I've been quite tentative on recent Spike Lee outings, maybe he doesn't have it any more I said.
I watched the trailer for this and knew I had already been proving wrong.
The story of 4 black soldiers who served in Vietnam going back to reclaim many things they lost, love, gold and much more.
While the cast was all excellent, Delroy Lindo as Paul STOLE the show in what is probably his greatest performance.
From the very start you can tell he's a PTSD powder keg ready to explode and boy does he ever.
The hurt, the anger, the bitterness, even the psychosis is on full display as he presents to the audience a truly broken man, if he's not atleast up for an oscar it will be highway robbery.
Chadwick Boseman shines in what is slightly more than a cameo as Stormin Norman.
I'm assuming they shot on location in Vietnam, if not they did a heck of a job recreating vietnam because everything looks very authentic, especially the jungles.
Lastly even though there's not a whole lot of it, the gore effects are SUPERB, there's one scene and you'll know when you see it where someone dies and it's just disgusting yet beautiful at the same time.
The acapella Marvin Gaye soundtrack interwoven with real life solders who wouldn't otherwise get mention was the cherry on top.
Bravo to all involved, Spike Lee is back.
Has to be in running for the worst Keanu Reeves movie EVER.
I appreciate the fact that he's 50 and looks 35, I was even starting to think he was gonna have like some Matthew Mccona-however the fuck you spell it renaissance with John Wick and that ronin movie, even though Keanu, in his 30 year career has NEVER in my opinion, but a particularly good actor and this movie exposed the hell out of that.
First of all, Keanu was going against his type cast, and watching him trying to be like normal upbeat dad guy and joking with kids and shit came off awkward and forced as hell because he's no good at "emoting".
Second, nobody and I mean nobody believed either of those girls were 15, so suspension of disbelief is already difficult.
Third, usually when you build a villain up for upwards of 45 minutes, they better get a hell off a comeuppance at the end, these bitches got NOTHING, they basically raped and tortured one guy and murdered his friend and got off clean without a scratch on them.
So many holes in this movies as well.
For example, in the final 20 or so minutes, it's revealed he had a gun hidden in some piece of pottery or whatever it was, but for some reason, whenever he got free, he never went for it, opting instead to attempt to strangle them.
His racially ambiguous friend Louis (couldn't tell if he was black or Spanish) does this spiel when he realizes something fucked up is going on about being from Oakland and not taking no shit blah blah and instead of untying Keanu's character, he decides to get all up in arms over some piece of art and ends up dying like a dickhead.
They also said the girls went to every house during the night scene and that nobody in the whole neighborhood was home so he could scream for help all he wants.
I mean you're telling me in an affluent looking neighborhood that there's not one person in their home at all at night during this whole ordeal?
And I hate to just beat this point home, but GOD Keanu reeves was awful, it's bad enough he kept his EXACT john wick look, which made it seem as though he filmed this right after filming wick, but he delivered his lines with as much enthusiasm as a guy getting pulled out of a ménage e trois with 1999 Jennifer Lopez and 2002, fuck, 2015 Monica Bellucci to go home to 2015 Amy Schumer.
And the best part of all of this shit is that no real motivation nor any background are ever given on these 2 girls, why the blonde with the thick accent insists on calling him daddy and acting fucking crazy, why they run around fucking up guys lives, where they come from, how they were able to spy on him, nothing.
Excellent movie save for the useless character of Millie Brown, who clearly was only in the film for her "name recognition", as the story could've been exactly the same without her involvement.
The story is basically Vera Farmigas character blames humanity for the planets issues and thinks unleashing a bunch of gigantic monsters full of radiation will heal it and has enlisted the aide of a terrorist group to help her unleash the monsters, while her ex husband blames Godzilla for the death of their son and wants to eradicate ALL of the titans.
If you're a Godzilla fan, you'll love all the fan service and homages (pro tip: stay after the credits roll for the classic Godzilla theme).
King Ghidorah looks as menacing and awesome as he has EVER looked on screen, Mothra in larvae and full grown form looks amazing and Godzilla and all his forms throughout look terrifying, they even upgraded Rodan and added some new monsters.
It's hard not to spoil anything because it was so good and it made me feel like a kid again, so I'll just end the review with this, fuck Rotten Tomatoes and more importantly, fuck Rodan, go see this movie and you'll know why.
I just came back from the movie theater and I didn't read any reviews or any reactions beforehand beause I wanted an untainted experience.
First off the theater was PACKED, which far exceeded my expectations.
Second, this movie was EXCELLENT, I won't spoil anything but I will give my thoughts.
The cinematography was phenomenal, the whole movie had a very dark tone throughout, even during the comedic moments so it never left that "dangerous" feeling and kept the audience on its toes.
All of the losers club played their parts perfectly and for once in a horror movie, you actually wanted to see the protagonist overcome the monster.
The actor who played pennyworth was very scary and clearly having fun playing the role, while the tim curry pennyworth is still my personal favorite due to him not having all the cgi stuff to rely on and still coming across creepy as hell, this incarnation was still very good.
I also appreciated the little things, for example, this isn't really a spoiler but they referenced street fighter and I thought to myself "I hope they know 2 didn't come out until 1991" and sure enough the street fighter game they referenced and showed was the original street fighter 1 game, and also a certain character from the book was mentioned which I didn't think they would do but they did it quite nicely in my opinion.
Again, kudos to the whole team, they did an tremendous job and made a proper adaption of the book, which in hollywood, as the dark tower among other books have proven, is a rarity.
Now I'm off to rewatch the tv adaption again.
