A two and a half hours boring, depressing mess. In short, Zack Snyder.
And the dream sequences take more screen time then the actual BvS fight. Who thought this was a good idea?
I wanted to love this so much, but it just felt... Empty. The characters didn't connect at all and the Fantastic Beasts themselves felt like an afterthought to the franchise they're actually trying to build.
Overall a watchable movie with some charming moments but damaged by a muddy story and atrocious pacing. I expected more from the HP universe.
To call this another Marvel winner would be an understatement.
Volume 2 is the best cinematic experience I've had in a long time. The action is great, the various cameos hilarious, the effects awe-inspiring and the laughs frequent and well-placed (one of the few gripes I had with Doctor Strange). And in the midst of all this, what really drives the story and keeps the audience interested is the character development. The heroes with which we fell in love in Volume 1 become deeper and multilayered, and the new additions add fantastic new dynamics.
While still falling victim to some minor storytelling tropes, GotG2 is the epitome of the spectacle movie.
What Kong: Skull Island may lack in substance, it makes up for with sheer excitement.
Finally, a thrilling adventure movie, like in the olden days, but with the added creative possibilities offered by modern technology. Breathtaking scenery, a straightforward plot and jaw-dropping action sequences make this new Kong iteration a thoroughly entertaining movie, with Vogt-Roberts' dynamic direction not allowing for an instant of dullness. And the colors! In an era in which each movie has to be desaturated to feel epic, Kong really felt as a breath of fresh air.
The movie isn't without its faults though, mainly regarding some underdeveloped characters that are clearly cannon fodder, a bit of over-reliance on the tone contrast between comedic and tragic and some rapidly switching character motivations. It could really have used 15 minutes more.
These faults are, however, dwarfed by the pure experience. An incredible visual treat with no shortage of excitement. Solid 7.5.
I knew I shouldn't have trusted Jonah Hill
It won't break any new ground and is fairly predictable in its twists, but Bill and Ted Face the Music is such good-natured, clean fun that it's impossible not to be glad it exists, especially in 2020.
Definitely not perfect, but most excellent, dudes.
Paul Blart finally got its rated R reboot.
Heil Blart: Mall Cop
Yeah the storytelling is really lackluster, dialogue is uninspired, worldbuilding is half-baked and acting can be improved upon.
But this is just fun. Great imagery with enjoyable product design paired with predictably amazing Carpenter Brut soundtrack makes it for an entertaining and different 50 minutes. You gotta hand it to Ickerman, he didn't hold back.
It's the kind of thing teenager me would find amazing. And fuck it, I miss teenager me.
Always interesting and visually pleasing, with some great effects, yet even at only 100 minutes it overstayed its welcome for me. It felt much longer that it actually was.
Also, I was constantly distracted by how much Patrick Schwarzenegger looks like his father.
Overall a pleasing watch, but not one that will stick with me aside from a few visuals.
Brilliant black comedy. You laugh and instantly feel bad for doing so.
The satire is cutting and unfortunately always timely, even if not really handled with subtlety.
Highlight of the movie for me was Kayvan Novak's character, also a standout in What We Do in the Shadows.
I love A24 and campy horror comedy but yikes. This is just plain bad.
It's unfunny, cheap-looking and shoddily put together. Almost nothing in Slice works. Even Zazie Beetz looked bored. The only positive I can think about is the mercifully short runtime that makes this bearable.
An ambitious modern fairytale deeply grounded in reality, The Endless is a fascinating movie about, in the end, brotherhood, trust, responsibility and progress in life.
While their previous directorial effort, Spring, resonated more with me, this movie cements Benson and Moorhead as interesting and thoughtful filmmakers with big ideas.
Glen Powell and the endlessly charming Zoey Deutch have great chemistry in a cute, funny but in the end fairly by-the-numbers romcom. Set it Up doesn't do anything particularly new or innovative, but it didn't need to.
It mainly works, it's comfortable, and it's a Netflix watch that you won't regret.
There is a line between being purposefully subdued and straight-up boring, and unfortunately The Night Eats the World crosses it. It's a shame, because there are a few deeply beautiful moments, but they are drowned in a constantly unengaging story.
90 minutes feel like three hours.
Zoey Deutch tries to salvage with her charm a disastrous script, and she only half succeeds.
The movie is competently directed from a technical standpoint, but seemed to completely misread its tone or subject matter, becoming repulsive at times. It's a shame, because up until the confrontation with Will I had found Flower to be a decently funny movie, even if I found the characters really hard to like and their decision-making questionable, and the movie’s conceptual flaws – like its questionable treatment of heavy themes like teen suicide or pedophilia and its distinctly male interpretation of what female sexual empowerment looks like – were already clearly showing.
The whole third act is then a dumpster fire, between the kids somehow reaching Will before the cops even if the cops had been alerted of the event, the meaningless trip to the prison and Erica and Luke’s relationship, which never felt earned or believable.
Zoey Deutch will become a star, without a doubt. But she is far too likeable a performer for what this movie is going for, and most importantly, this movie doesn't deserve her.
The more I think about Terminal the more I hate it. The two main plot threads (Simon Pegg and the knockoff Guy Ritchie hitmen) are completely unrelated. The twists are never earned. You can see Mike Myers being the actual big bad from a mile away. The director has to think we're all idiots seeing how many times he has past scenes flashing through monologues to remind us of what happened. And when you think for even one second about the overall story it doesn't make any kind of sense, the hitmen have no reason at all to be in the movie, since apparently Margot Robbie knew everything from the beginning. And "she's crazy" can't be a justification for dumb screenwriting.
I lost all hope when the only remotely interesting part of the movie (the Pegg-Robbie conversation) was removed around the end of the second act.
Only redeeming qualities are some cool shots and lightning, and I really liked Myers, Pegg and Robbie, especially Robbie who was hamming it up the whole movie. She made this watchable.
Kodachrome is predictable, light and fun. As with many "trip" movies, the fact that you know exactly how it will end doesn't make the journey not worth taking. Sudeikis and Olsen are perfectly fine in this, but Ed Harris belongs in another league and here he shows why one more time with a masterful performance.
Although, again, telegraphed, the poignant moments hit at the right time, and the movie feels sweet and heartfelt.
It won't make anyone's Top 10 lists, but Kodachrome is well worth the film it was shot on. Even if unlike in the movie - thankfully - it won't be the last one.
The deceptively marketed I Kill Giants has nothing in common with Harry Potter or the other recent YA movies that the trailer and poster try to evoke. Instead, it reflects on how a child deals with pain and with understanding that there are forces beyond his/her control.
At a reasonable running time and powered by a great performance by young Madison Wolfe, the movie flows quite nicely. It feels a bit heavy handed with the explaining of the methaphor behind its concept, the delivery of some pieces of exposition to the audience is a little clichéd and convenient, and the ending is a bit drawn out and again overexplanatory, but these may be necessary evils to get the point across to the younger viewers.
While I feel that a very similar topic was handled better and more maturely in J. A. Bayona's sensational A Monster Calls, I Kill Giants is still a constantly entertaining and at times moving watch.
Despite being far from his best outings, Last Flag Flying is very much a Richard Linklater movie, and it bears all the defining traits of the director, from the focus on character-driven dialogue to the expert juxtaposition between humor and drama. The character interaction and their history suck you in and the movie feels much shorter than it is, which is a great accomplishment for the film, especially with it being as dialogue heavy as it is.
Bryan Cranston obviously got the more fun role to play, but I found the standout to be, as he often is these days, Steve Carell. The man is doing some exceptional work and just this year we've seen him in two completely different roles - this and as Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes - and he has absolutely owned both of them.
An interesting concept that lost most of its entertainment value in its relatively flat execution. This has been compared to a Black Mirror episode: if it were, it'd be regarded as one of the worst. It sure has merits earned through meaningful conversations and thought-provoking themes, but it couldn't hold my attention, despite its relatively short running time.
Suprising, original and constantly entertaining, Better Watch Out really is a fun breath of fresh air in a time when most movies feel predictable and telegraphed. It reminded me of two of my favorite horror comedies of the last years, Krampus for the thematic and tonal similarities, and The Visit for the reunion of stars Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould.
Nikolai Coster-Waldau, of Game of Thrones fame, gives a committed and transformative lead performance that holds Shot Caller together.
A fairly fun, serviceable crime drama, Shot Caller feels a bit overlong and often predictable, but never boring. Despite some unnecessary subplots and some rushed character transformations, it's hard not to suggest this as a perfectly fine movie night.
So good, Kurosawa manages to do so much with so little. The framing and camerawork are often incredible, both in the static "courtoom" scenes and in the dynamic forest and medium scenes. The medium and the woman's breakdown in the last version of the story unexpectedly really creeped me out.
You're brought to doubt the reality of what you see on screen, something we usually take for granted. The unseen interrogator, the audience, can keep questioning the characters, but the truth is left for interpretation.
With sharp tonal shifts from dramatic to comedic and from introspective to genuinely creepy, Wakefield manages to be an entertaining watch for all of its runtime. Cranston really gives a powerhouse performance here. He was nominated for Trumbo, but I think he's even better in this, carrying the whole movie on his shoulders with a solitary and varied performance, making his unlikable Howard Wakefield a sympathetic character.
An interesting take on middle-age crisis, and how it affects the protagonist and the people around him.
Despite being traditional in execution and not really anything groundbreaking, Gifted succeeds on an emotional level and really seems a return to his comfort zone for director Marc Webb.
Chris Evans is perfectly serviceable in one of the few non-Marvel movies we've seen him in in the last couple of years, but the real revelation is young McKenna Grace, that strikes a rare equilibrium between cute and, well, gifted.
One of the first truly great Netflix Original Movies, along with Beasts of No Nation.
After the success of Snowpiercer, Bong Joon-ho provides another original, timely and thought-provoking movie, with themes that deeply resonate in today's society.
Despite not being Hughes' finest movie, Uncle Buck is still a funny, endearing and ultimately moving family movie. I slightly prefer John Candy in the hysterical Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but his performance here exudes once again a charm and love that are impossible to resist.
Split is... fine. McAvoy is excellent, as is Anya Taylor-Joy, but the movie around them often isn't at their level.
Then the final twist gives it a whole new life. As an Unbreakable fan, this movie is exciting more for the promise of things to come than for the movie itself. If Unbreakable was a grounded superhero origin story, Split is a grounded supervillain origin story. Will the next Shyamalan movie be the showdown?
I fear not many people will "get" the twist in the theater. Unbreakable is one of the less known, and most underrated, Shyamalan movies. Split will certainly reignite its cult following, and I'm genuinely excited for the future of the Shyamalan Cinematic Universe.
Nor Split nor The Visit are masterpieces, but they sure are enjoyable movies, that show a director that has learned from his mistakes and is getting back on track. And I'm rooting for Shyamalan.
Easily Nichols' weakest movie to date. The story was an important one to tell, but maybe not an interesting enough one to allow for entertaining cinema.
The movie felt overlong and uneventful and, although I think that's what Nichols was trying to go for, excessively subdued. The main characters' passivity, expecially Richard Loving's, in my opinion downplayed in the eyes of the viewer the gravity of the whole situation.
The main stong points are the Negga's and Edgerton's exceptional performances, and a few deeply moving human moments.
Nate Parker's inexperience, but also his passion, really show in this sometimes powerful, but often boring and conventional movie. Sluggish pace, ugly desaturated color palette, generic writing and atrociously filmed and edited action scenes are all signs of a writer/director that has a lot of room for improvement. The character work was also lacking, with Parker asking the audience to care for a protagonist just because he's suffering, while not doing the hard work of actually presenting a likable lead. The religious justification and glorification of violence is also, though sometimes understandable, deeply troubling. The huge historical inaccuracies don't help either, and their connection with Parker's rape allegations are darkly ironic at best, and creepy at worst.
This said, there's good in here. This is a movie that counts on moments, and Parker really banks on those, and they mainly work, as do the performances. But in between them there's just a less gripping 12 Years a Slave.
I can understand people who love this movie, as I can understand who hates it. Personally, I'm in the middle of the road, but The Birth of a Nation certainly isn't the Oscar contender that Sundance would have us believe.
