Zombie plague + feudal Korea + beautiful cinematography + devious political machinations = an absolute winner following a similarly great first season.
Lots of twists and turns, great choreography and characters. It’s on Netflix now.
Highly recommended.
Did they forget to add real credits at the start or did the graphic design place just give up?
Did they spend all their budget on these banging scenic wide shots and that one big swanky party scene?
Why is this character named Harry Hole? Is it a translation error?
Why does Michael Fassbender always look dead? Is it alcoholism or bad grading?
Why does Harry continue to live in his apartment when the walls have been torn out to spray for toxic mold and not replaced?
How is the killer already in his car when we already know he was following way behind this woman?
Why are there random white flashes in scenes?
Why do we see scenes from nine years in the past even though nobody in the present was there to remember them?
Why do only two people in the film smoke when they keep cutting to cigarette butts at crime scenes (which nobody ever finds or comments on)? Why does The Great Detective never see them right there?
Why is it suddenly daytime? Why is it suddenly nighttime? Why is it suddenly daytime? Why is it suddenly nighttime?
Why do they say the killer only strikes when it snows when we’ve seen that it wasn’t?
Why is half the dialogue recorded in voiceover or badly dubbed in? Is this a prank?
Why does Chloe Sevigny just suddenly have a twin? Why did they need a snow truck to drop Harry off when we already saw that the house is literally 10ft from where he just was? How did he know to look in the tank and how did the killer get in/out?
Why doesn’t Magnus get a promotion? He literally has every bit of useful plot information immediately ready as soon as someone asks for it. Is it because he has to wait to be told to give people crucial information?
Why do neither of the detectives working on this case know the same information?
Why does everyone in Norway except for two third-tier supporting characters speak with a proper British accent?
What is his relationship to his ex-girlfriend’s son? Why do they hang out? Is he just using him for his cell phone? WHY DOESN’T THIS POLICE DETECTIVE OWN A CELL PHONE? Why is he having police matters forwarded to a minor’s phone?
WHY SNOWMEN? Like, they ALSO show up at every crime scene but nobody ever makes any connections. IT’S THE NAME OF THE FILM AND THIS NEVER GETS EXPLAINED.
Why coffee beans? We the audience know why, but nobody else ever once comes close to even noticing them.
What is the deal with the entirety of Val Kilmer’s plotline? Why do we see something that nobody in the rest of the movie knows happened?
Are we in the middle of this? The start? Near the end? There’s been zero signposting of progress in either the killer case or the plot.
Why are the police just leaving a crime scene to be eaten by birds?
Is lying down on top of someone whose house you just broke into and who just attacked you because you broke into their house really the best way to resolve this situation?
Why does nobody ever follow up on JK Simmons? He’s literally the last person to see a victim alive after taking her photo with his phone IN PUBLIC WITH WITNESSES and then gives her his room card. HOW DID THE KILLER GET IN THE ROOM? How does nobody notice Rebecca Ferguson’s giant recording device? You can see it across the room! How did the killer find and move her gun when she was in the room the whole time? When/where did she get changed?
Who was the girl who had her boobs out for JK Simmons? She didn’t seem happy about it but then she just shows up again opening doors for people and then that entire plotline gets dropped. Who is she? IS SHE OK?? Why was Rebecca Ferguson even following her in the first place?
How does Harry know where to go to find his not-family? How does the razor-wire gun work and why does that exist? Why do none of the letters in the trailers show up in the film?
How did Harry not see the killer standing in the middle of a frozen lake in daytime not forty paces away? Is it because he’s just slightly out of shot? Why did the ice suddenly break when Harry was standing right there not a minute before?
How does Harry always only have half a cigarette even when he didn’t have a lit one two cuts earlier?
Is this meant to be a parody and something (a lot of things) got lost in the edit? It’s two hours long! What did they cut?? Besides all the resolutions to all the plot threads, that is.
How did they get this cast in this film?
And then why does the movie just… end?
Can someone give me whatever this cost to make?
Yeah, it’s fine.
Much more promising at the start with good characters old and new, some absolutely belting fight sequences and a legitimately great evolution of the Terminators into the new REV-9 model.
Gabriel Luna is pitch perfect as a faster, meaner twin machine, and the physicality of the role makes for some awesome battles with Mackenzie Davis’ augmented protector that feel right out of a kids’ imaginary action figure showdown.
Honestly, the main problem is that it goes so big so fast and then doesn’t really have anywhere to go — the stakes have been so protracted and epic action fatigue sets in. There was at least two points where I thought we were at the end only to keep on rolling on again into something more huge and bombastic but the stakes hadn’t upped to reflect it.
For example: Did we really need the whole crashing plane bit? It really desensitised me to the ACTUAL peak of the film some 30min later. Like, I get that everyone played UNCHARTED 3 and that part of the game was fantastic, but I think we’ve done all we can with planes falling out of the sky as a dramatic setpiece now.
Overall, chop out at least one action sequence or condense their more creative parts into one of the other scenes, remove flashbacks so you’re 25+ min shorter and you’d have a much more satisfying ride.
Still, FX are great, it’s an interesting parallel (alternate?) timeline and it’s better than about half of the other TERMINATOR films.
Worth a watch, even if it does drag a bit in the back half.
A post-goldrush story on a micro budget that makes use of every dollar — the spacesuits and tech are charmingly analogue and cumbersome, medical treatment is harsh, the people are cruel and brutal and happy to kill for the possibility of a fortune.
Held aloft by the boundless charisma of a morally ambiguous Pedro Pascal and finding a resourceful lead in Sophie Thatcher, this is a frontier tale with a minimalist scifi angle.
Enjoyed it, worth a watch.
One of the things I struggled with most when compiling my top film picks for 2010-2019 was that the decade saw such a dramatic shift to a gilded era of television, much of which matched and even surpassed their cinematic bretheren.
There’s so much that is now possible in the episodic format that was unthinkable even a decade ago, and truly these last ten years represent a new high water mark.
As such, I’ve given my favourites their own list, in no particular order, here:
Obnoxious naming of the decade aside, this was tough to trim to only ten (see: honourable mentions) and impossible to then place in any sort of order. So instead here they are, unsorted, with my reasoning for each choice:
An old-school whodunnit with modern sensibilities and an A-Grade cast.
Twin lead performances from Ana de Armas and Daniel Craig are equal parts charming, hilarious and empathetic, anchoring a great ride, makes you wonder why this sort of film seems to have fallen out of vogue for the last… what? 20 years? Whenever THE USUAL SUSPECTS came out.
<a google visit later> (It was 1995).
Clearly, any major discussion is spoilerific, but just know that it’s a smart, well executed mystery full of solid performances, plenty of humour and deftly handled class culture undertones.
I was expecting two or three extra twists come the end, but I’m not going to hold that against it.
Recommended!
SIDE NOTE: I’m going to try and add an illustration to each review to spruce things up around here going forward, the complexity and style of which will probably be utterly random. Enjoy!
Exactly what it says on the box: alligators in your basement in a hurricane and the water level keeps on rising.
Minimalist in concept, capable in its execution, all around a pretty tight little horror film with decent effects and good performances.
Alligators/crocodiles are legitimately terrifying creatures and this does well to dress them up as little as possible — that groundedness really helps sell the dread.
Worth a watch.
One half a slow, darkly funny buddy-sailor drama about isolation, one half a hallucinogenic, intense psychological nightmare.
Brilliantly disturbing performances from both Dafoe and Pattinson draped in gorgeous cinematography, stark imagery of tempestuous dread and unnerving sound design.
That it’s filmed in a square aspect ratio only further serves to make it feel like the horrifying relic of some dark, forgotten avenue of filmmaking.
Not for everyone, but those who can appreciate it will find a lot to chew on here.
Recommended for a stormy night.
A pitch perfect follow up to THE SHINING that makes the world of people gifted with the Shine much larger and much more dangerous.
Compelling characters, fantastic visuals and stylish direction from King champion Mike Flanagan.
A little slow at the start to build the world and populate it, but once it gets going it’s a great take on a classic.
Absolutely worth your time.
NERVE.SQUID.PILOT 