Last Crap Movie You Saw

[danielpholt]

Listening to the slashfilm podcast about Suicide Squad last night, and whilst I don't think it lets the film off the hook (a bad film is a bad film), THIS probably didn't help matters.

 

It sounds like Warner has a serious problem with trusting the people they hire to deliver on set. Get the fuck out of the way and let the film maker make their film. 

[Mr. GOH!]

Because my wife was away this weekend, I sat around eating junk food and watching terrible movies.

 

Gods of Egypt - joyless CGI fest. The first 15 minutes are delightfully insane, but the rest is boring. Could have been interesting with a different director, production company, cast, and a modified script. As it is, it is ugly, stupid, and boring.

 

Suicide Squad - Why do people praise Margot Robbie? She's fine, though her accent is crazy uneven. Her character, like all of them, is very thin and poorly established. That the Joker is so terrible further weakens Harley. It's hard to care about any of the characters because their motivations are either cookie-cutter or non-existent. What the fuck is Enchantress's plan? Where are the A-level heroes during this massive metahuman attack? Why the fuck did anyone think the Joker would work as an underworld kingpin with dumb tats and an idiotic grille? Is El Diablo a god? Is Enchantress Zuul?

 

ETA: Also saw the Warcraft movie, which is also really dumb. Why did Paula Patton kill Priest/Tony Stark's dad? Why is all the armor in Aazeroth made from cheap plastic and why is it painted to look like a children's toy? Why are the elves so stupid-looking? Why are only the humans fighting off a huge evil invasion from a parallel world? Why did Ben Foster randomly and stupidly turn evil? Why do all the characters have such stupid names? Why don't the people who find Durotan's baby immediately kill it since it's an evil invader from another dimension? It even hisses menacingly at the person who found it! I couldn't help but laugh every time an orc rode a horse; the orcs look like they weigh twice as much as a horse. Is Paula Patton half-human? We know she's (ugh ugh ugh ugh) half-orc(en so dumb), but where are the other half-orcs? What were those non-orcs at the beginning in orcworld? 

 

Warcraft was the best of the three, sadly.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Mr. GOH!

[TCP]

Paranormal Activity 5: The Ghost Dimension
Why was it called The Ghost Dimension? They were pretty clear this entire series, it was a demon, not a ghost. Anyways, if you want to see a new standard for jumping the shark, watch this. Also a new standard for a series staying around too long. Really, what was the point of any of these sequels? They all built up to......???

[TheMightyEthan]

Goodnight Mommy. It's a suspense/horror movie that's completely lacking in suspense (I called the major "twist" that marks the climax of the movie 5 minutes into it). How it has an 84% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes is beyond me.

[deanb]

Suicide Squad

 

My dad picked this one to pop on. I wasn't expecting too much but after ID4:2 I was like "hey maybe films from this year aren't as bad as they're reviewed". I forgot this was follow up to BvS.

 

I's quite pretty and colourful at times which I think works, and Amanda Waller is great. But the film itself is like super bland. No one really has much time to breath n those that do are all made as sympathetic which tbh just shouldn't really be there I think. They're bad guys, it's not really meant to be "oh but underneath they've a heart of gold". Diablo was I think only one that desrved it. At times it can't decide if it's trying to do comedy or not, and much of the comedy falls rather flat. Like in trailers there's a bit where Boomerang opens a can n they're trying to be quiet. This isn't the case in the film, like...in context I've no idea why he has a can.

 

It's just super bland, has no particular set pieces and the chemistry between the cast is pretty much non-existant.

 

At the current rate Wonder Woman and Justice League are solid missable films.

[Mr. GOH!]

Kong: Skull Island. Terrible mish mash of extremely well worn tropes.

[danielpholt]

I watched Hardcore Henry. I fucking hated it.

[Mal]

Resident Evil: Vendetta

I haven't gone through RE7 but this movie is RE4-6 in terms of style. I could leave it at that but nah.
First off, I should say I kind of enjoyed this because I came in knowing what I was getting myself into. I would put it in the OK Movie thread but that's a bit generous since:

You cannot create tension if you bring in known characters like Chris, Leon and Rebecca. They cannot die. So any new characters that are introduced are death flagged and actually die. I only recall two people who weren't. This all was kind of expected though. What puts this in this movie in this thread is the cuts which makes very little sense. This is especially the case towards the end of the film. I can be entertained by ridiculous feats but bad cuts is just bad.

Anyhow I doubt any of you guys care so open spoilers:
They opened up cans of worms with being able to turn zombies back. Take the dude who ate his wife. How would he feel after getting turned back? Hell, does the wife die TWICE? Once after being eaten and again after being turned back to human. Like holy shit.

 

[TCP]

Assassin's Creed

Man, it's not like it's completely awful it's just boooring. It's a film with no personality or passion. I got zero sense as to who his ancestor was or even who Fassbender's modern day character was. You know, Ezio did a lot of the same things as Spanish Assassins Guy but he at least had some charisma. Movie probably could have used some more references to the games to, at least some nods here and there, that would have at least made something fun in the film.

Small spoiler for what's really an easter egg:

Spoiler

And I can't believe, out of all the assassin's that they could have chosen to appear they picked fucking Arno from Unity. God fucking dammit.

It just felt like to me a movie that studio execs dumbed down because they were nervous audiences wouldn't understand what was going on. Did they learn nothing from Mad Max Fury Road?!

[Zeo-Gold92]

The last crap movie was one I watched earlier, Backtrack. It's an Australian mystery film with Adrian Brody. All I can say is I feel great sorrow for the state of his career if he has to sink to depths of appearing in crap like this. It starts off promising but then bounces all over the place, a lot of over the top acting and just a bunch of random nonsense. I will admit though Sam Neil was a light in the moments he appeared in this film though. That was nice.

[TCP]

Death Note

Ok so, obviously the original Death Note anime has problems. Mainly in it's portrayal of women and the fact that it goes way, way, way too long. So it shouldn't be THAT hard to make a film based off the anime/manga. Unfortunately the filmmakers failed to understand their source material. The best part of Death Note was the game played between L and Light/Kira. The start of the film makes some effort to show that Light's smart but that doesn't really come into play. He's never one step ahead, except arguably at the end. Ryuk kind of sucked and it's clear they couldn't pay Willem Dafoe that much cause you barely hear him. 

I was prepared to tell you guys it's better than the anime and the original Ghostbusters film but I can't. It's just a shit film.

[Hot Heart]

Spectre (aka. Dead M's Switch)

I loved Casino Royale... and have been disappointed by every Bond film since. This is no different. It starts off promising and gradually devolves into pure stupidity. "Oh, yay, the car chase!" I thought as it gets underway, before it becomes so boring he manages to have a phone call in the middle of it. There are a couple of comic beats in there, too, but it doesn't really save it. And the big reveal?

 

 

Whyyyy?!

 

Never bought the romance bit either. Plus, Bautista's character? Fucking stupid. Why did they think his character could replace Sciarra when he's just an almost completely mute thug who can poke someone's eyes in?

 

In its favour, it does have some extremely nice-looking shots.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Hot Heart

[deanb]

Still has that great opening tracking shot

 

[Mister Jack]

The Emoji Movie.  I wanted to see just how bad it was.  No, I didn't pay for it; fuck that.  This felt like it was made by a robot, like someone typed "make a feelgood family comedy about emojis" into the Moviebot 9000.  You see every joke coming from a mile away, the plot is beyond vacuous and superficial, and as if that wasn't bad enough the movie about phone emojis shows a laughable lack of understanding about how phones or apps even work.  Even if I'm trying to accept this movie's logic, the story just makes no sense at all.  It's 90 minutes of advertisements delivered by some truly unlikable characters.  Everyone who was involved in the production of this should be ashamed.  Yes, even Patrick Stewart.

[deanb]

Justice League

 

tl;dr - At least I got a cool Flash wristband out of it.

 

None tl:dr:

Where to begin?

Do I start at the bit with the Batman PoV/FPS shot(no idea what we're calling them).

Do I start with the godawful photoshopping out of Cavill's moustache

Or do I start with the numerous godawful plot holes and the fact that I'd somewhat consider myself a comic nerd and found much of what was going on impenetrable.

Spoiler

• So we see Batman tinkering with a kind of sonic device throughout the film, but it's never explained how he knows that it works on Parademons or where the idea came from. Or what he hoped to achieve in attracting them all.
• Steppenwolf makes a shield thing around his ritual but Batman destroys it in like 4 seconds so what was the point of it.
• What was that Flash sequence in BvS. It was expected there would be a pay-off in Justice League but there's no reference to time travel on his part
• Is Superman confused/memory loss or not?
• How come Cyborg says he can get them to Russia faster than Batmans plane...then they arrive in Russia in the plane? In New52 he can make boomtubes so there's an assumption that they'd maybe have him do that...but that never happens so why have him say he can get them to Russia fast.
• Mera is Aquamans wife in the comics, but you'd think from their convo that was the first time they'd met since he was an abandoned boy...and yet they obviously also know each other
• How come Lex knows of the Motherboxes enough to be doodling about them, with loads of writing alongside it, but Batman can draw from them that the drawing of cubes is important but obviously doesn't read the notes to find out what they actually are.
• How come Cyborgs back story is that he was augmented by the Motherbox /after/ Supermans death when it became active, yet during BvS we're clearly shown a recording of him being made into Cyborg, and this is hours before Superman dies.

 

There's also, alongside the PoV shot, the issue that Cyborg and Parademons have a similar design (because similar base) but that means that some of the battles are a downright mess of split second "why'd aquaman just throw cyborg into a wall?". 

Also they carry on standing in a line, like at least 5 times. It's just super unnatural and clearly just a "we need something to put on the poster". We had this shot five years ago that set a standard for "team up shot" JL never bothered to even attempt to meet

 

Also the usual "it's all way too dark" issues of Snyder stuff. The first half had me thinking there was maybe going to be a stepping away from that (despite the trailers) but nope it headed into the "it's all dark n muddy" at the end.

 

 

The main good thing about it was that the title theme was a IRL update of this:

(minus GL, Hawkgirl and John...in fact I don't think it had Cyborg in it)

 

 

Just watch this:

It's kinda similar in a bunch of elements(Parademons invading, confused for being Batman cos dark n winged, motherboxes involved, Cybrog being part-motherbox n the JL forming up), but with Darksied instead of Darksied lite, and with Shazam/Captain Marvel and Green Lantern also there. It's not Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern in this one though, but it is Alan Tudyk as Superman.

 

[Hot Heart]

You probably know why it's such a mess, but just in case people aren't aware: Snyder left production partway through due to family tragedy, Whedon stepped in, there were a bunch of re-shoots and then, after all that, the film got an hour lopped out of it.

 

I mean, that's not to say it wasn't headed towards being a total mess anyway given what I've heard about BvS, but it probably makes the bajillion plotholes and disconnected scenes thing more understandable.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Hot Heart

[deanb]

Aye was aware, though I wouldn't say it's much of a crutch for either Whedon or Snyder to use. (it's listed as directed by Snyder, though unsure if Whedon left his name off due to having a light touch on the finished film, or not wanting to put his name to it).

 

The Moustache-o-meter does make for a handy re-shoot guide. The opening scene was clearly a Whedon addition. I've seen folks trying to figure if the Gadot butt shots are Whedon or Snyder but I'd say based on their previous outings it's probably both.

[Mister Jack]

It's already looking like Justice League is going to bomb.  It has pretty disappointing opening day numbers, and it didn't even do very well in China, and those guys eat any shit Hollywood throws at them.  With a ludicrous 300 million dollar budget, it's estimated they have to make 600 million just to turn a profit, and with such a tepid reception it seems unlikely that's going to happen.  If it does, they probably won't make much of a profit on it.  

[Mr. GOH!]

Justice League is very terrible. It's like a shittier version of a generic Marvel movie. Snyder's version would have been just as bad as what actually ended up on the screen, except with less humor. Everything is forced, the backstory (behold the epic past!) is on par with that of a Transformers movie, and the CGI is universally terrible. The movie also feels like it was shot entirely against a green screen in 2004.

 

"Mother box" is a stupidly hilarious term and it's funny every time a character says "Mother box" with a straight face and serious tones. the only thing funnier is how horny Steppenwolf seems to be for Mother and Mother boxes, almost as if he worships them. Very Freudian, I guess, worshipping mom's box and all.

 

Steppenwolf's plan is never explained; he just appears to want to magically convert everyone into parademons (which Steppenwolf seems to not ultimately control) that "feed on fear" for the hell of it and because Mother wants it. In competent hands, a story about how Batman deals with villains who feed on fear would be interesting since his whole bat schtick is about causing fear. But the parademons end up being annoying character-less bug things much like the Chitauri in Avengers, but at least the Chitauri had those weird space fish vehicles that were kinda cool-looking. Steppenwolf's main motivation is revenge for not conquering the Earth some untold thousands of years ago, although why he wanted to conquer it back then remains a mystery.

 

Spoiler

The Superman resurrection is handled in such a stupid way, too.I guess Kal-El just woke up angry and wanting to murder people for no reason. Once he sees Lois and his mom he magically gets better just in time to join the fight against Steppenwolf. It's so stupid.

 

 

I could go on, but I've wasted enough time thinking about this bullshit. Zero stars out of five.

 

Edit: I did not notice any weird upper lip stuff on Henry Cavill, which is weird since everyone I know who's seen it definitely was creeped out by his weird upper lip.

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2017 by Mr. GOH!

[Hot Heart]

The Rewrite

 

Another watch with the family and in which I was vaguely interested because I thought this was supposed to be the "good" latter-day Hugh Grant film because he actually plays someone who's a bit of a dick and it has Marisa Tomei but no... it sucks.

 

Looking into it, it feels autobiographical as it's by the guy who wrote Miss Congeniality but has churned out nothing but shit and Hugh Grant vehicles since. And so Hugh Grant is a washed-up Hollywood screenwriter who begrudgingly takes a job teaching screenwriting at some university across the other side of the country, almost immediately sleeping with a young, attractive student upon arrival.

 

He tries to do the minimal possible, gradually falls for the Marisa Tomei character, blah blah. For all its meta screenwriting stuff, its first act is too slow and boring and the character development is extremely on-the-nose in that it literally says outloud their issues being expressed through their writing. And his main success as a teacher is... passing on the details of a kid to his agent because the kid already wrote an amazing script without any need for the class.

 

Early on my sister was loudly protesting at how "unwoke" it is and I was in agreement but figured it's all part of him redeeming himself later but, ultimately, it's just so weak. It doesn't feel like he really learns anything at all and is rewarded for the smallest of things.

 

You'd think the film were written by a man going through a mid-life crisis but you'd be wrong. It was written and directed by a man going through a mid-life crisis.

 

Marisa Tomei, Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons are wasted on this.

[Hot Heart]

I was tired and bored one evening so I decided to watch Street Kings. I didn't know much about it other than it starred Keanu Reeves and sounded vaguely interesting, and I remember a co-worker 10 years ago saying it was good. "Maybe it's one of those decent films that kinda goes under the radar. Keanu Reeves has some of those, right?" NOPE.

 

So, it turns out it's a David Ayer film based off an old James Ellroy screenplay, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Hypermasculine LAPD fetishization... mixed with an elaborate conspiracy involving police corruption.

 

It starts off interesting as you play catch-up, seeing Keanu as an alcoholic and (seemingly?) racist arms dealer only for him to be a Dirty Harry-style Vice cop who shoots first and avoids questions entirely. The mystery stuff works okay as you're watching Keanu team up with Chris Evans (there are a few "hey, that actor" moments) but the whole conceit feels gross once the credits roll and you reflect on it. There aren't even any proper character arcs or a decent story. I'm surprised it was by the guy who made End of Watch, but it probably feels more in line with Bright and Suicide Squad.

[toxicitizen]

Ghost in the Shell (the Scarlett Johansson one) 

 

I went into this one with low expectations but hoping for the best. Jesus, what a fucking turd. It's not even funny bad, although I did laugh at a few moments that were supposed to be dramatic. The dialog is godawful, they changed the story in ways that actively go against the original's core theme and they recreated shots or scenes from the original and somehow managed to completely miss their point and/or suck all the atmosphere out of them. For a movie that's fairly action-packed and has some pretty nice visuals, it is impressively dull.

 

The only good things were the Clint Mansell soundtrack and the couple scenes where Beat Takeshi gets to be a badass. I mean, those scenes are completely out of character for Aramaki but whatever, I was well past giving a shit by that point.

Edited May 21, 2018 by FLD

[Thursday Next]

4 hours ago, FLD said:

Ghost in the Shell (the Scarlett Johansson one) 

 

 

My favourite thing about it is how they bludgeon you over the head with the meaning of the title. "You are your ghost, your body is your shell." About one hundred times. Really slowly. So that even the people dumb enough to not get that Star Wars is anti-facism get it.

[Mr. GOH!]

Transformers: the Last Knight.

 

It's worse than the rest, which is saying something. It's like having a 2.5 hour long seizure.

[Mister Jack]

5 hours ago, Mr. GOH! said:

Transformers: the Last Knight.

 

But why?