freqeteq's reviews

To answer my question in the title of this review, no, no it isn't.

One of my fellow reviewers who scored this film an 8/10 tried to spell the word 'cinematography' and failed spectacularly at it, which kind of works as an analogy for this film. It tries, but it fails, hard.

I'm not going to say much more about it, watch the trailer and that's the quality of movie you're getting. A poorly written and shot budget adventure with some bad acting thrown in for good measure. I was never engaged in the story or characters, nothing felt real.

Good on them for having a go, I respect their attempt, I'm only writing this review because I hate fake misleading reviews on indie films and someone needs to tell the truth.

The final act of this film is one of the most incompetently handled endings I've ever watched. The problem is that films tend to work to a tried and tested 3 act structure. The first act sets up the world the characters and their goals, 2nd act raises the stakes for our characters by way of obstacles for them to overcome, 3rd act resolves the story with either a win or a loss. Not all films work to this structure but most of them do. This film resolved the main plot during the 2nd act which left the 3rd act with nothing left to do, so the 3rd act is just endless exposition told through voiceovers and flashbacks with nothing to drive the plot forward because the main plot has already been resolved, and this amounts to a boring 3rd act for the viewer, there's a revelation about a character in the 3rd act but trust me by the time it happens you're not going to care.

Now the actual story itself I thought was quite interesting. It was set up well enough in the first act to grab my attention, and even despite some dodgy acting in places and the usual pitfalls you get with low budget sci-fi films I was still invested in the film well into the 2nd act because of the story, but then the scene happened where the film should have ended but didn't and the rest of the film after that was a real slog to sit through as it crawled slowly towards the end credits.

I think you could re-edit this film into something quite watchable, cut up the 3rd act and splice it into the first two acts, move around a few scenes, it's never going to be a masterpiece but I think you could easily turn it into something much better than what I just watched.

First off if you're looking for a plot that makes any kind of sense with well written characters that aren't just superficial stereotypes and who make smart decisions then I suggest looking elsewhere, but if you're looking to watch something that is unlike anything you've ever seen before and is so ridiculous that you can't stop watching then this is the film for you.

Cage is our silent protagonist driving through a small town when a series of events orchestrated by crooked locals leads to him spending the night cleaning a derelict fun house full of animatronic creatures that turn out to be possessed by psychopathic killers. A group of local teenagers aware of what is happening try to rescue him but end up becoming trapped inside as well.

So yes, this is a very B-grade film where Nic Cage engages in hand to hand combat with a bunch of people wearing animal costumes, which would get old very quickly if the film took itself seriously, but thankfully for us the filmmakers not only gave the film a unique and interesting visual style, but they were also well aware of how silly the plot is so they had some fun with it, and although there's no real jokes or one liners in it I did find myself laughing out loud quite a few times at the sheer absurdity of what was happening on the screen, an example is how Cage's character very early on in the film is attacked by a giant animatronic ostrich yelling "I want to feast on your face", so a fight ensues that ends with a Mortal Kombat style finishing move and after it's over Cage goes to the storeroom puts on a clean shirt then goes straight back to his cleaning duties like this kind of thing happens to him all the time.

This is the most ridiculous film I've seen in a long long time, nothing made any sense and I loved every minute of it, it's pure B-grade movie genius.

I don't mind films with narratives that are a bit vague and can be left open to interpretation by the viewer, but there is a limit, and for me this film went way over that limit. It set up compelling mystery after compelling mystery in the first 2 acts then ended abruptly with no answers to any of them. When the film ended I felt cheated, it was like the filmmakers had no idea how to answer any of the mysteries their film had set up in the first 2 acts so decided to not even bother trying and instead introduced even more mysteries into the 3rd act that were left unanswered as well.

I can think of at least half a dozen plot threads in this film that were left unanswered, and I don't just mean left open to interpretation by the viewer, but unanswered. That's not fun, that's not artsy, that's just plain good old fashioned poor storytelling. It's a shame because the first 2 acts that set everything up were so good.

4/10

... it deals with Covid and most of the reviewers give their reason for their low score because "It's happening in the real world I don't want to watch it on my TV show!"

Let me tell you something, EVERYTHING this show deals with happens to people in the real world, did any of these reviewers ever stop to think of that?From cancer to complications with broken bones to rare blood diseases EVERYTHING you see in the show has affected people in the real world, now they're dealing with Covid and because it's the first time the show has dealt with a medical problem that these reviewers have also experienced all of a sudden the show dealing with real world medical problems isn't ok, pretty selfish thinking from these reviewers I think.

I thought the episode was well done, typically over melodramatic as the show has always been but still an ok way to spend 40 minutes of your time.

Going in I thought I'd know what this film was about, I mean a film in 2020 about two black refugees going through the immigration system in Britain how can it be anything but what I'm expecting it to be? But I was wrong, and I am so glad I was.

Another reviewer said that this is "woke" and a commentary on immigration, it isn't, not at all. This is not a film about race or the differences in race or the difficulties of adjusting to living in a new country, it's not trying to say anything about the immigration system it's just telling a story that happens to involve new immigrants to a country, saying this is a commentary on immigration is like saying Jaws is a commentary on water safety or Die Hard 2 is a commentary on airport security.

This film is a supernatural horror about the desperate things that people will do to survive and the consequences of those actions, and it's one of the most entertaining horrors I've seen for a while with some genuinely unsettling scenes, I can only hope people don't dismiss it because of a few ignorant reviewers who see imaginary agendas whenever there are black characters leading a film.

8/10

The film felt a lot longer than its 90 minute runtime, and not in a good way. The acting was ok by most of the cast, there were a couple of pretty terrible performances though, but the problem for me was that in this drama none of the characters felt like real people, and I put that down not to the acting but to the writing and directing. I suggest you watch the trailer, and if you do watch it you'll see lots of shots that look like they could be straight out of a commercial for a clothing brand or something with people being filmed in slow motion while posing, this is what a lot of the film is like and it didn't work for me at all. There's almost a surreal dreamlike feel to the look of the film that detracts from the story it's trying to tell, and at the end of the day the story they're telling is a very simple one, but when none of the characters or the situations they're in feel real it makes it very hard to care about anything that's happening to them.

I would not recommend this film as one worth watching and I would not watch another film directed by this directing duo.

The very first thing you see in the first episode of Utopia are the opening credits, opening credits that consist of a montage of generic stock footage. This opening sequence sums up the US remake of Utopia nicely, unimaginative. It doesn't even feel like the show is trying to have any kind of identity of its own. I wasn't expecting it to be as stylized as the UK version was, I didn't expect them to try and copy what the UK show did, but didn't expect it to be as bland as it is either. A good example of how uninspired the show feels is the music, something that has become iconic from the UK version because of Cristobal Tapia de Veer's score, but here it sounds like music that could be from any number of syndicated police procedural shows, it's forgettable and bland and I doubt anyone will be adding the music from the show to their playlists any time soon. And it's not just the music, everything feels generic like they're doing just the bare minimum to get a scene done instead of trying to create something unique that's memorable and stands out. I think I've seen one interesting camera shot in the first two episodes.

At the end of the day though it's the story that they're telling that's the important thing, so hopefully they explore and expand on the story in new and interesting ways that the UK show didn't, but so far they haven't done that, they've changed certain things and added others, but all these changes have managed to do is reduce the mystery, intrigue and tension that the story in the original was so good at building. If you haven't seen the original I highly recommend it.

I hope this gets better, I want it to get better, but based on the first couple of episodes I'm not holding out much hope.

This is a typical modern Michael Bay film, it's all style over substance. Leave your brain at the door and you might enjoy it, I wish I did but I didn't.

I'll give you a quick example of what to expect while trying to explain why I couldn't bring myself to enjoy this film. Opening scene is a 15 minute car chase through a city. Firstly, the vehicle they choose to use as a getaway vehicle is a bright neon green Alfa Romeo that sticks out in the crowd like a sore thumb driving a bright neon green sports car would. Why would anyone choose this as a getaway vehicle instead of a car with a paint job a bit more inconspicuous I hear you ask? Because it's a Michael Bay film that's why, and it's all about style remember? Secondly, every car and bike that crashes during the chase produces enough sparks and fire to rival the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, plus the sounds they make when they crash are the most ridiculous Transformers sounding noises I have ever heard outside of a Transformers movie. And lastly, the bright neon green sports car gets scratched up by another vehicle and the drivers side mirror gets knocked off, but the next shot it's back on again, then it's off, then it's on, and it switches between broken and not broken a dozen or so times before someone decided that for continuity sake we better just stick to one or the other and thankfully they chose to go with the broken one. Pretty sloppy filmmaking really, and this is all in the opening 15 - 20 minutes, and unfortunately I can't turn my brain off enough to enjoy a film like that.

Other things that I didn't like about the film, the overall story is laughable and makes absolutely no sense at all, and when I say no sense I'm not being hyperbolic I mean it makes no sense, from the people he chooses to join his team to the way he recruits them to the missions they do it's all so ludicrous, if you allow yourself to question its logic for even one second then the entire thing falls apart. It's got your typical Michael Bay hit or miss humor along with other "Bayerisms" that we've come to expect from him, like the over use of quick cuts during action sequences, low angle shots of women in short skirts, so much slow motion that if the slow motion parts were at normal speed I reckon the film would be about half an hour shorter than it is, and scenes that are meant to be emotional and pull on your heart strings but because every character has no depth to them they end up having about as much emotional impact as a carpet cleaning commercial does.

What I did like. CGI people getting hit by cars and caught in explosions and thrown around and stuff, it was completely overused but the first few times it happened it looked quite good, especially people getting side swiped by vehicles. Some of the bad guy kills were well done. I enjoyed most of the banter between Ryan Reynolds and the non Ryan Reynolds actors, it was funny and was just Ryan Reynolds being your typical Ryan Reynolds which is good if you like Ryan Reynolds and I like Ryan Reynolds. Who doesn't like Ryan Reynolds? Hugh Jackman that's who, the Canadian fraud.

It really is just a film full of loud noises, bright colors, explosions and little of anything else.

So you've written a bad script and you know a bunch of wannabe actors who aren't good at acting but they'll work for free plus one of them has a car you can use to transport your gear in and a sister you want to get to know a bit better, so you make a film and it's bad, so very very bad, the type of film that makes celebrity hidden sex tapes look like they were something filmed by Martin Scorsese, but you've learned a few things in your years working the graveyard shift on the drive through at Big Bills Burgers & Ribs, and one of those things is how to sell terrible products, so you call your film Pet Graveyard in the hope that people will mistake it for the new Pet Sematary because you know that that's the only way that you will get anyone to watch or buy your terrible film, I mean how hard can it be it's been working for The Asylum productions for years, and you've got to do something to get your $80 production costs back on this film because rent is due on Tuesday and your Mom/landlord is not a patient person.

Well it probably tricked some people, not me though, I torrented it because that's what films like this deserve. And after downloading my free copy of the film and suffering through its 90 minute runtime I then decided to do something to give back to society. First I burned the movie to disk and put it in a DVD case using a cover that my daughter specially designed for it that was covered in emojis of what looked like little brown blobs of icecream? It might have been something else I'll have to ask her, anyway, I then I went deep into the forest with just the movie and a shovel and dug the deepest darkest hole you could imagine, then I threw that dvd case and movie into the hole with all the satisfaction of a man who has just thrown a burnt dvd copy of a terrible movie he'd torrented into a hole he'd just dug, and proceeded to fill the hole in with a mixture of dirt and due to a weak bladder about a liter of bodily fluids, and I'm happy to report to you here and now that after 3 weeks and 7 hours 34 minutes the movie has not risen from its grave to haunt me or anyone else.

Worth 10 stars but I only gave it one star because I'm a contrary non conformist.

Some people have rated this a 1 star and others a 10, forget those reviews because those people don't have a clue, this movie isn't a 1 and it's definitely not a 10, it's a solid movie, it's not the best thing ever made and it's not the worst thing ever made, it's just a solid slightly above average film with some great acting spearheaded by an outstanding performance by Jamie Bell.

The story is kind of familiar and formulaic to every other similar kind of movie that deals with this subject matter, you've probably seen this story played out before, our main protagonist starts off with strong prejudices and beliefs which throughout the course of the film he starts to question, it's nothing new, but I didn't find it made his journey any less interesting to watch. It's got some great acting, it's filmed well, like I said above it's a solid film.

I did feel that some of the events in the film were a bit rushed, it felt like it could use a few more scenes to flesh out characters relationships a bit more, especially when it came to his relationship with the gang and 'Mom & Pop'.

Worth a watch.

Another reviewer described this film as pretentious, and really there's no better word to describe everything about this movie. Maybe there's a meaningful story hidden somewhere in there, but to find it you'll have to sit through random shot after random shot of meaningless random things. For example the main character turns on the lights and we get 3 closeups of random Xmas decorations, when she's looking for food in the kitchen we get closeup shots of cutlery and crockery and things that don't add anything to the story mood or atmosphere of the scene, and when I say closeup I mean extreme closeup shots of cups and Xmas decorations like you'd see on Instagram from people trying to sell cups and Xmas decorations, it's so terribly distracting. You'll have shots where the background is completely out of focus then on the reverse shot everything is in focus, the first time it happened I thought it was a mistake but then it happened over and over again and I realized it was by choice and I don't know why, it's jarring and confusing and just like the myriad of random shots it adds absolutely nothing to the scene.

When an author writes a book they have an editor who tells them what works and doesn't work, this film needed someone to tell the director what did and didn't work because this film has ideas in it that used sparingly would have been good decisions, but they were so overused in the film that they instead ended up becoming eye rolling irritations that only managed to distract from what the scene was trying to convey to the audience.

You know when someone discovers a new filter for the camera on their new phone and then every photo they take they just have to use that filter? This is what happens when one of those people makes a movie.

The story is quite fresh, I went in not knowing anything about the film so didn't see the twists and turns that it takes coming, which is quite a rarity with movies these days for me. The effects both cgi and practical are well done for the most part, though some of the cgi does suffer from looking like really good cgi rather than something that's actually real. Overall though it's a solid bit of science fiction fare to spend a couple of hours with.

The negatives for me mainly concerned the child characters, they were badly written and it was obvious they were just there as plot devices to make things happen. There are 4 instances in the film where children were used purely because if they didn't do whatever stupid thing they did at that time then no action would have taken place, it's lazy writing 101. Plus they cried, constantly. The youngest one cried and whinged for probably 80% of her screen time and she had a LOT of screen time, and sure that may be the way a real child would behave if put in her situation, but hey, I'm watching a science fiction movie about an alien invasion with spaceships and laser guns, reality has already left the building so it wouldn't have hurt for them to tone down her reactions a little bit to make her less irritating.

There's an exposition dump in the 3rd act that goes on forever and the ending feels a bit anti-climatic (and setting up for a sequel that I doubt will ever happen), but I still gave this movie a 6/10, I enjoyed my time with it I think it's a solid 6 and I might have even given it a 7 if it wasn't for the annoying kids.

The heading for this review is an actual line from the movie, it's how a reporter introduces themselves before asking someone for an interview, "I'm a writer from the paper", brilliant, just brilliant.

This movie is from The Asylum and if you haven't heard of The Asylum they make knockoffs of big budget movies using as little money as possible, when Transformers came out they released Transmorphers, when Pacific Rim was released they released Atlantic Rim, and now with the release of Tomb Raider we have Tomb Invader.

All the usual suspects that you'd expect from an Asylum production are present in this movie, a cast of nobodies who can't act, cgi that would have looked bad in the 90's, terrible directing and a lousy script, it's just your typical terribly bad Asylum film.

There is absolutely nothing new or interesting to be found in this budget zombie flick.

The story is fine I guess, but the screenplay that tells that story isn't, it's full of poorly written characters in cliched situations full of worn out horror tropes that you've seen 100 times before and done 100 times better.

The acting swings wildly between just OK, awkward, and completely terrible. Some of the actors deliver their lines as if punctuation is a foreign concept to them, there's no pauses or natural flow to the monotone words falling from their mouths. The lead actress does a few voiceovers throughout the film that are delivered so poorly that it sounded like she was reading them for the first time as they recorded her.

When it comes to direction and camera work the action is your typical low budget handheld shaky cam style, it's functional, it does the job and that's about it. There's nothing special or inspired, no shots that make you sit up and take notice. Any young aspiring directors out there aren't going to be rushing out to copy this directors style, if you can call uninspired and forgettable a style. I will say that the practical zombie and gore effects are well done, though variety when it came to how things died would have been nice instead of just zombie death = headshot and human death = bite on neck from zombie.

In the end this is a very mediocre horror film full of poorly written cliched characters portrayed by mostly terrible actors, the various situations they find themselves in have zero tension because the script is so uninspired and predictable that you always know what's coming next. If you're like me you'll be rooting for the zombies after the first 10 minutes.

I give it 3/10

You don't need a lot of money to make a great zombie type flick, all you need is a good script and a passionate director with a vision, for proof of this go watch The Girl With All The Gifts or 28 Days Later that both had similar budgets to this movie.