I’ve been reading some old reviews/ratings I posed in the “Last movie seen” thread — specifically, ones from 2012-2013 — and it’s quite strange, seeing how differently I evaluate movies now vs. then. Back then, I gave daft ratings to almost every movie I watched — 5-to-6/10 was the average score, with lots of pointless decimals — but I was far better at writing reviews then than I am now. Here’s one for example:
The Black Hole (1979)
I watched this movie a couple weeks ago, and meant to comment on it then, but I got distracted and never got around to it. Well, now’s as good a time as any to do so, and it’s still fresh enough in my mind to recount the major points of the film I liked/disliked.
The Good
The robots V.I.N.C.E.N.T and B.O.B - though their design was a little too cutesy for my tastes - had lots of personality and were easily the highlights of the film.
Maximillian Schell did a great job as the villainous Hans Reinhardt
The special effects were excellent
The Bad
With the sole exception of Reinhardt, all the human characters were colourless cyphers - I couldn’t even remember any of their names, not even Anthony Perkins’.
The film was thematically all over the place. It tried to be a serious, philosophical movie like 2001 while also trying to be whimsically adventurous like Star Wars, but only ended up a confused mess.
The Darth Vader robots were really, really uninspired and lame.
The Ugly
The score is a mixed bag. At times it was ominously great, while at others it fell completely flat (this is most notable during the gunfight scenes).
I wish I still knew how to write reviews like this one.
And it was amusing to come across this:
You’re currently probably the forums biggest pessimist, almost everything you post is a major downer.
How times change.