This is an honest, spoiler-free review coming from your average fan (not a critic):
I just saw this new marvel film, and I have to say... it's no where near as bad as the critics make it out to be.
Yes there is a lot of dialogue. But it gives the characters a chance to shine and for scenes to breathe.
People call this film dense. I would disagree. Yes there is a fair bit of plot and history told, however I would say that other mcu films have simply much simpler plotlines most of the time.
There are moments when things are just about to become exciting, and then it is interrupted with more dialogue which instantly kills the suspension.
There are a number of plot twists in this film, and some unexpected things happen that I wouldn't have seen coming.
This film has a slow burn, but sometimes that's a good thing. Would I have liked more action? Yes. Was I unhappy with the action we do get? No.
I will admit, going into this film I was expecting a masterpiece, and while I wouldn't quite call it that, its definitely a well-made film, marvel or not.
Oh. And expect to have to do some reading at the very beginning. Kinda reminds me of a classic Star Wars opening crawl.
Bloodsport: “Nobody likes a showoff.”
Peacemaker: “Unless what they showing off is dope as fuck.”
James Gunn recently said in an interview that he finds superhero movies “mostly boring” right now. Anything ranging from safe and boring or technically well-made but disposable, at best. Gunn received at bit of heat from fans for those remarks, but in some sense, he’s not wrong. Because sometimes following the same formula will eventually wear fin and more risk taking needs to happen.
And here we have ‘The Suicide Squad’, the soft reboot to the 2016 film, but this time directed by Gunn himself, where he delivers a highly entertaining movie that is bursting with creativity and ultra-violence. James Gunn once again shakes up the superhero formula with a slick style. I’m just glad DC is finally letting directors have a voice and a vision, and I hope it stays like that.
The first 10-15 minutes tells you exactly what the movie is going to be.
I just can't believe we got something like this. It's 2 hours and 12 minutes long, but it's always on the move. It’s bonkers from start till finish, and I enjoyed every minute of it. This is probably one of the best shot movies in the DCU. The soundtrack is great as well and used effectively. The action scenes were insane and made the overall experience one of the most fun I had at the cinema in a long time.
A massive improvement over the 2016 film, AKA ‘the studio cut’, is that the movie doesn’t look ugly and isn’t chopped together by trailer editors. The movie is vibrant in colours that made it look pleasing to the eye. The structure at times is messy, and yet strangely well-paced, as there’s a lot going on.
Did I mention the movie is very gory? It’s cartoonish violence, or what people call "adult superhero movie", so it's not for kiddies or for the faint of heart. You would probably guess that not everybody on the team is going to make it to the end credits, so deaths are to be expected, but how certain characters “bite the dust” are so unexpectedly gruesome and brutal, it took me by surprise each time. The marketing for the movie was right, don’t get too attached. As I said before, James Gunn had complete creative control over the movie, and he doesn’t hold back on what he wrote and show on screen. But then again, it's a movie, it's not real, the actors who die on screen are fine in real life...I think.
All the cast members have equal amount of time to shine, and you like these super villains this time around, as each character had wonderful chemistry with each other. John Cena plays Peacemaker, who can be best described as a “douchebag version of Captain America”. An extreme patriot who will do the most horrific things for liberty. John Cena excels in the deadpan line delivery for comedic effect, but surprisingly enough, worked well in the serious moments. Looking forward to the spin-off show ‘Peacemaker’.
Margot Robbie once again nails the role of the chaotic but gleeful Harley Quinn. While the character isn’t front and centre this time around, more of a side character, but whenever the character is on screen, it’s instantly memorable.
Idris Elba plays Bloodsport, a contract killer who’s doing time in prison after failing to kill Superman with a kryptonite bullet, while also dealing with family issues, especially with his daughter. While the character may sound like Will Smith’s Deadshot from the 2016 film, but trust me, the execution here is much stronger. This is by far Elba’s best work in a while. Charismatic and a strong leading presence.
Polka Dot Man, played by character actor David Dastmalchian, a socially awkward, weird, and lame sounding character that has some serious mummy issues, which has a funny running visual gag throughout. However, because of Gunn’s writing and Dastmalchian's performance, the character is more than a joke, but a unique character to watch.
Ratcatcher 2, played wonderfully by Daniela Melchior, who brought so much warmth and heart to the film. I loved how they tied in her tragic backstory into the finale, as it honestly made me cry. And let’s not forget the king himself, King Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. He stole every scene he’s in, because he’s so adorable and has such kind eyes, but when he’s hungry, he can be a killing machine.
The rest of the supporting cast, even in the smaller roles, still manage to stand out amidst all the chaos. I liked Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag a lot more this time around, because the actor was given more to work with in terms of good material. Viola Davis is brilliant as the cold and ruthless Amanda Waller. And Peter Capaldi is always a pleasure to see. Also, I like the character of Weasel, who I can describe as a unholy offspring of Shin Godzilla and Rocket Racoon. He may not be beautiful to look at, but he's beautiful to me.
Like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, the movie has a lot of heart and I like how they took certain characters, who on page sound stupid and ridiculous but are handled with such love and depth, while also being self-aware of its own characterization.
You can literally watch this as a standalone movie and you won’t be lost or confused, as you don’t need to watch 22 other movies to understand it. This is by far the strongest entry in this jumbled mess of a cinematic universe.
Overall rating: Nom-nom!
Round 3 of Gareth Edwards proving he’s a great visual director that doesn’t know how to breathe life in his scripts. Its best asset is easily the worldbuilding, combining influences from other science fiction material to create a new world that feels fresh. The technical execution is also really well done, with its cinematography and CGI being among some of the most visionary stuff I’ve seen since Avatar 2. Unfortunately, the sci-fi concepts this is working with are stale, it’s all stuff you’ve seen before and the movie doesn’t know how to put its own creative spin on it. Add to that a bunch of characters that aren’t written in the most compelling way (as well as bland, understated performances that will keep everyone questioning whether JDW is actually a good actor), and you have a movie that’s already pretty dull from the start. Now, a big saving grace of Rogue One and Godzilla were their strong climaxes, however that’s not the case here. Instead, The Creator starts to rush to the finish line, which leads to the big emotional beats not hitting the mark. It’s like the pacing of this movie is constantly either rushing or dragging, annoying my inner Terence Fletcher in the process. Overall, while I’d love to champion this as the savior of original science fiction, there’s not much more originality here than a typical franchise film. I don’t want to call Edwards another Zack Snyder, because I think he’s certainly more talented, but he’s suffering from the same problems and doesn’t seem to learn from his previous mistakes.
5/10
Rian Johnson is starting to turn into the white Jordan Peele. He's another one of those filmmakers that loves to work in this niche of subversive genre films that include a heavy dose of social commentary, and I'm all here for it. Specifically, with this franchise we’ve gone from satirizing old money with Knives Out to satirizing new money with this new film (chances are Knives Out 3 will center around a group of homeless suspects). Now, a lot of films in that same vein have been released recently (Triangle of Sadness, The Menu), but I think none of them do the satire as well as this film. To me it’s too easy at this point to simply aim your commentary at these people by making a statement about how stupid and incompetent they are. It seems like low hanging fruit to me, because everyone with a brain knows that these types are vapid and contribute nothing to society. Luckily, Rian Johnson understands this too and goes one step beyond that, filtering all of his commentary through this idea of the glass onion. These people aren’t just stupid and incompetent, but they’re using a veil of eccentricity and ‘complexity’ to hide that. This is a brilliant deconstruction that rings very true for today’s society, and of course you can’t quite escape the obvious parallel with Twitter’s manchild CEO firing himself this week. This subtext is woven into a lot of elements of the film (character, location, plot, even some props), which means that some things are a lot dumber and simpler than they appear to be. I think that will annoy some people, but I think it's quite clever. Like the first film, you get a great cast of colourful characters. Some of them are given depth, some of them are just playing funny caricatures. Daniel Craig owns the whole movie again, but Janelle Monáe comes pretty close to outperforming him. Even people like Dave Bautista do a great job, and it’s because Rian Johnson knows how to use these actors despite their limited range. There are plenty of twists you won’t see coming and the filmmaking is again terrific. It looks very cinematic with the blocking, lighting and compositions, and the score feels very 60s (lots of strings, some minor baroque orchestration), which reminded me of The White Lotus and a certain Beatles song. In the end, what puts it over the first film for me is the fact that the tone feels more consistent here. The more tense and dramatic moments of Knives Out didn’t really hit home for me when you have Daniel Craig doing a really campy accent, and this one just fully embraces that it’s a silly comedy. And it’s a great one at that, nearly all the jokes landed for me. Maybe could’ve done with a little less shouting from Kate Hudson, but ok, it makes sense for the character. Probably the most fun movie of the year next to Top Gun: Maverick, and definitely one of the most well constructed.
8/10
I only saw this film once before, many years ago during my graphic violence stage, and I forgot a very, very important thing about it: just how disturbing and stressful it is.
The beauty of this film is not only in the cleverness of the way it is shot or in the plot; the beauty of it is that, compared to other horror films, this is not the worse thing you can watch inside the genre, but it's definitely the worst thing you'll ever see because it's realistic. You can see this happening in the real world, and something like this has probably happened more times than we care to imagine. This is not about some sort of supernatural or far-fetched element, this is about people. People doing disgusting, unforgivable, awful things to other people. Which is why this is a film you can't easily shake off. You will sit there for quite a while after it's done, trust me. That is, if you make it through the whole thing.
At once, this film stresses you out. The first sequences, of Marcus walking around a disgusting gay S&M club , will give you an instant headache. The shakiness of the camera is Gaspar Noé's way of placing you, very much against your will, in the shoes of the characters and what they're going through; the anger, the blinding rage, the stress, the impatience, the extremely bad feeling in your gut. You feel it all, and you have no choice. When the camera is still, you're forced to watch one of the most terrible, violent things being done to another human being, and if you're a woman, the experience of watching it is much worse. And when the scenes are not violent and because the plot is presented in a non-linear way, you mourn over the life that the characters had before everything happened, you mourn because they will never be the same.
This film offers no truce; you will feel awful--whether it's because you're angry, shocked, disgusted or sad--the whole time. And if you don't, my friend, you should really consider self-exploration and therapy, because there must be something wrong with you.
This film features one of the most vivid rape scenes you'll ever see. You see her going into that underpass and you just want to pull her back, you see her not running away when she encounters Le Tenia hitting a transsexual hooker and you want to yell at her and push her to run, then finally you accept her fate and you want to scream just as she's screaming, because it shouldn't have happened to her, and it shouldn't happen to anyone ever.
The polemic scene is cruel in every possible way, and the whole film is cruel in every possible way. Everything escalates incredibly fast and nothing good comes in the end. Marcus is badly hurt and will probably remain broken by -somewhat unearned- guilt and regret (what happened to Alex isn't his fault, but he could've been there to help her avoid it; that would fuck anyone up), Pierre will probably spend the rest of his life in prison and it's not even worth it because he killed the wrong guy, Alex is in a coma and if she makes it out she will never be the same, she will be more broken than any of them, and Le Tenia is left unscathed. If that's not cruel...
The bottom line is that this film definitely demands strenght to get through it. And yet, it is so well done that the effort is worth it, even if you're not happy that you saw it.
Wanted to watch an "easier to digest" comedy this weekend, so I ended up watching Game Night in theaters that just came out with Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, and I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of good laughs and a very solid and honestly relatively unique premise for a comedy. In action, the "Game Night gone wrong" premise worked out a lot better than I thought it would from seeing the initial trailers, mostly due to a good balance of varied semi-believable comedic situations, a nice brisk pace over 1.5 hours, and a dash of "real life" themes for good measure (but not too much, of course).
There was great chemistry between the two leads of Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, and the supporting characters were all very fun and unique in their own rights (yay for Sharon Horgan from Catastrophe). Honestly, the specific interactions between each of the couples was done very well, and each couple gave off a distinct vibe that worked to keep the movie fresh. Most of the jokes hit ("Hey Denzel!!"), and things never got too overly "ridiculous" or completely "unbelievable" where all common sense gets completely thrown out the window (aka later Hangover movies). I thought that maybe Max "the stalker cop" would be a little too overboard, but things got concluded quite nicely in the end and worked out for the better (definitely stay to watch the ending credits and the post-credits scene).
I didn't have the greatest expectations coming in, but I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. A very, very solid 7/10 from me. If you want a nice comedy to enjoy with some friends and get some good solid laughs (this one will have jokes for everyone), I definitely recommend checking Game Night out. Or if tickets to Black Panther are sold out... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Oh I loved this! Grosse Pointe Blank is absolutely wonderful! The perfect blend of fun, action and romance. It's very clever and has an amazing 80's soundtrack!
Martin Blank is a professional killer that doesn't enjoy his job anymore. He decided to go back to his hometown in Grosse Pointe in Michigan for his last job and also for his 10th year High School reunion.
There he tries to find the meaning of his future life, seeing how all of his old friends are now and he also get reunited with the girl of his dreams, the girl he dumped on prom night, the night he disappeared from town and never came back until now. He never forgot her but will she forgive him?
This story is definitely funny to watch, and a story is always important but was an amazing cast that turned this film into something pretty interesting and fun to watch!
John Cusack and Minnie Driver were great and had a great chemistry together! All of the supporting roles are so funny! Particularly Joan Cusack, Dan Ackroyd and Alan Arkin.
If you wanna have a great time and be amused this is the right film to pick!
Having chosen this at random, seeing how far down (well, far to the right) it was on Hulu's list of movie recommendations for me, I was surprised to recognize anyone in the cast. Margo Harshman was really not on my list of people I'd expect to see in, well, anything. When I revisited Even Stevens a while back (in which she played the recurring role of Tawny Dean), it seems like I looked at her IMDB credits and didn't see a huge number of roles. Finding her in something purely at random was cool.
Harshman aside, I was supremely impressed by the pacing and delivery from the film's leading men, Nicholas D'Agosto (Shawn) and Eric Christian Olsen (Nick, who should have traded character names with his costar). The plot might be predictable, and the jokes often obvious, but they are woven together very well and there's hardly a dull moment to be found anywhere in the film.
Maybe I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "infinitely rewatchable", but as something entertaining to watch once it's hard to beat a movie like this. There's even some truly clever humor thrown in there to make you switch your brain on a few times!
