I've never made a comment here, but this movie deserves one.
Please read the following comment as my personal opinion, I'm sure not every one will agree with my point of view and thats okay.
And also non native speaker here, so I apologise in advance.
1. This movie is amazing. It was everything I expected it to be and much more. I was afraid because I got hyped a lot before seeing the movie, but I must say it was even better than what I was expecting to see.
2. The music and the sound is amazing. All the choices for the tracks/songs are on point. The moments where they want to build the suspense work perfectly. Also what they do with the Frank Sinatra song is superb. At the end of the movie it will have a whole different meaning for you.
3. The acting of JP is astounding. He portrays the role of Arthur Fleck perfectly. Not that we have a real world example of this role, but for me it comes awfully close to what I imagine a Joker from A Killing Joke (Graphic Novel) to be. Further comparing JP to different Joker portrayals might be fun, but they don't work in the same context, so I won't tell you JP is a better Joker than HL.
4. Don't watch the movie if you're only a Batman fan. For people who are only amazed by how cool the Batman character is, this won't do it for them. This movie needs to be seen as a single uncoupled work of art. Forget Bruce for a second and try to understand how the Joker is the perfect incorporation of what Gotham is.
5. Watch the movie if you like to be challenged. You won't walk out without feeling a tiny bit of empathy for the person Arthut Fleck becomes, and yes he does become a sociopath.
6. This movie reflects society. This movie is in many ways a mirror in whats happening on some parts of our world. This movie shows what happens when people treat other people like garbage. And the elegance of the movie, is that it keeps the discussion so far away from politics.
7. It raises some serious questions. In the beginning Arthur Fleck is just a clown, that has a rough time and we feel for him. At the end he is the Joker that kills people freely and thinks it's funny and even though we don't identify ourselves with this character, we still understand where his thoughts come from. This dissonance between in us that we feel sorry for him in the beginning, that we understand why he becomes the Joker and still wouldn't tolerate anyone that takes such actions in real life is fascinating, to say the least.
8. Will definitely watch it again in the cinema.
For all people that want to see something similar, watch Blue Ruins.
I've had an amazing experience watching the movie premiere in Venice, I've been waiting for this movie for a long time and I was not disappointed in the slightest.
It's a gorgeous movie, it's disturbing but moving at the same time, violent at times, but also subtle. It's a different and fresh spin on the character and on the cinecomic genre as a whole and Phoenix delivers an amazing performance portraying a version of the Joker we've never seen before, he's not the villain of someone else's story, he is the hero and villain of HIS own story, and the audience can be orrified by him, but we can't help but feel for him at times.
Without giving anything away I would recommend to go and see the movie not expecting to go and see an action packed, but gritty cinecomic, I suggest going in and watch it pretending that it's not even about a famous comic villain, but simply a movie, I think that people will appreciate it more in that way, not comparing it to the cinecomics we've seen before, but thinking of it as a normal movie.
P.S.: People will of course compare Phoenix to Ledger, I don't think it's possible, they give a totally different percormance because they portray totally different versions of the character, and I think it's going to be hard to compare them, you either prefere Ledger's version or Phoenix's but only based on the character, the actor's performances cannot be judged by comparison, they're both great. Just enjoy the movie
Initially, M. Night Shyamalan was a force to be reckoned with. This may all be ancient history, of course. Most folks no longer care enough about the man to fact check his history, but he really was perceived to be the next big thing. In fact, out of all of the films in his roster, the only movie that people loved so much they demanded a sequel to was Unbreakable, and now they finally have a real sequel. Sure, Split was a part of that as well, but in my books, it’s not a true sequel unless you continue the story following the original characters – and that’s what Glass finally does – but has M. Night let too much time pass?
As amazing as it is to see all of these characters finally occupy the same space together, I think Shyamalan lost his spark as far as his ability to tell a story goes. When a new M. Night Shyamalan film came out, people knew his films would be similar in tone, concept, cinematography, and visuals. Think about how many of his films feel dreamy, like a dark foreboding mystery that makes you cry out what is happening!? The way he solidified that idea was with great characters, symbolic imagery and elements (like water) and visuals (like light and color), soft-spoken dialogue, and a unique use of camerawork. It all came together to feel unlike anything else out there. Typically, his early work also ended with a massive twist-ending that changed the very way you watched the film, making an additional viewing that much more special in the long run.
The more films he made, the more of the aforementioned list he did away with. Whether or not he lost the things that made him special was on purpose or not is unknown, but the fact remains true: it’s not a well-oiled machine anymore. What remains in Glass are really great characters, and only one shot of great lighting and colors, but that’s where it stops feeling like M. Night Shyamalan. It’s not foreboding, it’s not soft-spoken, the camerawork isn’t really impressive, there’s not much focus on symbolic imagery, elements, or visuals. Actually, it’s kind of messy because I’m not sure Shyamalan knew how to write a movie with all of these characters and instead threw something together that wasn’t very solid. But we have lots to discuss. Let’s do it.
PEOPLE – 85% (17/20)
Acting – 3/4 | Characters – 4/4 | Casting – 4/4 | Importance – 3/4 | Chemistry – 3/4
Starting off with the People Category, you’ll notice that M. Night mostly did a great job here. There’s nothing wrong with the casting, characters, or honestly, acting. Pretty much every great thing in this category was borrowed from Split and Unbreakable but I digress. McAvoy is the pure definition of “range of acting” – so his performance impresses the most, and that is probably why it focuses a lot on his character, I just wish it focused more on the characters we haven’t seen in 19 years. I’d say there was definitely some great chemistry, just not everywhere it was needed, and because it is a bit of a sloppy story, I can’t say the characters hold much independent importance, but everyone does play a vital role into the general direction of the plot.
WRITING – 40% (4/10)
Dialogue – 1/2 | Balance – 0/2 | Story Depth – 0/2 | Originality – 1/2 | Interesting – 2/2
We jump straight from one great category to one bad…but what exactly is so bad about the writing in Glass? In general, everything. The first thing I realized while watching the film is there is no main character. There is no real protagonist or antagonist. You can discern the protagonist is Bruce Willis and the two antagonists are Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy from common knowledge, but the way the characters are focused on in the movie doesn’t quite feel that way – not from a movie vantage point…and honestly, I don’t think that was the intention. I don’t think M. Night knew how to write all the characters and their roles from a normal cinematic approach. Another problem was it was messy. You absolutely HAVE to watch the other movies to have any real idea on who these people are – it’s like the next scene in a movie, not an entirely different film – which means, as I’ll get into later, the introduction is weak. It has a hard time juggling between the characters and their relevance to the story. Because of that, you have no real story depth because it’s too busy trying to find footing elsewhere. Heck, even the dialogue was weak. Technically, it’s average, but you expect big memorable speeches from Samuel Jackson, and it never quite reaches that level. All-in-all, I’d say the writing was very weak.
BTS – 80% (8/10)
Visuals – 2/2 | Cinematography – 1/2 | Editing – 2/2 | Advertising – 2/2 | Music & Sound – 1/2
The approach taken behind-the-scenes was mostly done pretty well. I wouldn’t necessarily say as well as it used to be back in the early 2000’s, but still pretty good, generally speaking. The visuals are mostly normal, but there is one really cool shot where they use lighting and color in an impressive way, and I can’t ignore it, so that gets full points. Editing is also really good when they transition between modern shots filmed for this film mixed seamlessly with shots taken for the original film – so editing gets full points, but that’s it. As much as I loved the music in Unbreakable, I don’t think I can say the same for this film. It’s just fine for what it is, and the camerawork is as typical as it gets, which is very unlike M. Night Shyamalan.
NARRATIVE ARC – 80% (8/10)
Introduction – 1/2 | Inciting Incident – 2/2 | Obstacles – 1/2 | Climax – 2/2 | Resolution – 2/2
For the most part, the narrative structure in this film is fine. It has an issue fully introducing you to the characters, as it heavily relies on previous films to do that, but once they get that over with, everything is mostly fine. There’s not much of a central plot underneath it all, which doesn’t really help much, but there is an event early on that changes things, that is the inciting incident. There is a big culminating event towards the end that is easily seen as the climax, and it does calm down and return to a new sense of norm for a resolution.
ENTERTAINMENT – 60% (6/10)
Rewatchability – 1/2 | Fun Experience – 2/2 | Impulse to Buy or Own – 1/2 | Impulse to Talk about or Recommend – 1/2 | Riveting – 1/2
As mentioned beforehand, this was an anticipated film with a group of characters you’ve been dying to see for nearly two decades, of course it’s entertaining. It’s entertaining without really trying to be for the most part. I would definitely rewatch this movie, but I’d probably only do that as a series rewatch, if a friend popped it in, or if I caught it live on TV. Half points. I did have a good time watching the film in general, so that gets full points. I do have an impulse to own it, so I’d add it as a wish list item, but I probably wouldn’t buy it myself. I also think there’s plenty to discuss about the film, but I don’t really feel like recommending it. Finally, I think there is enough in the movie that’s important enough to make you feel like you can’t pause it, but that’s not always the case, so that gets half points.
SPECIALTY – 75% (30/40)
Unbreakable Franchise – 5/10 | Sequel – 10/10 | M. Night Shyamalan – 5/10 | Halfway Decent – 10/10
Finally, what do you expect to see from this film? Especially if you’re a fan of Unbreakable or M. Night Shyamalan? What is it that you actually want to see happen? That answer is different for everyone, but I think there are a few things that anybody would ask. Does it feel like it fits in well with Unbreakable? Yes and no. I think the characters fit in wonderfully, but it strangely feels more like a sequel to Split than Unbreakable, at least in tone and overall feel – so this gets half points. As a sequel, did people want to see it and did it add anything new? Yes and yes. Like I said before, in all of Shyamalan’s filmography, people wanted this film to be made – and does it add anything new? Absolutely – the inclusion of James McAvoy makes more sense than I originally thought – as Samuel L. Jackson is no physical match for Bruce Willis. Full points. As an M. Night Shyamalan film, I think it’s fine, but it doesn’t really feel like him, half points. Halfway Decent – did they make the movie they intended to make from the get go? I had to think on that for a while, but I think for the most part, it did, so that gets full points.
TOTAL SCORE – 73%
Let me start this off by saying that this sequel did not feel outside of what we remember.
Blade Runner 2049 maintains the mood and feel of its predecessor. The visuals, the sound... the dystopian future, it's all there.
| FIRST THOUGHT |
I love writing reviews, it comes somewhat naturally to me after watching something that I learn to feel passionate about.
This movie taught me to be passionate.
But... it's really hard for me to express judgment. And I'm going to explain why:
Actually, it's very simple. This was a 3 hours movie. Of these 3 hours, 2 were simply... air. Now, don't get me wrong, that isn't always negative, like in this case. It was refreshing air, but still... it doesn't (at first glance) hold anything on the plot.
Because of this, the viewer (me at least), is left with a lot of questions, the picture doesn't explain itself. Also; as a side note - you most definitely need to watch the first one. The great majority of the runtime is inexplicably useless.
The longer it goes, the longer it begins to add new stuff, and then some, then it seems somehow related to what's actually going on, but right after it deviates the actual story on an ideal from the characters involved, that at a certain point, evaporates. I'm really conflicted about this because it looks to me like the screenwriters and director wanted to leave all of this to theory and the fans.
Why is this confusing? Because it's a very strange mixture of linear narrative and non-linear narrative. One is focussed on one objective, the other starts a bunch of other objectives and then it simply dies. No explanation was given, no closure was given.
And this is aggravated by the fact that it's a 3 hours movie, of which 1 hour of the actual story is spread and mixed amongst 2 hours of absolutely nothing. VISUALLY IMPRESSIVE NOTHING. A VERY INTERESTING BUNCH OF LITERAL VOID.
This is actually the only thing I did not like about the movie. Which, again, if you are like me and enjoy movies that aren't patently explaining themselves, it's not a bad thing. I just feel like it could've been much more interesting if they explained somehow what happened to all the side characters, or just cut them out.
|STORY & ACTORS |
Aside from what I've mentioned before, the more "linear" part of the story is actually not that bad. It's nothing impressive. A part of what I said earlier connects to the fact that this movie constantly keeps juggling between what is real and what is not. Be it by robots, or actual reality that the characters are living. So it came out pretty obvious that the movie would have a twist at some point, somewhere. I will admit that I did not get it until the very end, so, don't be discouraged.
Ryan Gosling was great, also because he as an actor was perfect for his role. Being so that he has this way of being and looking conflicted, and so it portrayed really well on the protagonist.
Harrison Ford had less value to this movie than he did in the last Star Wars.
Jared Leto's character is a mystery to me, but he did a phenomenal job talking random shit.
All of the other actors, Jared Leto included, were there to push the story forward (or to add random bullshit) and that's it. They did a fantastic job, but unfortunately, as mentioned above, at first glance it looks like they don't mean shit.
| CINEMATOGRAPHY |
The movie is visually pleasing, it's bliss for people with OCD. It's perfectly round and at the same time perfectly square. It keeps smooth lines combining great color combinations in the palette, and utilizing great solid colors at the same time.
As I said before it holds perfectly a spot near its predecessor, the mood and feel are almost identical. (Having watched the first one only an hour before going to the theater to watch this one)
I have to say, this one looks A LOT, like A FUCKING GIGAZILLION LOT more gruesome and splatter than the first one. The fighting scenes are brutal, they do not go into dramatic effects, they just are what they should be. A punch in the face, exploding heads and blood.
There is no doubt that this movie looks fucking amazing.
It sounds amazing as well. It has a collection of deep, pure sounds. There is not a lot of music, but when there is it's powerful and present and it makes you wake up and amaze. Same goes for the special audio effects: I have watched it in ATMOS and I have to admit, they did not utilize it at all, except for one scene later in the movie, but the way it goes from absolute silence to seat trembling sensations it's really amazing. The sounds were so powerful I could literally see the movie screen shake and the subwoofer hit made the whole room shake.
I would also like to add that in the Italian version, you can clearly see that they used "incorrect" words grammatically, they used a lot of anglicisms, I guess they've done that to express how language is evolving? It's actually current of our generation, I see a lot of people adapting English words in Italian, so I was very impressed by that.
| FINAL THOUGHT |
I feel like everyone needs to understand, before watching this movie, that you need a time, a mood and a place perfectly fit to sit for a 3 hours movie that it's going to feel like a 6-hour long journey into colors, shapes, and absolute "living" silence.
This is NOT a Marvel movie, there is action, well-done action, but it's not about action. You need to sit, relax and don't think about time, because, trust me, it's going to fuck you.
Please like my comment if you enjoyed my review, it makes me really happy.
Note that all of this is driven by my personal opinion. If you think I wasn't objective in some of the parts of what I've written, you're welcome to make me notice where.
On Twitter, I review the entire world -> @WiseMMO
Nothing to say really besides: that’s how you do it!
This has without a doubt the most impressive stunts of the franchise, and it really knows how to use its characters and challenge them. There’s a lot of propulsive energy, lush cinematography and great editing. Lorne Balfe does a great Hans Zimmer impression, and Chris McQuarrie does a great Chris Nolan impression. Alright maybe I’m oversimplifying there, because I have to commend McQuarrie for doing another stylistic reinvention of the franchise, the cinematography and general feel aren’t just that of Rogue Nation 2.0. I’m not even sure if the constant evolution of this franchise comes from a place of creative ambition or commercial opportunity, but at least it keeps the films fresh. Some of its core elements will always remain the same, however. For example, the plot’s once again just a vehicle for all the juicy stuff. You could call it out for being generic or basic, but they find so much creativity and fun in these tropes that it becomes very entertaining (intrigue, the mask sequences, the craziness and constantly rising intensity). Sure, there’s a very predictable twist at the end of the second act, but more often than not, it managed to surprise me. Henry Cavill is a great new addition, bringing back Rebecca Ferguson was the best choice they could’ve made, and Pegg & Rhames remain the reliable anchors that add some heart & humour. It’s all exceptional stuff, it could very well go down as the best action franchise in history if the next films stick the landing.
9/10
Honestly, it's a really good film. It's got great action, great dialogue (oh how I wish Lord & Miller were still on board) and just because you can kind of guess the outcome, what with it being Solo's origins, that doesn't mean the film can't surprise you on the way.
I only have a few negatives, actually. L3 was a little much, it doesn't help that you end up inevitably comparing her to the outstanding K2SO from Rogue One and of course, K2 is better. Paul Bettany tries, god bless him, I know his character is more efficient/ruthless than evil but he's just too nice to really pull it off. It's not a mark against him, but I guess rather the casting? Finally, I guess the score could have been better, but I did like the little moments of classic score when significant events happen (i.e. seeing the Falcon the first time).
All in all, yeah it's mostly predictable (I really want to go see this with someone who hasn't seen Clone Wars/Rebels to see their reaction to that moment), but it's a damn fun ride.
(It's 9 on here, but I guess it's more an 8.5 realistically, it'd round down to 4 if it was out of 5 stars, basically).
[7.6/10] Solo has the scruffy confidence to be its own movie. Of the ten Star Wars films, it’s the only so far not to tie directly into the events of the main saga. That alone makes it interesting and laudable as the first real cinematic step of Star Wars ceasing to be a film series and starting to be a “cinematic universe.”
Which isn’t to say the film isn’t closely connected to its predecessors. Solo reveals how Han and Chewbacca first became a team. It features the first meeting between its title character in Lando Calrissian. It even shows how Han ended up with the Millenium Falcon. And that’s setting aside references to a “gangster on Tatooine” and hints of a growing rebellion and familiar characters popping up in unexpected places. Make no mistake -- the film is certainly interested in reminding its viewers where all these characters will be in ten years time.
But it’s also good enough not to be about that. Solo is part-heist flick and part coming-of-age film. It’s more interested in Han’s big adventure in this movie and how he gets to be the sarcastic smuggler we meet in A New Hope than it is in how he fits into the broader Star Wars Universe, to the film’s benefit. The promise of these “Star Wars stories” is that they can use the diverse, elaborate world that George Lucas and his collaborators created to spin all kinds of yarns untethered to the concerns of the Skywalker family. Solo still anchors its story on familiar faces, but tells its own tale, and comes out the better for it.
The big problem with Solo is that it has two modes: (a.) irreverent action/adventure flick filled with colorful characters and (b.) semi-serious interrogation of What Han Solo Is™, and it’s much more entertaining and effective at the former than the latter. The script, penned by Empire Strikes Back scribe Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jonathan, does a superb job at introducing all these figures, old and new, and then letting them bounce off on another in the confines of a rickety old ship and a job pulled at various rough-and-tumble locales. But it falters when trying to use that setup to get at its title character’s true nature.
The film’s thesis on that front is a solid one -- that he is unavoidably rough around the edges, and wants to be “bad,” but deep down he’s good. That is, after all, his essential arc in the Original Trilogy, where a seemingly good-for-nothing smuggler is revealed to have a heart of gold and sympathies to the cause of the Rebellion, or at least his friends. Solo retraces that arc a bit, and weakens Han’s progression in the saga films a little in the course of that, but the Kasdans get Han: the talk that’s bigger than his paydirt, the cocksure improvisational confidence, and the innate goodness that peaks through his rough-hewn if charming exterior which he’ll deny to the end.
The film just does a much better job of showing us those qualities through Han’s actions and attitude than in having various other characters ham-fistedly comment on it and wax rhapsodic about who he’s been and who he’ll be.
The best parts work, as they must, thanks to Alden Ehrenreich, who takes over the role originated by Harrison Ford in 1977’s A New Hope. Following in those iconic footsteps is a tall order, but Ehrenreich makes it work. He doesn't stoop to doing an impression of Ford, short of a few conspicuous mannerisms, but still manages to capture the character’s rakish charm and overconfident, anything goes spirit. Yes, it’s a little hard to grok that this guy becomes 70s era Harrison Ford in ten years, but Ehrenreich absolutely works as Young Han, and the movie wouldn’t work at all without that.
The other characters that populate the film vary a bit more, but are largely fun and entertaining. Woody Harrelson’s turn as Beckett sees him filling the weathered good ol’ boy niche he’s carved out for years now. Emilia Clarke does fine as Qi'ra, who manages to be a little bit more than just Han’s love interest, but only a little. Donald Glover’s charisma carries the day as he inhabits Young Lando, but occasionally he comes across like Glover doing his best Lando impersonation than a fully convincing character (though his chemistry with Ehrenreich sparkles over that nicely). And there’s plenty of other fun, if seemingly disposable side characters, like Paul Bettany’s genteel but menacing villain, Dryden Vos, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a delightfully irrepressible droid revolutionary named L3. Even relative newcomer Joonas Suotamo brings character beyond the fur to Chewbacca, alongside Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt’s traditional groans and growls.
When Solo deploys these characters well, it’s a hell of an action-filled romp. Seeing Han’s Oliver Twist-esque origins blossom into his up-and-down efforts to live on the fringes of both the law and the galaxy are fun and thrilling. The movie takes the viewer to new, scrappier corners of the galaxy, packing the frame with wild new creatures and settings that help make Star Wars feel big and diverse again.
Han’s goals and wants are clear; his compatriots are well-if-quickly sketched, and the set pieces are nicely chaotic and spontaneous, as befits the way any plan involving Solo should shake out. The pacing is off here and there, and certain action sequences extend to the point of exhaustion (likely a casualty of the hand off from the nixed boundary-pushers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller to steady hand Ron Howard). But the core setting of the film -- a band of well-traveled and wannabe outlaws does a job with pitfalls and smart remarks -- works like gangbusters.
Then, the final act hits, and the film stops being fun and starts being serious. There’s double-crosses on double-crosses, heavily sign-posted character-defining choices, and cliché, ponderous statements about who Han is supposed to be or can’t be or might have been that one time (we’re not really sure).
Solo, like its protagonist, has its heart in the right place here. It’s laudable to try to turn this adventure into something revealing about one of the franchise’s biggest characters and not just an empty-calorie escapade. But the film can’t support the weight of that introspection (not to mention all of that clunky extrospection) and becomes bogged down when trying to unravel both its less-compelling plot threads and its character study in one big convoluted finale.
But one thing is for sure. This movie is not about the Skywalkers. Despite an eyebrow-raising tie-in, it is not about the broader Star Wars Universe. It’s about Han Solo, and It is, for the first time, a genuinely independent Star Wars story. For most of its run time, Solo is a standalone (if franchise-winking) adventure from the days when Han was still cutting his teeth as a smuggler and outlaw. The film has its problems when it departs from that, but still shows the benefits, and the fun, of Star Wars movies that follow the lead of Solo himself and aim to go it alone.
And here I thought the last episode was terrific. This was a near-flawless ribbon on the top of so many different arcs. And it's only the season's midway point.
Cotyar goes down a hero by destroying an infected Agatha King (taking "that asshole" Nguyen with him), Errinwright gets double-teamed by Sorrento and Anna and finally locked away, Mao is captured by Jim and forcibly knelt before Avasarala, Prax finally finds his daughter Mei, safe and sound, and Bobbie confronts a hybrid and finally gets over her PTSD of being defeated by one on Ganymede. Even Jim and Naomi made up and got back together after a risky tip of their hand to Fred Johnson paid off. And then a fucking jellyfish swam out of Venus' atmosphere... It's almost too much to process right away.
So much got packed into this hour yet it all flowed perfectly from one plot line to the other, interweaving where it made sense, and pushing the whole narrative forward in a believable way. This is how you make hard scifi.
The SyFy Channel is positively stupid for giving up on this exceptional piece of television. They really should be forced to change their network's name on account of it deliberately creating confusion for viewers.
Initial Reaction
After two viewings
The Good
• Deadpool himself is as funny as ever. Ryan Reynolds keeps up a fantastic performance and really gives it his all.
• Cable is also really good. Josh Brolin, despite being in many movies this year. Has given a great performance.
• Jokes are really funny when they hit, and they hit hard.
• Secondary characters are also really well done. Some anyway. More on that, below in the spoilers
• It has a true charm to it. Making it more distinct than the first. But not outshining it.
• The action was on point. The director really knows how to capture a great fight scene, and there are plenty here to enjoy and marvel at.
• Villain. This point is actually a fairly good one, but also has spoils. So read below if you really want to know. What I can say is that Ajax is nowhere near as memorable compared to the bad guys here.
• The amount of balls this movie has. It just does things, I would never expect them to do. The first movie gave us shocks at what they could say and show. Now they just go and toy with that to the next level. And I loved it.
The Bad
• Plot. It's not the best. It's also not that simple. The first Deadpool was very straightforward even with the time jumps. Here, it's a bit of a mess. Not to mention it's kind of a rip off of T2. But it acknowledges this at least
• Some jokes don't quite land. They reuse some of the same lines from the first movie, and it feels as if it really is lazy writing. As far as it seems, they are trying to make Deadpool's catchphrases more clear. But to me, it was just annoying.
• The jokes seem to build off the story in this. Whereas the first one felt more improvisational and made it seem like the plot revolved around the humour. Here it just seemed like the comedy was slotted into this action film. But it's not all that bad, just let down the overall tone of the movie.
• CGI is actually pretty bad. It's so distracting, it takes away from the comedy they try to sprinkle over it.
• Wade. He is focused on more than the first. And I just didn't like how they were trying to go about it.
• Along with the focus on Wade, the emotional scenes don't mix that well with the comedy like they did in the first.
Other Things
• You're going to want to stick around for the mid-credit sequences. They are some of the best ever in a Marvel movie, and in movies in general.
• There are two mid-credit scenes (almost back-to-back) and no end-credit scenes.
Spoiler Things
• The X-Force joke is so damn good that I can forgive the lack of build in the team up until the very humorous end. Again such a great ballsy move. Props to the studio.
• The villains in this movie, aren't really present in terms of villains. The first Deadpool had a villain, he had to beat him. Done. This sets it up to be all about Cable, but it actually gives us villains that turn out to be the same as Wade. Which is great for a Deadpool movie to show anti-heroes having a connection with the villains they are fighting.
Conclusion
DP2 is not better than the first. It lacks the simplicity and catchy humour that it had. But, it does grab onto you and takes you on a ride that is not as funny, but is just as enjoyable than the original. I don't see it being as rewatchable like the first. But as its own movie, it holds itself up for a fun experience, wonderful character portrayals, and a damn good time.
I could feel a sweet taste in my mouth coming out from the cinema after Ready Player One knowing I’d be coming straight back here, my very own “Oasis”, to write this very review about a movie that I hope will be a landmark for all the other people, who like me live in a world where “pop culture” isn’t just a part of history, but it’s a part of real life… or simply IS real life.
Ready Player One isn’t a movie for everyone. It’s a gem that is only to be understood by the people who it is made for. A hymn bellowing aloud to every single person who struggles in life.
The misunderstood, the shunned… people who don’t know what place they have on this earth, people who don’t know how to start living, people who hide and those who create an invisible shell around themselves separating them from everyone else… people like me… the internet people.
Those of us that live in a world where comic books aren’t just “books with figures for kids”, where videogames aren’t just brainwashing violence, where movies matter and they have to be talked about, where the line between fantasy and what is real and tangible is so thin, that it enables us to expand our minds and so deeply changing every single one of us: the way we talk, the way we look, the way we think, how we interact, how we live!
Those are the people Ready Player One was made for. Me and you reading this.
This is for US.
I feel sorry for those who cannot possibly feel the relevance this movie has. Who did not understand any of the references, the little things this movie was brought up upon, the lingo the characters use, the way they are portraited the way in which it takes them a blink of an eye to feel like family, to trust one another completely and depend on each other, the need they have to feel included and not eclipsed by society.
There is only sadness in that, at least for me writing this, I could not live a life without this, it would be colorless.
Ready Player One is an amalgamation of pop culture concentrated in 2 hours and 20 minutes in the form of a videogame where everything your imagination wants is right in front of you.
The characters will fight against an “EvilCorp” to take control of “Oasis” the virtual reality that is the pinnacle of society’s future by racing to find the ultimate “Easter egg” and ensure the community is safe from exploitation by greedy goblins that do not want you to install “AdBlock” as a mod.
The movie struggles to have a very clear line between real and virtual because of the consistent switches between CGI and “regular” film, this up until the very end where it finds balance and leaves the viewer, who understands what is going on, with a message that to me is most important in all that happens: take a break from the internet.
I shouldn’t need to say this – but render unto Caesar the quality of CGI is out the roof, everything is super-detailed and the animations are PHENOMENAL, which is on-par with the few real-life choreographies that are featured in some of the switches between real and virtual that I mentioned earlier. The colors are so vivid and perfectly placed some of the scenes are dreamy and give a sense of everlasting life to what is happening which further thins the line between you – the viewer and it – the picture.
Steven Spielberg is a master at giving life to what could very well look bland and lifeless and for that, I shall thank him till the day I die.
It’s always a pleasure to see Easter eggs and references inside movies, like we’re used to with the MCU, but I daresay this one is an entire different level.
Let me explain to you why: Everything you see, from the WIRED magazine, to the “Twitch” streaming mention, to the DeLorean to the Iron Giant, Tracer, Halo, Gears of War and also all the Back to the Future tingling sounds that warm my heart, these aren’t just references or Easter eggs, and this is why this movie it SO GOOD, they ARE the movie!
It’s just a facet of our life that is there to remind ourselves that, however sci-fi the movie might look like, if you think deep enough it’s actually a mirror of everyday life (if you’re a nerd, like me).
The story itself isn’t too shallow or a Denis Villeneuve mindfuck, it’s a simple low and high climax with a big reveal and a moral story, so it’s a textbook good story… but it is the way it was shaped to enclose everything that just fucking shoots at your brain so seamlessly that makes it even better.
Besides my personal opinion, I think the cast overall was just spot on. I don’t think I can contribute objectively on this subject, for this particular work.
I rarely enjoy Ben Mendelsohn, especially as a bad guy.
What I can say is that I loved the perpetuating and profusing synergy between Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke. I LOVED how bad-ass Lena Waithe looked OOC and how massive her character looked in-game which also showed some soft spots which gave it more depth.
Win Morisaki did one thing near the end of the movie that I won’t spoil but I screamed the name of that thing in the room and everybody was both pissed and annoyed by me (Don’t regret it)
In general, I just loved the crew altogether, bit of a weak villain but honestly, it’s not that bad, it’s really hard giving dignity to someone who you know is going to lose anyway, unless you are Andrew Kevin Walker and like fucking up everyone’s mind.
To end this review I would like to say I almost cried in 10 scenes purely by nerd-gasm, I definitely cried when Win Morisaki did that thing that I cannot speak of without spoiling, with the big purple sword and that bang-bang-bang-bang and those tin-tin-tin from Back to the Future and also all the brum-brum-brum, also cried on the dance swooshy-swoosh scene where they – and so I kept crying and I had to hold my breath when she did that thing with the bike that they mentioned and that was my big “whoa” and then the movie ended and they said that thing and I was like “fuck that I don’t take days off I gotta learn RS6 Siege”.
Peace.
You can find my reviews on real life @WiseMMO on Twitter.
The setting is contemporary, judging by the automobiles, but the ambience is decidedly 1950's era spy film noir. As for genre, I'm forced to call Counterpart science fiction, in that it involves parallel universes, but it's really like nothing else within that genre.
The general scenario is this: 30 years ago, for reasons unknown, reality split into two bifurcating, independent time lines. Until that point, all was unified, meaning that every character alive at that point shared identical histories. Now, things have begun to diverge. But there is a doorway between the universes in a building in Berlin.
Again, for reasons unknown, the two sides have been both communicating with, and spying on, one another through this doorway, and this is where our protagonist Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) comes in. "Our" Howard is a low level functionary in this spy agency who hasn't a clue as to what is really going on until, one day, his counterpart arrives with news that a woman from "their" side has been sent over to assassinate people on "our" side, including Howard's comatose wife. No one knows why, which is the prevailing state of awareness in this decidedly curious story. "Other" Howard decides that "our" Howard is critical to his investigation and, thus, the strange alliance begins.
J.K. Simmons is a phenomenal actor, despite often being cast in secondary roles, and Counterpart is truly his opportunity to shine. He plays a single character, but one with two separate backgrounds despite shared childhoods, a role requiring some subtlety and nuance. He plays both characters to perfection as the similarities and differences between the two create something of a broader character that calls into question our notions of identity.
In a way, Counterpart is an examination of the concept of self, or soul, but it is also an engaging mystery/thriller. Like its main character, the sum is both greater than, and equal to, its parts.
[8.1/10] Black Panther doesn’t have the aura of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Yes, it has the allies and enemies we’ve met in prior movies like Age of Ultron and Civil War. It has the jovial vibe among its main cast. And it has the mandatory, climactic third act battle, draped in CGI and the usual fanfare.
But it also stands apart from the rest of the MCU’s offerings. It is unabashedly Afrocentric in its focus and its approach. It is a plainly political film, meditating on the legacy of colonialism, the oppression of people of color around the world, and the push and pull of isolationism vs. global activism. Though squeezed into the standard, three act superhero structure, Black Panther takes its audience to a different space, one untouched by the rest of the world and, in some ways, untouched by the broader cinematic universe the film acts in concert with.
It is a uniquely, profoundly black take on the modern superhero film, one long overdue, if for no other reason than how it breathes new life into the familiar formula. There’s nothing wrong with comic book movies hitting certain standard notes of uncertainty, challenge, and self-realization. But Black Panther is a cinematic argument for broadening the franchise, showing the renewed, distinctive character these common stories take on, when they’re told from a fully-formed, confident, and different perspective.
That distinct atmosphere is the best thing about the film, alongside the clear camaraderie among its cast and characters. No hero is an island these days, and while the title character has a notable arc that’s done well, the most enjoyable portions of the movie emerge when the plot mechanics of that arc are set aside for Black Panther to chat, spark, and laugh with his tech-wiz sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), his altruistic ex Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o), and his fierce, principled guard Okoye (Danai Gurira). So much of these films depends on the chemistry and connection between the people the audience is asked to spend two hours with, and Black Panther soars on that front, building a rapport among those core characters that carries the day.
At the same time, Chadwick Boseman gives one of the best dramatic performances to grace a Marvel film. Thematically, the film centers on the notion of whether someone with a kind heart but also uncertainty about how and where to guide his people can be a good leader, and Boseman brings the inherent decency and heft to make these ideas land.
Black Panther constantly puts its title character between conflicting choices and impulses. T’Challa has to balance his inherent sense of mercy, shown to the leader of a challenging tribe, with his desire to deliver swift justice, shown when he threatens enemy of the state Ulysses Klaue in public. He has to reconcile his deep love for his father and his deep respect for his people’s traditions with his growing realizations that his forebears were men, not gods, who made mistakes, and that his homeland may need to change and evolve. He must square his country’s tradition of isolation, with the competing calls to share the nation’s wealth and knowledge in order to help those in need, or to use those resources to bring down the oppressors around the world who keep them in that state.
If there’s one area where Black Panther excels, it’s in creating a central character who’s pulled in multiple directions, on multiple dimensions, leaving him unsure what path to take and what sort of man to be, until the right direction is forged in fires of challenge and hardship. The film is a political story, a cultural story, a family story, and a personal story.
It’s just that Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole seem not particularly interested in it being a superhero story. That’s not necessarily a problem. Films as tonally diverse as Logan and Deadpool have shown you can use the superhero framework to craft a multitude of different films with different approaches within the superhero framework. But there’s a sense in Black Panther that the comic book-y elements are perfunctory, that Coogler and Cole had a compelling story to tell about legacy, power, and obligation, couldn’t tell it without including the de jure superhero fireworks.
Black Panther is at its best when it shows its title character confronting his responsibilities as a citizen, son, and leader, or finding strength, challenge, and affection among his friends and family. And it’s at its weakest when it shows him punching and kicking those things in comic book movies that inevitably must be punched and kicked.
At times, Coogler and director of photography Rachel Morrison capture the same sort of raw intensity of combat that hews close to a boxing match from Creed. The close quarters combat of the challenges for leadership are tight and visceral, giving an immediate sense of the personalities clashing at the same time bodies are, and a digitally-stitched but nominally unbroken action sequence early in the film has the energy and fluidity of a splash page. But too often, the film’s fight sequences are a big jumble, edited to bits and nigh-impossible to follow from one blow to the next. Worse yet, the CGI is especially in these sequence -- digital characters move without weight, animated creatures and vehicles disrupt the immersion of a scene, and climactic fights between fully computer-generated figures in a computer-generated world feel like gameplay clips pulled from Mortal Kombat.
Despite the strength of the story that ends in that skirmish, the film ostensibly breaks little new ground in terms of its narrative. Notably, Marvel’s own Thor trilogy covers much of the same territory, from the prince questioning his place as king, to far off lands debating the appropriate level of engagement with the outside world, to unruly yet sympathetic relatives with an appetite to conquer angling for the throne.
But what makes Black Panther so refreshing is the perspective from which it approaches this material. There is a richness to the cultural wellspring that Coogler and his team draw from, one underutilized in big budget filmmaking. The film is rife with different hues, different pleasures and sore sports, that inform the movie’s sensibilities even as it applies them to the smash-and-then-find-yourself routine that the Marvel origin movies have nigh-perfected at this point.
It’s the critic’s crutch to see a film’s story as a metaphor for the film itself. And yet it’s hard not to see parallels between the story of T’Challa deciding to bring Wakanda into the rest of the world, and Coogler deciding to bring his Black Panther into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One of the wonderful things about the MCU is the way that it can create a cohesive sense of place among different films, and foster the sense, through minor easter eggs and the occasional team-up, that all of these events are taking place in the same world.
But despite having a few of those continuity nods and connections, Black Panther feels like it occupies a world all its own, one full of its own color, character, and vibrancy. At the end of the movie, T’Challa opts for outreach, he decides to open Wakanda’s borders, and share his nation’s knowledge and culture with the world. With this film, Ryan Coogler & Co. do the same for Marvel, telling their own story in their own, but also bringing such a distinctiveness and a specificity to it that makes the world of these films a deeper, richer, better place for Black Panther’s presence within it.
[9.2/10] Throw away the past. The rap on The Force Awakens was that it was too derivative, too indebted to A New Hope and the blueprint that had started the franchise. There was a sense that the new trilogy needed to break new ground, that having established the new setting, the new characters, and the new conflicts and mysteries, it was time to break from what had come before.
You could be forgiven for thinking that the film’s main characters share that sentiment. Kylo Ren states it explicitly. He pushes Rey to do the same while she labors under the weight of her unknown parentage. And Luke Skywalker himself, the Jedi Master who won the day in those lodestone films that forever emblazoned Star Wars into the annals of culture, has written off his past deeds, and with them, the Jedi as a whole, as a legacy of failure that needs to simply end.
But it cannot, and should not. Where The Force Awakens featured new heroes reliving the past, The Last Jedi features them remaking it. It is a film devoted to embracing the power of that legacy, good and bad, without being beholden to it. Episode 8 a film that is of a piece with its forebears, but also so full of its own life, character, feeling, and awe.
The fear among the fandom is that, as the second installment in the new trilogy, The Last Jedi would be a mirror image of The Empire Strikes Back. (Though, as with the complaints of borrowing from A New Hope, there are worse sources to crib from!). There’s some of that here. As with Episode V, The Last Jedi splits up its heroes, leaving one of them in training with an old Jedi master on a distant planet, and the other on the run from the bad guys, until everyone is united in the end. There’s offers to rule the galaxy and reveals of who the protagonist’s true parents are and a less-than-savory character who seem like friends and then sell our heroes out.
But Episode VIII echoes the whole of the Original Trilogy in moving, thought provoking ways, not just the middle chapter of it. The film meditates (nigh-literally) on the most iconic image of the original Star Wars film -- Luke gazing off at the horizon in search of adventure. It features our light side hero being lured into the throne room of the Big Bad in the hopes of turning the black hat with the twinge of a conscience still remaining, just as Return of the Jedi did with Luke, Palpatine, and Vader. From blue milk to adorable forest-dwelling creatures to wizened masters passing into their next lives and leaving their robes behind, The Last Jedi is not so much reinterpreting The Empire Strikes Back as it is ruminating on all of Star Wars at once.
And yet what’s so striking about the film is that it’s so much more than a recapitulation of those films. It is, a celebration of them, a reflection on them, and an exploration of them, that advances and subverts those ideas and themes as much as it reintroduces them.
It takes the trigger-happy flyboy, the Han Solo-esque roguish type who, true to that lineage, shoots first and asks questions later, and tempers him with the reveal that the calm, measured leadership was a product of careful and clever planning rather than cowardice. It takes the Big Bad, the mysterious power behind the black-clad dragon who can shoot lightning and bark evil monologues, and kills him off suddenly halfway through the film rather than making him the final obstacle to be overcome.
And it takes the biggest mystery of this new trilogy, the question of who Rey’s parents are, that so many diehards and casual fans alike have been buzzing over, and delivers the most inspired subversion. Rather than Luke’s lost daughter or the Emperor’s scion or Kylo Ren’s forgotten twin, she is the product of nobodies, who sold her for drinking money. It’s a truth that deep down she always knew, but couldn’t accept, because like the audience, she assumed that for someone to have fate on their side, to be able to live a life with meaning, they must come from somewhere, from someone.
But that idea is, despite the Skywalker-mad connections of everything that followed, antithetical to the animating beginnings of Star Wars. Before it was decided that Luke was the son of Darth Vader, he was simply the son of some other guy named Anakin Skywalker. He was a nondescript moisture farmer on a backwater planet who was the last guy you’d expect to take down The Empire’s greatest weapon.
That’s what made his journey so powerful. He wasn’t The Chosen One in A New Hope. He was just a kid with unrealized potential who, with the right guidance and the right chance, could save the day. The Last Jedi returns its chosen one to those roots, to providence shining down on the common, that the savior of the galaxy can come from nothing.
It’s a reversion that’s anchored by the character dead set on rejecting his own longstanding anointment. Mark Hamill is a revelation here. Gone is the naive farm boy who whined about picking up power converters, and gone is the seasoned master who saved the world and redeemed his enemy, and in their place is haunted cynic, convinced he’s caused as many problems as he’s ever solved. There’s a caustic quality to the character here, one that makes him gruff and dismissive of Rey, fatalistic about the Jedi, and unquestionably angry at himself.
Where there was an cornbread innocence to the Luke we met on tatooine, The Last Jedi introduces his echo, a man who looks upon his accomplishments that have ascended into legend as false fables of failure, and the current blight sweeping the galaxy as a fault of his own that he cannot elide or escape. He’s done seeing the battle between the dark and the light, and instead sees the continuum between the two, the yin-yang like symbols that dot his surroundings and the film as a whole, the balance that leads light to breed darkness and darkness to breed light.
That sense of balance is at the heart of The Last Jedi. It comes between Rey and Kylo Ren, who feel a force-forged connection between the two of them that lets each see the other beyond the monolithic figures who stand in opposition to one another. It comes in Leia, who tries to find the midpoint between striking the blows necessary to stay in the fight and not losing too many of her compatriots in the process. And it comes in DJ, the Lando-like figure who rejects the good guy/bad guy dichotomy and sees the struggle between The Resistance and The First Order as the changing of the tides he’s unwilling to be swept up in.
It’s there that The Last Jedi feels the most reflective, even political, in ways deeper than the four-color civics parable told by The Prequels. It asks who benefits from these conflicts, who profits from them, and whether who’s on the right side and who’s on the wrong side can be so clear cut when Republics beget Empires, conquerors beget resistance, and slaughterers beget saviors who train yet more slaughterers. In all of the mythic good vs. evil that’s so much in the bones of Star Wars, Episode VIII steps back and dares to consider that conflict, that never ending cycle, as part of some larger, indifferent system rather than an epic journey toward salvation.
It also restores a sense of utter awe to the franchise. Johnson and cinematographer Steve Yedlin create thrilling, jaw-dropping sequences that rarely lose a sense of continuity, instead allowing even the more firework-heavy sequence to progress organically and tell a story rather than simply providing raw but empty splendor. When Leia glides through space to return to her ship, or Rey and Kylo Ren fight hand-to-hand with the Red Guards (who actually get to do something for once!), when our heroes and villains meet in crimson-dusted splendor in the final frame, Johnson and Yeldin show a virtuosity with big spectacle filmmaking to match the thematic and emotional resonance of the rest of their film.
But that spectacle never detracts from the feeling imbued into the film. Episode VIII is not merely a political tract. It’s not a heap of pretty but hollow action. It’s not even just a deconstruction and reconstruction of the films from whence it sprung. It’s a story populated by characters who love and hurt and feel.
There is power in the moment when Rey and Kylo Ren’s hands touch across light years not just as the meeting of lightness and the dark, but as a human connection between two struggling individuals on either side of the same crisis of self. There is meaning when Rose jams Finn out of the path of his suicide mission, not just for the thrill of the moment, but for Finn’s nobility in trying to live the most potent opposite of running away, and Rose’s attachment in saving him, rather than stopping him. And when Luke kisses Leia on the top of her head, it’s not just imbued with the impact of an on-screen goodbye having to stand-in for an offscreen one; it’s imbued with the poignancy of a film that builds the place in one another’s lives each occupies long before they’re face-to-face for the final time.
Because in a way, they both have to move on. Luke has to let go of his failures, cast off his guilt, to do as a delightfully, once again impish Yoda suggests and let his pupils outgrow him. Rey has to let go of her belief that her family is waiting for her, and find the new family who’s sustained her to this point. And even as he seeks the means to rule the galaxy, Ben Solo cannot let go of the masters who’ve failed him, of the feelings that rage inside him, and of the parents who cannot help needing, no matter how much he may want to.
But moving on doesn’t have to mean throwing things away. It can mean giving something back. It can mean sacrificing yourself, ending something, so that something else can be born anew in its place. It can mean preserving the tiniest spark of rebellion, the brave men and women and quirky droids who can start a conflagration to spread across the galaxy. It can mean doing great deeds, that will be bent and twisted and have consequences you never imagined five steps down the line, but also inspire the next nobody on a nothing planet to gaze up at the sky and wonder what adventure may lie there.
The Last Jedi moves on from its predecessors without discarding them, and moves forward enough to leave plenty of room for its successors, both literal and figurative. It moves on from the George Lucas originals, and even from its immediate, J.J. Abrams-helmed predecessor. But it embraces the spirit of these things, an aims to recreate that feelings, that core, that sense of wonder, for a new generation.
In that, Star Wars itself is like The Force as Luke describes it. It does not belong to Lucas or Abrams or Johnson or even our continually growing overlords at the Disney Corporation. It belongs to all of them and none of them, and to us. Like The Force, like the Rebellion, Star Wars is as much an idea as it is a franchise, and just as Lucas himself reimagined those ideas from Kurosawa films and Flash Gordon serials, Johnson posits himself as doing the same, and instilling the hope that one day, kids will look to these bits of awe and wonder and be moved to look out past the horizon and tell their own stories just as he was.
So don’t throw away the past. Remember it. Embrace it. It informs what we do and who we are and who we will one day be. But don’t be bound by it. Be inspired by it. As cheesy as that sounds, The Last Jedi makes good on all the inspiration thirty years of Star Wars has provided. And just as Luke, Leia, Rey, Ben, and the rest of the conflicted figures who populate the film do, Johnson reaches out in the hopes of not just vindicating that legacy, but extending it to whatever, and whoever comes next, no matter who they are or where they come from.
Is Marvel just going to keep increasing the comedy value?
How much is enough?
Thor Ragnarok is a comedy action movie, or simply put ->
https://i.imgur.com/OqUYCJX.png
| FIRST THOUGHT |
Take Thor, mix it with Hulk.
Put your hand on the "comedy" button, press it and never release it.
It's this movie.
And it doesn't actually stop, throughout the entire time. You can't quite figure out how much it takes itself seriously. And it's so goddamn good.
Before you go on about and watch it, you need to put yourself in a spectrum where you're going to enjoy senseless beating and constant, crispy comedy.
It is definitely worth watching. It is worth your time, your money and putting on clothes to get out of your home. (Or just do it like me, I never put on clothes.)
| STORY & ACTORS |
Well, what can be said about the story on a Marvel movie?
However you want to put it, it's actually nothing so special, there's obviously no level of "deepness" to it. It's very linear, of course, with a happy ending - Although I have to admit, very enjoyable.
It's structured for the sole purpose of starting what is going to be the actual, gigantic movie: Infinity War - while closing down the history and settling the character of Thor for good. (Much better than what they did with Iron Man)
I think Marvel, with this one, truly captured the perfect combination of "comedy" and "action" to it's MCU. Sorting out everything that lacked in the second installment of "Guardians of Galaxy".
The comedy was throughout really enjoyable, it was predictable, but we can't pretend much of it - it's classical "Thor & Hulk" memes.
The story also doesn't hold to a very interesting villain. It's really unfortunate because of Hela's position in the comics, but at the same time I can understand what the movie wanted to speak about, so I really cannot be as frustrated as I did with other movies. cough*Wonder Woman*cough
It does, at the same time, bring up new, fun characters (To the MCU). Korg (voice acted by also director Taika Waititi) was an absolute blast and pure enjoyment at everything he said. It can come out as pathetic or annoying, but that just means that you shouldn't watch superhero movies.
I can't talk enough about comedy without entering the realm of "acting", and in doing so, eventually to the actors.
/I will only "in-depth note" some of the actors\
I'll say this, and it took me SIX movies to finally agree and accept it: Chris Hemsworth brought Thor to a level as high as Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman did with both Iron-Man and Wolverine. I can't "unsee" a Thor that isn't Chris Hemsworth, and this movie put on that thought the final stone.
He showed passion to a character that ended up developing itself positively in barely 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Mark Ruffalo, boy, they finally made him lose that terrifying, horrible gloomy attitude of the Avengers movie. He finally embraced his nature, and so Mark had more room to depict a promising version of Bruce Banner.
Cate Blanchett was disintegrated by the flatness of how they shaped Hela. The villain was disregarded and had no soul. It was just big talk, terrible powers, besides being a Charlie's Angel and ultimately she didn't show anything positive for the movie, except some stuff you will need to see.
Tessa Thompson was a FANTASTIC Brunnhilde. She portrayed that character to a point where the seconds passed and I loved her more and more. I can really say nothing more or add to it, just watch her.
I won't talk about how the Hulk acted because you need to see it first-hand. He's the big star here, remember, this is Hulkhor: Ragnasmask.
Jeff Goldblum as The Grandmaster is fucking weird, man... Weirdly good?
| CINEMATOGRAPHY |
Here's where it gets interesting.
There's a load of color combinations that I found soothing, very soothing and that is perfect because it brings out from the screen the variety and SATURATION of what this movie actually is. The palettes were perfect.
I found the CGI, in some of the action/fighting scenes to be lacking a little bit, especially in very fast-paced shots it looked very unrealistic. And the same can be said about everything, to the brittle of walls getting destroyed, to some of the weapons portrayed.
I don't actually know what happened there, maybe I was too focused on it and eventually could see past the CGI (which is a big mistake to make), but unless you are actively trying to do so it's really minor.
Choreographies, I was actually impressed. The past "Thor" movies were just a bunch of "tank & spank" moves. Fortunately, this wasn't entirely the case, near the end, it lacked a bit, but it's not very noticeable considering everything that's going on.
Music, there was distinct moment where it went from a more classical route to then being mixed out with a more electronic feel, it was a really hearing stimulating oxymoron, so to speak.
I will never get tired of The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin.
| FINAL THOUGHT |
All things considered, if we're about to take this logically...
The pros definitely beat the cons in this one.
It is, on that thought, WORTH A WATCH.
And I'll add something that might stir up some grunt:
My official "favorite MCU movie" has changed.
Movie: 8/10
Hulk: 11/10
Note that all of this is driven by my personal opinion. If I wasn't objective in some of the parts of what I've written, you're welcome to make me notice where.
Leave a comment to agree or disagree.
Show some love if you enjoyed my review, it makes me really happy.
On Twitter I review the entire world → @WiseMMO
Peace.
[9.5/10] Full disclosure -- Oliver is preaching to the choir for me here, and that makes it harder for me to be critical. But I still think he gives a strong and arguably empathetic account for why it's practically indefensible to want to keep confederate monuments up. Maybe there's countervailing points that Oliver didn't really address, but he lays out a very effective case for why glorifying people is different than remembering and that monuments are much more about one and the other. While some of the facts -- like when the confederate monuments went up and the statements from confederate leaders about slavery -- were things I already knew, the way Oliver framed everything did a nice at laying out the argument point-by-point. Most of all, I liked his final retort about Robert E. Lee not even believing in Confederate monuments, and the way he connected it to his own feelings about Jimmy Saville. Plus, the replacement statues, culminating in a delightful appearance by Stephen Colbert was an outstanding and silly bit to close things with.
That said, the opening was solid, but pretty much just a drive-by of the news of the week without the unifying theme or POV the show can usually muster. And I must be 10 years old because the "and now dicks" interstitial with various newscasters inadvertently drawing penises on telestrators was quite amusing.
Overall, an outstanding episode.
Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan was just a fabulous experience. I definitely enjoyed the movie quite a bit from start to finish, and usually war movies aren't really my cup of tea (at least not anymore). However, cinematically, the entire movie is just a masterpiece. As a big movie buff, I could appreciate how meticulously crafted the whole movie was. It's so hard to create a movie like this within this genre while trying to remain "minimal", but Christopher Nolan accomplishes it in every sense of the word.
He seamlessly interweaves 3-4 different plot narratives/timelines, while using minimal amounts of exposition. He gives the viewer such a sense of a looming and foreboding threat, while never even having a Nazi soldier on screen at any time. He tells us "so much with so little" and allows the viewer to take in the conflict of each situation (and there are a lot of them) rather than point it all out to us. In that sense, you really feel like you're getting into the mind of each one of the soldiers/main characters when they are contemplating some very crucial decisions that literally determine life and death, for not just them, but many other men as well.
Nolan gives us continued development, closure and solid endings in each one of the tiny subplots that he sets off from the beginning. It's definitely a joy seeing how all the different plotlines intermingle with each other at the end especially with the civilian aspect added in. And, most importantly, he accomplishes all this in less than 2 hours (and by a damn good margin as well).
If you appreciate amazing direction, cinematography, and vision within a movie, this will be an absolute joy. It could definitely get Christopher Nolan that elusive Best Director Oscar come Academy Award season. I watched Dunkirk in 70mm, but, honestly, I couldn't really tell the difference, especially without being able to do a side-by-side comparison to a regular version. Overall, it didn't seem too different from the usual XD or IMAX type presentation at my local big theater. Still, the movie is a visual treat lending heavily to more practical effects that gives a nice sense of realism to it all.
Anyways, this gets a solid 9/10 from me, coming from a war movie curmudgeon. Watch it, and you won't regret it.
I was fortunate to get at that advanced screening earlier this month (thanks gofobo and Regal Cinemas!) and once again witnessed Charlize dominate yet again! No spoilers here. As you can tell by the previews, the soundtrack and action is what defined the movie, but Charlize Theron IS the movie. Her character, Lorraine, is clearly of the the Dirty Harry mold in which her actions speak louder than her words - and that flat out works for this movie. Nothing real groundbreaking or anything, but the "one take action scene" previously seen done well in Netflix's Daredevil, John Wick, The Raid, Oldboy (just to name a few) is very precise in a technical sense, borderline outrageous and comical, yet extremely and brutally visceral. The camera work and sound design is OUTSTANDING in this scene, you'll know which one when you see it.
At the end of the day, this movie feels like very much like a passion project of Theron's - from her style, her walk, her moves and even the way she smokes cigarettes, and it is a sight to behold. There are enough well known actors throughout the movie to keep it interesting, but it's really to see how Lorraine interacts with them. This is quiet storm Charlize and this is her movie through and through. Blondes do have fun indeed!
[7.7/10] The theme of this one works – not running away from your problems and facing your difficulties head on. The Leslie-Ron is one of the strongest platonic relationships in all of television, and so having them each escaping their (very differently) problematic paramours and realizing that that’s no way to be is a good way to go. Ron’s first ex-wife is more in the cartoony vein (though the fact that she works for the IRS makes for a nice foil to his libertarian leanings), but it works well enough with Ron’s more outsized qualities. (His insta-step, go bag, bushy beard, and warning about the quantities of ground chuck he keeps in his desk are all classic Ron.)
But Leslie’s is more understandable, albeit a bit sitcom-y. The notion of wanting to avoid telling Ben about her campaign, so as to avoid having to end this great thing they’ve been enjoying, is a very human impulse, even if it’s realized with “ladies yacht club” excuses and emergency s’more supplies. [spoiler]The scene where she does face the difficult thing, and Ben reveals the button[/spoiler] is one of the signature moments of the whole show. Revealing how perfect they are for each other – given how Ben immediately understands why they can’t be together and founding it on how important it is that Leslie get the respect and esteem she deserves – and making it tragic but sweet that they have to break up.[/spoiler] The campaign arc is one of the high water marks for P&R as a whole, and this was a lovely way to kick it off.
The “text your dong” B-plot is peak Ann comedy, with her deadpan and justifiably creeped out response to everyone being pretty perfect. It’s an absurd way to go, but everything from her reaction to Chris’s description of testicles as the “ears” of the crotch area, to the guy talking about watching women’s golf and having a few glasses of wine, to the “your inbox is literally filled with penises” bit, it’s a great sendup of the ridiculousness and creepiness of sending pictures of your penis.
Otherwise, the episode is pretty tame. Tom handing out pointless Entertainment 720 swag is a nice indication that the company doesn’t do anything but pointless branding. (Andy summing it up as “you put logos on things?” is a nice bit.) And Andy’s minor internal conflict over whether to accept Tom’s job offer, with April getting him a job as Leslie’s assistant instead, is an abbreviated story but one that works well for what it needs to do.
Overall, it’s a quality episode, one that still includes a bit more setup than knocking things down, but the kickoff of the Knope campaign (and the personal costs associated with it), plus the whole texting bit make it enjoyable.
Unlike most Marvel movies, the interactions between characters were actually memorable. When Strange scoffs at the ancient one's chakra "nonsense" she kicks him out of his body. It's an awesome "welcome to the Matrix"-style intro to a mystical world. This movie is The Matrix plus Inception + the Marvel universe in the best possible way. This introduction to the multiverse sets the tone of the movie, and it carries through to the very end.
The special effects were phenomenal. The CGI sequences were more interesting in a visual sense and more artistic than most recent Marvel CGI scenes. It's nice to see something besides exploding buildings/spaceships/robots. The introduction to the multiverse was the most striking sequence. The universe made out of hands and his transition through a portal formed from his own retina were merely highlights of this delightful montage. Fight scenes were well choreographed, especially when focused around the folding world.
The hero characters were all interesting. The ancient one is dealing with the devil to try to help the human race. The baron feels conflicted about the means used to protect the planet. The likeable Dr. Strange goes through a pretty major transition from narcissist to hero. On the opposing side, the enemies were generic. Mads & co were from the common "we want power from the evil thing that destroys everything it touches, but it won't hurt us!" variety.
My favorite character was the cape! It had so much personality, and its scenes were a nice mixture of comedy and practicality.
I hope the Thor+Strange crossover feels more like this than any of the Thor movies.
Overall, this was quite entertaining and solid addition to the Marvel universe.
This series makes me want to read the books. According to Wikipedia, "The Expanse is a series of science fiction novels, novellas, and stories by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2012." You can tell. The story is nuanced, multilayer and intricate. There are Earthers, Martians and Belters (complete with their own patois), politics, a Cold War heating up, an ideology willing to kill people to protect "life". It's a treasure trove of story, characters and good watching. But, it's not for the faint hearted. Because of the depth of the multiple levels, it takes attention and patience to reveal the interwoven pattern(s). I suggest binge watching the first season, so you don't lose the strands of the story, but, now, at the beginning of the second season (on the ScyFi or Space channel), the basic premise has become a solid foundation, that will support the wait for weekly episodes. I gave the first season an 8 (great) out of 10, but with the second season, it has reached a 9 (superb) climbing on its way to a 10 (un-miss-able). Come for the characters, stay for the intensity of the drama.
This show from beginning to end, was not what it appeared. I continue to give Brit Marling mad props for the writing of this story, because while the episodes didn't follow an ordinary format, but a specific arc in the story, the eight episodes felt like long low budget independent film, that managed to beautifully mash several genres together.
Some of the critics have been unnecessarily harsh in its dismissal of many of it's themes as merely 'new-agish', but I found the storytelling to be consistent throughout the entire clutch (I really dislike calling it a 'season' when it streams on Netflix or is a whole season available for watching via another service) of episodes.
As I have previously noted, this is the kind of story that could only have been facilitated by a streaming service, because it mostly abandons traditional television storytelling, and it works.
As for the characters, I was proud like I did something in the last ten minutes of the episode, with a little eye water to boot. The disparate threads of this story came together beautifully, and the acting was consistent in the last few episodes.
It is well worth a binge watch, but I am glad I dragged it out a bit. Highly recommended.
Will there be a second season? It seems almost certain. God help us, we wait long periods between them on Netflix, which appears to have a much longer release cycle than regular network television. However, the quality of the recent productions proves they tend to be worth the wait. I only had an inkling about this one, but it turned out to be well worth the weirdness of the pre-release pump.
Ah, gotta love those Donkey Balls.
While I am not precisely liking the dubious new addition to the ship's complement, because he feels treacherous, he sure does come up with some good ideas.
This episode had some beautiful moments.
While I am still not enjoying Chrisjen's wooden delivery of dialogue, I very much liked that we got to meet at least one of Holden's parents. It would have been a bit more interesting if we had seen the whole unit of them, but who knows why production felt just his body-mother was required. Frances Fisher does a great job, making a meal of a small role, and we get a great look at Holden's backstory. This late in the season though, I suspect we won't get anyone else's backstory until Season 2. I don't know about you, but I am chomping at the bit to find out Naomi's story.
Miller's sad and wistful goodbye to Octavia, as he heads off into the black chasing Julie Mao; the tense but funny process of getting into the lockbox to find the black ops codes to evade the blockade, these both give us more character depth. Miller is turning into a different kind of man, and the Rocinante crew's democratic, yet effective teamwork makes them a lot of fun to watch as they're grinding through trying to get to the bottom of Lionel Polanski, the Scopuli and the Anubis.
I'm also enjoying the little things in the show: The Belter's patois, although largely incomprehensible, is a nice touch that adds a lot of dimension to the Belter's as an insular, underdog group. That they evolved their own language, says much for the alienation they must have to the rest of the solar system. Jared Harris as Dawes, has the most beautiful sing song thing going on, and it makes his character a much more seductive and enchanting force in the story's play...
Regardless of the next few episodes, which i suspect will be relentless, Sy Fy has done a marvellous job of fueling this production. Despite a few obvious TV gaffs here and there, for the most part the show is really well put together, and the concepts, sets, action sequences and character development almost make you pause, because Sy Fy has gutted us more than once since Battlestar Galactica went off air. I say again, this is the best show I've seen on TV since BSG ended... and that Sy Fy is coming through for us, is something to celebrate.
This show is pure science fiction and it's commitment to creating a believable story, is tremendous.
Just to preface this, I thought A Force Awakens was emotionless trash that undermined the entire purpose of the original three films.
Rogue One was the opposite.
The best thing about this movie was the emotional impact. It underlined the sacrifices made to make the original trilogy possible. Some people have called it long, but that helped build up characters that you actually felt for, and who weren't carbon copy ripoffs (cough cough A Force Awakens). The final scenes as the two main characters face their fate, recognizing that it was worth it, gave such a high emotional payoff. Each major death scene actually made you feel something.
The second best thing was K-2SO. Very funny, and much needed comedic (but not goofy) relief.
The CGI for landscapes and the world creation was outstanding. When I see a movie like Star Wars I want to be amazed and see things that I haven't seen done before. I want to be impressed and drawn into new, beautifully crafted worlds. In this respect, the movie just kept delivering over and over.
The cinematography was great during the action sequences. The sequences looked epic, and the violence and sacrifice felt meaningful. The Vader fight sequence was intense.
It also had interesting ties to current events with its commentary on terrorism/rebellion/weapons of mass destruction. By the way, the science genius character realizing that he isn't priceless in developing some major device is fantastic. All of the movies with "only so-and-so can figure this out" are very disappointing.
The moral message of the movie was also very clear and well delivered.
I really enjoyed the movie overall and thought that it was a big step in the right direction. It was adventurous again, it was sometimes shocking, original, and most of all meaningful. A Force Awakens failed on all of those points. It's good to see a franchise movie that's taking a bit more risk than average. AFA was just like the new Star Trek films, shiny bling low-impact action movies that just happen to be set in space. Rogue One pushes far beyond to show the what drives the Rebellion in a world we know and love.
Despite the fact that I really liked the movie, it had some flaws:
- Tarkin face CGI
- Some of the acting in the first half.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Some of the cuts were really weird and the pacing felt off for portions of the first half.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Forest Whittaker just deciding to die instead of trying to escape.
- Tarkin face CGI
- A few unbelievable plot lines (thankfully most were minor). Like Cassian being sent to kill Galen for almost no reason, and then deciding not to for no reason, and then Jyn forgiving him surprisingly easily. How did she even know that he was trying to kill her father?
- Tarkin face CGI
- Does every Star Wars movie need to have a father character die? Why didn't Cass follow orders when he heartlessly killed someone else in his first scene?
- Tarkin face CGI
- Heavy handed political messaging.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Said "hope" too many times.
- Tarkin face CGI
- You can just push Star Destroyers that easily?
- Tarkin face CGI
- The word "Stardust"
- Tarkin face CGI
- Too many random worlds introduced that you don't have the time to get invested in.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Too much awkward fan service.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Darth Vader's voice sounded off.
- Tarkin face CGI
- Some of the dialogue was really terrible.
- Tarkin face CGI
Before Anthony and Joe Russo were directing superhero movies, they worked on a little show called Community. The series, oddly enough, had some common ground with The Avengers. Both were about seven people from different backgrounds who came in with their own damage, bounced off one another in interesting ways, but would, now and then, come together to do amazing things.
But one of the most remarkable things about the was its mastery of tone. The series was pitched as a comedy, and true to that billing, it was a damn funny show. And yet it could just as easily shift into something quiet and personal, something unremittingly dark, or something complex and difficult without the easy answers that are seemingly required on a network sitcom.
So when watching Captain America: Civil War, I couldn’t help but see how the Russos had brought that amazing ability to balance different characters and tones and translated it onto a much bigger stage without missing a beat.
Because Civil War is hilarious. It is action-packed and all kinds of fun. It’s full of impressive moments and inventive sequences and fights big and small that are filled with feeling and imagination. And at the same time it is, in its own way, a very dark film. It touches on big ideas like moral responsibility and guilt and the dangers of unchained power, but grounds them in characters, and individual moment, and personal relationships. It is a smorgasbord of moods and stories that makes you laugh, makes you gasp, and make you feel the tragedy of a given moment, without letting it clash. And that is one hell of an achievement.
That achievement is all the more impressive given how many moving parts there were to this clockwork behemoth of a film. Civil War features no fewer than twelve heroes, three major villains, and a bevy of supporting characters, and nearly all them get a moment in the sun. Nevermind the fact that on top of all of this, the film had to introduce two new characters slated to get their own films -- one of whom was under the radar for most non-comic book fans, and another who was laden with the expectations that come from being a household name with two prior uneven franchises under his belt.
But Black Panther was far from a third wheel amid the super-powered clash at the top of the card, and his motivations and outsider status with The Avengers gave him a unique role to play in the narrative, an important arc in the film. Spider-Man, for his part, had the kind of chummy-if-overwhelmed vibe with Tony Stark that you’d hope for, and proved himself an enjoyably free spirit in the big battle. And everyone else in the film, from Ant-Man’s show-stealing humor, to Vision and Scarlet Witch’s endearing connection, to Rhodey’s loss, had an important part to play, without anyone getting lost in the shuffle.
That balance is made all the more difficult by how much oxygen Captain America and Iron Man take up at the top of the card. There is a history between the two characters. They have never seen eye-to-eye, and the films in the MCU have never shied away from that, even as they’ve brought the two of them together for their shared struggles. And again, Civil War does well by using the disagreements and difference between these two men as symbols for a larger debate, for bigger issues between them, while never detracting from the personal side of their beef.
To be frank, it took some work to convince me that Tony Stark would be in favor of the Sokovia Accords, which put The Avengers under the supervision of a U.N. Committee. And yet, the film shows Tony’s interaction with a woman whose son perished in the rubble of Sokovia. He’s seen the collateral damage of their actions and he’s feeling the guilt of it. The film does well to couch Stark’s position in terms of his weapons dealing -- he made his living in an industry where his seemingly harmless actions were leading to innocent people being hurt and killed, and he realized he had to do something. For Tony, this is no different. He’s worried about the collateral damage from their actions.
Steve Rogers, for his part, is understandably much less trusting of government supervision. He’s the one who blanched at the discovery that Shield was using Hydra technology to create weapons; he’s the one who saw Hydra take over the organization he worked for from the inside, and use good people to ill-ends, and he’s the one who’s seen his best friend brainwashed and used as a weapon for geopolitical conflict when the higher ups felt it necessary.
At the same time, he’s also concerned about there being a need that he can’t respond to because of red tape. He’s worried that innocent people will suffer, that people who need saving won’t be saved, because the people who try to do right will be too hamstrung by procedure and approval while the good people suffer. He’s worried about the collateral damage from their inaction.
But these are not simply grand philosophical difference between the two of them. Civil War ties it into their unique psychological baggage, which comes to a head in a confrontation between the two of them in the second act of the film. Tony has lost the people in his life that matter to him -- Pepper and his parents, and their absence casts a major shadow over his part of the film. This fight, this struggle, has kept him from the parts of his life that made it all worth it for him, that gave him his Batman-like need to protect them, to create a world where no one would have to suffer that kind of loss.
But Steve, despite his status as a man out of town, found his family. The Avengers, new and old, gave him a place where he felt like he belonged, people who had fought alongside him like the Howling Commandos once had, and became his brothers and sisters in arms. Steve is this close to signing the accords until he finds out that because of them, Tony has Wanda Maximoff under what amounts to house arrest. That’s a bridge too far for Captain America. He isn’t worried about getting people back; he’s worried about outside forces taking them away.
So there is a schism, caused by Secretary (nee General) Ross from above, and Zemo from below. The former is the liaison of the Sokovia accords, who attempts to maneuver his way into corralling more superheroes after his run-ins Hulk, and the latter is a man who lost his family thanks to The Avengers, and is determined to use any means necessary to tear them apart, to have their empire crumble from within. And in the middle of that schism is Black Widow, who’s pragmatic enough to know that Tony’s right in the logistics of it all--that they’ll get a better deal agreeing to conditions than having them forced on the group, but sympathetic enough to understand why Steve can’t get on board, what his connection to her and this group means, and the threat posed by anything with the ability to forcibly sever it.
And then there’s Bucky. While Black Widow is a tie that brings Captain America and Iron Man together, The Winter Soldier is a wedge that drives them apart. When Steve sees Bucky, he sees his childhood friend, the one who knows his mother’s name and, with the death of Peggy Carter, is his last real tie to the life he used to live and the man he used to be. He sees family, and connection.
But when Stark sees him, he sees, by dint of Zemo’s machinations, the man who killed his parents, who took away his last chance to tell his father that he loved him, who, brainwashing or no brainwashing, snuffed out a light that Tony needed desperately in times like these. He sees the end of family, and the severing of a connection he will never be able to get back.
That’s what makes Civil War so powerful. In a genre of escalating bombast, it brings the conflict back to the small and personal. The film’s opening action scene gives a moment in the spotlight to each of the new Avengers; the subsequent chases and rumbles featuring The Winter Soldier are a visual treat, and it all culminates in an internecine conflict among the heroes that stands as one of the most creative, entertaining, and thrilling action set pieces since the Battle of New York in the first Avengers film.
But instead of that continued escalation, the film narrows its focus after that. The climax of the film comes from a personal reveal -- not only that Bucky was the Starks’ assassin, but that Steve knew and had the gist of it, if not the specifics, but never said a word. A film with so many characters and themes and stories comes down to a conflict between three people. That is the heart of the film -- a dispute, a wedge, that is as personal as it is philosophical, that is as meaningful because of the characters as we’ve watched them grow and develop as because of the fact that it’s two icons locked in combat with one another.
And that too, was one of Community’s strengths. For as outrageous and absurd and cartoony as the show could get, at its best, it drew all that weirdness and humor and conflict back down to the simple, emotional, and human. Tony Stark is still quick with a witty, sarcastic remark. Steve Rogers can still take a beating and deliver one in return. And their conflict is the culmination of more than that, of difference of opinion, of lifestyle, of their place in life and their place in relation to one another, with their team and their family.
As grandiose and ambitious and multi-faceted a film and narrative as Civil War presents, at its core, it’s a story about two people who care about each other breaking away, about the elements of their relationships and their histories and psyches that drives them to do it, and the extraordinarily human reasons that both pull them back together and tear them apart. These are the kinds of themes the Russos brought with them from their old gig, and they make Civil War more than just the flash and excitement of the good guys coming to blows; it’s a film that crystallizes from the connections between its characters, between the emotions and experiences that drive them, between the humanity, humor, and heart that drives the Marvel Cinematic Universe and produced what may be its greatest film to date.
Money Monster is a news show about the Wall Street numbers, one day Lee Gates (the presentator) keeps talking about IBIS bank and how great an investment is to put your money there. A short period after that show IBIS loses a large amount of money. One day a man who invested almost all his money in the IBIS bank (Kyle Budwell) takes the whole Money Monster crew hostage to get answers about the certain "glitch".
First things first, I really enjoyed the acting in this movie. The characters were all very convincing and their own persons, so that was really great. I enjoyed the story as well, although it was a bit long which brought some unnecessary parts.
Julia Roberts did a great job as Patty Fenn who is the director of the Money Monster show and really is just a very responsible, calm and smart woman. If it wasn’t for her I think a lot who have gone wrong once the hostage situation started. George Clooney who plays Lee Gates (the presentator of the show) was a very interesting character throughout the whole movie. He was the perfect show host and Wall Street guy combined, but in the ending he showed a very caring side which made him a more sort of true person, which I really enjoyed. Kyle Budwell was played by Jack O’Connell, an actor I personally really like seeing in movies. He really showed all Kyle his emotions, regrets and thoughts throughout everything. There were a lot of emotions involved with this character and Jack did really great. I also want to take my time to tell how much I enjoyed Lenny Venito his character Lenny and Emily Meade her character Molly (she had a very small part, but it was a very good part). And of course Caitriona Balfe as Diane Lester. I only know her as Claire in the Outlander series, so it was refreshing to see her in something like this.
I enjoyed the movie, and would recommend it to people who like these sort of movies. It was a bit lengthy but it’s worth the watch. I had a hardtime choosing between 6 or 7 stars but I chose 6, I did enjoy it and it did keep me interested once the action started.
(this was the first time i had a hard time writing a review without spoilers, wow, haha)
A smart show that requires your full attention.
A brilliant look at the schizophrenic nature of our society - how we've allowed the sociopaths and psychopaths to take control of our democracies, convince us that we're happy we're not, that everything is alright when they haven't solved any of the actual problems that plague us. We're given the illusion of choice every single day, whether it's between the products or services we buy, or the politicians we put into office every couple of years. The illusion is crumbling. Hackers, both the good and the bad, will tear off the blinders and social constructs that keep up the charade. The illusion of security that our governments and corporations sell us will be shattered. Mr. Robot is a TV show. It's fiction. But it reflects reality. Criminals stealing people's identity is a huge problem, and if you haven't been a victim, you eventually will be. When it happens - good fucking luck. Banks steal from people, and now hackers steal from banks - the recent heist of $1 billion that was only foiled due to a typo was in the news, but you can bet that there are better, smarter criminals out there, and they're pulling their heists off. The government, the banks, the corporations are doing a shit job of making sure people are getting their fair share, and only their fair share, mainly because these organizations have evolved so as to allow the thieves to be in charge. Our governments and corporations (and unions, and charities, and religious organizations) commit massive fraud against us - lying to us every step of the way so that they can take more than their fair share (of wealth, and of political power). How do you show this reality to people who have lived their entire lives within this illusion? Mr. Robot, that's how.
So I just watched "Gone Girl" and it was pretty fantastic. I'm not gonna say too much about the movie's plot because it is something that can be spoiled but it was delivered extremely well the characters were unique, fleshed out and very entertaining.
The soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross was amazing as usual. The right songs were used in the right scenes making certain parts of the movie extremely intense and extremely disturbing, it was all incredibly well paced and I didn't even feel that it was two and a half hours I just wanted to keep going. It was refreshing to hear such professional sound mixing where everything seemed to be at the right level but the characters were still audible and could easily be understood.
All of the actors were great and Tyler Perry's inclusion did not destroy the movie for me at all. Despite how horrible of a director Tyler Perry is, it looks like David Fincher was a good enough director to be able to direct him to act well. Anyway Tyler Perry did not ruin the movie for me and to give credit where credit is due he did play his role very well granted the script wasn't written in a way that called for him to shine but he did fit his character.
The meticulous direction that David Fincher has over as actors is shown quite well in this movie. Many directors would have their actors merely pretending to text when their hands are off screen but in this film you can see actions like those subtly shown through the reflection of characters glasses. It never shoves that in your face doing a close up saying "Hey look do you see this extra detail I put in?" But rather lets you pick up on those things yourself and adds an extra layer of immersion into the film.
When the characters look like they're doing things that are just for the sake of the camera paying attention it helps us believe in the world we're seeing. I'm happy to say that a lot of care and effort was put into this film the story is pretty straightforward and I don't think it's something that I'll have to watch a second time to pick up more details but in my opinion it was riveting. The only real personal issue that I have with this movie is that I found myself yelling in my head at certain characters that should be doing things differently.
But otherwise the story was daring and absolutely fantastic.
Well first off I need to say I have been in a total 'bromance' with Jake Gyllenhaal for few years now and biased as I might be, I think this is another movie he nailed just great. I love the subtle way he works to define his characters, how Lou looks gangly and with those big wide opened voracious eyes that are somehow a mirror of what is about to become...Jake has an amazing restraint in acting, especially in this age where tv shows formats brought an often over-dramatized style into storytelling and acting, so his way to sculpt his characters a little at a time manage to build a certain tension underneath that keep you focused on them even in ordinary set-ups and situations..and this approach to acting makes even more intense when those subtle underneath tension gets released like in the mirror scene.
Beside his performance I think Nightcrawler is a very good movie with some really great moments, and a central theme about what we as audience, have been accustomed to consider information and how morbid we grew about the appearance of what happens instead of the reasons or the facts itself.
Directing and photography are stellar, for what seems a well paced and balanced screenplay manage to mix introspection, storytelling and pure action even though there are few unfocused moments. The car chasing scene, considered how has been endlessly abused by movies, is just amazing with a fantastic edit and originality in choosing the point of view af a third spectator instead of the runaway or the chaser, which are the common storytelling perspectives we see in such scenes.
I was slightly disappointed in few aspects about how the plot develops in the last part. I would have liked a more open and thought provoking ending, the final interrogation and the closing scene looked a bit too predictable and not aligned with the overall tone of the story. A bit too 'didactic' in the purpose, probably to accomodate the so called general audience which always needs a proper wrap-up to get what the story is about. If it was up to me I would have ended the movie with the broadcasting of the last reportage for instance.
I gave it a 7, it may have rightfully deserved a 8, but you know the final always influence too much of a movie overall perception. It's somehow unfair even to me, but I can't help it.
This is an amazing movie. Everyone should watch it. Why? Because it tells us we're so damn wrong.
Animal based diets will eventually disappear as people will realise they're not sustainable anymore.
It is extremely important the scientific material in the footage as it was made in a science-only point of view. There's no random guy telling you to go vegan because of the animals (which as a vegan myself, I find it enough argument though) they're giving you proofs of every single word they say.
If you're vegan (or in process) you should watch this movie, it will give even more reasons to go vegan and feel great about it.
But, if you're not a vegan, you should definitely watch this documentary as it will show you lots of things you don't know which may change your live.
I understand changing something as basic as what you eat is very difficult, and acknowledging our mistakes is even harder but you should try to be open-minded when your about to watch this documentary because, if you're not, it will be useless.
I really hope you enajoy this documentary as it should be, as a piece of valuable information for every single human out there.
Pixar returns after a 1 year gap with this literal look inside the mind of a child, Riley. We see her emotions personified into Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness.
The initial few minutes of Inside Out set the scene out in a simple, easy to digest manner. We see Riley at her birth and the simultaneous birth of her simplest emotions, which take control of her. Memories are created and assigned an emotion, represented by a colour, then stored. It’s almost heavy-handed by Pixar standards but this approach quickly starts to make sense as the film goes on.
Everything goes swimmingly until Riley gets knocked for six with a move to San Francisco; a far cry from her native Minnesota. Her friends and interests all get up-rooted and she considers running away. Meanwhile inside, her emotions are equally out of whack as Joy gets knocked off the controls by a traumatic event.
What a beautiful, original, heartfelt piece of work this is. Docter delves deep into the human condition while somehow pulling off an entertaining family adventure. It’s best not to think too much about the logic of what’s going on; just like the real brain, the actual processes that create memories and personality are fuzzy and chaotic.
Inside Out isn’t afraid to make choices that will make people cry out ‘that doesn’t make sense!’. That’s because it has instead chosen to operate on a higher plane, exploring the reasons behind our actions and reactions to certain events, our motivations in life and dealing with trauma. If you’re worrying that they only picked five emotions to deal with, you’re missing the point.
The film runs mostly on metaphor, and with that it visits previously unexplored territory in children’s cinema. For instance the suggestion that sadness can often be what helps us through difficult times is not something that sells Minion toys in happy meals; but the film makers don’t seem to care. It’s OK to be sad. Sometimes it’s the only way we can feel anything at all.
There’s also a running commentary on how memories affect every part of our lives, from our current mood, our personality, to how we interact with other people. Docter manages to explain the importance of memories, and equally the importance of loading them with emotion. Simply by changing the ‘colour’ of a memory he’s saying that what one remembers is always defined by how one remembers.
The real stroke of genius is that these relatively complex themes are set to the bright, colourful backdrop of Riley’s mind. The set design and art direction are gorgeous and tie the whole thing together nicely. Pixar seems to be the only major animation studio that genuinely cares about how every frame looks, and here that attention to detail only adds to the film.
One other more ‘technical’ aspect that stands out is the inspired choices for the voice performances. These people haven’t been picked because they are big names, it’s because they fit the bill perfectly. Amy Poehler and Phyllis Smith play Joy and Sadness respectively and their work is a large part of what makes the film so memorable.
On a personal level, I found this to be one of the most fascinating, profound experiences I’ve had from a film. There is so much more to talk about, so much more to be uncovered, that I feel like I cannot do it justice in words.
Another smart, entertaining, emotional masterpiece from the studio.
