Filmmaniak

The perfect popcorn film that offers the best you can expect from a $ 250 million Hollywood mega-blockbuster. The action is clear and well filmed, the humor is intelligent, and in some places also pleasantly sophisticated, the villain is charismatic and there is a brilliantly-functioning chemistry between the characters. It's not perfect, but the entertainment is first class. I laughed more and louder than when watching any other comedy and enjoyed the excellent action and hundreds of amazing details. In short and simply: an excellent, entertaining film.

Ex Machina is an intelligent and sophisticated blend of science fiction and thriller. It is a stunning, ambitious and extremely exciting spectacle, the course of which cannot be predicted in advance - it usually develops in completely unpredictable and unprecedented ways. The film is relatively successful in developing a philosophical discourse on artificial intelligence and the risks associated therewith. It addresses the question of humanity's confidence in advanced technology and whether there is a line beyond which the distinction between a robotic being endowed with artificial intelligence and man as such is blurred. The film is very current and realistic, whilst relying on the possibilities of the Internet and the technologies of today, and on current scientific knowledge in the field of robotics, bio-mechanics and software engineering. In addition, it is really well filmed, brilliantly written, the acting is first-class and the technical aspects are excellent. Alexi Garland, I applaud you.

Without prior knowledge of Divergence, this film is virtually unwatchable. The directing is worse, the film is stupider, and it has an even weaker plot and more empty dialogues. The action scenes are a slow, there is almost no emotional connection with the protagonists, and there are plenty of dead spots during which nothing happens. But the overall impression of Insurgent is that nothing happens in it for almost the entire runtime, and it can't be saved by any of decent actors, or by technically-successful digital tricks. The film is about nothing, the main protagonist deals endlessly with her traumas, and all we can do is shake our heads at how the futuristic world of Insurgent is desperately dysfunctional and meaningless even within itself.

Dodgeball is a chaotic jumble of random fragments from different time periods, it is humorous only sporadically and much more often it falls into sentiment and melancholy. Its sound and atmosphere are quite reminiscent of Snowdrops and Aces after 25 Years, but as if the first Snowdrops and Aces never existed. It doesn’t really hold together and breaks up into isolated scenes, some of which raise the level of the film thanks to capable actors, while others seem like parodies because of how terrible they are.

I don't understand why the creators cling to the label "dark thriller" when it's as horror as it gets. Although it's not as scary as its reputation makes it out to be, being more of a cheap B movie, it's qualitatively fully comparable to American horror movies of the same genre. In this respect, it is a victory for Petr Jákl, who managed to make a genre-pure Czech film that has a chance to make a mark in the world. It is relatively functional, atmospheric and in some respects even better than the equivalent foreign competition, so there is no need to be ashamed of it.

Jan Prušinovský was able to shoot a drama that realistically captures the Czech social present through authentic locations and believable characters, without manipulating or emotionally blackmailing anyone. If all serious Czech filmmaking reached at least three quarters of this level, we would be doing great. The actors are excellent, the film is very high quality both technically and in terms of its craft, and the directing is top-notch.

It's better than its reputation (and definitely better than the book), but it's not good enough to make it worthwhile. However, there will definitely be two more films, because it’s going to make a lot of money.

From a technical point of view, again strongly on par, but it also very much lags behind in terms of content. Many scenes look strangely abbreviated (as if half an hour of shots were cut from the film), while others lack tension, sufficient drama or emotional depth. The action and battle sequences are incredibly exaggerated and absurdly unrealistic, as they ostentatiously ignore the laws of physics, logic and probability. With their crazy manic stylization, many of the sequences are more reminiscent of grotesque, and they desperately do not fit into the serious epic fantasy ala Lord of the Rings and inadvertently arouse laughter, which, combined with barren dialogues about love, friendship and honor, makes the final part of The Hobbit by far the dumbest part of the trilogy. Unfortunately, The Battle of the Five Armies falls apart due to the fact that the goblins are not scary at all - even the gathering of their army of hundreds of thousands fighters does not give the impression of a dangerous threat, but rather the function of semi-funny pieces that fall when you poke them. And the mayor's unstable underling acting as a comic character deserves to be shot. Overall, it’s rather disappointing. There is no "wow" factor this time, and this is instead a very average film. Nevertheless, I admit that I had fun, just quite differently than in the previous two parts or when watching The Lord of the Rings, but I was not happy about it. After the Return of the King, I shouted "Glory!" three times, but this time I lack a good reason to do so.

About a third of the film is strongly above average to great, full of polished jokes with crackling points. A third is average and harmless, and the final third is the worst shit that causes ulcers and gripes, which of course has to include a scene with putting a hand in the crotch of a century-old woman and similar tasteless humor. If I add to that the completely demented and nonsensical plot based on the fact that both main protagonists behave like extremely selfish people, I cannot recommend it, even though I did laugh quite a bit in about a dozen places. The best option would be to cut out the best of scenes and upload them to YouTube...

The first half of the last episode of The Hunger Games offers nothing but constant talking, preparation for the revolution, gathering courage and calm before the storm. Meanwhile, we will have to wait a year for a proper civil war and action before the second half premieres. Actually, it's more of a prequel. From a technical perspective, the film is not badly shot, the actors are very good and the dialogues are quite fine, but it is desperately boring and lacks action. Most of the time, you just wait for something to finally start happening, but you won't get see it, because the creators are saving it for the next film. In addition, the whole thing looks much cheaper than the previous two films. If nothing else, in the previous Hunger Games you could at least enjoy the grandeur of the gaming arena, the digital tricks, or at least the extravagant color stylization of the capital and its inhabitants. This is not the case with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, as most of the story takes place in an underground bunker or in ruins, so the film is not only much more intimate, but also not very visually attractive. For the average viewer, or one who hasn’t seen the previous episodes, this is a waste of time. For fans of the series, the film only serves as a moving illustration of events that they already know from the book. And, of course, it doesn't make sense to tell them that the new Hunger Games is not worth it...