Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I don’t normally watch war movies, but when I saw this movie advertised, I was immediately intrigued by the story of a soldier who wouldn’t ever fire a gun. And that was helped by the actors I recognised… although, having only seen Vince Vaughn in serious things, I was a bit unsure when I saw his name on the credits.

I found this movie to be really engaging. It was really easy to care about the characters; although towards the end, it was harder to differentiate between the different soldiers while the fighting was going on.

I really empathised with Desmond throughout this movie. I don’t know how true to life the earlier parts of the movie were, but if even a small part of it was true… well, I didn’t have a lot of respect for the soldiers and commander/sergeant after they attempted to force Desmond to leave. (He was far stronger than I think I would have been).

I liked being able to see Desmond and Dorothy’s relationship forming before he enlisted in the army. While that part of the movie seemed to go too fast, it was good to see Desmond’ relationship with his parents and brother. And it was particularly difficult to see what things were like with his father. While it was obvious Tom was suffering from PTSD, it was still hard to see how Desmond, Hal and their mother had to deal with it. And even though Tom did come through for Desmond, I didn’t think it made him a much better person.

There was a small amount of humour in this movie, at least before it got to the events at Hacksaw Ridge. I have no idea if there actually was a soldier who was naked throughout the first day of training, but it did work to relieve the tension… at least a little.

I really like Sam Worthington as an actor… but the character of Captain Glover was one I really disliked. While there was more depth to him shown as the movie went on, both him and Sergeant Howell came across as jerks for a long time.

There was a lot of violence and gore in this movie, to the point I thought it should have been an 18 rating rather than a 15. The film did show Desmond’s determination and as the movie went on, I was on the edge of my seat, wanting to see what would happen. And the ending of the movie, where it showed clips of the real-life people, was a nice touch.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have some mixed feelings about this movie. I liked the general atmosphere, but while I was watching, it felt very old-style… so when the characters used mobile phones or laptops, it seemed very strange.

I did like both Mia and Sebastian, but barring their first meeting, I didn’t really feel there was much in the way of conflict in their relationship. It wasn’t until more than halfway through that any real tension within their relationship came about.

I was disappointed not to see much depth to the secondary characters. Mia had some friends who only appeared in two scenes and had virtually nothing to differentiate them from each other; apart from the colours of the clothes they wore.

The music did add something of an atmosphere, but I didn’t think any of the songs were distinctive enough to make an impression. I wouldn’t have said this movie could have been called a musical, as the amount of songs seemed very low.

While Mia’s dream of being an actress was fairly obvious, it did take a little while for me to realise exactly what Sebastian’s dream was.

Although I mentioned earlier that there was very little conflict in the actual relationship, the story also lingered too long without any conflict outside. I would have liked to see more depth to Mia and Sebastian outside each other. For instance, Mia kept walking out of her job. And she also walked out on the dinner with her boyfriend (who wasn’t even mentioned for a lot of the film – I assumed Mia was single). But neither of those things cropped up again. And Sebastian’s rent was past due… but other than showing one notice, there was nothing else mentioned.

I have to say, I did find the ending disappointing. I felt there wasn’t enough of a buildup to it and although it could have worked… I just felt there wasn’t enough to the characters until towards the end. I was very bored for a lot of the movie and this wasn’t one I would watch again.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I actually wasn’t planning to watch this movie, as I haven’t actually seen any of the films in this franchise before. But I had a day off and this was still showing, so I decided to go ahead.

I didn’t feel like this film was particularly deep, which wasn’t a bad thing. I liked the characters, especially Adele. I would have liked to learn a bit more about her background, although the brief little character profiles were interesting to see and added a new dimension to the movie; at least in my opinion.

While I didn’t like Nina Dobrev’s character in the Vampire Diaries, I didn’t mind her character, Becky, in this. She made me outright laugh at times with her lack of a filter.

I didn’t really have any opinions on Xiang and his team when they first appeared. They originally seemed like stereotypical bad guys; and Serena came across as quite unstable. As the movie went on, though, I was able to connect better to them emotionally and I felt they had a lot more depth than they’d seemed to at first. And despite having seen Donnie Yen (Xiang) in another film quite recently, I didn’t have any confusion. (Rogue One, in case anyone’s wondering).

Along with Adele, I did particularly like Serena… at least as the film went on. There was a lot of good action in this movie and I did care about the characters and the storyline. While there was real danger involved, I felt like the person responsible for what was happening hadn’t been foreshadowed. The other villain was much more obvious.

While there were moments where it was hard to suspend my disbelief, it was good to have a clear idea of who the good guys were and who the bad guys were, even if things did change later. And it was nice to see the groups working together towards the end.

All told, I did enjoy this film and it was easy to watch even without having seen any of the other movies in this franchise. It didn’t require any thinking, but it was a lot of fun.

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I originally saw this move advertised, it immediately caught my attention. While the director has made some movies that aren’t as good in the past, there have also been past movies by him I’ve enjoyed.

I felt this movie had a lot that was good about it. I did feel that James McAvoy’s portrayal of ‘Kevin’ and the other personalities was really good. I thought his ability to portray the three different main personalities, along with hints of the others, was really good.

I would have liked a bit more background on the other two girls along with Casey. I felt Casey was easy to empathise with and understand. The flashbacks showed how she’d reached the point of surviving, no matter what; but I couldn’t help being concerned about her towards the end.

I found Dennis, one of the personalities, to have a lot more depth to him than his initial appearance suggested. He wasn’t ‘good’, but compared to Miss. Patricia… I felt he was very much in the grey area.

It was interesting to see the glimpses of the different personalities, but it was harder to see how they might all fit together into one whole, unlike a different movie with the same sort of idea.

I was a bit surprised not to see anything of the three girls having gone missing from the outside. Given Doctor Karen Fletcher knew what Dennis did, it was something of a surprise that she didn’t even mention them. Or really grow suspicious, given the urgent e-mails she kept getting.

I did feel this movie crossed the line into science fiction. While that might not have been a problem generally, the science behind certain things really didn’t seem sound. While Dennis claimed to be the biggest, there was no visual evidence of that; and there is a big difference between someone’s blood sugar changing to the point of needing insulin and completely changing the size of the body.

Despite the unrealistic feelings of the biology, I did find this movie entertaining to watch. Despite being played by the same actor, the personalities seemed different enough that there was no confusion about who was who. Towards the end, I even started caring about Kevin.

This movie is one I would like to see again in the future and although I don’t hold out much hope, it would be good if the hinted-at sequel actually makes an appearance.