Ed's Review Dot Com

Film4, British Film Institute (BFI), Silver Reel,

Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay, Dougie McConnell, Kevin McAlinden, Andrew Gorman, Joe Szula, Krystof Hádek, Roy Armstrong, Alison Chand

A beautiful alien woman (Scarlett Johansson) drives through the streets of Scotland in a large dark van, picking up strangers, lonely men, looking for some company. She leads them off to a dark place where they are swallowed up by a large liquid pool.

Well, friends, that’s about all you’re going to get because that’s about all you’re given. This is one of those mysterious, “what the hell is going on” type of film. I was not impressed. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t enjoy it a smidgen either. I found it really dull. There is nothing much going on, no answers, and nothing to show after wasting a couple hours on this. Now, naturally, the internet is full of people theorizing and pondering over what it all means, and what the symbolism is all about. My problem is I have no basis to start with. I do like science fiction and horror, but I hardly think this film falls into either category. I found it vapid and pointless and just a waste of time.

Now that all that is out in the open, there are a bunch of fans of this movie and others of it’s type. I trust you I am not. I feel like now that I’m getting older, there is a limited number of movies left to watch, and I hate to waste one on drivel like this. It just did not touch me at all. As nice it is to see Scarlett Johansson prance around naked a couple of times, she does that on Instagram anyway, and it’s not worth the investment here. There’s nothing going here, at all.

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DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment, Participant Media,

Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Dan Stevens, Alicia Vikander, Carice van Houten

The biographical story of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Daniel Berg, partner and usually the spokesman for Wikileaks and perhaps one of those who most tried to limit and control Julian without much luck. These folks started out disturbed by the way mainstream media repeated what they were fed, and didn’t really seek out the truth most of the time. The internet brought the idea of citizen news rather than big corporate news organizations, and Julian was fascinated with the idea of getting his hands on top secret documents and publishing them to the world without censorship of any kind. Others tried to limit that, as many names and addresses were published without blacking them out, causing a lot of dangerous situations for a lot of people. Some people praise him as a genius innovator, and others as a threat to humanity. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Is this movie a Documentary? Certainly not. It’s based on several books about Wikileaks, and is played by actors and dramatized. Is it true? I have no way to know that as I have no knowledge of what really happened. Julian Assange himself said it was lie upon lie and not much of it’s true. I don’t suspect that’s exactly the case, especially because he liked the way he was portrayed. What I figured out was that he was a very strange character, and rather creepy. As for the movie, I learned very little about the story that isn’t common knowledge, and I found it very difficult to sit through more than two hours of this stuff. I don’t think the story was done very well, and it certainly wasn’t very interesting. I think it probably could have been a lot better and is another of those lost opportunities. Perhaps there’s just not much to the story, but in that case, a totally fictionalized version would have been far more enjoyable than this movie. The phrase “watching paint dry” really describes how I felt watching this. I really didn’t get into the story, and I was relieved when it was finally over. I don’t recommend this story unless you’re really interested in the story, although a visit to Wikipedia might give you more information than this movie did.

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Before The Door Pictures, Washington Square Films, Black Bear Pictures,

Robert Redford

Robert Redford is cast as “Our Man” in this silent film. Well, not silent, but bereft of any dialog other than a cuss or two and a few words spoken into a broken radio. This is a story of a lone man on a cruise deep into the Indian Ocean who while sleeping has the boat struck by a floating shipping container. The boat is badly damaged, not only with a hole in the hull, but most of the equipment on the boat, both mechanical and electronic is also broken. He is facing a storm, stranded alone, and must try his best to survive in the middle of the ocean.

I must tell you this right away! I have NEVER done this before. I have never tried to review a movie that I have not seen. But let me tell you my experience with this one!

I popped the DVD into the player and hit play. I was presented with a brief opening narration, then presented with a guy going upstairs and downstairs, fiddling with this and that, fixing something to eat, pumping out his boat, and doing the most mundane tasks for what seemed like hours. This felt like it was all going in real time. We watched him eat and drink, fix things, all silently without any dialog at all, not even voice over telling us what he was trying to do. I felt sorry for the guy, even if he was Robert Redford, but I was bored to tears. After about 20 minutes of this, I found I was completely tuning out on the whole thing, so I turned it off. The next day I tried it again. I fast forwarded over to where I thought I was before, but having not marked down the point at which I stopped it…it was somewhere when the foul weather was busting up things, I decided to give it another go. I just couldn’t take it, so I packed the DVD back in the envelope, carried it out to the mailbox, and then I just stood there debating on whether to try it again or just send it back. Finally the though came into my head that I had no need to torture myself with this boring piece of film one more minute, so I dropped it into the mailbox. Would I give it another try sometime? Nah, life is to short. I’m sure there may be some fans of sailing out there that would love to watch home movies of some guy’s adventure (even if it is Robert Redford) go through the day to day tasks on a sinking ship in a storm, but it’s just not me. There are so many other movies out there to watch that I am not going to give this one another try.

So ignore this review, if you wish. Take the one star I gave it, and disregard it. I couldn’t stomach it, but if you thin you’ll like this self indulgent indie film without words, by all means go for it. Likewise, if there is someone out there who watched this all the way through to the sappy ending and loved it, I would really appreciate your comments on this posting letting me know why you liked it and what I am missing. I really would be happy to hear your opinions on this. For me, this is the first movie that was simply impossible for me to watch all the way through.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

SimonSays Entertainment, Stephen Tedeschi Production, Intrinsic Value,

Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Joey Lauren Adams, Tim Blake Nelson, Cassandra Freeman, Leo Fitzpatrick

This biopic is the story of a young boy brought to the states and mentored by a bizarre substitute father who teaches him how to kill. The two of them set out in the Blue Caprice to kill 10 random people in the 2002 Beltway Shootings. [Here is the Wikipedia article on the shootings]

I was anxious to watch this film. I saw the news coverage of the crazy story that had everyone in the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. are in terror back in 2002. I was sorely disappointed. The story was very poorly done. Granted, they wanted to make this look like a documentary, but when you’re done watching it, you’re more confused about the why of the story than when you started. With no apparent attempt to get into the minds of these two, this story just plods along like a reality TV show. Most of it is really boring, and we don’t get into the psyche of these guys at all. There is very little background info at all, and it’s a lot like a high school civics report on the subject. If you read the articles on the internet you’ll have as much understanding of this story as you will get from the movie. I was really bored silly and quite put off by the whole thing. I can’t believe I wasted the time I spent watching this. I kept thinking that it would get more interesting as we got to the climax of the movie. It never did, and when it was over, I just found myself wondering why they bothered with this. Skip this one. It truly wasn’t worth it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Syncopy,

Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, Laurence Fishburne

The usual….Planet Krypton is in trouble and about to be destroyed, and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) must ship his son to Earth to preserve the race. Grown up, reporter Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) is faced with members of his own race trying to destroy earth. So as his alter ego, Superman, he fights back with the biggest challenge of his life.

Now you want to talk about a movie that did NOT need to be made? This movie adds nothing to the story, and is far weaker than the other movies. I am really not sure what is the motive behind the decision to make this inferior version of the story. This movie is just plain boring. I felt really disappointed as there was no meat to this story at all. There is no real personality to either Clark Kent or Superman, and it seems to get bogged down on trivial matters relating to the politics of Krypton and very little about the star of the film himself. All in all, this reboot of Superman is a bust and is very disappointing. Some have suggested it’s the worst film of 2013. If it’s not, it’s pretty high up there on the list. I see the list of potential Raspberry Award nominees is making it’s round, and though After Earth has a lot of traction and will probably sweep the Razzies, this is actually a much worse film than After Earth, and Superman here is a much worse actor than Will Smith’s kid if you can believe that. This is a waste of time and money, and one of the few I say to avoid at all costs!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog