Even the sh***y DVD screener I watched this on could not diminish how astoundingly beautiful and wholesome this film is
In Captain Marvel, I didn’t like the main character, but I thought the movie around her was quite solid.
Black Widow is the exact opposite: I quite liked the two leads, but the movie surrounding them doesn’t really work.
Pros:
- Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh are easily the most entertaining part of the film.
- I liked the first act. It feels like Cate Shortland is trying to do an impression of a Jason Bourne movie. It’s fairly humourless, the cinematography is bleak, and the score is intense. It has a tone that no other MCU film has.
- The action (minus the final battle) is fairly well done. As per usual, less editing would’ve made it better, but at least it feels weighty.
Cons:
- The story itself isn’t that interesting. The themes and main mcguffin are oddly similar to Captain Marvel, though it’s not executed as well. The villains also fail to make an impression.
- This movie really loses its identity as it goes along, to the point where it turns more into a generic Marvel movie as it goes on, and eventually a generic action blockbuster by the third act. Everything gets way too big and bloated for its own good.
- Not a fan of the Russian accents, they sound very tacky. Just let everyone speak with a normal American accent, I can look past the fact they’re Russians. Besides, they even had a story based reason to ditch the Russian accents entirely.
- I found David Harbour quite cringeworthy in this.
- The main characters are protected by strong plot armour. Most characters should’ve been killed 3-4 times based on the things that happen during the action scenes. This isn’t even a ‘suspend your disbelief, it’s an action movie’ situation, it gets really ridiculous, to the point where it’s almost Fast and Furious level.
- The pacing is a bit inconsistent, you really feel it slowing down during the second act.
Finally, I want to address that I already find the use of Nirvana songs in movies like these quite distasteful, but the cover that's used during the credits literally sucked all the life out of the song.
4.5/10
Because Natasha is always described as this awesome super spy, I really thought this movie would be kind of an over-the-top James Bond movie. I mean, you've got a Soviet Big Bad Guy with an evil lair and evil plan, like in the old school Bond films. I was very happy early on in the movie, with the Soviet agents couple undercover in Ohio, and then when Nat tries to lay low after Civil War. But then it switched from a potentially cool spy movie (and original for a Marvel) to a classic super hero movie.
So instead we got an over-the-top Agents of SHIELD episode. Every hero is sub-par, except Taskmaster, which doesn't even get that much screen time. The second most powerful hero, Red Guardian, is ridiculed all the time and doesn't really have an opportunity to shine. I thought the prison escape would be that. I mean, Netflix did a crazy good prison fight scene in The Punisher, but Marvel couldn't even remotely top that in a huge production? Very disappointed by all the missed opportunities.
It was alright. Nothing special, no real surprises, everything you can imagine that happens to Jessie after breaking bad happens. Nothing surprised me here. I'm not sure this movie needed to be made.
As a BB fan am I glad this movie got made? I guess so.
I’m not entirely sure we needed to know this part of the story though.
Some things are better never explained.
An unnecessary and well made epilogue for one of the best characters from Breaking Bad. Aaron Paul is great and I loved getting more time with Jesse Pinkman and some of the other characters.
Not funny.
Not remarkable.
This is a sexist movie where all man are evils.
Even when the action and soundtrack was better,it was unenjoyable due to non-funny humours and laggy depthless story.
I wish someone had told me to not waste my time or money before watching this. Terrible on every possible level.
Anna is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Far too much of the film is made up of explaining incredibly obvious “twists” through flashbacks. Moreover, Anna’s character development is too jumpy and clunky. Even Helen Mirren’s contributions are underwhelming.
More generally, one has to wonder how long it will be until we get a throughly enjoyable cinematic female led soviet oriented spy thriller. Between Anna, Red Sparrow and Atomic Blonde there have been too many failures. A return to Le Carrian style thrillers might be warranted, with the Little Drummer Girl offering a good example from the land of TV.
I learned something about Rudolph Nureyev thanks to The White Crow, specifically how little I care about him.
Ralph Fiennes directs this biopic of the Russian dancer's defection to the West, and wastes a lot of energy on an unnecessarily overcomplicated time-line that sucks the drama from the story. Fiennes does wonderful work on the images yet pays very little attention to the dancing, which, surprisingly, was my favourite part of the film and, one would think, an important part of a ballerina's life.
(And I'm just kidding about my favourite part being the dancing, really it was the full frontal male nudity, though I found Nureyev's nascent homosexuality a tad too understated in the film to my liking.)
Ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko obviously does a marvelous job filling Nureyev's slippers, though his acting is stretched a bit thin in places, as was, I was sadly surprised to see, that of Adele Exarchopoulos. Perhaps it was because she was forced to act in English here, but I had the impression she thought she was running lines and no one told her the real movie had started and she was being filmed.
After all is said and danced, The White Crow is like a ballet, beautiful but ultimately uninteresting.
I am disappointed with this movie. I had such high expectations. There were many gaps in portraying the story. I am very familiar with the British history so I was able to fill in the gaps. But I was with my teenage daughter and she got lost in the story. First of all, there was no explanation as to why the religion mattered. Second, many stories were rushed, no detail provided while some other stories/parts dragged. And as I watched the scene when Elizabeth and Mary met for the first time I realized that this whole movie is about women empowerment. The way the story was told, the focus was on the strength and power of the women (mostly Mary). I don't like how Elizabeth was portrayed as a weak and insecure woman. Actually, the truth was quite the opposite - she was strong and smart woman. She knew what she wanted. She never married because she knew that she would lose power the moment she tied the knot. This is what ultimately brought Mary's demise.
If the focus of the movie was telling the story rather than making a point, the result would have been much better movie. Right now the movie lacks a seamless story telling. What a waste of good actors. And btw, I think they overdid it with Elizabeth's make up.
An emotional portrayal rather than an historically faithful account of Mary's relationship with Elizabeth of England. Although claiming that this film was based on John Guy's book MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS: THE TRUE LIFE OF MARY STUART (a remarkable, groundbreaking historical work, which, driven by curiosity by the movie, I've just finished reading) there is very little evidence the screenwriter finished reading it. Both the book and film present Mary as the beautiful, courtly, intellectual and political equal of Elizabeth I, but, that must have been when the screenwriter stopped reading the book for he departs from the historical record and lapses into a fantasy, portraying Elizabeth as weak and distant from her own political processes, gives us with no credible explanation for why Elizabeth made the decisions she did, which begs the question no historian would pose, "If Mary was a true and worthy queen whereas Elizabeth was weak and an emotional mess, how did Mary end up on the executioner's block and Elizabeth manage to successfully hold her throne for 44 years?" The screenwriter muddles up any political, religious or ideological (or even personal) logic for the climate of the day which inevitably set the course for Mary's life path. There is no clarity given as to whether one was either Protestant or Roman would be such an insurmountable issue, partly because John Knox was so poorly written (despite having hidden the very talented and capable David Tennant behind all the hair). Disappointing story telling. Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie give emotionally deep performances, as expected. This was a waste of good actors. I rate this film a 4 (poor) out of 10. I know I may be expressing a minority opinion, because, by and large, the people I spoke to as we exited the theatre, seemed to have liked the movie, but more troubling, they accepted this as an historically accurate portrayal while confessing to each other that they never knew of Mary, Queen of Scotts. [Historical? BioPic]. By the way, a seminole point of John Guy's book is that Mary and Elizabeth NEVER MET!
World Premiere Review:
If I can sum up it up in one word, it's a giant "meh." I liked all of the new Star Wars up until this point, but this one was so forced. It didn't help that they had to reshoot more than half the movie with a different director, albeit with the great Ron Howard.
First problem, no one can fill Harrison Ford's shoes, it's impossible. The new characters are boring and forgettable. Still, Donald Glover just nails Lando...they should just do a Lando stand alone movie next time. Chewie is also awesome and funny as usual. I should also mention Malla is cannon now from the Christmas Special? Just speculating that's who he kisses with when he frees his people. Lumpy will probably show up in Solo 2. I saw George Lucas shift uncomfortably in the theater a couple seats over during that scene which was amusing. The story is just ok, it's a little slow and boring. At least the action sequences are fun.
Here's my biggest peeve: L3-37 is the most forced, obnoxious Star Wars character since Jar-Jar. I was so happy when this Social Justice Robot, who is supposed to be Lando's co-pilot, gets destroyed close to the end. This attempt to be "relevant to the times" sticks out like a sore thumb and the actress voicing it made me wince every time she spoke. Hopefully that's the last we hear or see of it.
Finally, Emilia Clarke's character has the depth of a sheet of cardboard. Worst of all though was the twist at the end where fucking Darth Maul shows up now post Episode 3. She is working with him and it was so cringey and shoe-horned in, I'm so tired of him not being dead. I tolerated it in the Clone Wars with spider-maul, but he just needs to go away.
A bad version of "nine lives", too Hollywoodized with too much things that didn't happen. Ze Germans are cliché as is everything else about this. Zwart has lost it. Ugh.
I had hope due to the director and some good casting. Then they added John Cena....lol.
Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez are no Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. The movie doesn't work without great chemistry and caring for the characters. The original had a wacky 80s vibe that worked for it but in modern day it just feels weird and forced. Plus it's not that funny and way too long. They should of left the original alone.
They should of left the original alone,this is no where near as funny as Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell in the original,I gave it a 4,see how PC can ruin a movie....
You know how sometimes people say "The funny parts are in the trailer." For this one, the ONLY funny parts are in the trailer. This is a pathetic mess, frankly.
Some people in the audience (that clearly hadn't seen the trailer and thus the joke was not spoiled) got a laugh, so I gave it 2 stars instead of 1. It tells the same story as the original (which was no masterpiece itself--sorry) but just does so with almost no mirth. And the transformation of the shrew happens almost immediately. All the laughs are in the first 15 minutes. You can pretty well leave after that. You know how it is going to end....even if you never saw the original.
That Hollywood level professional resources were wasted on this YouTube fan film tribute without using any of the collective creativity in the room is a shame and a sham all in one. The con game played here is on the audience. 2/10
Hated it.
As simple as that.
Terrible way to take the series to. I mean it's not as bad as the prequels, because the acting is quite all right, but it hits so many bullshit moments where I was facepalming every other scene it's unbelievable.
Really poorly written. Can't believe there were so many predictable moments and moments filled with complete and utter pathos. So, so dissappointed.
I was excited because I loved Cloverfield! But this cliche filled movie was just terrible.
Except from saying the word "Cloverfield" a few times, There is nothing "Cloverfield" about this movie.
Many unexplained plot lines... And ugh... Tam...
Everyone on the ship talks English, Tam understands English...
She must, Since they have long conversations and Schmidt doesn't translate it.
Seems like Tam refuses to talk English and speaks Chinese instead!
It annoyed me, because it just didn't make any sense.
Initial reaction.
The good: Great opening, good concept, okay to superb acting.
The bad: Forgettable popcorn flick, bad delivery, overlooked plot holes, uncomfortable transitions between locations, terrible dialogue, crappy taping of a fantastic franchise to a mundane sci-fi horror, horrendous tension and character building, overall typical space movie that makes 'LIFE' look fantastic.
Why is a kid in it though ? This isn't Jurassic Park lol.
This is the kind of movies that i still achieved to see until the end just to see if it was that meh!
Waste of time
Story is just to bad
But i think the actors still made a good job
Hope they dont make a second movie after that end!
How has this piece of shit gotten a 7.0 rating on iMDB (2041 votes at the time of writing this)? Im guessing you can now buy iMDB votes? Cant think of any other reason for it having that high rating..
