olafreinhardweyer-1 Reviews

Friends with Benefits (2011)

meh :/

[1/10 · 11 February 2013]

15 minutes into this movie and i have no idea who these two main characters are. I assume i am supposed to take the dialogue lines of each's partner breaking up with them at face value, giving us some insight into our main characters inner problems, but i can't. It just all to superficial and neither of the "divorced" shows any emotional reaction. So nothing to identify here. Neither with our characters profession: Two real super successful hotshots in NY (now) which simply ain't close enough at home for a mass audience. Should we admire this Denver-Clanesque setup? But the biggesst flaw, really isn't the story or unlikeable characters, the real caveat is the pacing. There is simply is none. This movie moves along in a manner, like it were telling you "what do i care, if you're watching"? On the bottomline: Not all engaging, not funny, not interesting, not fresh, not making your heart raise or slow down, just an empty shell of nothingness, that happened to got (almost) written and film through some camera. Stay away. It sucks!

Return to Sender (I) (2004)

Inconsistent Mess

[3/10 · 29 January 2013]

First of all let me start with that i am not a supporter of the death penalty so you don't believe this would reflect on my rating.

Spoilers. I gave this movie a low rating, because it's characters behaviors make no sense, no sense at all. Let me start with the female prisoner on death row. Let's go right into her shoes and speak in her voice, let us choose to say "I": Year back, in a car accident, i caused my sisters blindness and made it impossible for her, to ever have children. I feel guilty. I deserve to suffer. I deserve to pay. She hates me and rightly so. It so happens i am confused with someone who has abducted and murdered a child. I have been sentenced and will die on the electric chair.

Do you buy this? I don't. Then perhaps you buy this: But i happen to know that my sister has abducted the child to keep it for herself. That child is still alive and i am the only one who knows. If i die, at least my sister i made suffer so much can be a happy mother. Okay let's say i am buying this. Let's say i find no way to commit suicide because of my deep guilt. I am simply to stupid to kill myself and spent years and years waiting to go to the electric chair. But i don't tell my lawyer to quiet trying to safe my life, appealing to the governor for instance, because that would make to much sense.

Okay, let's stretch this a little further. Let's say I KNOW what's going on. I know that my sister and her husband have abducted that child. I want my sister to be happy with that child and i keep my mouth shut. Let them think i abducted that child, yeah, with my death, no one will know. Do you buy this? Can guilt be that blinding that i could forgive a sister, a child abductor and therefore an even bigger monster than the accused? I don't by into this a second.

But let's say i do. Now there this guy (main character) visiting me. I want my sister to forgive me (why would i want my sister to forgive, if i don't even forgive myself?!?!) so i give that guy a letter for my sister. Why do i give that guy a letter for my sister, a sister that has vanished from the face of the earth (for her own good, as i must believe), why do i make him bringing her in the spotlight most likely, with the media so much interested in me and my affairs (something that never happens in the movie but this woman should fear of course), would i do that, no i would'nt i would want her to be forgotten. And the guy goes digging of course, because i send him digging.

My lawyer should have gone digging also, but luckily my lawyer is stupid, she doesn't know how find my sister, but this guy does. Why do i believe this guy can, were even my lawyer can't?

I could go on forever. The story of this movie total BS. And i hate it for it. I hate it, because there is a great, great story buried here in a totally screwed up screenplay. Even worse, this story has no moral spine. What is it about? Is it about guilt and paying, about guilt and paying over price, is it about redemption, about justice? A story needs a single moral core that makes you feel strongly. If you wanna know what i am talking about, watch "A Simple Plan" you can feel it in EVERY minute and it will give you that good old catharsis. This one, it will leave you confuse and empty :/

Three stars for the acting and good atmospheric direction. For the story, well, one of the cases were writing must dump his screenplay and start FRESH at the drawing board. All elements are in place. There are just to many of them. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Gee, i HATE laziness!

Nikita (2010–2013)

Why the changes?

[6/10 · 19 April 2012]

I pretty much liked the first season very much, but season 2 of this seems to have abandoned parts of the shows original concept, i simply miss. It also adds things i could do without. SPOILERS

First of all Alex wears a lot of makeup now, walks in high heels and seems to be on something like a mindless fashion rampage. Madame Udinov or not, the changes are unbelievable. Alex wouldn't change like that. Alex is different. I want Alex back. Second i miss the angle of Division as a training camp for new recruits. We have that as visual background still in a few episodes but that's all it is, there is no story attached to it anymore. Division was great as a manipulating entity but somehow in Season two Division seems much less threatening. The place has become somewhat boring. Third, Nikita is together with her big love from Division, so the interesting dynamics between them (attraction/professionally different goals) has been annihalted.

To sum it up: This show has lost its spice, no, let me correct that, it seems a decision has been made to throw it out of the window. The A-Team kept us entertained for years without any change in its base concept. So did 24 and many other shows. "Nikita" however has steered away from its basics and suffers accordingly.

It's still a good action show, first season 10 points, second? Only seven. It's still a good meal that show, but it's not the feast it used to be. To bad.

Missing (2012)

The Human Target syndrome - plus some more troubles :/

[1/10 · 7 April 2012]

Do folks remember Human Target, which was kind of light and charming entertainment, the way The Fall Guy from the 80s was? Do you remember how ratings went down in Season 2, when they put in all that cheesy relationship stuff, while we were used to have a good and perhaps silly action show instead? Human Target should have been a warning to any producer that (bad and cheesy!) melodrama and action/suspense just don't mix. What was the downfall for Human Targets season 2, might well become the downfall for Missing, right from it's very beginning.

It's okay to have some dump and thrilling action (like breaking into the French Intelligence Service by hitting the fire alarm, hahaha, what a joke!) as long a show is consistent in being dump and silly - it's quiet alright really, if you just wanna have some fun with the "incredible". If the fire alarm thing had happened in Human Target, it might have gotten away with that. Missing does not.

Having melodrama along the ride, the most serious of all ingredients, just doesn't make a good mix with dumb action. Look at the canceled Terra Nova. Did SciFi and soapish family drama make a good mix?

So if the action is dump, you might ask, does the cheese and melodrama come across believable and heartwarming or heart breaking? The answer is a simple "Nope" - which means, there are more troubles here than just mixing dumbness with seriousness. Perhaps the show isn't very honest not only with the mixture of ingredients, but the single ingredients too? An example (SPOILERS):

In Episode two the Harddrive guy tells our main character, she must stop thinking like a mother and be a cold analytical agent again. In a later scene we have HIM remind her of she being a mother, her love of her son - all that stuff - while they on the job! If motherhood is what he believes makes her loose focus, why won't he shut his mouth about it?! The hardrive character makeup is sacrificed here, to highlight our heroines emotions and it's not even very well written, it is total cheese. And why do we have to be reminded of motherhood anyways, as if it were some alien concept or something you would need to clarify the emotions that are involved?! What do we need to know to understand her character, that leads to her (the) action(s). We need to know this:

She's a former agent, she is able, her son has been kidnapped and she's gonna do something about that. Period. We can have the show highlight her emotions when the show itself is on it's emotional high - when she fails at a certain action task, she is crushed, when she prevails she is hopeful or joyful. But driving in a car and needing Hardrive to have a family on it's own to have a talk about parenthood, thats an emotional filler. It is wrong and it is out of place. You don't tell a story like that. You built a tide and you ride on that tide, you have the emotions go up and down on with that tide or you don't have a touching story, you end up having it being cheesy and to greater effect: Untrue. But then the action (fire alarm) is untrue too, so perhaps this makes the show okay again? Like dumbness on both levels bringing some kind of balance? Dumb is dumb, make no mistake about that, it only adds up.

So. If you don't make the action any smarter lets look at the cheese again. We need scenes were we see her feel the loss (like when the boy is kidnapped into the van, when she discovers the fotos in the warehouse, when the plane gets away with him), cheese that is connected to the action, not as an end in itself - so PLEASE!!!!! leave it at that. The TALK about motherhood really isn't necessary at all, we know what makes her tick and drives her from the very first minute! We don't need any pseudo-philosophical debate about motherhood, in a way that it sacrifices the characters (like Harddrive) involved and the good action we see.

Establishing emotions can always come across as cheesy. Thats why you use it sparecly and at the right moment and not just so. Oh and having our characters do something dump because it is good action (like climbing that wall to get into the French Intelligence offices) that's alright too, as long as our characters are smart enough, finding out, there is no other way to do it. The audience is very aware there was another option than climbing that wall. Perhaps if there had been guards on the stairwell who would not move despite the fire alarm, it would have been more believable. It would have taken a single camera shot to establish going up the stair was no option. It also have a been moment for a mother who wants to safe her son have that sinking feeling, you know, instead talking about it in a boring disconnected car scene! EDIT: JUST WATCHED EPISODE 3. SPOILERS!!!! Plot holes: - How did our heroines friend end up finding her in the first place? Why is our heroine so stupid to have the bag with the fake passports in it just sitting on her bed? Why is the friend opening it in the first place? Why kidnap that friend to a boat without gagging her, so she can attack you the first chance she gets? Were exatcly did our heroine drop those diamonds and who will go salvage them so the show can afford having a rewrite for its scripts?! Yeah, though so!

Taking Lives (2004)

Disjointed and Slow

[4/10 · 27 June 2011]

Taking Lives is slow, very slow with a far too long exposition and to many characters, none of them to root for. It lacks momentum and feels fabricated out of disjointed parts rather than keeping the flow and sucking you, as a movie like this should do. Above that, the french dialect almost everyone is speaking affords a lot of concentration, an effort that doesn't pay off however. There are only a few meaningful dialogues, most of them between Angelina Jolie and Eathon Hawk. They are the only characters who are given enough meat to call their on screen presence a relationship - unfortunately Eathan Hawk joins the cast only after about 30 minutes; and an important dialogue that sheds light on who Angelina Jolies character is, a dialogue that awakes interest and meaning to her, comes even later. It's those two actors i give the 4.5 stars to; the story, though neat idea, would need reassembling. Let's hope for a non-directors cut. Afterthought: Lighting, Camera, Settings, these all are interesting. It would have been nice to learn early on, that we're in France - or is it Canada?

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

Freedom!

[10/10 · 28 December 2010]

With sixtynine reviews before me i need not sum up the plot or remind you of scenes or anything.

There is a lot to learn from this thirteen year old - she fights for her freedom and wont be molded into any other shape. He price? Utter loneliness. What story could be more true? I takes a strong personality to stand up for all this and endure it. In fact she's so strong about it, she makes one faint. I never met a more enthralling character (both in the screenplay i am lucky to have read and in the movie as performed by Jodie Foster).

So what's with the viewer, the compromising, settled down, despicable grown up? It's hard to look into the mirror and acknowledge: "They. They have won!" If you're not that grown up and kept fighting don't feel like loser or no one loves you. Your are not alone. Luckily life isn't a drama piece, so we hadn't to kill anybody over it. It just takes this: Stand your ground! For people who liked this movie i also recommend Christine Rocheforts "Printemps au parking" (German title: Frühling für Anfänger). I felt a bit cheated by it, because it turned out be a gay-emancipation piece in the end. But then again, one can relate to standing ground, no matter in what kind of story it is told.

Disturbia (2007)

Quiete the opposite of 'To Much To Soon'

[5/10 · 28 December 2010]

First of all this movie must be defended from resembling Hitchcocks "Rear Window" to much. Seriously, can a main character no longer spy on his neighbors and find a killer among them? Ah, but then you didn't like Arlington Road too and certainly had no taste for Fright Night either. Those comparisons are worthless. A movie must be judged on it own grounds.

And unfortunately i can give only 5 stars. The first 45 minutes of this film left me rather bored. It should have been kept more tight and simple. A short example. Our young hero downloads itunes and plays the xbox. Another scene shows him not getting access to these accounts on the internet. In a later scene he is on the telephone with his friend who is obviously surrounded by some beautiful girls. Yet another scene has the hero realizing and complaining to his mother that she cancelled the accounts mentioned above - and mom cuts the electric cable of his television. Now imagine this: Boys plays Xbos and downloads itunes while on the telephone with his friend, suddenly his accounts go down, in contrast he hears his friends fun with the girls "showing" (audio) up - "hold it" says our hero "Mom, did you kill me accounts?" - she did - Hero snaps back, goes back on the phone, mom blahs something of disrespect, mom cuts electric cable, boyfriends hangs up prematurely. Mom smiles, son looks lost - end of scene. Condensed in this manner it would not only have cost the production less money, it would have also made for a more dynamic experience which would have told us something: Our hero is literally cut off from the outside and all things fun ... until the new neighbor girl shows up.

Another problem of the story is the death of our heroes father. It has no psychological effect on him whatsoever. It's a mere device to let him hit his teacher. It's a lost opportunity too. A father could have stood for protection now lost. A father cold have meant oppression now free from. Both oppression and the need of protection could have been easily linked with the theme of a serial killer story.

Also i would have wished for more screen time of the killer and our hero. It's not my responsibility to come up with even more ideas but there could have been more going on as a cat and mouse play than we've seen. After, all this isn't Rear Window, and killer, hero and heroine are meeting face to face far earlier than only at the end.

Lost Girl (2010–2016)

The Fast And The Sensuous

[8/10 · 26 December 2010]

I am not much into TV fantasy shows, so watching Lost Girl is kind of refreshing. I agree with the other reviewers that pacing seemed to fast, at first, but that no longer bothers me. There is a new, rich universe we're thrown into and what we've seen so far it is still only a glimpse of what else it has in check for us - at least that's the feeling it conveys, and that's all what counts. No "to much to soon" as someone else suggested then, because "much" here accounts only for a small part of much more. Bottom Line: The pace is fast but not unbalanced.

There is a certain charm and playfulness about this show while at the same time it takes itself seriously. With another cast and other writers at work (i didn't look them up though) this could well be a very dumb show affording me to discard disbelieve to a degree of becoming brain dead. Here i don't even feel like discarding - there's just this charm - i feel like joining and playing along - seriously :)

Flashforward (2009–2010)

Pondering the same issue over and over again

[4/10 · 5 April 2010]

This series started out good, but it's all gone wrong now. I am a big fan of melodrama and always thought a show couldn't have enough of it, well i've been proved wrong. This series is in dire need of dropping the pondering of the flashforwards effects on society as a whole and the characters personal lifes and better get into action, conspiracy and investigating soon (like the pilot and second episode promised) or it will be soon as dead as it already feels. Melodrama, in this case, should be a bonus, like it is in the X-files and 24, not the main focus.

Here is your problem, writers: The Experience of the flashforward was a single event now in the past and as a single event it is just to static to hold any prolonged intereset. You can't make a single starting point into a whole series. You couldn't have Lost ponder the plane crash all the time and how it feels so bad if there is a whole island full of weirdos to explore. You don't use your cast of characters to show how bad they feel about having crashed and how that crash ONLY effects there life from now on, while there a whole bunch of other things that will effect them because AND AFTER they crashed. Your problem is, that the flashworwads doesn't hold anything interisting. Whats to come is less dramatic then what has happened. We already had the cities on fire all over the world, but no such thing seems to be happening on the day the flashforward depicts. It just seems to be a normal day. Where is the adventure in that? No wonder, your characters are more interested in their perosnal lifes and their emotional make up.

Writers, there is a solution: Peoples flashforward are getting more refined. Not all was revealed about the future occurrence, when they them. Flashforward Day will be global hell, slaughter, death, disturbing new images overhelm our people. Now that should help them do something about it, huh?