EvilPhoEniX

A fascinating Disney movie. Thematically, it's much closer to me than anything from Pixar (Soul, Inside Out). It has a very Asian style and takes a lot from Japanese culture. Raya is a beautiful shinobi, has a weapon straight out of “Dark Souls”, and is very capable in combat. The story is fine, maybe not very original, but it's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. I mean, there's a lot of traveling and collecting pieces of dragonstone from various attractive locations, and I enjoyed the variety of the tribes and the different dangers. I liked that she recruits new members along the way as well. The visuals are breathtaking, the animation is almost unbeatable, the music is brilliant, the action is excellent, though I expected a little more (especially more puzzles, traps as in the opening), but I'll survive. The humour is good too, taken care of by the water dragon, and overall it's a very nice fantasy entertainment that puts a smile on your face. Disney has outdone Pixar in my eyes. 8/10.

The director of Chernobyl Diaries did not raise much hope and made a film similar in quality, perhaps even worse. The only thing that can be praised is the setting of the Appalachian Mountains and the underground coal mine, where rather than monsters there are some fairly decent mutants with pretty faces, and I liked the main character that looks like Lara Croft, but that's about it. It's awkwardly shot, has that cheap shabby 90s look to it, and the camera not only shakes quite a lot – at times I felt like the director was perhaps trying to switch to found footage style – but also frequently dodges to cover up the cheap budget. So you don’t even realise that half the people are already dead. The gore is mostly nonexistent, the atmosphere tries but doesn't work too well, and even though it has a lighter touch of Wrong Turn and Silent Hill in places, it's woefully uninteresting and kind of pointless. This is not very good. 4/10.

Julien Leclercq is a kind of French action routinier. His films aren't downright bad, but they also hardly ever impress. The story this time is simple, Olga Kurylenko is out to get revenge on the Russians for raping her sister, and luckily she has military training so she's not a complete wimp. I don’t mind that it doesn't have a strong or interesting story, what bothers me more is that the action is sparse (two short fights and one big shootout). Also, it's not very brutal, almost not at all except for two gory shots. The fights are pretty good, they are rough, the camera is clear and Olga is good to look at, especially when she shows up naked, and there is some decent lesbian sex. I expected much more from the French, but I wasn't bored, the film passes quickly thanks to its 80 minutes running time and I don't mind these B-action movies if they are at least well made, I enjoy them more than any drama. 5/10.

Highly praised abroad, maybe even overhyped for my taste. The film is more or less a traditional crime drama with mystery elements, where a mysterious murder is investigated. Everything is more or less in order – the actors, the visuals and the original story with a touch of mysticism – but unfortunately I wasn't really into it. The film had a hard time getting my attention, maybe because there are not many murders and I didn't find the investigation very engaging. The final twist is surprising, but they will have to settle for a better average from me. A similar problem as with Knives Out, I don't enjoy this kind movies. 6/10.

Decent stuff. A crazy comedy in the style of Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, so if you like that style, you'll like this too. I was expecting a bit more humour, the first thirty minutes are pretty intense, but then I felt the film turns more into action, which isn't entirely bad, but I'm more into humour than action in this over the top style, although the finale is a solid tribute to kung fu. 6/10.

The Russians made their own version of The Raid and it turned out to be a pretty nice action B-movie, but one that lacks a few things to make it a hit. The story is simple, going more or less from action scene to action scene, but I have some reservations about that. You can see that the Russians have tried, I guess it's their first martial arts genre film, but anyone who's seen some, especially from Asia, will have the same problem as me. What I can praise is that the characters can hit each other, they use an interesting Russian fighting style called Systema, which is very fast and effective, and thanks to decent camera, it doesn't look downright bad. But there are some issues that degrade the action. Firstly, there's an outright lack of violence, at one point they fight with historical weapons, but no one gets killed, there are no fractures, and hardly anyone dies in this film, it feels a bit mechanical and artificial. My biggest problem, however, is with the sound design, it was very bad. You barely hear or feel the punches, rather you hear a kind of funny clapping, which takes a lot away from the dynamism and drive, and when there was shooting, it made it seem like they were using Airsoft guns, which personally bothers me a lot. I understand that the budget wasn't high, but they could have kept this in mind. Anyway, there were some interesting elements of choreography here and there. The villains are mostly giant Russian gorillas and the soundtrack is nice. The frequent action won’t bore you, but there is a lot to improve. 5.5/10.

A solid Russian war movie. It has an interesting story about young cadets from Podolsk who are sent to defend a line outside Moscow to hold back the Germans and they are outnumbered. The first forty minutes are the classic introduction to the characters, a bit of romance, camaraderie, betrayal, but once it enters the battlefield it's practically impossible to leave. There's quite a bit of action, even if it mostly ends very quickly, but thankfully it soon starts again. I liked the bombing, it's quite epic, and the Russians occasionally make up for it with cool slow motion, but otherwise the cinematography is engaging and the visuals are top notch. There were a few iconic shots that will stick in my memory. The only thing it lacks a bit is gore, rawness and the kind of filth you could see in The Eight Hundred or Hacksaw Ridge, but I don't think we'll get that from the Russians. The Russians are good at war movies and this is one of the best in a while from them. 8/10.

The Stylist wants to be carzy, but there’s no chance. I wouldn't call it a horror film, it's basically an arthouse drama about a hairdresser who is mentally disturbed and occasionally takes the scalps of her customers, but there's so little of it that it covers less than ten minutes of the running time. What happens for the remaining hour and a half you can guess. Najarra Townsend is not a good enough actress to be able to pull an entire film on her own, and I found the story ordinary and readable at the end, so much so that the supposedly shocking twist didn't work on me at all. It's not exactly cheaply made and I can't say I was dying of boredom, but I got tired of waiting for something that might come and in the end doesn’t. It's not thrilling, there is no atmosphere and the three scalps will shock mostly trained hairdressers. Someone will probably be moved by how beautifully slow and artistic it is and how there is hardly anything interesting going on, so enjoy. 4/10.

Interesting animation and an interestingly imagined world. A short for more demanding and attentive viewers. But it’s a story, there is no action. 6/10.

A weird six minutes that told me absolutely nothing. Not fun, weird, lyrical with not very interesting visuals, zero gore, no twist. 3/10.