MrHlad

Tom Hardy has a problem, an alien parasite has attached itself to him and wants to start eating people, but there are some worse monsters out there, so Eddie Brock and Venom decide to join forces and become the most ordinary of superheroes. Venom manages to adapt a potentially interesting and darker character into a jaded hero who looks like a relic of the past and could have captured the attention of maybe twelve years ago. I don't really know what to praise about it, even the best elements of it are mediocre at best.

This ambitious project about a man who did business with everyone after World War II and helped bring about the Communist takeover unfortunately tries too hard to be true to reality at the expense of entertainment. Two and a half hours is really too much, especially when there's not much interesting stuff going on most of the time, and it's repetitive to boot. The excellent final quarter shows that this could have been not only the story of a not very well known but important man, but a really good, entertaining and engaging film.

Surprisingly mature filmmaking. Bradley Cooper manages to sell both the big concert scenes and the small intimate ones where two people talk with complete ease. He gives quite possibly the best performance of his career, and Lady Gaga definitely deserves all the awards she picks up. Even the songs can move or tear you up and it's awfully good to watch. The only major complaint might be a certain predictability and schematicism, but on the other hand, in this case it would be unfair to the film to criticize it. This is exactly what it promised and delivered and in a highly superior performance. A film that is honest, functional and superbly shot and acted, and moving.

Damien Chazelle is one of the most interesting young filmmakers of our time, and I don't know if Whiplash or La La Land is better. Anyway, with these two films he has shown that he is not going to be stuck in one single genre, so I was looking forward to the Neil Armstrong biopic and the story of the conquest of the moon. In part, I got exactly what I expected and wanted: a technically perfect film that suits the IMAX big screen, has great cinematography and a sound design that makes you feel scared during the Apollo 11 launch like a regular horror movie. It's great to watch, but Chazelle tries to tell perhaps too many things surrounding the event, and there are just too many stories of pilots, engineers and families. So much so that a lot of them fizzle out and don't lead anywhere substantial plot-wise, or have as much emotional impact as they might have wanted. Overall, though, this is still a must-see film, and preferably in the best and biggest theater possible. There, First Man can be compared to Gravity or Interstellar, at least technically.

Lenny is a slacker who has to keep company to the dying David. He's not happy about it, but he soon discovers that this boy has grown on him. They become buddies, but an insidious disease lurks around the corner… This Crazy Heart unfortunately brings nothing new to the genre of poignant comedies, but most of all, it's afraid to be really funny and entertaining, and in the end it's mostly boring. Rewatching The Intouchables will give you more.

If you're expecting a classic Predator, you'd better stay at home, because Shane Black will really piss you off. Unlike the first and second films, there is no sense of a fight for life, but instead the building of a mythology that is not very interesting and feels rather funny. Furthermore, Black completely mismanages the action scenes and especially towards the end Predator: Evolution turns into a proper mess. But on the other hand, I can't say I was bored. The running time is just right, Boyd Holbrook more or less handles the lead role, and the other soldiers are likeable, although, unfortunately, they occasionally make some unexpected and off-the-cuff remarks, as if the editor didn't quite get his job together, and they understandably are no match to Arnold's crew from the first film. The new Predator is actually a weird mix of an old movie, a war flick, a bit of dumb comedy, and something that has ambitions to have two more installments. As action sci-fi B-movies goes, it's fine. As a Predator movie, it’s not.

A young couple moves into a house of the future that permanently monitors its inhabitants and grants them all their wishes. But it soon turns out that it is not a safe arrangement, and necks are at stake. Karel Janák delivers a visually entertaining film starring a very fine Gabriela Marcinková, but unfortunately it gets tripped up by a silly story and incredibly stupid and illogical twists.

Any season of Homeland is at least a level up in terms of direction, story and acting. As a political thriller, this is mediocre at best. As a Tom Clancy series, it's absurdly bad.

This flop about how the friendship between man and wolf was formed thousands of years ago turned out to be a surprisingly successful thing. Alpha is a family adventure that isn't afraid to be a little grittier than we're used to with films like this, it manages to be engrossing and, above all, incredibly beautiful to look at. It is brought down by the second half, in which the gradual rapprochement between human and animal protagonists is, after all, too schematic and predictable.

Grey's wife was just killed by a group of thugs and he ended up in a wheelchair. But his days aren't over, thanks to an experimental chip and artificial intelligence, he's started walking again and can get his revenge, and the computer in his body is willing to help him do it. Upgrade is an action-packed B-movie that's surprisingly smarter than it looks at first glance. Plus, it has some great uncompromising and brutal action, so it's fun to watch. It's just a shame there wasn't someone more capable and charismatic in the lead role. But it's still very much above average in its genre.