A gripping, underrated horror film that relies on it's characters and old fashioned cinematography to step up it's game. Leonetti coming up being the camera operator for many old and new classic horror films like Poltergeist and The Conjuring, uses simple direction to his advantage. I miss horror using laidback tricks and basic blocking to deliver the scares, all too many now rely on stylish or even action choreography to create it's jumps, but Annabelle opts for looks that reminisce 70's and 80's horror, fitting for the story's time period. No offense to James Wan, but this is the best looking (and sounding) out of the Conjuring series. The leads and film's social commentary though are what really strike with me. Many fail to understand the point of the Annabelle trilogy, being it's all a story of the destruction of the family bond and even the nuclear family image. Repeatedly at the start of the film, it's made clear that times have changed, it's not okay to keep your doors unlocked anymore, and the innocence of the American family has been destroyed. The nail in the coffin is their attack by the occult members and a fire damaging the house, prompting the couple to leave it behind and have their newborn baby in an apartment. All a great metaphor for the changing times. The importance of religion to the story can not be understated, that every action has it's roots deep in biblical and satanic text, the film is built around the idea of the corruption of innocence, the separation of a mother from her child, and the sacrifice to save a life, even if it's resolution is twisted. God honors sacrifice, and our sacrifices touch God's heart, and move his hand. Something simple as the demon waiting for Mia at the end of a staircase, shrouded in black is an unforgettable image. I love the bevy of details like Mia trapped on the basement floor of her apartment, but the elevator won't go back up. She hits the floor 6 button 3 times, by which point, the demonic activity rapidly increases and she's forced to ascend the staircase herself. As Mia had stated earlier in the film to Father Perez, there are some things we have to do ourselves.
Oh, how the might hath fallen.
There isn't anything I can say that hasn't been stretched out to a two hour YouTube analysis video, but the state of Star Wars is depressing to say the least, and Disney knows it. The High Republic project they just announced is a direct response to the fans' disdain for this entire sequel trilogy and it's disrespect to the last six films. You have grade-A talent on display, in front and behind the camera, and the result is a two film story squished in to two hours, strung together with some of the most headache inducing pacing I've seen in a major studio film. Ian is wasted as the great Emperor Palpatine, John has no arcs as Finn, Daisy has the same expression she's had in the last two films, stonefaced and Pennywise, and Oscar Isaac wished they killed his character off in the first film so he wouldn't have to do the next two. The only thing I can feel during the final scene at Luke's old home on Tatooine is heartbreak. Hearing John Williams' brilliant last score for the series (and probably just a few years before he dies, he's so old), but coupled with the imagery of Rey taking the spot for herself feels so unearned and lost potential. Had our main lead been written with so much more thought and consistency, it could be a real heart tugger like it's meant to by, but all it does for me is remind me how the series has been ruined in just five short years. It's never explained who made the Sith wayfinders, who made the dagger, why they made the dagger, why they made it the way they did, who are the Knights of Ren, how did Palpatine come back, is he a clone, or is he the original version, how did he have all the resources to make like a thousand Star Destroyers (all with planet killing weapons), who are his faithful followers, what happened to the Republic that was destroyed in The Force Awakens, how did Han come back (was that really a memory or a vision, because it's never revealed Han could have force powers), why can force ghosts interact with the physical world, when did force healing become a thing, why is the Holdo maneuver one in a million, and so on. The film is a complete disaster when it comes to the writing, because it's very evident the film is a collection of twenty or so re-edits all with clashing ideas, in some desperate vein to get fans back on board after the abysmal The Last Jedi. But instead of digging themselves out of the coffin, they put the final nail in.
I am now giving this film an 8 because of the workprint version. For those that aren't aware, recently, the original version of the film from 2000 was leaked online by a couple documentary filmmakers, creating drama in the community as a result, but finally giving out the long awaited, Allcroft version of the film, at least as of the second edit during the post-production process. I watched a fan edited, new audio mixed version of the cut available on some private torrent sites, and honestly, it fixes the movie. All the issues people have with plot holes, logic gaps, childish humor, conflicting tones, unmotivated villains, and confusing characters, are all completely fixed. The film's story is re-ordered, over 20 minutes of footage is reinstated, thus creating a more cohesive, interesting dramatic narrative that centers around all the human characters, and not just oddly Mr. Conductor and Diesel 10. Grandpa Burnett is fleshed out much more, P.T. Boomer is all back in the picture, fixing the villain problem, Lily has a little more to do, and the chemistry all around benefits from the shared conflict of stopping Boomer from destroying the island. The tone is much more mature, but still kid friendly. After seeing this, there's no reason this shouldn't have been released. Little kids would've been bored for sure, but older children and adults would've loved it. It just feels weird being able to write these words after all these years, waiting for something to come out about this production, and now it's here. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it. You all will love it.
As a lifelong SpongeBob admirer, since I was little, this film feels like the proper jumping off point for most longtime fans. It's the last thing Tim Hill, one of the original creators, will be involved with on the series, and it's the last SpongeBob piece of media that was in production while Stephen Hillenburg was still alive. The in memoriam at the end was a tasteful farewell. But the biggest issues plaguing the film are it's retreads of the 2004 original and it's constant retconning of SpongeBob lore. I know many casual viewers and especially parents will not care at all about any of the changes, but all you have to do is watch season 1 of the show to see how inconsistent and mandated the inclusions are. SpongeBob met Sandy as an adult, same with Squidward, same with Mr. Krabs. And SpongeBob knew Patrick since birth. The Nickelodean enforced 'Camp Coral' spin-off advertisement flashbacks were irritating and ruined what could've been otherwise extremely heartfelt speeches by SpongeBob's friends. I can see I'm not the only one voicing those complaints, so it's upsetting Nick forced them in, especially when Hillenburg was very openly against spin-offs or side shows of the characters. Putting that aside, the animation is gorgeous, rivaling The Peanuts Movie in presentation, and love and care in to the environments. Plenty of easter eggs are afoot, the Patty wagon makes a return, and so much more. It's a feast for the eyes above anything else. There are funny bits, Danny Trejo shows up for a few minutes as the ruler of these ghostly zombie pirates, called El Diablo. Keanu Reeves plays a pretty major character called Sage, a tumbleweed who acts as a voice of guidance, pretty much the Mindy of this film. Snoop Dogg has a short musical number, and Take On Me plays as the film closes. It banks on celebrity appearances and the occasional song reference, but the banter between SpongeBob and Patrick is what keeps it afloat. I think what disappointed me was it never tugged at my heart strings like the original did. There's no similar scene where the duo sing "I'm A Goofy Goober" with their last breath as they're dying. There are glimpses for sure, but never reach that peak. The majority of the runtime is a clone of 'Beavis and Butthead Do America' fused with 'Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius.' I recommend only watching if you are in the same demographic as me. An adult who grew up with the series and wants to see one final film to close the curtain. Because I'm done with the series now that Hillenburg is gone and I'm sure that's exactly what he would've wanted.
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.
Imagine thinking some retarded trashfire like Black Widow is better than this. MCU drones and journalists have it out for their Feige golden goose. Finally a return to 2000's comic book movies that just try to be simple, origin stories, reminiscent of Ang Lee's masterpiece, Hulk. Flashy cinematography by Oliver Wood, a decent script focusing on familial rivalry/not overly bogged down by anything else, and fun performances bolstered by an impressively low 75 million budget for the effects. It follows the comics decently enough, and Michael looks like his print counterpart towards the end. Surprisingly violent with blood effects for a number of the kills, of course edited slightly for PG-13, but it's better than Venom (2018)'s cold feet censorship. The flight sequences and POV work for the bevy of action set pieces are enthralling and a ride. Everything is nicely lit with dark shadows and backlighting, echoing some horror movies of the period this film is clearly inspired by, like The Grudge 2. Matt Smith finally gets his time to shine, after some previous films didn't work out, as a desperate lawyer looking for an ailment to what he thinks is a curse, being in a crippled body and made fun of by others. You get a good conflict from Morbius and Milo as they don't see eye-to-eye on this being a cure for both their misfortunes. None of this convoluted bullshit like you see in Disney's cinematic gangbang. Glad that Spider-Man was retconned out of that Homecoming trilogy. Speaking of which, Michael Keaton makes a return as Vulture, after having his memory of Peter Parker wiped by the events of No Way Home, is out for Spider-Man again, in a mid-credits scene. It will be fun to see what comes of the Sinister Six. If you want more vampire ALA Dracula Untold or Afflicted, you will be satisfied.
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.
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 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.
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.
I can't say much more than what other critics have said a million times before in the past 100 years or so, but damn, I forgot how revolutionary this film was. I saw the post-processed colorized version of the short feature, in my opinion the best version, and it absolutely blew me away how ambitious this was for 1902.
Let's see, we've got a basic structured narrative, which includes a beginning, a middle, and an end. We've got amazing special effects through use of practical sets, matte paintings, and in-camera tricks. We've got great performances that tell the audience the story and what the characters are feeling, without the use of dialogue. There's also some great composition with actors in the framing of what the camera could see.
The only shoddy special effects are some of the quick cuts (Because there wasn't any editing equipment back then), and actually, I find the rocket hitting the moon's eye to be the worst special effect of the film. The rocket appears much bigger in size than what it actually it is and the cut to the rocket hitting in the eye is too jarring. Otherwise, the movie has some great work with blending together smaller sets and in-camera tricks with the real actors.
Georges Méliès possibly revolutionized movies forever and I think everyone owes something to him. By today's standards, it's not the best movie ever created, but goddamn, at the time, it certainly was. A milestone in motion picture history. Everyone interested in movies has to at least watch it once.
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.
TL:DR Watch Alien, then Aliens, then play Alien: Isolation, then watch the assembly cut of Alien 3. You're done after that.
I've thought of a lot of different ways I could open this review, but I'm going to do something simple... and start with a checklist; a list of questions for a typical audience member.
Do you want a suspenseful slow-burn gripping horror movie? If you answered yes, you're not going to get it at all.
Do you want a memorable and unique action thriller with new and exciting ways to show suspenseful gripping warfare? If you answered yes, you're not going to get that either.
Do you want memorable and interesting characters that go through arcs, have interesting personalities, and you eventually become really attached to them? If you answered yes, you're looking in the wrong fucking place, boyo.
Do you want a philosophical interesting study of human nature that chronicles the creation of a deadly species; one study that makes you question the existence of mankind? If you answered yes, you'll get a very shallow and uninteresting concept like that doesn't go anywhere, but it's kind of there.
Do you want a shitty lackluster horror movie that relies on tons of jump-scares, no tension or suspense, absolutely retarded humans that don't act like real people, sprinkles of exposition and pseudo-intellectual dialogue about creation, absolutely atrocious looking CGI, and constant copycat recreations of stuff that happened in the original Alien? If you answered yes, THEN THIS IS THE MOVIE FOR YOU!
Alien: Covenant is really an anomaly of a movie for me. I've never been so confused at the choices made by a director and a screenwriter, while I was watching the movie. I really want to know what was going through their heads. I want to ask them this one question: "What was the goal of this movie?"
As a horror movie, it fails on every front imaginable. You know that movie "The Cabin in the Woods"? The movie where the scientists release toxins into a typical horror movie cabin to cloud the visitors' judgement, and that explains why so many horror movie characters make really stupid decisions? Yeah, imagine that concept, but it was done for serious. The absolute baffling and obviously illogical choices some of these characters make, actually make me roll my head in utter disbelief at how stupid these colonists are. They don't wear helmets when going onto an alien planet, they don't follow any sort of protocol, they don't follow any code, they decide to poke everything they see, and generally act like incompetent children. The fact these people were given the task to colonize another world and be responsible for the lives of over 2,000 colonists is unbelievable. I don't buy it for a fucking second.
Continued from the last paragraph, there's this one scene about 1/3 into the movie, where one the passengers gets infected with this kind of bionic metal floating thing and instantly becomes sick. He's dragged back to the space shuttle that's landed on the planet and is put into the medical room. Girl 1 gets locked into the room with Infected 1. Girl 2, who was already on the space shuttle, locks them both in and refuses to open the door. Infected 1 starts to shake rapidly and something starts to pop out his back, blood flying everywhere. Girl 1, for some fucking reason, decides to hug Infected 1 like the dumb shit she is. The little xenomorph pops out Infected 1's back in a little blood sac, and proceeds to attack Girl 1. Meanwhile, Girl 2 is acting like frantic spaz and goes and grabs a shotgun. She opens back up the room and walks slowly to Girl 1, who's being ripped apart by the alien. She then slips on the pool of blood like a fucking idiot and accidentally fires the gun. She gets up and tries to scramble out of the room, and then gets her foot caught in door, crippling it, again, like a complete idiot. The alien chases her out of the room into the cargo bay of the shuttle, where she proceeds to just shoot wildly until she fires at a gas canister, blowing up the entire space shuttle, stranding all the other passengers on the planet.
Now, when it comes to logic in movies, I'm not harsh on it at all. I'm actually an advocate for suspending disbelief and just accepting that sometimes, people do dumb shit when they're scared. Yes it's true, people when they're clouded by emotions, will act incoherently or stupidly. I firmly believe that in movies and I know people will write characters like that to make them more believable But this... this scene, was so fucking infuriating to watch. Was it supposed to be silly? Was it supposed to be scary? What was the point of this scene? I was watching a really pathetic human acting like a complete moron acting crazy, until she decides to shoot a gas canister. The entire sequence was really just sad to watch, and not in a good scary way.
And even as an action sequence, it's not thrilling or intense either. I wasn't riveted or on the edge of my seat as the events before me unfolded. I knew exactly what was going to happen, with the xenomorph poping out Infected 1's back, but this raises me to a big point that I want to bring up, one of the fundamental biggest problems I had with the movie, besides the fact it's not scary:
The xenomorphs themselves are not scary at all. I'm actually amazed people are giving this movie a pass, rating it with like a 3/5 or higher. I just don't believe that in the slightest. When I think of Alien, I think of claustrophobic terrifying corridor encounters with a deadly and unknown hostile life-form that could kill you in an instant. This nail-biting and tension-filled wait for the thing to go away. Ridley Scott, with this movie, effectively ruins what makes the Alien scary. I have NO problem with Scott trying to explore the mythos of the alien universe, and even explain where the xenomorphs came from. I don't particularly like it, I think it ruins the mystery of the alien, but I can appreciate Scott trying to do something different. But the way the aliens are showcased in this movie, don't make them out to be the terrifying monsters that lurk in the shadow, waiting to strike and then pounce back into the darkness, just ready to sneak up on you. They're now just generic movie monsters now, not exhibiting any of the familiar traits or behaviors of xenomorphs from the original trilogy. Instead of hiding and lurking in the shadows like a deadly creature, these fuckers are running out in the open, just attack humans aimlessly. I felt like I was watching a Friday the 13th movie, but if Jason Vorhees was just skinned over with a alien suit. When I see a xenomorph just come up behind a naked couple in the shower, I don't think of alien, I think of Shylock cliche horror from other movies that are terrible, especially the Friday the 13th sequels. When I see a xenomorph attack a fucking security camera for no reason, other than to give the audience a little laugh, that doesn't feel like Alien. I'm not saying the movie has to be the same as the original, hell, far from it. I want them to do stuff that's different, but you have to understand the rules and behaviors of the world you're exploring first. It's like Ridley Scott forgot the movie he was trying to make.
Another two problems I have with the xenomorphs, are the visual effects and the animation. It's sad to me to think that human suits from over 40 years still look better than CGI from this year. I don't know who was in charge of creating the digital effects for this movie, I don't know if they were rushed or something, but effects for the aliens was fucking terrible. Not once was I convinced in the whole movie, that what I was looking at was a real alien that posed a threat to the humans. The glossy and horribly modeled xenomorph models looked like they were from a low budget experiment project, not a big budgeted blockbuster. But even with the awkward and awful looking models, I felt the animations were all wrong. Thank about what a xenomorph is: It's an alien that infects it's host and then takes the form of the host it infected. 100% verifiably based on what we've seen in the alien universe thus far, when a facehugger infects a human, the resulting xenomorph looks and moves like a human. It stands upright and walks like a human. When a facehugger infects an animal, let's say a dog, the resulting xenomorph movies on all-fours and acts like a dog. We saw this in both Alien and in Alien 3. But for some reason in Alien: Covenant, when the facehugger takes over the human captain, the resulting xenomorph moves more like an animal... running on all-fours. Which, if you think about it doesn't make any sense, based on what we've seen. Yes, Ridley Scott could just be rectonning Alien 3 because "most fans didn't like it," but this animation fundamentally undermines what the term "xenoMORPH" stands for. The embryo morphs into the lifeform it's taken over. It takes the physical traits from it's host. But besides that glaring error in the choice of animation, the actual digital movement of the xenomorph model looked really fake and stupid. The way it ran down corridors and up and down ladders was not convincing in the slightest.
And even when the horror doesn't work, the action doesn't work either. You'd think they'd be able to get one of these elements right, but nope. Because there's no tension in the air and xenomorphs are just running out in the open like deer or whatever, there's no reason for me to get invested in the close-encounters action that's happening. Sure, some people shoot some guns and there's a part at the end where newcomer-captain Daniels is dangling off a space shuttle, but none of the action feels new and fresh. In fact, most of it feels extremely anti-climactic. It feels kind of tact on, like Ridley Scott was making one movie and realized, "Oh yeah, I have to make this a little exciting for audience members. I'll just throw in an action scene here and there. That'll shut them up." None of it feels earned. It just feels like it happens for the sake of happening, and Scott doesn't try to do anything unique with the direction. I was thoroughly bored in every 2 action scenes. The xenomorph just follows the heroes out onto the second space shuttle that comes down, and chases them like a generic bad guy. What happened to the alien sneaking up and avoiding detection, luring the victims into a false sense of security?
The climax of this jumbled mess was literally a carbon copy of the ending from both Alien and Aliens. New-captain Daniels and Danny McBride's character lure the xenomorph into the cargo bay back on the main ship, and then blow the fucker out into space. Same shit again. Nothing original or done differently. I'm really getting sick of it.
Okay, now will all my grievances out of the way, all of my anger hopefully vented, there is one thing critics and audiences are trying to give this movie credit for, or even justifying their reason for the movie earning a fucking 3 stars or higher. Michael Fassbender. He's the center of the movie. He's the core of what this movie's about. The very first scene is his character David, from Prometheus, having a discussion with his creator. This gets them into a talk about what it's like to create, and where humanity will go. Is the role of humans to die off and make way for the next creation from father? Ridley Scott tries to use Fassbender as a tool to try to talk philosophically about life and death, and the horrors of creation. There's a back and forth sequence in the middle of the movie where David and Walter, another synthetic android that looks like David, have a conversation how David has followed in his fathers footsteps, and experimented to create his own life, effectively building the alien xenomorphs. Yes, the synthetic David actually created the xenomorphs, which, I'm okay with the writers doing something interesting like that, but... it doesn't go anywhere or try to answer real serious questions. It just brings up some empty blanket questions about creation and why it's horrific, but never does anything with it. In one scene with the original captain from the colonist crew, he gets taken over by a facehugger, and later, when the xenomorph chestbursts out of his stomach, sad piano and violin music plays, trying to poise some kind of greater question about the xenomorph. To me personally, it doesn't do anything other than just make the aliens not scary anymore. It actually makes me not scared of the xenomorphs anymore. Now they just seem like toys a man came up with, which is fine idea... if the man who created them was actually scary. Michael Fassbender does a decent job with the material he has, and he's a fine actor, but in no way is he intimidating, and I don't believe for a second that he created the xenomorphs. Also, this raises the question, what about the alien queen in the movie 'Aliens'? Where did she come from? The xenomorphs aren't a race like previously thought? Why isn't this explained? Oh, I have to wait until the NEXT sequel to learn that. Goddamn it.
When it tries to be smart, it doesn't work. When it tries to be scary, it doesn't work. When it tries to be action-packed, it doesn't work. When it tries to add depth to the characters, it doesn't work. I didn't like really anything this movie had to offer. I thought some of the music was decent and Michael Fassbender's performance was alright, but that's not enough to save a movie like this. When I think about Covenant, then I think about Alien, it just makes me sad. The original Alien was a groundbreaking masterpiece that worked because it was filled with tension. Ridley Scott is now just using the Alien franchise to try to act pretentious, calling Alien: Covenant a "thinking man's Alien movie." Oh, bite me, Ridley. Your movie isn't smart in any way. It's terribly paced, horribly focused, not scary, not interesting, and not worthy anyone's time.
This is the Attack of the Clones of the Alien franchise. Ridley Scott is now George Lucas, trying to claim ultimate ownership of the franchise. It's quite sad. Very disappointed in this disaster.
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.
