It's pretty low on the Rotten Onions and other meta review sites.
Best movie you've seen
- Thread starter LiamC
- Start date
It's pretty low on the Rotten Onions and other meta review sites.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
To be a bit more nuanced:
The last third of the movie is set in bad green-screen CGI. I'm talking Phantom Menace level bad. They know it looks like crap and they don't care.
Jennifer Lawrence doesn't seem to be present as a performer and her role doesn't make any sense based on the history of the comic book character. Mystique isn't a good person but in the movie she's Mutant Jesus.
Olivia Munn is basically set decoration. She has five lines, is on screen for maybe five minutes total and most of it her standing still in that outfit.
There's not a single funny moment in the whole movie before or after the Quicksilver bit that's smack dab in the middle. Proper Marvel movies occasionally have a funny beat even in high-drama sequences
Sophie Turner doesn't work on any level as Jean Grey. I wasn't getting the "power barely kept in check" vibe or even the "I am nearly as capable of displaying emotion as a statue and/or that one chick from Twilight."
This is going to sound silly, but a guy bad enough to be named Apocalypse is at one point casually sitting on a rock in the middle of the aforementioned bad CGI. Seated on a throne? Standing before genuflecting multitudes? Sure! Sitting on a rock with his legs crossed like your 8th grade art teacher? Whose dumb idea was that?
Things I liked: Fassbender being Fassbender. Nightcrawler was handled well. Quicksilver (these movies feel in very large part like an excuse to have a Quicksilver set piece. In the comics, Quicksilver has never actually been a member of the X-men, by the way). Cyclops gets some characterization and charisma, as opposed to other movies that have had Cyclops in them. Olivia Munn's costume. The fighty-explodey bits were decent, albeit not on the same standard as the fight choreography in Winter Soldier or Daredevil. I like that these movies are period pieces at this point.
I would've liked more of Beast, perhaps at expense of the barely-used Horsemen of Apocalypse or the excision of Jean Grey from the movie.
There's a setup to indicate that there will still be more of these movies in a stinger at the end.
I don't think it's as good as any of the proper Marvel Studios movies, or as good as either Day of Future Past or First Class, but it's better than Dark Knight Rises, any of the Garfield Spider-Man films, the Wolverine movies or any of the Murderverse Synder films. It might be the platonic ideal of a "meh" superhero movie. I really wish Fox would go away so that someone from Marvel proper could take that same cast and make better movies with it, especially seeing the way that Sony agreed to share Spider-Man with Marvel.
Stereodude
Not really a
So I finally saw The Martian when I watched the 3D Blu-ray last night. While I mostly enjoyed it a few glaring plot inconsistencies stood out to me.
1) The transmission delay between Earth and Mars came and went depending on the plot. When he's in the rover IM'ing with NASA through pathfinder there's no apparently delay. But at other points they specifically make reference to the delay and worked it into the plot. :frusty:
2) Mark escapes Mars by using the MAV intended for Ares IV. So the MAV for Ares III had to leave because it was going to be blown over by the storm on Mars, but NASA parks the MAV for Ares IV on the surface years before it's needed without any apparent concern for it being blown over by storms. Huh? Are storms a threat or not? If they are, clearly they would have used a design not prone to tipping due to winds, or they wouldn't park them on the surface way in advance of needing them. :dunno:
1) The transmission delay between Earth and Mars came and went depending on the plot. When he's in the rover IM'ing with NASA through pathfinder there's no apparently delay. But at other points they specifically make reference to the delay and worked it into the plot. :frusty:
2) Mark escapes Mars by using the MAV intended for Ares IV. So the MAV for Ares III had to leave because it was going to be blown over by the storm on Mars, but NASA parks the MAV for Ares IV on the surface years before it's needed without any apparent concern for it being blown over by storms. Huh? Are storms a threat or not? If they are, clearly they would have used a design not prone to tipping due to winds, or they wouldn't park them on the surface way in advance of needing them. :dunno:
Sure, but that is not the only ridiculousness. The film has holes on the molecular level.
At 12km there are only so many options for 5 legs.jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
The storm itself was another inconsistency. The atmospheric density at the Martian surface is equivalent to Earth's atmospheric density at 100,000 feet. Winds strong enough to tip over a MAV just don't exist on Mars. In fact, the strongest winds top out at about 60 mph. Given the low air density on Mars, this would feel like a gentle breeze.
Most of the plot holes seem to be there for either dramatic effect, or to give a mechanism for Matt Damon to get stranded on Mars. Still a good movie despite that.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Saw Ghostbusters. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's about a C+.
Liked: Kate McKinnon's character, Chris Hemsworth. Most-ish of the cameos from the original cast.
Did not like: Melissa McCarthy, the updated theme, the constant snark reminding people that the internet doesn't like things. There's more than one segment of the cast reacting to Youtube-type comments.
Chris Hemsworth is the best thing about the movie. He's also the character who stays on screen in the end credits sequence. Seeing Thor as frighteningly stupid eyecandy is probably the best thing about the movie, and it's in part because everyone who watches knows that Chris Hemsworth is also Thor.
I don't care that the Ghostbusters are ladies, but they do basically forget the rules from the other movies. They use their weapons at the end in ways that seem to kill rather than capture the ghosts. This bothered me probably more than anything else, especially since most of the middle of the movie is about capturing their first one. I went with a Ghostbusters Super Fan (she has a tattoo) who found that genuinely distressing.
We both thought this felt more like the pilot for a TV show more than a movie. There's a lot of stuff that's very clearly supposed to tie in to a sequel and the Ghost effects in the original movie probably looked better. This was sort of on par with "Japanese Live Action Super Sentai movie" rather than "Hollywood Summer Blockbuster."
There are a lot of small laughs. There isn't any huge laugh payoff, just a decent number of little chuckles.
Liked: Kate McKinnon's character, Chris Hemsworth. Most-ish of the cameos from the original cast.
Did not like: Melissa McCarthy, the updated theme, the constant snark reminding people that the internet doesn't like things. There's more than one segment of the cast reacting to Youtube-type comments.
Chris Hemsworth is the best thing about the movie. He's also the character who stays on screen in the end credits sequence. Seeing Thor as frighteningly stupid eyecandy is probably the best thing about the movie, and it's in part because everyone who watches knows that Chris Hemsworth is also Thor.
I don't care that the Ghostbusters are ladies, but they do basically forget the rules from the other movies. They use their weapons at the end in ways that seem to kill rather than capture the ghosts. This bothered me probably more than anything else, especially since most of the middle of the movie is about capturing their first one. I went with a Ghostbusters Super Fan (she has a tattoo) who found that genuinely distressing.
We both thought this felt more like the pilot for a TV show more than a movie. There's a lot of stuff that's very clearly supposed to tie in to a sequel and the Ghost effects in the original movie probably looked better. This was sort of on par with "Japanese Live Action Super Sentai movie" rather than "Hollywood Summer Blockbuster."
There are a lot of small laughs. There isn't any huge laugh payoff, just a decent number of little chuckles.
Stereodude
Not really a
So I watched Jupiter Ascending 3D last on Blu-ray. I have to say I really enjoyed it. The audio was top notch. The 3D was very good. The plot moved along and seemed to adhere to the rules of the universe they movie took place in. I really enjoyed the way they wove in some historical and popular culture things into the story's arc. I was surprised when I saw the IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes score. I mean I knew it wasn't really popular, but...
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
What would you rate it on an imdb scale?
I thought the IMBD rating was about right or a little generous.
The film was boring, the plot was lame, and the bad guy a caricature.Stereodude
Not really a
Something like a solid 8.
Boring? There weren't too many slow spots. As to the bad guy, most bad guys in movies are a caricature. I found the plot to be somewhat unique.I thought the IMBD rating was about right or a little generous.
I liked the Wacho's earlier films, but it's been downhill since Vendetta. The audience should not be treated like mental defectives or 10 year olds that need a theme beaten into them ten times. The British bad guy twit needed some direction to dial it down 80%. I would not be surprised if the original story was quite good, but not well executed for some reason. The mess of a plot hints at some good stuff being left out or mangled. The movie bombed so much that there probably won't be a sequel any time soon.
I'm with Lunar on this one in that I found the film very boring. I really didn't care what happened near the end and ended up browsing on my phone to pass the time. I should have just turned it off but figured I made it that far and should just complete it for the sake of completing it.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
The story is an excuse for the visuals and set-pieces. Characters and concepts are introduced and discarded very quickly. The latter Matrix movies have the same problem. Jupiter Ascending probably needed better editing and script consultation to be made interesting, but man is it cool to look at. Just like the latter Matrix movies.
I think one of the big reasons that Sense8 works for me where most of the Watchowski Sisters (they are sisters now. Yes, both of them) work hasn't, is that they worked with a well-known and respected genre writer, J. Michael Straczynski. They need that, or perhaps to move toward something closer to production design or effects supervision than out and out filmmaking. Like George Lucas, they probably have a lot of neat ideas but need to work with someone more adept at storytelling than they are.
Stereodude
Not really a
I guess there's a reason why the last installment is going to be a made for TV movie.
Stereodude
Not really a
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
I didn't know that. Pretty funny.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Stranger Things somehow manages to blend ET and Stephen King's IT into something that borders on nostalgia porn for Gen-X sorts, which is the overwhelming majority of folks on this site. It gets slow in places but I liked it and find that depiction of childhood and school life in the 80s very familiar.
I've described this show to other people in similar ways. I usually refer to ET, Goonies, the movie Explorers, or Flight of the Navigator when describing the feel this show brings to the viewer. I was mid-way through watching Marco Polo seasons two and stopped to watch through the entire season of Stranger Things. I found it well done and very enjoyable.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
We made it through the first episode and plan to watch more.
blakerwry
Storage? I am Storage!
Wife and I enjoyed Stranger Things, which is surprising because she doesn't usually enjoy horror or suspense. I was glad to read that there are plans for a sequel - hopefully just as enjoyable.
I got to see the new Star Trek: Beyond this afternoon and it was an afternoon of basic entertainment. I had higher hopes in the very beginning of the film because it felt like they were trying to build relations with the characters and the stress of being out into space for long periods of time. They hinted at the humanity aspect of things but then the movie turned into a cascade of bad decisions that I feel a smart captain would not make. They tried to make up for it a little bit later but by this time things went so epically bad that it fails in comparison. I get that without these mistakes there would be no action-based movie but I feel it was so dumbed down for the audience that it made it boring. The Scotty engineering team somehow does some magical tech things to make what seems like impossible situations come to life with little to no explanation.
This movie felt like it was just a basic episode that could have aired on TV and forgotten about tomorrow. The antagonist character Krall was weak in development and plot. I didn't care about him or his cause or how and why he had such a huge cult following him. Nero and or Khan at least had more depth and interesting back story. The end "doomsdays" mechanic felt weak and unimaginative. I thought the mysterious red matter in the first movie was more interesting than this. There is a homage paid to the late Leonard Nimoy which is nice. Overall it's a grade C for me. Entertaining with a couple laughs but nothing that really spawns imagination and curiosity.
This movie felt like it was just a basic episode that could have aired on TV and forgotten about tomorrow. The antagonist character Krall was weak in development and plot. I didn't care about him or his cause or how and why he had such a huge cult following him. Nero and or Khan at least had more depth and interesting back story. The end "doomsdays" mechanic felt weak and unimaginative. I thought the mysterious red matter in the first movie was more interesting than this. There is a homage paid to the late Leonard Nimoy which is nice. Overall it's a grade C for me. Entertaining with a couple laughs but nothing that really spawns imagination and curiosity.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
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So, an even Star Trek movie. Or is it odd?
Even Star Trek movie? What does that mean?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Every other Star Trek movie is good.
I feel like Star Trek needs to be on TV and not in movie theaters, but that cast is so high-wattage that it's never going to happen. The only way that Star Trek movies become events is that they reunite a cast we learned to love from seven seasons of a TV show. The new movies barely even feel like Trek. Not only that, Scottie developed a tool to completely eliminate the need for starships in the first NuTrek movie and they're apparently ignoring a crap-ton of dangling plot threads from the first and second NuTrek films.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
The early ratings are in for Suicide Squad and it's not doing well. 34% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's being called a blatant rip off of the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool and words like "confused" and "misogynistic" pop up in a lot of the reviews I've read. One review noted that there were more shots of Margot Robbie's ass than some members of the Suicide Squad itself.
This is the first WB/DC movie that isn't under the direct control of Zack Snyder and I'm sure it will make back its production cost but it's sounding like it's another tone-deaf train wreck.
This is the first WB/DC movie that isn't under the direct control of Zack Snyder and I'm sure it will make back its production cost but it's sounding like it's another tone-deaf train wreck.
ddrueding
Fixture
I thought everyone gave up on DC being able to extract their head from their ass a long time ago?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
DC isn't the immediate problem, though they're not blameless. Warner Brothers executives seem to be. Nonetheless, the director of the new movie is having a Twitter-tantrum today.
Here's the shame of this: DC's most popular female character is Harley Quinn. Not Wonder Woman or Catwoman or Supergirl. This character didn't exist in comics before she was created for Batman: The Animated Series, where she was handled in a shockingly grown-up way, having a tumultuous relationship with a terrible guy whom she still loved and tried to appease. She later realized he was was wrong for her and moved on. More remarkable, the cartoon hinted that she found happiness with another female character, Poison Ivy. This has been made canon in the comics and was explicitly intended in the cartoon, according to its head writer and producer.
A LOT of young women specifically describe this character as a feminine ideal, both in her determination to love and match her partner and in the arc of ending bad relationships or embracing an alternative to conventional lifestyle if not their sexual awakening. The cartoon character was never sexualized in spite of being part of being characterized by her relationships. Even in her somewhat racier video game depictions, she's not been a fan-service character. The movie version from every source I've read, is treated more like a prop and a pastiche of this. It's just as disrespectful of that character as Objectivist Superman or BatMurderer. It's something that seems to have pissed off a lot of people.
Here's the shame of this: DC's most popular female character is Harley Quinn. Not Wonder Woman or Catwoman or Supergirl. This character didn't exist in comics before she was created for Batman: The Animated Series, where she was handled in a shockingly grown-up way, having a tumultuous relationship with a terrible guy whom she still loved and tried to appease. She later realized he was was wrong for her and moved on. More remarkable, the cartoon hinted that she found happiness with another female character, Poison Ivy. This has been made canon in the comics and was explicitly intended in the cartoon, according to its head writer and producer.
A LOT of young women specifically describe this character as a feminine ideal, both in her determination to love and match her partner and in the arc of ending bad relationships or embracing an alternative to conventional lifestyle if not their sexual awakening. The cartoon character was never sexualized in spite of being part of being characterized by her relationships. Even in her somewhat racier video game depictions, she's not been a fan-service character. The movie version from every source I've read, is treated more like a prop and a pastiche of this. It's just as disrespectful of that character as Objectivist Superman or BatMurderer. It's something that seems to have pissed off a lot of people.
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
I haven't read the comics, but I have been wondering what happened to the harlequin-inspired outfit. Now I know that it was just to show some skin.
I guess the reshoots were just of Margot Robbie's rear.
I guess the reshoots were just of Margot Robbie's rear.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Cartoon-Harley was Joker's Psychiatrist (yes, she's a medical doctor), who was sufficiently manipulated by the Joker to abandon that life and take up with him. She got her original costume by stealing it from a costume shop. Cartoons being cartoons, that was the model for her for the remainder of the series.
Comic book Harley maintains the Harlequin theme but tends to dress in themed outfits that are more practical. You can mostly see this at play in the various Arkham* video games (one exception is the "sexy nurse" outfit she wears, which has more to do with Joker's anticipated homecoming than practicality).
This is all a bit confused because of Rule 34 (for LM: "If it exists, there's porn of it") and fan art, but in general that's not how she's been presented. The booty shorts and babydoll shirt are some weird invention for the movie.
All I know is the film is a mass market product of the action genre. The vast majority of viewers are not intellectuals like Merc.
Will Rickards
Storage Is My Life
Anybody see it? I didn't get a chance this weekend.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I listened to a cam on Sunday. Didn't really watch it, but I played it while I was working on some stuff. This was a mild obligation for me since nerd girls are going to talk to me like I've seen it anyway.
Not going to comment of visuals except that apparently the entire DC Murderverse happens at night and in the rain. The whole thing. All the time.
Best thing in the movie is Amanda Waller. No doubt. I'd watch a whole movie of her digging up dirt on super-people and being mean. I think they could've just used CCH Pounder, who voices the character in cartoons, but this was probably the best casting in the whole Murderverse so far.
Harley's accent comes and goes. I don't think Margot Robbie is that sexy and her outfits weren't doing it for me (another reason I didn't really watch) but she's probably the most interesting part of the movie. I had a lot of "Why is she acting like that?" moments where I was catching plot holes or bad writing in real time but she's supposed to be nuts and this isn't the kind of movie that needs to be examined.
Will Smith pretty much plays Will Smith. He loves his daughter, which is emphasized a lot more than the fact that he can shoot a fully automatic weapon so well he only makes one hole in a target. Also, while I'm at it, almost all the action in the movie is people shooting handguns and using knives. They don't even do anything particularly acrobatic. Let's put it another way: The elevator scene at the beginning of The Winter Solder by itself has more and more inventive action than all of Suicide Squad. And because it's PG-13, the mook bad guys are basically zombies.
Leto's JokerPimp is in the movie for MAYBE two minutes total and I think those scenes could've been edited out completely. I understand that the character has sort of become a showpiece for over the top performance but this guy didn't bring it. Was Mark Hammill busy or did he just turn it down?
There's absolutely no reason for Captain Boomerang to be in the movie except that he's a holdout from the original comic book team. Seriously. The character does not a single damned thing of consequence. Doesn't even have any amusing lines.
El Diablo is probably a more interesting character as a pacifist gangbanger, but he has about 10 lines in the whole movie. Killer Croc has, I think, three lines that aren't grunts or roars. In another example of shitty writing, at the climax of the movie, the army guys who are following the team around pull out previously unseen SCUBA gear so Croc can be a provably amphibious super guy! The army guys basically disappear for most of the second act of the movie, by the way. BAD editing.
The movie grinds to a goddamned halt every time Rick Flag or the Enchantress is on the screen. This includes the entire climax of the movie.
There's another bad guy who shows just just before the cast goes off to do the thing. He isn't mentioned before or after. He lives for about two minutes and then gets killed to demonstrate MurderApp, the smartphone dingus that keeps the Squad in line. The end of the film, the characters talk about the family they have forged with one another. All of them. Except, you know, the guy whose head got blown off 90 seconds after he showed up out of nowhere.
I can't recall any jokes that didn't appear in the trailers. There's A LOT of painful, simplistic (i.e. "one of the characters is about to say something exactly like the words in this song!") music cues that I think are the result of more weird, bad editing. Apparently the movie was written in six weeks. The director made a "dark and gritty" cut of the movie, but after the success of GotG and Deadpool, Warner Brothers paid a company that normally produced trailers to edit the movie as well. The two movies were shown to focus groups and neither was a clear favorite, so a committee driven compromise wound up as the released version of the movie.
But I don't know. Maybe other people will like it.
Stereodude
Not really a
So I finally got around to watching Interstellar last night for the first time. I'm still a bit undecided on it. Aside from the obvious giant paradox plot hole I was dumbfounded by plot inconsistency that their spacecraft had to be launched into Earth orbit atop a large multistage rocket, but they had no problem landing it on other planets and then returning to orbit around those planets, one of which had 130% earth gravity, without any sort of similar large multistage rocket. So, uh yeah... another Sci-Fi movie set in a universe where the laws of physics only intermittently apply as dictated by the plot of the movie.