Sammo

If I could rate the series by single episodes, chances are that it'd score pretty highly for at least half; the characters are quite enjoyable, there's a lovely dynamic between the two leads. Kate is a believable (of course, for being a superheroine) in her progression, she comes across as flawed, has unique quirks. Clint is a great hero, with vulnerabilities as well; the show did an impeccable job at establishing a good power dynamic.

The cast of side characters for the most part is a mixed bag; while of course the bravery of real-life handicapped actress playing Echo is commendable, she is no thespian by any stretch, and her character is not interesting at all. The flamboyant beau of Kate's mother is entertaining, the others are pretty one-note, being either completely cookie-cutter boring (Kate's mom and discount Jon Snow) or comic relief with way too much screentime (Tracksuit mafia, LARPer law enforcers). When they introduce Yelena Belova in the series, I was happy to see a really good actress with range and that is given the chance to goof around with a good twist on the stereotypical russian, balancing both comedy and drama. The writing did seem pretty uninspired, stretching beyond any usefulness the same tired problems and themes for the main characters and exposing the side characters as the one-note jokes they are. The overarching plot seemed to progress very little, with all its loose ends piling onto the finale.

The Marvel live action series so far with no fail have had problems with pacing, leaving the resolution to a single episode that ends up moving at breakneck pace. This one being longer than the others, and with a better overall management of characters and a simpler premise than products like WandaVision or Loki, and with stronger personalities than the dull Falcon&WS, I had some hope it would deliver.

And then the finale came, with episode 6. Wow.
I am familiar with the MCU style, with the tendency to drop jokes in every (very) few moments to break tension. I tend to dislike it nowadays as the jokes seem to get louder and 'try harder' hardly letting the dramatic and significant moment breathe. However, this last episode is just fireworks of absurdities from beginning to end, basically turning all the story into a braindead mush of random events. It looks first and foremost absolutely poor, with the menaces not built at all as challenging. Nothing can be taken seriously here even in those small parts that you could and should. And it criminally, tragically, unforgivably wastes and ruins the wonderful character shown in Netflix's Daredevil. I hoped that Feige did not want to do anything at all with the character, given the average tone of the MCU compared to the original. And oh boy, looking at the most rotten finale of a Marvel series so far, I can't help but think that it was the screenwriting version of a mob hit on Kingpin - not literally, of course, since his fate is pretty obvious especially knowing what happened in the comic. But talk about completely failing to establish a menace.

Sammo ★

It's a movie with two old dudes talking about their faith, and yet it's way more entertaining than it has a right to be!
Watching the trailer I was sort of expecting a glorification of the current Pope Francis, and while that is surely its intent, I have to tip my hat to the exceptional actors for pulling off memorable performances. Jonathan Pryce's likeness is almost spooky - refraining from being overdone and becoming an impression, but it's Anthony Hopkins' Ratzinger who in my opinion offers the stronger showing, depicting an austere and out of touch patriarch of the Church with a deep suffering and isolation, monumental in his losing effort to hold together the institution he believes in, despite the crisis of his belief in its superior cause and destination. The conflict is entirely carried by the perfect on screen chemistry between the two and their superb acting. Without believable actors, this would have easily been just a boring fake documentary or TV movie. It's such a delight to see the two actors portray this script that dangerously swings between didactic and hagiography that even its questionable agenda sorta slips by and moments of pure corny like Bergoglio trying to bust tango moves with Pope Hannibal are tolerable, and even charming as intended - such as the finale.

Sammo ★

I do love this game! I am pretty terrible at it and I get thoroughly humiliated durign online matches, because things like quick passing around the field only turn into me giving the ball to my opponent and other displays of "You are too old to play games", but for a Pay-to-win game, from my free player perspective the game appears always full of things to do - even if a bit repetitive - and with a lot of events going on. I loved the original anime and even more the old games with this exact same gameplay since the unofficialy translated Super Famicom version of Captain Tsubasa V: Hasha no Shogo Campione, and this translated perfectly as an online game.

Sammo ★

Age is a cruel mistress, and a series that would deal with such an iconic character was always going to be a risk. The angle chosen, while certainly at odds with the roddenberryan view of the future, was an interesting one and full of promise. The tale of a defeated hero, an unconventional captain known for his skills as leader, diplomat, scholar, who has to deal with the sad decline of age, would have already been tough to handle and with some tough decisions to make in terms of characterization. A certain passing of the torch was going to be inevitable even with the titular character as focus, and it only remained to be seen if and how old characters would play a role in this new story.

Did the show deliver? Or while making questionable choices which maybe could upset some long term fans, manage to be engaging? Honestly, the writing on this show is just so dismail that it depressed me. Subjectively speaking, no, I did not like that, with the exception of exactly one moment in the very finale, Jean Luc Picard retained absolutely zero of the character traits that made him great. His only glimpses of leadership are 'told' and not shown in brief oratorial speeches who other characters have to comment being moving when they are not written well enough for this purpose, when they aren't comically out of place and mere empty rethoric - as it happens when there has been no concrete buildup or foundation to them. For the rest, there are just so many single examples of failure in the narrative that singling them out here would be pedantic and nitpicky - which is obviously all I am about on this website, but I try to avoid that in the reviews. The whole writing of this series seems to 'state' purposes and character qualities when it fails to show them, and even those statements are contradictory. I also really can't get over the sheer effin magic that happens with pieces of technology no Geordian technobabble could save, such as the ultimate forensic time machine, or the 'thing' that just 'does things' if only you are able to vaguely picture them in your mind. Any space battle and piece of strategy is less than childish, in the most irritating way, and the pace of the series overall is all off, with a rather slow start that I did not mind, but that goes thoroughly downhill with the 'sidequest' mentality that makes the character sideline the time sensitive missions that got them into space to just go fetch a new NPC a couple times, and culminates with a finale that disposes of major villains with a briskness that is downright offensive. This series probably needed to breathe for a couple more episodes or get rid entirely of subplots and ancillary characters that went absolutely nowhere - remove Elnor from the story and the series is better, rewrite the episodes without 7 of 9 - which looks great, but brings no real substance, no new themes and has no ultimate bearing in the finale - and you get a tighter story.

The vote is obviously excessively harsh because of the uncerimonious treatment to beloved characters, but not by much: while the cinematography is not bad, it still looks remarkably dull. Look at the mysteriously derelict Romulan outpost, the generic space bar location, or the planet where the finale takes place: does it not look just like some of the 'space hippies' planet you'd expect Kirk&co to spend a shore leave at? What sort of memorable moments old and new characters did have across the series, that seemed earned in any way and had adequate build up? You are welcome to find them and enjoy them. I can see what they might have tried to do, and the courage to follow in a journey of redemption the aging, no, the poorly aged and hopeless man that Picard became, but nothing in the way the themes were developed made much sense to me, and its pretentiousness while handling them in such a superficial fashion (just look at the whole synthetic life subject, with pseudo-mindless robots banned in a world with sentient tangible holograms!), is staggering to me.

Sammo ★

We're off to a great start, a robbery gone wrong, a pretty solid dynamic with litigious bandits, which effortlessly introduces a close but already dystopian future with a solid and believable aesthetic and one awesome concept, a location that could and should be the unsung real protagonist. We have rules, and a handful (not too many, perfect number) of diverse characters are introduced in this controlled, claustrophobic environment. Plot lines begin to develop, different motivations for these characters, and some seem to have intertwining pasts. Academy winning actress Jodie Foster hams it up just perfectly as the custodian and living engine of this place, and like a ticking time bomb one more Oscar winnner and fan favourite Jeff Goldblum is scheduled to make his appearance in what anticipates to be a great season finale for this series which...Hm, what? I am not halfway through the pilot of a miniseries, but this is a 90 minutes movie? Well...damn, I hope all these plotlines combine together at the end in one mosaic which... Oh no.

Seriously, I could see this setup work as a series with a big part of character study inside the hotel leading to an assassination/heist plot unfolding slowly, and then to a big climactic finale with a bit of an Assault on Precinct 13 vibe. It ended up with characters woefully underdeveloped, rushing through a zillion plotlines (at least 2-3 per character!) who went absolutely nowhere for the most time. The cinematography was depressingly dark, the limited action was your bog Hollywood cutfest, and it was generally such a waste of a super-promising concept. I felt thoroughly robbed! Jodies Foster was flawless and so was Goldblum, making good use of the limited screentime (boy, the guy does not want to work or decomposes in open air after 5 minutes, because it seems like his roles lately have been nothing but extended cameos) blending his usual suave histrionics with sinister glimpses of a crimine lord. Sterling K. Brown was very solid and believable as a lead, Batista was written in a disappointing way since he was basically Drax (down to the bit when he can't understand figures of speech), but stil wasn't bad. Can't say much about the rest of the cast, because they were not able to rise past their writing.

As you may have guessed, I found this movie really disappointing - and I did not come in with any expectation.

Sammo ★

I am not sure if I can rate favourably a comedy where I find the straight man heaps more entertaining than the funster, but that's what you get with this Ride Along 2. Kevin Hart comments his own silly antics with the kind of smug pride that makes his character really unlikeable to me: they already aren't that funny to begin with, so dragging them out further does nothing to make them more entertaining. On the other hand, Ice T is at its best playing it straight and like he really does not care for the partner's foolishness. Definitely can relate to this!

This take on the buddy cop movie wouldn't work at all without Ice T for me. The problem is that it even tries to be 'serious' and make a semblance of a plot work, but that is just pretty low level. Olivia Munn has good screen presence and easy on the eyes but not exactly a strong showing in this sort of role. They chose to double down on the annoying comic relief dynamic through Ken Jeong. Did they really need to add a comic relief to the comic relief? Someone even more squawky and puny than Hart so he'd look 'better'? I really don't think that with a role like Hart's you need that sort of dynamic. A forgettable movie.

Sammo ★

D'awww. A cute cat! That's what the internet is for, right? And obviously it works also for busking. This movie is just like a cat: cute, cuddly, and makes you feel good even if it does not give a damn and is there solely for the meal!

The main character, the two-legged one at least, gives a pretty good performance in a role thoroughly sanitized (he's one of those heroin addicts any girl would happily bang after maybe a shampoo), and the cat is pretty boss. All the other characters are pretty one-note and cartoonishly mean - but those with more than 30 seconds of screentime will get a chance to redeem themselves anyway - minus the unattractive junkie, screw that guy!

No need to be mean with a movie like this, since I had a good time watching it and it managed to strike the right emotional chords. Just know that you are in for an hour and a half of shameless cat-style manipulation and you'll love it.

Sammo ★

A rather silly movie not devoid of some charm. I appreciated it in its moments bordering on pure nonsense, even if they don't quite feel earned. It's rather odd in its soap-operistic plotline, which really lays it on thick on drama and twists, so ridiculous that you can sorta chalk them up as parts of that nonsense. There's a whole lot of amateur vibe in pretty much everything here, from the writing to most performances: the characters are serviceable and the actors cover their roles well (great job by the casting director, seriously) but at no point anyone's performance is 'believable' - the two main actresses basically quit acting a few years later, and I can sorta see why. I am not insulting their performance, on the contrary I did find enjoyment in their characterization, but we are talking about, again, soap opera level. The direction of the final flamenco scene was great if the actress was not too skilled in that dance, as it covered her flaws beautifully. Of course if she had actually a talent in the dance, it was pretty bad, since it hardly gave us any chance to appreciate it.
The call center bits were okay, but very soon lost any meaning and relatability because of the overblown personal drama slash Cinderella-kind of direction the story took, which lacked any semblance of subtlety.

Not a terrible movie, but you have to be into that particular style of overdramatic narrative and twists without much logic and depth. The characters here are driven by the plot through such moral U turns that you may be completely thrown off the road during one of those.

Sammo ★

What a delightful little romp this movie is! It saddens me that it underperformed at the box office, and I can't quite wrap my finger around it. True comic book fans should be a minority of the wide audience, so the fact that this movie does not treat the Birds of Prey team well at all (which, as a non-comic fan, I barely heard of before) should have not put off too many viewers. Harley Quinn seemed to be an amazingly popular character, so would it truly pull in more viewers if her name were featured more prominently? I saw very little interest and buzz for the movie despite what I think was a pretty sizeable if a bit misguided promotional campaign, so perhaps, especially with an R rating, it lost too much of the cult following she seemed to have in pop culture.

If the movie has been penalized by unfortunate so called 'woke' feminist propaganda (the main offender of which comes from the fedifragous main male actor), I can only feel sad about it because it has nothing to do with the movie. The movie does not take itself seriously for a moment and does not push agendas: there's no ballsbusting for the sake of it as some people caught up in a certain narrative try to make you think (a main character is saved and trained by a man, for instance?) and the Birds of Prey are all flawed heroes, if anything, everyone of any gender and ethnicity is whimsically a horrible person in this movie. The action is great and the main character - because this IS very much a Harley Quinn movie- is hysterical: the whole fourth wall breach and non-linear story makes this movie really close to Deadpool 2, and I find it way funnier and with better action than that (and with 100% less dick joke overload).
Unfortunately, the plot is as mac-guffiny as it gets (I think the whole "street urchin steals very important item and is hunted by the baddies" plot line was already sorta old in the 1940s) and any character that is NOT Harley Quinn is underdeveloped (even if nowhere nearly as horrid as in Suicide Squad, a couple of them don't seem to get a proper character arch). Still, with a movie this wacky and driven through by the cartoon character (meant in the best possible way) perfomance by Margot Robbie, I did not see any of that as a problem. It's a wildly entertaining movie, if you just take it for entertainment and you don't try to see issues and agendas other than the obvious fact that it is a movie about an (already established and existing) all female group, and a character emancipating from the psychotic abusive boyfriend that is not a part of the DC cinematic universe (if there is such a thing?) anymore for entirely unrelated reasons.

Fun and a joy to watch in particular in the more colorful and less plot-driven first half, it has very well shot action sequences who do have that Chad Stahelski touch to them and that is a pleasant break from the usually terrible messy fights happening in comic book movies. I was pleasantly surprised. A solid 8 out 10.

Sammo ★

Every visual novel comes with a fair amount of tropes - and it is surprising, because after playing this game you'd think NED: Breakfast in Boston ate all of them, scarfing them all down in a wicked plate of clam chowder! Okay, I am slightly exaggerating. In fact, on a positive level, the choice of having a few characters share a Swedish background is unconventional, and so is the fact to put a strong emphasis on the setting, in this case, Boston. Unfortunately, a lot of these themes are rather marginal and as deep as a wikipedia page - in fact, more like pure namedropping after browsing a wiki page. The writing is not exactly compelling and it throws around some factoids that are convoluted and questionable, with no character getting any depth and a smorgasbord of stereotyping (my favourite has to be "You know French? Psht, I am European, I know 6 languages" bit).

All in all, I played this game on Steam and in less than the two hours needed to apply for a refund I reached the 100% achievement completion rate. I think it says a lot. I don't want to be too harsh, in fact I did not ask for a refund and if there's gonna be a sequel I hope it will flesh out of the aspects of this game that were woefully undeveloped - it felt more like a kinetic novel than anything. Just know that it's a game to get during a sale or in a bundle, as for the same price you can get much more developed, dynamic titles with better artwork and better writing.

Sammo ★

An intriguing crime movie from the 70s, shot by Di Leo with his usual solid approach and occasional flourish. I would spoil it if I detailed its ultimate distinctive trait: lets just say that the lead actor's rather dull perfomance ultimately ends up working to the movie's advantage. What? Yes, trust me.

A tragic tale with a supporting cast in exceptional form (Pier Paolo Capponi's Tony, with his offbeat delivery and violent energy is probably one of my favourite movie villains of all time), this movie has a slightly slower pace than most italian "mob" flicks of the period and might disappoint you if you were looking for a Caliber 9 sequel : this is more the dark side of it, its twilight if you will.

Sammo ★

This movie deserves praise for being an unconventional wuddunit, but it does not necessarily mean it is a good one. Its structure is not devoid of intriguing aspects, and does a lovely job involving the viewer by putting some real stakes in for the protagonist, going beyond the pure intellectual cat-and-mouse guessing game. The two elements that perplex me, especially considering the wild praise for its cleverness, are the fact that the plot is well structured when it comes to emotion and storytelling but way too rough around the edges in small irritating ways, with large logical loopholes (some may be deliberate, some certainly are not), and most importantly, it utterly wastes about half of its cast giving them practically nothing to do, in part exactly because eliminating entirely the guesswork there's little reason for them to be there except for rather formulaic interactions. I have my reservations about the writing when it comes to dialogues, not so memorable for the most part, and painfully self-aware at times. In fact, I don't really know what to do with the political subtext, or rather, flashing hovertext: it is handled in such a hamfisted way that I am not even sure of its actual meaning. The story itself conveys a 'political' message without any need for actual random buzzwords thrown in all of a sudden.

Good news is that those characters who do get a fair amount of screentime and any weight in the plot work wonderfully. De Armas is very likeable, Craig is hilarious, Evans is charmingly villainous. It's a fun movie, just it feels like parts of the mix did not quite work as smoothly as they were supposed to be, but I suspect it's because Rian Johnson's idea of what is funny or clever do not resonate well with me. It happens!

Sammo ★

First, the positives. The cast of this movie is absolutely stellar. The voice acting is spot-on, and to be honest, it feels like it would have been a pretty darn impressive live action movie with pretty much the same actors! The character design is actually quite good, for the various members of the family itself at least. The humans...gee, at times normies look more weird and unsettling to me than the monsters.
I heard criticism about the pacing being a little slow, and I don't really agree: most stories with the Addams family are just a thinly veiled excuse to show more and more cooky, spooky etc. etc stuff creating a bunch of gags. In that sense the movie delivers, and I actually liked the fact that it worked as sort of an origin story making multiple references, one could say 'a lot of fanservice', to the original series.

What is bad about the movie then? Eh, as a feature film it's just not that compelling. The story has been done a zillion times and it has a lot of seemingly shoehorned elements such as social media who don't quite add any theme of interest despite the potential. It's a good product, very respectful of the original and with most jokes that deliver or that get away with being corny. Just can't help but think that with such a cast (and considered that a few jokes are morbid or even risque) it could have dared more and pursued a better screenplay instead of going with a formulaic "Be yourself" message.
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Sammo ★

What a sweet little movie! It has all the cliches, in particular with the early portrayal of French people (a naked hairy guy wearing just a basque and a smile as he reads Le Monde? Really, movie? Really?), but gets away with it with charme. I did not care much for the main character, but Katie Cassidy is a splendid catalogue model and Leighton Meester plays her part quite competently as well. The direction of the movie is formulaic but with some good choices in terms of angles and there's even a sequence with Selena Gomez playing both her characters at once that left me shocked for a moment as I was not sure how they actually did the trick.

The script is more or less third rate, kinda falling apart with the auction drama at the end, where nothing seems to really make sense. Let's face it, the 'mistaken identity' plot device has been used, abused and exploited to death for ages, and this hardly says anything new. However, it could have been obnoxious, while what we have here is a perfectly watchable movie with just 'something' that elevates it, even if by all means don't expect anything but a movie good for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Not really sure how it even got a theatrical release to begin with, although I suppose Selena Gomez had enough name value to make it worth a shot.

Sammo ★

JJ Abrams' penchant for so called 'fanservice' is the best thing about this movie in the sense that it tries to 'get' the characters right largely by way of blatantly disregarding and negating what the previous episode did. It genuinely feels like he's been listening to objections fans had, although when one looks back at the previous episode, can easily see how the characters and story reached a stage it was quite difficult to build up from, and that undid a lot of what JJ himself did in episode VII.

It happens also to be one of the worst parts of the movie, though. Sadly, the need to rebuild from the hiccup episode VIII turned out to be made this movie need to be at least a couple of movies, rushing character arcs with quite a bit of a rollercoaster. Logic problems aside that I am sure will be somewhat and somehow explained in non-movie material (the Empire in any incarnation always seemed to have in books and comics absurdly powerful trump cards that happened to just sit there), the movie itself is one MacGuffin after another, with some visually stunning scenes but a rather disjointed editing. The effort to give some depth to the trilogy-specific characters making up for lost time is genuine, with mixed results: Finn gets heroic moments and his force sensitivity is made manifest - both traits he were robbed of in VIII -, Poe completes his transition to leader, with a troubled past that feels quite a bit rushed but kinda works, Kylo gets his redemption - but he is still a doormat most of the time, Rey gets genuine moments of conflict and defeat - together with spectacular wins that at least are more contextualized than the previous movies, including VII who was JJ's doing.

The problem with most dramatic spots is that the movie dares very little, rapidly undoing any drama it sets up in "Gotcha, nothing happened" moments that are a bit cringy - any death in the movie is drained of emotional impact and carries no momentum. The old characters are mostly respected. A lot of old fans may have major issues with the finale and the overall outcome of the saga with the canonical arch of the Skywalker family - ironically, this is the rise of Palpatine more than Skywalker's. I did not leave with this impression, partially because it was kinda hard to take anything about the tradition seriously after the events of the previous two movies, with the weird unpopular choices made in VIII but also with the stunning choice to make VII a timid rehash of IV with paper-thin characters and a deep unbalance in the plot. In this sense this movie is the closest of the three to try and get the appropriate tone and make characters grow through actions, failures, conflict.

In the end, I think this movie does give a fitting ending to a trilogy that started probably with the wrong premise, giving us a menace that was too closely associated with the previous, a world inexplicably set back to step 1 undoing anything accomplished in the first trilogy. Perhaps Rian Johnson did not have a terribly bad idea doing away with all of that in episode VIII. It does appear stunning that one of the most beloved sagas in science fiction history has been produced without a clear, coherent planned outcome in mind, and this Episode IX is only the natural conclusion of it. The direction is more than competent, most of the problems lie in the plot and the need to cram too much in it.

Sammo ★

A movie from a different era, but with a timeless charme, this comedy served as inspiration for the famous I dream of Jeannie, but it has a different edge - and of course a deuteragonist that is not quite as sexy as Barbara Eden (here playing a character completely different from her iconic TV role) but pleasing to see for other reason. Burl Ives is delightfully hammy in the uber-corny role of a discount Arabian nights djinn, with special effect that are so poor you can't even say they aged poorly - in fact, they add to the pleasant retro feel of the whole movie. Worth of being called a cult classic.

Sammo ★

I wouldn't be the the first one to draw a comparison between this movie and Collateral, but of course it's just for laughs: the general premise is very similar. Obviously it has much more to do with, well, just about every buddy cop movie ever, especially because the focus is on both. Both characters are extremes and really on the nose (hint: if you agree 100% with whatever either character says, the joke is on you), but it's how these movies work. So, if you hate Chris Tucker being his loud self, a Rush Hour movie needs to deliver great action and solid writing to make you forget that; if you don't exactly love Kumail Nanjiani making 'woke' commentary throughout every scene, does Stuber have enough not to be brought down to a screeching halt? The answer is probably 'no'.

The movie commits the cardinal sin of wasting a phenomenal performer like Iko Uwais, who absolutely kills it every time he's on screen as a uniquely dangerous criminal who makes everything seem easy and does it with finesse and a s**t eating grin. The action really shines when he is involved and makes you wish they structured the movie playing it much more straight than they did. In the middle part, the movie really slows down to explore the characters more, but does it through uninspired steps. Bautista's Mr. Magoo antics don't provide much in the entertainment area, not at all for his fault, as he is a perfect fit for the character and by far the best part of the movie with his counterpart. The few other characters in the movie, including Mira Sorvino, are very unremarkable.

Sammo ★

I remember Jay Leno as the king of late show ratings in the mid90s and the first decade of the 2000s, and while he never won critical acclaim for his 'safe' kind of humor and backstage politics who according to many put him over more talented hosts, I always enjoyed his show. This movie has always been something he himself ridiculed, and it's quite easy to see why: by every account is pretty laughable, and not in a good way. Mind you, it's not that he's entirely out of place in a movie that is based on cars (Leno's lifelong passion) nor out of his depth: it's a bit odd actually, because so much of what his character says when the movie gets into political and social statements (America's jobs and the japanese "stealing" them) falls fully into the spectrum of what Leno could choose to make fun of in one of his monologues. At the same time, this project was never going to be a big budget one, as you could expect with a character actor like Morita being pushed into the unlikely role of sidekick/action star (which he performed remarkably, as a matter of fact, given his obvious physical limitations). It had limited funding and talent behind it and reportedly they went out of money and kinda had to wrap it up suddenly, which might be why the script is so unpolished and has glaring leaps of logic and inconsistencies. But it really feels disjointed and messy to begin with, trying hard at 'real' action in a few occasions, including a finale with quite a bit of blood and drama - even if marred by some of the worst practical effects ever -.

At the end of the day, it is a one-star flick for how downright amateurish it looks in structure and in certain scenes, but I can't say I am not fond of it : after all, the benign racism of the movie is addressed not entirely without tact. Sure there are a couple too many jokes about 'chinese take away' and other nonsense, but overall the story is about two characters with their prejudices that learn to greatly respect each other (which is a much more mature view in many ways than completely sanitizing opinions). It has some 'so bad it's good' moments, but overall the comedy is quite lame, and oddly enough it's the characters who can make you care enough to watch it to the end.

Sammo ★

A polarizing movie, so I am told! The best I can say, is that it surely sparked an interest in getting the book and read how this intriguing premise was built upon in the written word. Nearly every review I read praising the movie actually quoted the opening of the book, and the dry, almost casual mention of the quite disturbing meal - which is replicated here in the movie in a way more sardonic, a bit cheeky, every bit as sharp. The movie does start out strong, and introduces characters different but equally relatable. As the minutes went by, I was thinking that the whole metaphorical subtext was a bit getting hammered in, but even as the class warfare was getting polarized to the point of caricature, the characters and their dynamics were still enough grounded, complex and believable that the idea of a strong allegorical frame was not unappealing, as it seemed a perfectly acceptable way to construct a unifying narration.

Well, the movie lost me. If was not gradual, but it was not something happening over a single episode. The decay of the building here is really quick, and so is the quality and appeal of its metaphor. What seemed to be a well polished and well constructed multileveled creation, turned out to be just a pile of filth, where dog eats dog, or man eats dog. It sounds naive and silly to come up with statements like "It is not realistic!", while, I get it, it is not meant to be. It'd be the same as asking "But why is it that they don't leave that crazy place." And still, it is part of the problem. The movie does seem intent in what is little more than a morbid contemplation of primal state. But what's the interest in that sort of chaos, grotesque, bleak and intrinsically, uh, well, chaotic? If the stylized and distinctly unsubtle display of depravity was meant to make a statement about human nature or capitalistic society, I have to say that nothing in the visual or in the narration, with virtually every individual story tossed together in a protoplasm of human stains with no real character, nothing at all, left a lasting impression or even was remotely interesting.

Sammo ★

This was a pretty intriguing movie. Credit goes to the performances: most characters are monodimensional, but at the same time stay unpredictable. Nobody here has movie-like skills and smarts, and on the contrary you experience awkwardness, incompetence, selfishness and lack of grand strategy planning, without much room for overwritten plot conveniences. Ultimately it leads to a movie that might feel a bit stilted and lackluster, but it does kinda wrap up at the end in the best, sweet and sour, way. Worth checking out.

Sammo ★