Kaka

Michael Bay is searching and doesn't know which way to go. He may be aging and maturing in certain creative aspects, but at the same time he is dramatically losing his directorial touch and there is almost nothing left of what entertained his millions of fans and die-hard worshippers in the 90s and 00s. Nowadays they're more or less experiments meant to evoke some sort of shift in the viewer's perception, but I want the old Armageddon and 14 cuts per second back, not a half digital copy of Black Hawk Down where the dying and marine feeling is similarly raw but formally lost before our eyes. The viewer is eventually hit by explosions and bullets, but not entirely in a positive way. It's not as it should be.

Inspiration from The Wolf of Wall Street (lead actors, dynamics), well chosen protagonists and Steve Carell playing me. A heartwarming film for people in the business, and recipients who don't understand it will bemoan how little story there is and how it's too much about numbers and mortgages.

The event of 2015. From the first scene of the camp ambush it is clear that the filmmaking is on another level (the camera and the minimum of editing!). Although many things are unnecessarily discussed (e.g. the actors), the experience of watching this raw and dirty survival story was widely expected, Iñarritú is at his strongest in his depiction of anything. In terms of the script, it’s nothing too revelatory, after all, the driving force behind the entire film is revenge – one of the most primal and rewarding themes. But the hallmark that this Mexican manages to imbue it with through his elaborate formal style makes for a uniquely opulent and pure genre film. It is too long – its single flaw. If they had just stayed strictly down-to-earth and avoided the Terrence Malick-like dream sequence, it would have been flawless.

Only a person who is or was in the shoes of Anne Hathaway's character will see the true heart of this film and the best in it. The stress, pressure, and perpetual not getting things done is almost palpable through the screen. It's a hit and probably the highlight of the year in terms of lightweight American pop cinema. Breathtaking interaction between Hathaway and De Niro. Too bad about the weaker finale. Emotions do take place in the middle when they are not wanted but they are direct.

Extremely indulgent, long and self-absorbed Tarantino, who set the Reservoir Dogs back 150 years in time, doubled the running time and changed about 20 percent of the script and dialogue. I wouldn't have expected something so unoriginal given his previous work. Of course the traditional long dialogue passages licked to absurdity are great, as are the lead actors and the expected splatter finale, but there have been enough of those spaghetti westerns. Topping it off is Tim Roth, who tries in vain to do the exact same gestures and creations as Christoph Waltz, who was clearly not up to the task for this winter romp. Where is the inventiveness, originality and multi-themed homage to everything possible and impossible with a ton of ideas at every turn that was so evident in Kill Bill?

The most artistic Helgeland I've seen yet. A film where everything works exactly according to the contours clearly laid out at the beginning – you expect everything to come, including the happy ending. Harrison Ford is a proper right-man owner, Chadwick Boseman is a straight black player, and the emotional high point doesn't quite come from all the right things (except perhaps the film's best scene – the smashing of the bat). It's not even the down-to-earth, suggestively progressive flick that Moneyball is, but it's lovely to watch, because it's all meticulously detailed and utterly mesmerizingly positive.

The essence of the best of the old films: the precisely dosed drops of nostalgia and at the same time a fully adaptable product of our time, that is, to the parameters we want and expect from a film today, that's exactly what Creed is. This is what I expected from Star Wars and didn't get. I expected nothing from Creed and got basically everything. Peaking emotions and sympathy for the main characters, especially Stallone, who has changed. He has become a sensitive actor, full of charisma and life experience, who can impress not only with a machine gun in his hand, but surprisingly agile and brilliant even in intimate scenes, where he uses in the most distinctive way those wise words that we all know, but not everyone wants to hear. For hardcore fans of the original series and for movie nostalgics, it will be great, because it has that cold winter street feel (the iconic last scene) of the original episodes and fortunately it's not as modern as the last Rocky. It's a must-see experience, just like the first one.

In 1991 it was enough to go our own way and not respect the social and financial system, today it has to be laced with spirituality and above all "we take the country, we give the country back". Nice, but a bit ill-conceived, because even these tough guys have to get money somewhere for their luxury cars, yacht parties, adrenaline sports and cool tattoos. Besides, you don't believe their talk one bit except for Edgar Ramirez – the guy is pure charisma. Too bad it didn't have more momentum and cleaner or more genre (action movie) content. Because the visuals and directorial ideas are fine, the locations are cool and the whole thing is technically and atmospherically strangely captivating (instead of rock hits there's mostly ambient post-rock) with cold greyish camera filters, plus, it’ll be a treat for extreme sports fans. This is the aspect where the film is definitely strongest. The climbing scene is fantastic. Seeing it at home on bluray is totally enough though.

A bit of a retro flick, licked with the civility of Jack Reacher with music that sounds like Atticus Ross was bored at night and he recorded something so people wouldn’t complain. I didn't get much of a whiff of revenge, but I did get a whiff of a scripted, oddly conceived B-movie with an even odder plot twist in the middle, and quite predictable at that. There are a few well-crafted scenes, but otherwise it's a bland mess. The motivations of the characters are strange, the direction the story takes is hard to understand, and it is shifted by too many coincidences.

Joe Wright experiments instead of sticking to the concept of a subtle and rhythmic whirlwind of emotions like in Atonement. This theatrical attempt of his doesn't have the right grace, and thanks to the varying pace and the overall bland tuning of the film, it's boring in the finale, even with Keira Knightley giving a great performance – if it weren't for her, it would be mediocre. The fateful novel could have been used "the old-fashioned way" about 100 times better.