blott2319-1

The first and most blatant problem with Company of Heroes is that they didn't do a good enough job of writing characters and plot in order to justify all the action throughout the film. Making a good war film on a budget is entirely possible, but you have to start by making us care about the people in the war. I can forgive a lot of bad film-making if I'm engaged by a story, but I didn't enjoy this one. It's odd, because Company of Heroes sticks with such a small group of soldiers that it feels like it should have been easy to make it personal. But I couldn't tell you the name of any of these guys. In fact, there are only small aspects of their personality that I could describe. It was mostly just job titles and looks that differentiated one character from another (and some even looked the same.) The movie was more interested in keeping the action going, so there are fire-fights that start almost every five minutes. Considering the number of casualties we see in each fight, it's a surprise there is anyone left for the climax, yet somehow more soldiers just appear out of the woodwork to help out whenever they need more cannon fodder.

The effects are embarrassingly bad in Company of Heroes. It's like someone had one of those apps that allow you to insert explosions and blood splatter into your videos, and that's what they used for the finished product. They also break a number of the cardinal rules of film-making, and I'm no expert, but even I can tell when someone breaks the 180-degree rule for no logical reason. The whole film feels like it was created by amateurs who liked the video games, and thought they could make a movie loosely based on them. Then they binged a bunch of war movies and copied a lot of the things they saw in those, but made sure there was plenty of action. I mean who wants a bunch of cut scenes with character development? That's boring! The cast is loaded with no-names, who will probably remain no-names because they are so bland and uninteresting. When Tom Sizemore is the biggest face on your movie poster, you're really stretching to find any talent. Company of Heroes is watchable, so you can tolerate it if you must, but I'd never recommend it to anyone.

Ranking on my Flickchart Loses to The Untouchables Loses to The Fast and the Furious Wins against The NeverEnding Story Wins against The Last Picture Show Loses to The Asphalt Jungle Loses to My Neighbor Totoro Wins against Julia Loses to Do the Right Thing Loses to Cuban Fury Loses to Christine Wins against Dead Ringers

Company of Heroes ranked 1742 out of 2179 or 20%

When I heard about the new Jumanji movie, all I wanted was for them to duplicate the formula of the last one, but mix up the characters. It feels like they set it up perfectly for this simple idea, and laid the groundwork for nearly infinite sequels that all feel unique, even though they are the same at their core. All you need is to have new people enter the game and inhabit the same characters, and we get to see how the actors handle new challenges. I was grateful to see that Jumanji: The Next Level at least attempted to deliver on that potential. The personalities do bounce around a little and we are introduced to a couple new players, Danny DeVito and Danny Glover. This was where the majority of the comedy was added to the film. Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart have a lot of fun presenting themselves as old men, and I thought they did a reasonably good job with it. Also, the personal history between these characters brought the main storyline that worked in the film, because we need something more going on than just the video game in order to keep us emotionally invested.

I think where The Next Level fell short of the brilliance that so many of us found in Welcome to the Jungle is in the fact that they felt the need to bring back the same kids from the first movie. No one has long-lasting affection for Spencer or Bethany (if they even remember their names,) and frankly their problems were mostly resolved by the end of that film. It made no sense to use them again, and the writers had to reverse some of the growth they showed originally in order to justify their return to the game. I could see carrying over one experienced player, so you could shortcut some of the exposition and avoid all the aspects of learning how to play that were involved in Welcome to the Jungle, but that's all we needed. Make it fresh and new, with lots of external conflict that needs to be resolved in order to get them to work as a team so they can defeat the game. It seems so obvious, and yet they failed to see it. That being said, I still had a good time watching The Next Level. They found a bit of the magic from the prior movie, and earned some hearty laughs. It pales in comparison to what came before, but I still appreciate that they had moderate success.

I remember several years ago when Lucy came out that people were saying that Limitless was a more enjoyable spin on the whole idea of using 100% of your brain. I do have to commend this movie that it only mentions how little of our brain's potential we use, and doesn't spend time pretending this is based on real science. The pill might as well be magic for all the time they spend explaining it. This is a film that understands what it is, while Lucy was trying too hard to be a more serious film, which just made it seem dumber. I like the idea of someone who uses smarts to get ahead in business and simply make more money. That's the reality of what we all would do with this kind of power, so it makes sense. There was still one of those scenes in this movie of the hero using his brain-power to win a fight, which was kind of stupid, but at least that wasn't his main focus, and he didn't become some super-smart vigilante.

I think where Limitless falls short of being a high-quality film, is in the story structure. While I like the setup, and I think Bradley Cooper is a good actor for this role, it felt like the plot didn't go anywhere. Worse than that, it set up a lot of things that it never pays off at the end. It's almost like the filmmakers forgot that they started some of these subplots, so they never remembered to get back to them and explain to the audience what happened. I think the biggest frustration I had (with regards to the lack of follow-through) was the fact that they establish he has a master plan to work on, but then we are never clued in on what that might be. The conclusion suggests what his idea might have entailed, but since we didn't see him preparing for this outcome, it feels like the biggest deus ex machina imaginable. I still enjoyed Limitless as a refreshing take on some common sci-fi tropes, and I can see the potential for a TV series that some executive also saw. It's not a great film, but it is a fun one.