Quick Movie Review

Antiviral (2012, Canada) | Rating: 3/5
Four out of five of the movies in this review were found through previews in other independent or lesser known movies. Obviously, I was drawn in by the premise and the visuals, so I just wanted to get that out of the way instead of repeating myself over and over again in the same post. In the real world, we do live in a culture where people idolize celebrities to an unhealthy degree. You can find evidence of that in promotions of Korean and Japanese idols or even My Strange Addiction or similar shows where people spend ridiculous amounts of money dedicated to their favorite celebrity. Some go so far as to follow this person from place to place, hack their social media accounts, stalk their family, or even the extreme of plastic surgery to look exactly like them. I feel like this movie is good commentary to that obsession and idolization as people pay to be injected with the same diseases as their favorite celeb. Some may even go so far as to literally consume them as well in meat market places. I think I would recommend this movie mostly because of the premise. The movie is decent overall. I think its weakness is the dialogue and a bit of the characters, but the premise and visuals are intriguing enough to keep you engaged.



Mockingbird (2014, USA) | Rating: 1.5/5
If you were given a camcorder as gift from an unknown person, what would you do? According to this movie, you think nothing of it and just accept that you won something without any questions. Unfortunately, accepting such a silly conclusion leads to dire consequences: you've accepted participating in a game. There are definitely better and more entertaining movies than this that deal with a similar concept such as Saw and Would You Rather?. In this movie, we have three groups of contestants: a woman, a couple, and a clown. They all have to follow different rules to win the ultimate prize. Of course, the prize varies between each group. Unfortunately, the movie is very unbalanced on what they show with these people which makes me care less about whatever happens to them. The woman screams and whimpers majority of the time, the couple has a little story so there is a little care about them, and the clown is easily unlikable and mostly unrealistic. Unfortunately, a lot of the clear focus is on the clown: this middle aged, unemployed man that still lives with his nagging mother. He's given the most interesting tasks compared to the other two set of participants. I would definitely skip out on this movie. It's not particularly interesting, story or character-wise, and, of course if you have a clown phobia, I wouldn't watch it.



Not Safe For Work (2014, USA) | Rating: 2/5
A law firm is handling a controversial, yet important case and there's some shady dealings lingering about it that involve the mafia. Yeah, I feel like this has been done before. I'll agree with an IMDb comment on wishing that there was more detail about the case to understand the risk involved, but the movie was pretty decent. It's a typical cat and mouse type movie with a regular office guy getting fired and turning into the hero. I enjoyed the chase and I thought the hitman was effectively intimidating. In short, it was an entertaining chase, but pretty predictable. Also, why the cliffhanger ending?



John Wick (2014, USA) | Rating: 2/5
"The best Keanu Reeves movie since The Matrix!" I guess they kinda got that right, considering Reeves hasn't had any stand out roles since then, which is pretty sad. I'm about to make a few people, including myself, feel old but that's 16 years ago. Crazy, right? Well, this story is definitely less convoluted than The Matrix franchise. In fact, this movie barely has a plot and what there is of a plot is really...weak. It felt like 98% of the movie was action scenes and the remaining 2% was dialogue, because I barely remember any conversations going on. Doesn't help that I hard time reading the stylistically placed subtitles. I've been watching subtitled things for roughly 11 years, I'm used to them being placed on the bottom of the screen in white or yellow font with a black outline. Similar to Only God Forgives, the visuals were very appealing and the action scenes were nice to watch, even though they were a bit repetitive at times. Once again, it's unfortunate I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I'd hope, especially since there's a sequel rumored to be in the works.



Honeymoon (2014, USA) | Rating: 2/5
Something about this movie kinda interested me and I had no idea what to expect from it. These little indie films are really hard to decipher when it comes to quality, but for the most part I never really have expectations for them which saves on any chance of being disappointed or upset. The movie does start off a bit slow, which isn't a problem for me as long as there's something that hooks you into it, and it seems like a typical story about a newlywed couple. Obviously, something strange occurs, but you don't completely find out until you approach the end. What you find out about the wife Bae is a combination of wtf, why, predictability, and a tiny bit of disappointment. I feel like there was potential in certain places in this movie, especially the lack of elaboration with Bae's relationship with this childhood friend, but the conclusion is just a complete let down from the almost intriguing build up. It's really up to you whether you want to watch this one or not, but you're not missing anything if you choose not to.


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