A British American science fiction directed by Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean and Michael Pena.
A hasty takeoff from Mars leaves one astronaut stranded. He must survive with the equipment he has there while a rescue is arranged.
This was very long in duration, but the pacing and action held my interest. The writing was full of stereotypical cliches, mainly in the dialogue. The plot held my attention, but I think the characters were a little shallow and stereotypical. There were also some sections of the plot that were not believable, even in a science fiction world. The camera-work was good, including lots of shot variety, movement and good composition. I could see everything that was going on. The audio was not so great. Although the dialogue was audible, the music selection was horrid. This is from 2015, not 1975. The number of characters was astronomical, but number of locations was slightly limited. Obviously, the sets, costumes and special effects took up much of the 108 million dollar budget. I think the goal of the film was to lure the money from a general family audience. I rate this o.k. because entertainment value balanced cliches.
An American science fiction directed by Rian Johnson, starring Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordeon-Levitt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels.
A man works as a "Looper". He kills men sent from the future and disposes of the bodies. In the future, a new boss called The Rainmaker takes over and starts having the Loopers killed. The main character ends up not killing the future him who goes on a quest to kill The Rainmaker as a child.
Not bad, but it sure had flaws. The plot was extremely complex to the point where different outcomes of the same event were shown. The characters were a little too shallow to be playing in this complex plot, though. They had back-story, but it was simplistic and they did not develop during the film. The video was not to my liking. It all looked fine and the special effects were amazing. My issue is that the editing made things very unclear about who was where and when. A prime example is the action scene at Sara's house. There was a shot in the middle that looked like it was taking place at a different location. The audio was decent with compression, but I would hate to imagine it without because I could hear the volume swells from the compressor compensating for drastically different audio levels. Overall, a decent film that was alright to watch, but had some major flaws. I rate this tolerable.
