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
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.
hum...
I might be biased but I thought this was a complete waste of my time !
YES this is beautiful, YES there is some action and YES the aliens (and gory scenes) are great in this movie, but well...
I'm not spoiling there but : how can a crew responsible for 2000+ lives in a colony mission be so incompetent ?
I know the whole point of Alien films is to mix human errors and bad luck to make bad times, but this is just too much !
Overall, the scenario was quite hollow.
I'll be spoiling a bit from now on :
really the only enjoyable moments were brought by the Synthetic stranded on the planet, this old generation David who served Dr Shaw was the only one bringing a bit of character depth, in the end I only wished he would "win" and was pleased to see that that's what happened.
The complete lack of responsibility from the crew was numbing : who would risk losing a spacecraft with thousands of souls onboard waiting to create a colony in a raging storm just to hope to have a contact with his half ? Who would again risk all colonists' lives and decades of preparations just to visit a planet they barely know anything of, just because they received a lost transmission of some singing ?
I know these are classic ways to bring this kind of situation in films, but the way it was brought was not subtle in the least.
In the end, while it was pretty clear for me that they had returned with the wrong David, this was the only really enjoyable moment.
Again, I'm encouraging everyone reading me to see for themselves and make their opinion, but for me this was a miss.
Such a mess of a movie.
I didn' t expect much and haven't watched the trailer before but apparently this movie is focusing on the younger audience only and not on the people who watched the first movie back in the day. It's one of these moments when you realize you get old.
Way too young cast, a dumb plot, so no-one needs to think about anything, degrading this movie to a shut-your-brain-off popcorn flick/time waster you forget instantly after leaving the cinema, clichès as far as the eyes can see, cringe dialogues, incredibly studid decisions by humans and aliens.
Liam Hemsworth is the actor to draw in the young audience and a total miscast for this kind of movie but he fits in with all the other young actors who are out of place as well. But that also means he will be the more or less tragic or cool hero and "win" a gorgeous woman at the end of the movie. How could it be different?
Hemsworth's literally horny sidekick is annoying the moment he appears, throughout the whole movie and is the deliberate comic relief and simply hateable as his character is written so blatantly obvious and without any care. You instantly know what trope his character is and what role he will have the rest of the movie.
You are in the alien ship and he carelessly jumpscares you: haha, how funny!
He's talking loudly, called out on it to be quiet and keeps going being loud, endangering all of them: haha, how funny!
He is fawning over the beautiful, "unreachable" daughter of the chief in command on the moonbase we all know he will get later anyway for no reason other than "we went through this sh*t together": soo original.
Liam Hemsworth is peeing in front of the aliens to distract them: haha, how funny and mature.
...and the aliens even fall for that crap.
The whole movie could only happen in its entirety because of the first major decision that was made for no other reason than plot.
Levinson is some kind of an authority when it comes to aliens but he is ignored to enable the movie when he says not to fire at that spherical spaceship, that looks so difficult to the others and behaves totally different as well. That appearance wasn't even foreshadowing, it was an obvious spoiler to how they would be able to win this time against the aliens and took out any kind of suspense there could have been from the get go.
The movie is predictable all the time and doesn't even try to avoid (or hide) it, ultimately leading to me not being entertained at all.
Recurring actors were all a total waste, except perhaps for Goldblum.
Brent Spiner, who plays Dr. Okun, was additionally unbelievable and simply unnecessary.
Using a poweroff button as sign for the resistance against the aliens was preeeetty lazy as well in the design department.
Easy cash grab movie. I have no doubt the next ID movie will be even worse. Here goes my hope for a good Stargate reboot down the drain. I hoped it would give the franchise a possibility to relaunch a series or so but I heavily doubt that now.
But to not only say negative things about this movie: the CGI effects weren't bad.
Third Person show us three different stories. At first we start to see some connections between them but they seem to take different paths. After a few time we understand that all of them are about trust but there's more behind that.
The main problem of the film is its running time. After two hours the stories lose all of their dynamic and seemed like they were going nowhere. There's a very important clue somewhere in the first half and hour of the film that made me understand immediately the connection between the stories and what they were trying to transmit but what makes it easy to understand is constantly over complicated to give a certain complexity in the story that was not needed and that makes it very inconsistent. Due to that, the stellar cast was not able to safe the film. Some things are left unexplained in all the three stories but specially when it comes to the story of the main character and that might be a bit frustrating too.
It was great to see Liam Neeson doing a solid drama instead of his latest action films. He is a good actor that needs more of this kind of roles again. Olivia Wilde was perfect for her role, very intense performance. Adrien Brody and Moran Atias had a great chemistry together. But my favorite couple of the story was Mila Kunis and James Franco. They just have one scene together that was brilliantly performed in terms of the intensity of the acting and not only. That whole sequence is great and Mila Kunis definitely steals the show in this film! My favorite performance was hers, very deep and different from all the stuff that I've seen her do before.
Paul Haggis tried to do with Third Person a similar narrative than he did with his Oscar winning film Crash but this time, I think he was not so well succeeded.
This film was truly inspiring and wow it's even kind of hard trying to put in words how powerful it is!
I did not know exactly what to expect from The Fault in Our Stars, I did not read the book but the trailer seemed promising. I think Shailene Woodley is one of the most promising young actresses and her name involved was the special key for me to see this film.
I usually don't cry in a film unless its story is really sad and touching. The truth is that I cried like a baby! It's absolutely impossible not to cry before such a beautiful, honest and sad story. If you ever dealt with any kind of cancer story in your family or with a friend I think this will touch you in the most powerful way possible but even if you don't it will definitely touch your heart.
In The Fault in Our Stars we start follow the painful but courageous journey of Hazel Grace Lancaster. A 17 year old girl who fights cancer since she was 13 years old when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She starts going to a support group for young people dealing with the same circumstances of her. There she met Augustus Waters a smart and funny guy and they fell in love. Together they will try to live the true happiness of being a teenager and discover true love for the first time. Unfortunately things are not that easy for them.
Instead of being a typical story full of the usual clichès this film show us the truthful and honest side of the horrivel disease that cancer is. The scenes felt real and it's so great to see the positivity in all the messages that the film wants to deliver. There's also some humorous parts throughout the film and between all of the tears I also sketched a smile.
The performances were absolutely fantastic! Shailene Woodley is so perfect! What a great and heartfelt performance. Ansel Elgort was equally good and their chemistry was amazing! No one in the cast felt forced not at a single moment.
There's just one thing that kind felt out of place, that was the involvement of the writer Peter Van Houten, played by Willem Dafoe. His scenes were a bit weird but I understand what the character wants to transmit, although I think it was not quite made at the right way.
I would definitely recommend The Fault in Our Stars to everyone. Beautiful film!
The main reason why I wanted to watch this was Kevin Spacey's name involved. I really like him, I think he is a fantastic actor and once again it was impossible not to like his performance in this film. Unfortunately Shrink was not as good as I imagined it to be.
The story is centered in the world of cinema. Hollywood is the land of dreams for the ones who want to be someone in that magical cinematic world. Dr. Carter is a celebrity shrink but he is dealing with some psychological problems too. He starts to loose his abilities to help others because he became a drug addict due to a tragedy in his life.
We follow a lot of different stories from patients that go see Dr. Carter and also stories of some people that are not his patients but have something to do with them. All are kind of connected even without knowing why. As the film develops we start to understand why they are connected but this was not done at the best possible way. There are a lot of messy things, things that are not explained the way it should be. A lot of questions are left in the air and I would like to have understood more aspects of the life some characters. At times the pace might not be the best.
At the end of the film we feel that the characters had some closure with their problems but it was not enough. We spent the whole film trying to figure it out some questions and that not helped to create a feeling for them. I think it was not engaging to the point that we really care about all of them.
The acting was good from all the cast, being Kevin Spacey's performance my favorite. He delivered a very strong performance and we can really feel his pain and struggle. In my opinion he was the best thing of the film.
I think Shrink had all of the elements to be a great drama but unfortunately things didn't go so well.
Well, this is certainly a remake of the original film and not just another adaptation of the novel. Most of the dialogue and shots are directly from the Swedish film and it's very obviously trying to recapture the magic that Let the Right One In has. All in all, I don't understand why this movie was remade (aside from the obvious desire to profit off of it) because this American version really brings absolutely nothing new to the table. It's an alright movie but I'm hesitant to say that it's a good remake (as remakes go) because, like I said, I don't understand why you'd watch this when you could watch the original and get almost the exact same thing but...better. Regardless, it's not like I didn't enjoy watching it, and I can easily see how anyone who hasn't seen the original could be very impressed with it. Chloe Moretz delivers, as usual, and the soundtrack was lovely. The only serious complaint I have was with the "climactic" scene - it was just hugely disappointing compared to the original and I really got absolutely nothing out of it. They really missed the mark for what made the original scene great and took the film out on a very low note. Bottom line, no, I would not recommend this movie to a friend. If they expressed interest in it I'd tell them to watch the original instead because I genuinely believe they'd get more out of it. But if you want to watch this one I think it's safe to say you'll enjoy it enough for it to have been worth your time.
