GabrielDracula

Ballerina is a good action flick with great choreography, as is usually the case with Chad Stahelski movies, but it's also boring because it's John Wick part one retold with Ana De Armas in the leading role. You'll enjoy it if you're new to the Wickverse(?) But after four John Wick movies, I don't care to watch a complete retelling of the "on the run from Assassins Sans Frontières" arc of the Wick movies.

The winning move here would be to let the John Wick franchise rest. It ended on a high note, but alas, Hollywood is both creatively and morally bankrupt, so I don't doubt they'll find ways to milk the franchise more and retroactively ruin it with more unnecessary spin-offs, prequels, and sequels.

I recommend watching Atomic Blonde instead. It's a better movie, story, and a better femme fatale lead.

Ah, another pointless remake! This at least proves one thing: Modern Hollywood is creatively bankrupt. There is no doubt about that, but sadly, it's not actually bankrupt yet. They're taking old classics and remaking them for "modern audiences." Jake Gyllenhaal's gritty performance aside, the 2024 Road House is inferior to 1989. It played out like an above-average testosterone hallmark movie.

So, Post Malone shows up during the opening scene, but his face is poorly CGIed onto a lookalike, and it's cringe-worthy. That is important because it sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Everything is cringeworthy but in the most mellow way possible. Unlike the original, the 2024 version has no charm. None of the side characters are worth caring about; their problems are not really problems, the antagonist is lame, and his threats and "evil" plans are lame. There is no emotional weight to anything that happens in the movie.

Also, Connor McGregor's character only adds to the overall cringe. What's worse is that they try to set up a potential sequel with a mid-credits scene. You would be better off watching an actual UFC match than this movie.

This convoluted CGI fest of a sequel did not need to be made. Still, I applaud the hubris on display here by all parties involved in producing this "sequel," especially James Mangold, who has deconstructed Indy the same way he did Logan, but nobody (that liked Indy) asked for such a depressing depiction of an iconic childhood hero. It's yet another sad, broken, old-man protagonist brought back to the modern era only to be upstaged by some annoying newcomer with the charisma of all the mold under my kitchen sink.

It seems that all Disney (sans Walt) can do with their legacy franchises nowadays is remake them for "modern audiences." I can't wait to see what this creatively and morally bankrupt company does once nothing is left to remake and ruin.

TL;DR: the CGI is nice; you can see young Indy and hear the iconic music again. The chase sequences were all right. I give it a 3/10 just for those fleeting moments that appeal to one's nostalgia for the franchise. I also thank this movie for the retroactive praise that people will now heap upon 'The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,' an underappreciated sequel.