Change Your Image
l_keith_donovan
Reviews
The Clearing (2023)
Plodding, slow, ridiculous
This "psychological thriller" is absolutely one of the most ridiculous pieces of garbage ever committed to celluloid (the anachronism isn't lost on me).
The characters are unappealing and none of them has any redeeming qualities. The plotline tries to elicit mystery but only portrays a weird paranoia which only makes the characters and the story more bleak and stark.
It's like a bad V. C. Andrews book but without the charm and comedy, or Jim Jones but not as sane.
The story moves so slowly that it's actually painful to watch. It's a story that didn't need to be told brought to you by people who don't know how to write.
Do yourself a favor and just...no.
The Lazarus Project (2022)
Decent premise, terrible sound quality and continuity is bad
I really like the show's take on the "Time Cop" theme. It's well written, though it tends to throw certain aspects of continuity out the window.
My main gripe is the sound quality. The background Foley and soundtrack often blare over the dialogue, and the constant mumbling of the lead character, which is exacerbated by the overbearing soundtrack, forced me to engage closed captioning to understand half the dialogue.
It wouldn't be so bad if the sound quality was consistent, I could keep the volume at a certain level; but it bounces up and down and I'm constantly playing with the buttons on the remote. It's aggravating as hell. At least there are closed captions available.
Moonfall (2022)
No amount of suspension of disbelief can help.
There are so many things wrong with this film that they should actually go to Halle Berry's house, ask for her Oscar back, and threaten litigation if she were to ever attempt "acting" again.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
Turd, like all the SAW films
I am embarrassed for Chris Rock. He deserves so much better. This movie was so bad I think it gave me a terminal disease.
Not only did I figure out the killer's identity fifteen minutes into the movie, I fast forwarded it to prove myself right before finishing this turd just to say I could do it. The old cliché "two hours of my life I'll never get back" would be a step up.
The only thing worse than the film was the end of the film, which should have been the highlight, but, of course, was just as bad as every other "Saw" movie. How they made a series out of these films still escapes me.
Finch (2021)
If you don't cry, check your pulse!
Despite the rather low ratings this film has so far received (as of December 1, 2021), I can overlook some of the plot line flaws and just enjoy it! It has been a long time since a film made me cry, but this one hit me right in the feels!
Tom Hanks is amazing, as usual, playing a survivor of a worldwide event triggered by a solar flare. He has been safe, if not struggling to get by, in the post-apocalyptic hell left after the event, in an underground bunker of his former employer, a technology firm.
Using the tech left behind, Hank's character (Finch) builds a robot to care for his dog in the event of his demise. Forced to leave his safe surroundings due to converging weather events, he, the robot and the dog head west.
The story that follows is a wonderful story of friendship and love.
Vanquish (2021)
Sweet-little-seven-pound-baby-Jesus
Wow...I never knew cinema (not my word for this turd) could physically hurt me. This was excruciating. I feel bad that each actor was forced to commit this to celluloid (or the cloud) AFTER reading this script. Maybe they were all blackmailed.
Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1980)
Three hours for this...really?
What a plodding and dull realization of a too-long novel to begin with. Agatha Christie can often be a fun time; she can also be circuitous and long-winded. There was no need for a chapter-by-chapter recreation of the book for this adaptation.
The Shivering Truth (2018)
Stream of consciousness drivel
The idea that people find this ridiculous waste of celluloid entertaining says more about the idiocy that pervades society than it does about its sense of humor.
It's not original; Monty Pyrhon did this stuff forty years ago with more wit and deftness than this load of garbage and all its Kraft Macaroni and Cheese sauce can muster.
Too bad there isn't a television hell for this to be sent to and worse that I can't give it negative stars.
Lifeforce (1985)
This couldbhave been so good...if only...
"Lifeforce" is one of those films that, when you finish watching, you can't believe that this was considered an edited, fully fleshed-out story. The acting is so bad, the plot so convoluted, the ideas so wasted, that even a veteran film star like Sir Patrick Stewart can't resurrect this gem.
Is it a vampire flick? Is it a zombie film? Is it a cautionary, xenophobic apocalypse tale? Well, unbelievably, sort of all three.
The space shuttle Churchill, while exploring Halley's Comet with its return, finds a "ship" concealed inside said comet's tail. Three humanoid figures are in a kind of stasis inside the vessel, in what appears to be "caskets." With very little attention to protocol, these bodies are ordered aboard the shuttle, and, eventually, to earth, after an overacting Steve Railsback establishes a psychic link with the female alien.
Wackiness ensues as it is discovered that these creatures are actually a sort of energy vampire, who suck the "lifeforce" from its victims, leaving a dessicated, shriveled corpse. The fun is just beginning, however, as these dehydrated corpses reanimate shortly after death, seeking victims of their own, attacking the living to replenish the deceased's own lifeforce. An epidemic in London begins, with corpse after corpse seeking new energy, leaving a multiplying number of new zompires in their wake. What's more bizarre is that, if their energy search isn't rewarded and their physical need to assimilate the lifeforce of a living person sated, the zompires explode in a flurry of mummy-like dust after a few hours!
I have to say that the shriveled corpses are actually well done, as far as the effects of the mid-80s are concerned. They're quite scary. That's about the highest compliment I can give this turkey, as the dialogue and acting are so over-the-top and over done that it's a chore, though a spectacle, to enjoy how many directions this film takes in its 101 minute running time!
This could have been a really good film. At one point, one of the main characters mentions that this may have been the origin of many of the existing vampire legends, as Halley's Comet has appeared many times throughout Earth's history. This would have been a great angle from which to work, but that idea is left hanging, the story resorting to following the mostly naked, female alien's psychic connection to Carsen (Railsback).
It could have been a great apocalyptic movie, as well, had they chosen to explore that aspect. We do see London decimated, but the question of what would happen once every living human on the island had been killed by the zompires isn't really explored. Would the UK see the biggest dust storm in history as over 60 million British people explode like a grain tower?
It had the makings of a good zombie film, but self-destructive zombies kind of makes for its own, sad anticlimax. George Romero would have shaken his head.
Bottim line: it's fun to watch for the bad acting alone, and the effects, for the time, were actually pretty good. If your looking for a coherent story, however, leave that wacky notion at the door.