Posts tonen met het label Scott Eastwood. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label Scott Eastwood. Alle posts tonen

zaterdag 10 juni 2023

Movie Review - Fast X

Director:
Louis Letterier
Genre: Action/ Crime/ Adventure
Runtime: 141 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Vin Diesel, Jason Momoa, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Natalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, Scott Eastwood, Brie Larson
 
Description: Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family are targeted by the vengeful son (Jason Momoa) of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes.

Review: Let’s just start by saying that I’ve never been a fan of the “Fast & Furious” series. Cars are not something I’m particularly interested in, the characters I don’t care about and the action gets more and more ridiculous. Can “Fast X” change my mind? NOPE!

Movies that rely on elaborate special effects or 3D experiences are best viewed in a movie theater. The same goes for this film, because visually this movie is stunning. And lots of non-stop action. But that’s as far as I can go with the positives. I truly hated this movie.

In this already tenth installment of the series, Dante Reyes wants revenge on Dom Toretto and his family, for killing his father. He sets up a trap to get them all together and tries to kill them. But Dom fights back.  
The first film was okay, I don’t dislike that, it was about street racing. A cop versus a street racer and they became friends. But as this series has continued, the street races turned into stunt shows, with one car stunt even more ridiculous and over-the-top as the next. It’s like they are trying to make each movie even more implausible than the previous one.

This film series has almost every modern-day action star in it, from Vin Diesel to now Jason Momoa. Call me old school, but I do prefer the Schwarzeneggers and Stallones of this world when it comes to mindless, fun action flicks. An although Vin Diesel is the heart and soul of this franchise, and it’s very clear he puts everything in his role, the rest of the cast I couldn’t care less about (I barely remember the names of these characters, that’s how invested I am).

Jason Momoa is the newest addition to this series, as the villain Dante Reyes. He was the only reason I was a tiny bit excited to see “Fast X”. But even that was ruined. Momoa’s take on his villain role is pretty silly. He feels like a Joker-like villain, a cheerful psychopath. But he made it cartoonish. It kind of felt like a Roadrunner versus Wil E. Coyote cartoon, the way he was going after Dom and his family.
I also got a little tired of those let’s-bring-back-every-character-that-was-ever-in-this-franchise reveals, as some clever surprise that nobody would ever expect.  

I know these movies aren’t supposed to be taken too seriously, they are self-aware and that I can at least appreciate. But overall, “Fast X” is just not a good movie. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s crap, but I honestly can’t take another ‘Fast & Furious” movie. There will be more, for sure. Maybe next they will go to space!

Rating: 2/ 5

zaterdag 5 november 2022

Movie Review - I Want You Back

Director:
Jason Orley
Genre: Comedy/ Romance
Runtime: 116 minutes
Year: 2022
Starring: Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Scott Eastwood, Gina Rodriguez, Clark Backo, Manny Jacinto
 
Description: Newly dumped thirty-somethings Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) team up to sabotage their exes new relationships and win them back for good.

Review: Director Jason Orley focuses on thirty-somethings, but it feels like a coming-of-age film. After Emma and Peter are both dumped by their partners, they hatch a plan to get their lovers back. While Emma will seduce Peter’s ex Anne’s new boyfriend, Peter becomes friends with Emma’s ex Noah and persuade him to break up his new relationship. A recipe for funny moments about people who have to learn to let go and look for what really suits them.

The casting of the characters is perfect. Emma is a funny, chaotic person who does not yet have her life in order, or in other words not someone you can build on according to ex-boyfriend Noah. Jenny Slate throws herself confidently into her role and despite her over-the-top moments, where she dramatically burst into tears, for example, she still feels very human.

Peter, on the other hand, is dumped by Anne because he is too lacking in spontaneity and she feels she cannot move forwards. Charlie Day fits right into the more passive role in which he is not so much funny himself as the situations he repeatedly finds himself in. His naïve, adorable appearance further enhances the humor.

Not only Emma and Peter come off well. Certainly Noah in some ways conforms to the stereotypes of the typical handsome man, but at the same time the film plays with expectations and manages to surprise. This does not mean that everyone gets a distinct personality. Noah and Anne’s new partners have little to do, and Emma’s roommates are there purely for comic relief. But the relationship between the characters work.

The pace is nice and the dialogues and awkward situations manage to make you laugh. It is also nice that the characters’ behavior does not simply lead to a happy ending. For however understandable, Emma and Peter’s plan is obviously dubious.

Without getting preachy, “I Want You Back” manages to convey well the life lesson the characters learn. And while the film never makes the characters unsympathetic, it is certainly aware of their lesser sides. That the film never goes over the top is due to the enjoyable cast, but also by never letting the exes become simple stereotypes. This gives the film just that little bit more.   

I’m not the world’s biggest romcom fan, but there is always at least one every year that pleasantly surprises me and I actually like. “I Want You Back” is the one this year.

Rating: 3,5/ 5

dinsdag 29 december 2020

10s Movie Review - Texas Chainsaw

Director:
John Luessenhop
Genre: Horror/ Thriller
Runtime: 90 minutes
Year: 2013
Starring: Alexandra Daddario, Dan Yeager, Trey Songz, Scott Eastwood, Tania Raymonde, Shaun Sipos, Keram Maliki-Sánchez, James MacDonald, Thom Barry, Paul Rae, Richard Riehle, Bill Moseley, Gunnar Hansen

Description: A young woman (Alexandra Daddario) travels to Texas to collect her inheritance; little does she know that an encounter with a chainsaw-wielding killer is part of the reward.

Review: “Texas Chainsaw” is a horror slasher about the murderous Sawyer family. Years ago, after a gruesome massacre, their house was burned to the ground by angry neighbors. Including all the members of the family, if was thought. Decades later and many miles away Heather finds out tha her parents are not her biological parents, but her adoptive parents. She inherited a piece of Texas land from her grandmother whom she never knew. With her boyfriend and some other friends, she takes the car for a long drive, with the final destination: the gigantic house of Heather’s grandmother. Heather’s grandmother and her biological parents seem t have had a strange connection with the infamous Leatherface in the past and let him hide in the this house.

Carl Mazzocone, president of the Twisted Pictures, has always been a big fan of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and Leatherface is one of his favorite horror villains. He believes that the perfect boogie man should be authentic and realistic. When the original was released, the film was told to be based on a true story. Many people still thought ans still think that the story really happened. Serial killer Ed Gein was taken as a cource of inspiration for Leatherface, so somewhere it’s true. Mazzocone felt that more could be done with the story and asked writer/ director John Luessenhop to join his project.

Unfortunately they did not succeed in reaching their goals. This sequel doesn’t feel authentic or realistic at all. The film starts right away with a big mistake. Heather is a girl in her early 20s, but she should be in her late 30s. after all, she was found as a baby after the murder in 1974. It also seems as if the makers couldn’t make a choice as to what kind of film it should be. The first part of the film is set in 1974m and starts just before the original ends. The atmosphere feels good for a horror mvie, nothing wrong with that. If an original story had been made it would have been fine. But no, it was decided to go to the present with a goup of teenagers entering an abandoned house. I think we’ve all seen this before. Then it becomes a complete mess and instead of a fun popcorn horror slasher, the film becomes laughable. There is one scene, where Heather is trying to get away from Leatherface and ends up at a carnival. In her eyes, the best option to get away from him, is to grab onto one of the gondolas on a Ferris wheel. Only for it to go around, with Leatherface just waiting for her at the end. There are always dumb people in these movies, but this is next level.

There are small references to the original, but that’s for pure nostalgia reasons. But overall, “Texas Chainsaw” is a sequel nobody really needed.

Rating: 1,5 / 5 

donderdag 14 mei 2020

10s Movie Review - Fury

Director: David Ayer
Genre: Action/ Drama
Runtime: 134 minutes
Year: 2014
Starring: Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Benthal, Jim Parrack, Jason Isaacs, Scott Eastwood

Description: A grizzled tank commander (Brad Pitt) makes tough decisions as he and his crew fight their way across Germany in April, 1945.

Review: We board a tank with five Americans who are now on German territory. They are trying to conquer the last piece of Germany. The American army isn’t as strong as the Germans, so they have to be inventive to beat their opponent.
“Fury” is a brutal and heroic film about WWII. They show the raw side of a war, the chaos, the many deaths, Germans fearing their lives and Germans being shot for ‘fun’. It’s all visualized well and it’s intense. It shows that the soldiers were done with the war and felt frustrated.
A poignant exampled is when they make a German soldier beg for his life, but shoot him anyway. Terrible, but reality.
The cast is strong, all five of the soldiers in the tank that we follow during this journey are cast very well. But Brad Pitt carries this film.
For fans of war movies, this is a recommendation.

Rating: 3,5 / 5