POMO

Home is effective ecological agit-prop that doesn’t just criticize and warn, but also provides advice on how to fight against the issues being criticized, giving some hope for a turn for the better. The two-hour running time does not do the film any harm; on the contrary, it gives it the possibility to be more complex and remarkable. And the creators made good use of this possibility. If not for the oversimplified straightforward voiceover, I’d give it five stars because it has a MESSAGE. P. S.: I love skyscrapers and I don’t mind a little megalomania, but I absolutely agree with the critical attitude toward Dubai. This film said it for me.

Earth contains some incredibly beautiful pictures that make you bate your breath in places, but they remain only pictures, even though it didn’t have to be this way.

How do you freshen up the most hackneyed thriller plots about psychopathic neighbors so that you can sell them with a straight face and the audience eats them up again? We set them in the historical period everyone associates with a natural disaster, more specifically the California wildfires. Samuel L. Jackson tries very hard and the psychology of the characters is solidly constructed, but this psychology is superficial in the Hollywood mainstream fashion, its only purpose being to entertain us over a tub of popcorn on a Saturday night. Not that I’m complaining; we grew with this and keep consuming it on a daily basis, but for God’s sake – would at least one original plot twist be too much to ask from the screenwriters?

This film starts off as the coolest post-apocalyptic action orgasm since Mad Max 2. It takes only the names of the characters from James Cameron, while providing the well-cast Worthington/Yelchin duo with an interesting introduction. Terminator Salvation is engaging with its atmosphere, deadly new T600s and Transformer-like giants emitting sounds reminiscent of Spielberg’s Tripods. It is a great visual experience relishing its B-movie but extremely entertaining and spectacular take on the subgenre. BUT... in the second half, the creator of Charlie’s Angels seems to acquire the unfortunate impression that he can master Cameron’s reason-governed universe and starts to reference and alter it, and all of the enthusiasm for this film gradually evaporates. It seems like McG hasn’t even watched Cameron’s movies. At most, he has seen Scott’s Blade Runner, about which he was intrigued the most by fire lashing out of chimneys. P.S.: Worthington plays a more remarkable and important character than Christian Bale.

Turkish humor is naïve and, truth be told, not all that funny. Moreover, especially in the first half of the film, the creators throw in a lot of unnecessary scenes that slow down the already thin plot. On the other hand, they love colors (even in a shot of a guy lounging in a bathtub in a half-empty bathroom, there is something bright blue on one side of the tub and bright red on the other), they know how to cast and dress the characters (almost every character is likable and chic and their clothes not only perfectly match their personalities but also visually complement the environment), move the camera and edit. All of this, served with typical kindness and cordiality, is somehow enough for a pleasant chill-out or “the ultimate feel-good movie”. And those girls... PERFECTION.

Spectacular, witty and fast action fun, in which there is not enough space for characters and ideas.

I’m rating this in the context of Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine and suchlike, because we’re speaking about the same target audience. And compared to those movies, The Last House on the Left is finally a proper brutal horror flick in which there are no annoying, GPS-dependent adolescents running around, waiting to be mutilated by another supercool masked immortal murderer. You either feel sorry for the massacred victims or you WANT to see them lying on the ground in a pool of their own blood. The emotions work and the acting performances are more than sufficient. If the film went deeper (the ethical question of the right to kill the murderer of your child with your own hands), it could have of course been something different and more valuable. But we’ve got Michael Haneke for that, not Wes Craven. Moreover, the original film also didn’t go deep, merely remaining an exploitation shocker.

This thriller has an interesting atmosphere and a slow, creeping pace, spiced up with blood and brutality. But it is fatally dragged down by unsuitable action visuals and especially the ostentatiously cheap effects used for the murders. I might have tolerated this if it was an experimental B-movie by film-school students who don’t know where their talent lies or what genre they’re working in, unnecessarily relying on superficial pop-cultural showiness just to be “in”.

After the first hour, Angels & Demons becomes repetitive and the audience loses interest in the detective storyline, no matter how dynamic it may be. More ideas wouldn’t be unwelcome. The impressive climax, however, salvages a lot. And the work with the actors (and their hairstyles) is definitely better than in The Da Vinci Code. What fascinates me the most about this “saga” is that for all its straight-facedness, first-class filmmaking team, solid actors and controversial topics, it is unable to be anything but a simple-minded blockbuster for the masses. The masses that are unaware that 50% of their experience is provided by a guy named Hans Zimmer.

Jackie Chan no longer performs any acrobatics like in his younger days, but as a clever producer, he compensates for that with perfect action scenes that make the most out of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers and the exteriors and interiors of locations in general. These Hong Kong skyscrapers are actually a fetish of this city and its inhabitants (and in the case of the beautiful shape of Bank of China, also my personal fetish). Plus a high-tech feeling and the old chaps being threatened by a new generation that was raised on PC games. Police Story of the new millennium, which definitely doesn’t disgrace the series.