Quite a disappointing follow up to a great trilogy. I’m sure the actors and sfx team put their work in but it doesn’t save this film. The plot felt flat, the pacing uneven which led to a relatively bland and lengthy viewing experience. Maybe the next film will help redeem the series but I for one won’t be chomping at the bit for it.
A decent but kind of unnecessary movie; it feels like it only exists to set up the next one. For one that focuses on ape vs ape with few humans in the script, there was surprisingly less action than in the previous films.
Honestly, I see no difference from the first, only that the visuals and action are twice as large. I loved the slow mo in the battle scenes, unlike in the build-up scenes. It tried to be visually beautiful, but everything felt artificial, just like the characters. Why does synder always find himself in the 'synder cut' situation? He's so talented and unique, but these washed-up versions make the experience feel like nothing. I'll still wait for it, though. I also disliked the monologues and the village/villagers aesthetic, but I loved the sci-fi elements and character stories.
This movie is already good on its own, but it becomes 10x better when you know what Patel went through to get it made.
The movie has already cemented itself as a classic of the vengeance subgenre, with echoes of Woo and Park Chan-wook, while bursting with enough originality for it to avoid feeling like a carbon copy.
It's a primal yell of a directorial debut from Dev Patel, already an underrated actor, who uses his unique experiences with religion and his own Indian heritage to bring the story of the film to life.
You can smell the blood and sweat wafting through the screen
It's okay. Probably more towards the 2.5 territory but I'm feeling generous. CGI gets a bit ropey and it becomes a bit too "girl-bossy" towards the end. Still easy enough fare.
She screams at every turn
I mean if you’re trying to hide from a dragon in a cave can you at least :asterisk_symbol:try:asterisk_symbol: to muffle your screams?!
It wasn't bad. But honestly I'm very very disappointed this isn't a TV show. I misread the trailer and wasn't expecting a movie. I think this would have been amazing as TV show. It could have done what the True Lies tv show failed to do. It would have done what I expect the upcoming Mr and Mrs Smith show will fail to do. Kaley did a solid job as an action character. She's no Megan Fox in Rogue (2020) [awful movie but Fox was excellent] but she was solid. I'm not her biggest fan but I don't hate her and, respect where respect is due, her acting was more than okay. David however, like the plot, was under-fulfilled. I think he could have done more with his character of the straightman muggle husband. The script just didn't give any room for it. They did have more chemistry than I expected they would. I saw the trailer and in no way did I think I would buy them as a couple 100%, I was expecting maybe 60% buy in, but I kinda do.
Antagonists Bill Nighy and Connie Nielsen were enjoyably bad. Though Connie was under written. I didn't really get that slightly psychotic character from her the way the script seemed to want me to.
The tone of the movie was uneven. You're never really quite rocked out of the mood of the movie, but you've never sitting comfortable in it either. Mr. and Mrs. Smith the movie was very much a sexy spy "kill a bunch of guys" movie with likes of whiplash pans. True Lies the movie was very much an Arnold comedy with a bunch of one-liners and amusing growls. There are others that are more about the romance like say Mr Right or This Means War. Which are all very much comedic spy stuff with a heavy heavy dose of RomCom. The ingredients were there to make this the variation that focused on Romance with a capital R. I haven't seen one of those in a while and like I said they had the chemistry for it. But the movie wants to be an R-rated comedy so it tries to have it's cake and eat it too.
Almost every problem I had with this would have been resolved if it had been a full season length. Heck I might have even bonded with the kids. They could be given personalities and then maybe I'd care when their health is threatened.
The rating should at least be in the 90s for sure! Very inspiring movie for me personally. If you have an idea you are trying to get off the ground, watch this movie, then you will start working on it immediately after. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross do an amazing job with the soundtrack. Interesting note that approximately 83% of trakt has been coded while listening to this soundtrack :)
I'm half tempted to give this full marks just for daring to play Radiohead's Everything in Its Right Place during your typical military in dropship scene. Anyway my boy Gareth knocked out another cracking piece of scifi. You really don't mind when a director takes a few years off and comes back with something like this. There's certainly a fair amount of Rogue One, Blade Runner and Terminator in the mix, the latter of which he takes the Judgement Day plot and turns it on its head defying expectations where I assumed it was going just due to the tropes of the genre.
There's also a lot of stuff on screen for 80mill in comparison to other recent effects heavy films. Gets you wondering if budgets elsewhere escalate to $200 mill mark due to talent demands or that something like this has less behind the scenes VFX artists but take longer to bake? I dunno. Either way, check it out. The trailer gives too much away (as always my opinion) however there's plenty more that isn't shown.
NB. Watch out for the Scarif Easter egg
Don’t go into this movie with really high expectations and you’ll enjoy it. I know I did. It’s obviously a lower budget than most would expect for an active movie. But it’s still very much an enjoyable watch. Just don’t let the well known actors cloud expectations.
Like an Asian Bridesmaid. Laugh out loud funny and crass.
So many back-to-back laughs—our screening was having a blast! Hilarious performances, great ensemble, and some stealth feels that had a number of people sniffling and crying. Go see it, in a theatre, and bring friends because a crowd only enhances the fun!
If I could give this a lower rating then I would.
An underwhelming effort from a company that seems to have fallen behind the curve. Creatively it’s pulling too much from Zootopia and Inside Out while not adding much of its own flavour, almost every choice in this movie is predictable. Sure, the racism/prejudice commentary is more aggressive now that we’ve entered the post-Trump era (seriously, you should go back and look at how Zootopia handled that same topic, it feels quaint now), but besides that it doesn’t bring much to the table. The worldbuilding lacks the clever intricacies of Zootopia, the pretty animation style has some unique textures but it’s no Across the Spider-verse, and emotionally it feels more like Illumination than Pixar. It’s a very straightforward, cheesy romcom with a formulaic set-up for the main characters (think Notting Hill, Crazy Rich Asians, and countless other movies your mom loves), some ok comedy (bad puns notwithstanding) and a boring adventure (fixing pipelines, how exciting). The score’s pretty interesting because it seems to pull a lot from Indian folk music, on the other hand the songs sound generic and overproduced. Overall, I’d easily recommend this over some other animated films from this year, as this does genuinely try as a movie. However, that doesn’t change that I expect both children and adults to be mostly bored by this.
4.5/10
Like a workday: you go in and get the job done but do nothing remarkable and won't remember it in a week.
If you really want to watch a teenage girl coming-of-age cartoon, watch Turning Red instead.
Incoherent plot, a bit too much unexplained (such as how come Keaton-Batman knows all about time travel?). Pacing was all over the place, and too many things got resolved by pure plot contrivance. And the effects looked absolutely awful. Not a single effect involving a CGI person worked, not even a little bt. And the attempts at deepfaking were even worse. Someone, somewhere in the team responsible for this someone should have pulled the breaks and said "no, the tech isn't there yet. We can't do what you want, not at this budget and with this amount of time". I'm almost sure someone DID point this out, and was apparently ignored. This is absolutely embarrasing. I might have been able to excuse these effects if I saw them five years ago on the Flash TV show, but in a "blockbuster" movie? No, not a chance.
Thre were things I liked. Mostly references etc. Cameos were mostly shit, especially the JL ones; most of those felt forced and uninteresting. But finally seeing Nick Cage fighting a giant spider? That was awesome.
The flowing hair in the water looks so cartoony. Cgi is awful. The actors are basically imitated the original voices, instead of using their own.:wastebasket::poop:
3 Thoughts After Watching ‘The Little Mermaid’:
Halle Bailey IS Ariel. She was absolute perfection. From voice to vibe, she captured her essence impeccably. I believe a star has officially been born.
Melissa McCarthy had veryyy gargantuan tentacles to fill. And I think Pat Carroll would’ve been incredibly pleased with what she did with her sea witch.
I thought they built upon the original film’s story in all the right ways. Fleshing it out to make a little more sense. Providing more substance. While not everything was picture perfect, it worked and gave fresh magic to a beloved story.
Bonus Thought: I thought it was a fantastic movie to look at, especially under the sea. Gorgeous colors and visuals. Eye candy all around. And that includes Jonah Hauer-King. :pound_symbol:snack
[HBO Max] It uses most of the resources of animated cinema in a story that is unbalanced between wanting to please all audiences and trying to focus on the child's gaze. Like when it tries to build an empowered female lead, but ends up inevitably fueled by a romantic relationship. It is something like wanting to provide positive messages but that deep down contain a deep traditional look. The animation is well executed without being overly shiny and the soundtrack finds inspiration in Jerry Goldsmith, but the story is too boring and cliché.
If last year's Top Gun Maverick gave everyone the slightest bit of hope in regards to films that click with the general audience and blow up at the box office, this is the kind of film that'll make any self-respecting film fan lose all hope. Here's the deal: kids will pretty much like this by default, adults who are looking for validation of their childhood obsession will like it, and people who show up to see an actual movie won't. It's pretty much the blandest, calculated, do-nothing film they could've made out of this material. The animation is devoid of style and looks like it was originally rendered for a Dreamworks project back in 2008, the voice acting is mostly ass, it triggers the nostalgia & reference button way too often, the story & characters are watered down to a point where they're almost non-existent, it's not funny and its boomer rock soundtrack choices make absolutely no sense. It's irredeemable trash, like every product that rolls of the Illumination Entertainment conveyor belt. Nevertheless, I'm willing to bet that due to the large fanbase of the IP, this will be one of those films where in the short term some of the discourse will insist that "some people/critics don't know how to have fun" or "it's made for the fans" (only for those same people to deny ever liking it in the long haul, of course). Here’s hoping Illumination doesn’t listen to those voices in the same way that DC did after the release of Suicide Squad. This is not a foundation to build a franchise on.
2.5/10
Pretty good movie overall. If you like other Jason Statham movies I think you'll like this one. I mean people die and Jason kicks some ass. What more do you want? My only issue with the movie was the back and forth timeline. One minute you're in the present, then you jump forward 2 months, then another 3, then you're back 6 months to where the show started, then forward 2-3 weeks then you go forward 6 months again.
Pros:
- The VFX work is great, especially the dinosaurs
Cons:
- No world building
- No exposition
- No explanations
- Nothing happens
- All of the potentially suspenseful moments were shown in the trailer
I love slow movies; Lawrence of Arabia is one of my favorites. But this film is surprisingly boring, and it makes an hour and a half feel like it's dragging on. There's no meaningful dialogue because the only two characters in the film don't speak the same language. It's a dinosaur movie where nobody gets eaten, and the dinosaurs are barely even an issue until the very end.
Interesting from a modern version of the bible (the four horsemen of the apocalypse) .. in my opinion, very good.
Do me a favour and don't see this because of me. That way I can feel I'm getting my revenge for sitting through an hour and a half of PG-13 boredom. I just hope they make another so I can not see it.
The whole movie consists of stupid decisions and the strongest lion to ever walk the earth. Pretty forgettable movie to be honest.
Surprise movie, did not read up on anything before watching. Satirical horror/comedy about Gen Z.. Loved it!
The total body count is five.
The cause of death is....stupidity.
I wonder if this movie would be funnier on a re-watch with that in mind.
I loved it. It's straight forward on its surface, but does contain a lot of subtle projections that add layers for cinema lovers to pick up. The humor is on point, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Predictable? A bit, but I'd rather have that than randomness out of left field that doesn't connect.
THE UGLY: ‘WE CAN BE HEROES’
WRITING: 45
ACTING: 40
LOOK: 65
SOUND: 50
FEEL: 45
NOVELTY: 50
ENJOYMENT: 55
RE-WATCHABILITY: 20
INTRIGUE: 35
EXPECTATIONS: 40
The Good:
The early 2000s style, colourful and campy superhero film is awkwardly dated and fascinatingly old-school at the same time. This film really embraces that Spy Kids or Sharkboy and Lavagirl vibe.
I love the lighthearted and comical approach to superheroes and how that creates some of the most outrageous superpowers I've ever seen.
Even though they are goofy and over the top, the actions scenes are fun and imaginative, utilizing the wide cast with varying powers fairly well.
Pedro Pascal seems to have a great time so it's a shame his part is smaller than I expected it to be.
The twist at the end is pretty good, to be fair.
The Bad:
A lot of the comedy is very childish and goody, but then again, I'm not part of the target audience.
The child actors are pretty atrocious, which is a shame since there are loads of them.
There is much of a plot. It's mostly one goofy action scene after another, followed by montages of different kinds. There is next to no narrative content in between.
The lack of compelling villains for adult viewers and the monotonous tone make this film less engaging for those who aren't children or young at heart.
Ultimately, there are too many characters involved, which means that the plot is busy and moves along with such a speed that it doesn’t allow for breathing space and barely has time to develop the charcters properly.
The Ugly:
Man, slow-motion superpowers really make life hard to live!
VERDICT:
A nostalgically childish, mostly nonsensical and colourful superhero adventure for the kids doesn’t feel satisfying for adults unless toyäre a huge fan of Rodriguez’s earlier work.
45% = :heavy_minus_sign: = UGLY
I have to admit I was surprised. The delivery of the back story was painful, but once we got to the 21st Century, it was much better.
