Come December, keep in mind there is already a Star Wars thread - Movie Reviews

[Reply #80 on:]

Mad Max : Fury Road

I decided to give the movie a chance, and expected two possible outcomes:
a) The greatest movie I saw since a long time
b) NERDRAGE!!!!!! (followed by a verbal demolishion the the movie via internet later).

Either way, I expected to have my fun.
Well..the outcome was neither of both.
The movie had its moments, but did imhO not live up to its great legacy. (Yep, I know it was Miller who already made the classic Mad Max trilogy. But George Lucas also made Star Wars, which did not make him immune towards inventions like Jar Jar Binks).

So, my points:

a) Acting: Solid. Hardy avoided mistakes, but did also not really stand out. Theron was good, maybe even above, but also not Oscar material for me (to be fair, I saw the German dubbing. Maybe the English version was better, and it got partly lost with the other voice). Hoult was the one handling his character best, and I see his performance as award material.

b) Characters: Hm, hm, hm. My major letdown. I was always a tad sceptical how modern movies hardly manage to establish cult characters any more.  Now, the old Mad Max movies have always been not really about Max, but rather about him getting involuntarily caught in other folks quarrels. Yet, "Fury Road" stretched that theme too much. It became overobvious that Miller actually wanted to make a Furiosa movie, and promoted one "sidekick" character to token-protagonist, to call upon the big name "Mad Max". I would have been fine with either variant: EITHER make a Furiosa movie (including the risk how an unknown character can pull a new end-time movie, but..hey: New cult characters need to come from somewhere ) OR a "real" Mad Max movie. But this was a too careful approach: Basically, it looked like a movie about a new character, with Miller losing courage to go "all the way", and decided to call for an old character as "backup", to play it safe and lend the big name "Mad Max". Therefore, the movie did not create anything new, but rather fed on former glory and cult status. Also, in an end-time when fuel and bullets are considered worth more than a human life, you do not want to get the impression as if grenades are basically fired via chaingun.

c) Visuals: Pratical effects? Great. Designs: Crazy and over the top.
Yet....TOO elaborate. The cheezy 80s look of the classics showed some need and loss...e.g. Lord Humungus gang looked like something a bunch of end-time larpers clobbered together over a weekend. That way, it had some more "down-to-earth" credibility than the new, overboarding look. 

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E.g. When there was mention of the citadel being "basically unguarded", except for some sick warboys. The crew that operated the elevator alone was a whole army, each of them looking like Road Warrior's Wez big, hulking brother.

All in all: Visually impressive and nicely done. But - in direct comparison - the old Mad Max movies were less "style over substance", and this shows.
Among my friends, opinions were devided:
- Basically anyone over age 25 shared the above points of view (Visuals cannot compensate for all)
- Basically anyone 25 and younger went for a "Visuals are enough to carry the movie".

[Reply #81 on:]

Ya, I'm not sure it's possible to judge any actor's performance (especially if you're going as far as to take awards consideration into account) based on a foreign language dubbing. To me, vocal performance is at least 60% of the acting.

I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't judge the performances myself, but I think it's safe to say you couldn't claim to fairly do so either. With the dubbing you're almost judging an entirely different actor.

[Reply #82 on:]

Kung Fury
Just... just go watch it, it's 30 mins of ridiculous 80s fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg
A++

I have enormous respect for the guys who made it now, he seems like a cool dude.

[Reply #83 on:]

Cannot agree enough about Kung Fury

Also - do not know why I watched this, I was not even drunk - :

The Human Centipede 3 :

The initial promise ( that the movie was bound to be as politically incorrect as the previous parts were sick) had a certain appeal to me Also - with the shock effects and disgusting premise worn out - it seemd obvious to go more for a comedic/satirist approach, even with a backlach on the previous two parts.

Yet, it appeared rather juvenile. The cruetlies had the air of a 10 year old, shouting out "fuck" among adults to shock them. Their reaction "Ohhh...look at the little one trying to be bad...shooo cuuuute" sums it up. The sad thing is: The movie basically HAD the ingredients to make a politically incorrect satire...but Six is no Parker/Stone, no Timo Vuorensola, and not even a Sasha Baron Cohen in his "Brüno" days.  Politically incorrect...maybe the ingredients, but the cook did not know how to handle them.

Also - while Laser delivered a glorious study of "Overacting done right" in part one - he was not really into it. It seemd he had no motivation to take part, and wanted it to show. Laurence R. Harvey was great, especially for an actor who was basically unheard of before THC.

All in all, Six's thought probably were "Hm...come to think of it, part 3 is not really getting along, and I have no idea to change that. Better cancel the whole thing....Nope, it was already promised, I probably cannot back out. Ah...let's just clobber something together, so I can claim I did my part".

[Reply #84 on:]

Godzilla (2014)

Number #1 rule of these types of movies: the Golden Gate bridge never survives.

It was decent. Much better than Pacific Rim, which was a colossal disappointment. I thought the main character was a bit dull, but all the supporting characters were good, except maybe that Asian scientist who did nothing but stand around making ridiculous guesses. The CGI and scale of destruction was great.

[Reply #85 on:]

but all the supporting characters were good, except maybe that Asian scientist

I'm struggling to think of what supporting characters you might be talking about here. It couldn't possibly be the main character's wife and kid, considering they each had maybe one line in the entire movie, no personalities, and were only followed by the narrative due to their relationship to the protagonist. It couldn't be any of the military people, who barely acted and seemed like they couldn't have been less excited to be in the movie. And it couldn't be Bryan Cranston who dies in the first 15 minutes. So who on earth are you talking about?

I thought the action in Godzilla was fantastic, but the characters were absolutely pointless cardboard cutouts, and there wasn't anywhere near enough of the action to justify how often the movie cut away from it to concentrate on them. I mean, Pacific Rim was absolutely dumb as nails with stupid characters as well, but it was dumb in a campy over-the-top way, and it had at least ten times as much action as Godzilla that the camera never shied away from mid-scene (seriously, Godzilla must have pulled that shit three or four times and each time it was infuriating). Pacific Rim often made me cringe with cliché dialogue and goofy acting, but I'd still take that over Godzilla in a heartbeat, where every time the characters were on screen I was bored to tears and on the verge of falling asleep. And that wouldn't have even been that much of an issue the movie hadn't focused on those characters so goddamn much for no apparent reason other than just filling the parts of the movie without CGI, which happened to be a staggeringly large portion of it.

Sorry for the rant, Godzilla just bugged me. It got so much right (they nailed the look of Godzilla himself and when there was action it was glorious) and I wanted to like it so much, but it wasn't meant to be.

[Reply #86 on:]

Alright, I'll rephrase that: the characters weren't great but they didn't make me want to claw my eyes out. They were just kind of there.

Generally, I prefer acting that's plain and "boring" to acting that's downright terrible (which it was in Pacific Rim). Anyway, I'm not gonna waste too much breathe defending Godzilla because my opinion isn't particularly strong anyway. I have a heart full of Neutrality.

[Reply #87 on:]

I'm gonna side with URL on this one. I'd say the only character who really annoyed me in Godzilla was the dumb little boy who gets separated from his parents and is therefore immediately in danger. I think I just personally preferred the narrative of people dealing with horrific events and how that was affecting them and everyone around them because it did really make Godzilla look like the hero. Those parts in Pacific Rim are very few and far between, with the flashback being one of the best scenes in the movie because you see the emotional and physically devastating impact that the Kaijus had. I'd have rather explored the world that Pacific Rim was set in than spent the bulk of the movie in a military base with cliched stock characters (except Charlie Day and Ron Perlman).

[Reply #88 on:]

I guess my main point is that since neither movie was particularly good on the merits of plot or character, the only thing I can measure them by is how much monster-fighting was in them, and Pacific Rim had almost infinitely more of that. Even though I thought the action in Godzilla looked great, what little there was became impossible to fully appreciate due to how much the movie teased us and cut away from it for no good reason other than presumably saving on the effects budget.

To be clear, I found Pacific Rim to be pretty disappointing too. But I know which movie I'd choose to rewatch if I had to.

[Reply #89 on:]

I don't understand... the people making these movies can't all be oblivious idiots -- how can they possibly make movies that are this bad?

[Reply #90 on:]

Because money?

[Reply #91 on:]

If they make even a kinda' good film, won't the reviews be better and they'll make more money than if they made a terrible film?

[Reply #92 on:]

I completely agree, I'm just saying, it's clear the producers care more about money than creating anything remotely substantial. It doesn't matter to them what the quality of the end product is, just so long as they wind up in the black after its release.

[Reply #93 on:]

If they make even a kinda' good film, won't the reviews be better and they'll make more money than if they made a terrible film?

It'd be nice to think so, but the Transformers movies (as just one example) are proof that this isn't true. There are lots of ways to convince the ignorant masses to come out in droves for a movie without having anything resembling positive critical feedback...mainly being adapted from an extremely popular media property and having trailers that appeal to base impulses, such as by containing lots of action or sexy people. The vast majority of moviegoers don't check reviews.

And as Beamer hinted at, if the producers know they're going to make the money anyway, why bother wasting budget or effort on having a good script? Especially when most of them wouldn't even know what a good script is.

[Reply #94 on:]

Michael Bay determines the quality of a script by the number of times the word "explosion" occurs.

[Reply #95 on:]

Jurassic World  - The third dumbest Jurassic Park movie

Remember how good Jurassic Park was?  Watch this one to be reminded.  Homages to the original abound in this almost-reboot, which manages to be superior to its two immediate predecessors but lagging behind its most famous antecedent.

I remember discussing this movie with my brother a few weeks ago.  He told me it was going to be disappointing, and I concurred.  So strong was my belief that it would be bad that I started cataloging all the ways I figured it would disappoint me.  I'll spell them out here and spoilerize whether or not I was right.

Prediction one: The kids will not be killed by dinosaurs.  They are only there as a cliched device to ratchet up the tension.

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I probably don't need to spoilerize this, but of course they survived.  This would have been a good film to take the risk of crossing the Alex Kitner threshold, but the filmmakers know who's going to see these movies (apart from fat, nostalgic 30-somethings).  Also, it turns out one of the kids is on the spectrum, which boosts his character shields to maximum.  I don't know if he was supposed to be autistic in the original screenplay—I could see it being the new cliche for dramatically limiting child characters in movies, replacing the old standby: asthma—or if it was a clever way of covering for a bad actor.

Speaking of character shields, Chris Pratt's character could repel firepower of Death Star-like magnitude.  He was almost too cool.  Check that, he was too cool.  I saw traces of Indiana Jones in a world that Indy should not inhabit.  I'm not even talking about his raptor gang.  I'm cool with that, but I'll get into that later on.

The Lost World - Prediction one: They brought back Henry Wu just so he could be killed by his creation, Franken-style, baby.

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Subverted!  A character who dies in the first book survives 22 years in the movie universe.  His boss, however, eats it, which was surprising since he had the whole "conscientious capitalist"-thing that saved John Hammond from his book fate going for him.

Vincent D'Onofrio's character signed his own lunch ticket when he utters a variation of the ultimately true line that doomed Peter Ludlow in the second movie about extinct animals that were brought back to life being the property of those who brought it back to life.

Prediction III: Bryce Dallas Howard's character will learn "science/business: bad, nature:good" either by being eaten or by coming to eco-Jesus in time to save her from dinopocalypse.

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Subverted, more or less.  Bryce Dallas Howard, who I will henceforth refer to as "Heels" due to her ever-present pair of stylish and sexy, all-terrain, athletic, platform pumps, does indeed survive this movie, though I think it's because she discovered her maternal instincts .  Sexist?  Maybe a bit.  But she was the franchise's first great hope at a woman breaking the glass ceiling...by being eaten by a dinosaur.

Just remember, Heels did everything Chris Pratt did only not backwards and in high heels.

Prediction World: If Heels doesn't get eaten by a dinosaur, no women will.

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Technically subverted.  The only female speaking role that gets eaten is actually killed by a pterosaur and a mosasaur, but there is at least one woman on the totally ineffectual strike team sent after the Ignominious Rex.  That woman or women may have been killed, as you might expect from a dinosaur-hunting team that isn't sent to actually kill a dinosaur.  Which brings me to my next prediction

Prediction five: Guns will be shown to have no effect on any dinosaurs, raising the question: why even have guns in the first place?

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Mostly true.  The four most appropriate guns in this movie are as follows.  Chris Pratt has some sort of lever-action chambered in what looks like .444 or .450 Marlin.  They're reasonably good rounds for anything up to the largest of the large bears and, I'd wager, velociraptors.  Next is the unnamed Black guy's S&W X-frame revolver.  Good medicine on raptors, but probably not on anything much bigger than a grizzly.  The other effective gun is a helicopter-borne, door-mounted minigun.  Unfortunately, it's used by a nameless idiot in a scene undoubtedly inspired by or intended to inspire a level in a video game.  The final gun—and I use the term loosely—of note is a rocket launcher, also called the "why doesn't every one of the mercenaries carry one of these?"  Unfortunately, the warhead in the rocket launcher is of the incendiary rather than the much more effective armor piercing or high explosive types, and the Insidious Rex just shakes off the fireball.  A raptor gets blow'd up though.  One rocket, one raptor.  Kind of a waste.

There is one scene where the soldiers shoot a pterosaur from helicopter using a rifle, but pterosaurs are not dinosaurs.

Prediction six: The goofy dinosaur nonsense, e.g. the raptor gang, the hybrid dinosaur, will not bother me much.

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Almost true.  Early on I surmised that humans train and tame a good many large predators: orcas, dolphins, lions, tigers, and bears.  The idea that raptors could be trained was a unique one and for the better of the franchise.  Until now they had just been fast and bitey Freddies Kruger.  Showing them behaving like real animals might is refreshing.  I'm also not too fussed about the "hybrid" nature of the Inglorious Rex.  The franchise canon already established the T. rex had a critical weakness in its vision, so a super predator with completely unnecessary infrared senses made sense.  And also the Spinosaur is a douchebag who never should have killed a T. rex.

What killed it for me is that there's a "ZOMG!  It's part-raptor!"-moment as the Insalubrious Rex has a conversation with the raptor gang and convinces them, via raptor rhetoric, to turn on the humans.  The raptor talking thing was one of the weak links in the already weak plot of JPIII, and it fares no better here.  The trained raptor-thing blowing up in the humans' faces is fine, but this is the way the screenwriters made it happen?

Prediction six: I will not think of Judy Greer's other roles more than a few of times.

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Subverted.  Literally every time she was on screen I was waiting for "You're not my supervisor!" or "Spring break!  Woo!" or some such.

It was a pretty fun movie overall.  It didn't leave me disappointed like JPIII or angry like TLW.  It was pretty much what I expected, good or bad.  There were a couple facepalm moments, including some from the Mary Sue leading role.  The kids' entire story arc could have been excised to the betterment of the film, and the conspiracy subplot could have been expounded upon instead of sort of popping up to help justify a character getting eaten.

Visually, it was also pretty good.  The jungles look far more realistic than the sets in JPIII.  I don't know if this was location filming or not, but it looks real.  The dinosaurs appear to be completely CGI, which is a bit of a shame.  There aren't many closeups to justify robots, which likely played a role in that decision, but there are a few notable shortcomings.  One poignant scene with a sauropod could have been done with both techniques, but it looks just a bit too CGIy to be real.  Others involving almost immobile raptor heads appear to be CGI for no reason.  Odd, because the filmmakers appear to have built animatronic heads for this purpose.

Those that predicted this would torpedo Chris Pratt's hot streak will probably be disappointed.  He's an amiable enough actor, and his charm pulls off the role that I'd hate if it were played by, say, Ryan Reynolds.  I will say that he doesn't exhibit much dynamic range in the movie, which could be the fault of the character, but I foresee it being the biggest complaint about him.  Everyone else I could take or leave (except the kids, I'd definitely leave them).  The control room techs are there to provide a bit of comic relief, but one is a little too zany for this dinosaur rampage movie.  I spent a good deal of his scenes wondering if he was supposed to be hated enough that we'd like to see him get eaten or liked enough that we wouldn't.

Much like the recent Godzilla, this is a movie you'll want to see on the big screen if you want to see it at all.  If you like dinosaur movies, it definitely is one of those.

6/8

[Reply #96 on:]

Thanks for the very detailed review, Doc.  I saw JP on a huge theatre screen during opening week and was of course blown away.

JP2(LW) was so bad, I'd rather watch the Futurama Holiday Spectacular followed by the Star Wars Episode I Extended Jar-Jar Edition in 3D than ever see LW again.

But even with its flaws I think JP III is a very entertaining movie -- I watched it again just a couple of weeks ago.

[Reply #97 on:]

I think most people feel the same way about the JP series Tach: 1 is great, 2 is a boring slog, 3 is stupid as all get out but at least it's fun, and now this one. Personally, I got what I wanted lots of awesome dinosaur action with a really stupid plot and bland characters (except Jake Johnson!). The end of the movie almost makes up for a lot of the problems with the overall film just because it's so damn awesome. But yeah it's a whole lot of people making incredibly stupid decisions and Chris Pratt being right about everything and doing everything right, making no mistakes. He's kind of a cypher in the movie but at the same time had his character been a little more developed, I actually can see him playing another variation of Indiana Jones.

[Reply #98 on:]

Caught the late showing last night and thought it was really fun, even if it felt predictable and a little fanfictiony

[Reply #99 on:]

Oh, and I forgot to mention how worthless the romantic subplots were: very.  They were so tacked-on that I forgot about them until today.  One of them—the main one I suppose—actually made me slightly angry because of how lazy it felt.

[Reply #100 on:]

Romantic subplots are almost always pointless. *cough* TheHobbit *cough*

[Reply #101 on:]

Romantic subplots are always always pointless.

Personally, I think they're never never pointless.

[Reply #102 on:]

Leave my stupid fingers alone!

[Reply #103 on:]

500 Days of Summer

It's kind of an oldish movie to be reviewing, but it helped me with this breakup a bit. Joseph Gordon Levvitt was even more of a whiny crybaby than I am. Makes me feel a little better. But in seriousness, I found it to be a good movie, with good acting. I really like Zooey Deschanel so that may have something to do with it, but I think it's a good look at love and how we don't always look at the bad and the warning signs, but rather the good. It's a good film, to me, I really enjoyed it.

[Reply #104 on:]

It's kind of an oldish movie to be reviewing, but it helped me with this breakup a bit.

Now watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, followed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's the Holy Trinity of breakup movies for the last couple of decades of film making. 

[Reply #105 on:]

It's kind of an oldish movie to be reviewing, but it helped me with this breakup a bit.

Now watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, followed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's the Holy Trinity of breakup movies for the last couple of decades of film making. 

Ooooo thanks for the advice tnuk! I watched a bit of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but I never ended up finishing it and I'll be sure to give Forgetting Sarah Marshall a try. Thanks a bunch!

[Reply #106 on:]

Let this be a lesson to all those who feel that I only ever give scathing, impractical, or sarcastic advice. Not all the time, guys. Which is precisely why it should always be followed: you don't want to take the chance of missing out on something that would enrich your life.

[Reply #107 on:]

Let this be a lesson to all those who feel that I only ever give scathing, impractical, or sarcastic advice. Not all the time, guys. Which is precisely why it should always be followed: you don't want to take the chance of missing out on something that would enrich your life.

I've always liked you tnuk. You remind me much of a brother. A brother who I've never met and was separated from at birth. A lost brother, if you will. But alas, a brother all the same.

[Reply #108 on:]

I'm more like the family cat. I tolerate people in a distracted sort of way. But if you step on my tail, there will be blood.

[Reply #109 on:]

That's really intense. Everything's so intense here at Peel nowadays. Was there some kind of war while I was gone? Like a Peel war? Or a Peelvolution?

[Reply #110 on:]

I certainly would pick Eternal Sunshine and Forgetting Sarah Marshall over 500 Days of Summer, not that I don't like the latter I just really like the former two a lot more. This song in particular is my anthem when I'm super depressed about life/love:

[Reply #111 on:]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is fucking masterful. I think it'd easily make my top 5 favourite films list.

[Reply #112 on:]

Yeah, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is pretty great and I like (500) Days of Summer, too (partly, because of Zooey Deschanel).

That's really intense. Everything's so intense here at Peel nowadays. Was there some kind of war while I was gone? Like a Peel war? Or a Peelvolution?

PEELvolution is a continuous process that never wasn't happening and sometimes it involves some blood. Maybe intensity is nowadays condensed because of general inactivity.

[Reply #113 on:]

Inside out

Not perfect but I really enjoyed* this one.

It seemed to me that it was aimed at an audience who is older than the protagonist (11 years old) rather than younger.

Also, it felt more like a drama than a comedy, not that there weren't comedic moments in it.

I'm really interested to see how it comes across on a second viewing but for now I'll give it an A–.


* Full disclosure: Cars is one of my favourite Pixar movies so you may want to take my opinions with a grain of salt.   

[Reply #114 on:]

Cars is one of my favourite Pixar movies

You are the devil.

[Reply #115 on:]

I rewatched Forrest Gump at my grandpa's cabin and I must say, what a fantastic film. I know it's cliche and everyone talks about it, but I really love it a lot. Especially Robin Wright's performance, she's an incredible actress.

Also rewatched Matilda. I never liked it as a kid, but now that I watched it, I really like it a lot. It makes me laugh. Danny Devito's such a scumbag in that movie and it's great.

[Reply #116 on:]

Yes, Gump is a fun movie that touches on some interesting aspects of human character, and I really ought to watch it again sometime.

If you've not seen it, Cast Away is a powerful examination of joy, fear, despair, hope, and the resilience of the human spirit, told through same actor.

[Reply #117 on:]

If you've not seen it, Cast Away is a powerful examination of joy, fear, despair, hope, and the resilience of the human spirit, told through same actor.

What movie were you watching? It's the story of Wilson, who learns the meaning of despair through watching his only friend slowly go insane. This story is bracketed by the life of the friend both before and after his time with Wilson and his descent into madness, but it's really Wilson's story.

[Reply #118 on:]

I watched the American cut with the erupting volcano in the background as FedEx and UPS paratroopers battled each other on the beach, leaving Hanks' character the sole survivor. 

You saw the international release?  I'd heard that the ending of that version revealed that "Chuck Noland" was a fiction created out of Wilson's imagination as his mind fought to maintain its sanity in the face of crushing loneliness, and guilt that the other balls were lost at sea.

[Reply #119 on:]

That sounds pretty cool Tachy; but I suspect Castaway is better as it features a naked Amanda Donohoe