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Mister Jack
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Aladdin (the remake)

 

Okay so first things first:

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Yeah, I admit it. I would not have paid money to see this. Putting that aside, I would probably say this is the...best of the Disney remakes? Maybe? However, that isn't really saying much. It's not exactly a high bar to clear. It wasn't a shot-by-shot remake like Lion King, so I appreciate that they at least tried something different. The problem is that the new stuff is just kind of...ehhh? It's not aggressively bad like Beauty and the Beast but it's not very original or compelling either. There's a new song but it's not that good. A few of the expanded details like Jafar being a former thief had potential, but the script doesn't really do much with it. The actors for Aladdin and Jasmine were fine, I suppose, but Jafar's was pretty boring. Will Smith is okay as the genie except for the fact he can't sing, which is kind of important. I don't know. I can't really rant about how this one fucked everything up like I did with Lion King, but at the same time it's just so completely average that I could never really recommend it to anyone either. It's okay to watch once if you have a couple of hours to kill, I guess, but I can't see many people bothering to watch it a second time, especially when the much better original is also available. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Dark Phoenix

 

I'll be honest I expected it to be a giant shitshow given the initial reception. It's not too bad, mainly helped by First Class pulling together a really solid cast of actors. Mainly it struggles in being tied down in previous films lore which hampers an attempt at telling the Dark Phoenix saga, which means it compromises in ways that drag it down. For example:

Spoiler

- Hellfire club being in First Class meant that they couldn't be used in Dark Phoenix, which means you get the Chastain alien things. And as there's no prior connection between Charles and the Shi'ar you can't really suddenly bring them in.

- Having her "Phoenix it up" in Apocalypse means you have to imply it's part of her inherent power set while trying to imply her new power level is from being infused with the phoenix force (which is never named btw). However she didn't really show much more power in this than she had in killing Apocalypse, just now it was a tad prettier and more unstable.

- Casting JayLaw back in the day meant yeah she had to die, and shame they put that in the trailer.

 

There's a weird thing where Genosha (also another thing not named) is like barely a hundred metres across, let alone the size to support a city (that could be wiped out). Like it's so small if it was the same size in the comics then post "no more mutants" the entire remaining mutant population would still struggle to fit on Genosha in this film.

 

There is however some cool moments, especially with the likes of Magneto when taking down the aliens and just going a bit gory with it given he's a whole train of metal to work with. They do almost attempt to do "the whitehouse scene" from X2 a bit but kinda give up half heartedly within a couple seconds so don't get the full scope of what could be done with a murderous nightcrawler. The Cyclops-powered weapon on the X-jet is also kinda cool, and makes sense, though only used once.

 

Ultimately it's a story line that, even before Last Stand, was made pretty damn competently in the animated TV show and that had "Jean" a lot more than should be legally allowed.

 

If you've enjoyed the characters of the First Class lot then I'd say this wouldn't be a waste of your time if looking to wrap things up before we get all new x-men in the MCU.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Joker.

 

It is a competently-made movie that fails to fulfill its own promise or explore the Joker's origin in a truly meaningful way. Joaquin Phoenix gives a great performance, though the character he creates is not a believable threat to any version of Batman I've ever seen. It is truly bizarre to see a mainstream blockbuster in which there are no heroes and the protagonist is extremely unsympathetic. I would not suggest paying money to see this movie in the theater, but it isn't as terrible as, say, Batman v Superman in many ways. The character study of Arthur Fleck's transformation into Joker is carried only by Phoenix's bizarre performance. 

 

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3 hours ago, Mr. GOH! said:

It is a competently-made movie that fails to fulfill its own promise or explore the Joker's origin in a truly meaningful way.

Curious about what you mean by this. I just saw it too and I thought it was pretty decent. I didn't love it, but I'm guessing I probably enjoyed it more than you did, even if I agree with some of your other points.

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You know, I would put Joker on the higher end of OK for this thread.

 

I think the film is fine for what it is; that nothing is done horribly in comparison to the likes of Suicide Squad. The primary problem I have with the film is that this Joker isn't what you might expect out of a potential supervillain. Honestly it might have been better to remove the DC coating and have this standout on it's own about a disturbed man that has been let down by both the city and the people around him. The traits that make Joker the Joker aren't here. Sure this Joker eventually goes off his rocker, but he typically has a plan of some type and an unexpected genius to it.

 

Presentation and atmosphere are great as well as the setting. This film definitely instills the sense that Gotham is an absolute hellhole and maybe would be better off to burn to the ground. The people are terrible, the government is terrible, and most everywhere you look it's a trash heap. That is...

 

Until you get to the wealthy and privileged. It's a standard plot, but I think it works well simply for the stark contrast between the two parties. Even with the idea that Arthur (Joker) is the son of Thomas Wayne, you see how he has lived in comparison to the cameo of young Bruce Wayne. Granted, I'm not fond of the portrayal of Thomas Wayne as some elitist 1% because to me it ham-fists the notion of 

everyone in Gotham being corrupt. It's been done before with better tact, and they could have still maintained the same notion of Thomas Wayne "denying" his son and "lying" to him. Which leads to the garbled mess of confusing the audience into trying to figure out if Arthur really is adopted or not. A nod to the Joker's origins never really being clear, but ultimately it never truly mattering because his present self is always a threat.

 

Overall, I view this Joker as only a catalyst of chaos rather than an agent. So I guess that would mean I prefer Heath Ledger's Joker, at least in the confines of a cinematic film.

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I would actually put Joker in the lower end of good, although I never got around to doing so. A thing I have seen a lot with criticisms of the film is the notion that this Joker doesn't feel like a threat to Batman or that there's no good way to tie it into the DCEU. Even if that's true, I tried to form my opinion based on this film as a standalone movie rather than as the beginning of a franchise. I know that can be hard with how much cinematic universe crap gets shoved down our throats these days, but if you judge the film's based purely on its own merits as a singular movie I think it's pretty decent.

 

Spoiler

I do agree that tying in Batman's origin was unnecessary and it took me out of the film for a minute, but it's a minor gripe for me. When it comes to Thomas Wayne, I was fine with him. We don't know that he's really Arthur's father. In fact, there's a good chance he isn't. There's no definitive proof that he was corrupt and buried the truth. Arthur's mom could just as easily have been delusional like he said, even if he was a dick about it. That's actually something I liked. Thomas wasn't demonstrably corrupt as far as I can tell. Maybe he really did want to be mayor so he could help out Gotham with its crime and poverty problem. However, even if he isn't corrupt he was still very out of touch and how could he not be? He's an extremely rich man and he's probably been extremely rich for many years. Even if his intentions were good, he simply cannot understand the struggle of the lower class so he tends to say and do things that piss them off because he sounds dismissive of their anger. I thought that was actually a pretty interesting way to portray his character. Usually Thomas Wayne is portrayed as unrealistically saintly. How many real life billionaires are as philanthropic and humble as Thomas Wayne in most of his appearances? I can only maybe think of one billionaire who even comes close and that would be Bill Gates. In this movie Thomas might very well be a good guy at heart but he just can't relate to poor people and it leads to his downfall. I liked that angle. I certainly liked it more than making him part of the mafia in the Telltale games.

 

Something else I have to say is that even if this Joker isn't like the one everyone is used to, I feel like it's the first Joker in many years who I can legitimately believe is mentally ill. Joker is always talking about how he is insane but I just never really buy it. He's too cunning and calculating and always knows exactly what he's doing. He's not insane, he's just a giant asshole. I love the character but this has always been one thing about him that bugged me. In fact, out of all of Batman's villains he's probably the one who feels the least insane except for maybe Bane, and that's especially true of the Ledger version, so it was interesting to see a Joker who actually acted like a realistic serial killer.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Bad Taste

 

Yeah, Peter Jackson's first movie ever. I ended up seeing this with a movie streaming group as part of a Halloween event. It was supposed to be Braindead, which I've already seen, but audio problems caused the switch to this film instead. You can tell it was made with pretty much no budget. The cast is extremely small for a sci-fi action movie about an alien invasion and I highly suspect that Peter just rounded up his buddies to act in this movie for him, but there's something I find really charming about that. Before he got Lord of the Rings money, Peter was just a guy who wanted to make a movie and he did the best he could with what he had and you know what? It's not half bad. It's extremely cheesy, but once the action scenes get going it's strangely compelling. Peter Jackson's completely insane self-insert character is such a blast to watch that it makes up for any flaws the movie has. Of course, this is an early Peter Jackson movie so that means absolute buckets of blood and gore (where 90% of the budget probably went) which is admittedly a guilty pleasure for me in these schlocky kinds of films.

 

Spoiler

It also means an obligatory gross-out scene, and I was less thrilled about watching a bunch of aliens drinking vomit. Ugh.

 

If you have a high tolerance for gore and you're the kind of guy who likes cheesy B-movies, this isn't a bad way to kill 90 minutes. Watching it with a group was a pretty fun time.

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Bad Taste was one of my step-dads favourite cult movies and he was pretty eager to introduce me to it. It'd say it was quite enjoyable, especially with the non-budget element of it. The sheep bit is always good, and yeah it's amazing to watch with it being in mind that this was the guy who'd go on to make LotR with the scale of effects it had.

 

Any who I'm here for The Joker. Which I gather we're all fairly middling on. Competently shot, a bit heavy handed on many elements (especially the strings in the music) and not terrible or anything just not like a movie I'd be clamouring to get to again or tell everyone else it's a must see. It ultimately felt quite "meh" and was maybe trying for some kind of anti-1% message in it but would have been better done a decade ago than now.

Definitely surprised one scene was in this considering I thought the trope was well and truly killed off in Teen Titan's Go! To the Movies. And I'd say its inclusion overall made the film worse off.

 

Also it royally fucked up a Bob Monkhouse joke which I think it can only get away with cos I'd guess his audience isn't very international. (same with the Gary Glitter thing).

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

 

Star Wars really needs a Kevin Fiege type person at the helm to give a general overall steering because this is clearly the culmination of JJ trying to set up a bunch of stuff (way too much stuff) in TFA with there being no clear marker for it to continue, and then Rian Johnson coming in with the "let the past die" stuff from TLJ, and then JJ coming back and trying to cram in way too many films into this one providing zero room for any breathing and just throwing a shit ton of fan service stuff and hoping no one will notice it's doing what TFA did and just reheating older Star Wars films rather than...letting the past die. 

 

That droid tinker alien is fun though.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Frozen II

 

This was a really weird movie. It seems fine when you are watching it, but after you're done and you start asking yourself how certain elements are supposed to work the whole thing falls apart like sand through your fingers. The plot goes by so fast during your viewing that you don't really have time to stop and ask yourself these things, but the unfortunate fact is that upon reflection the story to this movie makes no damn sense at all. It doesn't make sense as its own narrative and it especially doesn't make sense as a follow-up to the original Frozen. It's really, really obvious that they didn't have a plan for a sequel when making the original and had to clumsily build something from scratch that just doesn't feel quite right. There's all this new lore dumped on you that ends up retroactively causing the original movie to not make sense either. It gets pretty bad. The reason I'm still putting it in this thread is because some of the visuals are absolutely beautiful and there are some good songs in here. Anna has a stronger part to play and Olaf is also much less annoying than he was before, which is appreciated. Truth be told, everything presented here was at least decent...except for the story. And, you know, that's kind of a big deal.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Superman: Red Son

 

One of my fave "what ifs" and one I'd figured would do well if DCEU wanted to just drop a connected universe since it covers most things people are familiar with but in a new setting.

Unfortunately this adaptation kind flounders on quite a few of its changes. I think bringing in Svetlana ("Lana") was a nice change, but loads of others not so much especially with him killing off Stalin, making America-man (or whatever it was) be just a slug fest in the Siberian tundra than the comic-book fight against bizarro in London which devastates the city and culminates in bizarro flying off with an accidentally launched nuke. They basically didn't develop the Hal Jordan storyline at all except to be "oh look we have a green lantern" (and in the comic the green lantern corp was create in the phantom zone to avoid Superman becoming aware of it). Also kinda feels like they went in with "oh it's communist superman so he's evil and bad cos he's communist" rather than it being "he's still fucking superman, just now he's communist". Hardly like the Kansas raised Superman is a capitalist beacon.

 

Felt like it wasted times on the wrong parts of the story and too briefly skipped over the more interesting things.

Like it's nearly two minutes introducing "Superior Man". In the comic they just have him heading right over to the soviet bloc, you just need to see a second superman with a "US" on his badge and you get where he's from. Never mind the big fight right after that wastes chunks of time. And he's not even fucked up like Bizzaro superman

 

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Onward

 

It's out on streaming already thanks to the coronavirus so I figured what the hell. I mean, I'm going to be watching a lot of movies for the next couple of weeks, if not longer. I debated putting this in the good movies thread but I think it just barely misses that mark. Most of the stuff in this movie is just okay, but it's a very solid okay if that makes sense. I didn't love any of the characters, but I liked them well enough I suppose. They have their moments, they're just not especially original or memorable. The same goes for the setting. Urban fantasy is a cool idea, but it's mostly just used as window dressing and the setting isn't really explored or fleshed out at all. Maybe that's asking too much for a movie that's less than two hours long, but I can't help being a little disappointed that the world didn't really live up to its potential. It's fine, though. The story is fine. The characters are fine. The jokes are...not that funny, actually. I didn't roll my eyes or anything but I only laughed once. The relationship between the brothers is what keeps this movie afloat and the last 20 minutes or so are pretty strong. In fact, that's where the movie feels more like classic Pixar instead of decent Dreamworks. I doubt I'll feel much of an urge to go back and rewatch this one like I do with Wall-e or Toy Story but I am glad I watched it at least once. I don't think it deserved to bomb at the box office but thanks to unfortunate timing this film just never had a chance.

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  • 1 month later...

SCOOB!

 

Okay so this one is kind of odd. It's not a very good movie, but at the same time it's kind of enjoyably bad? While I can't prove it, I feel pretty sure that WB is trying to kickstart some kind of Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe because this movie has quite a few cameos from characters who aren't originally part of Scooby-Doo. It's pandering for sure, but it's the kind of pandering that directly targets me so I couldn't help but feel happy when another character I recognized came onto the screen. Unfortunately they also recast Mystery Inc, except for Scooby himself, and I do not like the new voices at all. Daphne is passable I guess but the rest just don't sound good. I'm really tired of Hollywood hiring mediocre voice actors because they want a big name attached to the project. Frankly, the names they did attach aren't even that big. There's also this really forced conflict about how Shaggy and Scooby leave in the beginning because a cringy celebrity cameo that's quite literally 10 years out of date tells them that they don't contribute anything to the team. Then Fred, Daphne, and Velma are made out like the bad guys for driving them away even though they never said a single line that implied they felt that way. The plot is also really weird and ridiculous, even for a cartoon. Think Scooby-Doo live action movie plot weird and it's not far off the mark, although this was still better than that movie. There's also some real eye-rolling "heartwarming" dialogue about the power of friendship. Barf.

 

So what did I like? Well some of the jokes actually did make me laugh. They don't all land, far from it, but enough of them landed for me to consider myself entertained. Dick Dastardly was also a pretty fun villain, every bit as conniving and mustache twirling as you'd expect him to be. My favorite character actually ended up being Dynomutt, who is surprisingly way better than his original version. The original Dynomutt was a doofy, bumbling screwup like every animal sidekick in the 60s and 70s, but this Dynomutt is actually highly competent and put-upon while Blue Falcon is a bumbling superhero who never listens to Dynomutt's good advice. That's a much more amusing dynamic to me. So while I wouldn't go as far as to urge anybody to check this out, I will say that I think it could provide some dumb fun if you decide to watch it with no expectations.

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  • 1 month later...

The Old Guard

 

The comparisons to Highlander are inevitable (though no decapitations in this). Also with Charlize Theron heading an action flick the comparisons can also be made to Atomic Blonde, which is the far superior film (well worth a watch if you haven't. Half the John Wick duo, some banging tunes and dripping bisexuality).

Ultimately fairly by the book action flick with the twist of immortality. Dudley Dursley returns as a snivelling villain, and suits the role quite well. I'd like to see him in more things. There's a minor bit of creativity with the immortality stuff, but a lot of it is close to "playing dead" and I'd say the finale is the only biggy.

Andys (Theron) has a distinctive axe, and you see see a shot on one of the guy having a fancy jeweled short sword, but I'd have loved a bit more on them having their own unique weapons. Her original crew are a sword guy and an archer lady, but modern crew are mostly assault rifles and pistols. Maybe having a sort of DnD type group set up might have been kinda neat (I know something recently mentioned them using DnD classes to set up their film/show even when not fantasy based).

 

A fine way to spend an afternoon if looking for something to fill you in. Clearly setting for a sequel but it's Netflix and they're not too common on rolling out sequels.

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  • 1 month later...

Project Power

 

It was okay. Like many Netflix movies it's a neat concept with just slightly below par output despite the cast involved. I think here it maybe had a few too many moving parts (I think you could have maybe taken Gorden-Levitts role out, or hugely minimised it, and focused on Jamie Fox n Robin). Some of the powers are things we don't normally see, most seem quiet negative on the user (which is fair enough) to the point where I'm unsure how you find out what your power is and then get a chance to use it a second time. Like you're not immune to your power like traditional heroes (e.g jonny storm doesn't have 3rd degree burns over his body...except in Ruins), but here we have a frost lady that freezes herself to death. The "5 minutes" rule seems very loose both in how long scenes last and how some powers seem to last for much less than 5 minutes, to the point it's detrimental they show many characters setting timers on their watches.

 

There is a bit that's confusing in that

Spoiler

Fox's character is from the initial army trials of "power", and through that had a daughter with native powers not limited by the 5 minute rule. She's kidnapped and is used as the source of "power" by the baddies....but they're already making "power" before then otherwise she wouldn't have been born with abilities. T'was a headscratcher that I think maybe fell unnoticed through initial plans on how they'd lay out the origin.

 

Neat premise, neat actors, neat effects. Decent afternoon film to watch on a rainy day.

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  • 1 month later...

Terminator : Dark Fate

 

This has been idling in my backlog for a while and I had a lazy Sunday and figured I'd put it on. It was certainly one of the stronger Terminator films, though still woefully playing catch up to T2 (and being a rif on many of it; which it is kind of knowing of). Some bombastic action; slightly broken with knowing it's setting up a franchise so doesn't wholly resolve things.

Given Genisys showed how to easily kill off a T-1000 if you know it's coming it made it hard to wonder how the Rev-9 (as the current baddy is called) is posing such a threat when they're at times purposefully luring it to a "kill box".

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  • 2 months later...

Monster Hunter

 

I saw this for free. It was big and loud and dumb but not really as bad as the trailer made it look. It's kind of weird because Paul W.S. Anderson is definitely a hack but I can tell there were people working on this movie who are big fans of Monster Hunter and they tried their best to make it as much like the game as they could within the limitations they had to work with. The monsters, costumes, and weapons all look surprisingly accurate to the games to the point where I have to wonder if they consulted Capcom when designing them. The hunters even speak the Monster Hunter language from the game so there's a language barrier between Milla Jovovich's character, Artemis, and the hunter characters that requires using nonverbal communication. And yes, there is a palico that wasn't in the trailer for some reason. Of course, if you aren't already a fan of the game then the only thing that's going to have any appeal for you are the giant monster fight scenes, which are cool. This movie is kind of weird in the sense that the only thing that seems to be holding it back is the studio being afraid to spend a lot of money on it. The monsters and props all look fine, but you can tell they cut corners everywhere else they could to lower the budget. There aren't many human characters and most of the movie takes place in a desert, which I always found to be the least interesting Monster Hunter biome. If Sony was willing to take a risk and increase the budget on this franchise they could probably make a really cool fanservice movie for Monster Hunter lovers with more sets, more weapons, more monsters, and definitely more palicos. I definitely feel that the designers and effects people would be up to the task. Alas, I'm pretty sure that Sony is going to keep playing it safe by churning out low budget sequels that are serviceable enough but don't quite live up to their potential.

 

I also have to go on a bit of a rant here. I can't stand Hollywood shoving the US military into films where they're not needed, especially movies based on toys or video games or whatever. The soldier characters in this movie don't play as big of a role as the trailer implied and they're mostly there just to show that conventional weapons are useless against monsters, but you really didn't need this in the first place. Nobody goes to see Monster Hunter or Transformers or Godzilla because they want to watch soldiers dicking around. They want to watch monsters, Transformers, and Godzilla! Can they please stop shoehorning this shit in all the time? If they did it to keep costs down, they could have just made the main character a native to the Monster Hunter world and spent first 15 minutes or so building up their backstory. The isekai bullshit was not necessary. Audiences don't need a protagonist to be from the same world they're from to get invested. In fact, Tony Jaa's hunter character was way more interesting than Milla Jovovich's soldier character and he didn't even speak English. If this had been a thing through the whole film I might have stuck it in the crap movie thread but thank god it's only a factor for maybe 15 minutes total.

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Wonder Woman 1984

 

This one was a mixed bag. I read somewhere that it's become the lowest rated DC movie with audience members but I don't think that's fair. This movie has some big problems but it's nowhere near being the absolute pile of shit that Batman v Superman or Justice League is. There are things in here that I enjoyed. Pedro Pascal as Max Lord was a pretty interesting villain to watch and so was Kristen Wiig as Cheetah, but I might be biased because I already love Pascal and Wiig, not to mention I'm a sucker for the Faustian Deal trope. They both do a good job, though. I have to say that Diana was by far the worst part of her own movie, and I'm pretty sure I felt this way about the first one too. I don't know what they can do to salvage her character but it's a problem when the main character is what drags everything down. A huge chunk of the film's runtime is devoted to Diana's love life, and even though it ties into the main plot I JUST DON'T GIVE A FUCK. This movie is too long and they should have cut off at least 20 minutes. The special effects are definitely not on Marvel's level either and for a superhero movie there is not a lot of action. The villains are what salvaged this film for me which feels weird because Diana herself is kind of a selfish, unlikable bitch who spends way too much time whining about how she isn't happy without her man. Does that sound like Wonder Woman to you? It also doesn't help that Gal Gadot has all the charisma of a brick in pretty much every movie she's in. Plus, there's one really unfortunate implication that the film never even acknowledges...

 

Spoiler

Diana rapes a guy.

 

No, that's not an exaggeration. She rapes a guy. There's really no other way to look at it. She makes a wish to get her dead boyfriend back, said boyfriend possesses another man's body, then she fucks that guy's body. It goes without saying that the body's true owner cannot consent to fucking Diana but the film never addresses the moral implications of this whatsoever. Diana never even shows concern for the poor bastard who just got evicted from his own body. He gets his body back at the end at least but at no point does Diana feel any doubt or remorse about taking her boyfriend's soul on a lengthy joy ride in someone else's meat puppet. If the genders in such a scenario had been reversed people would rightfully call the guy who knowingly fucked a possessed girl an absolute scumbag.

 

I also disagree with the film's message that nothing good ever comes from a lie. That's such a simplistic, black and white way of looking at the world and at morality. It's kind of ironic that I get this kind of message shoved down my throat after playing Danganronpa V3, where the message was pretty much the complete opposite and also more convincing. 

 

If you have HBO Max or a free trial like I did then it's worth watching once, I suppose, but don't pay to see it in a theater.

 

Oh, and despite what people say Maxwell Lord is not a Trump expy. Max actually has an ounce of humanity in his character so he can't be.

Edited by Mister Jack
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  • 3 weeks later...

Wonder Woman 1984

 

Pretty much echo Jacks stuff. Wonder Woman was the best of the DC films but that's a pretty low bar to start from. This is also no Zack Snyder trash either but once again is still kinda pants.

Pascal certainly was a highlight of it and he was having a lot of fun. Wiig was good until she became Cheetah. This film series is rather crap at casting convincing super-villains. Still can't get over Thewlis being cast as big butch Ares, The God of War.

 

And yeah - the love life thing was weird. She's practically immortal. You'd think she'd know not to spent over half a century pining after one guy. Even mortals know to move on eventually.

 

To follow on from Jacks spoiler bit:

Spoiler

I'd heard the whole "WW rapes a guy that's possessed by Chris Pine" but I'd figured it wasn't maybe something she'd find out until later on and that he was physically Chris Pine (the trailers just showing us Chris Pine).

What I wasn't aware of is how clearly it shows you that this is very much some random guy and he is this random guy throughout the full film just taking the body for a joy ride. He shows up to Diana at a party as a random guy and it's only after some repeating of his things from last film that she realises it's Chris Pines soul in there. You only see Chris Pine because it makes the movie flow easier - they even show you again later on that it's the guy because they check him out in a mirror (they also trash talk the guys apartment and lifestyle too). 

So apart from raping the guy she also puts him in frequent mortal danger. Chris Pine is already dead but this guy, who is taken to gun fights in Cairo, has very much not got a choice in this.

 

Someone pointed out that even Scooby Doo knew that if you're in someone elses body - no touching!

 

There's also some casual "go back to your country" racism thrown in too, but it's against the Irish so I guess that's okay?!?

 

I did like the very fan servicey post-credit scene. It's maybe showing the film is a bit too confidant in their current lead though :P

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  • 1 month later...

Tom and Jerry

 

I wasn't quite sure which thread to put this in because this is basically two different movies. One of them is an enjoyable Tom and Jerry cartoon and the other is an unbearable live action movie about a bunch of human characters I don't give two shits about. I decided to split the difference and say it's just okay. The main plot where the protagonist girl is trying to fudge her way through a job interview at a hotel by planning a big wedding is the kind of cliched bullshit you've seen in a hundred other comedies and the only human character I enjoyed was the hotel manager because he treats Tom more like an employee than an animal and I thought that was cute. Aside from that, every human character was either boring or a cartoonish buffoon, and having humans act like cartoon characters in a movie that already has cartoon characters is a pet peeve of mine. Let the toons act like toons. That's what they're there for! Every scene that didn't have Tom or Jerry in it just felt like wasted time to me.

 

On the other hand, while I hated all the human stuff, when the movie WAS about Tom and Jerry it could actually be kinda fun. Sometimes the animation is a bit hit or miss but when it looks good it looks really good. Every animal in this movie is a cartoon, which I thought was a nice touch, and the animators did a good job making it feel like they were really there. Making a cartoon character convincingly interact with a real life object or person is a very difficult thing to accomplish but they pulled it off. When Tom and Jerry trash that hotel it feels like they're actually trashing it so on that technical achievement alone I'm glad I watched this. The writer also clearly understood why people like Tom and Jerry as characters because this movie gave them a ton of personality and, more importantly, they do not talk. Would I recommend it to Tom and Jerry fans? Well, if you already have HBO Max I guess you really have nothing to lose. If not, maybe just watch the Tom and Jerry parts on Youtube sometime and skip the rest.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Zack Snyder's Justice League

 

Boy, this is a tricky one to talk about. If this had been released in theaters back in 2017 it would have been an absolutely unbearable slog to get through. Utterly unwatchable. The freaking thing is four hours long. Imagine watching a four hour movie with no intermission to take a bathroom break or stretch your legs or anything. It never would have worked. Watching at home on demand, though? It's...passable. I watched this movie over three sittings and when I did it like that it was okay. I do appreciate that the movie was broken up into six parts so you could easily digest it in chunks. Two parts per viewing worked pretty well for me.

 

As hard as it is to divorce the movie's length from its quality otherwise, I'm gonna try to do that here and say that the film is kind of a mess. It just has too many moving parts and it gets dull at times. I'm not going to put all the responsibility for this on Snyder, though. He had the unenviable task of having to make an ensemble film with characters where several of them didn't even have movies of their own to establish them beforehand. A lot of the new footage is for building up these characters. Does it work? Ehh, I only really think it worked for Cyborg, but I appreciate that Snyder was trying his best. There's still a lot of Snyder trash in here though. If they cut out all the slow motion I bet it would have shaved 30 minutes off the film's run time. I also watch with subtitles because of hearing issues and I can't tell you how many times I saw [Ancient lamentation music playing] on the screen. Snyder has his cliches that he just can't let go of and he certainly didn't decide to let go of them here. The last half hour or so also has nothing to do with the story at hand and is just meant to build up a sequel. I would say it should have been cut off and saved for another movie, but they're probably never coming back to the Snyder stuff so I guess they wanted to just dump everything they had and then wash their hands of it? I don't know. At least the action scenes are generally better and not chock full of that shaky cam nonsense. If I have to choose between slow motion and shaky cam, I'm picking slow motion every time.

 

Of course, all the extra footage is only going to do so much to fix the movie. At its core it's still average at best. Cyborg and Steppenwolf's designs still look really stupid, even if Cyborg as a character is better than he was. The Flash is still really annoying and unfunny and that bugs me because I usually love Flash. The conflict is pretty much over the moment Superman shows up during the final battle, but to be fair each member does still feel like they have an important role to play. The pacing is all over the place. Still, I suppose it is better than the theatrical cut. Of course, being better than a total piece of crap isn't saying much, but it was an interesting watch just to see HOW different it was.

 

Spoiler

Darkseid actually looked pretty good. Shame we're never going to see him again.

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Chaos Walking

 

Quite neat effects (that you'll see from the trailer). Neat cast, Mads is looking fine. It's kinda heavy handed with the toxic masculinity thing (only mens thoughts are "noise", there's a town that's just men, Tom Holland (Todd Hewitt, who for reasons we learn his name very well) is always about being "brave" and "not crying" and "got to attack" and so on to prove his manliness.

 

Shame that it's one of a trilogy that'll never happen. :P

 

 

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