Tag Archives: 2017

Movie Reviews

Haunted Maze (2017) – Review

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I won’t waste your time with the obvious. This movie is bad. The acting, the production, and the lack of story is all sloppily put together and falsely marketed as a movie. Don’t watch this movie, even if you like making fun of terrible movies, there is nothing here for you. Most of the time if you can’t hear what is going on, you can’t see. I found this movie accidentally thinking it was something else and I hate myself terribly for having to watched it.

Now I will dig a little deeper into why Haunted Maze doesn’t work. The protagonist, if you can call them that, are unlikable and have no presence in the movie. You are quickly introduced to the protagonist who’s only defining characteristic is that they are teens. At least, they are what the director thinks teens are. It is a really poor depiction and it doesn’t help that they all have the acting ability of cardboard. If you get passed the poor acting and terrible dialogue, they are all assholes. None of the protagonist are likable and I instantly wished for the killer to do the great service of erasing them from this movie. Horror movies need a least one good character. A relatable essence that people want to see succeed and survive. Here, you get a brief introduction to a group of friends who really shouldn’t be friends and I would argue that their toxic relationship is more dangerous than the killer clown.

Now the biggest issue with the movie is the villain of the film. It is clear early on that this was a film that started with a concept and a movie was made around it. Worse yet, it seems that the film is a collection of unrelated ideas put together without any clear goal or story in mind. There are too many plots in this movie and none of them are resolved. This also means that this movie doesn’t have a solid flow as it will jump from scene to scene hoping for connections that aren’t there. Worse yet, the plot points this movie feigns to have seem to be quirks that come across lame.

The biggest quirk in this movie is the villain. It is clear of the bat that the actor who plays the killer clown is trying his hardest. He easily delivers the best performance out of the whole cast by far. It is not good enough to merit the watch, but I will give him that credit. That said, this is the worst killer clown you can have chasing you. He fucking talks in rhyme. Why does he talk in rhyme? That is never addressed. In fact, none of his character is explained. There is no rhyme or reason why he has to be a clown when nothing in his past suggest this as a logical personality. He is a killer just because and that instantly makes him such a flat villain. A good villain needs to have a motive, goal, personality outside of just a quirk. There needs to be a reason for him to act the way he acts and him being a killer clown because it is a horror movie frankly isn’t enough. You get tired of this clown so quickly because he talks so much but never once explains why he is hunting teens.

Some might argue that the traumatic experience from his past is reason enough to create believable motive as well as form his personal identity, but this movie brushes past this explanation so quickly and makes such a wild leap to killer clown that it doesn’t work. Had they done like in the first Halloween movie and shown a traumatic childhood, events and actions that suggest that he was leading down the killer clown path, or even made his father a killer clown it would have given the clown a little more depth. I don’t use names because honestly, it is so generic of a concept it doesn’t matter. With out this basic level of character development, there is no reason to care about the villain. With out any motive, any depth, the villain isn’t memorable. Think about all your favorite villains. Even those in slashers extend more than just a quirk and blood-thirst. You work because you understand the motive, they have weight and feel real because they have flaws and goals.

This is too much thought and analysis for a movie that was done with way too little thought. Honestly, you won’t get passed the first five minutes because of how badly everything is done. I did it so you don’t have to. Skip it like your life depended on it!

 

Movie Reviews

The Greatest Showman (2017) Review

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Recently re-watching The Greatest Showman I can say that this is one of those movies that you can only see once. The first time watching it, I was mesmerized by all the pageantry, the singing, although the plot still leaves me unimpressed. The plot follows a young boy who grows up poor that falls in love with a girl who is a different social class. Because of his own status, it makes this love one that is frowned upon and now Hugh Jackman makes it his life’s goal to become a man that is worthy of his love’s affection. To do this, Hugh Jackman’s character gathers a group of “misfits” and creates a show of oddities. A circus if you will. But, as he becomes more successful and is no longer poor, he is never fully accepted by high society. This need for acceptance becomes an obsession for Hugh Jackman’s character and we get to watch as his motives are no longer to earn the affection of the woman he loves, which he has from the beginning of the movie, but rather to gain acceptance in a society that he doesn’t really want to be a part of. Because of his obsession, he ends up forgetting why he started the show in the first place and hurts the only people that had faith in him.

As plots go, you aren’t watching this movie for the plot. You are watching it for the singing, so I will excuse all the holes and some of the bad dialogue in this film. And as far as the singing goes, I have seen way worse musicals. The issue is that on second viewing, this movie lost all its charm and I was bored with it. Maybe it was watching it on a smaller screen with weaker speakers, but it didn’t hold the magic that I remembered it having when I watched it first.

I wish that they had gone a little more over the top in this film and not try to be as serious. I wish that they didn’t use so much CGI in this film. And I wish that Hugh Jackman’s character wasn’t such a dick. I get it, the premise was clear, but I didn’t spend enough time with his character to forgive him being a dick when he turns into one. My biggest issue is how quickly all of the drama in the this film is solved. Again, I can excuse this because of the genre of the film but it doesn’t change the fact that this is one of those movies that you can only view once or twice. I don’t see this movie having a long shelf life like other films of the genre because the story and the songs aren’t extremely memorable. Maybe I am not the target audience, maybe I don’t know enough music to fully appreciate it but I couldn’t get into it the second time around.

If you haven’t seen it, I recommend watching it. It’s a good sit the first time around. If you have already seen it, you should know where you stand. Check it out.

 

Movie Reviews

Geostorm (2017) Review

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Geostorm is a generic apocalyptic movie that came a little late to the party. The concept is simple enough, after a series of storms that almost end earth, scientist get together to make a network of weather controlling satellites. This saves the earth and now the people of earth live in seeming safety as the weather is controlled by the United States. For a while, things are good. The system, named Dutch Boy, works as intended and everyone is happy until one day it malfunctions killing a small town in Afghanistan. The more people start to investigate on the issue, the more the audience realizes that someone is using Dutch Boy to take over the world. Now it’s up to Gerard Butler tries to save the world from the very thing he created.

This movie is a waste of time. It tries desperately to be bigger than it actually is by making claims about the corruption of government, the dangers of playing god, and the dangers of technology to name a few. The issue isn’t that it makes these claims, but rather that it does so poorly. These topics alone are too big for this movie and as a result, the movie will spend little time making these arguments. In fact, it will flat out tell you these arguments in the form of poorly written dialog and it slows the movie down a lot. Had it focused on one theme and developed it a little more, maybe the movie could hold up better.

Another issue that I had with the movie is the acting. People in this movie seem to be sleep walking for their pay check. Other suffer from playing poorly written characters. It’s hard to bash on the acting of this movie when the script isn’t any good. None of the characters were memorable and worst off are the characters that were written in for the sake of cameo.

The biggest flaw of this movie is it’s lack of focus. There are so many plot lines for a movie this short. No one cares about Gerard Butler’s daughter that it will cut back too when you forgot she was in this movie. No one cares about the love plots for the two brothers. No one cares for the main plot to take over the presidency because the movie keeps cutting between them abruptly. Because of this, you don’t really have a connection with the characters because you spend so little time with them and you know less about them by the end of the movie than you did when you started watching this film. The plot itself doesn’t make any sense because of all the holes it has. But don’t worry, it will try to fill these holes with shitty writing.

I can’t recommend this movie because it is boring. It is a movie that suffers from coming out too late. Had it come out back when this genre was popular, I can see it doing better. But even still, it isn’t a good movie. It is too similar to the other movies of the genre but not as fun. I like some movies of this genre that cheesy, but this one doesn’t do anything that held my attention. Skip this one, I give a 2 out of 10.