I hope I can watch this again someday, and enjoy it in a different way. But as far as seeing it in the theater goes, it was a mildly enjoyable journey that turned in to an annoying slog, which ultimately culminated in disappointment.
What the fuck Tarantino? No mystery, no comedy, no trademark dialogue, NO STORY! This movie relies on presupposed knowledge too much. I go into movies that I want to see without reading anything about them or watching any trailers. So if the movie takes until the final act to reveal what the mystery even is, and then subverts it within 10 minutes in a ridiculously, unnecessarily violent way, it doesn't make for an enjoyable movie. It was two hours of a red herring (if you know what it's about already), and then a half hour of "Is this movie seriously going to end without tying together any of these useless, boring storylines?"
First act: Tarantino's use of different film stocks, and his decision to start the movie by showing his version of a corny Oldwest show got me very excited for what was to come. During the first act however, he went back to this a bunch of times, and each time it was a little less enjoyable when it only started out as mildly humorous in the first place. the character development, and relationship between Pitt and DiCaprio was fun to watch. Other character development was pretty flat, and the Bruce Lee scene was just dumb. Pretty early in the movie I started to dislike Pitt's character. this obviously would detract me from enjoying him as the pseudo-hero later.
Second act: The Sharon Tate storyline was really starting to get to me. It's been years since I read about the Manson murders, so when I heard her name, I was thinking "that sounds familiar, I think there was something called the Sharon Tate murders. Maybe Brad Pitt is supposed to end up killing her or something." The more they were following Sharon Tate in her daily activities, the more I was thinking that she better be an important part of this movie or else I wasted about 45 minutes watching something that doesn't even matter.
The scene where Brad Pitt goes to the hippie hideout is easily the best in the movie. Even though at that point I didn't realize this was supposed to be a Manson thing, it was still a very intense scene. Had I known that this was a twist on the Manson family, it would have been a little more entertaining. So maybe Tarantino could have done SOMETHING to tell us this instead of just assuming that everyone is gonna watch every trailer and think that every hippie congregation is supposed to be the Manson family. This was the first time I was taken out the movie by the over-the-top violence inflicted on a character while everyone around me was laughing at it. And if you're supposed to think it's funny even if you don't know that they're supposed to be a murderous cult, then I don't know what the fuck is wrong with people.
Final act: I'm sitting in my seat, and all I can think is "this better be one hell of a third act to bring all these boring, useless storylines together." DiCaprio gets drunk and yells at some hippies. Pretty funny. Pitt takes his dog for a walk, and starts tripping on acid. Kinda funny. then for the first time in two hours, these hippie characters (that you're wondering why are even in the movie to begin with) FINALLY say something that shows they have a murderous leader. Then I start getting excited, finally connecting the dots, and thinking oh man this is gonna be a cool take on the Manson murders. And within five minutes I am not only disappointed by the climax, I am incredibly disappointed in my overall experience with the movie.
The hippie characters only deserved what they got in our real universe where they did the actions that they're know for. But in the movie universe, they were not responsible for these actions, and so their punishment was out of the blue and unwarranted. And if you don't know the real life story of these characters, I would expect that you would be disgusted by what happens, and how everybody is laughing around you in the theater. it was jarring in a way that other Tarantino violent scenes are not. he has made some of the most intensely violent scenes, but they are done for drama, for realism, or to get you disgusted with a character. This violence was done for humor, and I felt very out of place in the theater being the only one who was questioning why people are laughing at a dog ripping a guys genitals off, and then a girls face off while they're both screaming in horror. or apparently everybody's favorite was when the girl's face got smashed over and over into a coffee table until there was nothing left of it. everyone laughed the hardest at that part.
Either I missed something absolutely huge that changed my perception of this movie, or Tarantino has made a huge shift in his writing style, and the audience has made a huge shift in what is funny. Two movies ago Tarantino had a guy getting ripped apart by dogs, and it is one of the hardest scenes for anyone I know to get through, now it's funny because they committed murder in a different reality? I don't get it, I don't get the movie, and fuck you Tarantino for giving us two hours of nothing so you can give us 5 minutes of violence. I enjoyed the first time you did that in Death Proof, when it was actually entertaining. It's a real shame to add this movie to his near flawless career.
2 / 2 directing & technical aspect
0 / 1 story
.5 / 1 act I
1 / 1 act II
.5 / 1 act III
1 / 1 acting
1 / 1 writing
1 / 1 originality
0 / 1 lasting ability to make you think
-.5 / 1 misc (wtf?)
6.5 / 10
I thought the movie really underdeveloped the world, and didn't take advantage of all of the cool possibilities. Other than The Shining none of the references had any impact. Mark Rylance was the only actor to make an impression. I didn't even like the narrative of the book that much but I thought Stephen Spielberg would improve it not make it worse. The plot holes were huge especially in the third act ( How did Art3mis just walk into his office, walk out without anyone seeing or hearing her, and just walk out of the IOI headquarters ). It felt like a lot was cut for time, or they spent so much time on CGI sequences they forgot to make anything real, but what they cut were the parts that made the book interesting. You could ignore Ernest Cline's narrative and plot struggles because he made the characters slightly interesting, the challenge seemed difficult and all encompassing, and a lot of the references were actually relevant to the story. Every time they got a key it was a huge deal in the book, here I totally forgot it even mattered because it was so glossed over even from the beginning ( Really a race? ) and the real world consequences also didn't matter, so the whole thing felt like it was hitting the classic sentimental Spielberg movie moments with nothing to back it up.
Such a mess of a movie.
I didn' t expect much and haven't watched the trailer before but apparently this movie is focusing on the younger audience only and not on the people who watched the first movie back in the day. It's one of these moments when you realize you get old.
Way too young cast, a dumb plot, so no-one needs to think about anything, degrading this movie to a shut-your-brain-off popcorn flick/time waster you forget instantly after leaving the cinema, clichès as far as the eyes can see, cringe dialogues, incredibly studid decisions by humans and aliens.
Liam Hemsworth is the actor to draw in the young audience and a total miscast for this kind of movie but he fits in with all the other young actors who are out of place as well. But that also means he will be the more or less tragic or cool hero and "win" a gorgeous woman at the end of the movie. How could it be different?
Hemsworth's literally horny sidekick is annoying the moment he appears, throughout the whole movie and is the deliberate comic relief and simply hateable as his character is written so blatantly obvious and without any care. You instantly know what trope his character is and what role he will have the rest of the movie.
You are in the alien ship and he carelessly jumpscares you: haha, how funny!
He's talking loudly, called out on it to be quiet and keeps going being loud, endangering all of them: haha, how funny!
He is fawning over the beautiful, "unreachable" daughter of the chief in command on the moonbase we all know he will get later anyway for no reason other than "we went through this sh*t together": soo original.
Liam Hemsworth is peeing in front of the aliens to distract them: haha, how funny and mature.
...and the aliens even fall for that crap.
The whole movie could only happen in its entirety because of the first major decision that was made for no other reason than plot.
Levinson is some kind of an authority when it comes to aliens but he is ignored to enable the movie when he says not to fire at that spherical spaceship, that looks so difficult to the others and behaves totally different as well. That appearance wasn't even foreshadowing, it was an obvious spoiler to how they would be able to win this time against the aliens and took out any kind of suspense there could have been from the get go.
The movie is predictable all the time and doesn't even try to avoid (or hide) it, ultimately leading to me not being entertained at all.
Recurring actors were all a total waste, except perhaps for Goldblum.
Brent Spiner, who plays Dr. Okun, was additionally unbelievable and simply unnecessary.
Using a poweroff button as sign for the resistance against the aliens was preeeetty lazy as well in the design department.
Easy cash grab movie. I have no doubt the next ID movie will be even worse. Here goes my hope for a good Stargate reboot down the drain. I hoped it would give the franchise a possibility to relaunch a series or so but I heavily doubt that now.
But to not only say negative things about this movie: the CGI effects weren't bad.
