Filmmaniak

A faint, poor imitation of the first film. Its trivial plot is boringly stretched out through unnecessary talkativeness, which lacks humor and tension and even the imaginative, dreamy and poetically absurd crackpot atmosphere of Lewis's book, which Disney and Burton somehow managed to preserve, and on which Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass did not build, but in fact turned against it by deciding to combine the children's and adult worlds in a completely dysfunctional way. Although the film introduces Alice as a mature action heroine in the beginning and lets her deal with adult themes (the plot is based on the fact that Alice travels through time and gradually reveals the traumas that some characters in Wonderland suffer from, what the cause of these traumas is and how it is possible to resolve them so that they would not suffer from them). However, the film is more so aimed at infantility, so it drags Alice through a nonsensical story, where the supporting characters either embarrass themselves or become idiots. Disappointment and failure on many levels.

Fans of the original game are obliged to watch the film, but for others this is a polished and shiny mix of The Chronicles of Narnia and Eragon, done in bright colors and adorned with the aesthetics of fantasy films from the 80's, with a somewhat limited narrative and emotional narrative value. Interestingly, the film puts both warring camps - the humans and digital orcs - on the same level, so the viewer can de facto choose who to cheer for, the same as when choosing who to play in the game. Many abbreviated situations and motifs, and for example the total ignoring of other races in the empire, are probably the result of a significant shortening. The story is very ordinary and uninteresting and the conclusion is not a conclusion, but rather a bold step towards other works. However, this commercial product aimed at fans of the game and created more or less as part of its advertising campaign is quite a fun and visually appealing spectacle, even for a viewer who has never played Warcraft, which is mainly thanks to the director and digital technologies.

An unadulterated, magnificent adventurous family film that pays homage to its genre and has a great chance of becoming a children's classic, which in a few years may have a status similar to that which The NeverEnding Story has today. Breathtaking visual and tricks, a gripping, moving and emotional story and a number of excellent, dynamically directed passages.

Under the boring and dull direction of Kirk Jones, the sequel to the most lucrative romantic comedy of all time comes off as a painful exhibition of failed jokes (after every potentially humorous line there is a cut to someone who is screaming clutching his head or rolling his eyeballs, reliably stamping it into the ground) and goofy characters who, under the slogan "more screaming means more laughter", turned from cute, peculiar Greek oddballs into unsympathetic hysterical idiots. This time the story focuses not on Toula and her husband Ian, but rather on her parents (there is a scene with a naked pensioner stuck in a bathtub) and her daughter looking for a college to go to (a desperate attempt by the whole family to convince the 30-year-old protagonist that she first needs to find a groom was justified in the first film, but now, when it is trying to push an eighteen-year-old student into the same thing, it's just weird). However, the plot often stands in place, and overall, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 feels like an episode of some average half-hour sitcom spanning ninety minutes.

It’s tough. Pat and Mat have maintained their qualities as a bedtime story even after all these years - they are still playful, imaginative, fun and humorously clumsy, and the troubles they go through simply work. But when you go to the cinema to see a film called Pat and Mat, you are expecting something other than ten bedtime stories in a row (literally). So, if you're looking forward to something similar to a film version of Shaun the Sheep or A Town Called Panic, i.e., a full-fledged film with the popular protagonists of the bedtime stories set in a complete story with full-length runtime, the creators of Pat and Mat not only fail, but they never even tried to do anything of the sort. Nostalgia and memories of childhood are therefore uncomfortably mixed with feelings of disappointment, because these two handyman deserve a good movie.

Sacha Baron Cohen once again boldly pushes the boundaries of film humor and tests what else the audience can endure. I had a really good time, although I admit that for many people, it will be hard to tolerate this film. For some it may be Comedy of the Year, for others embarrassing and disgusting hogwash. I recommend the film especially if you have a sense for black, vulgar and incorrect humor, you often go to the cinema, you've seen and can endure a lot of stuff, you find most comedies to be not very good or harsh enough, and you liked Cohen's previous films. The Cohen - Strong brotherly duo works great.

Fifteen minutes of essentially forgettable and indistinct action scenes cannot make up for the lengthy blabber and constant explanations of new patterns of laws of this made-up dystopian world, dominated by digital gloss trying to make special a flat, empty and unnecessarily long, stupid story about genetic engineering, post-apocalyptic society and the meaning of categorizing people. Nothing interesting, exciting, funny or entertaining happens the entire time. The only positive stems from the decent craftsmanship and from the fact that, compared to previous works, the primitive romance and annoying traumas of the main protagonist have significantly decreased. Allegiant may not be downright uncomfortably obtuse, but it's still incredibly dull and about nothing, and there's really no reason to pay any attention to it at all.

Sometimes it’s a little thinner than the first one, sometimes there’s "more of the same" and as a result it’s outrageous fun, if Zoolander's very specific style of humor combining goofiness, sophistication, bizarre craziness and absurdity is your thing. In any case, it is a shot in the dark for those who liked the first Zoolander. The sequel is something very similar - total mischief filmed by people who have significant filmmaking skills, are not stupid, have a sense of comedic timing and a variety of humor styles from comedians to serious faces through manic creation, to all of the possible subtypes of satire and parody. The film has a slower start, there are a few dead spots and not all of the jokes work, but I laughed almost continuously during the last twenty minutes.

As a musical tribute to Green Gold or as a film about rehearsing a play, the film fails in its entirety and can only be accepted as a Czech variation on contemporary dance films such as Let´s Dance, with which it shares a weak plot and a number of music and dance scenes, but which are quite successful for Czech standards. However, with the exception of the songs, almost nothing is associated with the cult hit Green Gold - if the students were rehearsing something else, it wouldn't matter, and nothing would have to change in the story. And what’s worse, the film shows terribly little of the rehearsals and nothing of the final performance in front of the audience. Good films of this type are based on a detailed demonstration of training, where we watch the protagonists toil and make mistakes, and in the end we wonder if they will be able to perform live without mistakes, and we are moved when they are successful. This isn't the case here at all.

While Soderbergh tries to be more dramatic in Magic Mike, his sequel with the lewd subtitle XXL has already fully embarked on the path of an undemanding summer comedy. Worth noting is that he admittedly focused the film primarily on women, but the intention of the creators was probably to appeal to both sexes - it's basically a man’s road-movie about macho men who act like tough guys and make jokes that are ironically intended more for men. Meanwhile, women can enjoy the stripper performances, of which there are much more than in the first one, and they also have better choreography. The plot, on the other hand, is downright horrible and the dialogues appalling, with the attempt to imprint some more serious psychology or personal problems on the main protagonists, it completely misses the mark, because it is a banality through which the authors try to disguise that the aim of the film is to show the muscles and partial nudity of the main protagonists.