EvilPhoEniX

After a mediocre second film, there is a return to the qualities of the first one. It's a French quality standard where everything is fine, but of course it doesn't have the same quality as the Lacheau/Boudali duo, who are closer to my heart. Vyšehrad reigns supreme in the comedy department this year (I almost fell over laughing in the cinema, even during the second screening). In the trio, Christian Clavier and Pascal N'Zonzi again score the most points, and they are joined by the daddies of the other couples, which was a safe bet. New characters, a new infusion of racism, xenophobic innuendo and cultural insults and it works again. Although only two or three scenes have stuck in my mind, there is not much situational humour and some of the innuendos are not understood unless you are very familiar with the cultural differences of the countries, hence the film is also targeted at the 30-40+ age group. Overall, a pleasant 90 minutes spent, and since I like comedies right after horror and action, I'm glad they are still making them, even though the Americans have been completely stagnant in this genre for a few years now. The atmosphere in the cinema was not great, not many people laughed (I was one of the few). 7.5/10.

For me a superbly chilling weird artsy festival film that is bizarre, disturbing and very uncomfortable. Riley Stearns is good, his previous debut The Art of Self Defense was already a big hit and he goes for a similar style here. His style reminds me a lot of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and after a long time I enjoyed the dialogue so much that I'm able to tolerate the lack of gore and action. The film is set in the near future where people who die have the opportunity to clone themselves, and that includes Karen Gillan, who learns she is terminally ill and doesn't have much time left. The actors act slightly like robots, but I found it strange and definitely interesting (the reasoning, the dialogue, the unprecedented language – this kept my attention a lot), plus there's a really nasty system with harsh rules; in short a world you don't want to live to see. The acting is great, Aaron Paul is downright excellent, the atmosphere is very depressing, there are some interesting twists and turns, and there's definitely an interesting ending. I loved this provocative and disturbingly bizarre downer. If I can talk about the film for half an hour after it's over, that's a good sign. I was so uncomfortable in places (the situations the main character experiences are hellish) that it had horror elements for me. Story 4/5. Action 1/5, Humor 3/5, Violence 1/5, Fun 4/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 3/5, Atmosphere 4/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 4/5, Actors 4/5. 7.5/10.

The biggest guilty pleasure and the most powerful ultimate cinematic experience in a hell of a long time. A multi-genre revolution and evolution all in one. Breathtaking visuals, sphincter-clenching action, philosophical insight, wild fun and Fincher off the rails... Uff I experienced multiple orgasms. 1. Three Robots- Exit Strategy: a trio of famous robots return to explore human survival strategies in a post-apocalyptic world. Nice visuals, a more narrative tale with nice shots of skeletons and a funny final insert. I could have done without the robots, but as an entry it's decent. 3.5/5. 2. Bad Travelling: David Fincher shocks right from the start. Completely out of control, dominating everyone. Riveting animation, densely dark atmosphere, a huge and brilliantly designed crab, uncompromising gore, a load of twists and turns, and a powerful story about morality, loyalty and betrayal. Wonderful. And calls for a feature film! 5/5. 3. The Very Pulse of the Machine: For me the weakest and most useless short. I didn’t like the animation that I don't like, it’s unnecessarily long, with a slow pace, no action or gore, just a psychotropic trip and exploration of the moon (It could have been more substantial in CGI animation), the final music decent. 2/5. 4. Night of the Mini Dead: A crazy zombie satire starting with cheesy sex in a cemetery and ending with a worldwide zombie apocalypse in 2D animation. An unconventional and original concept, funny, gritty, morbid, entertaining, short and with references to zombie classics. 4/5. 5. Kill Team Kill: Another classic animation short, but thankfully the last one (only 2 in this season), it's a silly thing about a badass team up against a giant mecha grizlly. Lots of blood, great lines, simple but fun. One of the funniest of the lot. 4/5. 6. Swarm: Again, very impressive CGI animation about two scientists exploring an ancient alien civilization. Interesting thoughts and musings, decent dialogue and decently suspenseful and surprisingly gritty towards the end. Shame about the truncated ending, but definitely cool. 4/5. 7. Mason's Rats: This is unbelievably awesome! Ratpocalypse! A farmer has an army of evolutionary rats in his barn and decides to call in exterminators with high tech gadgets and it's World War 4!!! Great animation, amazingly wacky idea, funny interludes, incredibly brutal action and a surprise ending. This was incredibly well done. Again, a short worthy of a feature film. 5/5. 8. In Vaulted Halls Entombed: Another epic experience. Deep in Afghanistan, a group of soldiers are tasked with freeing a hostage from terrorists, but encounter an alien evil! An action-packed inferno with alien spiders and Lovecraftian Ctulhu and visuals so impressive that I was at times hesitant as to whether it was animation or reality. Add on top of that the raw and uncompromising gore and you have the best Alien experience since Alien. 5/5. 9. Jibaro: The final blast! An artsy, folkloric reimagining of the fairy tale ballad about a siren who lures men to their doom with her singing. A brutal ballet of death wth knights on a lake with impressive CGI animation, chaotic and wild camerawork that adds to the rawness and unpleasantness. For me it was quite a horror chill with a slightly weird but crazy ending (the most brutal gold heist I've ever seen) Wow! The only minus is again the fact that it could have had then more short stories, but this is still a unique piece of cinematic entertainment that stands out thanks to today's modern times. Blown heads and ripped balls at the same time. 5/5. The overall experience is full house. Only a chosen few will appreciate it.

For some people the film of the year, for others an insufferable piece of shit, and for me somewhere in between. It's definitely one of the most original and weird films of recent years, but bizarre and wacky isn't necessarily great. The story is, in one sentence, about a woman who files her taxes while having to save the world through parallel universes. The plot itself is by no means revelatory or sophisticated, I found the acting below average (the Chinese speaking English brought the whole film down a level, the whole acting came off as awkward), the action is quite low and it's not my style. I used to dig Jackie Chan when I was 13, but by the time of The Raid and The Night Comes for Us, this kung fu style, though obviously self-parodying, is a bit boring. The whole world has no set rules, almost nothing makes sense and it's chaos, yes there's a lot of creative invention and a lot of interesting ideas, but at what cost huh? Even beyond the point of awkwardness, cringefest. The film is an homage to Asia, but it mostly takes from it what I like the least: obscure and bizarre madness from Japanese culture and parodies of 80s kung fu and Hong-Kong. It's a shame the film wasn't R-rated, maybe the gore would have given it more aesthetic cachet, but for me it's sadly unsatisfying and the exorbitant footage doesn't add much to it. I didn't even find it funny except for a couple of minor moments (the rock scene) and the light moments that I found entertaining were quite few, certainly less than I expected. The final fight with the quick change of locations was impressive though, and the playful direction pulls it up to at least a better average for me. I won't give more than that, certainly not sober. However, I'm quite surprised at the positive reception, for how borderline it is in places to the viewer's common taste. Story 3/5. Action 3/5, Humour 3/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 3/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 2/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 2/5.

An animated blast that pays homage to the heist genre! After Zootropolis and The Mitchells vs. the Machines, here's another animated film that really hit my taste. It's about a bunch of thieves who are animals living in the world of humans (I had to get used to this for a while and it's better not to dwell too much on this factor). They are the scourge of the city, they have no competition and they are feared. However, one of the biggest heists of all awaits them, and they have the cruel sheriff at their throats. I enjoyed Wolf and Snake the most, probably the most interesting characters. Visually, the film is on a great level, the various heists and stunts are presented intelligently and with clarity (you can see that the makers are familiar with the heist genre), and there is also great action – the car chase accompanied by the Chemical Brothers gave me instant goosebumps! I also enjoyed the fights and the more epic finale. Again, there are a lot of interesting details and comedy interludes, which are very nice, but what shocked me was the load of crazy twists that wouldn’t be out of place in Bond film or a thriller; the attempt to shock and surprise works well and that is not usual in animation, for that The Bad Guys get a big thumbs up for me. Definitely a great, thrilling and entertaining ride. Story 4/5. Action 4/5, Humour 4/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 4/5 Music 4/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 4/5, Suspense 4/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 4/5. 8/10

The return of Dario Argento did not turn out well. In the 1980s he reigned supreme, now he's stagnating and it's amazing how poorly he made a Giallo, the genre that made him famous. The Last Matinee two years ago was considerably better in every way. The overseas reviews already suggested that it would be nothing significant and they were right. Dark Glasses is thankfully only 80 minutes long, but given that nothing much happens, it comes across as lengthy. The film has a simple plot about a prostitute who loses her eyesight, we watch her struggle with this disability for half an hour, and the other half hour we watch a little Chinese boy guide her while they run away from a killer who is introduced quite early on, which again is a mistake. There are only two gore scenes and that's in the opening and the ending, so very weak, a killer who doesn't murder – great. There is only one nude scene and the styling looks low budget. There is no attention to detail, no beautiful colours, no pure Giallo elements (maybe the opening with black gloves and a rope), the atmosphere doesn't work, the suspense doesn't work either, overall a useless, very weak and naive horror film. Story 1/5. Action 2/5, Humor 0/5, Violence 2/5, Fun 2/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 3/5, Atmosphere 2/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 2/5, Actors 2/5. 35%

For me, the most disappointing series of the year so far. Amazon lured us with an attractive sci-fi mystery with Josh Brolin, but unfortunately the series just skims over this and doesn't focus on the subject at all, instead it becomes a lengthy soap opera. The series definitely had potential, it's set on a nice American ranch with few inhabitants, there's good acting from Josh Brolin and Imogen Poots, and I was pleased to see Tom Pelphrey (from Banshee). There are decent visuals and one mystery hole that should have been the main pull of the series, but is more of an extra, which wasn't the intention. The first three episodes are set up cleverly, the end of the first episode is a decently suspenseful, and surprisingly I was quite entertained (solving a murder, the fight for the ranch, the mystery loop hole), but it all soon fades away and somewhere during the 5th episode I was getting bored and I finished it more out of obligation and curiosity than satisfaction, and I have to say it's kinda a waste of time. Nothing much gets solved, the mystery line is very much secondary, one murder is solved for maybe six episodes, there are few characters and nobody has much to work with except Brolin. The closer the series gets to the end, it stopped making sense and the insanely slow pace really didn't add much to it. There's nothing really interesting to see or anything downright noteworthy, everything I've seen elsewhere and handled better, so 3 stars for a decent start, the last few episodes were gravitating more towards 2 stars. Story 3/5. Action 2/5, Humour 1/5, Violence 1/5, Fun 2/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Suspense 3/5, Emotion 2/5, Actors 4/5. 5/10.

I was looking forward to it, but in the end I'm quite disappointed. The Poles have been rolling out gangster films lately in a style that dominates Europe and this one definitely had potential, but among the recent Polish efforts, it comes out as a loser. I was expecting something along the lines of the French film Public Enemy, but that is not the case. The protagonist is considered to be King of Escapes, he holds the world record and has escaped from prison 29 times, but the film doesn't really focus on that. There are no elaborate prison escapes, there's hardly any action, I found the protagonist uninteresting, and the whole thing is so lacking in pace, with a weird sequence of scenes not really following each other, I almost didn't enjoy it. This guy definitely deserved a better film. I don't get the comedy genre classification either, this is pure retro-style drama. 5/10.

Poland did not disappoint again. Maciej Barczewski delivers a great debut, combining two attractive themes into one: a historical war drama set in Auschwitz and a boxing drama in an unconventional setting, and it works brilliantly. The main character is a former boxing champion from Warsaw who is transported to a newly established Nazi concentration camp where he fights for his life. A very powerful story where the horrors perpetrated on the Jews are well depicted (mass entry into the gas chambers, mass shootings, the Nazis are shown in the most horrific and inhumane form), and when one Nazi (a boxer) notices the main character, he gives him the opportunity to box with his fellow prisoners for the amusement of the Nazis. The fights in the ring are decently shot, the film is only 90 minutes long so it keeps a good pace, the atmosphere of the ugly setting works very well, and the acting is great as well, so definitely a good film. Story 4/5. Action 3/5, Humour 1/5, Violence 3/5, Fun 4/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 4/5, Atmosphere 4/5, Suspense 3/5, Emotion 3/5, Actors 4/5. 7.5/10.

Louis Leterrier can do better, but I'm still not offended. I skipped the first one, but this one is easy to follow. Omar Sy and Laurent Lafitte are a fine duo, I laughed a few times and enjoyed it as a crime drama (a very original and crazy imaginative murder!). The action is only average and cutting it by half an hour wouldn't have hurt, but I certainly wasn't bored, I enjoy this French stuff. 6/10.