Film Reviews by AB

Boringly predictable in every scene with no tension, deviation nor originality in a storyline that has been played out 100 times before in cinematic history. A waste of effort simply to watch it - even the fight scenes were overplayed and unrealistic, reminding me of David Carradine from the TV series "Kung Fu" - camera work overrules real life

God know how the CP reviewer (see below) gave this 5 stars - I gave it 1 because there is no zero (and where did he get 'comedy' in this film? and words such as 'concept' and 'convention' guide you towards the reviewer's pretension which comes through in the total text of his love letter to Peele). And ignore the synopsis that goes with the film on this site - more hyperbole and mis-truths. The film is gibberish, more pseudo-sci-fi than sci-fi with the horses acting better than the humans. Too many holes in the story, too poor a mumbled dialogue, too confusing an ending, too gibberish with the non-sensical sub-story about a monkey that was really a time filler for this bizarre psychobabble that has no storyline, no plot, no point and would be an embarrassment for any of the actors to admit to on their CV. Jordan Peele seems to be one of these people that 'luvvie luvvers' like but to me he is someone that belongs in a psych ward somewhere being forced to watch pretentious rubbish like this on a never-ending loop. No, correct that as he would enjoy piffle like this - he should be made to watch decent films made by decent film makers to make him try to learn something about the industry, making notes with the crayons he is given

Full of fascinating facts and numbers far too big to comprehend or visualise, the science behind stars, elements, time [past and future] etc. is explained in such a way that makes you feel so insignificant as to be useless in the 'scheme of things'. Even as a scientist, I find some of the areas explained here as so wonderful and almost incomprehensible that I feel compelled to read about them in even more detail. Full of facts that you can quote to make you seem very erudite - eg the 'heat death' of the cosmos will happen in 10,000 [trillion *8] years. Such a brilliant programme that it makes me want to buy the book that goes with the series. My only complaint (too strong a word for such a trivial observation) is the 'modern' usage of the American billions and trillions without a statement to that fact, when those measure differ from the UK definitions by at least a thousand at its basic level. Not that something dying in thousands of millions of years when compared to millions of millions of years would help change anything here as the numbers are too large to convey any real meaning !

The premise was good - how to communicate with an alien species. The trouble is that not that much time was spent explaining the processes behind the 'learning' of the 'language' that they used.

[Confession here - review written after first watching. I then proceeded to Wikipedia to fill in the gaps of my observations of the film. Then re-watched it to see what I missed, which overall doesn't say much for the explanatory parts of the film's dialogue.]

I cannot see what all the fuss about Amy Adams' acting is - she was no better or worse than anyone else in almost any film that I have seen - it is what she does - act. I definitely didn't see much point of the character of Ian (Jeremy Renner) - he was supposed to be leading a team of physicists but they seem to do very little to no research into what was alien technology and he seemed to be there as an add-on (if necessary part) for the storyline. Ah yes, the storyline. The much-vaunted (see other reviews) third 'act' was [initially] confusing as to be an easy way out of an idea that had no idea what to do next.

[SPOILER: - as with another review that I wrote, qv 'Deja Vue', David Tennant and his 'timey wimey' came to my mind again here. Is it me? Or are film themes merging?]

Overall a missed opportunity to show how these things would work in real life - does such a team actually exist? Would be really interesting to know, given that communication may be non-vocal but by images/pictograms or even music (see Close Encounters of the Third Kind) but even as a sci-film film, and one who likes that genre, I found this disappointing and overrated.

I loved this - a real feel-good British film celebrating a success with humour and pathos. I hadn't heard of the story beforehand (only on a review in a paper, hence my rental) but this ranks up with the best horsey feel-good stories that bring a tear to the eye (certainly to mine). Think Seabiscuit and Champions and you are there.

[Trying not to give too much away here!]

An enjoyable little thriller with very little back story (but that is not needed anyway) and several twists to keep you awake, thinking and interested. A couple of holes in the story do not detract from the enjoyment.

Definitely worth a watch

Now the world has gone mad - the 'arty' psycho-babble influencers have crossed over to sci-fi, well, a poor pastiche of sci-fi. This offering is confusing, story-less and to be watched only to say that you have seen it to try and dissuade anyone else from ever going near this dreadful film. And who writes the synopses for the distribution jackets in CP? I would guess some out-of-work psychology graduate who makes up [and believes]phrases such as "captivating" and "visually-arresting" to try and convince we poor saps that a film is worth watching. This one isn't.

An idea that has been done many times before, in film and in TV and this was really no better (or worse). Main drawbacks were: the stilted conversations as foreign actors and actresses attempt to speak English - the plot lost a lot with that; and the dialogue was too echo-y when held in the barn where a lot of the 'action' takes place so really the sound track was the major failing of this film. Another of these confusing "time-loop paradox" films that requires a lot of concentration just to try and keep pace with, before attempting to unravel what is going on, why, when and where. Even the pig looked confused

Not as good as the original "Analyze This", with a weak storyline and far fewer amusing scenes. Watchable but do not expect too much

I am not usually a Tom Cruise fan but this was a great little film - well acted, great storyline, nice twists and very believable, if fiction can be described as such. Enjoyed it so much that I now need to read the book.

Even as a 60+ man I really enjoyed this film with a tear in my eye with the poignancy of it - a sort of "what if it's true" thought process. The Yeti 'kid' is great, behaving just as children/animals would do - sticking their head out of a train to get the wind in their hair, as would a dog with a car. The touch of magic to help things when required does not detract too much from how to solve problems and even the baddies are not that bad. Very good animation with a film-long riff of a violin theme that you cannot get out of your mind. The whole film would go down very well with children and help teach them about protecting wildlife and perseverance

The concept has been done better (eg Sleeper) and this was poor - making more of what he thought of modern day society may have made it funnier and too often there was too much of a leap of knowledge by someone who would barely understand electricity never mind cars, aeroplanes, the internet etc etc without being intimidated, intrigued, bemused by it all to make the film actually 'believable' as an entity. Nothing was funny. Watch only to say that you have seen it.

A real mishmash of temporal ideas and a concept with implausible physics and interactions. Despite what other reviewers say, the director, stars etc do not improve on a ridiculously confusing storyline that is not entertaining but actually quite uninteresting and where the viewer is quickly confused and lost as to what is happening 'then' or 'now' - I fast forwarded several times just to get nearer to the end of the film. Watching it, all I could hear in my mind was David Tennant as Dr Who talking about "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" and it not being a straight line with linear cause and effect. Far too clever for its own good and (slightly) better done in the film "Source Code"

As a middle-aged man I was apprehensive about this film but went with the views of a critic in a national newspaper that it should be watched - and I was very pleasantly surprised. A whole host of household names with multi-threaded intertwined storylines (that you have to keep an eye out for *during* the film and not via Wikipedia, as I did), all with feel-good intentions and amusing (but not funny/hilarious), low-key scenes, leading to the inevitable pairing off at the conclusion of the film, cleverly shot at a Christmas concert and Heathrow to bring the whole shebang together, tying the threads into a single entity of love. A typical British feel-good film with effortless acting, self-deprecating humour and clever storyline. Yes to watching it if you are in any doubt

The storyline concept (unknown threat) was a fair one and the implementation was plausible (Mars base, tourism, semi-secret mission, know-all Government agencies etc) but I still found the film uninteresting as it could not decide if it was a thriller, a "who/what dunnit", a bonding story, a psychological/psychiatric remedial or what. This film actually could have (should have ?) been a lead-in for many unknown Holywood actors/actresses as the actual parts played by Liv Tyler and Tommy Lee Jones were minimal. Big names do not a film make, despite the hype that the film industry attaches to them and their abilities (which they did not have a chance to showcase here. Heck, I'll even include Brad Pitt in that statement as ANYONE could have played the part he did). This film was certainly pushed by the industry when it came out but be in no doubt, it is not worth it.