DaViD´82

The Raid 2 is for contact action movies what Heat is for he crime movies, what The Dark Knight is for comic book movies, what Once Upon a Time in the West is for westerns and what The Shining is for horror movies. Basically, a genre movie that breaks down the boundaries of this “ignoble" movie genre. It is the plot that’s the most surprising about part two. Yes, really, the plot, something that last time didn’t even figure as essential stuffing, simply because it chose to be nonexistent. This time we have a plot good enough to stand alone even without all that neat action stuff. This time it is a broad uncompromising dirty Hong Kong-style gangster movie that reminds you of Internal Affairs etc. and where the motivations and emotions make sense. In any case, most viewers will just be watching it for the action scenes anyway. And the pleasing thing about it is that even though the choreography was extremely ambitious (and very gory) offering incredible crowd scenes as well as extreme “face to face" fight scenes, it really hurts (the characters and the viewer; especially the final fight scene in the spotlessly white kitchen) and it’s made without any fancy stuff; no tough-guy lines or hyperbole, no shaking camera hand in hand with machinegun editing to cover imperfections and punches that missed, no wires and obvious CGI, but everything nice and clear using long (really long) takes. So, while the rather monotonous part one contained quite a few scenes that were worth watching more than once, here the whole two-and-a-half hour movie is worth your while to watch more than once. And with a movie where everybody’s hitting everybody else all the time, that is the best possible recommendation.

The weakest of Cavay’s chase thrillers and so they could marketed as "Mea Culpa, I have sinned". However, in this case, the weakest doesn’t mean weak at all. It’s just undecided, as if the author didn’t know whether to go for the more intimate style that he introduced in Anything for Her or the murderous, berserk style of Point Blank. And so it first tries to concentrate on the characters and their moods, which works if you turn a blind eye or two, but you get to understand the balance of power “this one is like this and that one is like that" in the first ten minutes. Plus, it isn’t clear for the first half what is going to happen (if you haven’t read the synopsis) and what is at stake becomes clear only immediately before the turning point when Lindon is at last able to add to his repertoire of stubborn silence and leather jacket with a look saying “you touched my son, I’m gonna touch your life". And from that moment on it flips over into nonstop action. And you don’t find many others as good at ingenious, real to life within the limits of the genre, uncompromising, different, wisecrack and CGI free, non-shaky and non-confusing action scenes as Cavayé. You get a taste of this from the opening gourmet three in a car fight, but it certainly doesn’t all end there; you just have to wait a while for seconds. And of course it applies that the characters behave a the genre dictates; like dumb asses, but that is all part of it, take it or leave it.

Dark Souls? Aliens? Groundhog Day? Starship Troopers? Source Code? The Twilight Zone? Saving Private Ryan? All of the above (and not nearly just them) are clearly recognizable in this movie. Fundamentally, this has it all - almost - just a respectable and proper ending is missing. However, the mandatory blockbuster inoffensive finale is luckily preceded by a sufficiently playful and peculiar cocktail of the aforementioned ingredients and not just a mere distillation of what you have already seen countless times elsewhere.

If you know the duo Penn & Teller, then at the beginning you can’t help thinking that this would be a spoof documentary, because this magic-debunking duo bring us this documentary “about revealing the mystery behind Vermeer’s exquisite style through a record of an experiment by a talentless billionaire inventor who has a crazy theory that would fundamentally change the opinion about the works of one of the greatest painters of all time, and at the same time, this talentless billionaire inventor is building a movie set in his garage in Texas so that, after several months of intricate work on a reproduction of The Music Lesson, he can prove his theory " isn’t very trust inspiring. Especially if this is all about filming the painting of a picture, therefore basically a very thankless and boring activity. You might easily expect them to be making fun of the audience, but... But no, it’s a real documentary and so good that it tempts even the greatest daubers among us to pull out some black and white photos, buying a dental mirror on a stick, brushes, paints and to try if it really works. In any case, apart from potential (re)discovery of an interesting painting by numbers-type technique, this is mainly the powerful story of Tim Jenison who didn’t hesitate to sacrifice a good few years of his life doing incredibly meticulous work with an unsure result. Without a grant. Although with a couple of billion tucked away.

Calling this British Fargo is as misleading as it is oversimplifying, but you know how it is... No smoke without fire. The mutual similarity lies not just in the concept itself or in disruption of the everyday routine of a back-water town, but also in the fact that this cuts deep into all of the characters who behave “like your neighbors". And this is why the convincing events “the evil inside each of us" is so chillingly disconcerting. It was brave (and controversial) to change the style and the genre during the final two episodes when the uncompromising psycho crime thriller turns into an uptight, intimate psychological drama where there is no room for the crime storyline. But it doesn’t matter, because this is not fundamentally about the crime as such, but the characters caught up in its whirlpool. | S1: 5/5 | S2: 5/5 |

Ninety minutes of pure "Hitchcock-like" genre enthusiasm. Why then only three stars? Because, after all, it has not only ninety minutes, but also a final fifteen minutes that leaves even an unsound mind standing still; let alone a sound one. From the speech on, everything is wrong. Everything.

Hollywood’s dogs and cats baked a cake where they wanted to include everything and everyone across universes, time, and space. And as a result, there is no space or time on the screen for anything or anyone. Everything is so rushed that what was the biggest strength of X-Men until now, completely vanishes. I mean the exploration of the characters, their development, their fears, their relationships with each other and the resulting emotions. Here, everyone is invariably relegated to the roles of emotionless puppets reciting big words, interrupted here and there by some mandatory blockbuster action. Moreover, the action is only there for its own sake; which doesn't mean it's bad in itself because it's not. Singer bit off more than he could chew, which is even more of a shame because now and then there is a flash of genius (mostly thanks to the cast), that shows how good it could have been if someone in charge realized that less is sometimes much more.

Of all the pictures about the malfunctioning of a penal system with an approach of “the stronger dog gets to fuck", this is the strongest in the genre dog park. And more disturbing (and therefore more powerful) is that it is about young punks who need a firm hand, uncompromising routine and discipline, but not at the price of bullying, humiliation, rape and other similar cute things. The despair of this vicious circle of “rebellious brats versus jailers with a chip on their shoulder" (the supreme scene from that point of view is Archer’s friendly chat with one of the screws), where the penal system becomes a parody of itself to such an extent that it breeds and teaches what it was created to combat, and perhaps this has never been captured on film so realistically, depressingly, chillingly while not moralizing.

Waiting for Godot... Uh, no, Godzilla. Which wouldn't matter if it was waiting for “a battering" and not a "wannabe father figure Spielberg"; after all, with its focus on the action side "from the subjective point of view of human ants who worship the family above all", standing on insinuation and the unseen rather than full frontals, it is perhaps too reminiscent of Jaws or War of the Worlds. This is mainly due to the overuse of this approach, because what is pleasantly hidden and inspiring in the first half, becomes tiresome in the second half to the point that one loses interest, because if you are merely insinuating for the hundredth time but nothing happens, and for the hundredth time again at the last possible moment… nothing happens, then what’s the point of it all? Just a filler plot and shallow characters, more filler, more filler, Watanabe explaining "what the hell is happening" and all interlaced with "I have to return to my family and although I will not be able to see Godzilla, her roars will be heard constantly" in a thousand and one variations, and without at least one interesting character. To make matters worse, in this scheme that takes itself so deadly serious, this otherwise likable classic that honors the concept of a heroic monster is like Godzilla in a china shop. After all, when the best and the most playful parts of the movie are the opening credits, there must be something wrong.

Almost a true-to-life-size copy of The Fugitive, from the story, through division of roles and character types, to length of show. And it’s a copy that is worse than The Fugitive in every way. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that this is a bad copy; it just rather dime a dozen. British TV genre series often stress the “everyday and down-to-earth" and Prey is no exception. Unfortunately, this approach is rather detrimental, because with a thriller about a falsely accused fugitive for whom walking down the street is nerve-rackingly tense because “what if that guy walking toward me recognizes me and reports me", then you can expect constant tension and endless paranoia when you don’t know who (if there is somebody) to trust. Instead, dozens of minutes are spent dealing with the every-day side where it is immediately clear where it is leading and how it will get there. However, as of the second episode, it turns into a classic manhunt movie, which suddenly starts to work (apart from the dumb finale) and, unsurprisingly, this is due to Simm, who was born for the role of a “nice guy from next door who just needs to look at you once, and you soon find yourself taking your gold watch off and pulling out your wallet". Season two is completely self-standing, although some characters do return. The man hunted this time isn’t Simm, but it’s hard to find a better replacement than his long-term acting partner, Glenister. It’s him in the role of an honest prison guard whose daughter is kidnapped and is forced to free one of the prisoners who carries this series along. It’s all just slightly better than season one, but it has its own considerable problems. Mainly it is so clearly traced out and transparent that it has no surprised and rather than three forty-five minute episodes, they should have made it as two hour-long episodes. | S1: 3/5 | S2: 3/5 |