A not-so original sci-fi feature that punches above its weight class in terms of spectacle and world building, but is lacking in the writing department more often than not. Way too many examples of ham-fisted, on-the-nose dialogue, as characters bluntly tell the protagonist how high the stakes are, how important the child is, or any number of other expositional dumps. The high-level story is also rife with clichés, with the central arc feeling familiar to the point of predictability. Now, there are moments that land effectively. I would specifically call out the early interactions between Joshua and Alphie as being among the strongest of the film. But those moments are few and far between, as a lot of the more ambitious emotional beats feel rushed and/or forced. On top of that, it seems like delivering spectacle was perhaps overly prioritized, as many sequences don't hold up to even the most surface level logical scrutiny, resulting in a lot of eye-rolling, head scratching, and ultimately the death of suspension of disbelief (e.g., suicide bomb robots seem silly when you've got a massive tank shooting precise missiles that are shown to be more effective, or standby mode somehow fooling an army of scientists, or Nomad seemingly being in multiple places at once in the final sequence). Admittedly, those types of complaints are nitpicky, and if the dialogue and big picture story had landed better, I think they would be easily forgiven. Not to mention, as I said initially, the visuals are fantastic. The Nomad's eerie beam of blue light is unique and memorable. The contrast of futuristic robots in a rural Asian setting offers plenty of striking visuals. I have no doubt that Gareth Edwards got incredible bang for his buck, stretching his $80 million budget to look on par with films that cost twice that. But in the end, the whole is less than the sum of its parts, with all of the fantastic visuals and handful of strong ideas combining into a package that was just okay.
I'm a huge fan of SF and AI based plots - I was really looking forward to seeing this but it was a frustrating disappointment. It has terrible horrible shamefully bad writing. Not a single original idea about AI and in fact they don't really deal with AI apart from robots basically being exactly like humans but nicer. No original futuristic sci-fi ideas either with a lot of the futuristic stuff not making any sense. For example the AIs speak to each other in English, no super fast data pours between them. They can't even speak remotely over cellular or whatever... they use walkie talkies lol. They had an old women robot that limped around though the robots do not age?!? I could have forgiven all of this in the 80s or from an adaptation of an Isaac Asinov novel but we're in 2023 and we've all watched the Matrix etc... Also it had very little action and the action sequences it did have were bad and boring with yellow lazer tracers zapping around in the near dark or fog. Visually it was ok and the score was decent but the poor writing completely ruined it for me. Half way through, I couldn't wait for it to end. You can't be a serious Sci-fi fan and think this is any good, it's just not possible... yes that's you good reviewers.
The haters are going to hate this movie. Mostly because they just default to hating Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel. Come in just looking for things to hate. But this movie is a LOT of fun. Go in in a light hearted mood. Numerous things had me laughing out loud in the cinema.
The end could have been wrapped up a bit faster.
And OMFG THE MID-CREDITS SCENE!!! OMGOMGOMOGOD!!! (there is no post-credits scene).
Basically a Madagascar spin-off. I don't know what I was expecting but this was clearly aimed at kids, doesn't do much for me. The animation looks good, familiar themes with a fresh coat of paint, characters are the usuals, decent voice cast, a few funny moments. I get this weird feeling once i've finished it like something was missing. Very average.
Like a conservative senator with his wife, this movie says being a mother is the hardest job in the world but only so he can continue making her life a living hell.
There's a lot to love about this movie... Just kidding, there's only one thing and that's the incredible tsunami of talent that is Laure Calamy.
In À plein temps / Full Time, she plays of the single mother of two and the director really hates her because he basically throws shit at her for 90 minutes until she drowns in it.
The frantic pace of the film lends an easy comparison to Uncut Gems (Unka Jams!) but that turns out to be erroneous because the Safdie brothers genuinely like Howard Ratner. They let him catch some breaks, allow him some optimistic moments, and sincerely want good things to happen to him. It's not the Safdies fault that things turn out for Howard the way they do.
On the other hand, in Full Time, the constant onslaught of suffering Julie has to confront and the total absence of hope mean the film resembles less Uncut Gems than it does A Serbian Film. In fact, I 100% bet the director wanted to call this movie A Serbian Femme but no one would let him.
Watch this movie so you can appreciate Laure Calamy's stunning performance, but don't be afraid to call out the faux feminist message. This is not a tribute, it's a eulogy.
Flat, boring, unengaging. I waited over a year for this and was disappointed. This is another case where a film with a unique concept never managed to grow into something bigger. It's like taking a good short film and stretch it out needlessly. The experience of going through 'spooky' internet videos and playing it constantly evoke a good sense of discomfort, but it can't quite make for a compelling narrative. The story may be relatable to some audience but it's clear I'm not part of those audience.
Fun fact: the film was originally going to be called 23 Bridges, but Jeff and Beau pulled out last minute. Real fact: the film is awfully generic; a shame, as the cast is amazing.
Not sure what other people were expecting... I thought it was the perfect blend of humor, action, gore and even some heart.
At 93 minutes, it was a lot of fun and didn't drag at all.
This movie is being targeted by the far right across the internet. Don't take any ratings or comments as useful information, you're on your own for this one. Maybe just watch it and find out. It's perfectly fine for children to watch, so maybe just put it on and find out. The only way it's not suitable for children is if you have a middle-aged man shouting at the screen behind them.
Rian Johnson is starting to turn into the white Jordan Peele. He's another one of those filmmakers that loves to work in this niche of subversive genre films that include a heavy dose of social commentary, and I'm all here for it. Specifically, with this franchise we’ve gone from satirizing old money with Knives Out to satirizing new money with this new film (chances are Knives Out 3 will center around a group of homeless suspects). Now, a lot of films in that same vein have been released recently (Triangle of Sadness, The Menu), but I think none of them do the satire as well as this film. To me it’s too easy at this point to simply aim your commentary at these people by making a statement about how stupid and incompetent they are. It seems like low hanging fruit to me, because everyone with a brain knows that these types are vapid and contribute nothing to society. Luckily, Rian Johnson understands this too and goes one step beyond that, filtering all of his commentary through this idea of the glass onion. These people aren’t just stupid and incompetent, but they’re using a veil of eccentricity and ‘complexity’ to hide that. This is a brilliant deconstruction that rings very true for today’s society, and of course you can’t quite escape the obvious parallel with Twitter’s manchild CEO firing himself this week. This subtext is woven into a lot of elements of the film (character, location, plot, even some props), which means that some things are a lot dumber and simpler than they appear to be. I think that will annoy some people, but I think it's quite clever. Like the first film, you get a great cast of colourful characters. Some of them are given depth, some of them are just playing funny caricatures. Daniel Craig owns the whole movie again, but Janelle Monáe comes pretty close to outperforming him. Even people like Dave Bautista do a great job, and it’s because Rian Johnson knows how to use these actors despite their limited range. There are plenty of twists you won’t see coming and the filmmaking is again terrific. It looks very cinematic with the blocking, lighting and compositions, and the score feels very 60s (lots of strings, some minor baroque orchestration), which reminded me of The White Lotus and a certain Beatles song. In the end, what puts it over the first film for me is the fact that the tone feels more consistent here. The more tense and dramatic moments of Knives Out didn’t really hit home for me when you have Daniel Craig doing a really campy accent, and this one just fully embraces that it’s a silly comedy. And it’s a great one at that, nearly all the jokes landed for me. Maybe could’ve done with a little less shouting from Kate Hudson, but ok, it makes sense for the character. Probably the most fun movie of the year next to Top Gun: Maverick, and definitely one of the most well constructed.
8/10
Similar feeling you get from watching Red Notice or Uncharted: very international, fast-paced, 3/4 of the time they're shooting at each other or blowing things up, not much more than that.
The cast is on point (Regé-Jean Page a little over the top) but exactly because of that, giving them some more time and having some more build up for the characters would have made a better flick.
I don't know, I still get entertained and enjoy these kind of movies every now and then but - as another user mentioned - I'd rather have a "The Nice Guys" well-scripted, more story oriented, playing on the characters' chemistry. And here there were the possibilities: some buddy cop between De Armas and Gosling, some familiar tone with the niece and Fitzroy, some more Cahill's involvement... good interactions wasted at the altar of explosions.
The total body count is five.
The cause of death is....stupidity.
I wonder if this movie would be funnier on a re-watch with that in mind.
The visuals this movie creates are nothing like what I imagined while reading the book. The book was genuinely scary, where this movie is disjointed and almost silly. Christopher Walken was not a good choice to play Whitney Strieber. He's too quirky or too odd to generate much sympathy.
I don't recall if the book was this trippy. What I mean by that is Strieber's recollection and later hypnotically-induced memories are so scatter shot. It is really tough to stay with this. I thought Lindsay Crouse was good as Mrs. Strieber. She really grounded things and was the real voice of reason through the craziness.
The alien creations are very disappointing and the special effects are all bright lights and fog.
As this film was written and directed by Frenchman Quentin Dupieux (whose Rubber (2010) I adored), I had high hopes for this one.
Unfortunately, Au Poste! / Keep An Eye Out has absolutely everything necessary to be a cult comedy except enough comedy.
[8.3/10] Zombie movies have a long history of social commentary and symbolism. Auteurs like George Romero have used the undead to represent prejudice, consumerism, blind loyalty, and scads of other social ills made manifest in horrific terms. That’s one of the features of this particular subgenre -- the concept of brainless, shambling former humans is malleable enough to fit around any number of concepts and themes.
In Shaun of the Dead Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg use it for something much more mundane -- the layabout manchild who’s failed to launch. For once the hordes of reanimated corpses are less about some wide-ranging societal malady, and more about one dude who needs the zombie apocalypse to prompt him to “sort his life out.” It’s subtle, but the movie kicks off with the idea that Shaun is no better than the living dead he’ll eventually do battle with, having failed to advance his life, work, or motivation to where he’s stuck in the same rut at 29 that he was at 12.
That conceit is part of the brilliance of Shaun of the Dead, which comes from the way it so perfectly walks the line between loving homage to the zombie films of old, ridiculous comedy amid a ridiculous setup, and surprisingly potent character drama about one man coming of age late in the day but just in time. It juggles these competing demands nigh-perfectly, with Wright and Pegg putting together an astonishingly well-tuned film that manages thrills, laughs, poignance, and most of all tone along a viscera-draped tightrope.
It works on all counts. Fans of the classic undead flicks will chuckle and cheer with recognition when one of the characters declares “We’re coming to get you, Barbara” or when a pest of a survivor is pulled out of a window a la Day of the Dead. The approach here presages Community’s stellar genre parodies, where there is so much loving attention to detail that it bolsters both the times when the film wants to play the familiar story beats safe and when it wants to poke fun at them.
That knowing approach to the “zomcom” works like gangbusters. Shaun and Ed’s reluctance to use “the z-word” is a fun meta-gag about how rarely the famed designation is actually spoken aloud in zombie movies. The invocation of common tropes like the survivor who tries to hide that they’ve been bit, the group having to pretend they’re zombies to avoid detection, or a character having to face down an undead version of a loved one is played for both laughs and pathos. This is clearly a movie whose creatives are deeply familiar with the genre they’re spoofing, paying tribute to, and using for compelling character beats, which is what allows them to mix and match those moods so deftly.
At the same time, Pegg and Wright are not afraid to get downright goofy with the proceedings. Watching Shaun and Ed ineffectively toss household detritus at a pair of walkers while arguing over which records to use as ammo is a big laugh. Their crew whacking at an advancing attacker to the beat of a Queen song is delightfully silly. And the life and death stakes of the scenario don’t stop the main character or his pals from dropping wry bits of gallows humor or loopy routines in between encounters with the flesh-eating monsters.
Of course, this is an Edgar Wright movie, so the script plays out like clockwork. Brief mentions of Di as a “failed actress” come back into play when she has to coach up the survivors to act like zombies. A hinted at but unseen skirmish in the second act comes back in a big way in the third act. Video game terminology turns into vital (and amusing) real world strategy. Off-hand quips pre-outbreak become meaningful portents once the undead invasion is in full swing. Wright is the king of setup and payoff, so there’s hardly a stray comment or visual framing that doesn't come back with a twist or an echo or an extra laugh down the line.
Wright’s also a superb sculptor of sequences and images. Some of them are flashy, like a neat shot of our heroes through the hollowed-out hole in a zombie torso, but some are more subtle, like a tableau of the survivors in the Winchester that positions everyone neatly in the frame. He and his team do well to establish long, well-blocked shots of Shaun going about his daily life, only to mirror and recontextualize those scenes once the extras of his routine have turned into zombies. And as with everything in this film, Wright and company are able to walk the line between humor and excitement with the action scenes, evoking some genuine terror when the biters advance on the survivors and our heroes fight back, but also leaning into the lunacy of a random London schlub wacking at corpses with a cricket bat.
But so much of that excellent attention to detail comes back around when Shaun of the Dead wants to play things seriously and isn’t just having a laugh. Barbara’s mantra that she “doesn't want to make a fuss” becomes much more meaningful after she’s hiding a zombie bite and Shaun has to contend with the reality that his mom’s going to die. A running gag where Shaun replies to any invocation of his stepfather, Philip, with a retort of “he’s not my dad,” takes on new, poignant meaning after Philip’s dying declaration of love before succumbing to the zombie virus. Pegg and Wright use their call and response, and their tightly-honed scene construction, to pay homage to George Romero’s filmography and to craft their own silly sequences, but they also use it for genuine pathos, for affecting drama, and most importantly, for character growth.
That puts Shaun of the Dead in line with so many of its undead flick forebears that the movie pokes fun at and pays tribute to. These movies lured audiences in with the prospect of monster mash horror, but lingered in people’s memories because of vivid characters and because of a social subtext reflected in all those shuffling corpses. This movie will absolutely work for anyone just wanting a good time involving ample chuckles and some zombified comic adventures.
But it also uses the oncoming zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for Shaun waking up and growing up. The key scene of the film comes when Philip tells Shaun that he always thought Shaun had it in him to do great things; he just needed the right motivation. There’s comic irony to the fact that this motivating turning point happens to be the reanimation of corpses from the grave, but Wright and Pegg don’t skimp on using that fact to tickle the audience’s funny bone at the same time they cannily show a slacker manchild growing up in real time beneath a blood-spattered cricket bat.
In an ideal world, none of us would need a zombie uprising to take the initiative and turn around our lives. But Shaun of the Dead has its title character accept adulthood in all that mandibular mania -- reckoning with his best friend, having to say goodbye to his parents, and becoming a true and reliable partner to the woman he loves. Few coming of age stories, if any others at all, pay such brilliant homage to classic horror films, elicit such genuine laughs from blood-spattered slapstick, or make the human drama so real and even moving. And yet for this shuffling subgenre, the approach and success are remarkably true-to-form.
This movie goes back to basics and really recaptures the classic spirit of man (or woman in this case) vs Predator.
Amber does a great turn as Naru, a Comanche trying to show that she CAN hunt and ends up in a battle against the almighty predator. The evolution of the story is a well paced and the combat encounters are well planned and satisfying.
Aesthetically the predator is a more raw tribal type than we've seen before but is well put out.
There's a few CGI moments that could have done with a little longer is post but on the whole it's pretty good.
Fun, exciting and a classic Predator tale without all the fluff, much better than what we've seen in recent years.
Also the addition of a dog companion is fun :-) Although we are in a world where every movie likes to show strong women I think this movie framed it very well and the Comanche and time frame were a great choice.
8/10
Definitely a very odd movie. Very French. I enjoyed it, but I only recommend it to those who have an appetite for the absurd.
It's an interesting movie with an unique aesthetic. Watch it if you like absurd.
A sweet, funny, earnest coming-of-age dramedy that plays out like a period piece, even though it's set in the present day. Tempering a plucky spirit and subtle, pointed sense of humor with an introverted lead character and a familiar, bittersweet atmosphere, it's a spiritual successor to the John Hughes golden age of the mid-80s.
Liam James is beautifully awkward as the quiet, brooding young teenager at the story's epicenter, aided by a thoroughly deep, entertaining supporting cast. No matter how minor, every character enjoys a purpose and a motivation, enriching the scenery and tickling the viewer's curiosity with a tangle of warm, colorful subplots. Steve Carell will get plenty of attention in his unexpected turn as the boy's self-centered douchebag stand-in father, but Sam Rockwell's deeper-than-he-seems burnout splash park manager is the real show stealer. A strong, heartfelt and meaningful return visit to adolescence for anyone who's ever felt out-of-place in their own skin.
Not sure about this one. It's an okay watch I guess. This dystopian bleak comedy has some intriguing concepts and I thoroughly enjoyed the delightfully dry humor and deadpan delivery, but it doesn't come together as a whole and it's just hard to fully connect with it when there's almost no human emotion involved. I was really enjoying how flat and lacking in energy it was at first, but it wears out very quickly. Also, I feel like this is basically just The Art of Self-Defense again with less impressive execution. It at least shines in its dark comedy aspects. This is certainly an interesting film but I don't think I'll find myself going back to this anytime soon.
A potentially great film being held hostage by its PG-13 rating and its messy, all over the places screenwriting.
By PG-13 I don't simply mean its visuals/goriness, but most importantly its dialogues, themes, and storytelling it tries to raise. Let me explain.
First, the dialogues.
The film opens with murder and Batman narrating the city's anxious mood. We get a glimpse of noir in this scene, but it soon falls flat due to a very uninteresting, plain, forgettable choice of words Batman used in his narration. Mind you, this is not a jab at Pattinson - Pattinson delivered it nicely. But there is no emotion in his line of words - there is no adjectives, there is no strong feelings about how he regards the city full of its criminals.
Here's a line from the opening scene. "Two years of night has turned me to a nocturnal animal. I must choose my targets carefully. It's a big city. I can't be everywhere. But they don't know where I am. When that light hits the sky, it's not just a call. It's a warning to them. Fear... is a tool. They think I am hiding in the shadows. Watching. Waiting to strike. I am the shadows." Okay? Cool. But sounds like something from a cartoon. What does that tell us about you, Batman?
Compare this to a similar scene uttered by Rorschach in Watchmen. "The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. All those liberals and intellectuals, smooth talkers... Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children, and the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences." You can say that Rorschach is extremely edgy (he is), but from that line alone we can tell his hatred towards the city, and even more so: his perspective, his philosophy that guides him to conduct his life and do what he does.
Rorschach's choice of words is sometimes verbose, but he is always expletive and at times graphic, making it clear to the audience what kind of person he is. Batman in this film does not. His words are always very safe, very carefully chosen, which strikes as an odd contrast to Pattinson's tortured portrayal of Batman as someone with a seemingly pent up anger. His choice of words is very PG-13 so that the kids can understand what Batman is trying to convey.
And this is not only in the opening scene. Throughout the film, the dialogues are written very plainly forgettable. It almost feels like the characters are having those conversations just to move the plot forward. Like that one encounter between Batman and Catwoman/Selina when she broke into the house to steal the passport or when Selina asked to finish off the "rat". They flow very oddly unnatural, as if those conversations are written to make them "trailer-able" (and the scenes indeed do appear on the trailer).
Almost in all crucial plot points the writers feel the need to have the characters to describe what has happened, or to explictly say what they are feeling - like almost every Gordon's scene in crime scene, or Selina's scene when she's speaking to Batman. It feels like the writers feel that the actors' expression just can't cut it and the audience has to be spoonfed with dialogues; almost like they're writing for kids.
Second, the storytelling.
Despite being a film about vengeance-fueled Batman (I actually like that cool "I'm vengeance" line) we don't get to see him actually being in full "vengeance" mode. Still in the opening we see Batman punching some thugs around. That looks a little bit painful but then the thugs seem to be fit enough to run away and Batman let them be. Then in the middle of the film we see Batman does something similar to mafias. Same, he just knocked them down but there's nothing really overboard with that. Then eventually in the car chase scene with the Penguin, Batman seem to be on "full rage mode", but over... what? He was just talking to Penguin a moment ago. The car chase scene itself is a bit pointless if not only to show off the Batmobile. And Batman did nothing to the Penguin after, just a normal questioning, not even harsher than Bale's Batman did to Heath's Joker in The Dark Knight - not in "'batshit insane' cop" mode as Penguin put it.
Batman's actions look very much apprehensive and controlled. Nothing too outrageous. Again, at odds with Pattinson's portrayal that seem to be full of anger; he's supposed to be really angry but somehow he still does not let his anger take the best of him. The only one time he went a bit overboard that shocked other characters is when he kept punching a villain near the end of the film. But even then it's not because his anger; it's because he injected some kind of drug (I guess some adrenaline shot). A very safe way to drop a parent-friendly message that "drug is bad, it can change you" in a PG-13 film.
And all that supposed anger... we don't get to see why he is angry and where his anger is directed at. Compare this to Arthur Fleck in Joker where it is clear as sky why Arthur would behave the way the does in the film. I mean we know his parents' death troubled him, but it's barely even discussed, not even in brief moments with Alfred (except in one that supposedly "shocking" moment). So... where's your vengeance, Mr. Vengeance? And what the hell are you vengeancing on?
Speaking of "shocking" moment... this is about the supposed Wayne family's involvement in the city's criminal affairs that has been teased early in the film. Its revelation was very anticlimactic: the supposed motive and the way it ended up the way it is, all very childish. If the film wanted the Wayne to be a "bad person", there's a lot of bads that a billionaire can do: tax evasion, blood diamond, funding illegal arms trade, fending off unions, hell, they can even do it the way the Waynes in Joker did it: hints of sexual abuses. But no, it has to be some bloody murder again, and all for a very trivial reason of "publicity". As if the film has to make it clear to the kids: "hey this guy's bad because he killed someone!" Which COULD work if the film puts makes taking someone's life has a very serious consequence. But it just pales to the serial killing The Riddler has done.
Even more anticlimactic considering how Bruce Wayne attempted to find a resolve in this matter only takes less than a 5 minute scene! It all involves only a bit of dialogues which boils down to how Thomas Wayne has a good reason to do so. Bruce somehow is convinced with that and has a change of heart instantly, making him looks very gullible.
And of course the ending is very weak and disappointing. First, Riddler's final show directly contradicts his initial goal to expose and destroy the corrupt elites. What he did instead is making the lives of the poor more difficult, very oxymoron for someone supposed to be as smart as him.
Second, the way Batman just ended up being "vengeance brings nothing and I should save people more than hurting people" does not get enough development to have him to say that in the end. Again - where's your vengeance? And how did you come to such character development if nothing is being developed on? And let's not get to how it's a very safe take against crime and corruption that closely resembles Disney's moralistic pandering in Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Last, the visuals.
I'm not strictly speaking about gore, though that also factors in the discussion. The film sets this up as a film about hunting down a serial killer. But the film barely shows how cruel The Riddler can be to his victims. Again, back to the opening scene: we get it, Riddler killed the guy, but it does not look painful at all as it looks Riddler just knocked him twice. The sound design is very lacking that it does not seem what The Riddler done was conducted very painfully. Riddler then threw away his murder weapon, but we barely see blood. Yet when Gordon arrived to the crime scene, he described the victim as being struck multiple times with blood all over. What?
Similarly, when Riddler forced another victim to wear a bomb in his neck. The situation got pretty tense, but when the bomb eventually blow off, we just got some very small explosion like a small barrel just exploded, not a human being! I mean I'm not saying we need a gory explosion with head chopped off like in The Boys, but it does not look like what would happen if someone's head got blown off. Similarly when another character got almost blown off by a bomb - there's no burnt scar at all.
Why the hell are they setting up those possibly gory deaths and scars if they're not going to show how severe and painful these are? At least not the result - we don't need to see blood splattered everywhere - just how painful the process is. Sound design and acting of the actors (incl. twitching, for example) would've helped a lot even we don't see the gore, like what James Franco did in The 127 Hours or Hugh Jackman in Logan. In this film there's almost no tense at all resulting from those.
I'm not saying this film is terrible.
The acting, given the limited script they had, is excellent. Pattinson did his best, so did Paul Dano (always likes him as a villain), Zoe Kravitz, and the rest. Cinematography is fantastic; the lighting, angle, everything here is very great that makes a couple of very good trailers - perhaps one could even say that the whole film trades off coherency for making the scenes "trailer-able". The music is iconic, although with an almost decent music directing. And I guess this detective Batman is a fresh breath of air.
But all that does not make the movie good as in the end it's still all over the places and very PG-13.
Especially not with the 3 hours runtime where many scenes feel like a The Walking Dead filler episode.
If you're expecting a Batman film with similar gritty, tone to The Dark Knight trilogy or Joker, this film is not for you. But if you only want a live-action cartoon like pre-Nolan Batmans or The Long Halloween detective-style film, well, I guess you can be satisfied with this one.
The only hole that bothers me in this movie is what happened to Heather (or why is she in the movie). Besides that, it's a great filme based on greek mythology
the making of Hawkeye was supposed to be e07. What happened to it?
A surprisingly efficient huit-clos / chamber thriller about a man with a past working the phones at a Danish 911 call centre.
Because the entire film is set in one single room, the success of the project relies entirely on the script, the director and the actor. If any one of those three comes up short, they take the entire movie down with them. Fortunately, this is not the case. Director Gustav Miller is able to maintain the tension to keep the tight script taut (for the most part), and lead actor Jakob Céder immerses us in the film with his portrayal of the hapless officer.
Only a tad reminiscent of the similarly themed Halle Berry vehicle The Call, the plot twists keep the viewer guessing long enough to justify the Audience Award Den Skyldige garnered at the last Sundance film festival.
This movie is pretty bad. Not because of the concept or the leads or anything of the sort. Because of the script and directing.
I want to state that all the lead actresses here are fantastic and really held the film together. They really made me want more out of this despite it falling apart on the story side. I like their chemistry and the emotion they brought to the screen.
I did not however enjoy the predictable plot and stupid writing that they gave these characters. It hurts how much the script brought this movie down. They did not give valid reasons for certain things that I felt could have used more explanation, and instead wasted the exposition on needless things in the latter half of the film. They could have resolved this movie halfway but didn't because... I don't know, they didn't tell me why they couldn't. No explanations for the things that matter in the plot.
The shakey-cam too in the action scenes was terribly uncomfortable to watch. It gets some good wide shots of the action, but it cuts way too soon to take it in. There were some elements of the fights I liked but just not as many to make a good action/spy film. Not to mention the fact that the ending is so bad, not because it builds to another film. But because it leaves me questioning the motives of the characters.
Overall, this film is a mess from behind the camera, because I wanted more of this team. But I doubt we will get to see them again from this poor first attempt.
3/10
[8.3/10] We live in an age where anything you can imagine may be conjured up through the magic of CGI and green screen technology. There’s no place our heroes can’t visit, no foe they can’t fight, and no images that can’t be summoned in the process. By dint of spectacle alone, modern films should be able to awe, thrill, and grip us more than anything that predates such technological innovations.
And yet, the quiet miracle of Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography is that he can make the comparatively mundane feel like the most captivating, ominous, seat-gripping thing in the world. Strangers on a Train is not exactly a down-to-earth story. It involves a murder, and a mentally unbalanced homicidal stalker, and a minor celebrity caught in a web of bad luck and bad choices.
Despite that, though, it’s a lower tempo movie more often than not, more apt to string the audience along with the looming possibility of things going terribly wrong than pull the trigger on the fireworks. The movie lives in the tension of protagonist Guy Haines realizing a murder’s been committed in his name, fearing the consequences of who might get to him first: Bruno Antony or the law. The movie spends most of its runtime with the noose slowly tightening, more and more little things going wrong, until the release of all that stress in the film’s climax is as much a relief as it is cathartic.
What’s striking is how Hitchcock achieves that tension and transposes it onto so many seemingly prosaic activities. The juxtaposition of one man trying to finish a tennis match and another trying to fish a lighter out of a storm drain is the most suspenseful thing in the world when each is racing against time to pin a murder on the other. The mere presence of an unwanted visitor leering in the distance from the Jefferson Memorial chills the blood. And a runaway carousel ride at a local carnival has more cinematic electricity than all the CGI explosion-fests the world over.
It’s a cliché at this point to call Hitchcock the master of suspense. Still, the honorific is earned not just by the results on the screen, but by what common tools he uses to make them. The drama here is human, and the stakes are personal rather than earth-shaking, which allows the threats and possible calamities to be human-sized too. By keeping that focus on the small, the intrusions of the threatening and ominous feel that much larger, that much more likely to make you dig your fingers into the armrest, than stories and foes that are nominally bigger and scarier.
And there are few cinematic villains scarier than Bruno Antony. It’s a fantastic performance from Robert Walker who commands the screen every time he steps into the frame. What makes Bruno so terrifying is, again, the unremarkableness of him. Sure, he’s mentally unwell, having cooked up this famed “criss-cross” scheme and harboring no shortage of mommy and daddy issues. But he’s also someone who can pass, at least briefly, in polite company, whom you wouldn’t blink twice at if you walked by him on the street, who is a figure that would fade into the woodwork if you didn’t know what to look for.
Yet, he’s utterly terrifying. Hitchcock and director of photography Robert Burks see to that. Antony’s placid demeanor turns utterly menacing when he’s the only one staring amid a crowd of head-bobbers watching a tennis ball lobbed back and forth. He moves like a shark through a local carnival, pursuing Guy’s wife with an unnerving smile and steady gait. His run-of-the-mill small talk turns bizarre and disturbing if you let him get wound up long enough. A simple look from him sends Guy’s would-be sister-in-law into a panic. The superficially normal man spooks like a phantom when he’s framed in shadow or leans out of the darkness. The film’s grandest achievement may be turning a clever but simple man into an abjectly frightening cinematic creation.
That said, at the risk of being deemed one of Hitchcock’s hated “plausibles” -- people who question when a movie strays too far from reality -- there’s elements of Strangers on a Train that strain credulity.
The movie handwaves away the possibility that the two gentlemen who were with Guy’s wife at the carnival when she was killed would be treated as suspects. Guy’s girlfriend and her family advise him to act like everything’s normal despite the fact that the public would probably expect him to be at least a little emotional given the news of his wife’s demise, even if their relations were strained. And the police officer at the end seems pretty blasé about not searching Bruno for the engraved lighter that might at least partly exonerate Guy simply because Bruno claims he doesn’t have it.
Maybe there’s a cultural disconnect from American society now versus how these things might have been treated seventy years ago, but suffice it to say, they strike the modern viewer as profoundly odd reactions to what is admittedly a profoundly odd situation.
Regardless, that’s part of the unwitting charm of Strangers on a Train. For such a tightly-wound film, it has these funny little human moments that make it feel real. Amid Hitchcock’s trademark brilliant compositions and framings, built to let the images tell the story and build the tension, he injects these small interludes that serve no purpose but wonderful texture.
A hayseed bystander pesters Bruno and responds to a kiss off with, “So I’m not educated.” The police commandeer an old dowager’s car only to find she’s thrilled to be part of such drama. A small boy on the runaway carousel decides to interject himself into the struggle between Guy and Bruno like it’s a playground scuffle. Amid a high concept story, these little doses of well-observed reality and humor bring it home.
It’s in keeping with the way all this cinematic anxiety laid bare, all these tense moments stacked on top of one another, spin out from such humble beginnings. Bruno experiences a raft of good luck, running into a person famous enough that he can know the man’s troubles, with the time and resources to pursue his dreadful plan, and have enough things break in his favor, like the lack of a reliable alibi for his counterpart, to give him leverage.
And the reverse is true for Guy. From the simple act of running into one weirdo in a train car, his whole life is upended and nearly ruined. Words not meant seriously but spoken in anger tie him to the crime. A forgotten lighter gives his foil the chance to plant evidence. A fellow passenger’s intoxication deprives him of his alibi. So much goes wrong for Guy, that the viewer wonders what they would do in his situation, forced into a scenario where he’s innocent but cannot help but seem guilty to a neutral observer.
That central underlying tension -- between truth and falsity, between what really happened and what others would believe, between assauging and dangerous man and confronting him whatever the consequences -- fuels the film. Strangers on the Train is an unsettling take on the “For Want of a Nail” story, where one accidental shoe scuff leads to multiple deaths, veritable blackmail, and several more lives hanging in the balance.
Guy learns his lesson by the end of the movie, but it’s a lesson for filmmakers writ large at the same time. Sometimes the most terrifying, tense, and thrilling things emerge from the smallest sources. It’s a tribute to Hittcock’s virtuosity, and his team’s superlative efforts in an age before computer-generated sorcery, that they could make a chance meeting on the railway, and the sparks and consequences that unspooled from two distinctive but recognizable men, loom as large as anything their successors would awe audiences with half a century down the line.
"Strangers on a Train" is one of the most memorable examples of Hitchcock's signature sense of humor. Despite its presentation as a classic thriller, it’s evident that Hitch is making fun of its audience throughout.
While the film presents a fascinating premise, it loses steam around the end when it gets all about a silly lighter. Nevertheless, the clever writing and Hitchcock's masterful direction still make it an entertaining experience. The cinematography is crisp and engaging, with several ingenious tricks that remain in history, like the reflection of the murder on the victim's glasses, the fire projected on Barbara's eyes, and the chaotic, close-to-slapstick climax at the merry-go-round.
While Robert Walker’s portrayal of the lunatic stalker steals the show, Farley Granger’s wooden performance leaves much to be desired.
After seeing several people on SM recommend that it be seen in Spanish if possible, I waited until I could find a theater nearby that was showing it. I am estatic that I saw it in Spanish. It was an amazing treat to see it in the language that the characters would have spoken. The spanish language voice actors are all Mexican, giving the film it's final seal of authenticity that the english language is missing (though this is not a negative critique of the english language cast, but rather an extra treat of the spanish language version).
The film is a heartfelt tribute to the tradition of The Day of the Dead, part of the cultural heritage of Mexico and it's indigenous roots. The film shows the time and care the producers, writers and director took in staying true to and understanding this celebration as observed in Mexico, from the offerings to the dead, the significance of the vibrant marigolds, and the love and gathering with our ancestors and family.
Yes, Coco follows the tradition of all Pixar movies, with a focus on love, family and friendship. The difference this time is that it places Mexico, its culture and its people, at the center of the story.
