Road House (2024)

Direction: Doug Liman
Country: USA

Directed by Doug Liman and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Road House is a shabby, deeply predictable remake of the 1989 original film, which starred Patrick Swayze in the same role. The action is relocated to the Florida Keys, where Dalton (Gyllenhaal), a former UFC fighter with a troubled past and anger issues, is hired as a bouncer in a chaotic roadhouse plagued by violence.

The film begins with a stylized video game aesthetics and ends as an action-packed idiocy led by a protagonist with absolutely nothing valuable to say. Gyllenhaal already shown that he's better than this type of material, while Connor McGregor - our hero’s fiercest rival -  is simply ridiculous in a film that deteriorates by the minute. 

The plot, penned by Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry, is painfully dull, riddled with ludicrous double-crosses and poorly executed action sequences that feel artificially enhanced by excessive CGI. Those flashy scenes involving boats are a blatant example. Hence, lacking creativity in the plotting mechanisms, the film seems determined to hit us over the head with acres of clichés. 

Road House is a monotonously by-the-numbers film where even the punches ring false. It's wiser to steer clear of this remake and seek out decent entertainment elsewhere.

Hypnotic (2023)

Direction: Robert Rodriguez
Country: USA

Director Robert Rodriguez made a name for himself in the ‘90s with rowdy, bloody movies such as El Mariachi (1992), Desperado (1995), and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). His new release, Hypnotic, flagrantly misses the grip and frisson required for a solid thriller. 

A sixth sense plays a key factor in a story that doesn’t hold up; the chemistry between Ben Affleck and Alice Braga is bland; and Rodriguez directs with a heavy hand. Thus, the film never quite gels into a cohesive cinematic experience, and is, far too often, simply boring and too inconsistent to entertain.

Affleck is David Rourke, a tough police detective whose daughter was abducted in a park. Through therapy, he spent considerable time dealing with trauma and guilt, and was finally considered apt to return to duty. While investigating a series of mind-bending robberies, he finds out that the criminals behind them are strangely connected with the kidnapping of his daughter and a shady governmental program. Still, the mission to find her would be impossible without the help of psychic Diana Cruz (Braga). 

Aggressively formulaic, the film is stitched with clichés and implausibilities. Maybe if in the hands of David Cronenberg or Christopher Nolan, this story - co-written with Max Borenstein (Godzilla, 2014; Worth, 2020) - would have a different appeal. Hypnotic is as misleading as everything you see on the screen. I couldn’t help feeling bluffed in the end, sadly realizing how empty this experience was.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Direction: Taika Waititi
Country: USA 

After directing Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 with appreciable creativity, New Zealander director Taika Waititi plunges the God of Thunder into a synthetic puppet circus that, being as heavy-handed as downright silly, never finds an emotional center amidst the chaos. Waititi, who garnered hearty acclaim for works like What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), doesn’t know what to make with this super-talkative Thor (Chris Hemsworth), a totally devitalized superhero overshadowed by the mighty presence of Gorr (exemplarily performed by the amazing Christian Bale), a galactic anti-god killer. Prosthetic artist Adam Johansen did a wonderful job with the characterization of the villain, particularly noticeable with the black-and-white images. 

To defeat Gorr, Thor turns to the indifferent, moody Zeus (Russell Crowe) and surprisingly teams up with his ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who inherits all his powers and his former hammer. Tons of fireworks adorn this concoction of fragments from other movies - Avatar, Star Wars, Mad Max, and even Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. With a narrative that jolts rather than compels, the film tries to go everywhere but ends nowhere. It tells a story with no head and tail, fully packed with shabby dialogue and romantic mush. The absence of good laughs is also overwhelming, making it one of the weakest Marvel flicks ever. 

This Thor flick is the compendium of all things that should not be done when it comes to superhero movies. And the ludicrous parody keeps rolling at the sound of Guns N’ Roses’ powerful hits.

Deep Water (2022)

Direction: Adrian Lyne
Country: USA 

20 years after a so-so adaptation of Claude Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife, the distressingly erratic American filmmaker Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction; 1987; Indecent Proposal, 1993) returns with Deep Water, a crippled erotic thriller starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. They form a discredited married couple who, no longer bonded by love, agrees to an open relationship where the lack of limits becomes intolerable. While she takes sexual partners home, he makes sure to get rid of them in the most discreet manner possible. 

The trouble with this film begins with its story, which never plays fair with the audience. Lyne doesn’t explore the dark side; he merely exploits it, and nearly every scene becomes ridiculous and tedious. Moreover, this is another failed effort at making Affleck a decent actor, whereas Armas is far from convincing either in her uncontrolled sexual impulses and provocations. 

Overall, Deep Water is a poor effort; one that’s difficult to forgive. In addition to the unlikable characters and an abominable screenplay by Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction, 2008) and Sam Levinson (Euphoria TV series, 2019-2022), who worked in accordance with Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, the film is turned into a further embarrassment through forced coincidences, the absence of thrilling moments, and an unremarkable execution. Believe it or not, its most outstanding achievement was making me laugh without even trying to be funny.

Jackass Forever (2022)

Direction: Jack Tremaine
Country: USA 

Insanely introduced and episodically mounted, Jackass Forever, the fourth installment in the Jackass film series, really lacks taste. Two decades after the original’s release, director/producer Jack Tremaine captures the known Jackass troupe of masochists - led by co-producer Johnny Knoxville and augmented here with some new cast members - performing their deranged acts. This film, being as boring as the previous, insists on disorderly sequences of silly calculated pranks, nonsensical staged situations and dangerous games. However, in addition to nasty farts, animal bites, electric shocks, and a nauseating collective puke, the worst of the film lies in a fatiguing persistence for damaging testicles.

It's all very obvious, gross and repellent in its deplorable show off. Thus, it’s sad that anyone can claim any type of cleverness or even good entertainment to what is offered here. These men seem to have balls of steel and tough skin, but I'm not giving them enough credit for that. The most appealing character in the film? A brown bear.

Don't Look Up (2021)

Direction: Adam McKay
Country: USA

Boasting an out-of-this-world ensemble cast that includes Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Timothée Chalamet and Jonah Hill, Don’t Look Up defrauds all expectations by functioning as an overextended, unexciting and pathetic apocalyptic satire. Writer-director Adam McKay, who delivered likable biographical dramas in the past such as The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), totally misfires here, throwing himself headlong toward the ridiculous and attempting to embrace too many things at once in what is a 138-minute screening torture.

The story follows two lower-ranking Michigan astronomers, Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) and his PhD student Katie Dibiasky (Lawrence), who rush to the White House as soon as they realize that an unprecedented comet, wide in range, is heading toward the Earth. The impact will certainly destroy our planet, but in the oval office - the unqualified president Janie Orlean (Streep), her no-brains son and chief of staff, Jason (Hill), and their favorite scientist, Peter Isherwel (Rylance) - couldn’t care less. The astronomers are also not taken seriously when invited to a precarious TV show hosted by the brainless journalists Brie Enentee (Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry).

Staged to be funny, Don’t Look Up fails each and every move. I count no hits but rather thousands of misses in a film that, attempting to depict our times of disbelief in science in favor of conspiracy theories, misses the opportunity with the force of a 100-km wide comet moving at a jaw-dropping high speed.

What Carl Sagan would say? Don’t waste your time seeing this mess.

Manor House (2021)

Direction: Cristi Puiu
Country: Romania / other

Cristi Puiu is a Romanian director credited with accomplished films such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), Aurora (2010) and Sieranevada (2016). Manor House, his sixth feature, however, is an interminable philosophical debate set in the 19th-century Transylvania that doesn’t take us anywhere beyond aristocratic pretentiousness. 

The film, based on a text by Russian philosopher Vladimir Salovyov, denotes a remarkable cinematography by Tudor Vladimir Panduru (My Happy Family; Graduation) and an impeccable, evocative mise en scène that ceases to create an impact as the tedium of the conversation gradually installs.

This plot-less exercise centers on a Christmas gathering hosted by Nikolai (Frédéric Schulz-Richard), an aristocrat landowner, who seems to enjoy the company of his four argumentative guests - the Franco-Russian politician Edouard (Ugo Broussot), the ironic middle-aged Madeleine (Agathe Bosch), the young pious Olga (Marina Palii), and Ingrida (Diana Sakalauskaité), the wife of a Russian general. In their complex examinations, the group addresses war and peace, God and the antichrist, death and sins, Russia and Europe, reason and conscience, politeness and human progress. Puiu also gives us a quick glimpse of the servants’ work and behavior around the house, which is the most interesting part of the film. 

These erudite discussions, sometimes recalling the elegant formalism of Manoel de Oliveira, are captured by excessively long takes where the actors, with more or less theatrical demeanor, vomit their thoughts with no interruption or restraint. Can you imagine a film that you have to wait an entire hour for something to happen - an abrupt faint, in the case - and absolutely nothing comes from that? Puiu was never more obstinate and futile than in Manor House.

Coming 2 America (2021)

Direction: Craig Brewer
Country: USA

After the successful collaboration in Dolemite is My Name (2019), director Craig Brewer and actor Eddie Murphy blur the picture with a more-miss-than-hit second installment of Prince Akeem’s adventures in America. This time, the African character not only becomes the sovereign king of Zamunda but also travels to Queens, New York, in search for an illegitimate son left behind without his knowledge. To aggravate the family imbroglio, his son, Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), demands that his tacky mother, Mary (Leslie Jones), move with him to Africa.

The visuals, mounted with great panache, are powerless to compensate the lack of creative inspiration throughout. Neither as titillating nor as funny, the circus is drenched with outdated jokes and predictable situations, and only the music scenes - featuring the female hip-hop duo Salt-N-Pepa, the soul diva Gladys Knight, and a choreographed dance act at the sound of Prince’s “Gett Off” - could stir some enthusiasm. 

The finale’s grand party reunites Akeem’s friends from Queens, with Murphy resurrecting the soul man Randy Watson and his Sexual Chocolate band with that retro glow that, working fine in the 1980’s, doesn’t impress anymore. 

No one should expect something clever from a sloppy round trip from Zamunda to America that comes relentlessly burdened with clichés of all stripes.

The Witches (2020)

Direction: Robert Zemeckis
Country: USA

Robert Zemeckis, the director who gave us Back to the Future and Forrest Gump, fails to provide adequate entertainment with The Witches, a cinematic flop with serious issues imposing to any valid credentials in the categories of animated fantasy and horror comedy. Anne Hathaway as The Grand High Witch, and Octavia Spencer as a witch-sensitive grandma, star in a flabby adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 novel of the same name, which had been successfully tackled by Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now; Walkabout) in 1990.

The script was penned by Zemeckis, Kenya Harris and Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth; The Shape of Water), with the latter being also credited as a co-producer together with Alfonso Cuáron (Gravity; Roma). The narration is by Chris Rock. 

The promising beginning quickly morphed into a ridiculous fantasy - an authoritarian Hathaway floats and shouts annoyingly, witches evaporate in the air, kids are transformed into ludicrous mice… everything is so painfully boring. The competent photography by Don Burgess, who has been working intermittently with Zemeckis since Forrest Gump, is not enough to make us waste almost two hours of our time with this terrible mess. Zemeckis and his associates really overdid, losing the sense of focus. This isn’t a fun one to watch, and it’s not even weird enough to make me like it a little.

Anna (2019)

Direction: Luc Besson
Country: USA / France

With Anna, the 60-year-old French director Luc Besson descends to an even lower level when in comparison with his previous efforts. The director is known for some heavy-handedness and an enduring fondness for having attractive women playing violent characters - Anne Parillaud in La Femme Nikita (1990), Rie Rasmussen in Angel-A (2005), and Scarlett Johansson in Lucy (2014), are some examples.

Wrapped in tawdry schemes, this debilitated espionage action thriller and trashy femme fatale charade is symptomatic of the incapacity and obtuseness demonstrated by the filmmaker over the years.

The sloppy, tone-deaf script rushes things out when not repeatedly jumping back and forth in time, shaping Russian model Anna Poliatova (Sasha Luss) as one of the most feared assassins working for the government. Lascivious and ultra-violent, she flirts with the KGB and the CIA and dares to play chess with her superiors. Besson, however, contradicts the necessity of having a strong winning strategy and a wider vision. Overdoing the action scenes to the point of ridicule and infusing them with every little cliche you can imagine, he delivers a terrible film. Not even Helen Mirren as the head of the KGB saves Anna from being a torturing experience.

Gemini (2018)

Directed by Aaron Katz
Country: USA

I see Aaron Katz’s “Gemini” as a boring C movie. The director, a Portland native, caught my attention in the past with pretty solid moves, cases of the mystery-drama “Cold Weather” and the amusing road trip comedy “Land Ho!”.

Carrying insipid erotic tones, this unemotional new drama turned into a bland detective story stars Zoë Kravitz (daughter of rock star Lenny Kravitz) and Lola Kirke (“Mistress America”), respectively Heather Anderson, an ennuied movie celebrity, and Jill LeBeau, her loyal personal assistant. After a last-minute refusal to participate in a Hollywood movie that had been in production for five years, Heather makes a bunch of people furious, including Greg (Nelson Franklin), the writer-director, and Jamie (Michelle Forbes), her agent.

Out of the blue and without a purpose, the actress borrows a gun from Jill, who shoots it accidentally in the morning of the same day that she found her friend lying dead on the floor of her own apartment with five bullets in her body. Not only the characters mentioned above threatened to kill her but also her sly ex-boyfriend Devin (Reeve Carney), who desperately seeks an alibi for the night of the murder. Just in case.

Other persons who have interacted with her recently are Stan (James Ransone), an extremely impertinent paparazzo, top model Tracy (Greta Lee), our celebrity’s secret new girlfriend, and a nosy fan who upset her with a forbidden question about her love life. The one in charge of the murder case is Detective Edward Han (John Cho), who seemed too condescending and trivial in his procedures to solve it efficiently.

“Gemini” reveals a blatant tackiness in the way the scenes are mounted and delivers extremely poor dialogues. Although talented, Katz ran out of ideas for his latest effort, arranging the scenes frivolously and setting highly inconsistent moods throughout. According to one of the characters, three factors lead to a killer - motive, opportunity, and capacity. In my eyes, Katz overlooked all of them.

Mother! (2017)

Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Country: USA

Only very few great filmmakers didn’t stumble in their careers. Stanley Kubrick is certainly one of them, occupying the top of a list that also includes Billy Wilder, Luis Bunuel, and David Lean. As an example of the present time, I can point Paul Thomas Anderson.
 
This introduction is just to say that this is not the case of the American helmer Darren Aronofsky, who conquered me with superlative works such as “Black Swan”, “The Wrestler”, “Pi”, and “Requiem For a Dream”, but failed to engage with trifles like “The Fountain” and “Noah”. However, if the latter two demonstrated to be shaky and debilitated in their conception, his brand new thriller, “Mother!”, feels highly formulaic and infuriatingly decrepit, not to mention pathetic.

Forcing ambiguity and obscurantism, the director not only messed up his writing with futile symbolism, but also didn’t give names to any of the characters.
Javier Bardem plays a vain literary author who is struggling with writer’s block. He lives secluded somewhere in the country with his insecure, childless wife, embodied by Jennifer Lawrence, who manages and fixes everything in the huge house when not paralyzed with uncanny seizures.

Even still bonded by love, their life is immersed in cold monotony for quite some time, and nothing better, according to the novelist, than housing a weird, dysfunctional married couple to stimulate creativity. 
The strange man (Ed Harris) is a doctor and also a staunch fan of the writer. In fact, he is dying, and the kind invitation to stay with his idol for an indefinite period of time is accepted like a grace. He brings his nosy, impertinent wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) to stay with him, causing discomfort and anxiety in the confused Lawrence. Serious trouble coincides with the arrival of the strangers’ unbalanced sons.

Up to this occurrence, one still searches for something palpable, giving Aronofsky’s plot the benefit of the doubt. Illusion! From this moment on, the film falls into ludicrous situations, including anarchic home invasions, which not even Lawrence's charm was able to repair. Moreover, Bardem’s character, choosing fame over family, feels phony in his vanity. The actor was never accomplished in his role.

"Mother!" may be visually arresting but it’s hollow at its core, embracing an implausible, nearly-surreal darkness that is inept and devoid of any sense.
As one of the worst movies of 2017, this is a clear sign that Mr. Aronofsky needs urgent help for his next script.

The Circle (2017)

Directed by James Ponsoldt
Country: USA

“The Circle” is a drag of a psychological thriller, in which nothing works favorably. I was expecting something more exciting from James Ponsoldt, a skillful director who brought us little gems such as “The Spectacular Now” and “The End of the Tour”. He co-wrote the script with Dave Eggers based on the latter’s 2013 novel of the same name.

Emergent actress Emma Watson embodies Mae Holland, who enthusiastically embraces The Circle, an Internet-related organization headed by Mr. Bailey (an apathetic Tom Hanks), who is persuasive about his ideas and generous in his gratifications.

Blinded by ambition and boosted by self-confidence, Mae undertakes a delicate role in the company after being rescued from an unsettling solo kayak adventure. Her obsession with the job costs her one good friend and puts her parents in a very embarrassing situation.

Chip implants, fancy minuscule cameras, overwhelming control techniques, and powerful communication systems based on the Internet are all technological baits that ended up being pointless in a story where the dramatic side was ridiculously feeble.

Other films, like “Red Road”, have succeeded in addressing surveillance as a relevant conditioner of freedom, but that is not the case in “The Circle”.
On top of ineffective, intellectually limited, and emotional parched, the film is way too long, lacking proper tension and fluent narrative.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

Directed by Guy Ritchie
Country: USA

The legendary King Arthur, his powerful sword, Excalibur, and his heroic deeds in medieval times were addressed a few times before in the movies with variable outcomes. Some of them opted for a more classical approach like the interesting “Camelot” by Joshua Logan or “Excalibur” by John Boorman. Some others are a total waste of time like Antoine Fuqua’s 2004 “King Arthur”. To me, the more successful ones were those that added some creativity and a hint of boldness to the tale such as the beautifully unorthodox “Lancelot of the Lake” by Bresson and “Percival” by Rohmer, which are directly related to the topic.

Guy Ritchie also intended to do something creative on “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”, but roundly failed his test. He lamentably relied on too many frivolous fireworks and a lousy plot that among other feeble aspects, lacks fantasy, charm, and any sort of interest. 

The trio of screenwriters, Joby Harold, Lionel Wigram, and Ritchie, were the ones who set up this repulsive machination, which is devoid of any possible magic and mysticism by incorporating giant monsters and terrible slo-mo fighting sequences. The tale takes a similar path and activates the same strategic baits of those terrible apocalyptic catastrophe fantasies embraced by Roland Emmerich.

The story typically follows Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) on his efforts to retrieve the legitimate throne that was taken from him by his evil uncle and king of Mordred, Vortigern (Jude Law). To achieve his mission, he teams up with a small legion of rebels composed of old and new friends, and benefits from the help of Maggie (Annabelle Wallis), the villain’s maid who resolves to help the Resistance.

Over the course of two infinitely tedious hours, we can observe that Ritchie dropped the medieval atmosphere in favor of a sloppy urbanity whose unpolished settings were recklessly framed by the cinematographer John Mathieson (“Gladiator”, “Logan”). Moreover, instead of a king or, at least, a knight, Hunnam looks like a rock singer while the combination of imagery and music could only be useful for a promotional video clip of some heavy metal band. 

It’s hard to believe how the director of the praised “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” could have descended so low.

There is no heart and even less soul in this mish-mashed lackluster film, already one of my first choices for the worst film of the year. 
Do yourself a favor and stay away from this aberration!

The Neon Demon (2016)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Country: USA / France / Denmark

Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn is capable of the best and the worst. His latest film “The Neon Demon”, which he also co-wrote, confirms his recent lack of inspiration and an increasing necessity of shocking us through stories with no substance. The strategy is somehow related to that one used in his nauseating previous work, “Only God Forgives”, his second association with Ryan Gosling after the well-accepted “Drive”.
As expected, the story is soaked in blood and wrapped in darkness and mystery, however, it fails roundly to bring something original, interesting, or even entertaining to our contemporary cinematic universe.

The film is as vulgar as the world of fashion it depicts, and follows Jesse (Elle Fanning), an ambitious and attractive 16-year-old orphan who signs a contract with an established modeling agency from L.A. with the condition to tell everyone she’s 19. She befriends Ruby (Jena Malone), a make-up artist who seems worried about her well-being, offering prompt help for anything she might need. 
Not only Jesse’s naivety is misleading, but also everything else around her. From photographers to models, everyone seems to have something to grasp and take advantage of, or something to envy in regard to the young and inexperienced Jesse, a sad and lonely rising star in a field of delusions. The only character with a minimum of decency is Dean (Karl Glusman), a young man who nurtures some true feelings for Jesse, but is quickly put aside due to his reluctance to play dishonest games.
In parallel to Jesse’s career account, there’s an uninteresting mystery story regarding the cheap motel where Jesse is installed.

With the music and visuals playing a vital role, Mr. Refn sets up a depressingly macabre scenario where lust and blood intertwine in a surreal way.
His characters are clearly sick in the mind, the tones are morbid, and the posture is tendentiously abhorrent, despite the little moments of curiosity it might arise.
The contrived “The Neon Demon” showcases beautiful women whose intellectual emptiness makes them repellent.
Mr. Refn gets lost in pretentious trivialities and unintelligent strategies that frustrate more than captivate.

Ghostbusters (2016)

Directed by Paul Feig
Country: USA

The new “Ghostbusters”, released by Columbia Pictures and directed by the comedy expert Paul Feig (“Bridesmaids”, “The Heat”, “Spy”), is now part of those unnecessary remakes adulterated for the worse.
The comedy, written by Mr. Feig and Katie Dippold, was adapted from Ivan Reitman’s 1984 original version, which starred Bill Murray (he has a brief appearance here too), Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis as three paranormal savvies whose goal is to keep the Big Apple clean from mischievous ghosts and evil spirits.

In this new adventure, Mr. Feig makes a significant alteration, though. He replaces the three original male characters for three feminine ones, played by Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and Kate McKinnon. While the former two actors had previously worked under the guidance of the director, McKinnon joins him for the first time with a surprising wallop.

Drs. Abby Yates (McCarthy) and Erin Gilberts (Wiig) were partners in a book that considered and supported the existence of ghosts. However, each of them took their own way when the book revealed to be a disappointment in terms of acceptance. 
The two women will enthusiastically reunite again to investigate a serious case related to the haunted Aldridge mansion. Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon), an atypical and presumably gay engineer who researches the paranormal in the Columbia University together with Yates, joins them in the mission that fails to entertain due to its ridiculously forced details. 
Before that, a maleficent ghost was seen flying over the subway tracks by Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), a fearless MTA employee who was promptly accepted as a Ghostbusters member due to her curiosity, bravery, and availability.

Besides fighting against countless ghosts - some of them are winged and green like creepy aliens, others take a more human shape or look like toys - the team also has to deal with the Mayor Bradley (Andy Garcia) who considers they operate unsafely and are causing a mass hysteria in the city. However, their main concern is Rowan North (Neil Casey), a freak that is summoning ghosts through his devices and assumes the form of the Ghostbusters’ logo in giant proportions.

With insipid jokes and predictable action scenes populated by uninteresting characters, “Ghostbusters” is a stereotyped comedy that spreads more goofiness than cleverness.

Honeyglue (2015)

Directed by James Bird
Country: USA

“Honeyglue”, a lugubrious romance written and directed by James Bird, got trapped in its own melodramatic tones and couldn’t free itself from that sticky viscosity. 
Fastidiously overstaged, the film never manages to convince and takes a steep decline after just a few minutes.

Morgan (Adriana Mather) and Jordan (Zach Villa) introduce themselves through video footage, adding that what we’re seeing is a digital love letter to each other and a farewell statement. Both have their heads shaved and they convey both assurance and a weird sense of fate.

The narrative immediately winds back to tell their peculiar love story. 
The couple met at a nightclub where Morgan, who was only given three months to live due to a galloping brain tumor, gets super curious about Jordan, a boy dressed as a girl. It was her birthday, and he seemed as much attracted to her as she was to him. Despite the instant chemistry between them, she gave him the wrong phone number while he stole her wallet. The next day, Jordan regrets the bad deed and pays her a visit to return her belongings. However, her parents get shocked with the way he dresses and talks.
Despite this prejudice, the couple falls in love and decides not only to get married, but also live the three months left doing everything that might come to their minds. The enthusiasm leads them to rob a little store, to pay a visit to Jordan’s estranged mother, and to become the center of the attention in a bar – the most contrived scene of the film.

I can’t find a good reason to recommend “Honeyglue”. 
If a story of this nature doesn’t touch you in the heart is because something is wrong with it. The ideas of tolerance, acceptance, and love are conveyed with a deplorable lack of freshness, likely because Mr. Bird has never found the adequate bright tones to do better than overload us with predictability and tedium. Actually, here, the word bright can only be associated to the tonality of its cinematography.

Endless Night (2015)

Directed by Isabel Coixet
Country: Spain / France / Bulgaria

“Nobody Wants the Night”, a Spain/France/Bulgaria co-production, is a bummer of a drama directed by Isabel Coixet from a screenplay by Miguel Barros.  
I consider it one of the worse, if not the worst feature from the Spanish filmmaker whose uneven career comprises solid dramas such as “My Life Without Me”, “The Secret Life of Words”, and “Elegy”, but also other totally dispensable dramatic exercises, cases of “Yesterday Never Ends”, “Maps of the Sounds of Tokyo”, and “Another Me”.
Last year, the tolerable rom-com, “Learning to Drive”, starring the great Patricia Clarkson and the sober Ben Kingsley, seemed to bring Ms. Coixet back to acceptable standards. But unfortunately, “Nobody Wants the Night”, a disastrous blend of soapy drama and futile survival adventure set in 1908, proves the contrary.

The gifted French actress, Juliette Binoche, who did great in last year’s “The Clouds of Sils Maria”, was helpless to give depth to the character of Josephine Peary, the obstinate wife of the Arctic explorer, Robert Peary, who is trying to be the first man to reach the North Pole.
The super confident, Josephine, rejoices while hunting a bear and is very persuasive when she wants something. An insatiable yearning for her husband makes her embark on a perilous journey to join him. In the company of an experienced Irish guide, Bram Trevor (Gabriel Byrne), and a few Arctic indigenous, she hits the snowy and rocky landscapes with tenacity and recklessness when it comes to facing the hardships of the bitter winter.

Even losing her faithful guide in the way, the impulsive Josephine arrives at the shelter where her husband should be, but only finds one of his fellow travelers whose fingers were eaten away by the cold, and Allaka (Rinko Kikuchi), a smiley Eskimo woman who was also eagerly waiting for Robert Peary.
Expecting a severe aggravation of the weather for the following weeks, everyone departs with the exception of Josephine and Allaka who decide to wait for Robert, the man they both unconditionally love.

If the first part was bad, the second was abominable. 
The verbal interaction between the women is often irritating and dull while they keep trying to overcome the cultural barriers that make them apart.
At the time when their lives become threatened, they finally understand there's no other alternative besides stand together and unite forces in order to survive. During this last segment, both sentimentality and artifice take over the scenes until we get to the meager conclusion.
The cinematography, by Jean-Claude Larrieu, is the only positive aspect of a poor adventure-drama whose script is the weakest link.

Hardcore Henry (2015)

Directed by Ilya Naishuller
Country: Russia / USA

“Hardcore Henry”, the super-violent directorial debut feature from Ilya Naishuller, is a pointless silliness that received wide acclaim in Russia, its origin country. 

Mr. Naishuller moves in every direction – sci-fi, action, thriller, horror, and even war – trying to convince us of his capabilities through the creation of anarchic scenarios and the manifestation of pseudo offbeat attitudes. Sadly, the best he could do was turning this dystopian nonsense into a terrifying bad movie.

The story is totally told from the perspective of Henry, whose eyes we never see because they are represented by the annoying handheld camera that frantically moves and zooms around.
When Henry wakes up in a space lab’s water tank he can’t speak or remember how he got in there. Estelle (Haley Bennett), the scientist who’s replacing his limbs and reconstructed his body after a harrowing accident, says she’s his wife. All of a sudden, the lab is attacked by a telekinetic villain, Akan (Danila Kozlovsky), but the couple manages to flee, landing in Russia where more mercenaries are waiting for them.
Jimmy (Sharlto Copley) is an enigmatic British ally that rescues Henry while Estelle can’t help being kidnapped by Akan’s persistent troops. 
As a man of many lives, Jimmy is permanently in contact with death. Thus, he wants to make sure he gives the right orientation to Henry, who must find a man called Slick Dimitry and take his heart since it contains the fundamental charging pump that could keep him alive. 
He sets off on an excruciating journey with a triple objective: to prolong his life, rescue his wife, and exterminate the enemies.

The film shows an uncontrollable eagerness in shocking us through savage acts perpetrated by the despicable characters. It uses and abuses of chaotic situations that are often accompanied by a hardcore musical score (just to match its title).
Parched in terms of message and tastelessly directed, the barbaric “Hardcore Henry” feels gratuitous in its brawls, disorganized in its structure, muddled in its storytelling, and compromising as an entertainment.

Love (2015)

Directed by: Gaspar Noé
Country: France / Belgium

Movie Review: Disgracefully, Gaspar Noé’s “Love” is one of the worst movies of the year. This whimsical creation from the shocking French filmmaker, author of the interestingly disturbing “Irreversible” and “Enter the Void”, depicts the tortuous relationship of a couple translated into a melodramatic sexual trip to nowhere, part of a null plot punctuated with hideous dialogues and an emotional chaos that feels staged all the time. The film starts with a steady long shot of Murphy (Karl Glusman), a filmmaker wannabe, and his former girlfriend, Electra (Aomi Muyock), masturbating each other at the sound of a classical tune. Open-minded with regard to experiencing drugs and exploring their sexuality, the couple occasionally turns into a threesome or embarks in obscure parties whose only purpose is discovering different people and pleasures among orgies. After taking us into these orgies through spasmodic flashbacks that unsuccessfully try to build a balanced narrative, Mr. Noé clarifies that Murphy has a son with Omi (Klara Kristin), a neighbor who had spent one night with the couple. However, the pregnancy wasn't a result of that particular night, but of an infidelity when Electra was out for the weekend. The relationship comes immediately to an end, leading to Electra’s disappearance and leaving the disconsolate Murphy abandoned to his miserable life and thoughts, which are transmitted by a voice-over along the film. Many scenes translate in a nauseating self-pity and a sporadic hysteria that aggravate even more the tasteless plot commonly illustrated by repetitive and unnecessary 3D sex scenes, psychedelic drug trips, and an overall artificial execution. The tacky acting and the lousy score by Lawrence Schulz and John Carpenter were other factors that roundly failed in “Love”, a self-proclaimed sentimental sexuality that it’s not even sexy. Here, the stupid insistence on presenting explicit sex should not be mistaken by boldness. Other filmmakers did it with better results – Vincent Gallo in “Brown Bunny”, Abdel Kechiche in “Blue is the Warmest Color”, and even Lars Von Trier in “The Idiots” took advantage of this factor in a non-monotonous way. What’s the point of introducing a close-up shot from the top of a penis ejaculating? In his eagerness of becoming original, Mr. Noé fell in muddy territory and the result is an infuriating pretentiousness a.k.a. a total waste of time.