Trakt for iOS
Works on iPhone and iPad.
Loooot a lot a contradictions within the script.
Why didn't Harry stop the bus using his powers instead of using them to spill David's coffee? Why do these angel guys keep running around helplessly like a bunch of losers? No flying, no teleporting, no angel motorbikes or something? They seem to have little to no abilities. Going through doors only thanks to their hats -which can and has been achieved by a human- looking exactly the same as a human, having human names etc...
One of the angels made it clear that he can read minds, ("pick a color, pick a number" scene) yet Harry says in another scene that they can't read people's minds, they can only see through their decisions and control them. They seem to have completely forgotten what they wrote on the script earlier.
In one scene where they're supposed to stop them from kissing, David's friend says his name just when he was about to kiss Elise, whereupon he kisses her only on the cheek and leaves. Why the fuck couldn't he kiss her on the lips before he left? Literally would have taken the same amount of time.
David's character has bugged me from the very beginning. He became a politician the way one becomes a footballer or something. People don't get into politics being inspired by their dad's faces when they take them to some place. That's just not how it works. He also keeps going after the woman who never attempts to reach out to him herself, which would have been easy for her since he's a public figure. Throughout the whole story it felt like it was just him who loved her and not vice versa, yet they presented it as "their incorrigible love".
Elise's character was also annoying and cliched. They made her that one girl who lights up your world with her funny wild spirit and always drunken-like attitude. David never knew her beyond that and they never seemed to form that strong of a bond worth fighting for, yet David is so convinced she's right for him even though ANGELS THEMSELVES tell him that she's not.
Why does destiny keep making them run into each other if the angels are the ones writing destinies? Why was he able to see her again on that one road and get out of the bus to go to her? It seems like it's in their destiny to meet, so what does that make of their actual destiny that was determined? What does that make of the movie's message, anyway? That you have to rebel against your destiny... so that you can reach your destiny? I don't know, the whole fiction felt deficient and poorly written.
I can't even put into words my distaste for this movie. Only Americans will ask you to feel bad for their war criminals. The quote by Frankie Boyle describes this film perfectly, “Not only will America go to your country and kill all your people, they’ll come back twenty years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.” The whole point of The Card Counter is to try to get you to sympathize with a war criminal who tortured, killed, terrorized people. Not only that but it's extremely unrealistic to ask the viewer to believe that anyone responsible for Abu Ghraib faced meaningful consequences. Like, come on, now!
This movie followed the most boring protagonists, who are as dull as they can get. Zero chemistry between any member of the cast. Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, and Tye Sheridan are basically in 3 different movies and each one of them is total garbage:
"Abu Ghraib torturer, but make him seeeexy" How? Oh, cast hot actor with beautiful eyes. Plus, he did his time, 8 years for the most vile crimes you can possibly imagine. But he is a good guy now. He fucks girls and support college kids. For someone I guess we're supposed to dislike (?), the movie spends a lot of time showing how cool he is.
Tiffany Haddish must’ve been the only actress to audition for the role of La Linda because she was radically miscast. She is not ready for dramatic acting. As for her character – she is independent and has connections with rich folks … that’s it. Wow, so interesting, right?! The 'chemistry' between her and Isaac was weird. It wasn’t seductive, it just felt like watching high schoolers flirt, but even more painful.
Cirk seemed like he is dumb as rocks. To expect us to care so much about a kid who we don't even know is irresponsible. I couldn't care less about his death or revenge killing.
Oh, and there is another character introduced like "USA!" guy with no point. But he was born in Ukraine, so he is not American. Oscar Isaac was born in Guatemala, grew up in USA and plays an American dude, while people born in Ukraine who grew up in USA are only Ukrainian. Even if you want to follow American rules, you just can’t because the Yanks are very inconsistent and hypocritical.
Most bad movies have some redeeming qualities. I can’t think of anything with this, everything just felt so bland to me:
Nothing is happening, and the movie is sooo repetitive . Oscar Isaac looking serious and walking in a casino,with suspenseful music - this is like 80% of the movie.
Almost every scene is an end in itself, nothing is explored, and doesn’t progress the story at all scene to scene.
The music. Oh, the music, which mainly featured vapid, brooding indie/electronic songs, is just all over the place here. I hated it!
There is basically no concept of tension or mystery, which is pretty important when you’re watching a fake game of poker.
The philosophy was so juvenile, and the movie lacks anything interesting to say. We are supposed to believe the main character is very mysterious and smart but he is one of the most boring, dull and flat characters I have ever seen.
The dialogue is godawful, no exaggeration here! "I have no goals", "Have you ever read a book", "What is your story" etc. It felt so awkward and as if the characters aren’t even talking to each other.
Why is it called The Card Counter when the main character counted cards once onscreen and then spends the entire movie playing poker?
Did I see a different movie than all of these people rating it high?
I sincerely enjoyed the movie. And that's with a number of scenes that just flat out scream "I think it's unlikely this would happen". Teenage girls obsessed with pop stars who don't know when their phone is missing. Good Samaritans who approach open vans because the person inside beckons. And a few more I'm already forgetting.
What I won't forget is the fantastic setup. Say what you will about his writing and his movies but M. Night can come up with a hook like no one else in the business. A serial killer, who has been tracked down to a concert that was turned into a trap and now has to escape the concert before the thousands of agents hunting for him figure out who he is, is just brilliant. I absolutely do not regret spending money (albeit discounted) to see this.
The character of the psychopathic serial killer hiding as a regular guy isn't a new character but his characterization here is new. Serial Killers project in two ways in TV and movies. Their either cold, mildly brooding, calculating and stoic like Dexter or Hannibal or they're effusively compulsive and barely controlled like "The Surgeon" in Prodigal Son or Joe Carroll in The Following or Villanelle in Killing Eve. Here the killer strikes in less well worn path like Joe from You did. Cooper aka The Butcher is normally cold and calculating but here he is genuinely caught off guard. He did not see the trap coming and doesn't have a contingency set in place and Josh Hartnett gets to do something other than the Dexter/Joe stare ahead while VO plays. He has to act. Not just act like the father everyone thinks he is but act because The Butcher is frustrated and stymied at every corner. And contrary to what you normally expect from the supporting cast people notice genuinely odd behaviour.
All sorts of people except for.. ya know the people who are looking for him. Cooper is suspiciously not caught on camera with his sneaking in and out. He doesn't do a Dexter/Joe linger stare but he does double and triple takes which no one seems to notice. Except of course for the one scene where he wasn't doing anything weird (Curse you Jody's Mom). In the end I think Cooper is a serial killing protagonist you can root for (like Dexter) without having to feel icky about it (like Joe). And yet by the time the movie was ending I thought to myself: Yeah if they kill him I won't feel anyway about it (unlike Walter White).
Based on the ending. I'll go ahead and say it. It's not definitive like most of M. Night's work. There's a door open for more and we all know what happened the last time that door wasn't closed. It might not have been the most successful Franchise:tm: but I'm sure it made money and studios love money. I wouldn't be surprised to see this turn into the start of another mini franchise surrounding say Dr. Grant . That character is strong enough and interesting enough that I could convince myself maybe I'd watch more of them.
Hartnett has obviously come a long way from his pretty boy Virgin Suicide, 40D 40N season. He's taking a page out of James McAvoy's playlist and he does a great job. Saleka Shyamalan's popstar Lady Raven I didn't expect much out of. Maybe she plays a bigger role in later trailers but I saw the first trailer and stopped watching. Too many trailers ruin the suspense. She was solid here. Doing great work both as a singer popstar and as someone who gets unexpectedly involved in the cat and mouse game. Hayley Mills as Dr. Grant the principal antagonist was played well but due to the perspective of the film not given a lot of material to work with.
There are a loose ends that never got touched in the end. They don't even feel firm enough to be red herrings. Minor spoilers enough to get my point across but not just blabbing the story.
The Animal
At one point they note that the Butcher has an animal on his arm . Cooper has a tiny bird on his wrist and a slap bracelet he picked up is used to cover it but it never shows up. They never look at his arm at any point. At one segment Riley mentions getting some temporary tattoos as a goodie bag bonus. She actually says it twice and I thought maybe we were going to cover up the tattoo with some temps which I thought would have been rather clever but nah.
The Trap
We're told that the concert was designed to be a trap for The Butcher. It's the premise of the trailer but they also flat out say that a few times in the movie too. At the start of the movie it's hinted the only reason the concert exists is to be part of the trap. Lady Raven was sold out but Cooper just got lucky to get tickets to this "last minute" add-on stop. The problem is at the end of the movie we find out someone suspected Cooper, found his ticket to the concert and then laid it as evidence to be investigated . Supposedly it's this tip off which setup the trap . It can't be that he had the ticket for the concert and the concert only exists as a trap for him . It could make sense that he got the ticket and they revamped it into a trap but the movie strongly suggests this isn't the case even though it would explain things like the last minute nature of the setup.
The Interviews
Another major premise of the movie is that they have a handful of profiles of the potential Butcher . They're going one by one taking anyone who matches one of those profiles and interviewing them. But why? The Butcher is an N-th level psychopath and liar. What are they asking these men that Cooper is so afraid (or should be so afraid) of answering? I wish I knew what they were doing if only to give the threat of being caught a little more teeth. It's not like they have a witness or a fingerprint. All the people who were trained about it just say it's a few questions. Maybe if we had gotten something more about Dr. Grant and her skillset maybe I would have gotten some threat from it.
I found this unconvincing.
Gotta respect those associated with getting 'Better Luck Tomorrow' off the ground, reportedly with big help from one MC Hammer - I didn't expect to read that! However, I didn't like it sadly. You can tell if has a competent director in charge with Justin Lin, though everything to do with the plot and characters just didn't do it for me.
I found the story too far-fetched, personally. I have no issue watching stuff that is nonsensical, but when it is along those lines then it has to be very entertaining and this wasn't, for me. The actors didn't quite work either, not even Sung Kang as Han - who was the sole reason why I wanted to watch this, given the (loose) 'The Fast and the Furious' connection.
Parry Shen is underwhelming, his voice-overs are particularly dull - he is fairly likeable, I'm just not sure Shen (or his character) were a wise choice for lead. Jason Tobin as Virgil is also a tad irritating (as intended?), while Kang is actually quite forgettable; this Han is barely anything like the F&F version, quite the large reach for them to connect the two, if I'm honest.
A quick look at the Wikipedia article for this, which also talks about some other interesting production events (Macaulay Culkin?! Big props to Lin for rejecting that, despite the £££), notes that apparently Sung Kang wanted to play Ben - now that could've been something! Obviously it worked out best for him that he didn't, but still... what could have been.
Many others love this - who am I to object, really. All the same, I'm glad this was a success otherwise we most likely would not have got Justin Lin atop the F&F franchise; 'Fast & Furious' and 'Fast Five' are my favourites, behind the original of course. Happy that I've now belatedly seen a movie from him away from that world, though.
An excellent Philip K. Dick adaptation that comes off as neither too cerebral nor too wantonly action-heavy. Matt Damon slides into the role of a brash, combustible young politician in the mold of JFK, whose chance meeting with his dream girl sets off a chain reaction that alters his perception of the world at large. Shortly afterwards he stumbles across the delegates of a shadow agency, who freeze time and bend reality to tinker with the thoughts and feelings of the population, all in the name of a precise global timeline. Damon, naturally, is immune to their tricks and bolts from the scene.
As a science fiction twist on the cat and mouse game, it's a blast of fresh air with an admirable sense of restraint. In a perfect world these agents would do their jobs without being noticed at all, so their methods consist of a series of slick, downplayed visual tricks and slight tweaks to the natural order. That sensibility works for their own purposes, but also for the film's: the special effects are equally moderate, and as a result more believable. Damon and Emily Blunt click right away as a duo, so well in fact that it's no challenge at all to root for them from the get-go, and the agency itself is far from the black-and-white, good-versus-evil gang of naughty henchmen you might expect. A tense, creative adventure with perhaps a tad too much sentimentality, it's a raging, surprising, success.
I've seen this movie multiple times and every time I wonder if I liked it. I never remember hating it but I never remember if I liked it. I often struggle to remember the movie only to watch it and then realize... no I basically remember everything. It's just not that complicated. I gotta dig up the Dick writing it's based on.
I think overall it's a good movie. It's got a few solid flaws and a bunch of relative flaws but over all it kinda just works.
Yes it's true Emily Blunt is kind of a ManicPixie. We do see David's love for Elise but aside from when they're together we don't see anything from Elise's side. I put that more to the perspective of the movie but a better script could have done more to show how frustrated Elise was when they were apart.
I think David's scale is too large. Going all the way to the white house works in a movie like Limitless but it doesn't work here because it makes keeping them apart much less plausible. At this point he's a failed candidate and a popular politician and she could do something to get him a message. The movie wants you to buy that she's just so upset every time he ghosts her that she refuses. But it doesn't really show that. You have to just infer it. I think they could have made David important to the future without making him incredibly powerful as well. Maybe his position as a local senator would help stop a pandemic or something.
David and Elise have good chemistry when they ARE together though. Which is crucial for a movie like this. The Adjustment Bureau employees are interesting. Really interesting. They're not all powerful but the insight combined with the nudges they can do, and their mobility make them a strong but not undeniable force. Their power balance is actually kinda perfect for a supernatural antagonistic force. I love how they use basic tricks and schemes to convince people they're more powerful than they are. It really gave them personality. When one of them threatens David by suggesting Elise will lose her chance to reach the top of her career to teach children, all I could think was what if she's happier teaching children? What she does this out of love for her son or daughter? I was really rooting for him to see through it and keep defying.
One angle the movie doesn't really tackle is that since this almost all from David's perspective he should have struggled more with wanting to know what Elise wanted. He ends up making his decisions based on what he thinks would be best for her. But it would have been a nice opportunity for dramatic irony if he had probed Elise to see if she would have preferred success over love. It would have given David a reason to choose to ghost her. Not just "for her own good".
But the script feels cut down. Like they trimmed a lot of fat. It moves well for what it does have. The stuff I think is missing, is stuff I think they never considered, not stuff I think was there and was cut out. The direction could be a little slicker with someone like Doug Liman at the helm but honestly not by much.
Whoooo Doggy.
This'll probably be the last place I explain this but I used to be one of those guys who hated Megan Fox. I refused to watch Jennifer's Body in part because of that (and in part because it looked TERRIBLE, in retrospect of course it was a Spring Breakers level of reversal). That said I watched Jennifer's Body and as I said in that review it blew. me. away. With how excellent and funny and interesting it was. Between that and Lindsey Ellis' video on Megan Fox in Transformers[2] and that video with Jimmy Kimmel coming around yet again only this time it finally clicked. I've basically done a 90 degree turn on Fox. I'm basically neutral. I'm perfectly willing to accept her as an actress in movies I want to see. I've been rather eager to see what she does next.
Then I heard about Rogue. At first I hear she was leading a mercenary crew to rescue yada yada yada and honestly I didn't like it. Fox is still a petite, super attractive woman. I'm actually perfectly willing to see her in an action role even one where she isn't a sexy demon beast or whatever but this is one of the few roles I wouldn't have picked for her.
Then I saw the trailer and it was basically everything I was worried about. She's like a model in fatigues. But hey I've definitely watched much much much worst movies for less. I figured I'd give it a shot.
Honestly the first thing I compare Rogue to is Hustlers. Hustlers was a movie about strippers from the strippers perspective that was so well crafted, so well written and acted and framed that even in a movie that gave me Jennifer Lopez looking like she's at the top of her game oozing sex in a way that for whatever reason didn't come off cheap. Popped Lizzo's big girl behind in a thong throwing all that weight around. It's a fantastic movie. Just good film making. And in spite of that I never for one second buy in that Constance Wu the main character is a stripper. She screams it in literally every scene she's in... not a stripper. Someone pretending to be a stripper. And yet.... I don't care. It never bothered me. I never saw her as a stripper but the movie is so good I never needed to.
Rogue is kinda like that, but in reverse. Rogue is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. I will watch this movie again just so I can point out all the stupid insane dumb things that happen CinemaSins style. None of these characters make sense. From the moment they casually tossed one of their own mercenaries out of a moving car when he got killed to when it happened literally twice. The bad guys[1] are just SO dedicated to hunting these three girls that no matter how many of them die, they're still running guns up to die. The hostages who were literally kidnapped from school, beaten (but not raped?) and kept in cages and pick the worst battles in history. In the middle of an escape one refuses to wade into a river crying about how she needs a break. Do you not understand what they're going to do if they catch you? Everyone else went across the calf deep water why would you demand to stop? Of course the movie tries to justify this by having her actually get eaten by a gator but gator would have left her along if she was with the group and thematically doesn't make any sense to the themes of the movie. When one of the mercs is bleeding they demand to know what's going on in full Karen effect. Ladies you're teenagers not medics. You don't even know or like him why would you get to know what's going on with his triage? They don't trust the man who saved their life because he admits he used to work for the bad guy. Everyone is just SO STUPID. I haven't seen this level of stupidity since Avenue 5 which is a hilarious comedy about a Space Gilligan's Island with one intelligent person and a shipfull of people at 3 different levels of stupid. It's worth watching for that one episode alone. It's so macabre and funny.
And yet, my worries about Megan Fox were justified. She can't pull off military gunner that well. She doesn't have the body for it. That said she tries. She's the only character who actually seems like she's taking anything seriously. There's an unnecessary "she's a GIRL?!? and military!??!?" dialog at some points. It serves no purpose the movie isn't about her being a girl with a gun. There's no reason for anyone to not trust her character's bona fides as the leader of this mercenary group. But again Megan Fox showed up on set to WORK. She goes seriously, not overly cheesy but with some snark when needed. She can relate to her men without trying to "be one of the guys". She's not one of the guys. She's the boss and she acts like it. She gives orders well, she controls the rescuees well. Megan Fox is the only one in this movie that makes any sense. It's a shame the movie can't manage to warp around her. Everything else BUT her is so bad including the closing tag trying to tell us that captive lions are an issue which has nothing to do with the plot and most will call hypocritical in light of the real lions used (at the end) of the film.
Rogue is a bad bad movie but it does still leave me interested in what Megan Fox does next.
[1] (hmm actually at one point they DO suggest an amount of religious zealotry)
[2] Framing Megan Fox: Feminist Theory Part 3 | The Whole Plate: Episode 7 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKyrUMUervU]. Highly recommend it completely changed my perspective on the characters in Transformers. It's still a terrible movie but wow apparently for that first one the writers were at least trying and Michael Bay really went hard ruining it.
I can say I've seen it. I can say I laughed uproariously. Because holy wow is this movie awful. Front to back, start to finish. It's so bad you sometimes forget it's offensive too. On purpose.
One of the first gags is that after failing to inspire his new youth male team. He dismisses them reminding them not to steal his catalytic converter. After being called out for it by the black player. The black player drops a saw used to steal catalytic converts. In the next scene he doesn't have a catalytic converter.
There's not so much acting as there is setting up punchlines whether they're awful verbal jokes or pointless (and often too long) visual gag montages. I was going to say something about the imitation indie music and wanna be Karate Kid soundtrack but the credits were still rolling and the song section came up. All the songs are by William Boreing. I don't know if that's Jeremy's son or whatever nepotism nonsense but the music was uninteresting. It wasn't sonic garbage just... boring.
You could spend an hour debunking all the nonsense assumptions the movie makes erroneously. But for my money even from a conservative Daily Wire standpoint most of the movie is just dumb and pointless which is a problem because the movie's only saving grace is supposed to be it's messaging. It's like a Christian Faith movie in that way. Christian Faith movies are awful but they're awful because they don't care about anything other than sending the right message. The art of storytelling doesn't come into it. The only one that matters is the root story. That a team of men's washouts could dominate in women's sports. Ironically basketball is a poor choice for this because the gender differences aren't THAT big. And physical mass isn't everything like you see in the movie. Not when you're playing comparable teams. The women's teams are practiced active teams and our ladyballer are again some washouts who are hanging out just to do this. It's so casually done you never see them practice which is both a reflection of how much this isn't a sports movie and a reflection of what the movie thinks about female players. You see what it thinks at the end of the movie when it has grown bulked out basketball players playing with girl-children.
No one expects a vanity project to be perfect. But just because it's a vanity project doesn't mean you get to by pass every narrative concept. Me, You, Madness is awful. This is worse. But that one PRESENTS as a vanity project. This presents as a movie with something to tell through humor. It's not JUST lazy. It's not JUST offensive. It's not funny either. There's just scenes that you know the DW found funny. Scenes that they were dying laughing while they were writing it. But in the end on the movie are just... "ehh oh i see what they were trying to do".
Just as confusing as the first time I saw it only now I understand why I'm so confused. If foldableideas's Dan Olson ever gets back to film discussion I hope he talks about the editing in this movie. It's atrocious. Every time Lantern fights Hector. There's no motivation behind it. It's actually what breaks the movie. The movie is going along mostly well until Hal fights Hector the first time. It's not motivated. It's unclear why Hal is there. It's unclear how much Hal knows about what's going on.
I did think it was funny when Carol pointed out that as someone who knows Hal their entire life they recognize him in a mask. It's amusing but the mask identity is there for a reason narratively. People like to laugh at it but storywise it has a purpose and when you break that for a joke it does things like make HvH 1 feel stupid. If Carol can recognize him why can't Hector? Hector has spent his entire life wanting to be Hal, knowing Hal and yet when Hal puts on a mask .... Hector sees nothing.
Likewise it's never clear if Hal knows that Hector is the mutated creature. It's confusing and literally everything in the movie after this scene stops making sense. All the way to the post credit scene where Sinestro puts on the yellow ring. I remember being pumped for that but watching it again it doesn't make sense. WHY would Sinestro do it? We've seen nothing to motivate him. We see what motivates him to CREATE the ring but by the time he's wearing it.... why? Might as well ask why HvH 2 fight happens because that again is a scenario when Hal knows nothing, gained nothing and yet goes straight to a fight that was also a trap?
The biggest problem with the movie is the CGI. "CGI" ruins almost every movie that comes out now and it does the same here for the same reasons. All CGI scenes have to be dark. OA is a planet permanently 2 hours past dusk. Why? They have so much power and zero lighting. But what's special about Green Lantern is that rather than give him a suit to wear they put him in a CGI costume and THAT was the worst decision. Because they couldn't do it. Whether money or time it couldn't be done and what remains looks AWFUL. It's like every TV show that doesn't use squibs and instead they just color the film red where the bullethole is supposed to be. The mask looks like a slightly better version of that but it IS a version of that and you can tell. It's almost as distracting and almost never seeing a closeup of his full suit.
It's a shame to utterly junk Ryan Reynolds in a perfect made for him role. With better writing he could have been the Robert Downy Jr as Iron Man of casting. Almost. I mean you'll never find casting THAT good again for a superhero movie but Ryan as Hal could have been close.
The movie just spends too much effort on too much story. Hector Hammond doesn't serve any purpose. He would have been a great sequel antagonist with Sinestro or without him. Parallax doesn't have enough story meaning you don't know what it's motivation and goals are. The Lantern Corps could have used a touch more to do but honestly if it had looked better it wouldn't have mattered. I think Hal's drunk driving story would have been a better first shot. Really sink home the "responsibility" angle.
It says something about how bad act III is that all the way up until Hal busts in on Hector almost 75% of the way through the movie and I would have rated it above average. Probably just a six but still. But on top of the throughout issues everything that happens STARTING with the first HvH fight is just so awful and non stop floating dominoes that it drags the entire movie down to my current rating which is 3.
I think there was a lot of potential in this. I think this movie took bad choices (as a film) but even with the choices they took there was potential. For instance I actually think it's kinda brilliant how they pull out of the time loop with a change in weather unexpectedly. I think it was performed WELL. I think it was kinda pointless but as a function of the story it works.
I was hoping that Michael would be redeemed. I think this could have been an interesting variation on the time loop genre where you're stuck in a time loop with someone you don't like. Not like an enemies to lovers situation which has been done to death but someone you actively don't like. It could have been fun it could have explored social responsibility. They could have taken this ostensibly evil character and turned him good using a morality that only applies to people who are functionally above the law.
But the movie didn't really do much. It didn't really SIT in the time loop. Like Groundhog Day for instance really saturates itself into the loop. Even fun goofy romps like Boss Level really luxuriate IN the loop really having a good time. Letting you feel the character in the loop. Here we don't spend much time exploring the loop. Maybe they want to argue we already understand the potential of the loop so we don't need to see it. Heck even the characters already understand the concept and jump two chapters ahead. Honestly they figure it out way too fast in my opinion.
But it could have been more. It could have been something special instead contrary to the description this is the story of one dude trapped in a loop with his love interest and his id manifest into a fellow addict.
