Great Miyazaki film with a lovely fairy tale storyline. If only the kids voices weren't so screamish. This made my overal enjoyment of the movie drop :(
9/10 Better than the first one, as expected.
Warning: Heavy spoilers for people who did not read the 3rd book!
It was better than the first movie on many points, especially the ones I expected it to be. But it still has some flaws, besides the obvious ones the first movie had as well.
First off, the obvious ones: Both movies fail to capture the scale of Katniss' inner stife concerning Peeta and Gale, and the influence of the home front (especially her sister and the role her mother had in the family.) I think this will severely lessen the impact of her sisters death in the final movie in 2015, just like it reduces the relationship Katniss has with her two 'boys' to a more common love triangle than it actually is.
In defence of the screen writers: it is hard to picture this strife on screen without getting long voice-over monologues, drag the movie out too much and make it boring. Since this choice was already made in the first movie, it was only logical they continued on this path for consistency.
- Secondly, the movies lose a lot of strength for people who did not read the books. This is because of the lack (or scarce amount) of background information. For non-readers this makes the basic outlines of the story a bit farfetched. (Why are there hunger games? What does the capitol wants to protect besides its own decadence? How come the districts didn't revolt earlier? These are a few questions that are easily asked, but not properly answered.)
Plot Development:
That being said, the 2nd movie manages to picture the cruelty of the capitol a lot better than the first one. This makes sense from a storyline perspective, since from this moment on Katniss gets more aware of the full scale of the oppresion in all the districts.
They stay true to the book, without getting to much attached to it. Maybe the first half (the victory tour) is a bit rushed, but that's understandable to avoid stretching out the movie too much.
Personally I think the movie needed 10-15 minutes extra to create that extra bit of (emotional) impact and explanation for a few things (like said earlier) or leave out a few scenes completely. Examples are the jabberjails in the arena or the replacement of the old peacekeeper. Also the conversation Katniss has with President Snow in her Victory Road home was too rushed, and lost its impact.
They managed to make some parts of the story even more clear, and the ending is way more satisfying than what Collins did originally. Less open-ended and more of a step-up to the next movie.
Acting:
Except for Donald Sutherland (President Snow ) I thought all the actors did a better job in the follow up movie than in the first one. It was obvious that they grew into their characters over time. Especially Elizabeth Banks (Effie) was exquisit and the faces Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) did were top notch. She might be a bit too sweet and confident for Katniss, but she pulls it off. Also new character Johanna Mason, pictured by Jena Malone, was a really good casting decision.
The actors managed to give strong emotions to their characters, while they impressively managed to avoid overacting. Something that could happen easily in this story. They also got a few whimsical lines and responses in there that will make you smile.
Visual:
CGI were great, as expected of a modern high budget movie. They did not overdo it, which is a compliment for movies with this allure nowadays, and looked realistic, sharp and terrifying. Great job especially on the subtle way how they made the poiseness mist look. The only CGI I did not enjoy was the Tsunami (so the wave ON water, not when it came out of the forest.) This felt a bit cheap.
You notice the movie is by a different director, but nothing changed dramatically. Again, he jumps from 1 situation to the other a bit fast in the first part, and convo's are a bit cramped in because of the relatively fast scenes with information. So this can feel a bit messy. To make up for this, the arena scenes are detailed and beautfull. There are some interesting peek-throughs (deep shots) that keep the direct environment visible, and even one from a first person perspective. Not a fan of some of the close-ups though, they felt a bit cut-of at times.
Oh and costumes, great costumes that is, but A LOT of costumes :P
Sound:
I didn't really get up in your face, but managed to get the theme through to you at the important parts. Since I haven't paid attention to it in particular, that's all I have to comment on it unfortunately.
Enjoyment/Overall:
Great movie to watch, just like the first one. Has a good balance between action, stories, character development and originality. Depending on what kind of movies you like, the first half could be experienced as rushed or maybe uneventful, but the second part makes up for it in both cases.
All the flaws mentioned earlier are for the most part minor flaws, and do not compromise the movie for the most viewers.
ps. There were 2 'beeps' for the f-word when I watched it in cinema. I am interested if more people had this, and if someone knows if that will be on the DVD/Blu-ray too. Usually those words ain't censored in my country.
With the latest live action translation 'Cruella', Disney is trying to mimic the successful formula used for 'Maleficent',. Take an antagonist from one of their classics and switch her to an anti-hero protagonist. Pulling the same trick twice is difficult, even for veterans with big artistic freedoms, the strong studio influences don't do them many favors either.
Disney's firm grip on its own material is understandable, but as we see time and time again is more often than not problematic for most of their current live-action translations. There is not much in the story of 'Cruella' that makes any of the characters very relatable or recognizable for people unknown with the 'source' material. Unlike the 2014 'Maleficent' there is no redeeming villain act in 'Cruella', neither is there a positive message (or any clear one at all for that matter) in the film. Add to that some repetitive and dragging scenes, only kept together by flashy visuals and music. I am unsure this is a movie you want to show to your kids, and for adults it can be rather dull.
Most problematic is the soundtrack. First of all, the choice for a focus on rock & roll and especially punk music is very complementary with the themes in the movie (although the whole status/fashion part of that is contradictory.) However, the songs often feel very forced and only superficially connected to what is happening on screen. Secondly, the movie is simply to family friendly to really be able to carry any sort of punk theme. The mix with Disco and R&B was a mystery to me, especially when 'Car Wash' played i was totally taken out of the movie. There is also an overload of well known songs to be recognized by the audience, not contributing much to the film.
Absolutely the most positive part in this film is the acting. Emma Thompson is impressive and steals the show in this movie. Even though Emma Stone performs great, Thompson kind of outshines her most of the time. Emma Stone is a great actress though, and she does notably well here too. Especially noteworthy is Emma Stone her use of voice. She clearly studied the original voice actor for Cruella wel, and her use and tone of voice is done very accurately and fitting.
Besides the acting and some nice visuals every now and then there is not much value in this movie to put your time in. An overly long runtime, unclear or poor message and a soundtrack that does not do more than a good Spotify playlist drag down the movie as a whole. If you want to see Emma (any of them) shine, it can be worth the watch though.
With all the great reviews I suspected a hidden jewel, and it kinda was. However it annoyed me a lot.
Especially the dialog was extremely hectic and kind of retarded in the first 30 minutes. It got a bit better after that, but never really good. The actions and decisions were of people that just did not think, something that doesn't fit in a movie with a smart setting like multiverses. imho it only fits with comedy and some exceptions here and there, but that's just me.
One of the flaws that showed itself a couple of times was the time flow. Time is not really consequent throughout the whole movie. In 1 scene someone drinks up a bottle of wine within a minute, and on a few occasions people were gone for a longer period of time (10-20min) while in the house itself no more than 5 minutes were passed at best. This could be explained by the major plot twist in the end, but it would be nice if there were made 1 or 2 remarks about it if that was the case.
The movie is also not giving the viewer time to make their own construction of the situation but making a few emotional scenes right after an info-dump and repeating this process.
And when the characters finally start to understand how complex the situation could be, they decide to pop open the alcohol and get wasted.... seriously?
It brings the movie to a dramatic impasse that is completely unnecessarily and just slows down the mystery.
Luckily the movie manages to get some points in after that. More focusing on story development, having some very interesting plot twists and using the mystery to its benefit in stead of for the drama.
Those last 15 minutes are a good home run, and the movie sets up a completely other pace and setting. Suddenly moving from a group of people with no clue what's going on, to one main character with an objective.
Maybe they should've done this from the beginning to make it more interesting. The girl (Emily?) who took on this role was from the beginning one of the few actors I did not have many complains about, and was doing a good job.
Usually I am a big fan of the 'quantum multiverse' theory worked into a movie, and the concept in this one is very nicely done. But even though they tried (and to be fair the creators have a good grasp on the subject) it kinda failed with the overly dramatic setting and insulting the viewer by letting characters make dumb decisions.
Since it is a low budget movie, I decided not to be too harsh on the rating itself (it really is a movie that can match itself with the high budget ones) and I definitely would upvote for a remake with some better scriptwriting for dialog and some actions. Because I think that this flick could be even better.
In 'The French Dispatch' director Wes Anderson goes all out with his characteristic aesthetic, beautiful visuals, use of colour and attention to detail. The music is great, fantastic even at times. There are more top actors than you could find at an average Oscars party. And visually most of shots are works of art all by them self. It is rather unfortunate that Wes his attention to detail do not translate to a more coherent story as a whole, holding the movie back.
'The French Dispatch' contains three separate stories, only trivially connected by a fourth overarching story about a newspaper and its journalists (based on the origins of a real newspaper.) On their own, each story is serviceable, but unfortunately the guiding story is lacking enough substance to make it work as a whole. The at times rather dense dialogue, riddled with puns and metaphors, also do not help with avoiding confusion. Especially for the average cinema visitor. However, the jokes and puns are often positively unexpected and with a great show of comedic timing, even during otherwise non comedic scenes. And this is without having to resort to the type of subversive humor we so often see nowadays in blockbuster films.
The three stories on their own, especially the rather quirky first one about the convicted murderer, are all interesting and fun enough to make the viewer invested. And although each story is not likely to be strong enough in its current form to carry a whole film, I think they could have benefited from some more time. To give the characters some more and/or better introduction. It would also have the benefit of seeing some more from all the fantastic actors.
I would recommend to watch this movie at (a somewhat larger screen) at home, where you have the option to rewind. That way it is also possible to appreciate the many details in many shots and scenes.
With every movie Wes improves his meticulous and almost obsessive attention to detail in every shot. Considering the visuals; In 'The French Dispatch' he once again trumps every movie Wes Anderson has made before, including the well received 'Budapest Hotel' and his critically acclaimed stop motion films 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and 'Isle Of Dogs'. Of course there is an ample amount of his characteristic centered camera work, straight angle moving and panning, and the painting-like sets in almost every shot. He plays with aspect ratio and switches between colour and black and white for significant portions of the movie. And there is even a fully (drawn) animated section, which is a lot of fun.
If a movie was only visuals, this one would have been rated a 10/10.
I absolutely enjoyed the music and music timing in this. Composer Alexandre Desplat (who often composed for Wes Anderson his films) made a score that was often subtle, while still reinforcing the atmosphere of the movie and the scene. I also noticed some parts where video and audio were carefully timed to match one another. On a few occasions the music felt like a temporary extra character in the scene, leading the atmosphere instead of only enforcing it, and I found myself actively appreciating it more than I usually do when watching a film.
With all the actors involved, and the limited time they are given, it is difficult to properly discuss acting as a whole. There are so many fantastic actors in this, but the lack of screentime for each of them makes none of them award worthy. I have to mention Benicio del Toro for his acting though. With his menacing performance he outshines most of the other actors. And that is with a cast like this very difficult to do.
Overall I enjoyed this movie a lot, but even though I would like to recommend it, it is difficult to recommend to most people except for people already familiar with Wes Anderson his work. It might be not accessible enough for the average person, with the separate stories and visual style. While for a film fan the story issues can be problematic. Its shortcomings are especially unfortunate, because it likely will be a cause for less people to watch it.
An out of the box character driven movie with amazing performances all over. The movie is carried by the philosophical debate about (the hypocrisy of) how society is raising and viewing kids, so for the ones not interested in some deeper themes this movie will fall flat or could even be misunderstood. It is not so much a critique on society as it is thought provoking, and you might end up somewhere in the middle of the two positions of the argument. You could argue both against and in favour of the main character (played by the always amazing Viggo Mortensen) where every character in this movie has been written and portrayed as realistic as they can be.
At its core the movie is about parenting, education and the way society places itself superior to the outcast, and how the outcast always has to fight these conformist systems. Since (western) education and way of life has almost become a religion in itself, it isn't easy to live in (or raise your kids in) when you disagree. Something this movie illustrates the best in its more extreme moments.
Its runtime is a bit longer than you'd think necessary, however the slow pacing of the movie makes room for the rather big cast to breathe a little and not hastily skip over the decision points or thought process of the characters. It rotates intense emotional moments with moments of light heartedness and world building. This makes time for actually taking the audience along with the thoughts of the people that have the most development.
Oh and the cinematography is surprisingly well done too. I found myself both laughing and almost tearing up in 1 single shot. The emotions are very well captured and the use of light, costumes and props is exceptional.
The end really left me wondering if the kids could fly out and become these promising people their parents set them out to be, but something tells me that it won't be that simple.
"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him."
Ender's Game is a movie with many flaws, but many qualities as well. Keep in mind that it is hard to just categorize it as a good or bad movie because of that.
No real spoilers ahead.
Story:
Like someone pointed out here before me, the reason why kids are necessary and why that's humanities only hope is left completely unexplained. The lack of other commanders, besides the one in training school, is pretty odd to say the least as well. In 50 years not 1 trainee from the academy passed the test. So what happened to all those failed kids? Especially the ones that did get to the final test. They know a secret that cannot be known to society (about the hero commander.)
There was no real character development in this movie at all except for the main character, and his development was very thin. The 2 friends he made do not have much in common with him, nor do they have any reason to like him. Especially the girl, since she is in a winning team for a while. After Ender's 'problem' with the Salamander leader, he feels bad about it. But as soon this part is over he never seems to look back at it or takes any lesson from it.
On the brightside, the massive plottwist in the end was surprising. After watching a movie with a rather unsurprising (but not boring) story development, I did not expect that. They could've singled out the emotional/psychological aspect after this part a bit more to make up for some lacking character development earlier.
Visuals:
Special Effects were lovely. A real sci-fi feel with great spacey environments that didn't feel unrealistic or cheap. The funniest thing was how they could've had computer games with about the same graphics we have now :P
I really loved how they did the battle scenes between plains and fighters, both in air as in space. You really got sucked into the battle field, and lost the feeling you were watching at a screen like happens so often with big battle scenes with lots of SFX.
Music:
This has to be adressed. I think this was probably the best part about this movie. Steve Jablonksy was the one who composed it. He also composed the music for the game Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, where he surprisingly managed to not dissapoint after stopping Frank Klepacki's monopoly for the franchise. And that's while Klepacki set the stakes very high for him. And in mainstream modern movies he is probably best known for doing some music for the Transformer movies, too bad those movies suck too much.
He did an amazing job on the score for Ender's Game. Bombastic, classical and majestic music that made every scene way bigger and impressive. Something you could easily listen to and enjoy without looking to the film, but just play really loud on your speakers.
Acting:
This is always something that falls a bit short when kids are the main characters in a movie. Remember the golden rule: Never work with children or pets when you are making a movie.
Not that it was bad, I was actually positively surprised with the acting job most of the younger characters delivered. The worst acting came from the adults xD But even so, the acting was not something award-worthy. Just don't expect big personal acting extravaganzas and you will be just fine.
Enjoyment/Overall:
I really had a lot of fun watching this movie, therefore the end(er) ordeal from me falls into the category good movie. It has enough speed, nice visuals, great music and it is just fun to watch.
This small, incomplete review holds no real spoilers.
Jennifer Lawrence turned up the acting switch a notch. Might be her best performance till date overshadowing 'winter's bone' while showing her great talent and potential of her becoming a movie superstar (if she isn't already bc of her internet popularity and looks.)
This part was more balanced as the last movie, and sets the emotional trigger on sharp for the finale next year.
Again a compliment to Elizabeth Banks who captures the role of Effie amazingly well. Even though she originally wasn't supposed to be on screen until the finale, the creators and writer Suzanne Collins decided to let her replace Plutarch's assistent so she could be in this movie, which was a wise decision imho to use a familiar face in stead of a unknown side character.
I was a bit disappointed about the lack of influence of Natalie Dormer, but we might have to wait for the last movie for that to happen.
Sidenote: It is harder to find a movie without Julianne Moore nowadays, than one with her lol.
There is a lot of conversation, the biggest part due to this being the politics part in the story. This is a big part of stories base after all, and is important in its message.
I really was surprised they used the 'Hanging tree' song in the movie, I kinda suspected they would skip it, and it was a great surprise and a good decision the didn't. It has a lot of importance for Katniss, since it depicts the struggle of the districts against the capitol, and her relationship with her family (mainly her dad) and later with Peeta.
Lawrence is definitely not a singer though, she doesn't have the voice for it hehe. Good thing they have computers nowadays.
Depending on how part 2 will turn out, I think they made a good choice in splitting the movie in two, even though it is probably done just for the cash and not for storytelling.
Pretty disappointing and crappy movie.
I suspected a casual and fun movie with this one, maybe with some puzzles and an interesting premise. However the movie disappointed from the start.
For a adaptation from a book I sure hope this was a bad one. You get thrown into the middle of a stoy where suddenly all kinds of stuff happens. I hope this wasn't the case in the original work, because it is one of the major flaws of this movie, and could be explained as the cause of many of its other faults.
The acting was luckily pretty ok, but many of the characters don't add to the story at all and are just filling up empty screen. The sound was to cry off as well. Soundtrack was ok, but many scenes had no music and felt like a soap because of it.
I am all for being creative with sound, but this was just done badly.
Since I won't bore you with pages of irrelevant texts, like the movie does, i will just make a list of the cons and pros.
Cons:
- Paced way too fast
- No build up for a climax (the film was more of a constant climax actually)
- Not getting time to get acquainted with the characters, therefore not caring about there faith.
- Very little character development, except maybe for Gally (Will Poulter)
- Stating many things as impossible without many explanation
- Revealing the endgame in the first act of the movie with a flashback/memory which makes the whole movie unnecessary,
- Also making the whole story as predictable as a Japanese train schedule.
- Inappropriate absent of sound
- Too much unimportant characters
- Did we really need another Hunger Games movie?
- etc.
Pros:
- Nice environment
- Funny but cool looking cyborg creatures
- Doesn't need many attention to follow, so you can check your twitter or facebook feed in the meantime.
This is 'Primer' for dummies.
The movie frustrated me from time to time because of massive plot holes and bad writing. The idea is challenging, and complex enough to have fun with, and not too complex to get lost in. However too many things did not add up.
For such smart kids they sure were reckless and rushed everything as if they were for the first time in a chemistry class. Every guy who has even the slightest idea of timetravel knows that messing with stuff in the past is going to get you in trouble (butterfly effect) and if you are going to do something you have to plan it out carefully.
There are also multiple occasions when they travel back in time for a 2nd time to the same time and place, but do not meet their 'earlier' time traveling selfs there. This was especially awkward with the kiss scene. Arguably the most important scene of the movie. Even if the device somehow canceled out earlier jumps to the same time, they didn't have to interfere but just had to jump and wait.
For the story it might have been much more interesting if they didn't focus so much on the main actor during the final act of the movie and prevent such a boring cliched ending.
There is more, but lets leave it with this
There is 1 interesting detail in the ending though; the papers David throws in the garbage bin after the talk with his father date 2025. I wonder what that implies....
Still, there are way worse movies out there.
Edit: there is another thing I really liked about the movie btw. It used a track by Mark Sixma. :D
What an amazing movie. This movie lacks a lot of media attention probably because of its subject. Chess doesn't get a lot of attention these days because a lot of people find it boring. Calling this movie boring would be the biggest lie of 2015 though.
It is one of the best performances, if not the best, from Tobey Maguire I have seen so far. And he has a phenomenal adversary in Liev Schreiber. The movie did not get very creative in its story, but chose a more literal setup from the actual events. This makes for a straight on drama movie without any melodramatic or emotional depth exaggerating the facts, but that is certainly for the best.
Good movie that makes you want to have kids yourself.
It is hard not to compare the 2021 Snyder's Cut to the 2017 release, which was generally perceived as a messy film due to its problems during production. There is definitely more coherence and structure in this version, with less plot holes and more time for the characters to breathe (not in last place because of the significantly increased -doubled- run time.) However, in many moments it is clear the movie has been edited together from incomplete and/or unfinished material. This is especially noticeable in several of the (many) CGI scenes, which look outdated and unpolished. It makes (some of) the choices made in the 2017 version more understandable, even though it does not make them any better. The hated reshoots that ended up in the 2017 version were clearly not unnecessary, just the execution was poor.
Light Spoilers ahead (marked.)
The antagonist is clearly one of the main improvements. Steppenwolf is relatively well fleshed out, and no longer a completely forgettable generic bad guy (and I thought his costume looked awesome! No idea why that was changed in the earlier version.) It remains a problem that he is just a henchman, and the big bad guy boss (Darkseid) plays no real role in the story. Darkseid appearance has not much added value because of that. It adds significantly to the antagonist motivation, but his appearance is mostly used to make way for a next movie.
We also spend more time on Cyborg and his character, which is deserving and rewarding and makes him a more interesting character to watch.
The dynamic within the team is also much more balanced, with less awkward forced moments.
That being said, the main focus clearly never was the characters themselves, which is not unusual for a blockbuster (superhero) movie. There are scenes that feel out of place because of sudden shifts of tone and focus. Also, several events, plot lines and choices or alternatives are never explored or given a pay off.
There are several setups that are never paid off, especially with the introduction of additional characters. This pads the runtime unnecessarily and often makes the movie feel like a set up for later movies (which will probably never see the light of day.) Secondly, their are so many endings, it could compete with LOTR's Return of The King for most endings in a major film release, and unlike RotK, it is not to finish up those aforementioned loose ends, but rather to set up new plots.
Of course this has to be mentioned. The choice for 4:3 ratio has been done for creative reasons, and it has already caused division among the viewers. Their are many shots where the 4:3 ratio is exceptionally impressive, and it is justifies the choice for that aspect ratio. However, in just as many scenes the lack of widescreen makes the experience underwhelming. This is (logically) mostly the case with wideshots and the big battles. When the ever present but lacking CGI meets those wideshot angles, this negative effect is even more increased, and it made me feel like watching an episode of Friends or other old television show.
In conclusion, the chosen aspect ratio has both its merits and demerits. The difference between 4:3 and Widescreen is not impossible to overcome to use in 1 film, but it is significant which makes it tricky to naturally switch between them. The choice to stay dedicated to an unchanging Ratio is logical.
This is an average but fun epic superhero movie that is enjoyable to watch if you have the time and patience for it. The movie is split into several distinct sections, with headers, so it is possible to watch it as a mini-series. It does not rise to the heights of Infinity War, but it also does not steep as low as Suicide Squad.
It's funny how the actor called Finn does not play the part of Finn in this film. :P
All kidding aside, this was a highly addictive film that surprised me a lot. When I jumped in I expected a bad plot based on outrages decision making and nonsense. And even though there are still points of critique in that matter left, overall this does not affect the film in a way it aggravates the viewer.
The plot setup is basic but not clichéd, and from there on it uses every scene carefully to set up a plot with some unexpected twists. You can see the creators jumped in this project and seemingly were dedicated to what they were creating. Since (almost) every scene has it's value and is worked out very detailed (IMDB only has 1 goof on the movie so far. Yes it is an indie movie, so it won't have as much engagement as others, but still.)
Any plot that has to do with time travel and the like is hard to set up without having paradoxes, and there are few films who manage to handle them correctly. This one isn't perfect, but it does a nice job in keeping them very limited.
The first thing that got me thrilled was the music used in the movie. I am already a big fan of electronic music, but it is hard to use in film since it is more often than not disruptive in its presence. Not here, it balances some hard-trance scenes with more subtle spheric suspension building sounds. It backs the claustrophobic experience of the small set, and magnifies the surrealism of science fiction in a sublime way.
As the film progresses you get sucked in more and more into the story, especially after the 2nd act where the character development of the main persona is getting really interesting. This 3rd part of the film is by far the best part, with the biggest twists and captivating ordeals the characters have to face. I won't say much about the ending to prevent spoilers, but it left me hungry for a sequel, which will most likely never come. I am still not sure if that feeling was a good or bad thing.
I will be rating it at a 7(+) for now, but I am going to watch it a second time, because it is definitely worth it.
The 3h sit was a long one. Even though it wasn't the movie I was expecting it did not feel like a waste of time at all.
Even with a 3h film, there are still questions left to be answered. The movies maintains a slow pace overall, but fast forwards a few times to not make the movie too boring. This results in some characters getting rushed out of the story, and some not having much impact. The ending is implied as well, but I am very happy with it and wouldn't suggest changing it. It is most of all a coming of age story with some slice-of-life elements, and it is way too easy to fall for the clichés hiding in those genres. And they hardly did.
They could've sacrificed some unnecessary (long) scenes, but I doubt it would be the same film without them. It gives the movie a unique pace in which you don't really want them to hury up with the story, and just 'live in the now' with Adele (not particularly refering to the sex scenes.)
Besides the long and graphic sex scenes, which this movie will probably and sadly be most rememberd for, there are a multitude of shots and transitions that really hit me. The acting is of a very high quality too. They even threw in a lot of philosophy but were smart to make the main character not care for it (or understand it.) This prevents a pretentiousness without losing such material.
After all a very intriguing movie.
"Be careful what you wish for, cause you just might get it."
'Transcendence' is a science fiction movie about Artificial Intelligence with some classic themes in it. After a tragic event someone is brought back to life by copying his mind to a (quantum)computer. When the program spins out of control, it is up to the heroes of the story to stop the machine from destroying humankind.
Story
So far so good. A basic AI story with all kinds of possibilities, and this is where they went wrong. It looks like they could not really decide which theme(s) they really wanted to go with, so almost every theme is hinted at: Self-consciousness, Technology as a life form, is a machine able to Love, is the world holistic or based on reductionism, Could a machine ever overpower us, post apocalyptic world, struggle of morality, devotion and faith et cetera. None of these themes gets the proper time to get deepened out, so we end up with a movie with a lot of unsatisfying development.
Secondly, the first scene of the movie already betrays the end of the movie, which was a very bad decision, because it took out all the suspense from the movie and made you aware of the ending from the beginning.
Some plot holes which made me think the creators think I am dumb, but in the end made me think they are dumb:
1. I thought it was weird the 'virus' had to be uploaded by 'the wife' Evelyn, since it was basically working like an antidote (a bit weak imho) and since the AI's main goal was to "improve" everyone, not kill them, dosing people with the virus would make them invulnerable for hostile takeovers.
2. Also, the main power source of the AI was his solar park. Even though he operated on the complete Internet and everything connected to it, including the power grid itself (which is literally named in the movie.) So shutting down that solar park should not have any effect on him at all!
Characters
Besides a few 'errors in 'judgment', the cast is overall pretty good and does a nice job. Nobody will probably win an award for this movie and some characters are so anonymous I cannot even remember their characters name just after watching the movie (I seriously had to look this example up: Paul Bettany as Max Walters.)
Visuals/Music
The music in the movie was pretty decent. Nothing special, just like the movie in it's whole, but not bad either. Visuals were neat, but no megalomania was added, so you won't really be able to enjoy big massive visual spectacles on the screen. But this is not a film for that anyway.
Overall/Enjoyment
In contrary to the many negative points I wrote down, it is not bad of a movie at all. It does not reach classic heights or big majestic scenes, but you will be interested in it as long as you like the AI kind of Science Fiction. I especially liked how the movies seems to have a bit of a slower pace than is the standard nowadays, which I can appreciate.
With this movie, the Bourne Trilogy went instant classic. One of the best chase scenes I know of, a much deeper view on the identity of Bourne himself and the memorable 'magazine weapon' fight scene. Worth of a longer review, but I am too lazy today.
I expected a bad movie, but I got a fun action movie with a surprising high amount of enjoyment.
It is fast paced with good action. Yes the story is really thin, but that's to be expected from a movie like this. In the end the story was actually better than I expected it to be.
Filled with cliché's and all, but enjoyable. Can't call it a bad movie.
The first one already did not do so well, mostly excelling in original design, decent CGI and it's (attempt of) focusing on characters. Part 2 continues this tradition, but sacrifices the few good things about the first movie with just a grander scale.
Proof that doing a 'Double Tap' is not always the best move for movies.
I did not see the first movie when it was released years ago, because zombies are usually not my thing. So when I decided to watch this, I had to see the first movie before seeing ' Double Tap'.
That one surprised me in a positive way. I liked it more than I thought I would. If it wasn't so late at night when I finished 1, I would have watched ' Double Tap' immediately after.
However, when I saw ' Double Tap' the next day, I found out it suffers from the age-old sequel disease. It is still fun, but not as good as the first, less fresh and less inspired.
Since the movie(s) don't take themself too serious, it is still an okay movie and entertaining to watch though.
Enjoyable to see once, nothing more.
A below average movie with some interesting stuff mixed in which will disappoint in the end.
I am not sure I can say it is worth the watch, maybe only for the last few minutes and Ana de Armas. I was so distracted (and maybe lulled to sleep) by the predictive and incoherent initial storyline that the ending completely surprised me. It had me go: "haha oh sh*t, how did I not see that one coming?." Because the last twist wasn't that surprising if you think of it. Since the movie didn't really trigger the viewer to think for himself, nor does it have a very coherent storyline (it rather jumped from one scene to the other) there wasn't much to think of, therefore surprising me in the end haha.
How something bad can hide something obvious and make you think it is good :P You could say that's art in itself, but it isn't.
Simply great!
A family movie with a serious tone.
Best Disney Movie ever!
Great comedy, great sing-a-long music like Disney did best in the early era and a compelling story.
This was an interesting and good movie, but it could have been a masterpiece.
The thing that kept it from becoming that was mainly the story line and build up.
The biggest plot twist (and imho the biggest climax of the movie) happens way too early, and it makes the endgame feel like an outro rather than the moment you have been waiting for the whole movie.
From the moment the big plot twist is revealed, the movie gets very predictable.
The acting, setting, visuals, potential, music are all pretty much top notch, but in the end it was the writing that will probably put this movie in 'Oblivion' itself.
I almost could not finish this, and turned it off after 1 hour. But I managed to finish watching it eventually.
Even as a mindless animation action it fails.
It is just unbelievably boring and shallow. Dialogue is piss poor, Story is not terrible, but too basic to get interesting. The animation often lacks details and many corners were cut. The characters are well drawn, but anything else lacks details and movements are very choppy.
The movie just looks and feels like it lacked money at every aspect in its production. Skip this and watch some of the DCU animated movies instead.
Boring, unfunny, poorly written and lackluster acting. Even as a family/kids movie, there are many better films out there.
'Die Hard' in space but bad.
May the spoiler be always in your favour (this review contains spoilers.)
A great ending has come to the legendary hunger games series. A most welcome ending because we now finally will discover how the creators handled the death of Prim and the bittersweet ending of the book. Those were the two parts of this film I was curious about the most. My judgement is a 50/50 split between praise and expected disappointment.
After 3 movies and covering 2,5 book we have arrived at the endgame. The rebellion is on the capitols doorstep, and the climax of the story has arrived. During this build up there was a decent lack of focus on Katniss her sister Prim (as I mentioned in an earlier hunger games review too.) The importance Prim has to Katniss is shown a few times, but she did not get the appropriate attention for the average watcher to accept and understand that. Therefore the 'big explosion' didn't hit me as hard as it should have (and it didn't look like it hit many of the rest of the audience in the cinema.) But this was an expected point of criticism, and the actual execution of the big scene was done fairly well and a visual treat.
They did left the ending completely intact, with the harsh reality of a post traumatic stress syndrome after a war and poking around in someone's brain. It is an emotionally, nerve-racking but realistic ending, and I loved the books for it. I am thankful the writers had the gut to not change it.
Performance
Performances are once again fabulous. Effie (Elizabeth Banks) her role was mostly played out, so we sadly didn't get to see much of her. Neither did we of Haymitch (Woody Harrelson.) But it wouldn't be the Hunger Games without some of the chart emotional outburst by Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence.) She proves to the world that her fellow generation actresses are miles away from her level of performance. I even dare to say she is the best we've got currently have in all of Hollywood.
Donald Sutherland finally steps it up as president Snow and leaves the franchise with a great final act, giving the evil sceptre to the ever anticipating Coin (Julianne Moore) whome I have yet to see doing a weak performance. Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) are just as great as they always were, even though we do not see enough of Gale to give his character a proper development. They just managed to do enough. Jena Malone as Johanna Mason was a delight, even though fairly irrelevant. The acts of Natalie Dromer as Cressida and the rest of the camera crew & squat underwent the same faith: Fairly irrelevant, but decent nonetheless. Most of the soldiers deaths were less shocking due to their lack of screen time, but there simply isn't enough time to set there character up in this stage of the story, so it couldn't be handled any other way.
Story
The story couldn't have been more relevant to current times. With a massive overlap with the refugees in Europe, the war in Syria and the political pre-election games in the USA, the accidental timing of the movie is perfect. Sometimes it felt like I was watching a speech they took right out of Donald Trump his program, used images from actual war zones and this made it frighteningly applicable to reality for me. The whole story is a fair warning to the current world situation, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly.
Having said that, the script did drop some stitches. Especially with the pacing. The middle part of the movie is going from one event to another lacking some proper motivation besides getting to the end of the movie. It did deepen the drama and gave room for great action scenes, but they had to sacrifice the strategic coherence we saw in the last film. It results in an ending that became fairly predictable, and a feeling that some (major) events were rushed (a weird feeling when you have over 9 hours of film in total.) Using shots during the execution scene, where Snow and Coin are in the same line of sight on multiple occasions, could have been handled differently too. I guess only a few people were surprised by the arrow's direction.
Visual & Music
I can be brief about this, it was phenomenal. The music was a tad less interesting than in the former movies, but still greatly timed and chosen. CGI and SFX was stunning. I was never a big fan of the the underground part, but the mutts were done amazingly well with so much detail and wrath it rightuously felt absolutely threatening. As they truely are one of the capitols most deadly weapons. Even though I knew something would happen in seconds, I still jumped by surprise a few times.
Overall
After all it is a movie with many perks and some tiny flaws that are very understandable. A worthy ending to one of the most important series of its genre.
Too pretentious for such an average storyline, a typical case of trying too hard.
It looks like they had too many ideas, but not the guts to choose. None of them was worked out well, so we end up with a messy movie that tries to be cool and clever while it is neither.
I like Bateman, but why does he always play in these kind of weak movies?
Even with him, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda and Kathryn Hahn (great comedy cast) this movie was mostly pretty boring and did not feel realistic.
It tried to achieve a mix between comedy and drama, but even while it did make me smile at some points it wasn't that funny and failed completely as a drama with the silly flat characters and plot.
