Movie_Beta

I'm not a particular fan of M. Night Shyamalan, mainly recalling that The Sixth Sense had a great twist and was a fairly unique movie and The Village had a good twist but was not so great... Well the Trap is just downright disappointing and poor. Where to start. The plot of trapping a murderer in a concert venue is pretty interesting and while in this setting the movie moves along ok, though the casting really drags things down. Hartnett is trying but is miscast. And Mr. 'M' gives himself an unusually long cameo which is stupid and awkward. The singer, obviously styled on Lady Gaga, named 'Lady Raven', is ok while singing (and obviously as a concert we are subjected to a near full setlist which gets tiresome). But while acting she is obviously not a trained or talented actor at all. So Googling her it turns out it is Mr. M's daughter. How is that for blatant nepotism!

The plot and acting is weak and the twists are slow and obvious. Really not much to like here and I did try. I've seen worse but he obvious nepotism takes a few more stars off. The movie is clearly only there as a vehicle for the singer to launcher her career via daddy's influence. 3/10.

Devotion stars Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell, and tells the true story of Jesse L. Brown and Tom Hudner, American naval aviators during the Korean War.

I came to this movie expecting more of a war movie, but this is definitely a drama biopic that happens to be set during (and close to) the Korean war. So definitely do not expect much action, as the little there is of it, arrives late in the 139 minutes run time.

The acting is great and we get to feel the characters personalities and emotions, of the two leads especially. For me, for what in large part is a movie on race and civil rights of the time, it unfortunately pulls the punches on what I would imagine it was actually like as a black pilot in the US navy at the time. We get some snide comments and the like but the true adversity is never fully portrayed, in my opinion.

The airborne and flying sequences are really nice and the costumes and cinematography look great, if not a little to clean and precise.

Unfortunately the pacing is a bit uneven with the first half a little overlong in setting the characters and scene and it feels a long time until we actually get to Korea.

But as someone who really enjoys historical biopics, this was a good, though not great movie, and overall, a story that really did deserve to be told. 7/10.

Civil War, directed by Alex Garland and staring Kirsten Dunst follows war journalists as they travel through American split by a devastating civil war.

I have to admit to being disappointed by this movie. It had the opportunity to be either a fascinating character driven drama movie or some form of action or action thriller movie, but doesn't fall into either category and feels empty as a consequence.

This is a movie that deserved a decent run time to flesh out the characters and to set the background story, but at 109 minutes it is both short but somehow sill feels meandering. Dunst's character is dour and unlikeable which causes issues for the viewers emotions of what is served to them in the story.

Other issues include the lack of background to the civil war story, encountering a strangely empty America and lack of depth with any of the characters.

It is not awful, just disappointing. 6/10.