Dory_Darko

Oh how I was looking forward to this... Yeah, like everybody else, I know. I'm certainly not alone in my love for X-Men, although, in all honesty, I haven't kept up enough to know all the details. And so, there were more than enough moments and references throughout which left me clawing my own brain (much like a certain character in the movie) looking for the right information to go with what I was seeing to explain the overwhelming mayhem that was going on. Unfortunately, for the most part, I was left feeling exactly like that: overwhelmed and pummelled by the nonsensical mayhem.

Please understand: I freaking love Deadpool!! And I love Wolverine even more, I really do. You have no idea how high my anticipation was for this collaboration that's basically been 24 years in the making. 'Logan' (2017) was a truly beautiful piece of cinema, deeply moving and virtually flawless. It was a truly fitting ending to one of the best fictional characters in modern cinema. I remember going into 'Deadpool & Wolverine' extremely excited, and then, as the introductory scene started rolling out, suddenly I thought to myself, "Oh God, I hope they don't ruin it." I was overcome by a sudden sense of dread that somehow, Wolverine's resurrection in this movie would somehow completely demolish the feeling left behind by 'Logan'. And I hate to say it, but... I wasn't entirely wrong. Certainly, this is Deadpool and you know going in that absolutely *nothing* is sacred, but still... Was it worth it? Was it at least funny? The answer is yes... and no.

The absolute worst thing has happened: I didn't love 'Deadpool & Wolverine'. I didn't hate it either. It left me feeling ambivalent. Who the hell wants to feel ambivalent about the greatest X-Men pairing of all time??

The first act was great. It gave me great hopes for the second and third acts, and then, suddenly, that feeling vanished. The start of the second act is awesome, no doubt about it. D&W are hurled into what's essentially the garbage bin of the universe, and this is where all the fabled cameos start rolling in. And then, inexplicably, there's a shift in tone. The first familiar X-Men face to turn up made me super happy, and then it was over before you could even blink and I felt a devastating disappointment. I was so looking forward to this particular reunion/confrontation and it ended so abruptly that I felt robbed. I felt the shift happen with the rest of the audience as well, it was palpable. From this moment on, so much happens all at once and we're thrown into a setting that's so reminiscent of "Deadpool and Wolverine beyond Thunderdome", (including actual jokes about Mad Max) that somehow, it passes the point of parody and turns into on-the-nose cliché. It all feels too familiar, and at the same time, so strange and confusing, I was just constantly stuck in a feeling of "what the hell is going on"?! Who are all these characters? What are they doing here? Why did Feige et al pull open such a random can of X-Men villains without giving any of them any worthy screen time? How are we even supposed to understand everything that's happening when all we are given to go on is an overload of references and puzzle pieces that we apparently have to put together ourselves? Do they expect every single audience member to possess an encyclopaedic knowledge of the entire MCU? Jason Flemyng and Kelly Hu are back as Azazel and Lady Deathstrike respectively and are given so little screentime and not even a single line of dialogue, it really makes you wonder if they prioritised quantity over quality this time. The answer to me is clearly, yes. It feels as if they spent 15 minutes working on the actual story for this film, and the rest of the time they had on gathering as many Marvel characters (and nearly all their original actors!) as possible to pummel the audience into their own kind of Void, where we might actually be fooled into thinking that an overkill of quantity actually equates quality.

The rest of the audience clearly felt the same way I did. From the start of the second act, for at least about half an hour or so, it was awkwardly quiet in the theatre. Nobody laughed and all the jokes fell completely flat. It wasn't until the third act that things started looking up again. Maybe it has all become too familiar. The first Deadpool movie was incredible, because it was something that had never actually been done before, style wise. The tone was so original and refreshing, and the ironic nature of the humour was such an original concept that it all worked surprisingly well. Then they did it a second time and even though it was a little less brilliant, it was still great. This time, it's just... yeah I've seen this before. Oh ha-ha, ironic joke. A dozen ironic songs. Breaking the fourth wall so much it's been destroyed completely. Subtlety was never Deadpool's strong suit, but this is overkill, even for him.

God, I feel like a right sourpuss right now. Was it all bad? No!! Absolutely not! In fact, there was a lot that was hysterically funny, really well done and OH MY GOD WOLVERINE IN HIS ORIGINAL COSTUME IS THE COOLEST THING EVER AND SOOOOO WORTH THE WAIT!! There will truly never be another Wolverine like Hugh Jackman, and I for one am so thankful that he came back to do this one more time! For this reason alone, this movie is well worth the price of an admission ticket. And yes, some of the cameos are truly awesome - there are a few who were seriously unexpected surprises - and are a joy to watch. But still... I can't shake the feeling that it could have been done very differently. There was just too much of everything, but (and here's the true irony of Deadpool 3) by and large the best scenes were those where Poolboy and Wolfie were alone together. That's where the magic was; they didn't need anyone else. The story was downright idiotic and the main villain was annoying and uninteresting AF, and the few cameos I was truly looking forward to were all so short they barely added anything of value, with a couple of exceptions. And the thing that puzzles me the most is the staggering absence of Vanessa. They already ticked me off by virtually erasing her from DP2, and now she has even less screen time. I don't get it. Not only is her presence Wade's most important driving force, but the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin is so awesome, that I am simply dumbfounded as to why they wouldn't use her more. Oh man, I could go on forever... There is so much that I loved, and so much else that frustrated and confused me.

Is it worth it? Yes.

Is it all I hoped it would be? No.

He did it again. And I don't even really understand how. He has some kind of mysterious, special power that he secretly wields over us and we don't even notice. That's how he keeps tricking us into spending all our hard-earned money to see his movies, so much so that we've made him the most commercially successful director of all time. Because these are James Cameron's most typical trademarks, for pretty much all of his movies, which he has once again dutifully employed in Avatar 2:

~ The story is paper-thin.

~ The dialogue was written by a 16-year-old intern.

~ The soundtrack is unbelievably cheesy.

~ The lead actor has no discernable acting skills.

~ The bad guys are all 100% completely evil, and the good guys are all but entirely saintly.

~ The message and moral of the story are about as subtle and nuanced as a jackhammer.

And yet.....

IT'S SO DAMN COOL.

The world he and his visual design team have created is truly a work of art... It's stunningly beautiful, creative and inventive and it makes you want to be there so badly, it hurts. The action sequences are reliably awesome as always, and there are some truly heartfelt emotional passages. In all honesty, the story is awfully predictable, and an almost step-by-step rehash of the first movie. But it's damn near impossible to be bothered by this, because the magic is there, and it's real. And the whales... Oh my god, the whales. Or whale-like creatures, anyway. Absolutely spellbinding. The familiar characters are precisely the same as they were before, and it makes the past 13-year wait seem like nothing at all. It's like meeting with friends you haven't seen for a while. I especially love Zoe Saldaña, she was always the shining star of Avatar, and she's just as mesmerising here, even if her screentime is a bit shorter. The new characters are all good, strong additions to the whole. Cliff Curtis is very powerful as the Sea People's chief, and Kate Winslet is absolutely unrecognisable as his mate, which is as big a compliment as I can think of.

But the biggest, and most pleasant surprise, are Jake and Neytiri's children. All but one, played by young, virtually inexperienced actors who all understand their assignments perfectly. They are, without exception, lovely and engaging and very real. They each have to deal with their own respective troubles that come with their coming of age, and all these young performers were cast perfectly. I loved them. The "but one", however, is one of the most surprising character/performer pairings I've ever seen. Sigourney Weaver plays a 14-year-old. Yes you read that right. And it's amazing. She's amazing, it's all amazing...

Damn James Cameron. If he was a superhero, his name would be Magic Movie Man.

I personally found FB: The Crimes of Grindelwald to be one hot mess of a movie. The plot was all over the place, there were way too many unnecessary characters and the whole thing was just terribly convoluted. The Secrets of Dumbledore is a vast improvement on its predecessor, in many ways. The plot is much more straightforward -- Grindelwald tries to seize power in the political arena and so our intrepid heroes must try to foil his plans. That's it, that's the story. I liked it.

It almost felt as if the filmmakers tried to correct everything they did wrong with the second installment. They stripped the plot down to its basic necessities, scrapped all redundant characters (have you noticed how much shorter the cast list is?!), and focused simply on moving the story forward in a logical direction. Though I must admit, this movie, too, doesn't even come close to the pure magic that was the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Part 3 loses points not in what it has in abundance, but in what it lacks. Come to think of it, maybe they stripped it down too much...? Firstly, not enough fantastic beasts! I mean, they're in the damn title, aren't they, so why aren't they in the movie? We only get to meet two new species. Although the main beast-star is really quite impressive, there's just not enough of it to go around. Secondly, not enough Tina! She's all but absent from this film, and I missed her terribly. Big mistake on the writers' part, if you ask me. She is an integral part of the FB dynamics, and I cannot for the life of me understand why they left her out. Boo!

Still, I left the theatre feeling very pleased, and much, MUCH more entertained than I did the previous time.

One more thing: I'm not particularly interested in the reasons why, but whatever went down, I am *so* happy that Johnny Depp was replaced with Mads Mikkelsen. I immediately knew that he would be much better suited for the part than Depp (whose casting I had always been unhappy with), and he (Mikkelsen) lived up to my expectations, and then some. He was awesome.

Overall, The Secrets of Dumbledore has its flaws, but it keeps the magic alive and intact - and it makes me look forward to the next part.