A potentially great film being held hostage by its PG-13 rating and its messy, all over the places screenwriting.
By PG-13 I don't simply mean its visuals/goriness, but most importantly its dialogues, themes, and storytelling it tries to raise. Let me explain.
First, the dialogues.
The film opens with murder and Batman narrating the city's anxious mood. We get a glimpse of noir in this scene, but it soon falls flat due to a very uninteresting, plain, forgettable choice of words Batman used in his narration. Mind you, this is not a jab at Pattinson - Pattinson delivered it nicely. But there is no emotion in his line of words - there is no adjectives, there is no strong feelings about how he regards the city full of its criminals.
Here's a line from the opening scene. "Two years of night has turned me to a nocturnal animal. I must choose my targets carefully. It's a big city. I can't be everywhere. But they don't know where I am. When that light hits the sky, it's not just a call. It's a warning to them. Fear... is a tool. They think I am hiding in the shadows. Watching. Waiting to strike. I am the shadows." Okay? Cool. But sounds like something from a cartoon. What does that tell us about you, Batman?
Compare this to a similar scene uttered by Rorschach in Watchmen. "The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. All those liberals and intellectuals, smooth talkers... Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children, and the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences." You can say that Rorschach is extremely edgy (he is), but from that line alone we can tell his hatred towards the city, and even more so: his perspective, his philosophy that guides him to conduct his life and do what he does.
Rorschach's choice of words is sometimes verbose, but he is always expletive and at times graphic, making it clear to the audience what kind of person he is. Batman in this film does not. His words are always very safe, very carefully chosen, which strikes as an odd contrast to Pattinson's tortured portrayal of Batman as someone with a seemingly pent up anger. His choice of words is very PG-13 so that the kids can understand what Batman is trying to convey.
And this is not only in the opening scene. Throughout the film, the dialogues are written very plainly forgettable. It almost feels like the characters are having those conversations just to move the plot forward. Like that one encounter between Batman and Catwoman/Selina when she broke into the house to steal the passport or when Selina asked to finish off the "rat". They flow very oddly unnatural, as if those conversations are written to make them "trailer-able" (and the scenes indeed do appear on the trailer).
Almost in all crucial plot points the writers feel the need to have the characters to describe what has happened, or to explictly say what they are feeling - like almost every Gordon's scene in crime scene, or Selina's scene when she's speaking to Batman. It feels like the writers feel that the actors' expression just can't cut it and the audience has to be spoonfed with dialogues; almost like they're writing for kids.
Second, the storytelling.
Despite being a film about vengeance-fueled Batman (I actually like that cool "I'm vengeance" line) we don't get to see him actually being in full "vengeance" mode. Still in the opening we see Batman punching some thugs around. That looks a little bit painful but then the thugs seem to be fit enough to run away and Batman let them be. Then in the middle of the film we see Batman does something similar to mafias. Same, he just knocked them down but there's nothing really overboard with that. Then eventually in the car chase scene with the Penguin, Batman seem to be on "full rage mode", but over... what? He was just talking to Penguin a moment ago. The car chase scene itself is a bit pointless if not only to show off the Batmobile. And Batman did nothing to the Penguin after, just a normal questioning, not even harsher than Bale's Batman did to Heath's Joker in The Dark Knight - not in "'batshit insane' cop" mode as Penguin put it.
Batman's actions look very much apprehensive and controlled. Nothing too outrageous. Again, at odds with Pattinson's portrayal that seem to be full of anger; he's supposed to be really angry but somehow he still does not let his anger take the best of him. The only one time he went a bit overboard that shocked other characters is when he kept punching a villain near the end of the film. But even then it's not because his anger; it's because he injected some kind of drug (I guess some adrenaline shot). A very safe way to drop a parent-friendly message that "drug is bad, it can change you" in a PG-13 film.
And all that supposed anger... we don't get to see why he is angry and where his anger is directed at. Compare this to Arthur Fleck in Joker where it is clear as sky why Arthur would behave the way the does in the film. I mean we know his parents' death troubled him, but it's barely even discussed, not even in brief moments with Alfred (except in one that supposedly "shocking" moment). So... where's your vengeance, Mr. Vengeance? And what the hell are you vengeancing on?
Speaking of "shocking" moment... this is about the supposed Wayne family's involvement in the city's criminal affairs that has been teased early in the film. Its revelation was very anticlimactic: the supposed motive and the way it ended up the way it is, all very childish. If the film wanted the Wayne to be a "bad person", there's a lot of bads that a billionaire can do: tax evasion, blood diamond, funding illegal arms trade, fending off unions, hell, they can even do it the way the Waynes in Joker did it: hints of sexual abuses. But no, it has to be some bloody murder again, and all for a very trivial reason of "publicity". As if the film has to make it clear to the kids: "hey this guy's bad because he killed someone!" Which COULD work if the film puts makes taking someone's life has a very serious consequence. But it just pales to the serial killing The Riddler has done.
Even more anticlimactic considering how Bruce Wayne attempted to find a resolve in this matter only takes less than a 5 minute scene! It all involves only a bit of dialogues which boils down to how Thomas Wayne has a good reason to do so. Bruce somehow is convinced with that and has a change of heart instantly, making him looks very gullible.
And of course the ending is very weak and disappointing. First, Riddler's final show directly contradicts his initial goal to expose and destroy the corrupt elites. What he did instead is making the lives of the poor more difficult, very oxymoron for someone supposed to be as smart as him.
Second, the way Batman just ended up being "vengeance brings nothing and I should save people more than hurting people" does not get enough development to have him to say that in the end. Again - where's your vengeance? And how did you come to such character development if nothing is being developed on? And let's not get to how it's a very safe take against crime and corruption that closely resembles Disney's moralistic pandering in Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
Last, the visuals.
I'm not strictly speaking about gore, though that also factors in the discussion. The film sets this up as a film about hunting down a serial killer. But the film barely shows how cruel The Riddler can be to his victims. Again, back to the opening scene: we get it, Riddler killed the guy, but it does not look painful at all as it looks Riddler just knocked him twice. The sound design is very lacking that it does not seem what The Riddler done was conducted very painfully. Riddler then threw away his murder weapon, but we barely see blood. Yet when Gordon arrived to the crime scene, he described the victim as being struck multiple times with blood all over. What?
Similarly, when Riddler forced another victim to wear a bomb in his neck. The situation got pretty tense, but when the bomb eventually blow off, we just got some very small explosion like a small barrel just exploded, not a human being! I mean I'm not saying we need a gory explosion with head chopped off like in The Boys, but it does not look like what would happen if someone's head got blown off. Similarly when another character got almost blown off by a bomb - there's no burnt scar at all.
Why the hell are they setting up those possibly gory deaths and scars if they're not going to show how severe and painful these are? At least not the result - we don't need to see blood splattered everywhere - just how painful the process is. Sound design and acting of the actors (incl. twitching, for example) would've helped a lot even we don't see the gore, like what James Franco did in The 127 Hours or Hugh Jackman in Logan. In this film there's almost no tense at all resulting from those.
I'm not saying this film is terrible.
The acting, given the limited script they had, is excellent. Pattinson did his best, so did Paul Dano (always likes him as a villain), Zoe Kravitz, and the rest. Cinematography is fantastic; the lighting, angle, everything here is very great that makes a couple of very good trailers - perhaps one could even say that the whole film trades off coherency for making the scenes "trailer-able". The music is iconic, although with an almost decent music directing. And I guess this detective Batman is a fresh breath of air.
But all that does not make the movie good as in the end it's still all over the places and very PG-13.
Especially not with the 3 hours runtime where many scenes feel like a The Walking Dead filler episode.
If you're expecting a Batman film with similar gritty, tone to The Dark Knight trilogy or Joker, this film is not for you. But if you only want a live-action cartoon like pre-Nolan Batmans or The Long Halloween detective-style film, well, I guess you can be satisfied with this one.
A two and a half hours boring, depressing mess. In short, Zack Snyder.
And the dream sequences take more screen time then the actual BvS fight. Who thought this was a good idea?
World Premiere Review: Sam Raimi, you legend. This was one of, if not the most, fun MCU movie yet. It's very Evil Dead inspired visually, particularly the camera work. The character arcs here are fantastic, the action is wonderfully violent (the multiverse gives so much opportunity to kill off characters without impacting the main timeline too much), and the pacing is great, just go see it.
The action sequences were solid, particularly the martial arts, and the casting and acting were also fine but the script is a mess, the pacing is off, and the second half feels goofy and disjointed from the first half. The second half action was difficult to follow and felt like a DC cluster f--- aimed at the Chinese market. HOWEVER, I am looking forward to seeing Shang-Chi utilized in the future films.
EDIT: upon rewatch, I believe the open bar and pageantry of the premiere enabled me to put on goggles that shielded me from the trainwreck that is this film. Rian Johnson is a sorry excuse for a writer. It will probably be retconned at least 5 times in episode 9.
World Premiere Review: Vague, Spoiler-Free Edition
It was amazing. It still does nostalgic fan service, but nowhere near what Episode 7 or Rogue One felt like. It feels like its own film. It gets a little slow and repetitive in the last half of the first third of the film, but after the major show down in the middle of the film, it's non-stop action that's brilliantly paced. GO SEE IT!
Jesus. This is as bad as Suicide Squad honestly. Harley Quinn was way better in that movie, and here it's just all over the place, with rough story-telling, bad acting from pretty much everyone (the cop and Ewan McGregor especially), the same dumb exposition, and marketed as if Deadpool and Deadpool 2 were the style they went for. I wasted my money so you can save it.
This is how you do an action movie. Just the right amount of everything without being over the top. Spot on !
World Premiere Review:
It was ok. It's not entirely interesting and it's the standard Marvel formula. However, it's lacking a critical element of a Marvel hero: a flaw. The best thing about the MCU is that there isn't a Superman equivalent...but there is now and I'm not sure I like it. I'm afraid now that Endgame concludes with believing in yourself can defeat Thanos...
Second watch: The main issue remains Captain Miscast
I had to shift this up my viewing priorities because he said the LGBTQ community gets triggered too easily and it triggered the LGBTQ community. Get it while it's available!
i got a major problem with the premise: so they modify our genetics to be able to survive titan because we cant survive on Earth, right? so why don´t change us so we could.... just live on earth? ^^
World Premiere Review:
If I can sum up it up in one word, it's a giant "meh." I liked all of the new Star Wars up until this point, but this one was so forced. It didn't help that they had to reshoot more than half the movie with a different director, albeit with the great Ron Howard.
First problem, no one can fill Harrison Ford's shoes, it's impossible. The new characters are boring and forgettable. Still, Donald Glover just nails Lando...they should just do a Lando stand alone movie next time. Chewie is also awesome and funny as usual. I should also mention Malla is cannon now from the Christmas Special? Just speculating that's who he kisses with when he frees his people. Lumpy will probably show up in Solo 2. I saw George Lucas shift uncomfortably in the theater a couple seats over during that scene which was amusing. The story is just ok, it's a little slow and boring. At least the action sequences are fun.
Here's my biggest peeve: L3-37 is the most forced, obnoxious Star Wars character since Jar-Jar. I was so happy when this Social Justice Robot, who is supposed to be Lando's co-pilot, gets destroyed close to the end. This attempt to be "relevant to the times" sticks out like a sore thumb and the actress voicing it made me wince every time she spoke. Hopefully that's the last we hear or see of it.
Finally, Emilia Clarke's character has the depth of a sheet of cardboard. Worst of all though was the twist at the end where fucking Darth Maul shows up now post Episode 3. She is working with him and it was so cringey and shoe-horned in, I'm so tired of him not being dead. I tolerated it in the Clone Wars with spider-maul, but he just needs to go away.
The German nihilists, the feminist artist, the porn manager, the crazy phedophile, the crippled fake business tycoon, the Vietnam-war obsessed psycho and off course the Dude: a lazy deadbeat lowlife. The Big Lebowski sure has a lot of colourful personages which in my opinion is one of the reasons this movie is one of the best i have ever seen.
This is one of the many masterpieces from the Coen brothers, i wish i could congratulate them myself because they are geniuses. The music, the script and the cast are beyond fantastic. This is a masterpiece that only comes along in movies a few times in a decade. This is one of those movies that is and always will be a cult classic. I cannot say that this is the best movie that the Coen brothers ever made, but only because they made so many exceptional movies. But its definitely high up the list.
My favorite part is Gutterballs, when the Dude has some kind of hallucination. The music was just perfect together with the show Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore put on. I can't tell you how often i saw that part, that was just awesome.
Anyone should see this movie at least once in his lifetime. But once you've seen it i can guarantee you that you want to see it again.
World Premiere Review:
Surprisingly good. I had a smile on my face throughout most of the movie and it's genuinely funny. The whole cast is spot on with Ewan hitting it out of the park. Having grown up with Winnie the Pooh, I definitely had an enhanced experience. Discounting for nostalgia, it goes from a 9 to an 8, only because the opening third is quite slow, but it's a very well made film. You believe the stuffed animals are living, breathing things...and you want to believe!
The weaker it gets, the louder it gets. The less creative it gets, the busier it gets. And it was very loud and very busy.
Just got back from the world premiere. It's a lot of fun and thoroughly entertaining. Classic Marvel humor and tone, amazing visuals, Benedict Cucumber is stellar, but there are a few story flaws and the MCU is really starting to feel formulaic (I'm probably just suffering from franchise burnout).
The funniest MCU movie so far and that entire illusion scene was so goddamn impressive and beautiful.
This shit:
- makes no sense at all.
- triggers some unknown emotions.
- is basically fucked up.
This movie is very.. "special" in many ways. What most people don't seem to understand is that this movie is supposedly a joke and isn't supposed to make sense for those outside the joke. This movie is definitely not for everyone, and some may even find it so disturbing that they might mistake this for some illegal shit and report this to the police.
But it somehow managed to pull my teeth and hook them into the screen, ultimately forcing me to watch this shit.
8/10
World Premiere Review: 11/14/16
Frozen: Tropical Edition. But, that's not a bad thing. It's a really good movie with amazing animation, charming story and excellent songs (if you're into that). It's by no means flawless. Repetitiveness is the main issue, especially with certain physical humor which is done to death, particularly the wonky eyed chicken. I won't spoil what it does, but I found myself going "AGAIN?! COMON." Adults will find it charming and kids will think it's hilarious.
This movie is so much fun and never gets old. The right amount of action, laughs, cheese, and Arnie grunts. The best blockbusters are ones that don't take themselves seriously.
TLDR ? This movie is Disingenuous. At best, it's a Ghoulish dark satire of the republican party during the Bush/Cheney era. Except, they forgot to insert comedy or satire. As a result, it's grim and insulting, the parody is often at the expense of the audience being too stupid or uncaring, or religious. Large chunks of american history are deleted, omitted or filtered so that the movie can focus on the death toll of the war, or the "Wazzup" meme, etc.
large chunks of Dick Cheney's history don't make it into the movie, or are stylised / exagerrated / spoofed.
It is a well made disaster of a movie. Care went into making this.
But, it's as bad as Holmes & Watson, Star Trek Discovery, The Last Jedi or Ghostbusters 2016. It's deeply unlikeable at times, and it is actively trying to rewrite history as it goes. I'm not a republican or a conservative, i don't follow politics, this is a highly deranged film that is deceptive at times, and I doubt that any of the events took place, as a result of the ham-fisted effort at painting Cheney as some mastermind villain, working in the shadows. It's only missing that villain laugh track during the more hammy moments.
The most sanguine part of the movie is that they treat the WTC bombing and 9/11 properly, but they draw an enormous bow throughout.
part of the movie hinges on the use of executive power being wielded by Dick Cheney through the Bush Presidency, to the degree that they'll infer it becoming part of the reasons why Cheney brought the war from Afghanistan to Iraq, and that he also used the position to secure oil reserves in Iraq before the war started, as well as ignore questions / receive kickbacks from Haliburton contracts, and infer that he brought a lawyer into the emergency/control room during the "crash" period of 9/11 post-pentagon collision, as airline flights and air corridors were shut down, airports were being closed, and private/civilian aircraft were being tracked and landed in airports, etc. So that he could wield this Executive Power without asking the senate or the Congress or the President for approval.
It walks the line of defamation, and yet, apparently it's from the guy who made Anchorman 2 and Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, The Other Guys. Brad Pitt and Will Ferrel financed this movie, i think. Their companies are in the titles.
All of the Actors do a great job. I even like Annapurna for their video game productions (Donut County, Gorogoa, Edith Finch, Florence), and i've seen a handful of Annapurna movies, like Phantom Thread, Her, American Hustle, and Sausage Party...
I went in with no preparation, and assumed it would be a dark comedy with political overtones, because, politics and Steve Carell, and I can see Aquaman later on. It can't be that bad, it's Christmas week.
This movie has the unfortunate effect of making you hate theatrical movie releases and critics, and perhaps all movies.
Yet, it's so well made, it has style, artistic credibility, and it's directed, shot and lit perfectly, the sound is on point, the acting is sometimes forgettable, But it's similar in style to other "moral" drama films, like "The Big Short", leading into the Global Financial Crisis where they pander heavily on people's motives and actions of "we're getting away with it", sic. The pandering is incredible.
It is a better political movie than most, but it's utterly manipulative and disingenuous at it's heart, and nothing can make that funny or amusing.
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 is unhinged and deranged, while Vice, is just powdercoated hatred and bile, trying to hide under progressive and democratic ideals. it's more like an upmarket youtube political conspiracy movie talking about Hilary Clinton's "SECRET Brain surgery", George Soros, the Koch brothers or the Jewish conspiracy movies you get recommended after watching "The Young Turks" or "David Pakman".
They even sink low enough to include a "Ghostbusters 2016" poke at the audience in the end credits by lampooning the partisan nature of the film, in an attempt to skirt criticism and outrage
A sideplot about an hour in, has a series of scenes in a focus group with the same strangers. The marketer/political consultant asks the group to raise their hands to choose between climate change or global warming. Another time, it's a choice between Estate Tax or Death Tax, inferring that marketing & political think-tanks, along with Fox News, used politically correct language in the 90's and 2000's to make conservative ideas palatable.
At the end of the movie, Cheney is in a cross-chair interview, after just having had a heart replacement. As the interview starts, the scene pauses, and Cheney/Bale instead, turns away and lectures the audience directly (invoking Frank Underwood's, stylised yet sociopathic 'lectures' in House of Cards) , saying he did what was best for America, despite the cost and the lives lost in the war(s) sic. It's just on the borderline of "helping make america great again" and a typical Frank Underwood self-justification, we fade to black, get a terrible americana/Fly Fishing title credits to the music of West Side Story's Puerto Rican version of "Coming to America" and we return to the Focus Group, mid-credits. The final scene has the consultant ask what people thought about the movie. A member of the group, complains that the movie insults conservatives, while the neighboring person insists it's factual, with the first man then calling it liberal propaganda, and then calling the other a libtard, sic. and hits him, both getting into a fist fight, while the camera turns away, to another woman, who turns to her neighbour in the room, and says she's going to enjoy the next Fast and the Furious movie (sic).
The implied comment is that they did the research, and had to improvise the story in-between, because nobody would speak about Dick Cheney's history or family to set the record straight. When/If you see a biography of Barack Obama in a few years, attending child brothels with kevin spacey in indonesia, receiving oral sex from a pansexual transvestite, while he's snorting a line of cocaine off a preteen boy , while another person is handing Barack a membership form for the Democratic Party ... Vice, is going to be the movie that they quote and use dialogue from.
This is the kind of movie that Alex Jones and infowars would make of Hilary Clinton & Barack Obama, by selectively omitting pages from a biography, and denigrating the characters and roles they undertook. The excuse would be, they couldn't confirm the story, so they took liberties and stuck with the facts, being transcripts, police records, licenses, marriage dates, etc.
I'm Australian, I genuinely don't care about the politics, but the smearing of the republican party is like a sledgehammer at times.
There are several Saturday Night Live level 'jokes' or skits/scenes that don't even make you cringe, they're just deeply unsettling attempts at humor or levity. Care went into the timing to paint several scenes as 'dark', or darkly funny at the expense of others. I expect people would laugh at them, it didn't connect with me, or the other 5 people in the theater.
It's not quite Fahrenheit 11/9 levels of insanity, on the contrary. It walks the line of parody, conspiracy and defamation neatly in a lighthearted attempt to skip 20 years of context, in a 2 minute conversation.
There's an early moment, perhaps 40 minutes in, where Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld is ruminating to a younger Dick Cheney in a random hallway of the oval office, about the imminent bombing of cambodia while Nixon is talking with Kissinger in a spare room of the Oval Office to avoid recordings. Mid-lecture, you hear Carell while we see a village about to be bombed mid-lecture, a typical cambodian/indonesian forest village, women and children sitting around, before explosions occur, and the scene changes back to Carell & Bale, unphased.
This kind of manipulative sledgehammer is used, repeatedly to invoke... satire? outrage ? compassion ?
This occurs about 5 or 6 more times, with even less subtlety.
Alfred Molina's "restaurant" scene, Molina's character offers Cheney and 3 seated guests at a restaurant table, Extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay as menu options , is ham-fisted, but it's executed darkly and humorously, similar to say, Aaron Echkhart's Thank You For Smoking scenes, lampooning Tobacco, Firearms and Alcohol lobbyists.
It's the kind of movie where you could let things slide if you were a lifelong US democrat, because it tries to tell harsher truths of the political and military consequences, overtly, by flashing to bombings, drone strikes, torture, rendition, deception and greed, during the more infamous moments of nixon's career and Bush's presidency.
And it profoundly relies on Fly fishing to represent Dick Cheney, as other movies do (2007's Shooter) to the point where they use gaudy Americana as Fly Fishing decorations (rockets, drones, Oil Rigs, missiles, the white house, Surveillance cameras) in the end-credits.
There's element's of Zero Dark Thirty in the invocation/flashes of torture, waterboarding, confinement, exposure, even the Abu Ghraib incident/leak with a prisoner being dragged by a Dog Collar by Lynndie England (the "work safe" versions) appears here. and rendition scenes along with the "Shadow government" themes of Dick Cheney's role as Vice President during George W Bush's tenure. It is highly implied several times that Cheney set himself up as the Executive, the CEO in charge of the war by undermining George Bush and, being responsible for the birth of ISIS, hiding reports from the president, etc.
They walk the line when it comes to defaming the Cheney family, there's also an implication of Lynne Cheney's father, Wayne Vincent murdering his wife in an argument by drowning, and of Lynne Vincent, being raped by her father Wayne in an over-edited and dubbed scene that was heavily muffled to avoid the censor noticing. Wayne, is seen pointing to his daughter during a muted, abbreviate shouting scene implying alcoholism and frequent domestic violence.
It extrapolates the most defamatory versions of people, and highlights that absurdity.
It takes what should be parody or simulacra, a 'bad saturday night live' sketch comic scene, and extrapolates moments as their cheapest moments. It's also high budget, they take Sam Rockwell's version of President Bush, Governor Bush, and rotoscope him into the more infamous moments of Bush's Presidency, i.e. the mid-war "Mission Accomplished" presentation on the Carrier Deck.
i think i saw a little movie on this CGI.
I did not like this movie at all but unlike the other weirdos in the comment section, this movie not being good has nothing to do some characters being gay or people of color. Some of you guys need therapy
World Premiere Impressions: Ugh, Chloe Zhao was a terrible choice for director. How she paces a movie made this feel excruciatingly long. This movie is also very DC in that its so visually dark, depressing, and takes itself so seriously, something Kevin Feige said would never happen to a Marvel movie. Basically everything you hated about Nomadland is in this... Now a handful of bright spots: some decent performances, especially Kumail and his assistant, they saved this movie from being a disaster. The Eternals overall are fine, but its really difficult to care about them considering their origin and nature. I also hated the design of the deviants. I was hoping to see things that had some semblance of Thanos as he is a Deviant in the comics. It appears they are treating him specifically as a "titan". The mindless animalistic Deviants in this are boring, uninteresting.
I now take "From the writer and director of Ex Machina" as a warning.
World Premiere Review:
Not as good as the original, but totally worth going to see in the theaters. I don't think I've laughed this much at a Pixar film since the the first one. This one didn't seem to have as much "heart" as the original as this felt almost like a revival for this particular franchise than an actual sequel. Fun for adults and kids. Baby steals the show.
The movie of my childhood, I've rewatched this so many times, I've started to know it off by heart. Absolutely amazing.
I would prefer watch a black and white russian movie with 7 hours than watching this piece of garbage again
Just for people that already liked and/or saw the musical in theaters...or else most will be like "WTF?!"...:)
Good movie but I prefer and recommend the musical 100x more.
World Premiere Review:
It's a decent feel good movie, but has some rough edges. Casting Emily Blunt was spot on and Lin-Manuel is wonderful and some of the musical numbers are fantastic. Unfortunately the beginning and middle drag, with Meryl Streep's bit being not great and completely unnecessary. It was also disappointing that none of the original songs made it into this sequel. Dick Van Dyke steals the show at the end, and yes, he does all his own dance moves at 92 years old. Also seeing Angela Lansbury still with it at 93 put a smile on my face. Mary Poppin's exit is surprisingly cold and seems like a missed opportunity to tug at some heart strings. They should have cut the chase scene in the middle (that also felt completely shoehorned in) to make room for it.