedious and completely non-engaging. I think I laughed only at the pox whistle. I understand this movie is targeted at suburban middle class women in their 40's and 50's, and it shows. This movie is so detached from reality, only detached from reality living in a bubble spoiled women could enjoy it. This movie made me depressed. It was like staring at someones fake smile for 2 hours. Absolute torture. And the wedding scene was just the soulless cherry on top of this pile of materialized life disappointment for divorced women. Avoid at all cost or you will want to jump from a bridge.

The OA (2016–2019)

Extremely boring waste of presious time

[1/10 · 11 April 2018]

I tried to start watching this show since it was recommended to me by Netflix, but the incredibly slow pace and ridiculous plot make this a hard pill to swallow. The main character is a curmudgeonly annoying woman who refuses to answer even most basic questions in order to surround herself with aura of mystery and divine knowledge that only she possess and everyone else is too stupid to understand. At the same time this celestial genius has problems finding a free wi-fi spot. Clearly not a genius at all. Consider this piece of fine writing: She asks a local bully for free wi-fi which angers the bully for some reason to the point where he instructs his dog to attack her. Apparently free internet is the breaking point for this gentleman. The OA then proceeds to defeat the dog with biting and gentle whispers. After this cringeworthy bizarre scene, I asked myself if I have reached such a low point in my life to tolerate such nonsense. In the next scene the weird lady and the bully suddenly become best friends without any serious reason. Who wouldn't befriend someone who unleashed a rabid Rottweiler on you. My recommendation is to avoid this at any cost.

I, Tonya (2017)

An honest look upon all of us

[10/10 · 18 March 2018]

I was 14 in the year when the famous incident happened. Honestly, I can't remember on which side I was, my brain seems to contain memories for both cases. This just shows that memories are not very reliable. I was skeptical towards this movie, because I didn't want to be forced to feel empathy towards someone bad. This movie however boldly shows us Tonya's life from early on, and it sure wasn't full of roses. It will definitely change you opinion on the subject matter. Margot Robbie makes a stunning performance, she really should've gotten the Oscar. The rest of the cast also do their job extremely well. I would recommend this movie not only because it is well done, engaging and entertaining but also because it has a rare quality - it make you feel genuine emotions and makes you think about important matters like love and hate. Will definitely watch it again.

Mr. Nobody (2009)

The end of the movie is NOT nigh

[1/10 · 20 June 2017]

I watched this movie, because a friend said he watched it and liked it. I watched the trailer and was very skeptical, but still decided to give it a chance. After the movie started, my concerns were deepened when I realized this is a European movie and also a co-production. At that point I knew I had stepped on the doodoo train, but the door had already closed. I endured the whole 2 hours and 35 minutes heroically, but I admit I was checking the clock every five minutes and was making calculations when the torture will end. The only good thing about this movie was Diane Kruger and that's because I find her attractive and want to have sex with her. This also seemed to be the main hero's motivation to live for half the movie. The other half he spent his time with some other women, who seemed too boring. Honestly speaking, this movie is a pretentious mess of half-digested metaphysical concepts, substandard sci-fi elements, horny teenage problems and producers with too much money. The irony of this movie is that at one point the main character says: "most of the time nothing happened, like a french movie". The same applies here. People move around, talk something and yet nothing really happens. Complete nonsense. The movie is utterly devoid and sterilized of any message. Avoid this movie at any cost, unless you want to get really depressed.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Ridley Scot's directing license should be revoked

[2/10 · 19 May 2017]

In hindsight, the monumental failure that is this movie should've been obvious, after the "Prometheus" fiasco. But movie fans are flawed, they do tend to have hope, in this case very unjustified. All the money thrown in this movie for sets and VFX are ultimately dwarfed by the colossal idiocy of the script. None of criticisms towards "Prometheus" were taken into account here. Not a single character was likable. All of them acted like complete morons. The first thing they do when they land on an unknown planet is to jump in the mud and start making mud angels, metaphorically speaking. No suits, no any preliminary analysis, no reconnaissance of any sort. Life on another planet doesn't surprise them at all. Alien civilization on another planet doesn't amaze them even in the slightest. A huge alien spaceship - nothing interesting here. A dog tag from another human being, hmm weird but still not interesting enough. Move along. It's more fun to poke the local unstudied flora with their unprotected face pressed right against it. When someone starts bleeding from all orifices it's best to lead them straight in the ship, what could go wrong. Sure, lock your crew-mate in the room with the spiked zombie. Sure, slip on the bloody floor like in a Marx brothers comedy, twice. Sure, fire at will in the room with the flammable exploding materials. Sure, spread around and stay alone in the creepy temple with no windows and easily climbable walls. It is mind-boggling how stupid these people were. At some point your just start to wonder if anyone will make any sane and logical decision. What the hell happened to mankind in the future - they all have become retards. But the idiocy is not limited to humans. The race of the engineers is wiped in seconds after they gleefully all gather around on a neat giant square to greet the arrival of one of their biological warfare ships with non-responding crew. For creatures that were so susceptible to death from the virus they created, they had a pretty nonchalant attitude towards bio-hazard protocols. To top all the cringe-worthy scenario, this movie had an extremely disappointing ending. People in my cinema were literally cursing and throwing bottles with water around. In conclusion - avoid this nihilistic and misanthropic abomination at any cost. It will only make you angry. The Alien franchise is beyond hope of salvation.

Warcraft (2016)

A good beginning for a trilogy hopefully

[9/10 · 14 June 2016]

The Warcraft universe is full of interesting lore, myths and background history and many important and minor characters. The creators of this movie had the difficult task to put at least some of it in a two hour movie and present it in an understandable form even for people who are not familiar with that universe. I can say that they succeeded. As a viewer and a fan of the games, I am now left craving more and hoping that we will some day see the story of Arthas on the big screen and more of the beautiful world of Azeroth. The move had plenty of action, good fights, and most importantly - characters you could relate to even if they were orcs. The people who are behind the visuals of Gul'Dan, Durotan, Orgrim and Blackhand did a marvelous job. My minor complaints are that we didn't get to see much of the continent of Azeroth, and that the other races of the Alliance had only minor background appearance. Also, I was hoping for some of the music of the game to get at least a bit incorporated in the soundtrack. Still, this was an impressive handling of this game franchise and a good transition to the movie form.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

A movie made by a fringe group within a fringe group

[2/10 · 5 March 2016]

Let me start by saying that I wanted to see this movie after watching an Emma Watson interview on some British radio. It was claimed that the movie is very moving and emotional, even made some people cry. I was curious what was so emotional about it. Well, I still don't know, because while I watched the movie my heart rate didn't change even a little bit. I felt like I've already seen this movie. Then I realized why I felt that way. The movie is very formulaic and full of modern Hollywood teen drama clichés. It's a product of detached from reality people living in already detached enough society. The main characters in the movie and their families are upper middle class suburban people, living in large spacious houses, on smoothly paved clean streets, with neat lush patches of grass in front of each house. They are teens without a single work day who drive huge pickup trucks, their goals in life are to get accepted in Harvard and become movie directors or writers. They recreate and enjoy movies about decadence and decay. They have it so easy in their life, that the only problems they face is their own budding sexuality and the fear that they will not fit within the massive rich-first-world-people cliché that their entire life is. The movie's pretense for drama is forced upon the viewer by creating a hardly believable plot of sexual mismatch, sexual intolerance, sexual depravity, relationship abuse, teen drug experimenting, a suicide and a car accident thrown in for good measure. The only thing missing was someone getting cancer and beating it through sheer will (or tragically dying). I think they just replaced it with a nervous breakdown. I could've forgiven this movie and its pitiful attempt to deliver a meaningful message if it wasn't the fact that they hired a mainstream actress famous for being the unfulfilled wish of hundreds of millions of heterosexual young males just to make sure someone will get duped into watching it. The movie's message (if there even was one) falls flat, because it's fake and shallow just like the fake and shallow characters of the movie. Everything about this movie is predictable and a cliché - from the title and poster to the last scene. It's a movie about the tragedy of being born in a rich family and having no one else to look up to besides other jaded, spoiled and detached from reality brats.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

Pretty much what I expected

[1/10 · 18 December 2015]

I've familiarized myself with JJ.Abrams' style of directing in the previous years and wasn't thrilled when I heard he'll be directing this movie. I also wasn't thrilled when I heard the rights for Star wars were sold to Disney. Still it's better than nothing, right? Right...anyway, the lack of George Lucas is very obvious. Say what you want about him, but that man is special, he brought something unique that was even in the prequels. That special ingredient is missing in this movie. It feels...generic. It feels exactly like a copy made by students, made with great love, but who would never reach the greatness of the master. Is it a bad movie? Certainly no. It has more than enough to keep you entertained. But I kept waiting for the moment when the real fun will begin. That moment didn't happen. Perhaps it's going to happen in the next movies. But I wanted so much more from this.

Blackout (I) (2001 TV Movie)

Utter pile of shredded monkey leavings

[1/10 · 10 April 2007]

I watched this late at night, because I couldn't sleep. After finishing this movie I slept like a baby, that's how boring it is. And I had quite a pleasant dream after that. But, let's get to analyze this dreadful abyss of contrived, sucked-out-of-toes plot that someone approved and what's more shocking – someone decided it should actually be made. There were few moments were I laughed out loud, because I could actually predict the lines of the characters. I suppose the writer needed money real bad and wrote the script on a napkin while drinking coffee in a bar in San Francisco. The main characters were so badly designed that I actually rooted for the killer and wished he would end their miserable existence. To prove you how stupid is this movie I will tell you this – the blackout starts and the father goes to the mall to get his family because he fears something might happen to them. Wait, it gets funnier – a neighbor of his actually gives him a pistol for protection. Come on, what is this, the light goes out for a few minutes and suddenly everyone turns into flesh-eating zombie? Gimme a break! In conclusion I could say that the "blackout" from the title means that everyone's mind was in total blackout while making this garbage.

Hogfather (2006 TV Movie)

This is so dull that I'm not even properly annoyed

[1/10 · 12 January 2007]

I know that the movie adaptations of Terry Pratchet's novels aren't a common thing and I should be generous, but this movie used all my generosity in the first ten minutes. Once I was a great fan of Pratchet's novels but recently I think he might be on crack or something because his latest works are a total dreck. I also think that few of his novels could be turned into feature films and "Hogfather" is definitely not one of them. I'm not saying it is impossible but it would require some pretty good script and a genius of a director to make a good movie. Apparently Vadim Jean isn't such a director. This three-hour Hogswatch travesty is fully emptied of all life, humor and Christmas spirit. The actors deliver their lines with horrified and confused faces probably because they weren't sure what intonation they were supposed to use. Some of them apparently took care of this problem by inventing totally new ways of speaking, like that pathetic excuse of a killer "Toetoemi", "Twayieetoeme", "Twoutiome" or whatever the horrible way he pronounced his name was. The character of Death was like neutered and looked like a plastic skeleton in robe and cheap blue Christmas lights in his eye sockets. His voice was awful and apparently belonged to some very old man who probably was already old when WW2 started. I could spend hours describing what was wrong with this movie, but frankly, I spent already too much of my time on this pile of hog…….

The only good thing about this was the CGI of the turtle A'Twin and the elephants. I guess some enthusiastic 3D designer – fan of Pratchet, spent weeks on his computer driven by his fandom but in the end it was all in vain.

In the end I would like to describe this movie using the words pronounced by most of the people of Ankh-Morpork when they try Dibbler's sausages: "Aaaaaaaaaaarghhhhkkkhhhkfhhhhhh!"

The Tooth Fairy (2006 Video)

Stupid stupidness

[1/10 · 9 September 2006]

This movie is so stupid it simply goes around the corner and becomes ridiculous. I wanted to watch "Darkness falls" actually and thought that this was the movie. Boy, what a mistake! I fast-forwarded as much as I could and still I couldn't get rid of the boring moments. I just envy the people who was paid to play in or work on this movie. They were actually given money for this crap. Isn't that amazing? I mean in this movie a man gets killed and chopped in a wood-grinder to little bloody pieces and few minutes later the mother and the kid talk calmly at the table as nothing happened and drink coffee. Please! Come on! Who gives money for such crap movies? Oh, and the "tooth-fairy" was lame. Not scary at all and was obvious that it is a bored stuntman wearing a badly made make-up.