"Madeo" is another great vengeance movie coming from South Korea and it has once again a unique atmosphere that distinguishes this great film from other vengeance movie like the sad and melodramatic "Bedevilled", the rude and brutal "I saw the devil" or the eerie and mysterious "Oldboy".

"Madeo" is a calm and intriguing study of a relationship between and old mother that sacrifices her whole life for her mentally handicapped son with whom she lives in relative isolation from society. Their relationship and everyday life is difficult, filled with deception, arrogance and pressure and they only have each other. One day the son comes home very drunk and without remembering much of what has happened in the last hours and is soon accused for the murder of a young girl during that tragic night and declared guilty. His mother tries desperately to help him but the police officers are corrupted, the lawyers egoist and the son's friends seem to be rather stupid rebels who don't do anything useful in their lives. The mother has to take the path of revenge and find herself the true murderer at all costs to save her son's soul or mustn't she? This movie tells the drama of a mother that wants to save her son at all costs and faces the downfall of the South Korean society. You should not expect a bloody tale of revenge or a very developed crime movie. What you will discover is a rather calm and authentic drama with an atmosphere reminiscent of the French film noir genre and a stunning and authentic acting. There is also a sense of criticism towards the contemporary society and a high amount of philosophical thoughts inside the movie. That doesn't mean that there are not one or two surprising twists and one or two rather brutal scenes that are always included in this kind of Korean flicks but they rather happen at the very end.

In the end, this is one of the most realistic vengeance movies and has a very insightful, philosophical and dramatic touch. The acting is brilliant and the calm dark atmosphere of this movie is a welcome change of style compared to other rather brutal movies of that genre. The only problem I have with this movie is that there are a couple of unnecessary lengths in it and that the ending was a little bit too predictable to me.

James Cameron's Sanctum always proves that the ex-Canadian and now Hollywood director was involved in the project. The movie focuses on beautiful and breathtaking landscapes, a lot of special and light effects and dramatic survival action. But it also contains the negative elements of his movies. The lack of originality, the complete assimilation to Hollywood standards, the extremely superficial characters and the lack of depth.

Concerning the actors, this movie might easily be his worst. The first thirty minutes of this movie were painful. The high amount of superficial, childish and predictable characters may even be too much for the thirteen year old fast food cinema maniac which explains the low rating on this site. To anybody that knows something about the history of cinema, the dialogues of the first thirty minutes or so are pretty much the worst thing I have ever read or heard since the last Ed Wood movies and they still had a certain charm, bad actors and a lack of budget. In here, all the money seems to be put into special effects but no money at all in the actors. They all should get banned from the film industry.

Why do I still give a couple of points to the movie? That's because after the thirty most horrible minutes in contemporary cinema, the story finally kicks off and delivers an entertaining survival drama. The acting gets slightly better and many dramatic events focus our interest on something else and accelerate the pace of the movie. It surely is no "Cliffhanger" but not that far away from it in the end. Technically taken, this flick is indeed very well executed in the end and kept me in front of the screen until the end. The ending of the movie is surprisingly not rubbish and stereotypical and rather short and sweet which was a positive surprise to me. Now, if they had done the same thing for the beginning, we would have had an excellent action drama with a running time around seventy-five minutes which would have risen the quality of this flick by far. As you can read, there is some potential in here as in many Cameron movies but the cheesy opening just already kills it for me.

I really suggest you watching this flick in the cinemas or in a high quality definition for the great sounds and effects and it won't work as well with the normal standards. This movie is simply focused on the honestly said superficial appearances rather than on something intellectual, profound or original.

If you like overambitious special effect based event cinema with 3D animations and a lot of epic sounds, you will surely adore this movie and think that it is a perfect ending to the series and final highlight for the whole family. Anybody that tends to look a little bit beyond commercial Hollywood cinema and prefers something more profound and intellectual might get a rather negative surprise after so many overrated positive reviews from the fan boys on this site.

This movie has so many negative points that I don't know where to begin. First of all, I might chose the characters and the acting. I remember reading the last three hundred pages of the final novel was an emotional and touching thing and I wasn't able to put the book aside. I had tears in my eyes when some of the characters were struggling in their battles, losing all hope and ultimately even dying in some cases. In the movie, this all seems so secondary that it's a dishonour to the actors and a decade of more or less touching attempts to recreate the magic of the novels. Many tragic fates, last breaths and deadly conclusions are just side notes to fill a whole in between two overwhelming battle scenes with many artificially flavoured special effects. That's what I call a shame and a lack of subtlety from the production team and especially the director. Everything is concentrated on Harry Potter that there is almost no place for the other actors to shine. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger play no important role and even the main character's girlfriend Ginny Weasley has only a few insignificant passages. It seems as if this was a movie about the one and only Harry Potter and the other characters only had cameo appearances for the memories of old glory and older movies with much more equilibrium, depth and magic. The only characters that were able to shine next to Harry Potter were Neville Longbottom and Severus Snape. Even Lord Voldemort had a ridiculous and childish megalomaniac attitude while Albus Dumbledore seemed surprisingly arrogant to me.

Another annoying aspect were the reoccurring cheap attempts on childish puns. Each time there was a dramatic or dark scene, any of the characters said something stupid or ridiculous. Well, many people laughed in the cinemas but it was more a hesitating chain reaction and nothing funny or appropriated to the situation. We don't need any simplistic jokes in the darkest and most gripping parts of the Harry Potter universe just to satisfy the youngest generations and avoid harsher critics from angry parents who may complain that their seven year old daughters had nightmares after watching this movie. The Harry Potter novels had evolved alongside the age of its characters and they had become more mature, dark and serious. This last movie breaks this progression down and tries to return to some light entertainment for the whole family.

Many things in the movie were truly predictable and not because I had read the novel. The speech of Neville Longbottom for example was filled with so much kitsch that I rather had to laugh out and shake my head than to feel touched by it. The comments by Albus Dumbledore were predictable and as unclear and imprecise as always but this time with a quite arrogant and bored touch in it. The annoying paranoid curses of Lord Voldemort against his enemies and especially Harry Potter were repeated to much and limited the character to a rather one-dimensional, clueless and predictable personality. The characterizations of the different personalities were underlined and stretched in a stereotypical way but not lifted on a higher level as the novel did.

Another important point was the lack of depth in the movie. Only the scenes around Severus Snape were great but still far away from the novel's quality. We don't get to know more about the main villain and his horcruxes. What about the background story of Albus Dumbledore? What about the details surrounding Teddy Lupin? What happened with Percy Weasley and his decisions? What about the deeper and matured romantic relationships between Harry and Ginny or Ron and Hermione? What about the new connection between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy? If you decide to cut the last novel into two movies, please do it properly at least.

Don't get me wrong, the whole thing is entertaining and a funny popcorn cinema ride but it lacks of depth and something truly outstanding. The movie doesn't have this little glimpse of magic and subtle emotion that the novel had. Where Peter Jackson almost equalled the original "Lord of the Rings" novels, David Yates is far away from only getting near to it. The biggest surprise of the movie was that at the end of this superficial commercial entertainment, there wasn't written "directed by James Cameron" in the credits. This movie is comparable to his last works like "Sanctum" or "Avatar". The last "Transformers" and "Narnia" movies are also horribly close to this last Harry Potter movie. I am honestly shocked that a British novel has been transformed into a copy of Hollywood's actual standards. The movie doesn't have the British soul of the novels. I honestly preferred the earliest movies of the series. The whole thing got stretched and over-hyped too much. One should have made one single final movie about three hours, cut out the boring lack of events in the first part and the overwhelming special effects and childish jokes of the second one to fusion the whole thing into a more equilibrated and human mixture with a few additional background scenes. That would have made less money and got less popularity but would have been closer to the novel in order to honour a legendary piece of art in a significant way. The unsatisfying final result may not be the actors' or fans' fault but the studio's and director's mistake.

This is now already the fourth part of my little review series: Movies that are way better than you expect.

"Black sheep" is a very funny and extremely entertaining horror parody that comes from New Zealand. There are many crazy ideas, hilarious ideas and great jokes as well as a few entertaining characters in this movie. Just switch your brain off and get entertained on a high level. I must admit that I haven't laughed watching a movie a long time ago and this movie must be one of the most hilarious ones I have ever seen.

Take the most innocent animal on earth which is a sheep and make a monster out of it that transforms egoist, capitalist and ignorant managers, scientists or farmers into were-sheep that begin to act and talk in a weird manner. Add to this simple plot a diversified team around an esoteric ecology-terrorist, a tough old housekeeper, a handsome farmer and the main actor and brother of the villain that suffers a sheep phobia and is in therapy to fight his demons. Mix great dialogues with slight gore passages, beautiful landscapes and some action and adventure scenes that are inspired by some great classics. You will be entertained every single moment and live a movie that sticks to the roots of great horror flicks and its parodies but that still offers many original ideas in a unique context coming from an exotic country.

As I have never seen a better horror parody, I give a quite high rating for it even if there is a lot of easy toilet humour, some excessive gore passages and a many stereotypical characters in it. There is so much cheese added to the original ingredients that the final result turns out to be an amazing pizza that should please to almost anybody that is ready to watch some great imaginative but childish entertainment from time to time.

This is now already the third part of my little review series: Movies that are way better than you expect.

"Eden Log" is a completely underrated dark experimental science-fiction movie. It impresses with brilliant camera settings that give the movie an adventurous dark video game touch and a very artistic approach. The minimalist dialogues remind of other popular experimental movies like the brilliant pioneer work "Eraserhead". The dark and gripping atmosphere honour the French film noir genre at its best. Don't expect any horror moments, big fighting scenes or stunning special effects as this movie lives from its simplistic approach and dark and calm atmosphere. The acting is also very basic but overall great and especially Clovis Cornillac proves once again that he can play quite everything and is one of the best modern French actors out there. The story itself is indeed less important but has still some interesting philosophical touches and a minor twist in the end.

This movie is a great gem for anybody that is interested in artistic avant-garde cinema and dark video games but doesn't fit to a larger audience because it is not commercial and quite unusual in every aspect. This movie happens to be experimental at all costs and is as unique as it is courageous, especially if you consider that this is the director's first full length movie. Even if this movie lacks of budget and commercial success, it is technically stunning and something vivid for the science-fiction genre that lives some difficulties and a downfall of popularity nowadays. If you like this movie, be sure to also check out the Swiss low budget gem "Cargo" or also the experimental "Valhalla Rising".

The average on this site shows that many people adored while other completely hated it and the average is somewhere in between. But I sure you that it's nearly impossible to think the film is mediocre and that you either adore or hate it. No matter how you ultimately decide this movie may be an unforgettable flick for each one of you.