Thrilling, creative and well acted. There was a lot of doubts about Edge of Tomorrow, but for me it seemed very cool and since I first saw the trailer that I was excited to see it. Today I finally had the chance to catch it and I really enjoyed!
The concept of the story is so cool! Something between Source Code and a mix of many war films. The action sequences of war are absolutely amazing and the special effects so well done! With a fantastic and super original Sci-Fi story you will be intrigued until the very last minute and you can't even predict what is coming next.
What I wasn't expecting was the amount of humour the film has. Those comical parts go very well with the story and are very well delivered. I let go an amount of spontaneous laughs throughout the story and that was great.
Tom Cruise was really great that his role! We already know that through the last few years he is a guy that likes to do this kind of physically difficult roles full of action and he certainly is in shape for that. I confess that I prefer the 80's and 90's Tom Cruise but he was pretty good in this and that is the Tom Cruise that I wanna continue to see! (although last year I also liked to see him in Oblivion which I think is not as bad as many say). Emily Blunt is a good actress, seeing her in this badass role was awesome! The chemistry between Cruise and Blunt was fantastic! I really liked Bill Paxton's character too.
I heard somewhere that this film was "the best video game film that was not based in a video game" and while I was watching it I really felt that! It was so cool to almost feel that I was actually playing a video game something like "Oh sh*t GAME OVER, start all over again!" haha
First was X-Men: Days of Future Past and now Edge of Tomorrow. Two great Blockbusters! Will this Summer continue to be great? I hope so!
When I wrote my thoughts on Spotlight, I speculated about how knowing the end of the story going in, knowing the extent of the scandal the team in Spotlight was uncovering, may have robbed the plot of some of its punch. And yet, The Big Short is, in many ways, the perfect counter to that.
Almost everyone old enough to watch this film lived through The Great Recession. They know that the disaster all the main characters in the film are predicting comes true, in all its horrible, self-destructive glory. But rather than taking away from the film, it adds to it. There's this sense of foreboding, of doom that hangs over everything.
A film about the financial crisis, especially involving traders and analysts and people crunching numbers in a fund, could easily be too dry. And yet, the fact that the individuals the film focuses on are slowly but surely investigating an economic massacre waiting to happen, and how each step they take reveals another way that disaster might have been diverted, or people who are supposedly in the know digging the whole deeper, means that the entire film is just an exercise in creating that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. It's not a prestige picture; it's a horror film.
It's also a very weird film. It's not so bold in its presentation that it feels unprecedented, but it feels stitched together, disjointed, and unusual, but in a good way. Adam McKay, of Anchorman fame, is the right man for the job. There is a darkly funny absurdity to the topic The Big Short covers, and with his fourth-wall breaking asides, his cuts to celebrity explanations of complex financial consequences in ridiculous situations, and his jumping between various characters acting wild or nutty lends the perfect tone to the movie, one of simultaneous horror at what hell hath been wrought and unavoidable bemusement at the clowns who steered us all into this ditch.
The direction and rhythm of the film is frenetic. It's closest comparison point is Requiem For a Dream with the same frenetic hodgepodge of images and sounds, bleeding and blending into one another, disorienting the viewer and conveying the sense in which the financial world the film depicts is intoxicating, dizzying, and unsettled all at the same time.
Another aspect of the film that makes it hard to compare to other works in this space is the fact that it doesn't really have a protagonist or a plot. Sure, it has a story, and it has characters who take up the most oxygen over the course of the movie, but more than anything it feels like a documentary. It's far too stylized and irreverent to really deserve that label, but it's far more interested in trying to describe what happened, to explain just what mistakes and lies and blindspots led to the global economic crisis, than it is in rising action and resolution, or showing people growing or changing.
That's not to say there isn't an emotional element to the film. Steve Carell stands out by playing essentially a smarter, angrier Michael Scott who grabs your attention every time he's on screen. The parallels between his character's sense that a catastrophe is looming in economic terms that he could do something to prevent, and his guilt over not doing more to prevent his brother's suicide was--while perhaps a little easy--also affecting.
The rest of the cast do their jobs well, but blend together a bit because again, while they're a vital part of the film, the film isn't really about them. The characters in The Big Short are conduits to detail, in amusing and human terms, just what the hell went wrong. Christian Bale is a collection of actorly tics, but he acquits himself well enough. Ryan Gosling does his best dudebro douchebag type, and is sufficiently entertaining in that guise. And Brad Pitt seems pretty reserved, short of his moment where he chastises his young wards for being too happy about what they're making their money from.
But again, the fact that there's not really a narrative means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The film is not really a story; it's an autopsy, cutting up the corpse of our financial system and exposing the bloody innards, the rotten organs at the core that led the USA, and the world, to the dire economic state it was in by late 2008. In that sense, the film succeeds wildly, and McKay manages to tackle something of real significance without losing the absurd madcap attitude he brings to his comedic works, and somehow, doing justice to the insanity of the lead up to The Great Recession in the process. It's a hell of an achievement to make a film this funny, this disturbing, and this great.
That this movie, at the time of writing this, holds an 8.8 rating at IMDb is simply beyond my understanding. Needless to say I did not really like this movie. The story is not very good, the science is ludicrous and the visuals not all that impressive. Maybe the latter would be better in a big theater (I watched this on my home cinema system which has a relatively large screen by European standards) but I am not really sure about that either.
Be warned that the rest of this review might contain a spoiler or two.
The movie starts of with the usual “I told you so” wet dream of the green fanatics on a dying Earth so it is off to a depressing start right away. That is an overused concept today as far as I am concerned. Then they pour it on with a school official claiming that he Apollo missions and moon landings never happened. What the f…? If they wanted to depress the audience right from the start they succeeded, at least with this audience.
The story proceeds with our heroes finding these gravity waves in the sand and by a huge stretch of imagination decrypts them to mean coordinates which leads them to the secret NASA base. Once there Cooper is told that he is their best choice of pilot for a “save the human race” mission through a wormhole. Yeah, right! This guy was former NASA. His whereabouts could hardly been unknown to them. If he was their best choice why would they entrust a mission to save the human race to someone else until he stumbled onto their door? Typical Hollywood nonsense!
The movie is full of this kind of rubbish. Romilly wastes 23 years of his life doing pretty much nothing except deciding not to go into the sleep capsule. The supposedly highly trained and vetted professor that they do find turns out to be a psychopath as well as and idiot almost blowing up the ship when trying to proceed with a docking that all the systems tells him have not succeeded. Then they proceed to dock with the main ship and stop its spin as well as bring it out of orbit around a planet with the shuttles engines. That is one hell of a powerful shuttle not to mention the strength of the docking mechanism! This just goes on. When someone is not doing something illogical or stupid (or both) they sit around talking, philosophizing and dragging the movie forward at snails pace. 169 minutes is way too much for this movie.
The movie ends up in one big time travel mess (okay they do not travel in time, just sends messages through time but still…) during a bunch of psychedelic scenes while traveling through the back hole. Science? Not so much. And what about this totally ludicrous massively illogical and inefficient robot design?
The one good thing I can say about this movie is that the performance of most of the actors, especially Matthew McConaughey, are quite good. For the rest, not my cup of tea.
I thought this was a bit of a letdown. It's retreading the plot and structure of the first one with some minor twists added and a different ending, so its not seen as the blatant copy it actually is. By having the same structure as the first movie did, most scenes before the 1 hour mark feel like filler and most after feels like a copy of the first movie, slightly amped up. To me it felt too much like the first one, a feeling I last had watching Transformers 2 - and that is not a good thing, as I avoided the sequels. Though, to be fair, it was mostly because Transformers 2 was very annoying.
The movie felt long. Really long. I think it could have been 40 minutes shorter and it wouldn't lose any important things while actually giving it a better pacing, as the movie feels just stretched out just so it runs over two and a half hours. And because of that stretching, the ending feels like it came really quick and was over before I realized it. The ending also leaves you hanging, desperately wanting you to want to see both parts of the final movie, both being released in a November (2014 and 2015), taking the route of unnecessarily stretching out the lifespan of the movies like it's usual now.
I don't understand why they think they need to do this. The Harry Potter movies, a franchise with a similar target audience, had the two parter finale released in a span of 6 months. Even the Matrix sequels came out in the span of 6 months. Both were very successful and at least the former was beloved by most who saw them. Maybe it's because of Twilight, as its two part finale was also released in a November (2011 and 2012).
But for now, until both sequels come out on DVD/BR, I don't have any interest in seeing (or even reading) The Hunger Games in the foreseeable future.
So, is it overly feministic? No, it isn't. I'd say Wonder Woman is more so than this film. It holds it's character strongly and does not diverge the audience's views when watching. The undertones are there sure, but it isn't in your face. Just thought I'd get that out of the way because some around me were wondering that themselves.
Carol Danvers is a great addition to the MCU. Not only has the studio thought long and hard about her placement, but also on how they can make her a defining character for our day and age. No doubt that in the future she will grow and see stronger days herself. But for now, we are left with a very fast paced story with Carol herself, not seeming quite right. There is something off about Brie Larson's performance, and I think it's because of the quick cutting of emotional stages she goes through. I know they are making an amnesia story (with a slim amount of tropes I might add!), but for some reason, she can't seem coherent enough in emotional performing to make this character fully likeable. Then again. it's an origin story. The way she is blunt with others is a plus though.
The villain is complicated here. While I'd say one of the better in the MCU. There are some drawbacks to how they interact with Carol. Not much I can say about them. But having a movie set in the past with a big threat like in the 3rd act was kind of stupid in my opinion. No stakes at all.
For the technical side of things, shots were nice. Too much cutting than I would have liked in fight scenes in hand to hand. The final fight was greatly done though. The music didn't stand out much and was unneeded in some scenes that would have benefitted from silence or a more subtle tone rather than an orchestral track. CGI was fairly good. But, Captain Marvel's powers make her look really fake when flying.
Young Nick Fury and Captain Marvel are, of course, the main highlight to take away. Like a buddy cop movie, but with more superpowers and cats. The chemistry between the two was funny and well put together. The final line said by Carol in the mid-credits scene is a nice callback earlier in the film to cement the two.
So yes duh, there is a mid-credits scene and an end-credits scene. But you could leave after the mid-credits. As the final scene is just a cutesy one. But if you want absolutely no spoilers at all and are the type to even avoid trailers for the new Avengers. It may not be the best play to watch the mid-credits.
Captain Marvel is a good introduction to the strong female lead Carol Danvers. A fun journey with a duo I'd love to see more of. As well as more of Carol's flaws in a visual medium, not vocal. It's no Iron Man, but I see a bit of that Tony Stark spark in this promising character.
Second Viewing Update
So after another look because of uncertainty. I can say now that I was frustrated with the lack of actual character build. Before I remarked the amnesia story being an excuse for the lacking of visual storytelling. But now it was getting to me. Carol Danvers deserves better. And I hope in Endgame she gets it. I have faith in the Russos to give her better development. If not, other instalments will hear our cries for giving this amazing promise, flaws. Downgrading my rating a bit as for a movie about this character, it focuses more on her abilities than her as a person.
7.2/10
6.8/10
Check here for my MCU rankings.
https://trakt.tv/users/corruptednoobie/lists/my-mcu-rankings?sort=rank,asc
Next Gen is a 2018 “Netflix” film with funding from Alibaba’s Movie division and produced by Baozou Manhua, an animation studio I haven’t heard of. When I say the film is from “Netflix”, what I’m actually saying is that Netflix paid 30 million for the world wide streaming rights, an insane amount. It’s apparently based on Wang Nima’s original webcoimic “7723”, with “7723” being the name of the main robot. I have not read “7723” but it has it’s own stories with recent issues with the Chinese government claiming it’s too vulgar and the site being taken down for a bit.
I’ll admit that movie’s semi-“Cassette Futurism” aesthetic is what got me curious. I love the retro design of 7723 & Mai the main protagonist. However, Netflix throwing down 30 Million for a movie from an “unknown” animation studio, based on a webcomic which seems to be in trouble with China’s government added to my interest in the film. The real questions, is it any good?
Next Gen isn’t a flawless movie and the plot is fairly simple, almost laid out from the beginning. The world has become obsessed with robots with everyone having Q-Bots, personal assistants. Pin, the guy that sells these robots is actually evil and has an evil plan that’s over the top. Mai & 7723 need to save the day and defeat evil guy. Straight forward. The story isn’t going to leave you questioning life or viewing the world in a new perspective. That being said it’s a really enjoyable movie with some nice emotional moments and actions scenes. Mai’s back-story and rebellious nature will probably resonate with those from broken homes, loss parents, not fitting in, etc… As well, the way they explained her hatred for robots and the reason her dad left was done nicely. I also like the way they ended her emotional journey, finally admitting her dad was kind of a piece of shit for leaving, and how she was ok with it. She’s still a little mad but ready to move on. It was just… nicely done.
Along with decent character building, the world is well developed and it seems the writers took a moment to think how this world would work if robots did everything, to a point that it’s ridiculous. Hell the ramen bowls are robots that compliment you when you eat them, weird but I loved it. In addition the the city which the story takes place in seems to be a future New York/Beijing. It looks like the team pulled inspiration from Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, & WALL-E. You get a cutesy world with fun little robots on the surface, yet in the background a Blade Runner-esc skyline with a dingy lower level with hints of cyberpunk (not overwhelming). I wanted to explore the city more and seeing as Netflix dropped 30 million for distribution of the film I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to push for a series. Not sure where they would go with the story.
I also want to take a moment to talk about the directors, Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander, who in my opinion did a great job. Multiple scenes had good shot composition and clever transitions, and the camera work in general was lively and kept the movie interesting. Despite the fact so many big budget animated movies are CGI, most of them seem boring and flat. I would also say the movie had good lighting which gave a few of the scenes a great atmosphere. Overall Next Gen was a tight, and a well put together film. I’m not sure if I’m over selling their work. Maybe because I was expecting this to be a generic Disney/Dreamworks/Illumination “safe” PG movie so I had lower exceptions, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. Speaking of PG…
One of the most surprising bits of this movie was the TV-PG rating in the US, which shows the freedoms you get when distrusting with Netflix. I’m no saint but this movie caught me off guard with it’s swearing, or its lack of swearing, honestly the way it was handled was something I haven’t seen in a PG movie before. You have characters like the Dog & Mom screaming shit, fuck, motherfucker, etc.. except that it's all bleeped out, with hard bleeps. Not your usual convenient truck passing-by drowning out the language. Hard bleeps, like “the [bleep] you say to me?”. Not that I disagree with reasoning behind the swearing. At the end of the movie when the villian is attacking Mai, the mom attacks the him screaming “get the fuck away from my daughter”, which is honestly the most mom/parent thing to do in a situation like that. I would be interested in watching the film uncensored.
Net Gen has some great moments, likable characters, interesting world, good enough story, a good English voice cast, and was a well put together film that feels like it came out of nowhere. I hope to see more of Wang Nima work and Baozou Manhua, if they can produce similar quality films. If you have Netflix and like animation, watch it. If you don't have Netflix I would still recommend you watch, get a one month subscription and binge a bunch of stuff including this movie.
So, I saw Hardcore at Toronto Film Fest and it was pretty fucking hardcore! Now, there's a pretty good way to describe this movie that I think you'll all agree with when you see it, and it's that this movie is Crank meets Mirror's Edge. This film is very much inspired by video games and it's very much inspired by Neveldine & Taylor. It lives on the principles of sex, drugs and rock and roll, and it's filled with great excuses for the film to be the way that it is. However, its benefits don't stop there. For one, the character's ability to speak is damaged from the beginning of the film. So, seeing the entire film from the eyes of a silent protagonist not only adds to the humor, but it's one more layer to add to the homage of video games that this film is going for. There are plenty of films shot in first person that have cuts that might bother me, but this film often disguises those cuts as glitches in the main character's vision, and when cuts are made in the film, I never really feel cheated by their existence. The cuts were often used to help keep the pace of the film going. So, when the character's chasing someone over a long distance, there's no real point in showing the entirety of the chase anyway. This film is filled with incredibly impressive parkour and stunt choreography, with many of the stunts putting the actors in very real danger. Now, much like a Neveldine & Taylor film, this movie does not really take itself too seriously. The film has a constant sense of goofiness and humor, so that combined with the ridiculous and well choreographed action, made for a film that I had an absolute blast watching. This film and Mad Max are probably tied for the most fun I've had in a film all year. This is a great example of a "fun" out of 10 movie. Is it as good of a film overall as Mad Max? Ah, no. I mean, for one this film is a lot more stupid, but on the plus side this film knows that it's stupid and is proud of it. Like any Neveldine & Taylor film, it's not trying to be an Oscar winner, it's just trying to be entertaining. So when the plot gets so stupid that it's a little difficult to understand exactly why any of this is happening, at least it's a movie that doesn't really beg for you to care.This movie doesn't pretend it's anything other than what it is, and that makes it all the more enjoyable.
They always say “read the book first” but sometimes it is fascinating watching a film version without any knowledge of the text it is based on. Book fans can get quite agitated at seeing their vision or interpretation of the book trampled on in some way but at the same time if the film doesn’t capture the essence of the book in some way, then what’s the point ? Looking at this purely as a film, it is enjoyable to watch, but what is a little disappointing is Luhrmann seems to be trying to recapture much of what made Moulin Rouge so great and repeating himself, sometimes successfully and sometimes less so. The fast paced editing, visual style, music and direction captures the decadence, glamour and excess of Gatsby’s world in much the same way, though equally this heightened anachronistic interpretation of the 1920s will no doubt delight or irritate in much the same way too. Both DiCaprio and Maguire are excellent as Gatsby and Carroway and the strongest moments of the film are their scenes together. Indeed, the exploration of the character of Gatsby himself, his motivations, hopes and backstory and importantly Carroway’s interpretation of him form much of what works well within the film and it was no surprise to learn that these two were cast well before others. Luhrmann evokes a great sense of mystery and intrigue over Gatsby's character initially, gradually revealing elements over the course of the film and DiCaprio's presence and charisma serve the character well. The overarching narration that served Moulin Rouge so well is also present, however here it feels heavy handed and ultimately unnecessary (despite some clever visual trickery with words from the book), with Luhrmann seemingly unwilling to let the audience take their own interpretation of the story from what is presented. Furthermore, whilst Mulligan is fine as the central female character, it is difficult to care about her other than through Gatsby’s motivation and Edgerton’s performance veers towards pantomime on occasion, another stylistic conceit seemingly lifted from Moulin Rouge. These two characters may well serve to underline one of the film’s themes at the end but it makes it very difficult to accept Gatsby’s motivation other than through DiCaprio’s admittedly great performance. A partial return to form then for Luhrmann after Australia, but not wholly successful either.
History became legend. Legend became myth.
And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.
Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic masterpiece "The Lord of the Rings", Peter Jackson took up the challenge, that for the longest time was told about Tolkien's book: "Too complicated to bring a true version onto film, it cannot be done."
Describing "The Lord of the Rings" to the uninitiated may perhaps be best compared trying to describe the taste of wine: Sweet, a little bitter, and intoxicating. Yet to those, who have never tasted wine, the meaning behind this description will forever elude them.
What makes this trilogy stand out amongst other equally brilliant movies, is each individual aspect of this movie is an astonishing work of art and ties "The Lord of the Rings" to something larger than the sum of its parts. The cinematography is breathtaking, in the most literal sense of the word. At times you will hold your breath being consumed by the sheer beauty of Middle Earth. You will quickly forget your surroundings and be plunged into this world. The original score composed by Howard Shore can be considered a masterpiece and Shore's magnum opus, his most brilliant work to date. Inspired by Richard Wagner, he composed the soundtrack around 80 different Leitmotifs, each focusing on an individual character/area/scene with recurring melodies throughout the trilogy. At the time of production, the most popular composers were James Horner and Hans Zimmer, and the music scene was quite astounded at Jackson's choice for the relatively unknown Shore. Jackson said his decision heavily depended on Shore's very unique style (as seen in 'The Cell') and his ability to bring something unique to each of his work.
The (special) effects are equally amazing and more importantly, believable. You will never feel like "Ah, special effects!", but be mesmerized by their authenticity. It almost seems nonsensical to talk about the performance by leading and supporting roles. They were real. I did not see them in their previous roles or as actors, they completely filled out their roles and added their own personality.
"The Lord of the Rings" is certainly not perfect, but if you came to expect perfection, you will forever be feeling disappointed.
It is however the closest thing to perfection as one might get without feeling pretentious.
If you watch this movie for the first time and have very high expectations from all the positive reviews, forget the reviews and watch it with an open mind, but also don't watch it thinking it could never live up to your high expectations, as you might miss out.
I, for one, will be watching this movie for many many years to come, and it has become quite the tradition to watch it at least once a year.
10/10 - You will witness the events unfold through the eyes of the Fellowship and come across joy, sorrow and even great despair. A true work of art that should not be missed.
"The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true. " Galadriel
