4.5/10
死亡空间:坍塌 (2008) 豆瓣 维基数据 IMDb TMDB
Dead Space: Downfall
6.3 (29 个评分) 导演: Chuck Patton 演员: Kelly Hu / Bruce Boxleitner
其它标题: Dead Space: Downfall / Dead Space Downfall
《死亡空间:坍塌》是电脑游戏《死亡空间1》的剧情前传:
在AEGIS VII殖民星球上,统一教得知了地球政府将其藏匿并封锁的Red Marker。随后派遣石村号前往Aegis VII进行所谓的采矿作业,实则是回收Red Marker。 石村号和AEGIS VII的工程人员接触MARKER,并开始进行转移工作。转移过程中,工作人员开始产生幻觉,随后开始变异并自相残杀。与此同时,AEGIS VII的住民开始变得异常,奈特和威尔开始调查住民暴乱,但发现事情无法控制...
2023年12月18日 看过
2023年12月18日 评论 a review of 死亡空间:坍塌 - Disappointing prequel to the 2008 video game. Given the state of the Ishimura  when the franchise’s primary protagonist Isaac Clarke found it, this is a simple slaughterfest that doesn’t really offer anything narratively in the way of characters to latch onto or interesting new lore tidbits. It didn’t really need to though. All it truly needed to deliver on was the shock and horror. Unfortunately, the action is pretty boring. I do applaud it for having the guts to going full send on the whole adult animation conceit however with its heavy gore, profanity, and even a surprising bit of hand-drawn full-frontal male nudity. Sadly, they don’t allow it to rise past being little more than a lackluster tie-in.
4.5/10
死亡笔记 (2017) 豆瓣 TMDB IMDb 维基数据
Death Note
3.6 (46 个评分) 导演: 亚当·温加德 演员: 纳特·沃尔夫 / 勒凯斯·斯坦菲尔德
其它标题: Death Note / 死亡笔记真人版
凭借《纸上城市》(Paper Towns)而展露头脚的新人纳特·沃尔夫(Nat Wolff)最近正洽谈主演恐怖片《死亡笔记》(Death Note),该片由华纳兄弟公司出品,根据同名热门日本漫画改编。
《死亡笔记》为大场鸫(Tsugumi Ohba)创作、小畑健(Takeshi Obata)绘画,是一套于2003年12月至2006年5月连载于集英社《周刊少年Jump》的心理悬疑推理漫画。故事主角是一个高中生,他无意中捡到了一个笔记本,发现自己只要把一个人的名字写在笔记本上,那个人就会立刻死去。
这名高中生制造的一系列神秘死亡事件引起了一名侦探的注意,他开始追踪凶手,并试图解开事情的真相。
《死亡笔记》在日本曾被改编成一套动画电视剧、两部真人电影和一套视频游戏。华纳几年前就买下了美版电影的版权,直到今年初才定下让《不速之客》(The Guest)的导演亚当·温加徳(Adam Wingard)来执导。
2026年1月28日 看过
2026年1月28日 评论 a review of 死亡笔记 - The cultural phenomenon known as "Death Note" is a lot of material to try to turn into an hour and forty minute movie. So what we end up with is a film that goes for cheap thrills instead of a truly satisfying adaptation. You aren't going to get all of the well thought out twists and turns, shocking reveals, or deep looks at the characters and morals of the story. You will get treated to some gory kills and a surprising sense of humor though. This is the kind of thing that is sure to break the hearts of longtime Death Note fans, likely regardless of how much of an open mind they have going into this. The movie's baffling tone and angst-driven teenage romance are just likely to turn off those who have not experienced the manga/anime. Adam Wingard seems to be content with almost parodying the source material. Rather than focusing on twisted, complex characters and the dark motives of it's lead character the movie is perfectly content to have us laugh at everything going on. I could deal with a more self-aware style that's willing to poke some fun at itself, but I can't tell if a lot of the humor was intentional or not. Is the movie actually trying to not take itself seriously, or failing miserably at delivering tension and thrills? Regardless of which is the case, the movie is funny for all of the wrong reasons. The more action-packed conclusion the film has does lead to a nice little twist though. So there is some payoff in the end. While Wingard can't carry the story or tone necessary to keep things afloat, he does deliver some solid visuals. The gore is ridiculously over-the-top adding to that possibly unintentional comedic feeling the movie has, but it's still pretty entertaining to watch. Ryuk looks great and his scenes carry a cool mix of creepy and playful. Probably the thing from the anime and manga that the movie gets the most right. I also have to praise the casting. Nat Wolff, Lakeith Stanfield, and Willem Dafoe are pretty great in their roles as Light, L, and Ryuk respectively even if they aren't playing the same versions of the characters many of us know from the source material. Stanfield even manages to nail some of L's mannerisms. We also have Shea Whigham in a nice and very likable supporting role to help back things up. In the end though the strong cast can't make up for the lackluster writing. This also just isn't a good adaptation of the source material. It's a bad movie, but it's a watchable bad movie. When all is said and done I couldn't tell if I was laughing with it or at it, but it still managed to make me like a few of these characters who are basically originals despite having the recognizable names. I don't recommend watching it. Especially not if you are a fan of the real Death Note story. You won't be bored if you do decide to check it out. Just disappointed. There's so much more that could have been done here and better.
4.5/10 old review transfer
黑亚当 (2022) 豆瓣 TMDB Bangumi IMDb 维基数据
Black Adam
5.4 (215 个评分) 导演: 佐米·希尔拉 演员: 道恩·强森 / 莎拉·夏希
其它标题: Black Adam / 霹雳亚当
这个世界需要超级英雄…… 黑亚当降临。
黑亚当(道恩·强森 饰)被赋予了古代诸神无所不能的力量,但很快就被封印。近五千年后,他终于重见天日,并将在现代世界以独一无二的方式行使正义。
2022年11月12日 看过
2022年11月12日 评论 a review of 黑亚当 - With the exception of Sony Pictures' poorly conceived Spider-Man(less) disaster, it's hard to think of a cinematic universe messier than the DCEU. Sure, the Conjuring Universe has been 50/50 in terms of quality thus far, but at least that has had a cohesive vision. Warner Bros. meanwhile has clearly struggled to formulate any sort of concrete plan for what to do with their effort to chase the MCU. After getting off to an incredibly rough start the studio managed to find some success with standalone entries folllowing Zack Snyder's departure. Birds of Prey personally wasn't my thing, but the majority of others seem to have liked it while Aquaman , Shazam! , and the second Suicide Squad all proved quite good. I even enjoyed WW84 myself. The problem? They were releasing them without any direction for the larger continuity. No big events were being set up and there wasn't the slightest sign that these characters would ever come together again, making many wonder if the whole shared world aspect was even truly a thing anymore beyond cramming Harley Quinn into everything as the two stars responsible for portraying the biggest heroes (Batman and Superman) who were supposed to act as the glue holding the whole venture together had reportedly jumped ship. Essentially they were aimlessly moving forward with films without a purpose or destination in mind outside of setting up their own individual sequels. Recent news however has been promising with a recent merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. leading to the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery. The leadership of which has set out to get things back on track by doing stuff like implementing a 10-year plan similar to Marvel's, instituting a Kevin Fiege-like figure to oversee future projects, and somehow convincing Affleck and Cavill to return. Basically ushering in a new era for the DCEU. Black Adam is intended to mark the beginning of that fresh start, and I will say it is the first outing since Justice League to actually make use of the cinematic universe concept. Unfortunately, the fact that it entered production long before many of the aforementioned course corrections had been conceived may be why the movie feels like an absolute dumpster fire of bad decisions. Everything is botched here from the director and casting choices (except Pierce Brosnan, he's terrific) to the music selection. Jaume Collet-Serra is usually a name you can count on, but that same reliability is not present in his first and if we're lucky, last foray into the superhero genre. He delivers the origin backstory lore through a massive exposition dump right in the opening minutes that he rushes through at a breakneck pace before settling into a series of generic, slow motion laden CGI clashes with the Justice Society of America and normal goons that are accompanied by the most ill-fitting songs possible (Lorne Balfe's score is an unequivocal fiasco), all while a conflict with an actual, tragically goofy villain slowly builds in the background. I say "actual villain" because the defining hook here is that our leading man is supposed to be a bit of a bad guy himself. An enticing angle to be sure, but I'm not certain anyone involved was aware that it's not exactly an entirely unique one anymore thanks to the likes of Deadpool or their own Task Force X hitting the silver screen, alongside the fact that we've kind of seen nearly everyone in a cape and costume making sure they never have to deal with their foes in theaters again for years now. It doesn't help that the character feels wildly miscast either. Now, I'm not a Dwayne Johnson hater by any means, but he lacks the gravitas and range necessary to deliver the appropriate level of menace and ruthlessness that would have legitimately distinguished Teth-Adam from his peers. Oh, and they also spoiled the plot's single major twist via a throwaway line of dialog in the trailer. Oy vey... On the topic of the Justice Society, their inclusion stands as the primary reason the DCEU is starting to feel like a true cinematic universe again, by surrounding the protagonist with other recognizable faces from the wider array of source material. Although their appearance also does run into the identical problem the MCU had when they introduced the Eternals to the mix. Namely, it begs the question of where the heck they were when all that crap with Steppenwolf was going down. Yet, perhaps them not showing up to help was a blessing in disguise since they turn out to be pretty useless here. Cyclone contributes absolutely nothing, Atom Smasher might be the only superhero with brain damage, and while Doctor Fate may be a shockingly cooler version of Doctor Strange he tends to inexplicably disappear whenever most of the fighting occurs. Then there's Hawkman who tries his darndest to carry his own weight, but sadly for him his role in the story is that of the guy who constantly tries to take Adam down due to disagreeing with his methods before ultimately having to side with him when a threat arises he is not powerful enough to defeat, so he gets his butt thoroughly kicked throughout until the credits roll. Plus, I'm pretty certain the wings on his helmet are lopsided at points. Despite its obvious and often glaring faults, I will award the film some credit. While objectively worse on every front, I wasn't bored by or painfully aware of every excruciatingly long second of the 2 hour+ runtime of it such as I have been with a lot of the recent MCU offerings, streaming or otherwise. It even succeeds at it's goal of making the future of these particular comic book adaptations look promising and exciting again for the first time since Billy Batson popped on the scene by setting up some very interesting directions where they could potentially go next. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that as a standalone Black Adam is flawed to the degree that it unbelievably somehow manages to serve as the DCEU's most embarrassing outing to date.
4.5/10
哭泣女人的诅咒 (2019) 豆瓣 IMDb TMDB 维基数据
The Curse of La Llorona
5.1 (46 个评分) 导演: 迈克尔·查维斯 演员: 琳达·卡德里尼 / 帕翠西娅·维拉奎兹
其它标题: The Curse of La Llorona / 哭泣的女诡(港)
新线恐怖片[孩子们]更名为[哭泣的女人的诅咒](The Curse of La Llorona,暂译),温子仁担任制片,其公司Atomic Monsters担任制作。导演迈克尔·查维斯,主演琳达·卡德里尼。墨西哥传说中有一个“哭泣的女人”的故事, 一个丢了自己孩子的女人开始掠夺其它人家的孩子。片中的单身母亲在调查儿童失踪案时发现这个“哭泣的女人”似乎就在她的身边。
2021年6月7日 看过
2021年6月7日 评论 a review of 哭泣女人的诅咒 - By far the strangest entry in the Conjuring Universe. The only connection it shares with the other films in that world is a brief appearance from Tony Amendola as Father Perez, who you may remember from the first Annabelle . It's a fairly insignificant tie-in however, as outside of that one small reference getting made it largely does its own self-contained thing. So if you're solely interested in watching this to ensure you don't miss out on any aspect of the bigger picture this web of interconnected horror is creating, rest assured this is an inconsequential piece of the puzzle that you won't regret skipping. Not least of all because it's not very good. This could have been a great opportunity to bring a more diverse perspective to theaters due to its use of Latin American folklore and a primarily Hispanic cast. Unfortunately, that potential was squandered by the casting of a white woman in the lead role (showing once again that mainstream Hollywood flat out does not care about women of color) and failure to use the culture in any way to distinguish the movie from your average haunted house flick. So if this was an attempt to bring some representation to cinemas, it's a pretty miserable misstep on that front. Of course it's also not very successful as a horror film either. The titular La Llorona is a particularly loathsome specter as a result of her fondness for drowning children, but Michael Chavez was unable to make her the slightest bit scary. All she ever does is predictably pop out screaming with her arms outstretched, yank people off-screen umpteen times, or simply stand in place and try to look creepy. None of which prove effective at getting the adrenaline going. There's also a weird tonal shift about halfway through. The first portion plays out in a very serious and self-respecting manner. It's not exactly "good," but nowhere near as awful as its reputation would have you believe. When Raymond Cruz's character shows up however, things start to get a bit cheeky. A playful tone creeps its way in and you start noticing the appearance of jokes in what I can only assume was an effort to capture some of the campiness that made The Nun an unexpected blast. It got to the point where I literally turned to the person next to me and asked "when did this become a comedy?" The pacing does increase at this point, but just when it looks like it's about to go into high gear it instead abruptly ends as the ghost is defeated in an anticlimactic and unintentionally hilarious manner. It was at this point I realized just how bad and slapped together the whole experience is. This was very clearly just a test run to get Chavez ready to direct the third Conjuring . Because of that it's understandable why Wan and crew were still willing to give him the reigns in spite of how rushed and sloppy this turned out. Unfortunately for us, they missed the fact that nothing he put onscreen was able to raise so much as a single goosebump. La Llorona is a fright-free mess that feels like each of its writers had different visions and instead of coming together split the script duties down the middle, never makes satisfying use of its shared universe ties, and fails to respectfully depict the culture it's borrowing from.
4.5/10
黑森林 (2002) 豆瓣 IMDb 维基数据 TMDB
Blackwoods
导演: Uwe Boll 演员: 帕特里克·茂顿 / 迈克尔·帕尔
其它标题: Blackwoods / Lo que acecha en las sombras
Matt is haunted by the death of a girl from a car accident he caused years ago. Matt was drunk and as he reached for the car radio, he struck the girl as she crossed the road. The guilt that he feels has altered his sense of reality, making Matt's life a mystery full of shadows and phantoms. Now, years later Matt goes away for weekend with his new girlfriend Dawn. After a wild session of lovemaking, Dawn goes for a walk. While she is away a strange man with an ax comes into the motel room and attacks Matt. After that incident Matt goes into the woods, looking for Dawn. There he encounters Dawn's family who tie him down and put him on trail for the murder of the girl years before. They find him guilty and he is sent back into the forest to be hunted down by the family. The deeper Matt runs into the forest the farther his mind is lost to the Blackwoods.
2021年2月15日 看过
2021年2月15日 评论 a review of 黑森林 - As far as crappy little low-budget horror-thrillers go, this was almost okay. It starts off decently enough. Sure, the characters are a bit annoying and there are near-constant cutaways to blurry flashbacks and flash-forwards in time, but the opening moments do a decent job of building anticipation for a trashy cat-and-mouse style bloodbath. Unfortunately, once the killer shows up all goodwill goes out the window. Oddly enough, that's when the movie becomes unbearably boring. Instead of delivering on the potential of its I Know What You Did Last Summer -esque premise, the film falls prey to some of its director's worst tendencies. Namely padding out the the running-time with dull conversations, repetitive scenes, and extended stretches of characters screaming obscenities at each other. By the time the killing finally starts, not only has over an hour gone by, but I had lost interest to the point where I wasn't paying enough attention to be able to tell you whether or not the action delivers in any way. The reason for this lack of excitement is that the whole thing tries to go for a psychological angle complete with some pretentious moralizing. Not that this is inherently a bad thing, but like all Boll movies it's not as deep as it thinks it is. I can at least say it isn't offensive. In fact, for an Uwe Boll work this isn't that bad at all. However, when best aspect of your feature presentation is an amusing Clint Howard in a role so small that it barely ranks above a cameo you know you have a problem.
4.5/10 is it just me or does letterboxd's synopsis literally spoil the entire movie? like i'm pretty sure t
吸血莱恩3:第三帝国 (2010) 维基数据 豆瓣 IMDb TMDB
BloodRayne 3: The Third Reich
导演: 乌维·鲍尔 演员: 娜塔莎·迈尔兹 / 克林特·霍华德
其它标题: BloodRayne 3: The Third Reich / 월드워2: 나치의 침공
20世纪上半叶,战争的阴影盘旋于欧洲大陆上空。很快,一场惊世灾难席卷全世界,纳粹的铁蹄恣意践踏着人类的生命和尊严,地球变成了充满烈火的地狱。一列纳粹用来运输俘虏的火车,遭到了游击队员的袭击。对决中,一道黑色的身影格外引人注目。她仅凭着手中的冷兵器便将全副武装的纳粹士兵一一收拾。这便是已存活上半年历史的吸血鬼莱恩(Natassia Malthe 饰)。在这次行动中,莱恩手刃德军军官艾卡特(Michael Paré 饰),不曾想却让对方感染了自己的血,从而转化成一只有着邪恶力量的吸血鬼。而德军的疯狂医生马格勒(Clint Howard 饰)更企图打造一支吸血鬼部队。莱恩不得不去面对这个亲手种下的恶因……
本片根据同名惊悚动作游戏改编。
2020年5月2日 看过
2020年5月2日 评论 a review of 吸血莱恩3:第三帝国 - Third time was almost the charm. Boll came so close to making a good B-movie. The production values are high enough that it looks like it could have actually been shown in theaters and it manages to pull off a more satisfying combination of gore, action, and horror in a WWII setting than Overlord did. He even finally figured out how to make a half-vampire chick running around in a skin-tight outfit sexy, which should have always been a given. Unfortunately all of this was squandered in a movie with a baffling lack of action. A fantastic opening gives way to a lot of talking as we watch the Nazis and resistance fighters scheme for the entire middle section of the movie. It makes what should have been a breezy hour-and-nineteen-minute running time feel excruciatingly long. It doesn't help that the acting and dialog are atrocious. Apparently nobody involved knew how to do a German accent (I'm convinced Michael Paré just gave up trying at a certain point) so everyone sounds really unnatural. A shame because they had a cool idea for the plot, but allowed it to play out in a most uninteresting manner. This is still easily the best of the BloodRayne trilogy. When it's focusing on delivering grindhouse style thrills like blood, sex, and violence it's legitimately a lot of fun. Especially since it's sporting some of the best directing Uwe Boll ever did. There isn't enough of it however, so the momentum it establishes early on fizzles out pretty quickly. Your attention ends up waning long before things pick up again near the rather sloppy finale. So despite the initial promise it shows, The Third Reich is sadly only more wasted potential.
4.5/10
鬼屋魔影2:地狱的厨房 (2008) 豆瓣 IMDb TMDB 维基数据
Alone in the Dark II
导演: Michael Roesch / Peter Scheerer 演员: 尹成植 / 瑞秋·斯派克特
其它标题: Alone in the Dark II / 地狱的厨房
电影讲述了一组巫婆猎人如何追踪一个名叫伊丽莎白德克斯特的巫婆。你是萨金特的手下,你感到愤怒,并且相信别人不喜欢这样的愤怒。外星人绑架了你的狗,他们要付出代价,武装起来,带上唯一信赖的宝剑,展开史诗般的冒险。
2020年3月28日 看过
2020年3月28日 评论 a review of 鬼屋魔影2:地狱的厨房 - I can't believe this is real. We live in a world where Dredd will never get a sequel, but freaking Alone in the Dark II exists. Let that sink in for a minute... Big surprise everyone, it's terrible. Not as terrible as the first Alone in the Dark , but that's largely because Uwe Boll didn't return to direct. Instead that duty was taken over by two of the guys who penned the script for the previous movie, as well as gems like Far Cry (which was actually decent) and House of the Dead 2 (ehh...). It really serves to show how inept Boll was. The man had a budget of $20 million and created something that looked like a fan film. Meanwhile this was made with a significantly smaller amount of money and is far more accomplished visually. It at least resembles a competent piece of filmmaking. The first thing you'll notice is that nobody involved was concerned with continuity at all. I distinctly remember humanity getting wiped out at the end of the last one or something. Yet, you'll find no signs of that here. Also, Carnby is Asian now. For some reason. I get that there was no way Christian Slater was going to return for this, but at the very least shouldn't they have recast the role with an actor of the same ethnicity? You know, to avoid confusing the heck out of everybody. Oh whatever, this is a stupid movie anyways. This ends up being a better representation of the games as it's actually a horror movie. Complete with an atmosphere and everything. The problem is that none of it is scary and with less action overall it's just so bloody boring. The protagonist literally just lays around with some kind of witch sickness for the majority of the first half while the rest of the characters go through the details of the incredibly uninteresting plot. It constantly struggled to maintain my attention after what was admittedly a pretty decent opening. What's so weird about this whole thing is that I have no idea why it was made or who it was meant for. It's not like the original had a following. It was universally panned and is considered one of the worst films of all time. So for it to recieve a follow up like this is beyond strange. Not to mention unwelcome as while it is a bit of an improvement this still falls woefully short of doing the once beloved game series any sort of justice.
4.5/10
孤胆义侠 (2005) 豆瓣 维基数据 IMDb TMDB
Alone in the Dark
3.7 (7 个评分) 导演: 乌维·鲍尔 演员: 克里斯蒂安·史莱特 / 塔拉·雷德
其它标题: Alone in the Dark / 鬼屋魔影
距今一万年前的美洲,阿卡尼文明盛行一时,阿卡尼相信世界分为光明与黑暗两个世界,彼此间存在联络之门。有记载称阿卡尼曾打开两个世界间的门,使一些魔物肆虐世间,随后阿卡尼神秘灭亡。20世纪60年代,政府成立超自然研究部门713局,委派莱昂内尔•哈金斯博士(Matthew Walker 饰)研究阿卡尼文明,但他的研究随后被推翻。哈金斯躲在一个小岛,对儿童进行残酷的秘密试验,使他们和魔物融为一体。
21世纪初,各地接连发生儿童失踪案件,超自然现象调查员爱德华•卡比(Christian Slater 饰)受命前往小岛调查,但他才出机场,便遭到神秘之人的攻击。这一切注定他的旅程艰险无比……
2020年3月3日 看过
2020年3月3日 评论 a review of 孤胆义侠 - Arguably the most notorious Uwe Boll film and the one most directly responsible for his disastrous reputation. As such I expected it to be a lot worse. It's still a bad movie. The acting is terrible, the plot makes no sense, the action is too ridiculous for its own good, and for what's supposed to be based on a horror video game franchise there's no atmosphere or terror to be found. It's just that unlike so much of his later work I didn't find it painful to sit through. That's because this came out around the beginning of Boll's career when he was still making movies with the best of intentions. Meaning it's free of things like his genuinely frightening political ideologies, the toxic personality he developed in response to the overwhelmingly hateful criticism he received from his detractors, and the overbearing self-defense blanket of unjustified arrogance that only served to make his following flicks that much harder to watch. Alone in the Dark is just an extremely unsuccessful attempt at a big Hollywood blockbuster from a man who, while likely able to recognize a good film when he sees one, had no idea how to actually make one.
4.5/10
小镇怪客托马斯 (2013) 豆瓣 TMDB IMDb 维基数据
Odd Thomas
6.4 (37 个评分) 导演: 斯蒂芬·索莫斯 演员: 安东·叶利钦 / 艾狄森·蒂姆林
其它标题: Odd Thomas / 神鬼厨师/驱魔厨师
青年奥德·托马斯(安东·叶利钦 Anton Yelchin 饰)生活在加利福尼亚某个僻静小镇,当年母亲错把Todd登记成Odd(怪人),以致于他也被人称为怪咖托马斯。不过这个称号对他来说也算实至名归,因为托马斯能够看到幽灵,他时常为蒙受不白之冤的怨灵追查凶手,也由此和警长怀特·波特(威廉·达福 Willem Dafoe 饰)培养出父子般的信任。原本和女友史多梅·卢埃林(爱迪生·蒂姆林 Addison Timlin 饰)过着还算宁静舒适的生活,但某天托马斯发现怨念重重的血灵大量集聚在某个男人身旁,而不久前梦中的可怕场景又让他心有余悸。
托马斯直觉感到,一场惨烈的屠杀可能即将到来,他必须想方设法阻止这一切发生……
2018年12月16日 看过
2018年12月16日 评论 a review of 小镇怪客托马斯 - Succeeds at retelling the story that can be found in the eccentric Dean Koontz novel, but fails to juggle all of it's wildly differing tones making it all for naught. It's handling of the mixture of genres which ranges from comedy to romance to horror and everything in between is just as awkward as the dialog. Most of which is pulled directly from the book and doesn't translate to the screen very well. One might be tempted to call Addison Timlin a bad actress after this, but considering what she was given to work with I'd say she did fine. Her lines are often the most unnatural of them all. As someone who has read the entire series I can say that while it is a little disappointing to see certain side-characters relegated to cameos at best the actual liberties taken here are minor. You'll miss out on the stuff with Odd's parents and Ozzie Boone is relegated to a mere cameo, but these were characters who quickly disappeared as the books progressed anyways. For the most part this is a very faithful adaptation in terms of following the events of the source material. It just doesn't have the same spirit. While Odd Thomas the book relishes in it's weirdness and embraces it wholeheartedly to create something unique and lovable, Odd Thomas the movie seems uncomfortable with it's own peculiarity. One would expect that the issue with trying to merge all these different styles together would be tonal inconsistency. But in fact the problem is that there's no tone at all. Stephen Sommers direction is strangely muted. Perhaps as an effort to capture the same deadpan tone of the novels. There's no flair as a result though. Something that makes the wooden actors, bland locales, and low budget all the more apparent. It does have a star in the late Anton Yelchin though. He gave a fully committed performance and was a great Odd Thomas. The movie also does an admirable job of portraying the Bodachs. Mysterious otherworldly monster that feed on pain, suffering, and tragedy. Their appearance may mean that a lot of death is on the way, but they sure do bring a lot of life whenever they're on the screen. More so than the excessively slow motioned action sequences do. What's most shocking and undesirable about the whole thing is that it manages to make a supernatural mystery-thriller about an unassuming fry cook with the ability to see the dead people feel boring and by the numbers. A vanilla adaptation of a story that's anything but. Skip the movie. Read the book.
4.5/10
永不屈服:救赎之路 (2018) IMDb 维基数据 豆瓣 TMDB
Unbroken: Path to Redemption
导演: 哈洛德·科朗克 演员: 梅里特·帕特森 / 塞缪尔·亨特
其它标题: 坚不可摧:救赎之路 / Unbroken: Path to Redemption
影片故事仍将围绕赞佩里尼(塞谬尔·亨特 饰)展 开,片中美国基督教福音布道家葛培理(威尔·格拉汉饰)也将出现。
2018年10月4日 看过
2018年10月4日 评论 a review of - Path to Redemption attempts to piggyback on the success of a much better movie by continuing the true story of Louis Zamperini. It depicts his struggles with PTSD and alcoholism after WWII. Showing how he was able to overcome both through finding faith in God. I like how faith-based films are beginning to explore darker subject material, but this is an emotionally flat effort that's missing it's predecessor's uplifting nature. This is because Harold Cronk's (of God's Not Dead infamy) poor directing and a largely lifeless cast. There's a good story to be told here. Cronk just didn't know how to tell it. The displays of Zamperini's suffering and the support he got from his family feel phony. Something that cheapens the veteran and former Olympic runner's story and robs the eventual salvation moment of any impact. Of course it also doesn't help that our leads and most of the supporting cast are almost totally unconvincing. Watching the people onscreen flounder through the big emotional moments is painful. Then there's the film's problem with dictating the passage of time. I was literally floored when Zamperini's wife revealed that she was two months pregnant when what felt like barely a few days had gone by since it was revealed that she just found out it happened in the first place. That's because nothing really significant happened to let me know all this time had progressed. The movie apparently takes place over the span of a few years, but it's impossible to know that until you witness Zamperini's daughter go from baby to full-on toddler seemingly out of nowhere. I will give the movie credit for it's PTSD-induced nightmare and hallucination segments. They're the only times where the direction shows any sort of flair. They're quite well done and maybe even a bit scary. It was also a nice touch to get Will Graham to portray his grandfather. Andrew Caldwell is also pretty funny. One of the biggest criticisms faith-based films often receive is that they exist solely to allow Christians to confirm for themselves that they're lifestyle is the right one (as if preaching to the choir is an exclusively religious trait). Saying that about this movie might giving it too much credit however, as I'm pretty sure it doesn't even do that right. Zamperini's surrender to a higher power felt like an afterthought. Every reference to God seems secondary to Cronk's stale recreation of post-WWII America. So stick to the Angelina Jolie film. This doesn't do justice to the tale of an American hero or even the religion it is supposedly representing. This may sound like an insult, but the credits are the best part of this movie. During them they show some real of footage of (a much older) Zamperini talking about what he went through and how he was able to move on, as well as an amusing little anecdote at the very end. These brief scenes after the movie technically ended were more emotional than anything in the actual film itself. It was some genuinely good stuff that we weren't able to get in the roughly hour-and-a-half before hand.
4.5/10