I don't even want to write anything. This movie makes me angry. Even with the mind-set going in that this is cheesy non-sense meant to please the brain-dead movie-going public, it fails to generate any sense that it understands what it wants to be and it's responsibility to respect it's predecessor. Call me exaggerating, but Pacific Rim: Uprising is a nightmare of a film, it's the last thing any fan should want of a property: Taking everything great a franchise has established, strip it down it's bare assets, then trying to sell it to dumb people. I've already said the first Pacific Rim wasn't a brilliant piece of cinema, but a lot of love went into crafting it's visuals and universe. Del Toro had a great eye for practical effects, lighting, digital composites, etc. I'm sorry Steven S. DeKnight, but he murders the franchise in every possible category: The writing is film school amateurish, the effects are below-average (lower than Transformers quality), the music is forgettable, and the universe has been shrunken down to a couple people, just like what The Last Jedi did for Star Wars. You had this mature and bad-ass world of Jaegar meets Kaiju action and you squandered it into the embarrassing cringe-inducing children's movie domain. I don't know how much hand John Boyega had in the creative process, but you can smell the cheapening all over the product. Everyone's picked apart the Jaegars moving too fast and the outfits not appearing as technically impressive, but down to the core, the writing, it's ruined. You thought Independence Day: Resurgence had lazy writing? Wait until you hear classic lines in Uprising that just reference how much better the writing was in the last movie. Want to write a great speech before the final battle? That takes too much effort. Just mention how great Idris Elba's "cancelling the apocalypse" speech was. They do this constantly in the movie, chucking, not even just random subtle call-backs, but full pieces of dialogue mentioning events in the last one. If you're not even going to bother writing your story better than garbage like Ender's Game and every other "youth training in military to stop evil force" movie, please don't insult the original by persistently referencing how much better it was. The action isn't even exciting. The physics and extremely out-of-place uses of slow-motion hinder any kind of tension or thrills. The finale in Tokyo is among one of the most underwhelming and confusing messes of editing ever. Resurgence was easy to follow at least, because it was set in the barren desert. How is it that a sequence at night in the rain, from the first movie, is easier to follow than one in daylight? And the movie just ends after they defeat the "final boss" Kaiju. No extra words to bring the characters' arcs to a close, you know, like a resolution should. It just goes from the characters getting out of their pod, having an out-of-place snowball fight, and the end credits. I almost couldn't believe it was over then. There was a brief mid-credits scene that poorly set-up future sequels that thankfully won't ever happen. It just dumbfounds me the entire cast went about putting this disaster together without one person going, "You know, shouldn't we at least get something right from the original movie?" Long-gone are the days of cool neon-aesthetic duel-outs with robots smashing ships into on another. We have the most bare-bones bullshit that's parading around as a sequel to a passion project of epic proportions. It's no wonder Del Toro isn't advertising this movie on Twitter. There's a part in the movie where they play the "Trololol" song as the Jaegars are flying away to fight. It was literally trolling it's audience.
It's Sharknado without the sharks, directed by the guy who did the original The Fast And The Furious... shame. That's all I've got to say, no one saw this movie any-ways, probably no one cares about this "review." I must say, the amount of continuity errors in the final chase scene, which is proudly displayed on the poster, is off the charts. The whole finale happens in the eye of the hurricane, that means the storm clouds should be encapsulating on all sides. However, because the dozen or so studios who financed this hurricane-scale proportions of a mess must've run out of budget money, the effects are clearly missing for over half the shots. Any shot that shows ahead of the truck, not behind, the cloud wave is missing. I suppose they assumed any braindead audience members just wouldn't care? In any circumstance, it's an unforgivable over-sight. It's unfortunate the entire movie is not stupid enough to be an enjoyable disaster. I'd rather sit through another real hurricane, infinitely more entertaining.
Clint Eastwood's
A Series Of Pointless Events
I was going to write more, but my dad summed it up pretty good with that title. One of the worst films I've seen a long time. This is Tommy Wiseau's The Room levels of bad, not exaggerating. Scenes that are so short with no purpose are all over this movie. Some scenes even mirror ones from The Room, like when they go into an ice cream shop and for four minutes, talk about random junk that have no effect on the story. There's an entire section of this movie where these jackasses just tour Rome and take selfies all over the place. Nothing matters, all the dialogue is horrible, the acting is some of the worst I have ever laid eyes on, there's baffling editing choices, inconsistencies in the editing, bland music, and POINTLESS every-day affairs.
This movie has inspired me to take a notebook with me to movies now, so I can write shit down as I watch. I'm just now remembering stuff. There's a little moment with one of the friends as a kid, he's in his room, and on the wall, is a poster for Letters of Iwo Jima, one of Clint Eastwood's movies. Reminded me of that bit in Transformers 2 with Sam in his dorm room, and there's a Bad Boys 2 poster on the wall. But beside the nitpicks, the movie fails at it's emotional structure. The real heroes suck as actors, so it's hard to take their monotone mumbling performances seriously, and a large portion of the movie just focuses on random seemingly unimportant pieces of their life. We get no look at who the terrorist is or where he comes from. I felt no threat or tension in the final scene because the terrorist just came off as an incompetent shooter, just baffling. Even in Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay chose to include scenes with the Japanese army to hype up their power-level and what they could do to an American fleet. Here, there is not a single scene with any explanation or story for the terrorist, reducing my engagement. I'm not intimidated by him, so why should I care?
Typically, I disagree with the complaint that these army movies are nothing more than propaganda commercials for recruitment, but good Christ, this movie is the dictionary definition on throwing subtlety out the window. Spencer, or whatever the hell his name is, wants to join the Air Force. Okay, cool. Does that part of the story have any effect on the train attack at the end? No? What's the point of it? There is none? It's just to promote the Air Forces and the Marines? There's really no point to it? Thanks for wasting my time. Story comes first, plot structure comes first, tension comes first, characters come above-all, and this terrorism-level disaster of a "feature film" did nothing for me at all. It's also just a shame this isn't bad enough in a funny way to be like The Room. It borders into the category so many times, but keeps slipping into the just-bad territory. How did this happen, Eastwood?
I loathe this recurring trend I'm seeing with a load of movies being put out, not just in the horror community. Studios take this engaging and expansive concept that could be fleshed out into a thought provoking and timeless archive of our culture, this Winchester story being the perfect capsule of life and death. There's plenty of interesting shit that's lightly tapped into... but like a ton of other projects of recent, we take this potentially enriching thing and throw it into the mainstream bubble. I can see the executives going, "Yes, this tale of a woman building time capsule rooms of dead people, and where they died, is cool and all... but it needs more poltergeists, jumpscares, and marketability." We're taking potential arthouse movies and slapping a studio coat of paint onto it. It's really disgusting.
In this movie, there are so many interesting conversations that are briefly explored. This woman is being told by supernatural beings (who were all killed by weapons from the company she owns), to build rooms in her mansion that capture their spirits and replicate the location where they died. That is so neat, and it amounts to barely anything. No big message at the end, no character study of this woman and the visiting doctor, who's also troubled just as much as her... really nothing. There's a lot of short scenes that go nowhere and inconsistent rules within the house. It's a generic ghost movie with a promising concept being used as the gimmick to draw suckers in like me. The synopsis is far more interesting than how it's executed.
I give credit for teed-bits of the production design, but we just had Crimson Peak and other great period piece movies, so I don't know what's the point of giving this credit for that. And for heaven's lord, I'm an apologist of egregious jump-scares, but this movie is not helping my case. I can't count how many times I wanted to walk about because of the predictable and ineffective jumps. Let's lock this movie up behind thirteen nails and forget it.
Even the poster is shit, step up your game, Netflix.
It's like two terrible hack directors, who are actually actors, saw It Comes At Night and The Strangers, then said, "Hey, let's remake The Strangers without understanding anything that made that movie interesting. Then let's throw in the ending from It Comes At Night. People will love this!" Nothing is explored, nothing is explained, all set-up plot threads early-on are completely ignored in favor of an open ending, there are no interesting characters, the drama is extremely forced and immaturely edgy, the cinematography and editing is jarring and even laughable at quite a few points, but overall, it's a fucking bore. It's trying to be like so many other horror movies (other bad horror movies, mind you, I mentioned Paranormal Activity 3 once when watching), and even doesn't understand why those were successful. All I can tell you, is Netflix is not having a good track record with their original movies. Sure, some of you may argue about Gerald's Game, but ultimately, nothing has impressed me enough into thinking paying for a subscription to this service is worth it. The idea I enjoyed Insidious: The Last Key more from earlier this month is downright unacceptable. Avoid this house, trust me, you won't want to buy it.
This whole movie, I couldn't stop thinking about Shinji and Kaworu's sub-plot from Evangelion 3.33. There is no point to this movie. It is the most boring film involving an on-screen romance I've ever seen, and I've watched all of Fifty Shades Of Grey. While Shades is bad, it has greater production design, has a form of cohesive story-line, no matter how laughable, has a memorable soundtrack, and is actually enjoyable, in an ironic sense.. Call Me by Your Name wishes it could be this important coming of age bisexual story it props to be up from it's aesthetic and Oscar-bait attire, but all we're left with in the meat are pointless everyday scenes and sub-plots that go nowhere, characters given zero depth or personality, yes, including the two leads, locations so bland and in-effective in expanding the story's world, that scenes could be taking place anywhere, and cinematography that feels very amateurish at times. I started counting the number of times the camera forgot to put the characters in-focus after someone moves to another position on-screen. The blocking and placement of the actors is televisual and bland, there is not a single shot that sticks out to me. Sitting at a table, laying in bed, bicycling, and etc. The only shot that sticks out is the final one as the credits play, but that's only because it's held on for so long.
I'm actually having trouble finding stuff to write. The two stars give it their all, desperately scrounging up an ensemble performance that appears emotionally stirring, and I applaud their efforts. But this just does nothing for me. It's so inconsequential and pointless. There are far better gay movies out there. If that's the reason you guys are all giving this movie high scores, then I'm sorry, you're missing out on movies more worth your time. Go watch Strawberry and Chocolate, a much more entertaining and fulfilling little story. I think I'm done with gay movies. I've seen a lot in the past year and they've mostly just felt the same. This genre is really limited. I'm telling you this because I wanted you to know. Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine. Okay, I'll stop quoting obvious lines. By the way, there's a scene in the movie where he fucks an apricot. Symbolism? Maybe. Hilarious? Yes.
Shockingly awful. There was no reason for this to be as bad as it was. This is another one of those films, like The Banana Splits Movie that uses one of the unused/scrapped scripts thrown out by Scott Cawthon as he works on his Five Nights At Freddy's movie. Studios see some potential in the scripts and just change around the aesthetic to adapt it. Nicolas Cage has a producing credit on this and I don't know why. What a shithead move to not have him speak the entire movie. If they were going for a Man With No Name approach, he should have a couple lines, really killer ones. The idea he says nothing is a comically ridiculous waste. There's no reason for him to be there then. Go Doomslayer if you want the silent killer. Give him a scarf over his mug and cowboy hat, it would complete his look, and then Cage wouldn't require a big check. None of the characters are memorable, recognizable, have any attachment to the story, or warrant the screen time they're given. Characters don't play to any specific strengths or weaknesses. Their names are spoken one or two times, none of them add to the world building or have connections to this restaurant. Any characters that have a chance of redemption are killed on the spot without a second glance, making their place in the script meaningless. Even the sympathetic sheriff groomed by the head sheriff doesn't get his moment to shine, he's unceremoniously killed in a lame, unrealistic situation where somehow an animatronic stowed away in the cop car. The levels of turning your brain off you have to do to even tolerate what's going on are to many to permit. Only one, named Liv, cares about doing the right thing. Neat. She cares about this old, creepy birthday palace why? I don't know. The lore is taken right from FNAF's pages, people possess animatronics to cause havoc, only here, it's serial killers. For what purpose? I have no clue. They only get fed every time the town's folks tricks a passerby to become a night janitor. How often does that happen? It's all just thrown in to one horrible exposition dump as Cage stands there with the same expression he has the whole movie. There's even a second exposition free for all that repeats all the points from the first one, only from the perspective of the townsfolk, and it comes right in the middle of an interesting scene between one of the kids and a suit. When we cut back, the kid is immediately killed. Why does the dude drink that brand of soda and on every break conveniently timed and looped throughout the picture? The only way this story would've been enjoyable is if it was an actual video game, Duke Nukem style. This is the cinematic equivalent of watching someone play Doom, but you don't get to experience the gameplay yourself, it's terrible. It's not even good exploitation. The blood effects are below the grade of a YouTube video, very obvious Kool-Aid mixtures for blood effects that come out of people's mouths. An excuse for violence is a staple of exploitation flicks for sure, but come on, we're far above the lowest tier trash that comes out of the genre. Most others in the medium are far better than this. To call this a slasher movie is insulting to other gore fests. Every scene is a loop. Janitor guy beats the shit out of a suit, he cleans up, takes his break with a soda, stares at the creepy guys on stage, and loop. This happens six times in the runtime; abysmal. It's a joke in itself, shots repeat like the tossing of a soda can in the garbage, like this shit thinks it's clever. If you want that, have some progression. Maybe that pinball game he cleans up, he gets better at and scores a higher score after each time he defeats a suit. No thought put in to anything, no themes. That ties in to the editing. You're not Edgar Wright. Quick cuts and neon lighting is overused now, you aren't interesting and it doesn't even fit the aesthetic of the time or location. Some of the reaction shots are laughable; like Cage will be punching the shit out of a dude, the camera is all wobbling and up close to be intense, then it cuts to a wide static shot of Liv standing there with a dumbfounded reaction on her face, which completely breaks the engagement of the fight, and then it cuts back to that shaking extreme close up of Cage fighting. It's distractedly awkward. The care to environments and visual effects are of a student film. Balloon lights, lighting equipment, and other junk can be seen in a few shots. The camera work is either over produced or television sitcom, most of the time switching in between shots. The setting of Willy's is small and pathetic, like a little store they rented out for the film. One ballpit, a side room for a birthday table, a kitchen where one pinball machine is located, and a very tiny arcade. As for the animatronics, you have to make me believe these were intended to be cute and friendly. The Banana Splits Movie understood this, considering they used actual Hanna Barbera characters so that was their original purpose, but these monstrosities are freaky even in the upbeat commercial. At least try to be subtle with your costume design, or have it so they flick a switch and change appearance to something demonic. It could tie in to the story's core element of Satanism being at the heart of this dandy play place. About the only satisfying scenes are Cage's final music video dancing to the pinball machine and the head sheriff's death by Willy. The score is also decent. Two points for this dreck.
Tim Miller, your career is over.
Cameron, you have created your own Alien: Covenant. Now, I have an interesting relationship with this film, before it was even announced. I liked Genisys quite a lot. I've liked all of the sequels past Terminator 2, especially the action heavy and emotional Terminator 3 that takes up the responsibility of carrying the development of it's lead, John Connor, and expanding on that. John in that film has brought the trials and understandings from the Terminator's sacrifice at the end and understands that a Terminator can grasp the concept of the value of human life. That part of him is still there, which is why he can accept another T-850 has come back to protect him and he doesn't stay prejudiced to it the entire film. The new challenge has to take up is his responsibility as the leader of the future resistance. He's run away and he's living off the grid, but over the course of the film, leading up to the brilliant ending, has accepted that he must come forth and take the mantel of leading humanity to ultimate victory. That is what his mother taught him, which is why I could accept her being killed off screen, because her development had been completed in the second film, John had a new burden to overcome, it was his journey by that point.
So tell me why this is acceptable. Why has it become accepted in our society that we can just throw a number of films, all with different creative leads, teams, and producers, under the bus and say they were all terrible, and this new version being created is the true sequel to what are supposedly universally accepted films, determined somehow. This botched move is what killed the 2018 Halloween reboot, which for some reason felt the urge to make the original sequel and Season of the Witch no longer canon, which makes no sense and it's a slap in the face to the original lore, just cause some redditors thought it was "a little silly" Michael and Laurie are siblings, even though Michael had a sister in the opening scene. There was no reason to remove the second from existence and it's put the franchise in a creative dead end, resulting in many logic gaps and ridiculous connections. You begin to realize this is all a tactic, this is the new remake craze like what was going on in the 2000's. Instead of just remaking the classics to varying degrees of quality, the new explosion of bait and switch is making a "correct" version of the original, i.e. in sequel form or reboot. This has happened with Star Wars, Digimon Tri, Scooby-Doo, Ghostbusters, Voltron, and so many more. It's become a franchise wasteland out there, with every company ready to kill off whatever it was you loved in your childhood. It's ripe for picking.
Dark Fate decides to forgo any profit from the Chinese market and any fans that may have been forged out of the 440 million profits of Genisys and ops to wipe the slate clean again, for some reason. Think about it, five was all about multiverse hopping and time travel, different timelines interconnecting, it actually explains away some time paradoxes created from previous films, because now anything can happen. Other characters can exist in new timelines and kill blood related family and suffer no consequences. Anything is possible with what Genisys introduced, but no, it's better to kill the potential golden goose. I was even cool with John Connor becoming a villain in his respective timeline, because a) it throws the development back on to Sarah and Kyle struggling with the idea of their child, originally prophesied to be the savior of humanity, now villain, and b) a good John Connor could still exist in another timeline. The floodgates of crossovers and mayhem were opened.
But, 'kay, fine, let's throw all that talk out the window. Cameron is back, Tim Miller is on board (yay?), David S. Goyer is writing, we're just getting rid of everything creative that was done before and going back to "basics." What does that entail. How is the brilliant writer's room going to top all out of the outings that it has to top, and prove that it's worthy enough of saying it is better than all of them, and it's the true version that should be canon? I know! Kill John Connor four minutes in to the movie. You think I'm joking. Let's have a T-800 walk up to child Johnny, who's a digitally recreated young Edward Furlong, and shoot him in the chest with a shotgun. Brilliant, oh, you guys outdid yourselves. The "mythos" of Terminator are important to them, this is the real Terminator 3 everyone. That's why Terminator 1 and 2's importance and story no longer matter since all the effort of saving Sarah, and then following up the born child, just results in the kid being shot in the chest in under a minute. Hey Cameron, what was that you said about Alien 3? That it was dumb and maybe a little disrespectful to kill your characters, Newt and Hicks unceremoniously? Aren't you being a little hypocritical constantly trashing on that film, yet you just wrote and produced the love child to it? Like, do I even need to continue the review? You've shot yourselves in the foot not even a few minutes in to the film. Sarah I can believe killing off, John was the product of those two films, he is who needs to survive, that was the entire message of Terminator 3, the T-850 sacrificed himself and lied to save John and Kate's lives. He is the backbone of the series, outside of Sarah Connor.
But, 'kay, fine, let's throw John in a lava pit. He doesn't matter. Where do we go from here? Answer is you don't. You know the trend. We have to regress every character's development from the previous entry so we can essentially remake the film with the same script and lesson. Worked so well for Incredibles 2, amiright? Sarah is now back to being a paranoid Terminator expert who doesn't trust a T-800 look-alike because they killed a significant other of hers. In T2 it was Kyle Reese, in this one it's John Connor. What a load of shit. Way to show massive disrespect to the films you claim to be honoring. May I remind you this isn't even really Sarah's film. We haven't even gotten to the new bland leads they've had to scrounge up because there's nothing to go off. So now that Skynet doesn't even exist anymore and John is just dead, we can now just remake the original The Terminator with a new super evil robotic massive conglomerate in the form of something called "Legion," with direct rip-offs of scenes from 3, Salvation, and Genisys, films they claim to hate, but will still copy from. Real class act. This future soldier named Grace is sent back to protect a new leader of the resistance, Dani, a total (wo)manlet that does not look like a feasible leader of the resistance. No disrespect to Natalia Reyes, she seems like a nice actress, but she is horribly miscast. If they had switched around the leads, Davis as the leader and Reyes as the protector, I'd believe it more. But okay, Reyes lives in Mexico and works in a car factory (social commentary), lots of Spanish language is used in the film, an overwhelming amount, and her Papi is taken over by the new Rev-9 terminator in an attempt to kill her at the factory. A Terminator 3 and Genisys ripoff chase ensues and we end up meeting a beaten down Sarah. From there, we just go through the motions of exposition, who are you, who am I, what are we doing, taking cues from some The Terminator deleted scenes, and flashforward glimpses of the surprisingly bland looking Salvation copying future war. That's a thing I really have to deduct points from this movie significantly. Tim Miller, I don't know what happened in your three years from Deadpool but the action in this movie is shockingly bland and boring. How can you make a truck chase that exceedingly tiresome, a finale at the Hoover Dam that anti-climactic and kind of laughable. The CG effects have downgraded so much, it would be Stan Winston to shame, the poor man. Compare the effects in this film to Terminator 3, and it's just evident as an audience, we have accepted lower standards as a thing. We are okay with shiny, video game tier special effects. Especially during the D-Day Saving Private Ryan inspired future war scenes, the Terminators are hideously over shiny. The liquid T-1000 effects in Terminator 2 still look better today, I don't believe for a second this film cost 180 million legitimately, a lot of that was probably forfeited to Linda Hamilton and Arnold, both of whom are on record hating this franchise and wishing it would end.
But okay, we find ourselves in nap inducing action, bland rushed characters, retreaded existing characters, and then we delve in to border hopping. Not making that up either. Sarah is banned in all fifty states for what she's done in the previous films, but since this takes place in Mexico, we can have social commentary about the leads sneaking across the border and getting caught by Border Patrol, and subsequently being held up in psuedo-ICE camps. I'm not even making that up, that's a crux of the film, the Rev-9 joins the Border Patrol (like the T-1000 taking the mantle of a police officer) and hunts them down in an ICE camp. There's even a back in forth with Grace and a patrol officer. "Where are the prisoners?" "They're called detainees." This is where we're at with propaganda. It's okay to illegally border hop because the protagonists of the film are supposedly good people. That's how they're trying to shove this nonsense on to you. It's not even subtle or clever. How can you get the blatant with the reality bending. From there, they hijack a helicopter (Genisys reference) and some more hijinks ensure. They do meet up with the T-800 from the opening scene of the film that killed Johnny. There's some faux deep themes like, can a Terminator understand human life, can it evolve in to a normal functioning person after completing it's mission, all of which were explored in 2 and Genisys better, and then we get in to the final climactic Furious 7 and Rampage rip offed plane finale and Dam showdown. From there, Grace sacrifices herself to save Dani, i.e. Kyle Reese, and the T-800 kills the Rev-9 while saying "For John," which is a bullshit final attempt to show they care about Johnny, which the film doesn't. Then the movie just ends. It just ends, there's nothing more to it. They don't defeat Legion, there's a little scene with a speech Dani gives in the future war, which was done better by John in the opening of Genisys and actually plays off with the role reversal later in the film, this is just a B-grade schlock speech about rising up and shit. Nothing interesting. There's no mid-credits scene, nothing. It just ends. This movie is pointless. There is no point to this movie. Why does it exist? Answer me that. Terminator 3 was about Judgement Day finally coming to fruition and John accepting his fate at a future leader, Genisys was about stopping a new Skynet while Kyle comes to terms with the fact his friend and hero John is now an enemy that must be destroyed. Grace and Dani have no charisma. There is nothing to either of them. Sarah regresses as a character, and Arnold is there to just please the fans. All the while the film just rips off the films it hates.
I would say the only positive of the film, not even much so, is some of Junkie XL's score, he can always put together something halfway decent, but anything else, the cinematography and color grading especially are awful. Nothing pops out of the screen, the lighting is horrible, very bad contrasting, silhouettes, no impressive shots to speak of. This is some of the most amateurish direction I've ever seen in a major studio film, only rivaling Joss Whedon's Age Of Ultron
Cameron, you are on my shit list now. I defended you with Avatar and the recently produced Alita: Battle Angel, my favorite film probably of all time, but this, this is gross. This is another in an evergrowing list of franchises that have been shameless ripped apart and put on display in a freak museum. How much longer do we have to endure this before people say to stop. Don't go see this movie, go watch the other sequels. Terminator 3 needs to be vindicated, it needs to get the respect it's been wrongly taken away from.
I know I'm going to be in the minority when I say this, but let the Monsterverse end here. I don't mean that in the way that, I hate these movies. Exact opposite, King Of The Monsters is my second favorite film of 2019. But given the history of cinematic universes (MCU), the Toho Godzilla series, and the current situation of the Monsterverse, I would rather see this little series end as a trilogy of sorts, discounting Kong Skull Island, and let it stay a self contained epic that completes all it's arcs over the three Godzilla films it currently has. I wouldn't want them to (((drudge))) this out, change it up to be more mass appealing, and lose the spark the series currently has. Legendary currently has the option to keep making Godzilla films as long as they want so long as they renew the license, Toho would let them. But given the financial returns, I don't think that'll happen. They're going to release this early in China, get some money back on their investment, and release it for the fans that still like this stuff. Neutering it down is the last thing I'd want and I'd rather it end now. I know you all would disagree, but end it on this "high note."
EDIT: Fuck, this didn't age well at all.
Wow, this latest Jennifer Lawrence "movie" is a lifeless slog, complete with horrible, uninteresting leads, unrecognizable bland locations, improper direction, lack of an emotional connection, and feels like only an edgy teenager would consider "artsy" because it's slow and quiet. Who the hell made this?
looks up the director's filmography
Oh, that explains a lot.
I know I keep giving mainstream movies a hard time. We're living in an age where blockbusters, like Black Panther, are superficial and lazy committee projects used to sell products to the general public. But then on the other hand, you got this stuff like Red Sparrow that just turns off said masses from the more original and creative small projects. I know this isn't a small movie, but it's an original movie not tied to some cinematic universe. The issue is, this movie's a piece of shit. It's the dilemma Downsizing and It Comes At Night had with audiences: being lousy "art" movies that are miss-marketed to a mainstream demographic. Doing this shit is only driving people back to the "safe" movies made by Disney. When people are dropping over $10 on a ticket, your film better match up to that selling price. There's a reason Black Panther is winning the box office right now, because people would rather trust a certified movie like that, than take a risk with a shit movie like this. I guess my incoherent rambling just boils down to... stop making bad movies? I don't know, my mind is spinning right now. Black Panther is undeniably a more coherent and gratifying experience, so they got me there, but at the same time, it's barely above this. Quality control has definitely been abolished, I will say that. These studios view something like Red Sparrow as the answer to the pleading call from losers like me, for more original projects. So, they don't care what it is or how good, just that it's the answer. We're already on the road where the only profitable movies will be the spectacle Disney movies, full of action and product placement. They infect all the months around them, so none of the smaller movies stand any chance. Only the few meme movies that Reddit and the Oscars pick up stand a chance at making an impact. Why else does Chris Hemsworth keep choosing to play Thor instead of doing other movies? Because they don't make as much money, and most of them aren't good movies either. Maybe cinema has always been like this, a handful of movies each year are worthwhile and the rest just aren't.
Fresh off of John Wick, David Leitch delivers basically a similar action gun-toting movie, but this time with a female lead, which worked fine. The use of martial arts more this time around added to the uniqueness the film had, enough to separate it from David's previous movies. But sadly, the few and far between action scenes can't make up for this incredibly slow and ultimately pointless movie.
I thought I was crazy when I walked out of this movie a little tired or bored of what I just watched, but it seems I'm not the only one. I originally was going to give this an above-average rating, but the more I thought it over, the more I realized how un-inventive and unoriginal and boring this was. I can't count how many times I was sitting in my chair waiting for this fucking movie to hurry up and just end. I'm never really given a reason to care about anything that's going on, or care about our lead, mostly because the movie makes no try to add charisma or an interesting shaded personality to our spy protagonist, Lorraine. She does have a nice sex scene about half-way into the movie, which attempts to add emotional quality to her character and the french spy, but there's something about Charlize's attitude and reaction to situations that just made her so detached and uninterested in anything going on. I didn't really care at all about what would happen to her, maybe partially to blame being the fact the whole movie is told through flashbacks, but I don't know. James McAvoy adds more charm to the movie and he was much more interesting to watch; the second he came on screen, I already became more interested in him than our lead. There's an attempt to add twists and double-crosses, and the story taking place around the Berlin wall collapse was kind of cool, but I was never full invested in this. I don't know why, maybe I was just tired, but this bored me almost all through. I will say, the long take staircase fight scene is wonderfully done, so props for that.
Also, do we have to rely on 80's nostalgia this heavily now? So many movies coming out now use a 1980's noir type aesthetic and matching soundtrack, filled with stuff like Queen. It's getting just a little old. I appreciate the movie's efforts to be unique, but the action is not anymore impressive than anything that's come out in the last 10 to 20 years. If you're curious to see the lesbian sex scene, check that out I guess, but the rest is rather boring. At least I got a chuckle out of John Goodman saying the word cocksucker.
You want to know the best thing about this movie?
Emma Watson turned down "La La Land" to do this...
Do you guys think I enjoy disliking these movies? 'Cause I don't. I swear, I go into every one of these hoping I come out having had a good time, laughing and enjoying watching superheroes do marvelous things. But this is the third time this year I've been disappointed by a Marvel movie. I just don't get it anymore. Is there something wrong with me, or am I missing something in this movie? I really don't know. But as I was watching, I didn't laugh once, but other people around me were laughing, at presumably all the right points. I could tell when a moment was supposed to be funny, I could tell a joke was being attempted, but I just kind of sat there, not at all convinced. A lot of the humor just feels so flat, or simplistic. I didn't think any of the jokes were clever or original. Just like awkward dialogue or callbacks to previous Marvel movies. I think I only half-smiled at two jokes in the entire thing. One was at Steven Strange's place, where Thor puts his hammer (disguised as an umbrella), in an upstairs umbrella rack. At the end of the scene, he's downstairs ready to leave, he puts his hand out for his hammer to come back to him, and you just hear in the background glass shattering and things just getting destroyed. After a couple seconds of it, Thor just half-heartedly says sorry. At least that joke had a little bit of set-up to it. I know there's another one involving a callback to Loki and Hulk's encounter from The Avengers, but I don't consider it clever. Most audiences won't get the joke unless they've seen that scene from that movie. The only other scene I kind of smirked at was the Hulk bouncing a giant ball across the room and back, like that prison scene from The Great Escape, and I thought that was just a nice little touch. But outside that, none of the humor landed with me. I don't know where people are getting at that this movie is like hilarious and easily the best Thor movie. I mean, yeah, it's the best Thor movie, but is that saying much? The first two Thor movies were total garbage, and I actually think I'm not alone in saying that. The story in this movie could not get anymore cliche, with it's hero's journey arc. I think it's definitely the laziest written Marvel movie of this year. I wish we actually learned something about Cate Blanchett's Goddess of Death in this movie. There's like a half-explained backstory that she was banished or something and all traces of her and the real history of Asgard was erased, but that's about the extent of her character. Also, we don't know enough about her powers and her abilities. What weakens her? How powerful is she? We don't know. Check out this little scene from her introduction:
She's brought up to be like this ultimate powerful being that shocks audiences. I can hear the people watching the trailer now screaming, "Oh my god, she destroyed Thor's hammer! How's that possible?!" Yet, when we see the whole movie, the actual confrontation is very underwhelming. And we never really understand what can she do and can't? I'm still like confused on this. I get that she's more powerful than Thor, but is that it? I don't even know what kills her at the end of the movie. Getting stabbed by that fucking huge flaming monster? There were a few moments of a flashback we see of her fighting the Valkyries, and it's got this renaissance-painting like look to it, similar to the storybook in Wonder Woman, but that's really it. OH, and when she first arrives in Asgard, she murders to people guarding the gate, but randomly decides to spare the janitor that's standing by. Oh, and the guy states he's a janitor in a fashion I assumed was meant humorous, but it wasn't. But she spares him and makes him her executioner... because janitors make really good executioners, I suppose. And he just kind of like awkwardly follows beside her, and I'm still really fucking confused why she kept him. She's the Goddess of Death. Why does she need a fucking executioner? He does nothing the whole movie, and she could just do his job, as she shows off early in the movie. But his whole arc amounts to nothing. I don't even know if we saw him in the final scene. The whole movie just has so much lazy writing. It starts with Thor in a cage talking to a skeleton we see off-screen, but I was just thinking the whole time, "The only reason he's talking to this skeleton is so the audience can get caught up in why he's in the situation. When has Thor ever talked to inanimate objects like that?" It was just something I noticed. And the scene after that has some of the worst CGI I've seen this year. The flaming monster of whatever had terrible animations, it just looked so jarring whenever they'd cut from him back to Chris Hemsworth's live action footage. It even looked like the chains Thor was in was CG, maybe it was the lighting. Now, now, I don't have ill-will towards the director Taika Waititi, I've yet to see his previous movie, so let me list off at least a few positives. And that's the direction the movie sometimes has. At times, there are some really impressive elaborate shots, like the previously mentioned flashback sequence. And there's one scene with Thor and his hammer flying away from a giant serpent monster that was nicely put together with the silhouette lighting and fast movement. But at other times, the movie looks like hot garbage. I don't have all the footage at my disposal, but just for example at some of the bad direction, check out this clip:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw1T6KYM_4I
I swear, the blocking and camera choices are straight out of Attack Of The Clones, with that scene of Anakin and Obi-Wan talking in the elevator. As much as I like that film, same shit. But you know what's really funny, is I found Waititi actually admits the direction is lazy:
I love how he finds a hard time saying positives in that sequence. Just pointing out the background is all CGI. Something that's clear as day obvious. There's actually a lot of bad green-screen in this movie. One was so bad, I swear, I almost started laughing in the theater. It's when Thor's running down the bridge towards Asgard and I swear to God, I could see the black lines around Chris Hemsworth.
But, ugh, I don't really know what else to say anymore. Marc Ruffalo has almost nothing to do in this movie except spout jokes at times towards Thor, there's more comic relief characters, just like what you'd see out of Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, and Jeff Goldblum doesn't have as many scenes as I wanted. He was one of the better parts of the movie. I want to see more of him in future movies. I gotta admit, I got a kick out of seeing Doctor Strange again. Benedict Cumberbatch is always a treat to see, even if he didn't do jack shit in this movie and only served as a cameo. Also, they play Led Zepplin's Immigration Song twice in the movie. Why? I don't know, because Guardians of the Galaxy changed movies forever. And before people tell me it's Waititi's style to put jokes in serious moments, fine, but I don't think so. I've seen Marvel do this before, making a potentially dangerous and tense sequence silly. Not once was I on the edge of my seat during this whole thing, and I never feared for the main characters' lives. Even when Thor's home planet, Asgard, is blown up to smithereens, they make a joke about it.
I'm so not looking forward to Infinity War. I just don't get it anymore.
The whole movie, I was just thinking about this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=40hFDtQLB8c
I'm going to try to vent my opinions on this movie now.
I think this movie frustrated me more than anything. Barry Jenkins did a really outstanding job with the direction. The scene near the beginning with Chiron in the ocean is great. The way the camera bounces up and down with the water was fabulously disorienting and I loved it. A similar example of noticeable camera work was when Kevin enters Chiron's car. The camera is mounted to the car door and the camera moves accordingly when the door is opened. There's good work all around.
Another major positive of the movie was the acting. Everyone did a phenomenal job with the material they had, especially Naomie Harris. She was absolutely perfect as the drug-addicted mother, who eventually winds up in a Rehabilitation center. She gives an outstanding performance at the table with Chiron, as she breaks down and tries to tell him she loves him, to which he just has to respond that he hates her. Mahershala Ali was quite enjoyable, but unfortunately, he wasn't in the movie very long.
I'm not typically interested in films with topics about gays or victims who are resulted from bullying, but I felt obligated to check it out after all the buzz and critical acclaim it was getting. There was a lot going for it and I was having fun with the characters at different points in the story, especially Chiron's classmate Kevin, played by André Holland. However, even with him at the forefront of the third act, I thought the last hour of the movie dragged on way too long. Far too fucking long. I could see exactly where they were going with setup, but they took too long in the diner to execute anything. There's plenty of scenes like it throughout the whole film. Something will be setup, but then not go much anywhere or do anything particularly interesting.
I understand the movie is trying to get across some important messages about life, love, and the struggle of trying to find yourself as a person. But the problem is, while I applaud and definitely see some great scenes in this movie, like Little Chiron sitting alone in the bathtub, there is far too little happening. You can't have a movie that's only themes. You still need interesting scenes to convey your themes. The only parts I really got invested in was Chiron's life in high school. He finally had enough and threw a chair right into the back of his notorious bully, Terrel. It was a chapter of the film I could identify with, we've all gone through rough patches growing up.
I'd like to give this movie a higher rating because it has good material to boast, but while it has some good subject matter behind it, it's far too slow. Not even the impressive direction and performances can make me want to revisit this movie. I could see why some could get sucked up in the world of Chiron's, but I wasn't digging it. Great visual work from Barry Jenkins, but a script re-write was needed.
The lowest of low. The editing is nauseating, the acting is atrociously bad, the stark contrast between reshoots and original photography are obvious, and the story is as devoid as life as you can ruin a such rich legend. How anyone can defend such an embarrassment from the studio has to stem from some blind brand loyalty. There is nothing passionate behind the lens, nothing resonating off the screen, it's a once interesting dramatic take on the story raped in to a 300 million disaster dumped on to Disney+.
Women deserve better films than this, don't give them this. We're not helping women, whatever the hell that means, by giving them the most basic, bare bones, modern, disgusting trite nonsense this is. There's an eyerolling "girl power" montage right before the main titles appear. For no reason. It's not a commercial on television, it's not an advertisement, it's just a random clip show of girls doing stuff. It's just gross. There's no point to it other than flaunt, "Aren't I doing the female sex a positive by saying how good it is to have a vagina?!" All of the male characters are very comically sexist, white, and troublesome, outside of Patrick Stewart of course. The action is tired, a lot of it borrowed from stuff like Now You See Me and Mission Impossible, except much more obnoxious, thanks to Banks needlessly making all of our three new leads as insufferable as possible. Stewart especially I've never hated this much, not even back in the Twilight days. None of her jokes make any sense, she babbles every line, and she does it every time she opens her mouth. I was able to endure fifty minutes or so before realizing I didn't even know any of their names or what was going on because the film's priorities lie in all the wrong places, establishing the organization and the villain rather than our leads. There's even a humorous piece during the first major car chase where one of them asks, "Who is that? Why is he shooting at us?" And I was like, "I'm asking the same thing!" The first line in the film is, "I think women can do anything." Is this really a debate we're still trying to have and the media trying to push on to the general American public? Women in the west are the most freed and supported than at any other point in human history. How fucking ironic that this film that wants to act as a female power move is funded in part by China, a place that has internment camps for Muslims; they show happy Muslims in the film in that opening montage. Hey Banks, why don't you use some of your money you had to make this movie and go help out those people instead of sucking more Hollywood dick to get to make the Invisible Woman film you're now directing? I guess virtue signalling is more important. I only get heated about this because how hypocritical the people who are making this film are being. Glad this shit bombed.
Might be the worst movie I've ever seen. Blumhouse's recent string of woke politics has now infected one of the most beloved classic Universal monsters, in an abhorrent display of boredom and disrespect to the original character, James Whale's 1933 masterpiece, and H.G. Wells' novel. This has even less to do with the Invisible Man than the Hollow Man does, the main antagonist (who is repeatedly told to the audience that he's a BAHD man from the mouth of our lead, never from his own), doesn't even turn invisible, it's a suit. So, he's not actually an invisible man, he's just created a cloaking suit. What a load of bullshit. I was talking to an audience member in the elevator on the way to my car, and he asked, why doesn't he sell the suit to science? Literally do anything else than building such an elaborate contraption, just to stalk his ex creepily. He doesn't even have any goals or personality, all he wants is to have a baby with Cecilia. What for? No idea, use him for science? Control over her life even more? It's never answered, the Why? for his plans, which drains the tension from the film, and conclusion. All the scares are played out, by the books. Oh my, she's walking slowly through the dark attic, I wonder what's going to happen next. Hey guys, everyone thinks she's going crazy, because Adrian is making it look like she's doing terrible things. Totally haven't seen that from Saturday morning cartoon skits. Thanks Leigh Whannell for lying that we hadn't seen the entire film from the trailer, playing damage control, because we totally did. It's a boring, tedious, predictable "thriller" that doesn't do anything unique that any other horror film from the like seventy years has done, If you've seen any movie in your life, you will get on the edge, of falling asleep. The sad thing is, because of the micro budget, this will still be a success and we have to deal with another classic monster getting a similar treatment. What joy.
EDIT: It has now been revealed the original film/script was radically different, longer, and explained many of my issues presented in this review. Studios, stop butchering your films to be more palatable to audiences.
This is what happens when the people who say, "Godzilla movies don't need to have good human stories," get their way. Easily one of the weakest Godzilla films ever made and the worst of this series. You're not a fan of this franchise if you say Godzilla movies don't need story. Every one so far has had an interesting enough script to justify it's monster bits, even the worst Showa or Heisei outings do more. It's not even really sure what it wants to be. Kong is propped up as the hero and clearly the protagonist of this story with Gojira making cameos as he hunts the organization Apex, but then Kong just loses anyways. What purpose is there for even setting up these monsters as sympathetic when all writing and soul is tossed out the minute they start brawling in Hong Kong. It actually forgets humans exist for a good four minutes as these two punching bags throttle around neon buildings. Craft is gone, it turns into The Avengers, with barely any collateral damage. "Oh but, you can follow the journey through the monsters! You don't need humans to have that nuance." Oh really? Godzilla doesn't like Kong being off his island, he puts him in his place, story done. Talk about deep. No moments to breath or for a character to properly react. This is hot off the heels of King of the Monsters, a film that continues the themes of Skull Island and Gareth Edward's Godzilla. Dougherty's outing before this deeply explored the themes of what it means to live with these monsters on Earth. How do you continue living when a relative of yours has been taken at the hands of one of them, do you shut yourself off or do you try to change the world? Emma became essentially so riddled with guilt she released the devil on Earth. How are these monsters really not so different from us, considering they were birthed out of our own arrogant, persistent lust for control over this world. It's too much to get in to, but that film dealt a great deal with overcoming grief, putting your faith in God, coexistence, and forgiveness. Mark's scene where he looks in to Godzilla's eyes and finally restores his faith is one of my favorite moments from this series. There is nothing in Godzilla vs. Kong that could be remotely construed as a plot. Charles Dance's role has been replaced for some reason, we have a wacky podcast conspiracy guy that serves as just a walking prop for the viewer to see world explanations, Kyle Chandler as Mark has been reduced to a cameo, and on that note: Why is he working at Monarch? He consistently hated Godzilla until he had a change of heart and faith by virtue of Serizawa and Mothra. Monarch didn't change to the good guy, they're still an organization on the cusp of lawsuit and government shutdown. Would GvK mind explaining that for us? How and when was Apex formed? How is it possible the creation of MechaGodzilla never leaked out? The world has been introduced to the titans. It's plainly established everyone is obsessed with these things, the internet and news won't shut up about them. The government doesn't know this is how Apex is using their power supply? In '14, it's at least explained their research on the MUTO was a government cover up for Monarch, that's why Joe in that film became a crackpot theorist who wouldn't let the nuclear incident go. But it's not 2013 anymore, the creatures are no longer a big secret. In King of the Monsters, the people unleashing Ghidorah to rival Godzilla are small band of eco-terrorists, they aren't a multi-billion dollar corporation. It makes no sense and done so much more poorly. It's rushed and done with quips. The most we ever get in terms of world building is a single shot of a map and newspapers, talking about the UN vetoing Godzilla or Apex facilities springing up across the map. We don't hear internal communication or even have a Senate scene like in this last film. The world has simultaneously been expanded greatly and shrunken to nothing, something Pacific Rim Uprising also horrifically accomplished. This series was built off the foundation of engaging with this science fiction, government monster universe through the lens of a sympathetic every-man that's been hurt by the monsters in some way, usually a familial death. Dr. Nathan Lind is given two words to establish he lost a brother in the Hollow Earth, but nothing ever comes of that information. Humans? There are storytelling devices used to get the audience from scene to scene. In the same span of runtime, from '14 to this, Bryan Cranston is grieving over his dying wife, to this has a fat guy making jokes about toasters. The most amount of interesting character development are thrown away in two very specific pieces of dialogue. The little native girl's family was killed by the storm surrounding skull island, which we saw in Kong's film, as was the whole island wiped out. I imagine there was a sequence that explored this and able to give a more tragic or perhaps resounding, uplifting message of sticking with family even when you've suffered so much loss. It would fit the overarching narrative that's stuck to this MonsterVerse so far, but it seems the cutting room floor did a number to this movie, as even stated by director Adam Wingard. It really does feel like the movie is playing damage control. Audiences didn't understand the previous films' stories, so they got fed up trying to understand them and just declared they don't want any characters in these movies. So we get walking action figures that say the words necessary to get us to our next fight. The best potential that existed in one of these dolls was Shun Oguri's character, Ren Serizawa, who is related to the Serizawa of previous films, the one who sacrificed himself to save Godzilla and prove humanity needed to accept him as their king. It was a very touching, holy piece in the last film, and Ren could work as an antagonistic son who resents his father for giving up his life to this monster he doesn't understand, and we could go through a similar arc Mark Russel did in the last film. None of this is realized, he is a dummy test pilot told to get in the goddamn chair, like it's an Evangelion reference. The most amount of enjoyment anyone could get out of this is the splodge of CGI dumped on to the screen with no visual grace or narrative substance. If that's all you want, then I pity what this means for blockbusters. Edwards crafted a fantastic character movie in 2013 and the series has been handed a blow here.
This is one of a handful of Disney sequels that actually surpasses the original. That's not saying much, though.
Not even discussing the quality of the film it's about, The Last Jedi, this is actually a poorly structured documentary. From it's first introductions, it's the wrap party followed up with clips of internet buzz about the film's director choice, and from there, starts showing off the cycles of the production. The big issue, in comparison to The Beginning film showing The Phantom Menaces's shoot, is there is hardly a straight timeline of events. You don't know how far away pre-production is from shoot, how far Rian was along writing the script when the sets were being built, when storyboards were being drawn and colored proper for practical and digital techniques, when effects demonstrations started, any conversations really between Rian and the producers, etc. The entire ordeal is glossed over with rapid pace, never stopping it's stock orchestral score to showcase the fancy B-roll they took for this. The style of which this is edited is less of a documentation of what happened, and instead a very fancy marketing show-reel. Pieces of conversations are let to breath, but sometimes the punch line or follow up to conversations are not finished, random choices of what to include and what not is jarring, i.e. the comment about Russian tweets which has nothing to do with the preceding and proceeding sequences, and nothing ever really makes sense. It's like a jumbled compilation of pieces of the production with graceful intent, but no foundation. Everything feels out of order and it doesn't make me feel like I'm actually there experiencing the labor intensive shoot with the crew. I feel like I'm being told what happened, rather than being shown it, which brings me to one of my major gripes, is the over extensive use of narration and interview footage/audio instead of raw B-roll conversation. There is some to be found, sure, but it feels less personal and intimate when a lot of what is being fed to me is not the initial or in the moment feelings of the people involved with the production, but heavily scripted and filtered interviews after the fact. There's a manufactured feeling which I can't shake, and that's my question. Why was this made? Genuinely, I want a real answer, why was this produced and released? Why wasn't one done for The Force Awakens or Rogue One, especially the latter, I would have loved to have heard from Gareth Edwards' mouth his process for making the movie, especially in regards to his documentaries for his film Monsters. What was the goal here? Well, I'm going to put my tinfoil hat on and conclude, the studio probably knew there was going to be backlash, or at the very least, misunderstandings about the creative choices taken with the script and presentation as a whole. It's almost like they anticipated the vitriolic response to the final picture, so my guess is at some point in pre-production they started making this. They probably loved what Rian was doing, "being risky," but that's the point of this, it's a piece to convince the viewer why Rian is a misunderstood, genius director, in a veil attempt to save face, to show the public that they actually "make creative decisions" and this film is some kind of work of art. That's why there's inclusion of a number of interview pieces from actors Mark Hamill and some of the crew facing their concerns about aspects of Rian's planning, but are painted in the light that, oh, he know what he's doing and it should be supported. I want to respect the work by the cast in the background that actually seemed to care, but there's something so disingenuous about everything here. In comparison, Rob Zombie's Halloween documentary that is over four and a half hours long uses almost no interviews, only when it helps the day of shoot, not much narration, just straight B-roll from the start of pre-production, to the very end, and it is one of the best documentaries I've ever watched. The important thing is it's a day by day look in to it, not a shimmering gloss. It's actually a journey, you become attached to the crew through it, nothing is left out. This, it feels like revisionist history.
I'm not even sure why I watched this. I was spending time with my folks and they decided on this, because the trailer admittedly looked inciting. But due to it's very unclear focus, any emotion the film tries to power, falls short because of lack of development between most of the leads. There's an entire subplot somewhere in the second act involving the workforce prison on this planet, you know "world building," but nothing it dredges through helps the characters become more dynamic. It's filler for the sake of entertainment. There's a fight in the mess hall, the captive monsters are let loose in an escape scene, but as I was watching, I was like, "Why am I watching this?" The entire focus of this story is this dad trying to save his daughter as the government is launching a deadly virus to wipe out this planet's population. Why am I watching unrelated characters do stuff that have little impact on the central character? It does this multiple times. Oh, the mains go buy weapons from this arm dealer. Let's give the arms dealer a five minute shoot-out scene that literally does nothing for the story. Some people say movies can be cut down to be shorter, and most I disagree with, but here, you literally could cut out over a half hour of material. The focus is so off, that when the emotional climax (and sacrifice) happens, I'm left more numb than bawling my eyes out, like I'm sure they wanted me to. There's a little something from every science fiction movie ever done here, just not as good. Oh well.
I'M BACK! OH YEAH, FUCK THIS MOVIE.
Venom is unfortunately everything I feared it would be. This year has been especially brutal to blockbusters as studios are rushing to neuter their projects in hopes of recouping losses from spending too much on their budgets, even though Logan, Deadpool, and IT have proven R rated films can be monster hits. We've seen Jason Statham trash talk The Meg just days before release, and while that may have made half a billion dollars, no one is talking about it and is already culturally irrelevant. These are the kinds of movies were are putting on the top box office charts; shit we don't even like. Now we have Tom Hardy depressingly revealing in interviews all his favorite bits to film were cut out the movie, something a good forty minutes. It shows, the editing and pacing of this movie is a haphazard mess. Scenes come and go so quickly, you're never sure what emotion to be feeling. Eddie breaks up with his fiancée and like, it jump cuts six months later so quickly and he's being goofy. Events transpire like fingers snapping, so a lot of it becomes a blur. One of the scientist ladies comes to Brock because she thinks evil baddy, Drake, is doing immoral research using the symbiotes. She seems kind of interesting, but her only purpose is to dispel hideously bland exposition, make a snappy one liner to a security guard, get caught, then given as a test subject to a symbiote. No one in this pile of cinematic universe dreck is given an ounce of character development outside of Eddie. Tom Hardy shines in the few moments he gets to chow down on some frozen tater tots, but they're cluttered in between headache inducing action scenes that can't show any violence. Upgrade just came out a couple months ago and that's a better Venom movie than this, beaming with a better paced story and much more paid off emotion (the first ten minutes had me near crying), plus, hardcore violence. I hate to play the IMDB audience normie reviewer, but I'm just going to say it, imagination is for pussies. If I'm dropping down $12+ on ticket, and it's not explicitly an arthouse film, you're damn right I'm going to be mad when violence is happening as part of the set piece and you don't show it on screen, especially if that's the selling point of a movie. This was so clearly shot to be R, I could just picture the blood splattering and grotesque imagery, but because of the editing, it's not there. The PG-13 curse has robbed us of Venom ripping people's faces to shreds. Oh sure, they imply it, hell, he does it a few times, but the cutting happens so quick, it's like he swallows them whole and quickly disposed of off screen. Venom resorts to just jumping all around the room and throwing people into walls. The disappointment I feel watching a freaking Venom film, a property that's come from a more serious comic book series and has the potential to withhold a three hour R rated epic shows how much the mark has gone left field. Sony would rather make the character as friendly as possible and able to blend right in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe if I buy out would happen. This is the movie industry today. I saw a review for this movie in a magazine that mistakenly categorized this as a film in the Infinity War. I don't blame them. I can't tell the difference. The stink you get from the formulaic quips, forgettable villains, and regurgitated hero origin story could fit right alongside Ant-Man. What a bollocks shame.
Okay, before I type anything, a little update on my writing. I feel like I try to correct myself too often, to make my reviews appear more professional than they really are, which can get in the way of my actual opinions on a movie, and getting reviews out quicker. I'm doing it right now as I type this, it's become a habit. My point is, from now on, I'll try to just spill out my thoughts without worrying too much about format. I'll keep them in mind, but what I want to share comes first. The Happytime Murders is your standard detective murder mystery, only with a gimmick of Muppets being very adult (swearing every other sentence). What makes this so funny is it's directed by Jim Henson's brother, who's responsible for The Muppet Christmas Carol and it's funded by the Jim Henson Company. This is basically a Muppets movie, just for adults. At first, it appeared as just one of those spoof parody movies made by the two hacks who did Disaster Movie, but no, this is the real deal. That said, the script needed work if it wanted to at all resonate with audiences and stand out as a classic you could revisit. This lacks the charm or wit of, say, an Edgar Wright film. It's amusing as hell to see a Muppet in a porn shop, watching a puppet jack off a cow, but it kind of just shows adult behavior without earning any of it or showing it in a clever way. Okay, so puppets are snorting cocaine and jizzing all over the place. It stops being funny after ten minutes. This movie would work better as just a short comedy sketch, like a twenty minute television pilot. Melissa McCarthy is surprisingly passable, I usually find her type of yelling and fish out of water humor annoying, but she restrains herself a little here. All I can say is, if you want to see Muppets be represented as an oppressed group in society (social commentary on minorities), dealing drugs, having sex, saying "fuck" every other sentence, you could find enjoyment in pirating this flick. I would like to see them make a sequel to this, actually. There's potential with this approach, just needs an original, crazy script, that's worthy.
Everyone's seen this movie already, so my thoughts really don't matter. I saw this out of obligation, not 'cause I was on the edge of my seat in roaring anticipation if my flavor of the month favorite character would live. All I can say, this is the best Marvel Studios movie, just on the basis it feels like a... movie. Yeah, with a story, a character to follow, and a real artistic production value behind it. Granted, it still falls short because of the studio mandating and tiresome quips, some of the jokes land, but most don't. The real protagonist of the film is actually Thanos. From the start, you follow him, like he was written with the hero's journey in mind, and he has a clear set up and pay off. He's the best written character in this entire goddamn universe because he is interesting; he has purpose, and I can say that since I've seen over 13 of these released products. As vengeful and heinous as his "overpopulation" removal solution may be, he actually gives solid reason for his actions and you almost end up feeling for him over any of the other disposable and rather annoying superheroes. Who the hell even is Bruce Banner anymore? What does he do? What is his job? Why does he not contribute anything more to this universe other than babble around and turn into the Hulk every once in a while? He's the most useless character in all of this. Thankfully, the Russos' actually attempt to demonstrate the consequences this time around, and use basic human emotions to tell the story. Because of Peter's sudden lack of judgment and losing control of his anger, Thanos gets the gauntlet back and dooms the entire universe. Gamora is given a decent backstory that comes into fruition, she's the adopted daughter (little one) of Thanos, and it works emotionally whenever the two are together. When certain characters are given proper screen time, this works. Other times, some are throw in purely for fan service and have no overall impact on the story. This movie should've just involved Gamora, Quill, Strange, Stark, and Parker, the rest of the cast is there to make this the Infinity War. I really hate Black Panther. This movie isn't bad. I still like Batman v Superman more, yeah, sue me. (I know we shouldn't compare the two, just throwing that out there)
Decent little short, but the jackasses in my theater wouldn't shut up. Even during the moments clearly meant to tug on the heart strings, everyone was laughing. Have audiences become so used to jokes that they expect nothing but mind numbing stimuli when they go to the theater? I guess screw everyone who's wanting to make it big telling dramatic stories. Yes, there are parts of this short that are clearly humorous, but I'm talking the emotional climax. I was ready to walk out, it was so bad. Cinema is dead.
Eh, it was fine. Appears to be like the stock "bad people in house" starter pack school project I've seen done in many others like it. The saving grace is just the couple of twists that keep it interesting, like the reveal of the family auctioning for ideal people, moreso their talents. However, a win for best screenplay? Absolutely not, I thought A Cure for Wellness did it's writing better. I compare the two because the stories are a slightly similar. I fail to see what's so amazing about this, other than Jordan Peele's direction. And no, I didn't watch expecting to hate it, nor do I hate it. It just underwhelms me a little.
Bill Skarsgård was in this movie and there was not one Pennywise reference. Writers, you have failed me.
Wow, I am really on the fence about this one. I don't have much to say about this, just, if you enjoyed the first, you'll be fawning all over this one. It's better. I'm not a fan of Tim Miller's original, mostly because of the constant meta humor and terrible, inconsequential story. It just didn't click with me. Making a jab at a popular movie that recently came out isn't clever writing. Deadpool 2 is exactly what you would expect of a sequel that thrives off a film built on fourth wall jokes and inappropriate gags. It's the reason you're in your seat. Thankfully, the jokes are actually more respectful this time around and not as often as expected. The Take-On Me piece is the best thing to come out of the movie; I chuckled. And Cable makes for a great character, actually much more so than the Wade Wilson. Josh Brolin nails every role he's in, which is why I wanted more of him. He's a tragic anti-hero, but unfortunately, his struggles aren't given much attention. He brushes all his reason for being there in the last scene (yes, I get what they were doing), but lacked in any satisfying wrap up for his arc. We instead have to focus on the lamest, eye-roll inducing fat kid, Russel, and his quandary at his abusive orphanage. It's so lame and not interesting, but we're forced to endure it, because it ties back to Deadpool's relationship with his wife. It's the center of the movie, and I couldn't give less of a fuck. They could've gotten a better actor, or something. Given more screen time to the horrible crimes the orphanage is committing, but just, I did not care. And at times, it seems the movie didn't either. There's a few subplots that briefly come up, only to be swept under the rug only minutes later. Whatever happened to the kids Negasonic Teenage Warhead were saving in the finale? What happened to the orphanage, or Russel for that matter, after the battle was over? It might be looking for things that aren't there, but the story felt incomplete. It's a cryptic and broken script that's copying Guardians Of The Galaxy and The Terminator, missing any kind of emotion. This should've been all about Cable, not Deadpool making dumb jokes as a guy gets cut up in a shredder. If you just want a silly action movie, with subpar work of John Wick director David Leitch, pounded together with wacky and gross humor, you will like it. It just didn't do much for me. Not going to remember it in a week.
Okay, if you've followed me for a while, you know I would never sell out my voice for money or clicks. I don't construe my feelings to be contrarian, and I've stated a number of times I don't enjoy hating. Oh sure, A Quiet Place looks fantastic in comparison to the relentless gluttony dispenser of superhero blockbusters, but what about it's own? John Krasinski creates a well crafted picture: it looks and sounds great, although it cheats by making everyday sounds artificially quieter. But, I can't help feel the short run time, and plot holes that are coins gushing out of a slot machine, more than you can carry, rot the spine of what otherwise is an intriguing concept. An apocalypse of monsters that seem unstoppable, attracted by simple noises? Having just seen the teaser, I was itching to see what could be done with a story like this. There were, almost literally, a couple seconds of what I could consider worthwhile achievements. The location and cinematography is excellent, using tricky lighting and blocking, but only serves as the means of telling a very cliched story. I don't understand it. How was it that I was bored through this? This has been done better in so many other monster movies, even from Platinum Dunes' own catalogue. What about Signs? None of the characters were interesting, which could be accounted by their lack of speaking, but even performance wise. I didn't create a connection to any of just the cast of six characters. Krasinski is the most intense, but we don't know anything about his past life. What was Emily Blunt's occupation before this? What did they like to do for fun? Have they always lived at this farm? What is the political and social ramifications of the catastrophe on the rest of the world? What did the kids do before the invasion? Where are the creatures even coming from? What sounds can the monsters pick up and why do they not attack at some of them? We don't know. I can appreciate it just focuses on the crucial events, like an old horror movie from the seventies (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), but it's hard for me to care about a creature coming to attack when I don't care if someone is going to be killed, not even the newborn baby. If you want an example of killing a child done better, just go to the recent IT. It guts you watching Georgie get sucked below the streets, because it took the time and carefully put an emotional tie between the lead, Billy. It's tried here, but to a lesser extent. The writers have already announced a sequel, so maybe the budget will be much larger to expand the world of this universe, but money is no excuse. 10 Cloverfield Lane had nothing, and that boasted an incredible creepy narrative. I nearly laughed when Krasinski screamed and sacrificed himself, while the daughter just stared with her gaping mouth open. And, again, my issue's not the under utilization of it's possibilities, but just that I wasn't able to care about anything going on. Everyone just seemed so flat. And especially more of a problem, when the weakness is so obvious, and shown in a silly way, it makes the monsters all less terrifying. I believe, a spectacularly wasted use of a great idea, most likely just getting praise for not being a Marvel movie.
"Because I need to get off this island, to solve the Map No Man Can Read. Lucky I'm a woman."
This is an actual line of dialogue.
Quentin Tarantino Presents
A Lamer Version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Remake
Meh, I'm conflicted. The music is surprisingly great, and it takes itself a great deal seriously, there's a section in the final act you may get emotional at. Eli Roth has an eye for visuals, and effectively builds tension, but there's not much going on that I really cared about. If you're just looking for some gore and fun, you'll get it. Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, and Robert Rodriguez all love this kind of shit, and I do too, but man, the characters needed work. Lack of anything going on in the second act. The only amusing segments are at beginning, and last half hour. I find it hysterical, though, Roth considered this his Kill Bill, being presented in two volumes. Will I watch part two? Probably. I'm a sucker for their shit. The Green Inferno, here I come.