POMO

Don’t look for logic here. This film is an atmospheric, almost hypnotic horror experience with slow-motion shots of zombie-knights on horseback and dark music with demonic chants. The plot moves forward in such a way that it is never boring even for a moment. The uncovering of the mystery of the cursed coastal town is continuously carried out in brief sentences. And the weight of that mystery is the film’s main driving force, together with the great (even by today’s standards!) masks of the demonic “nazguls” and the impressively rendered gloomy sets. Of course, the film contains a certain amount of naïveté, but there’s not even a hit of the ridiculous.

The screenwriters meant well with the motif of "fulfilment of any wish" as a double-edged sword. They constructed a thoughtfully concise story on that foundation. I didn’t even mind waiting 80 minutes for the first action scene after the opening one. When there’s something to watch and it’s nicely handled in the Hollywood way (of which there was a dearth in 2020), I’m happy to wait. As a fairly long whole, WW84 is dramaturgically sloppy, sometimes needlessly slow and at other times too fast-paced, and mainly in its treatment of the subject matter, it’s naïve almost to the point of self-parody. I’m giving it a third star – very much for it’s guilty-pleasure aspect – because of my weakness for Gal Gadot, whom I like as Wonder Woman even more than my favourite Avenger. And for Zimmer, who reaches (yet another) peak here. With amazement and wonder, I listen to the soundtrack every day now, some tracks two or three times on repeat.

The sailor characters could have been further developed other than through clichéd family ties to their wives and children, but the admirals on the surface richly compensate for that with their varied motivations and political backgrounds. Colin Firth is as well suited to the captain character as Tom Hanks. Not to mention the communist Soviet admiral played by Max von Sidow, who turns in a goosebump-inducing performance. The casting in general is very well done here; I hadn’t realised until now how much Schoenaerts and Seydoux have “Russian faces”. But what I appreciate most about Kursk is its thematic balance and complexity. To the same extent that Kursk is about the tragedy of men under water, it is also about the political conflict above the surface and the absurdity of the Soviets’ approach to the event. It’s about a rotten system that betrayed its own people because of false ideas. The second Chernobyl in 14 years. The film gains its key value from the skirting of the story through a young boy, the son of one of the submariners, and his understanding of the situation and his reaction to it.

The low-budget Pyewacket is simple in terms of its subject matter and filmmaking, but it is visually attractive and, mainly, scary. At least in the climax. Most viewers will probably find everything that comes before the climax to be shallow fluff about a withdrawn emo teenager with half-baked scares. True, the subject matter would be enough for one of three storylines in a feature-length movie. For me, however, it still provides atmospheric satisfaction. Those who are patient and like forests and very dark stories, and want to be scared, will get their money’s worth.

With a dream rental house on the California coast, this movie entertains by arousing curiosity about what kind of shit is going to go down, how and in what quantity. It is a well-thought-out thriller psychologically built on the relationships between the characters. You anticipate and wish for the horror outcome, and you will not be disappointed. Only its explanatory epilogue could have been more imaginative. In contrast to the screenwriting skill that preceded it, it comes across as a bit banal.

1BR is a small yet passable cult-focused thriller with a solid claustrophobic and paranoid atmosphere of helplessness. It turns out that there are even worse HOAs than those that I’ve had experience with.

The ending has heart, but everything that comes before it is unfortunately thin on plot and slightly naïve in its expectation that it would in any way appeal to viewers. Of the two thrilling scenes, one rips off Gravity and the other is hackneyed, like almost everything else in the film. The only things that stand out are the interesting concept of blood from weightless space and the interior design of the ship, as if it were a futuristic designer’s luxury apartment. Exactly between two and three stars.

Unhinged surprisingly and slowly builds up into a slasher flick. However, it is needlessly overwrought and implausible with illogical nonsense. Crowe might have been suited for the role if we didn’t know him as an A-list character actor. Getting used to him and appreciating his performance as a deranged psychopathic rapist and murderer is practically impossible, which is also due to the one-dimensionality of his character without any explanation of the reasons for his behaviour. In the context of the genre, Unhinged is a completely unnecessary film that drowns out its brainlessness with brutish violence.

Greenland is a likably simple depiction of the sudden destruction of the world by a hail of asteroids. How it might happen, how mortals would react to it and how difficult it would be for the lucky ones (read: “the chosen ones”) to get into shelters. It is a disaster thriller with a more modest budget, shot in digital and with more emphasis on the characters. Unfortunately, those characters are placed in the most clichéd relationship context imaginable – an estranged couple who are brought together by their son (the exposition is handled through a rip-off of War of the Worlds). The visual effects and action sequences are excellent, and I was particularly pleased with the aerial shots of Greenland in the ending, as that land is numero uno in my traveler’s heart where natural wonders are concerned (I don’t want to spoil it).

For B-movie silliness with a video-game concept, Boss Level has a surprisingly fresh and imaginative screenplay with twists that take the story clichés twice as far in the plot as you would expect. And with a lot of original funny moments. Non-stop entertainment with a pleasantly light tone that (thank God) doesn’t take itself seriously at all.