spam_buster Reviews

Cliffhanger (1993)

Action nonsense

[5/10 · 29 June 2023]

Full of nonsense, full of plot holes, but just enough peril and action to keep viewer engaged, despite the outcomes being predictable.

It's 100% lame but it's distracting.

5 out of ten might be generous, but I watched the whole thing so there you go.

Why do reviews need to be so long - this movie really isn't worthy of a critical essay - more thought has gone into this review than into the plot of the movie itself!

That may not be true, but you know what I mean, Still one hundred and five characters left to type to meet the minimum requirement. No wonder there is so much guff written on this site! My apologies to anyone reading this far.

The Lost Symbol (2021)

The Lost Plot

[5/10 · 28 February 2023]

The series starts out promising, though rather implausible.

But the pace quickly drops and there's really nothing to engage the viewer - no tension, no suspense, no mysteries, no reveals, no thrills. It was slow and fairly predictable despite the messy plot and ever-unravelling loose ends.

Halfway through I wondered if I should cut my losses and skip the rest of the series. I decided to plod through, but the last few episodes felt like a chore.

I was rewarded for my tenacity with the big reveal; only a surprise because there had been no build up and I had forgotten, or simply stopped caring, about the aspect, limply unveiled and ultimately flat.

You could speed watch this in three episodes, the first and last (obviously) and another from the first half (they became a bit of a blur so I can't remember which one exactly) and not know you had missed anything.

The final episode sums up the anti-climax when it limps on for almost ten minutes of dialogue in three final scenes after the 'climax'.

Even the attempt to set up a second series and hook the viewer was limp.

Watch Alias instead.

The Hollow (2004 TV Movie)

Lame & Cringey. More sexually inappropriate than scary

[4/10 · 25 October 2022]

Had the promise to be a mildy entertaining TV movie, but manages to get more wrong than right.

Parents and teachers make sexual remarks to the teens. Sex seems to be the first thought on everyone's mind.

More time is devoted to developing the lead male's flair for drama than any convincing back story, plot or tension.

When the interesting part eventually kicks in, it seems a mad rush to get it over with asap.

The resolution of several of the conflicts is utterly lame, including the finale - or is the finale that two characters that have just met agree to get a double-barrel surname when they marry?

Murder on the Home Front (2013 TV Movie)

Dot by dot

[6/10 · 27 May 2022]

Not without it's charm, but overall quite flat, and join-the-dots in nature.

Felt as though I was watching a wartime Midsomer Murders.

Pleasant enough viewing but ultimately shallow, contrived and a bit hackneyed.

The Name of the Rose (1986)

A Mediaeval Whodunnit

[7/10 · 24 May 2022]

A surprisingly enjoyable movie when I first saw it about 20+ years ago.

Recently re-watched it, but it fell short of the esteem with which I had regarded it. Not that it was bad, just that it wasn't great - it felt slow, laborious and nothing special.

Operation Mincemeat (2021)

Drab telling of a fascinating story

[19 May 2022]

I had never heard of Operation Mincemeat before watching this film.

I'm left wondering how such an important and fascinating mission has evaded publicity for so long.

This movie, however, is drab and slow. It's not terrible, but 6 out of 10 might have been a generous score.

Even with added subplots it barely moves - almost as dead as Bill Martin himself.

The subplots flesh out the main characters a little, but don't go anywhere, and aren't particularly interesting, and ultimately do little to enhance the movie.

Perhaps that was the point: an important mission by uninteresting people.

Unlikely to be repeat viewed.

And don't watch it if you are feeling a bit sleepy!

Resident Evil (2002)

Action & Suspense fail to overcome Utterly Ridiculous Plot

[4/10 · 8 February 2022]

While it looks pretty and has some exciting action scenes, it's ultimately.a load of nonsense:

a state of the art bio-research facility which has no safety measures except a computer system designed to kill everyone; plus the whole facility shares the same air conditioning; a facility that is inexplicably built at the end of a long tunnel under a city; bodies and structure in a state of decay even though they've only been dead/unused for a few hours; computer system that can't be accessed remotely and needs an elaborate procedure requiring an EMP bomb which is stored at the facility but several lethal corridors away from where it needs to be used; powering down the computer only unlocks a few doors - the lights and air stay on, the self-destruct sequence keeps ticking; the computer is not only capable of free thought, it is sentient, deceiptful, becomes motivated by anger, and even tries to make a deal with the survivors!

Why kill everyone (including the uninfected) instead of just spraying an antidote into the facility?

What was the mission of the special forces team anyway - to reboot the computer, but why?

Why didn't the computer kill the soldiers teh same way it killed everyone else?

Why the elaborate laser system - and why not use the final pattern the first time around?

If you can detach your brain it's a watchable movie though. But it adds multiple 'reveals' and twists which just remind you of the whole flawed premise.

It might have worked well in a mid-1990s computer game, but they should have fixed up the storyline first and foremost.