Filmmaniak

In terms of all of the aspects of its production, this is a full-length television episode stretched to feature length film amounting to a farewell with the character of Doctor Martin in a bizarre crime story about finding a dwarf skeleton and searching for a treasure that includes Indians, Nazis, STB agents and a period circus. While the eternally grumpy country doctor and his wife deal with a trivial and artificially-escalated relationship crisis, the main role is sometimes assumed by constable Topinka, alias the biggest idiot in the entire film, and the audience cannot at any point credibly believe in his most basic of policing abilities. Most of the characters are a degenerate panopticon of stereotypical figures and scowling caricatures. The actors are in many cases made to grimace and unnaturally overact, and the story often treads on the spot, with visible progress about once every twenty minutes. Attempts at eventful or serious dramatic scenes are ridiculous and a parody of themselves, and the same is true for many of the dialogues. The crowning achievement is the final climax that is rich in groundbreaking, absurd twists. The desired humor is at the level of a special needs school and does not work at all, but on the other hand the audience can laugh in moments where the film was probably not supposed to be funny. Perhaps the film can only satisfy TV viewers who, without any sort of irony, are truly looking forward to the series spin-off (in production) with constable Topinka, unless, of course, the plot of the film seems too eccentric to them.

The Magic Quill was filmed by the creators of Kancelář Blaník - and this fact is quite evident in the film. At least half of the plot consists of strongly accentuated political satire, which is fortunately quite general and it’s only up to you to what extent you relate it to the current Czech political situation. In addition, the film does not provide anything more significant and thus overshadows the rest of the fairy tale story, which is downright weak and clichéd - it is set in motion by the protagonist messing something up at the beginning (letting himself be robbed of magical objects) and then he tries to fix the situation during the rest of the film, which is, on the one hand, an evergreen of a large number of Czech fairy tales and, most importantly, it is a plot about two things. The two central protagonists are not very interesting, or, surprisingly, even sympathetic: the man enters the action as a dolt who just causes problems, and the woman is introduced as a skilled manipulator who greedily takes advantage of her suitors and then turns into a vulnerable object of desire, passively waiting for rescue. They of course both fall in love with each other during their first fleeting encounter (she considers him a thief and pours water on him), more because the script required it rather than naturally flowing from their interaction. In the second half the story is transformed into a not always completely meaningful and not very clever series of chases, fights and traps, and the film contains nothing that is even remotely scary (even Lucifer acts like a caring uncle) and surprisingly offers relatively little humor. The film is somewhat saved by a decent film set, including a remarkably contrived concept of hell, occasional original imaginativeness, several visually more narrative sequences, nice acting performances here and there (in particular Ondřej Vetchý) and, above all, the clear political dimension mentioned above.

Another unimaginative film in which the duel between young Dumbledore and Grindelwald is in the cards, but it really is only in the cards - and it will probably take several more films before it actually happens. Rowling and a few others are unsuccessfully trying to fill sparse and artificially stretched story, based more or less only on the search for a wizard around Paris (surprisingly not Grindelwald), with sub-plots with the completely banal issues of a large number of characters, some of whom are presented just to be in the film, but they do not say or do anything significant at any point (and they probably won’t do anything meaningful until future sequels). In the background there seems to be the onset of an epic story arc about the fateful clash of the two greatest wizards of their time, but the film as such does not tell a great story and only rides on the fringe lukewarm romantic storylines of its heroes, Potter nostalgia and digital animals, which are only there for decoration. Visually, the film is beautiful and full of imaginative and fun-filled suggestions, which make it just an amusement park of colorful attractions and unfulfilled promises.

Throughout the first half the film is set in a world whose laws are kept under wraps from the audience with surprising perseverance at least until halfway through, thus making it minimalist by simply having the father and daughter hiding from the surroundings in a boarded-up house, and it creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, which is perhaps justified, but also perhaps only amounts to paranoid fear of an unknown enemy. In the second half, the truth comes out in full, while a number of hitherto vague, unclear, and illusory motifs are finally supplemented by meaning and context, the characters are assigned specific goals and finally, more action-packed trick scenes take place, which do serve the story and they are never used just for effect. Elements we know from American feature films with budgets in the hundreds of millions are used imaginatively and originally for the benefit of a remarkably told and cleverly constructed story, which deserves several sequels or a TV series, and is dominated by the great acting of the talented nine-year-old Lexy Kolker.

This is a conscientiously shot and impressively written sci-fi about several thousand passengers heading for Mars in a spaceship, which has to throw away all of its fuel after an accident and a deviation from its course. The ensuing many-year odyssey, following the demise of human civilization through a changing atmosphere in an isolated community left behind, in which hope, and the meaning of existence gradually die, delightfully builds up a couple of key characters (especially the main protagonist) and the world in which the story takes place. Beneath the spectacular surface, one can even find an intellectually deep, provocative and uncompromising vision, the realization of which, however, is somewhat hampered by the fact that the story stays in one place for too long, barely escalates, and in the end, when the film is trying to catch everything up, it doesn’t provide enough space to the final devastating images so that they can resonate sufficiently.

A difficult-to-grasp, supple and extremely lifeless space drama about a group of convicts who chose to serve science instead of spending life in prison, and therefore find themselves on a spaceship traveling to a black hole for the rest of their lives while the doctor on board the sip tries (sometimes against their will) to replicate them. It seems to me that this is a sophisticated art critique of dog breeding against the background of a bizarre story that humans and wild animals are not that far apart from each other. But it's definitely not a well-told story, because it starts non-linearly, essentially from the end, which in turn deprives all of the remaining events (taking place in flashbacks) of any potential tension and drama, thereby revealing everything in advance. The already rather worn out (and due to the aforementioned also extremely predictable) plot is then unnecessarily disturbed by somewhat random memories of the heroes about their lives on Earth and other isolated inserts (a very unattractive scene with a conversation with a scientist, an erotic passage from a room with a sexual simulator ...), without any justification for the existence of these sequences. The actors, led by the clumsy Pattinson, play supremely unsympathetic and annoying characters, most of whom you will learn nothing about, all of the thoughts and meanings are brutally literal, and ninety percent of the film is despairingly about nothing, the end fades into emptiness and even visually is no miracle. There just seems to be no reason to bother watching it at all. A story with this type of theme could definitely be built in a very interesting way, but Claire Denis stomped it into the ground with her forced artistic vision.

A very strange and average mix of an action historical film, a bloody horror with a killer monster, and a demented comedy. Significant for the overall atmosphere are the main characters - two brothers and the adult daughter of one of them. Both of the men are supposed to be both comedic, clumsy characters and former members of the Royal Guard, professional fighters and martial arts masters, and all of these aspects don’t particularly work well together. With the exception of the not-very-functional humor, the film is mostly an effective and entertaining theft of everything possible with a nice camera, a rich set design and decent tricks. Unfortunately, however, the efforts to have serious dramatic concept and comedic exaggeration are quite at odds with each other.

An incredibly powerful and emotionally impressive fantasy-drama about a community of ageless weavers who are one day banished to the world of ordinary people. When one of them, 15-year-old Maquia, adopts a human newborn, the baby grows and ages while she doesn't change. Since it is necessary for the weavers to hide, the two protagonists must move from place to place, their relationship constantly changing. For Maquia, the boy is first a son, then a brother, and finally a father, until their paths go separate ways. All of this takes place against the backdrop of the collapse of a formerly powerful kingdom and an impending war. The beautiful story, which effectively thematizes the power of maternal love, lacks only a more consistent initiation into the mythology of the fantasy world, and the not-very-elaborate side storyline with the royal couple takes up a little too much space. Everything else is originally designed, beautifully written and naturally touching.

The film shows minimalist beginnings of the settlement of the Wild West from the point of view of a woman who is haunted by a demon from the prairie during her husband's absence. This psychologically constructed horror is aided by its non-linear storytelling, which jumps surprisingly clearly between several timelines, in which the tragedies of two friendly married couples are gradually systematically revealed. The above-average actors and above-average director successfully try to build tension and mystery without falling into routine or showing too much. The film is more of a psychological drama than a horror film, but cleverly and capably implemented. The funny thing is that the film revolving around female heroines, which was also directed and written by women, is basically about how the heroines are not ok mentally.

A delicately, sensitively, and empathetically-told story from the point of view of a four-year-old boy, whose parents have another child. The parents are forced to pay plenty of attention to the new child, which the former boy dislikes and therefore falls into various time and fantasy levels, where various members of his family from the ancient past and the near future help him cope with this new situation. This is a beautifully made film with emphasis on the poetics of familiar events from family life, originally spiced with children's imagination and presented nostalgically, touchingly and amusingly. The protagonist sometimes unnecessarily screams too much and is annoying to the point of being unsympathetic, but this is also the only fundamental compliant I have about the film.