[EXPRESSO] Nuremberg (2025) | Nazi Turnabout

A historical court drama about the behind the scenes of the Nuremberg trails, where the surving architects of the Nazi regime are put on trial for crimes against humanity for the Holocaust.

An army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), is tasked with looking after the mental well being of Hermann Goering (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s second in command, alongside the other surviving Nazi hierarchs, while the Allies investigates and discuss why this trial should be even done in the first place.

Kelley, also hoping to write a book about the vents (and in turn maybe understand the psychological proceeding that led the Nazis to previously unseen amount of efficient evil), forms a bond with Goering…

While one might argue this comes at the right time, when we’re seeing history on the verge of repeating again (for the worse), one might say it’s a bit too little and that maybe, given the current geopolitical state, we should have skipped the trial, but this just isn’t that kind of film.

This is an old fashion history drama that’s fairly unpretentious and uninterested in being artsy or provocative, as it mostly wants to educate people while entertaining them, and basically exists as a vehicle for actors to try and get an Oscar out of it.

Not necessarily “bad bait” when it gives us a really outstanding performance by Crowe as the charimastic yet subtly manipulative Goering, as he and Kelley have this “Hannibal-Lecter-Graham” style relationship going on, though Malek’s performance (while not necessarily bad) just isn’t as good as Crowe’s, and oddly the sequences at the stand are kinda brief, despite the build up to them.

That said, it also goes by swimmingly, despite it’s 2 hours and 40 minutes runtime, so it’s good, even if old fashioned, but not necessarily lesser for it.

Final Verdict: Expresso

12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 53: Primitive War (2025)

I wasn’t aware of Primitive War until a friend recommended looking up the trailer some time ago, and indeed it looked promising and actually kinda cool, like an actual effort and not just the usual low budget dinosaur drivel that we get nowadays.

I mean, if going for the Vietnam route worked for King Kong, it can work for a dinosaur film as well, why not? It’s at least something to shake up the formula.

And it also released earlier this year, so i didn’t have to dust this off from the crypt or something.

in 1968, during the Vietnam war, a Green Beret platoon goes missing during an operation, so a search & rescue team, named Vulture Squad, is tasked with a recon mission to locate the missing platoon, only for them to be attacked by dinosaurs.

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The Machine (2013) [REVIEW] | Social Credit Cyborgs

Time for some random sci-fi movie i put in my Amazon Prime Video watchlist months-to-years ago to actually get seen, and the dice chose 2013’s The Machine by director Caradog D. James.

In the future, the United Kindgom is on the verge of war against China over the Taiwan issue, and in an underground military base, a scientist produce a cybernetic implant that allows brain damaged soldiers to regain lost functions, with the first test subjects showing lack of empathy and memory loss, but eventually the research leds to better cyborgs, which loses the ability to speak but develop an even more efficient method of comunication amongst them.

the project might even go one step further when a new researcher, Ava, is brought on board for her work on IA, despite the lab director being wary of her countercultural opinions on the subject, as her talent might lead to finally develop a self-aware and conscious android.

Needless to say, something goes wrong along the way, it’s a sci-fi film about cyborgs and it doesn’t exactly sound original…. like at all.

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[EXPRESSO] Warfare (2025) | Iraq To The Past

So, is this yet another chapter for the “america gonna invade your country and 20 years later make a movie how sad it made their soldiers” folder of war movies?

I mean, it does depict a real life episode taking place in November 2006 in Iraq, based on testimonies from the people that were in those platoons of NAVY Seals, so it’s almost 20 years after the facts…. but it ain’t that. Even if it is?

After Civil War Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza are back, for Warfare, which sets off to realistically portray the events that happened to a NAVY Seals squad on a very minor mission in Iraq, which evolves into them taking over a civilian house and being bottled up in there as they wait for evacuation/rescue, while trying to defend the position, all based on the retelling of the actual soldiers that were involved.

And it does commit to the realistical, almost documentary style. intense approach, to the point it doesn’t try to actually have a standard plot structure, character development or plot points for that matter, and doesn’t skirt away from the fact there’s a lot of routine processes, waiting around for protocols, alongside opaque military lingo that’s not meant to be understood, uncaring if it may come off as “boring” to general audiences because the point is to tell tit – as possible as it could ever be – “as it was”.

It’s also very unflattering of the military, but i feel it’s not exactly anti-war (as anti-war as a war movie can actually be), it’s more of a by-product of the realistical approach (especially given some ending credits stuff), and there are still some questionable choices, but i can’t deny that it’s quite gripping and at 95 minutes simply doesn’t overstay its welcome.

[EXPRESSO] Captain America: Brave New World (2025) | The Credible Hulk, Part 2

I haven’t seen the Falcon And Winter Soldier this apparently continues from (in general i don’t care about the tie-in shows for these), i honestly don’t care too much about Captain America, the character itself or the film subseries, but sure, Harrison Ford is here as the US president (not that one?) and Giancarlo Esposito is here as well, so why not?

I honestly think it’s decent, it’s fine, it’s far from the worse ones, again, considering what we should expect from these era Marvel movies, but it also has most of the issues we’ve come to expect, from trying to juggle too much without fully committing to anything in terms of themes, with subplots and characters that are set up to be important but (most likely by the many documented and reported reshoots, rewrites and production troubles) don’t really add up to the plot.

A plot which itself it’s half reharshing The Winter Soldier, half being basically the unofficial sequel to the 2008 Hulk movie, so much returns and comes to play from that film into what’s extensibly a movie about the new Captain America trying to advert a conspiracy meant to undermine the new presidency of General “Thunderbolt” Ross, trying to turn a new leaf after his questionable past, as the new “Cap” is trying to live up to Steve Roger’s legacy.

On the upside, Mackie makes for a good “Cap’”, some plotlines that were seeded in other movies but were then mostly “abandoned” get revived or given a purpose, the action is often good, but the “New Cap” VS “Harrison Ford as Red Hulk” brawl (which features some iffy special effects) kinda feels there because they based the marketing on that and the movie it’s almost over, so it had be squeezed as the unintentionally anticlimactic climax.

[EXPRESSO] The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim (2024) | Anime Lord Of The Mononoke Rings

Disclaimer: i haven’t really followed/properly engaged with the Lords Of The Rings IP basically since… the original film trilogy.

But yes, when WB puts out in theathers an animated feature lenght Lords Of The Rings movie directed by Kenji Kamiyama (GITS: Stand Alone Complex, Eden Of The East, Napping Princess, GITS Stand Alone Complex 2045, Blade Runner: Black Lotus) in anime style, my interest is EXTREMELY piqued.

Taking place 183 years before the original film trilogy, the story concerns the destiny of the Helm House, as Helm Hammerhand suffers from internal strife and is then attacked by the wild tribes in the region, united by a vengeful man named Wulf, that leads them to war, with the Helm princess Hera at the forefront, eventually forced to hole themselves in the fortress of Hornburg, that would become known as Helm’s Deep.

It’s a weird combination because there’s a lot of might and barely any magic or fantasy stuff in this LOTR animated film, the animation by Sola Entertaiment (a not so random but still weird choice) it’s honestly kinda lackluster, as they have 2D animation overlayed on CGI backgrounds that opt for some kind of high fidelity “realism”, when it’s not just cheap 3D CG, or 3D CG passing as 2D animation, with a very inconsistent quality and the feeling this was kinda rushed.

The characters being so and so and the story having to retrofit and connect with later LOTR events don’t help, but i will say direction is quite solid, even with the animation issues and uneven quality it does deliver on the spectactle and pomp, it’s still enganging and very entertaining that its long runtime doesn’t bog it down.

A decent movie, even if it’s a weird yet familiar attempt to mine the LOTR IP to the bone.

[EXPRESSO] Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom (2024) | Lichdom: Battlemage

After the 4^th season of the anime, we got a Overlord film, depicting the Sacred/Holy Kingdom Arc that was discussed/teased but not shown during Season 4 itself.

For reference, the series is about a regular guy that get stuck in a VR MMORPG when the servers close, as its character, Momonga, an elder lich, with previous NPCs start acting on their own, including the servants/characters made by his fellow guild members basically electing him as supreme leader, and he’s basically forced to live up to their expectations while plotting schemes for world domination as the Overlord.

The plot here sees Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown, finally having established its territory and himself as the “Sorcerer King” getting into an alliance with the Sacred Kingdom, needing help to slay the Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth that’s attacking them with his hordes of humanoid monsters..

Again, this is as about as good a synopsis as it gets without doing huge spoilers, and while it strikes a good compromise between being watchable on its own, since the story here presented (picking up the previously established but basically ignored “Jaldabaoth” storyline) has mostly original characters, provides enough closure, and you can guess/deduce some things… having context for the characters and situations definitely benefits the experience (since it doesn’t recap shit, just giving a very brief text explanation of the premise), which does deliver on both the spectacle, violence and some honestly fun, enjoyable “anime isekai non-sense”, including fantasy politics.

I was worried the animation might had the “CG-isms” seen in later Season 3 and Season 4… not as much, the animation isn’t notably better but you can tell there’s a bump in quality and direction to take advantage of it being a film, more battles to show the animation off, etc.

Quite satisfied with it, i must say.

Suicide Squad Isekai (2024) [REVIEW] | Through The Unlooking Glass

Why i am reviewing this, you may be asking yourself.

Just for the trash factor? Just because its seems like “easy prey”?

Not quite, it’s more due to how since its debut (and even then, i learn this was gonna be through the collaboration with V-tuber and singer Mori Calliope, as she composed the ending theme) i never heard a single peep online about it, not even to shit on it, which worried me even more.

Also i learned after searching that it was being streamed in my region via a sub-channel on Amazon Prime Video, absolutely zero marketing had been spent to even make people know it was legally available on a commonly used streaming platform (FIY, there’s no HBO Max or Hulu here).

But still, this looked and sounded like like the kind of trash Twitter (not calling it X) loves to shit on weekly, just for the hell of it, but the only thing i saw on there was someone else befuddled by how the internet decided to skip having any discourse on it all together, that it was likely not even worth that kind of engagement, as nobody bothered, not even for the finale…..if anyone knew this series was a thing to begin with, that is. No one using the new Joker and Harley designs for their profile pictures, it was THAT much ignored or just never actually marketed properly after its announcement.

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[EXPRESSO] Civil War (2024) | FraKctured

I was disappointed by Garland’s previous (and winner for “most on the nose possible horror title”) film, MEN, and the trailer for Civil War really was so generic i could almost believe it was promoting a live action adaptation of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s The Division 2’s, or whatever a big budget version of a “January 6 Simulator” without a Trump phrophecy orb would have looked like.

(then again, this is an issue A24 seems to have recently, see the trailer for The Zone Of Interest)

That aside, when i actually got to see the film in theathers, i was pleasantly surprised Garland didn’t “lost it”, so to speak, at all, as Civil War definitely deserves the critical “praise nugget” of punch packing and delivering, as you would with the subject matter.

The plot follows a couple of war journalists that, after surviving a suicide bombing attack while reporting in New York, they decide to accompany a mentor of theirs and a young girl that idolizes their work while travelling through an America torn apart by (yep) a civil war, as many states have split and factions formed, with the goal of interviewing the president, as he holes up in a contended Washington, and his forces slowly losing steam to the “Western Forces”…

It’s a bleak depiction of a fairly realistical future scenario where the many contraddictions and divisions in the American social stratum broke out from social media mudflinging into actual, literal, civil war, but the movie avoids any easy weaponizing and name calling by putting focus instead in the day-to-day ground reality and the routine atrocities witnessed and perpetrated.

And it’s an uncompromised vision because it denies itself comforting platitudes or hypothetical, naive resolutions, while sporting a stellar cast and being constantly engaging and entertaining on an immediate level.

[EXPRESSO] The Zone Of Interest (2023) | Heil Honey I’m Home

Jonathan Glazer’s film about the Holocaust won the Oscar for best screenplay, that much is true, but given El Conde received a similar nomination at last year’s Venice Film Festival, i wasn’t really sold on the movie because of that, but regardless i finally managed to catch a screening.

And this honestly surpassed my expectations.

Loosely based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis (itself based partially on real events), The Zone Of Interest is about the life of Auschwitz SS commander Rudolf Hoss and his family, as they live in a home in the titular “zone of interest” that places them meters away from the concentration camp itself, so close that you can see prisoners go in and out the camp to do chores, and hear the many atrocities committed there.

The plot focuses on the Hoss family life and the drama that Rudolf having to move to another outpost causes them, while they fully believe the Nazi creed through and through, all to further enunciate the abhorrent reality of the concentration camps and the Nazi war machine while we never even move outside of their house, let alone enter Auschwitz.

And this slice of life apporeach it’s indeed perfect to fully expose the “banality of evil” at the heart of it, it’s a glacial remind there’s no need to shock people when its far worse to remind us the Holocaust wasn’t run by a small gaggle of evil demon warlords alone, but was also accepted by regular people, and reminded that it was also run by capitalism as everything else, with architects calmly discussing with Rudolf Hoss the plans of how to costruct the more efficient, cost-saving method of massacre, while his wife idly chats over tea with her friends in another room.

Noteworthy indeed.