A potentially great film being held hostage by its PG-13 rating and its messy, all over the places screenwriting.
By PG-13 I don't simply mean its visuals/goriness, but most importantly its dialogues, themes, and storytelling it tries to raise. Let me explain.
First, the dialogues.
The film opens with murder and Batman narrating the city's anxious mood. We get a glimpse of noir in this scene, but it soon falls flat due to a very uninteresting, plain, forgettable choice of words Batman used in his narration. Mind you, this is not a jab at Pattinson - Pattinson delivered it nicely. But there is no emotion in his line of words - there is no adjectives, there is no strong feelings about how he regards the city full of its criminals.
Here's a line from the opening scene. "Two years of night has turned me to a nocturnal animal. I must choose my targets carefully. It's a big city. I can't be everywhere. But they don't know where I am. When that light hits the sky, it's not just a call. It's a warning to them. Fear... is a tool. They think I am hiding in the shadows. Watching. Waiting to strike. I am the shadows." Okay? Cool. But sounds like something from a cartoon. What does that tell us about you, Batman?
Compare this to a similar scene uttered by Rorschach in Watchmen. "The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. All those liberals and intellectuals, smooth talkers... Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children, and the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences." You can say that Rorschach is extremely edgy (he is), but from that line alone we can tell his hatred towards the city, and even more so: his perspective, his philosophy that guides him to conduct his life and do what he does.
Rorschach's choice of words is sometimes verbose, but he is always expletive and at times graphic, making it clear to the audience what kind of person he is. Batman in this film does not. His words are always very safe, very carefully chosen, which strikes as an odd contrast to Pattinson's tortured portrayal of Batman as someone with a seemingly pent up anger. His choice of words is very PG-13 so that the kids can understand what Batman is trying to convey.
And this is not only in the opening scene. Throughout the film, the dialogues are written very plainly forgettable. It almost feels like the characters are having those conversations just to move the plot forward. Like that one encounter between Batman and Catwoman/Selina when she broke into the house to steal the passport or when Selina asked to finish off the "rat". They flow very oddly unnatural, as if those conversations are written to make them "trailer-able" (and the scenes indeed do appear on the trailer).
Almost in all crucial plot points the writers feel the need to have the characters to describe what has happened, or to explictly say what they are feeling - like almost every Gordon's scene in crime scene, or Selina's scene when she's speaking to Batman. It feels like the writers feel that the actors' expression just can't cut it and the audience has to be spoonfed with dialogues; almost like they're writing for kids.
Second, the storytelling.
Despite being a film about vengeance-fueled Batman (I actually like that cool "I'm vengeance" line) we don't get to see him actually being in full "vengeance" mode. Still in the opening we see Batman punching some thugs around. That looks a little bit painful but then the thugs seem to be fit enough to run away and Batman let them be. Then in the middle of the film we see Batman does something similar to mafias. Same, he just knocked them down but there's nothing really overboard with that. Then eventually in the car chase scene with the Penguin, Batman seem to be on "full rage mode", but over... what? He was just talking to Penguin a moment ago. The car chase scene itself is a bit pointless if not only to show off the Batmobile. And Batman did nothing to the Penguin after, just a normal questioning, not even harsher than Bale's Batman did to Heath's Joker in The Dark Knight - not in "'batshit insane' cop" mode as Penguin put it.
Batman's actions look very much apprehensive and controlled. Nothing too outrageous. Again, at odds with Pattinson's portrayal that seem to be full of anger; he's supposed to be really angry but somehow he still does not let his anger take the best of him. The only one time he went a bit overboard that shocked other characters is when he kept punching a villain near the end of the film. But even then it's not because his anger; it's because he injected some kind of drug (I guess some adrenaline shot). A very safe way to drop a parent-friendly message that "drug is bad, it can change you" in a PG-13 film.
And all that supposed anger... we don't get to see why he is angry and where his anger is directed at. Compare this to Arthur Fleck in Joker where it is clear as sky why Arthur would behave the way the does in the film. I mean we know his parents' death troubled him, but it's barely even discussed, not even in brief moments with Alfred (except in one that supposedly "shocking" moment). So... where's your vengeance, Mr. Vengeance? And what the hell are you vengeancing on?
Speaking of "shocking" moment... this is about the supposed Wayne family's involvement in the city's criminal affairs that has been teased early in the film. Its revelation was very anticlimactic: the supposed motive and the way it ended up the way it is, all very childish. If the film wanted the Wayne to be a "bad person", there's a lot of bads that a billionaire can do: tax evasion, blood diamond, funding illegal arms trade, fending off unions, hell, they can even do it the way the Waynes in Joker did it: hints of sexual abuses. But no, it has to be some bloody murder again, and all for a very trivial reason of "publicity". As if the film has to make it clear to the kids: "hey this guy's bad because he killed someone!" Which COULD work if the film puts makes taking someone's life has a very serious consequence. But it just pales to the serial killing The Riddler has done.
Even more anticlimactic considering how Bruce Wayne attempted to find a resolve in this matter only takes less than a 5 minute scene! It all involves only a bit of dialogues which boils down to how Thomas Wayne has a good reason to do so. Bruce somehow is convinced with that and has a change of heart instantly, making him looks very gullible.
And of course the ending is very weak and disappointing. First, Riddler's final show directly contradicts his initial goal to expose and destroy the corrupt elites. What he did instead is making the lives of the poor more difficult, very oxymoron for someone supposed to be as smart as him.
Second, the way Batman just ended up being "vengeance brings nothing and I should save people more than hurting people" does not get enough development to have him to say that in the end. Again - where's your vengeance? And how did you come to such character development if nothing is being developed on? And let's not get to how it's a very safe take against crime and corruption that closely resembles Disney's moralistic pandering in Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Last, the visuals.
I'm not strictly speaking about gore, though that also factors in the discussion. The film sets this up as a film about hunting down a serial killer. But the film barely shows how cruel The Riddler can be to his victims. Again, back to the opening scene: we get it, Riddler killed the guy, but it does not look painful at all as it looks Riddler just knocked him twice. The sound design is very lacking that it does not seem what The Riddler done was conducted very painfully. Riddler then threw away his murder weapon, but we barely see blood. Yet when Gordon arrived to the crime scene, he described the victim as being struck multiple times with blood all over. What?
Similarly, when Riddler forced another victim to wear a bomb in his neck. The situation got pretty tense, but when the bomb eventually blow off, we just got some very small explosion like a small barrel just exploded, not a human being! I mean I'm not saying we need a gory explosion with head chopped off like in The Boys, but it does not look like what would happen if someone's head got blown off. Similarly when another character got almost blown off by a bomb - there's no burnt scar at all.
Why the hell are they setting up those possibly gory deaths and scars if they're not going to show how severe and painful these are? At least not the result - we don't need to see blood splattered everywhere - just how painful the process is. Sound design and acting of the actors (incl. twitching, for example) would've helped a lot even we don't see the gore, like what James Franco did in The 127 Hours or Hugh Jackman in Logan. In this film there's almost no tense at all resulting from those.
I'm not saying this film is terrible.
The acting, given the limited script they had, is excellent. Pattinson did his best, so did Paul Dano (always likes him as a villain), Zoe Kravitz, and the rest. Cinematography is fantastic; the lighting, angle, everything here is very great that makes a couple of very good trailers - perhaps one could even say that the whole film trades off coherency for making the scenes "trailer-able". The music is iconic, although with an almost decent music directing. And I guess this detective Batman is a fresh breath of air.
But all that does not make the movie good as in the end it's still all over the places and very PG-13.
Especially not with the 3 hours runtime where many scenes feel like a The Walking Dead filler episode.
If you're expecting a Batman film with similar gritty, tone to The Dark Knight trilogy or Joker, this film is not for you. But if you only want a live-action cartoon like pre-Nolan Batmans or The Long Halloween detective-style film, well, I guess you can be satisfied with this one.
Denis Villenueve. A solid lineup. A different take on first contact. I loved Sicario but went in expecting a cerebral epic sci-fi.
That was a mistake.
Good things:
- Some really nice visual scenes
- Interesting aliens Calligraphy aliens!
- Clear theme of communication is omnipresent
- A neat score that might be awesome in a different movie
Bad things:
- The acting
- The lack of emotional reaction to ALIENS! The students asking to turn on the TV, all of the main characters
- Lack of useful characters Only the aliens and Louise actually did anything the entire movie.
- Supporting characters are very stupid in an attempt to foil the main character slightly
- Very clumsy exposition. Genre-typical news reports, voice-overs, dumb characters asking stupid questions.
- Very slow pacing. This worked in parts of Sicario, but didn't work in this movie because there was no tension. The main characters never seemed remotely threatened.
- Lousie showing up at school thinking everyone will be there after aliens arrive and there's a state of emergency
- Why can't you translate alien language like you can translate Farsi. This is a paraphrase but in the spirit of what Colonel Weber was saying.
- Useless love interest when the costars have no chemistry.
- Ultrasecure military base lets someone steal a ton of explosives and put it in an ALIEN SPACECRAFT without anyone noticing.
- Many unbelievable plot points
- Poor dialogue Let's make a baby - real quote
- Poor handling of the major plot points Looking through time seems to undermine the fact that the aliens need help. Why did one have to die if they could see the future? Why did only one die when they were right next to each other?
- Very heavy handed moral messaging that didn't align with the rest of the movie.
- Why couldn't Ian also see into the future as he studied the language, or any of the others?
Overall extremely disappointing. I'm honestly surprised critics or general moviegoers like this. The premise was very good. It's a real shame the execution failed so miserably.
I probably haven't watched as many, or as varied films as you would expect for someone who says they are a film lover, but I was never about quantity, instead for me it was always about quality.
Its also about the lasting impression a film makes on me, whether by completely blowing my mind, by using certain motifs like music, and scenery, or by making me feel something on a deep emotional level. Today Blue Valentine really hit me in the feels, and not the good kind either.
This film's tagline is 'A love story', and I feel this could not be further from the truth.
This film is so anti-romantic, that the most romantic moment in this film was when a decision about an impromptu hotel stay was being discussed, and hastily planned. The spontaneity by the frustrated male protagonist in a desperate attempt to rekindle a small spark that started the relationship.
Blue Valentine is told in two cross-cut linear story lines, and stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as middle-class married couple Dean and Cindy Pereira who are hopelessly trying to make a happy home for their adorable little daughter Frankie.
The story lines tell the evolution of their relationship from an awkward first meeting, and fateful chance second encounter, through to a courtship of bad decisions, and a marriage of convenience mostly to fit in with conventionality, then living in rural Pennsylvania.
While not much is known about Dean, other than he is from Florida and new to NYC, and an affable yet somewhat unfocused kind of gent. We do get a fair bit of insight in to Cindy's home life in the boroughs of New York, and the ineffectual role models for parents who share a fairly loveless existence.
I said this film is anti-romantic, and is so evident throughout the film. The sex scenes are devoid of emotion or intimacy, and is purely based on the physical needs of those involved, and the only love shown to anyone, is to their daughter who seems to be the only happy individual in this film of emotional bleakness.
Its been about 8 hours since I watched this film, and I still feel sad about it. I have put much effort into watching indie, or non-major studio films, and for the most part, while having sad, and emotional parts to them, they are often quite uplifting, and leave you with modicum of hope. Blue Valentine does neither, but this does not mean to say that it is a bad film. Quite the opposite, it is a very good film, with excellent performances, expert direction, and writing that achieves exactly what its meant to.
Do not go in to this expecting the Notebook, or I dunno, Love Actually. Expect more (500) Days of Summer without the lovelorn male protagonist, or hopeful ending.
Pros
+Looks Beautiful and Ugly at the same time (Ugly as in portraying the ugly circumstances of the war)
+The way it is shot is incredibly fluid, it's very much a long shot movie but there are maybe 5 actual like hard cuts in this and the hidden transitions are seamless. It really feels like you're walking alongside these messengers while still also giving the viewer an impression for how much time is passing in the story.
+Characters were all believable and likeable. There's some funny banter, there's some emotional release, a bit of fear, some kindness, and it's well acted so it gives the viewer a good impression of who these men are and it makes you want to care.
+Music and general sound design was nearly perfect
+ The story in general is solid. There are some things that I feel won't please everyone (which I'll mention) but I think overall it's a good story. The beauty is kind of in the simplicity. It's all about getting from point A to point B, but having it be that simple it makes room for the viewer to appreciate everything that happens in the journey.
+ You've probably guessed it from the things I've already said but the overall atmosphere is great without feeling like it's up it's own ass
+Very purposeful film. Lots of efficient scenes which seem disconnected at first but end up communicating an aspect of why the messengers are doing what they are and reflect the importance of this mission and/or increase the urgency of what is happening.
Neutral
*The movie is partially about will power and the main character's name is Will lmao
Cons
-I think Tommy's death happened too soon I understand not wanting to waste too much time but I feel like just a few more scenes would have done a lot for that part of the movie. (FYI this is not a big criticism I kinda knew it was going to happen since the trailer had so many scenes where Will was alone but it didn't quite mean as much as I would have liked)
-Predictable. This isn't honestly a criticism for people like me who don't really need any twists but I feel like some people would be bored with how straight forward and unapologetically predictable it is.
- in the German trench it says on one of the rafters "I <3 Elsa" a clear anachronism since Disney's Frozen (tm) had not come out in time for WWI soldiers to be fanboying Elsa smh btw I'm joking lol but I did see that in the trench
Definitely worth a watch
Action scenes 8\10
Animation 8\10 (except splinter maybe)
Megan Fox 7\10
Story 3\10.
Why does this always happen? Extremely large budget movies have terrible, terrible stories.
One would think that an essence of a movie is the story it's trying to tell,and all the other elements like: special effects, choreography, soundtrack, and so on are there to enforce and help the storytelling. Here it seems that the story is just there to excuse why the fight\action scenes are happening.
When I was watching this, I could hear this conversation in my mind.
-"Mr writer, we want a fight scene here, and a car chase there, make something up."
-"But Sir, it's not making sense story wise."
-"I don't care! We need to have explosions and fights in the trailer! Explosions and fights sell movie tickets, not stories!"
There are a lot of plot holes and nonsensical stuff going on in this movie, here are some that bugged me especially:
1)
Master Splinter learned Martial Arts form a book:
My problem is not that it is logically improbable, but rather that it lacks epicness in the character background.
How did Shredder learn Martial Arts ?
Well he is a Japanese Master who dedicated his life to learning martial arts. He practiced from early age and was instructed by the most knowledgeable masters in Japan.
(Btw why would a Japanese crime lord/Clan leader call himself 'Shredder' in english? But I digress.)
How did Splinter learn Martial Arts?
Well He found a martial arts book with drawings in the sewer.
You see what I mean? It’s not Epic, not Awesome, and yes does not make logical sense.
2)
April's stupid behavior when trying to prove the existence of the crime fighting vigilante:
April being a reporter, wants to air a story about the vigilante ninja turtles who fight back against the bad guys.She knows they exist because she saw them first hand, and also she managed to take an obscure photo of them.
When trying to convince her editor about their existences, she mumbles about some symbols the turtles are leaving as their calling card, about how she saw them and how they fight against evil, but when asked for proof, April comes empty.
So of course she gets fired(I assume because the editor thinks she is crazy.).
In the next scene she goes to an insanely rich guy's house who has been working with her now dead father in the past(Oh, I wonder how would that come to play later).
This guy is obviously a bad guy(I mean seriously, you can figure out he is evil from the first time he appears on screen).So she arrives at his house and shows him the picture of the turtles she had taken.
I’ll say it again, she shows him the proof her editor wanted to see just a few minutes ago, but somehow April forgot about that. For some reason she thought “Look at all those symbols around the city, they must be somehow connected to the vigilante.” Is a much more convincing argument then “Here is a freaking picture of them! Look!”.
Did she forget about the existence of this photo ? Did getting fired jogged her memory?
3)
Evil guys motivation for being well... Evil.
The first two points I can forgive, but this one really ruined the movie for me.
This movie doesn't offer any explanation why the bad guys want to 'Take over the world' or New York city in this case. There is no sense of what they are trying to achieve besides being evil just for the sake of it.
Their plan is to release a poison in New York and because they have the only antidote to it, they would sell it or get a government contract to manufacture it or whatever, and the rich guy would become rich-er while Shredder's clan would get to "rule".
Let's ignore for a second that this particular evil plan was used to death, what's the point of this? What will you gain?
Let's say it works and you do get rich-er ... But you are filthy rich as it is, and you already have like 10 companies who have their hands in all the pots.
There is: Obviously-Evil-Guy's construction company,Obviously-Evil-Guy's medical company, Obviously-Evil-Guy's science company and so on.
What would be the point of your evil plan if you already have all that?
And what is Shredder's motivation in all this? So the obviously evil rich guy gets rich-er and Shredder gets what exactly? He could rule the city? What that even mean? What would he gain from ruling it? What's the point of ruling a city that you just bombed with chemical weapons and killed half the population?
Also what do you mean by ruling? What like a king? You want to be the King of New York? To what end ?
If by 'ruling' you mean being the dominant criminal gang, than thats what you already are…
So the dominant criminal gang leader wants to attack the city with chemical weapons so his gang could become the dominant criminal gang in the city and he would be the dominant criminal gang leader ? Makes no sense whatsoever.
My opinion about whether or not this movie would be better without Megan Fox:
Short Answer:No.
This movie has so many faults that with or without Megan Fox it's pretty bad.If the writing budget was cut because how much it costs to bring Megan Fox onboard than perhaps it could be better. That being said, I don't think she did a bad job.Her acting was fine, I didn't feel like it was urged or artificial too much.Except for the scene in the beginning where April is reporting about ‘bird summer fitness’ or something. However I think the acting in that scene was bad intentionally. Showing that the character of April does not really wants to do this kind of work.
Being a bad actor is not the same as being an actor who plays a character who is a bad actor.
In conclusion, if what you want in your movies is fight scenes, car chases and awesome cgi, this is a movie for you.
If on the other hand you have a brain, and it bugs you when a movie makes zero sense, then don’t bother.
scorsese deliberately packaged the final scene as an ambiguous ending, and the key word is "packaged" because it was only made to seem like you could even choose between two endings.....but nope, there's only one true ending and the brilliant storytelling just leaves no argument on that case.
how Shutter Island managed to put me directly in Teddy/Andrew's exact state of mind at that moment of realization was really smart and frightening and I could feel what a delusional mental patient would have felt like right until the ending. it made me doubt my real life for a minute because I realized that it could be happening to me too, I could be unknowingly living a life of lies, and it's because Leo perfectly portrayed Andrew's fear and emotions realistically.
the uncomfortable feeling of insanity and events which did not make sense from the middle of the film already hinted that something wasn't right at all, and it was hella uncomfortable and worrying indeed, like I didn't know if my mind was in the right place, if I was drifting further from the film. the final act completely threw me off. I was so glad it did how it did.
as much as I wished that Andrew could eventually be cured, the poignant result of how he chose his own end tied up Shutter Island with a perfect bow.
Sorry folks but this one didn't go well for Marvel. I don't even know where to start. Acting was average, more like below average. Screenplay was as much ordinary as it could be. No surprise here. CGI was OK but it's somehow expected from Marvel. But I totally didn't like the idea of Wakanda. Hidden city in the center of Africa with tons of technology and advanced weapons and systems and so on. But how the hell did they build all of that? No explanation. It just happened. Yes, they have Vibranium, but they don't sell it. In fact they never did and for whole world they are just a bunch of shepherds and farmers. So where did they take all that money to build empire like this? I don't like movies without explanations and this is one of them. Almost nothing has been told about Vibranium whatsoever. Oh yeah, it's some super thing from the universe capable of anything. That's all the explanation you get. There are too many clichés we have already seen too many times. And we have to see them again. One example: I challenge someone for a fight because I want to kill him. And when I have the chance to kill him, what would I do? Kill him or throw him down from the cliff to the water where he can survive? But enough. If you hesitate if to watch this, I can recommend not to waste your time. Wait for the Avangers where you can also see the Black Panther. You won't miss anything if you miss out this movie.
