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Willow (2022)
Strangely bad bland YA fantasy comedy
I wont lie Willow is one of my favorite films of all time. It could be called a childrens fantasy made by adults for adults. The acting, music and story are superb.
This is the opposite of any of that. Its so strange to watch. Its like one of those generic spot filler YA fantasy movies thats just a vehicle for some disney star, but even in that context the writing pacing and action are so bland. Like Twilight bland. If nothing else they went super cheap on the writing. Its like an intern chained to a desk wrote this in 20 minutes and the cast are just collecting paycheck.
Really disappointed that Disney would take an IP like Willow and dump out schedule filler trash like this.
Dual (2022)
Very disappointing. Dry humor doesn't work.
I wish I'd have known it was the "Art of Self-Defense" guy going into this. I was expecting something vey different from the trailer. Something more interesting or exciting. Even knowing that now I still dont think it comes close to measuring up.
The premise is true to the synopsis. Sarah is dying and decides to get cloned, but upon learning she wont be dying, in order to live she has to kill her clone in ritual combat. Sounds really cool. Its not. It's drab and boring, not accidently, intentionally. Everyone talks like robots and you're supposed to be only amused by the general absurdity of it all. Its barely longer than a short film, so that is literally all of it.
The problem is that it's just not funny or interesting. There's no highs or lows here. There's no humor in 90% of the film. Theres exactly 2 gags and the rest is played painfully straight. It's hard to describe but imagine a wes anderson movie except theres nothing hipster, bizarre or ridiculous. Its very very subdued, cloyingly desperate for you to think it's funny because of that. It reminded me of the Monty Python sketch "I came for an argument", except played straight and there's no punchlines or audience surrogate and you're supposed to laugh at the idea of such a facility. You get what its "trying" to do, but instead of laughing you just roll your eyes and feel bored.
Whats really disappointing is that I liked the "Art of Self-defense". It was pretty wacky and out there. There was some tension, hilarity and twists. Remove all that and this is what you have.
I assume this wes anderson-esque monotone absurdist comedy is this writer/director style otherwise Id say this movie would have worked better if the characters all acted like real people. If it "needs" to have this tone then it needed to be much more interesting or ridiculous. Like have them hunting each other throughout the movie instead of it mostly being people sitting around being awkward robots.
I'd give it a lower score but theres a few scenes I briefly found "fun". Especially when Karen Gillian gets angry and actually shows some emotion. I wanted much more of that. Otherwise this doesn't rate slowburn. Its just boring.
John and the Hole (2021)
Vapid vignettes in search of a movie
I hate doling out 1/10 because it's generally kind of childish, but I have to here because I would actively tell people to avoid this one.
This isn't really a movie in the traditional sense. It's an allegory trying to convey or explore the experience becoming an adult. As the premise states a sociopathic or perhaps overly coddled rich kid dumps his family in a hole for the purpose of exploring the freedom of adulthood.
That's fine, but there's no real payoff here, nothing is learned in any meaningful way. It, almost insultingly, includes a side story which also doesn't payoff, but instead vapidly goes "look look isn't adulthood scary!?"
Yes it's scary. Duh. The problem here is there's nothing after it throws the allegory in the audiences face. I can't help but feel the writer had a half-baked idea and couldn't come up with the punchline. Instead the movie meanders along with drawn out scenes of people eating and robot dialog until it ends out of sheer boredom.
This one is strictly for those that can enjoy films that are pure atmosphere and do not need substance.
A Quiet Place Part II (2020)
A Quiet Place ...again
I heard critics raving about this when it first came out, but I don't get what the hype was about. It's literally just the same movie as the first one. Same beats, same jump scares, it even has an almost identical ending. A Quiet Place had some solid acting and tension that carried it despite the monsters being somewhat generic and one note. It irritated me in the first one that monsters don't actually appear to eat anything or serve any purpose other than to chase humans and throw them around. It worked the first time, but the second movie doesn't evolve the story in any meaningful way or add any nuisance. The family gets chased around some more, the frequency turns out to hurt monsters again. It's wasn't terrible, but I was mildly bored through the whole thing. It would have been far worse had I tried to watch these back to back so this time around it was just.. okay.
Hunter Hunter (2020)
Only labeled horror due to a couple grotesque scenes
I have mixed feelings about reviewing this at all because it put me in the position of trying to review a decent Thriller that's only labeled Horror because of a couple scenes that are grotesque on the level of "Martyrs (2008)" and left me physically ill after watching it.
The movie itself starts off kind of interesting. It's a fairly compelling story of a family of trappers living in rural Canada subsisting on wild game. They very poor and game isn't paying enough to prepare them for the long winter coming. During this a wolf has reentered their territory and theres a dispute about how to handle it. Most of that story would have worked except the it switches gears early on to something a bit more horrifying and far from the synopsis. There's some questionable logic turns throughout the remainder of the film that lead to a very difficult to watch ending.
Basically what you think this movie is about, it isn't. Is that movie good? I don't know. I think enough is there that I have difficulty deriding the film. The writing is mostly solid, the cinematography and acting is well done. The result was not for me. I can't elaborate anymore without spoiling, but if you think this is a tense horror film about a family battling a wolf. Skip it. Hard skip.
The Ice Road (2021)
Bizarrely stupid. Just strangely bad on every level.
It's hard to describe without actually experiencing it, but the dialog in this is one of the strangest things I've ever seen. Imagine if a 5 year Chinese child wrote an entire script for a movie and then a 5 year old Finnish child with some secondhand knowledge of English translated the script and it was phoned in by actors needing a quick paycheck. There's an actual line where an adult explains to another adult what the word "redundant" means. Not in context or for comedy. It's just a random, serious dialog exchange in the film. I've honest to God never seen anything I could compare this to. This not "bad" dialog, it's almost as if the script was auto-generated by a learning computer.
I also don't think anyone involved in trucking across ice roads was involved in this because even from even a basic layman's understanding of the physics all their decisions are dumb..like really dumb. I wish I could say this reminds me of "The core" but it's far far stupidier. This not cheap or lowrent...its compellingly broken. This is Ed wood bad. I suggest waiting until MST3K or rifftrax gets ahold of this. They are going to have a field day.
Clarice (2021)
Alex Kurztman is back to ruin something else you like
The minute the show started something felt..off. The girl they have playing Clarice is trying to fake Jodie fosters accent in sotl and it's..sooooo bad. Like she forces a country accent by using country slang "lack" instead of "like" etc and she can't do the draws and such so she just comes off as a country robot. She doesn't look or act like Clarice so I kinda wish they'd just drop the whole mimicry and have her act like a normal human being. It's all kinda laugh out loud from there. The dialog is atrocious. Zero chemistry between any characters and it's just trying to copy the usual murder crime show. Nothing interesting to see here. Idk, I guess I was hoping for something with a little more enthusiasm for quality. I was genuinely surprised its turned out to be a cheap cash in, I mean there wasnt a ton of call for this especially considering the story from there has already been told. Then I saw Kurztman in the credits and it all lined up. I guess it's difficult to get these clowns out once they're ingrained in the system. Just skip it.
Outside the Wire (2021)
Painfully dull and disappointing
Ah man I drug myself through an hour of it and at the point where I started fast forwarding I put my foot down. This was just worth my time. The dialog feels like it was autogenerated. No one says anything personable or compelling. Its just go here "where are the nukes" "I don't know!" " Ok go here ask this guy!" Rinse repeat. Whomever wrote this does not have a passing understanding of military, war or geography. Some of the scenes were laughably straight out of a TV cop drama chase scene. If you're expecting interesting reflections on man vs machine, forget it. It never comes up in any meaningful way. If you're expecting warzone terminator action you can forget that too. So what do you get? Anthony Mackie patting his costar on the shoulder every couple minutes and calling him "rook". I'm dead serious he does it like 20-30 times in this. That a ..lot of "War is hell rook" painfully generic one liners about war being bad. Stay away, go read a book or get the dishes done.
Blood Quantum (2019)
Out of context, not so great
I finally sat down and watched this because a reviewer I enjoy had been raving about it since it was released. I came out with pretty mixed feelings.
If you don't know Blood quantum is a zombie apocalypse film in which the big twist is that native americans are immune so the story largely takes place on a reservation people are trying to get to for safety and the turmoil the tribesmen go through in this new circumstance.
I'll admit I was ready for what a heady film this was going to be. My expectation as you can almost read from the movie poster was that this would largely be an action flick portrayed from the perspective of an all native american cast.
...Not so much. While it starts out with the aforementioned apocalypse things things slow down in the second act and the rest of the film largely becomes a lesson in understanding that just like any other culture Native Americans do not all think the same, they are not all good wholesome people and they deal with untold personal struggles around purpose and addiction. This is a very dower film. Its not uplifting or exciting. Theres no heroes. This closest thing to a protagonist is a very flawed tribal cop and failed father who struggles to try and keep whats left of his family from imploding. The story is unevenly paced largely because of how often they stop to drive home some of the social issues. There's just randomly placed scene of zombie stuff and then long stands of arguing and emotional conflict. Both these things can make for a good movie they just didnt quite nail the balance in storytelling.
I guess what I'm saying is that this just depressing and unfortunately there's nothing going on past that. For what its worth theres nothing really dopie or anything to make painfully obvious that its low-budget. Theres a somewhat grotesque scene in the second act thats going to come off as jumping the shark a bit, but at that point the movie isn't even about zombies anymore.
I think theres something here for the right audience. I wasn't explicitly bored, I didn't want shake my fist at the screen and storm out, but its not something I'd ever want to watch again. I'd only recommend it if you like your zombie drama subgenre.
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
Admirable but failed attempt to flatter Sam Raimi
I think I'm supposed to dislike this movie a lot more than I did. I can see I'm gonna be a lone wolf in calling this a 7 but very close to an 8. That's ok, "The Thing" was critical panned when it came out. Not everybody has to like the same things. I think I can summarize this as saying I kinda already want to rewatch it.
Banging on about the Sam Raimi reference, this is a horror adventure comedy. The story isn't invested in being serious horror or either of the other two. Its trying to find that lost art of being ...ridiculous?
CGM plays a female agent in the military who forces her way onto a plane with a confidential mission. No one takes her seriously and everything goes to hell when the plane is attacked by both the natural and super natural elements of flight and war.
It has it's moments where the director and writer are doing interesting and fun things that reminded me vaguely of Evil Dead or maybe cabin in the woods, you know you have the cornball everyday joe cast fighting literal hell on earth, but neither being cartoon characters nor overly dramatic. When its good its great, unfortunately when its not good...its really not good.
The dialog is decidedly not witty or timely. The entire crew is racist and sexist. Theres a time and place where that can good work in a self-aware style like RDJ in tropic thunder. The dialog in this however, is dumb, mean spirited and unrealistic in wartime. By that I mean its non-stop. Throughout the film the characters chatter nonstop on the squad channel. Calling each other slurs and at times, outright babbling. Even in tense WWII action moments this is simply not how people would talk no matter how cavalier their personalities. What makes this worse is CGM is the only one with any personality. The rest seem like fake cardboard cutouts with lazy dialog. Theres a few shining moments like a scene similar Will Smiths "welcome to earth" in ID, but the rest is lack luster. This needed an expert with at least some WWII personel knowledge. These people very ..very inauthentic. Painfully so.
All that said it was smartly paced and fun. I really enjoyed myself. I could watch it again just for CGMs action scenes.
Solid little indie horror, not quite a "good" one.
Raccoon Valley (2018)
Interesting, but problematic.
Less of a movie and more of a proof of concept. The idea is to show you how far $175 can go. I think that's amazing and they should be applauded for what they put together with that, but sadly I don't think it's fair to take that into account when recommending the film. It's an interesting watch, but I would not call it captivating so much as a curiosity.
The narrative is fairly straight forward. As stated in the summary a woman is left behind in a biohazard outbreak and must navigate safety and escape a hostile, spooky environment. There's no dialog. Instead you interpret what's she's feeling via a sort of amorphous soundscape score and her actions.
This is where the movie, at times, fails the viewer. The woman never shows any emotion what-so-ever. It's like she truly doesn't care, but that contradicts her actions as she desperately moves from one situation to the next. Additionally a lot of the things she does are not only unrealistic, but especially not in character for her special circumstance. There's just many examples throughout where she doesn't "act" how someone in her situation would, categorically, for very specific reasons. This unfortunate because it's not budget related. I think if they'd done a little more research, the protagonist could have been portrayed more realistically, to the benefit of the film. Lastly, while I quite enjoyed the soundtrack, there's a few scenes where the tone didn't shift to fit the situation so it ended up being almost bright and bouncy when it should have been heightening the tension.
All that said I never really threw up my hands and walked out. This is a slow burn film and I think it did it well. There's a scene in particular that straight up gave me goosebumps. There's a million ways they could have screwed that one up, but man it felt lifted out of a nightmare. That moment alone elevated this from a 3 to a 5.
I wish I could give this a higher rating considering the budget, but I think for non-cinephiles and anyone not a film school student this will likely be a pass. It's only going to be for folks that enjoy hard work shown in a film rather than the whole picture.
Whiplash (2014)
Whiplash gave me whiplash
I'm not a fan of jazz. I'm not a fan of Miles teller. I was aware this movie had gotten numerous accolades, but I'd kept putting it off because I was expecting some kind dramatic character study with a lot of jazz thrown in. Man was I so wrong.
The summary is fairly straight forward Miles Teller is a drummer attending university in the hopes of someday reaching the fame of famous Jazz musicians like Charles Parker. While practicing late one night he's observed by J.K. Simmons' Fletcher a renowned Jazz composer looking for players that could fill out the sound his orchestral band needs to win a coming US competition meant to be the height of success. After accepting an invitation It becomes immediately clear that Fletcher is an awful, terrifying taskmaster who's mental games consistently crushes members souls while also making it clear if they give up their hopes of ever reaching success are over. While at first intimidated Miles Teller's Neiman becomes obsessed with winning the mental battle with Fletcher. This battle reaches insane, near unparalleled heights, in cinematic history. This is not a drama, this is an action thriller. I mean that literally.
This movie was so intense I was gripping the edge of my seat until the credits. In a way I would sort of compare this to full metal jacket. Specifically the basic training in the first act that leads to the terrifying conclusion, but the largest difference being that unlike Pvt. Pyle, Miles Teller's Neiman has a drive and intensity to succeed far beyond what is acceptably human. It also kind of reminded me of The Usual Suspects in that there's twists in this movie you can't possibly see coming. I think I audibly gasped three separate times. I left this film with the kind of exultation and exhaustion I didn't think you could feel watching a movie. I would recommend this to anybody excepting those with heart conditions.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
I kinda hated it. I feel bad, but I'm just being honest.
I was reasonably excited for this, but It's awful and boring. The film is riddled with plotholes, with every scene is just sort of jammed together. Nothing thats happening makes any sense. The ending doesn't make any sense. It's not fun or exciting.
Cheetah is bad CGI. Like cats bad.
It's so bad that I'd be seriously interested in see some kind of documentary on what went wrong here. I can't help but feel like they had an outline and just started filming until they ran out of budget.
I can't say much more without getting spoilerly. It's really difficult to recommend this to anybody. This is like "are you bored and literally have nothing else to do..I guess you could kill time and watch this.."
The Endless (2017)
Watching Resolution should be a prerequisite.
I'm giving this movie a 7/10 only in the context that I enjoyed it "as" a sequel to Resolution. In fact it's really a direct sequel. Almost like the next episode in a Tv show. Sort of like trying to weigh Breaking Bad Season 2 without season 1 having existed.
In context - the movie is rough. None of the characters carry any of the scenes. All the dialog is spoken in a sort of David lynch twin peaks manner, all monotone and just moving the story forward. Very rarely do you feel any genuine emotion from the cast.
That said the movie is weird and interesting. Two brothers who ran away from a supposed death cult and live a poverty stricken lifestyle decide to go back to the cult, which for reasons unknown never actually finalized their end, to give the younger brother some closure.
As the days pass tension mounts and the brothers begin to think the supernatural is majorly at play and things get...crazy.
The movie provides finite closure to "Resolution", the writers previous movie which ended on an insane Cabin in the Woods-esque cliff hanger. It does it well and on a whole, while slow and dry, I enjoyed this conclusion.
Out of context - Weird, slow, dry scifi in the woods film that only really becomes engaging 45 minutes in and ends on a confusing note that would leave many people angry.
Really...just watch Resolution first.
Centigrade (2020)
What a bizarre thing to film
It's entirely plausible that this largely happened in real life as it did in the film, but if it did, why make a film about it? It's over 2 hours of nothing. Nothing escalates, nothing interesting happens until maybe the last 15-20 minutes. It just two people sitting in a car being cold and depressing for 2 hours of screen run time. Avoiding spoilers, but the amount of calenders time they're willing to sit there is unrealistic. Even if it wasn't it's just boring to watch. I say that as someone who was interested in seeing this. I was ready for a tense slow burn. No tention no burn. It just kinda ends at a nonspecific point. Man, I'd pay money to get my two hours back.
Warrior Nun (2020)
Pulls together in the second half
Warrior Nun toes the line pretty hard between cheezy teen cw buffy ripoff and actual intriguing action drama revolving around the Warrior Nuns theme.
The series becomes tedious almost at the outset. Through random act of fate a recently deceased teen waif is given super powers via angelic halo implanting itself in her corpse right as its previous owner dies in a mission turned betrayal and ambush.
The awakened next is line Warrior Nun is, in a word, insufferable. She's just awful. Her arc amounts to being a selfish acerbic jerk because, until her death, she'd been a paraplegic with dead parents to "sort of" redeeming herself as a warrior Nun. The issue is she's nonstop quips and whining. It is barely tolerable. They a make point throughout the show to acknowledge that every other character feels pretty much the same way the viewer does. She is not likable.
The first 3-5 episodes or so focus on this pseudo arc of her just wanting to enjoy life and the Warrior Nunnery chasing her around trying to either get her to join their war or at least give the Halo back.
Thankfully, things take a hard shift at the midpoint in the story. She does become slightly less annoying and the plot thickens to question the motives of the church and the true origins of the Halo. In the final act, just as you're assuming the final boss fights about to happen and the shows over, the big twist and true climax unveils and the show gets much more interesting..then /curtains.
Its weird to say this, but I am mildly addicted now. I'm anxious enough to see what happens in season 2 not to give this show a solid thumbs down and recommend a big pass.
I guess I'm saying the show is "fine". If you want to see the warrior nun fun stuff I'm afraid you'll have to hang in there for a few episodes, but overall its worth it.
Greyhound (2020)
Acceptable hollywood apology for "Midway"
The first thing I thought leaving this film was that my pallet was finally cleansed of that abomination of a film "Midway". Greyhound is everything Midway wasn't. It's well paced, streamlined, uses CGI appropriately and felt mostly "real".
I don't think it's fair to lump together the greatest generation and baby boomers as the singular audience for this type of film. I think a well done war movie can be for anyone, as well proven by films like 1917 and Saving Private Ryan. That said this film can be described as stereotypical of the kind of film demographics who have experienced times of war or are war buffs would enjoy more than the average audience.
Greyhound is barely an hour and thirty minutes in length. If I recall correctly it retells the 36 hour journey of a supply convoy escort between air support deadzones of the Atlantic during WWII. The Convoy is being hunted the entire journey by a squad of german u-boats. Nearly every second of the films run time is spent engaging in battle or the greyhound dealing with the aftermath.
This is both to the films credit and somewhat a weakness. More often than not it's the interludes in war films that ruin them. Greyhounds creators have somewhat bizarrely chosen to just not have them at all. In lieu of the quiet moments, to the films credit, there's constant subtle nods to the heart break and exhaustion experienced by the captain and crew. The captain is awake for so long, he inadvertently thanks members who have died, his feet bleed from standing, an endless stream of coffee comes in and out of the picture.
You'll notice it sounds like I'm praising the film, but it does suffer a bit from feeling less solid reality at times.
This comes from two detriments, the first being that I'm sorry to say it really could have used just a pinch of drama. It didnt need to be 3 hours long or anything, but man I was thirsty of just 10 minutes of characters talking about anything other than the problematic radar or radioing the other ships. It felt like every character had "something" to say and I would have liked to hear it, even if just a bit. This instead was just shy of being one of those war re-enactments you see in documentaries.
The second, and this is a minor nitpick, but the CGI ship battles were a bit rough and obvious. I understand, this was not done on a huge budget and to be clear the CGI looked fine, just noticeable. In a perfect world I'd have liked to see more practical effects.
Easy recommendation for anyone who just wants to get absorbed in a WWII action film for a couple hours.
The Rhythm Section (2020)
It needed more drafts
In summary - An overall drab experience lacking anything to grab you and draw you in.
The Rhythm section stars Blake Lively as a woman who lost her entire family to a terrorist act and is ultimately given an opportunity for revenge. It plays out somewhat blandly as she trains and goes through ups and downs before meting out her revenge with mixed results.
There's a lot of interesting directions you could go with this well worn theme. You could focus on her struggle to absolve herself of guilt and loss, ultra violent action revenge fetishism, dramatic turns of the political complexities of terrorism, her rebirth as a vengeful spirit etc. Unfortunately it really doesn't do much of any one thing or anything well. It just sort of happens and then its over. Very..."meh".
Actually "A Vigilante" which came out recently comes to mind as a far more interesting revenge flick that buries its story deeply into how trauma can fundamentally change someone into a "vengeful spirit". Skip this and just go watch that instead.
The Rental (2020)
In a word "Disappointing"
I wouldn't say I had high hopes for this film, but when the trailers released and Alison Brie and Dan Stevens showed up I did put this on my calendar.
I enjoy a good horror/thriller and having two more or less A-listers in the main cast gave me hope for some elevated material.
Despite solid dialog and acting I'm afraid the entire affair was largely hohum. I don't think I'm spoiling anything to say the plot revolves around a cast who rent a summer home for the weekend and something something serial killer stalker etc.
In order to avoid yawning through these genre features you really just need one of two things; either an interesting dynamic between the prey or an interesting antagonist. This lacked both. The cast is largely unlikable, there's no one interesting here. The villain, while given a somewhat interesting twist at the end, is largely one note. It was just all very milquetoast.
It's a shame really, I noticed this is Dave Francos writing and directorial debut so that may account for the lack of polish. I hope a respected colleague can point him towards one of the experts like Mike Flanagan (HUSH) to beef up the script for the next outing. I did like the twist. It just needed..more.
Kingdom (2014)
A show to love and hate
I obsessively watched this completed series over the course of a week, almost nonstop, the first season over the course of a day dragging myself to bed at 5am. I've never done anything like that with a show before and at the end of it I can't decide if I loved it or hated it.
The show centers around a family of MMA fighters who run a small Gym in California. That said theres no amped up melodrama or theatrics. Every character is real and 3 dimensional. The highs and lows are everyday and empathetic to anyone who's faced diversity and tragedy.
The show was impossible to put down despite few real climatic moments. I stayed tuned after every episode mostly out of bizarre worry for the characters. Like I'd watch the next episode because I wanted to see that the characters would be ok.
The show has it's fair share of laughs, but it's largely a drama and a painful one at that. I think that's where the hate comes in. By the end of it the emotional weight of it really dragged me down. The 3rd and final season arc ends in Shakespearean tragedy effecting perhaps the most likable character in the show. I yelled at the TV. In a way the show made up for it by ending. My exact thoughts were "how can they possibly keep going after this??!". Thankfully they didn't. The show closes out on a bittersweet high note. I feel comfortable recommending this because it really doesn't need anymore closure. All the pieces, though sometimes painful, end up exactly where they should.
The Old Guard (2020)
Entertaining, but very derivative
Throughout the run time of Old Guard I kept having this nagging feeling that I'd kind of seen all this before. Immortals who have been around forever and can't die, but have a mysterious background. Then on the fifth or so time the movie measurably stopped for Charlize Theron to mug the camera and look morose it occurred to me - She played this same character in Hancock. The whole movie kinda reeks of "I saw this play out already in another movie."
I think I ultimately left pretty disappointed. I can't really put my finger on it but I feel like I've seen this movie about 5 times already. It doesn't help that Bloodshot just came out and did a similar blood sponge hero guy thing..ah deadpool also.
Bear with me I'm fine with any number of these last action immortal gun hero movies as long as its interesting, you know Deadpool tapped into so many ideas its almost a genre onto itself. This.. not so much.
The movie follows what initially are empathetic, interesting, immortal mercenary do-gooders as they do a job, get betrayed, battle an evil one note CEO villain guy, lose powers yadda yadda I've lost interest in describing this. You've seen this movie.
There was definitely room to do something different here. I like all the actors, even the plunky new member James McAvoy...no wait that was "Wanted" a movie about immortal gun slinger mercenary heros...the plucky new member KiKi Layne joining the group of immortal gun slinger mercenary heros....you get where I'm going with this.
No this is the same old deal. The betrayal is forecasted a mile away. The origins and back story are hinted at for a maybe sequel. Yawn.
It was fine, just don't expect anything new.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
I was really impressed. First good DC animated movie in a while.
I think before I say anything I want to point out that this is a R rated movie. Hard R. It is uncomfortably violent. My parents wouldn't mind, but if you're gonna watch this with your kid, you've been warned. There's some real nightmare fuel in this.
That said, I highly enjoyed this one. The writing was pretty good the storytelling was good. I can't think of anything to complain about in this one. Lately DC animated films have been very disappointing. Hush in particular was mashed together nonsense with zero emotional tension or weight. The characters felt much more natural and more in line with the comics quality in this one.
The latest string of animated films post Justice League unlimited era have never explicitly stated they take place in the same universe. They just vaguely and often poorly adapt recent events such as Flashpoint and New 52. While trying my best not to spoil anything I do want to point out this movie ties a lot of those disjointed films together and has massive repercussions for the semi-connected newer DC films. In a way its kind of a sadistic payoff for having to sit through them.
If I were to summary the theme of the film I'd lean on marvels "The Ultimates I&II" or "Age of Apocalypse". I know it sounds strange using Marvel comics as a comparison but Marvel always seems to do grim high stakes better than DC. I can't think of a recent DC book that did "grim reality" better than Marvel. What I'm getting at is that if you enjoy more grim mature DC books like some Elseworlds such as DKR or Red Son this is definitely for you. Sadly I thought this was much better written than Red Son which was a very haphazard adaptation. I hope the DC animated team continues putting out films with this elevated quality.
Easy recommendation for the mature comics fans.
Ford v Ferrari (2019)
I wanted to like it more than I did.
I know I'm the bad guy when I say this, but I honestly thought it was just fine. Not great, but fine.
I liked all aspects of the movie except the script. I'm a shelby Cobra/GT fan, I like cars, I like racing, I even like Le Mans specifically so I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.
That said there many times in the film where they really amp up the sports drama cliches so much that by the end of I was starting to get irritated.
There's a part where Ken Miles says something to effect of "We have to dump the engine, it's no good if we can't break" and his wife in the background goes "but isn't the whole point of it the power?" and I actually groaned out loud. Not so much that his wife isn't an expert, but that the director felt like his audience was too stupid to be following along at this point.
..and that kinda thing happens throughout the whole movie. There's many times where the same line gets repeated a couple times to make sure the audience understands whats happening I guess, but I feel like they aren't giving the audience enough credit.
They also included an unnecessary mustache twirling villain that comes in every few minutes to try to foil the plans of the heroes, but it doesn't really make any sense because it's in his best interest for them to succeed. He's literally being paid to make sure they win. It gets pretty hokey at times.
Despite both Damon and Bale being all kinds of great, Bale morphs into Ken Miles near perfectly, I can't give it an 8/10 because, while its a cool time waster and especially nice to see the cars on screen, I thought as whole it was just fine. Not great, but just fine.
The Little Stranger (2018)
Abjectly bad.
I just can't find the heart to be forgiving with the score on this one.
In a nutshell it's a Victorian Era, m. night shyamalan inspired, ghost story, but where as even his worst films give you something to keep you in your seat this doesn't nothing for over 60 minutes before thrusting you into an ending you were supposed to somehow pick up on the whole time.
I literally sat down for a slowburn horror film. I knew what I was getting myself into and I really do appreciate stories that build up for the climax, but this didn't "slow burn" into anything.
The first hour of the film nothing of any supernatural nature happens. It's played as a straight Victorian drama. If there were supposed to be queues, they were played in a such a way that I could not seem to pick up on.
After that things sort of...tumble together and in the last 20 minutes or so and you're left wishing they'd edited it to balance out the first and second halves of the film.
Regardless it's not really worth the wait. The reveal feels flat and I wish just I hadn't bothered. It was very disappointing because I genuinely like all the actors involved and there were compelling moments, however it was just sort of toothless.
When I review movies which had quality elements I try to be fair on the scoring, but I would feel like a massive jerk recommending this to anyone.
You Should Have Left (2020)
Good story, but a clunky adaptation
About midway through this the movie Silent Hill came to mind. Not in relation to the story, but in the execution. Silent Hill was adapted from an incredibly scary videogame. They essentially took all the spooky bits and mashed them together on screen. I kept feeling like this looked better on paper. Sure enough in the credits its mentioned this is based on a novel of the same name by Daniel Kehlmann.
Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried play a married couple who, along with their daughter, take a vacation to a remote mansion in wales only to find there's something wrong and spooky about the house.
Off the bat Amanda and Kevin have zero chemistry. They just aren't believable as a couple and it doesn't help that shes clearly young enough to be his daughter, grand daughter even. They try to play to it, but theres just no warmth between them so it just comes off as fake and cringy.
Everything else in the film is equally clunky. His interactions with the townfolk are silly and kill the immersion. A bizarre and pointless casting choice for the "villain" is so ridiculous some audiences will laugh unintentionally.
The spooky bits are neat but not frightening. Its all just too goofy.
Its a shame because now I just want to go read the book and forget I watched this. Pretty disappointing especially considering this was written and directed by the "Stir of Echoes" guy. Actually if youre still reading this. go watch that instead. Much better film all around.