Review by Jordy
VIP8Yeah I mean, it is very much that movie. If you want my unfiltered opinion: it's glossy & loud, it's discount Tarantino/Ritchie, it's engineered to be forgotten about almost instantly, it's very Youtube reviewer friendly, it’s edited for people with no attention span, it’s postmodern and cringy; it's all of that. It's aiming to be a 6, and I was kinda expecting it to hit that target given how much I was into David Leitch' previous directorial effort. Unfortunately, this is hampered by the fact that it very much feels like a product of the pandemic. I'm pretty sure everything was shot on sound stages, and you can really tell, because the effects are dogshit. The same goes for the action, most of it feels like it was choreographed based on what was possible for the day. It's a shame, because good visuals and punchy action are two of the key ingredients if you want to make this kind of movie work. Now, its biggest saving grace are the characters and some of the comedy. I think most of the characters are quite well done and colorful (props to the writing and actors), especially the duo played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree-Henry (again, even if they feel like they walked straight out of a Guy Ritchie movie). It did make me laugh occasionally, but there's also a lot of cringe in it, especially with its obnoxious use of bathos and cameos by people I didn't need to see. I'm also getting pretty sick of the Marvelization of movie dialogue, I could’ve sworn some of Pitt’s lines in this were written with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool in mind. The story itself is a mess pretty much right from the start and completely flies off the rails in the third act (no pun intended). I'm not sure if that's due to the writing or editing though. In true Tarantino fashion it's told out of order, but here it doesn't enhance the experience in a positive way. I don't know, I'd wait for this to appear on streaming, it's only occasionally fun and not really worth of the big screen.
4/10
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@jordyep I thought this movie looked fantastic, so I don't know what kind of movies you are usually watching. This movie was everything I wanted it to be. David Leitch delivers once again.
This was a huge step down from the previous film. I thought the first act was straight-up bad and not at all enjoyable. The COVID mentions felt dated and overly forced, and this film only just came out. That doesn't bode well for how this film will age. However, once the film gets going it gets better and is enjoyable, and they drop the COVID stuff, which in turn, actually makes the COVID mentions at the beginning feel even worse and more pointless than they had felt initially.
I thought that the plot felt far more simple and extremely predictable compared to the first film. I also thought that the characters (aside from Blanc), were largely much worse - both in writing, and performances given by the cast.
Daniel Craig and Benoit Blanc is just as good as he was in the first film, and he absolutely steals the show every time he's on screen. I also found Janelle Monáe as both Andi and Helen to be decent. Edward Norton's billionaire character, Miles Bron, was a mixed bag, and although he started out quite interesting with some potential, I found his character to inevitably be overly shallow and poorly written.
As far as the rest of the cast went? It wasn't so good. Most of them, such as Whiskey, were simply bland and forgettable. But others were downright awful characters that were overly shallow and just plain annoying. Kate Hudson's 'Birdie' was probably the worst offender here, and I found that her character lowered the quality of every scene she appeared in.
I realise that this review has been largely negative, but what I will say is that Glass Onion is still a mostly fun and entertaining experience for the majority of its runtime. I had a lot of fun watching it (aside from the first twenty minutes or so), and I don't regret it at all. I'd recommend watching it if you enjoyed the original film, but I just don't think it's anywhere close to being anything great like its predecessor was.
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@ragreynolds You're absolutely right!
Alright, I have watched it in a sneak preview dubbed in English. The dubbing was not great - I live in Germany where every international series and movie is dubbed, so I can say that this dubbing studio was not up to par. The acting was wooden, I did not believe anyone what they were saying. The story seems like a rip-off of Alien, Planet of the Apes, Interstellar and Sunshine and 15 minutes into the movie the 'reveal' was predictable. Also, the dialogues were terrible. All in all, this film seemed like one longer, even more worse, episode of the new and also not great Doctor Who series. Do only watch it if you like terrible movies.
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@lemony_pie It looked like it was dubbed and it didn't at the same time. They spoke in English the whole time, so I dunno what they did wrong. Maybe the sound team did a poor job so they had to fix it later.
To be honest I found myself bored in this movie multiple times. There are so many characters that come and go and you don't realise until later when you're trying to work out where they went and why did they create such a story around them. The movie is of course filled with profanity and gore as the rating suggests, but I must say that at the end of it all, the way they tie in all the little stories was amazingly done and there were still plenty of surprises to be had. I also feel that they wrapped the story up quite well (make sure to stay through the animated credits for some finishing remarks). Overall, better than average but not much better than a 6.
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@gansqa That's weird, I wasn't bored once. The pacing is very fast, and the movie keeps throwing fun new sequences in your face. Maybe this one just wasn't for you.
A real different movie. Mostly peaceful, taking place in a pretty far from civilization farm in Iceland. Not much talking, not much noise, not much action either. The couple takes care of their farm and sheep. One day a lamb is born and they just take it inside, and start treating it like if it was their baby.
Again, there's no talking there, they don't talk about it, just see it, look at each other, and take it home. Now it sleeps in a crib in their room, and she feeds it with baby bottles while the mother (the sheep) keeps screaming at their window. The fact that they had a crib and baby bed ready suggests they probably lost a child at some point (if you don't catch on it there, it's emphasized later when she visits the grave).
So ok, weird, where is it going ? It takes a while where you're wondering if they see it as a human (and only them do ?), whether they're crazy or there's something else at play, until you finally get to see it: the head and one arm are lamb, but the rest is human. It's such a good choice. Instead of having a half lamb half human baby as the starting situation, that you would easily accept as the movie premises, you spend a while thinking it's about crazy people raising a lamb as a child THEN you get confronted with the supernatural part.
Now the question is, how will this work with the rest of society ? We get a glimpse with the visit of Ingvar's brother, when the child has grown, walks and is dressed like a human. At this point you're still wondering whether it's real or all in their heads: it's real. Sadly this will be the only other interaction with someone from outside the farm, would have loved to see her sent to school, but that's not the way the movie is going.
Then comes a bit of family drama, the brother obviously having a hard time accepting this creature as a child then warming up to it and apparently a complex past relationship with Maria. This is all ok but not super interesting either. You're just aware that some danger is lurking around. More aware than they are anyway, as no one seems to care that the dog is dead...
The fx on the child are great. She has an almost human form and stance, but not quite, is able to interact almost normally with objects (like plates and glasses), but with a lamb head that still manages to conveys understanding and emotions. It just looks pretty natural, really a great job.
And when you're just wondering where it's going next, the movie just stops brutally as a creature that is clearly the child's real father, a huge humanoid goat, kills Ingvar to take the child away. Kills him with a gun, not like a beast, but like a human would do. A just retribution for Maria killing the mother. Weird. Brutal. Totally unexpected. And in complete contrast with the rest of the movie's peaceful and almost natural (despite the child) atmosphere. Perfect.
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@fly_ Exelent review. This movie is slow, peaceful and somehow disturbing as hell. LOVE IT!
Different if you are not a fan of westerns. It has every cliché in the genre (the story is a rip off of Once Upon a Time in the West with the style of Django Unchained)
Pure style and little substance (I shouted "fk off" at the stretching of the image at the end).loading replies
@the_argentinian The streching was weird, the style is fun and the movie is good
