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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Valerian - And the Cine of 1000 Problems...
Not since 1997's Batman & Robin have I wanted to walk out in the middle of a such a kaleidoscope of nonsense. By mid-film I was yawning loudly and praying for it to be OVER.
Of course, the pretty images, lush landscapes and weird aliens cannot be faulted. Visually it's like a return to the world of AVATAR where funky CGI is around every corner.
The film is not unwatchable...but it is hard to maintain any kind of interest in any of the antics. The characters are without depth, and there isn't any chemistry between the performers. It feels as if every actor was put in a dark room and told to do his part. Amazingly, the most interesting creatures are a trio that only show up briefly - their dialogue and characterization are perhaps the only bright point in any of the script.
The plot elements drop into place tiny bit by tiny bit - but so darned slowly that every 5 minutes the only thing that comes to mind is WHY-WHY-WHY is any of this taking place? WHY is anyone talking to each other?!? Everyone is in the dark, everyone is inept (save Lauraline) and everyone lacks even a spark of a notion of what to do.
Sadly, the lead's complexion issues are more interesting than his personality - WHY (again) would Lauraline want this dope as a working partner, let alone come withing touching distance of him?
SPOILER ---------------------------------------------------- In a city of 1000 questions, NONE are answered. Even the conclusion seems to just peter out without any explanation or consequences for the myriad of violated rules, orders, and machinery across 3 planetary systems. Did they say this city had traveled 600 million miles in the last 400 years?
NOT FAR ENOUGH.
XX (2017)
XX is worthless waste of time
To elicit horror, you need to establish characters with sympathetic traits so that the viewer will feel some emotional connections to what they DO and the FATE that befalls them.
These lousy, ill-conceived featurettes have NO CHARACTERS, NO PLOT, NO CONCLUSIONS, and offer NOTHING but a few whining, simpering, generic stereotypes and a bit of gore.
Seriously, you get more story from wax figures at an amusement park.
Terrible, Lame, Worthless....these are like a joke someone is trying to tell, but they forgot all the details AND the punchline, so it's just meaningless yammering that leads nowhere...
Dimension 404 (2017)
Dimension - Same Old, Same Old
No, the stories are not unique or "never anything like it". It's the same old rehash "twist" kind of stories made popular by The Twilight Zone. The opening monologue is pretty much a paraphrase of TZ, with a little Outer Limits thrown in.
The stories are NOT like Outer Limits, though. Outer Limits was hard- core, very eerie and uncompromising. D-404 are very cheeseball in comparison. The actors kinda ham it up on purpose. Not bad acting, but they're in on the joke.
Don't be disappointed because you can guess the ending in 5 minutes, just enjoy the ride and be happy it's not made on a discount budget.
Metal Hurlant Chronicles (2012)
Metal Hurlant Hurls Hairballs of Plot/Acting/Effects
SYFY is showing Metal Hurlant Chronicles = Heavy Metal ( yes, the French mag ) anthology stories. Production, acting, script all on par with standard SYFY channel fare like "Sharknado". I figured it would look cheap, that's not an issue. Sure, the acting is weak, but with ads, it's only 18 minutes of story.
Come on – they can't tell a story that holds together for a mere 18 minutes? No, they can't. ONE stupid twist ending is okay. TWO is pushing it for a 12 episode series. Doing that same "fooled you" trick ending in every god-damned story is just ridiculous. These are not stories – they are only set-ups and punch lines.
This doesn't even come close to storytelling, it's more like random juxtaposition of sci-fi & fantasy elements. The Twilight Zone did that, but they had a moral and Serling knew how to write a play in 3 acts.
Not happening with Metal Hurlant.
Battaglie negli spazi stellari (1978)
So BAD, it's good...kinda...well...
I never saw this flick either, but it was obvious it was made in the 70's from all the unisex fashion and day-glow colors. It's included on that 50 Sci-Fi movies DVD set...the transfers are so poor the picture is hideously dark and the audio is terrible weak and muddy.
The saving grace of this film is John Richardson (who starred with Raquel Welch in 1,000,000 Years BC) as the outspoken commander of a long-range spaceship. One of the very few people in this flick that can act, his expressions and serious voicing of cornball dialogue keep it interesting just long enough for the scenery to change.
The story is a convoluted mess involving A.I. hatred, paranoia, arrogance, space war, a destroyed civilization and a megalomaniac machine!!! It's hard to follow from scene to scene as people are not identified, photography is terrible, lighting is dark, and no one seems to think for a minute about what's the smart thing to do.
Think of Star Trek done on a shoestring and that's basically it. It's amazing, but the filmmakers do seem to be trying to make something interesting, and the English voice-dubbers seem to have fun with their cheesy lines. It was hard to sit through, but not a waste of time. Call your pals over and do a MST3000 on it!!!
Xing xing wang (1977)
Entertaining as a free rental
It cost me a free rental to watch this cheesy flick, but it was worth it in the end. I suppose Q. Tarantino liked this film because all of the action is TOTALLY over-the-top! This movie is bad, no question, but if you get a kick from extreme behavior with extreme consequences, go for it. Essentially a quick King Kong rip-off made possibly to cash-in on the Kong craze when the expensive re-make was being made in 1976, but the story plays more like Sheena--Queen of the Jungle!
A scheming promoter calls on a down-on-his-luck friend to find and capture a 50ft. tall ape-creature, so he can show it to the world for fun and profit. The first half-hour is nearly incomprehensible as characters, reasoning and story-telling are tossed aside just to show lots of animal-attacks and gruesome deaths. Then the story shifts gears to a sappy jungle-romance for a while. Once the ape-thing is taken back to civilization, the action-fest begins!! Cheesy but unrelenting military firepower is unleashed to teach giant apes to stay out of Hong Kong!! It's amazing how much action and sleaze they managed to pack into this flick, and how out-of-control it gets! Excellent party movie.