Category Archives: movie

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(movie) The Red Book Ritual (2022) – not really successful anthology horror!

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The Red Book Ritual evolves around three young people. One night in a house supposedly belonging to the missing witch, they play a game asking questions to the ancient book with red covers which has been in the house since forever. They open the book and read sentences from it like answers to their questions. They get scared and ask the book how do they get out of the game. The book’s answer is read me! So, they start to read the stories from the book as segments of this anthology horror movie. For starters, I must say that even main storyline in this anthology, or the binding story premise is stupid and three main characters are so lame and thrashy that you can’t really build your sympathy for neither of them. The four-five segments or stories in this anthology are done poorly and although they build up in me some interest and some scary moments these are so few and far between. I must say that the Asian horror segment is most interesting to me, I wondered all the time whether it is so poorly synchronized with characters’ voices purposefully or is it just thrash like other things in this movie. This one doesn’t last long, hour and twenty minutes but sometimes feels like a drag and some of the segments are just not ended or looks like they have not been written until the end. The ending is like the movie as a whole, confusing, done in a hurry, for what is worse made in a thought that it is cool and it is super, but this one is under the radar for us horror fans. One of the not so good that came out in recent times.

Gore effects: 3/10 axes – there are couple of full frontal nudity scenes and couple of bloody and carnage scenes, but in all very poor.

Acting: 2/10 axes – all of the actors are unknown and no one stands out from thrashy over acting or under acting. Just plain bad.

Conclusion: 3/10 axes – I will give this one three out of ten, simply because I love horror and I love horror anthology subgenre, but this is one of the lousy ones. Rather spend hour and twenty watching or doing something else. Go get better movie or a great horror book.

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(movie) ‘Russkiy Reyd’ aka ‘Russian Raid’ (2020)- The remake in a Russian way

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Nikita is former Russian Spetsnaz operative soldier whose father is killed by famous criminal The Ghost when Nikita was small boy. Now, a shady businessman hires Nikita and a crew of tough fighters to neutralize large security detachment in a liquor factory so he could extort it from the shareholders. What they don’t realize is that real owners of the factory are Ghost and his men and he sends his private army to dispose of intruders. Now, this is the story of Russian action movie that copies the more popular and similar in story ‘The Raid’, a phenomenal action movie from Indonesia. But, it copies it just in idea, realization is much worse. Action scenes are poor and stupid first half of the movie when Nikita and his crew fight security detachment by beating them and tying them down. When Ghost and his criminals join the fight, it starts for real and it turns into one man against many, cat and mouse fight and shootout throughout the factory and its tight corridors until the final fight between Nikita and Ghost, one of the most dangerous men in Russia with connections deep within the military. This movie suffers from same syndrome that most of the newer Russian movies suffer. It starts good, goes and runs good and then gets lost somewhere along the way and its ending is poorly executed. ‘Russian Raid’ is not the only Russian movie that suffers from that syndrome quite the contrary.

Acting: 6/10 axes – there are mostly stereotyped characters, again typical for newer Russian cinematography. But acting is stretching from stereotypical almost plastic characters and acting to main character Nikita, who is larger than life, along with main villain Ghost, thus reminding me of John Woo and his Hong Kong contemporaries.

Conclusion: 7/10 axes – this is a decent action packed movie, good for one time evening watching and not something you will keep in mind forever. Shootout scenes are tense and worth watching, along with some of the fighting scenes too. Not food for brains, but action relaxation movie.

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(movie) Air(2023) – biografsko sportska drama o drugoj strani marketinga

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Priča ovog filma vraća nas nazad u osamdesete kad su Nike, Adidas i Converse vodili ratove tko, odnosno koji poznati zvijezda sportaš će reklamirati njihove modele patika. Tu ulijeće Sonny Vacaro(Matt Damon), šef sportskog marketinga Nikea, koji pokreće borbu da Nike dobije tadašnju mladu i poznatu košarkašku zvijezdu Michael Jordana kako bi reklamirao, odnosno kako bi nazvali patike po njemu. Možda radnja filma nije nešto privlačna, ali vjerujte mi da se film gleda kao napetica, pošto Sonny pokušava uvjeriti bossa Phila Knighta(Ben Affleck-koji je ujedno i redatelj ovog filma), da sav budžet preusmjeri na jednog čovjeka, pa pratimo ups i downse prilikom pregovora s Jordanovom obitelji, pogotovo majkom koja je zapravo pravi boss obitelji, podmetanja drugih korporacija i vjeru u osobni uspjeh prije svega, te vjeru u sebe koja je prilično inspirativna u ovoj priči. Sva glumačka ekipa je odlična od Damon/Affleck ponove suradnje, te Chris Tuckera, Jasona Batemana, Marlon Wayansa do fenomenalne Viole Davis kao mame Jordan koja je naprosto briljirala u ovom filmu. Pitanje je koliko je istine prikazano u samoj priči filma, a koliko je sve to skupa holivudizirano i romansirano, ali meni je film bio baš dobar i napet, kao i inspirativan.

Gluma: 10/10 sjekira – odlična glumačka postava, Affleck uvijek odličan kao redatelj sa svojim projektima.

Zaključak: 9/10 sjekira – volim pogledati dobre biografske filmove po istinitim događajima, pa mi je ovaj sjeo baš dobro. Kao što rekoh, pitanje je koliko je sve istina, ali priča je odrađena odlično u filmu.