Why do these movies always have to be so depressing?! And this one was just depressing on a whole other level too... for a moment it seemed like they might opt for comedy, but then it picked up again. The darkness. The death and... well, bits of comedy even there but... it feels like realism at it's truest. Monumental. The ironies of life and death. The old Planet of The Apes movies don't have shit on this one after all.

I can't help feel like they could've skipped the odd monkey. The one in the jacket. But then again he's a complement to the human girl... the one who's just monkeying around. And there's so much message in this movie I can't even tell it. CGI is on point. Story-telling took a few dives after the first encounter, and it jumps around until they're all back in chains again, but when it's time for the final revolution: they're back in their essence like never before!

You'll see when you reach those final scenes. I can't even fight the CGI any longer, at least not in a movie like this. It works. It's awesome. This movie really didn't get the spotlight it should've, and we humans: we need to take care of ourselves a bit better from here on out.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

Set in a world with memory-recording implants, Alan Hakman is a cutter, someone with the power of final edit over people's recorded histories. His latest assignment is one that puts him in danger.

A fitting title if there ever was one! Though the description... it makes it all seem so much more than it is.

It's not an action movie. Not really. But it's not a boring movie either. The lack of projectile-based events that seem to be promised in the movie cover didn't leave me disappointed, as it seems to have left some other fellow reviewers - instead it just made it feel all the more authentic. If that's the right word for it for a movie of this genre... genre being sci-fi, though there's considerably little of both those elements. It looks and feels just like our own, current, home world. With one foreign element: the memory implant. Almost like the movie's a standpoint against it, should one ever be possible to make.

Robin Williams plays main character Hakman, in yet another future dystopia made like the old world with a little new-tech mixed in. It's not convincing per say, but stars a scary idea, a convincing character, and a personal tale that... really doesn't go the way you wanted it to.

It leaves your in an eerie state of mind. The suspense is real. It's there. It keeps boiling. It's not a perfect movie but... heavy. Worth a watch if you for some reason, like me, like delving into glimpses of what frightful flicks of fate out future might have in store for us. If we do its bidding. Good watch. Score based more on content than quality; a convincing cast more so than circumstance and scenery.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Time for yet another Purge movie! It's a sequel - but a prequel too, taking us back to a time before the by now within-franchise well-known, notorious New Founding Fathers of America had yet to come to power, and the experiment they then conducted on Staten Island, where for twelve hours the whole area was a lawless zone, and people were paid to stay, and to participate in what they expected would be an outbreak of crime and violence.

Instead people started Purge parties and just whiled out. For a while. Until Skeletor came stabbing...

From a purely political standpoint this might've been a mess, turning the multicultural disputes from earlier movies to a blacks VS whites thing, but I honestly didn't catch on to those arguments until I read some reviews. Lots of reviews. So negative. Is it really all that angled though? Is it?

If you go into this without paying political correctness or potential majority appeal any mind then: you'll most likely enjoy it. There's action. There's that creepy Purge night vibe. It's well-filmed and atmospheric, with some strong and deserving characters, and those glowing eyes! They really got something going with those. It's directed by none other than Michael Bay and Jason Blum, and stars actors such as Y'lan Noel, Mugga and Rotimi Paul. So what's there not to like? I'm also getting some GTA 3 vibes from the location.

Maybe I'll read up more, or see this again later, and cringe at my current level of cluelessness... but I'm just here for the action, and the atmosphere, and the fact that it plays with real and controversial topics is a definite plus, no matter how they're portrayed.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, Kiersey Clemons...? It's a younger cast, it's a way more modern setting, the special effects are way more special (I did like those), yet it just doesn't have the same FEELING as the first one. Why can't they capture that these days? What's wrong with the world today? Even in death.

At least that's how it starts out. It does get better, albeit maybe not entirely scary with all the surplus screaming and horror movie music, and party humor, but the medical lingo is at least way more authentic. The tech. The everything except for the grueling, unsettling set... of life and death.

It was cool to see Kiefer Sutherland appear here btw - he had a major role in the original movie. And as far as modern day scary movies go... this wasn't bad after all. It wasn't bad.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

Five medical students get together one night to assist one of them in dying, and bringing him back, as to learn the secrets of the life after. He comes back alright, after a lucid trip, a tunnel not of light but darkness to whatever's on the other side... and two more of the group decide to take the journey.

Yet it seems that something may have followed from the other side, and as Nelson struggles with his own demons the others compete as to who can stay under the longest before they come back, taking the search for answers further and further with each round. It's a dangerous and morbid game, and each time they get closer and closer to dying for real.

Considering the age of this movie I'm surprised at how good this was. It built up an atmosphere like I haven't seen in some time, the dreams interweave with reality, and as they edge each other onward the suspense just keeps building.

I feel like adding more words to this review will just ruin it at this point. Maybe this is one of the movies that truly started the existential sci-fi era, that reached it's peak with movies like Dark World and The Matrix around the shift of millennia. This really was... dark. On a psychological level. On an existential level... you know what they're really trying to say here. I don't know if I agree with it but I can't not be impressed by their attempt at it. Or maybe it really was all for the science.

I wonder how the new one compares... hard to believe it'll be a match for this one. I don't want to say it's perfect, so don't get your expectations unreasonably high here but: it gave me chills. Whole motion of emotions. Great movie.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

Two high school students become stranded on a tropical island and must rely on each other for survival. They learn more about themselves and each other while falling in love.

They tried to take Blue Lagoon into the modern age! And that went... okay.

The island bits were great. I love those. They were romantic, sensual, dreamy, existential... all of the things that made the original movie what it was, but the ending felt more like Cast Away than Blue Lagoon, and the party bits that surround the main trip... not worthy.

I'm also not a fan of the soap opera-like cuts between some of the scenes, but I guess they're all explained in that it is a TV movie. Budget and medium choice considered it's actually surprisingly good. For a TV movie I'd expect worse.

I enjoyed bits and pieces of this, and I liked the main characters - played by Indiana Evans and Brenton Thwaites, but the old movies still have a lot moew going for them. It was a story that suited the times, and though you could say it's a timeless story... they could've done this one better. It's not the Blue Lagoon way... not all the way.

 rated 3/5: not bad