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6

I didn't realize this was a Predator movie the first time I saw the poster and thought this was some random horror movie but the positive buzz certainly didn't pass me by so here we are again. After watching it I'm certainly... shocked?
From the get go this did very little to pull me in, be it the CG animals, one-dimensional plot or the the selfish attitude of our heroine. Now obviously one can argue how much that all matters when the action is good but it didn't really scratch that itch for me either... the Predator fighting with the animals was certainly entertaining but random guys biting the bullet with mostly offcam/unclear CG gore not so much. Would have been nice if they showed some wits when they fought him at the camp but somehow him going invisible is enough reason to lower their weapons and start talking to each other. She saw how the camouflage works multiple times in action already..?!!
What all those scenes, and the movie poster for that matter, certainly established, is that our protagonist has little to worry and that a showdown was coming but I would never have predicted the amounts of bullshit that would contain:
- Somehow becomes a baller and expert in alien technology. Knows when the Predator is coming, takes her magic herbs to immediately lower her blood temperature (but is not shivering and still standing up) and is in the Predators path who obviously doesn't see a standing corpse right in front of it or notices her moving out of the way...
- Never used the gun but knows the right angle to shoot and remove his mask (betting on this being a weakness when this did little to stop it before).
- Gets to conveniently escape for the n-th time and has enough time to finish up some traps (which the Predator even hit on some random tree lol).
- Gets hit to the head twice from the shield that cut through the Predators limbs, spear and even stone but is unscathed.
- Can easily remove a fang attached to it's face to save herself just in time.
- GPS dog that always magically reappears is ready to bring her the tomahawk...
- Manages to sit on top of the Predator and even pull him into the bog with a tiny rope and a much much smaller statue.
- The Predator obviously submerges immediately, but little does it know of her the grand plan to have him placed at that exact LOS of the mask in anticipation that he is gonna fire from his gun (despite not having had his mask for the whole time) while he is already targeted by the laser the entire time... b r a v o. Obviously that one shot was also enough to kill it.
...
Honest to god - how does a movie with such a contrived finale get so much praise, or even leave the script writing phase??

Such a mess. I can't believe it.
I'm currently writing this while still in the movie theatre. I never reach for my phone when i am at the movies.
FKA Twigs was unbearable. I never wanna see her face or hear her voice ever again.
Wtf was that insta love thing? They literally said 'Hi' and then they were soooo in love with eachother. Get out of here!
The dialogue was as deep as the writing of a 15 year old emo girl from 2005. Trust me, i was a 15 y.o. emo girl in 2005 who would write "deep" shit like that.
The whole thing with the video was so illogical. She was looking at the camera but then she asks her friend who took that video:eyes: Then Zadie sent it to her but by the middle of the movie they said that Shelly had the video on her phone like it was there from the beginning... But they all saw her killing that other girl and now her friends are trying to protect her? I mean... i couldn't keep up with this plotline, seriously.
The editing was a bit messy too.
What was the point of the piano player? Take her out of the movie and nothing would change.
The diamond tattoo on Eric's face was all over the place. At times it was right below his lower eyelash, at other times it was on his cheekbone.
And wtf was that ending? Did they turn back time? If they did, then all the bad guys would be alive, right? Because why would they both die? Did they overdose? I just don't see the logic.
The ONLY interesting thing in this movie was shirtless Bill Skarsgard. Thank god we had plenty of this, otherwise i would have fallen asleep.
1 star for the aesthetics.
1 star because Bill's hot.
1 star because im generous.
That equals 3 stars from me.
Thank you for your attention!

Kinda on the fence for thar one. I honestly can’t tell if I liked it or not. I’m not sure. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. The first hour bored the hell out of me and had me thinking this movie wasn’t worth it, but the second half - wow. My biggest problem is that it started so slow and then everything was so rushed. Too much time is spent on Bill Skarsgaard's character only to set up Arvin's trauma.

There wasn’t really much character development or exposition, so I couldn’t really form any relationships. Most of the characters needed more screen time to get invested in them. For example, I wished Sebastian Stan’s character was more developed, I think he was affected by the all-over-the-place pacing the most. That plot line between him, Riley Keough and Jason Clarke could have been its own movie. That way we would have known more about Sandy, like why did she participate in all that stuff?

The cast is great. None of the performances really sticks out above the rest, in my opinion, and none of them are that bad. Everyone does their job well, except for Bill Skarsgaard, his performance here was the weakest. His accent was very unconvincing and overdone. Tom Holland did a solid job as Arvin, though I can’t help but think the character Arvin should have been cast as more intimidating. The scene where he’s beating up the bullies, I just couldn’t buy him being intimidating.

I think the generational setup is usually very hard to do, and it is not done well here. I wish we saw more of the characters beyond the killings because at some point you meet a new character and just wait and wonder how he/she will die. The Devil All the Time might have been better as a mini-series to further explore the different stories, characters, and themes of religion, delusions, lust and manipulation.

Wow. This movie is great. it is sick. It is disturbing. But also, it is great. Probably one of the best movies of this year, most definatley one of the top 10 candidates. But also so hard to describe without spoilering that I won't even get into it. Just this much: It's a movie about dark secrets, revenge, blackmail and some strange notion of justice.

The story is especially in the beginning, totally strange, and only after some time you'll start to understand who's who and what's happening. However, from the first moment on you get the notion of "something's not right", which is conveyed in so many ways - the dialogues, the way the people talk with each other, the strange relations they have. There is also some small symbolism to find, but not as much as with other movies of this kind, e.g. Nocturnal Animals.

The storytelling is absolutely great, the movie is totally atmospheric and unsettling from the first scene onwards - I mean, wow was that intro intense - classical music, church-themed, and the close up of an open beating hearth at an operating table - uncomfortably long, hard to look at, even harder to look away. Cut. Discarding of rubber gloves and the scrubs from the operation. Cut. Mundane dialogue of the two doctors that walk down a frightening and disturbing looking long corridor, with the camera being far away and moving in the same pace as the two doctors. Cut.

Especially the camera is also quite interesting - it doesn't matter which scene, which shot, which setting - somehow it is always frightening and unsettling. Wow. What great skill in this shootings. The soundtrack is also absolutely strange and uncomfortable - switching from the imperfect singing of a child that in its way is totally scary (see the trailers), to classical music to a soundtrack that is absolutely grotesque and that bears a lot of resemblance to the soundtrack of the Hannibal series.

The cast is great as well - we have Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman who are absolutely great - but the star is probably Berry Keoghan, who is creepy as hell.

After watching this movie you'll feel the urge to discuss it with other people and it'll keep you occupied for hours and days afterwards (at least if you are open to such thoughts about movies and their meanings) - and this is something that I love in movies - there are many ways a movie can be really good. But to be a great movie it'll have to keep me occupied with it. This one does, so it's already clear that I'll consider it to be a great movie. It is however not for everyone. I think it can be best categorized with movies such as Nocturnal Animals, Enemy or mother! - if you loved those, you'll probably also like this one. If you, however hated those, I don't see any chance for you liking this one.

Barbenheimer: Part 1 of 2

This is the kind of film I really don’t want to criticize, because we don’t get nearly enough other stuff like it. However, mr. Nolan has been in need of an intervention for a while now, and unfortunately all of the issues that have been plaguing his films since The Dark Knight Rises show up to some degree here. Visually it might just be his best film, and there’s some tremendous acting in here, particularly by Murphy and RDJ. However, it makes the common biopic mistake of treating its subject matter like a Wikipedia entry, thereby not focussing enough on character and perspective. As a whole, the film feels more like a long extended montage, I don’t think there are many scenes that go on for longer than 60 seconds. There’s a strong ‘and then this happened, and then this happened’ feel to it, which definitely keeps up the pace, but it refuses to stop and let an emotion or idea simmer for a while. There are moments where you get a look into Oppenheimer’s mind, but because the film wants to cover too much ground, it’s (like everything else) reduced to quick snippets. It’s the kind of approach that’d work for a 6 hour long miniseries where you can spend more time with the characters, not for a 3 hour film. I can already tell that I won’t retain much from this, in fact a lot of it is starting to blur together in my mind. There are also issues with some of the dialogue and exposition, such as moments where characters who are experts in their field talk in a way that feels dumbed down for the audience, or just straight up inauthentic. Einstein is given a couple of cheesy lines, college professors and students interact in a way that would never happen, Oppenheimer gives a lecture in what’s (according to the movie) supposed to be Dutch when it’s really German; you have to be way more careful with that when you’re making a serious drama. Finally, there are once again major issues with the sound mixing. I actually really loved the score, but occasionally it’s blaring at such a volume where it drowns out important dialogue in the mix. I’m lucky enough to have subtitles, but Nolan desperately needs to get his ears checked, or maybe he should’ve asked some advice from Benny Safdie since he’s pretty great with experimental sound mixing. My overall feelings are almost identical to the ones I had regarding Tenet; Nolan needs to rethink his approach to writing, editing and mixing. This film as a whole doesn’t work, but there are still more than a few admirable qualities to it.

Edit: I rewatched this at home to see whether my feeling would change. I still stand by what I wrote in July, though the sound mix seems to have been improved for the home media release. It sounds more balanced and I didn’t miss one line of dialogue this time around. I’m slightly raising my score because of that, but besides that I still think it’s unfocused, overedited, awkwardly staged and scripted etc.

5.5/10

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.

Sorry folks but this one didn't go well for Marvel. I don't even know where to start. Acting was average, more like below average. Screenplay was as much ordinary as it could be. No surprise here. CGI was OK but it's somehow expected from Marvel. But I totally didn't like the idea of Wakanda. Hidden city in the center of Africa with tons of technology and advanced weapons and systems and so on. But how the hell did they build all of that? No explanation. It just happened. Yes, they have Vibranium, but they don't sell it. In fact they never did and for whole world they are just a bunch of shepherds and farmers. So where did they take all that money to build empire like this? I don't like movies without explanations and this is one of them. Almost nothing has been told about Vibranium whatsoever. Oh yeah, it's some super thing from the universe capable of anything. That's all the explanation you get. There are too many clichés we have already seen too many times. And we have to see them again. One example: I challenge someone for a fight because I want to kill him. And when I have the chance to kill him, what would I do? Kill him or throw him down from the cliff to the water where he can survive? But enough. If you hesitate if to watch this, I can recommend not to waste your time. Wait for the Avangers where you can also see the Black Panther. You won't miss anything if you miss out this movie.

The meanest thing I could say about this movie is ‘Has extreme Don’t Worry Darling energy’.

I have never seen a movie more desperate to justify itself. It’s trapped in this endless neurosis over what it is- a blockbuster Barbie movie in 2023 by an acclaimed art house director that is fun but also deep but also earnest but also self aware but also but also but also. Every point it raises it brings up a counterpoint to before the audience can, every frame is trying to prove it’s not just product but art. It’s never just Barbie. It’s never confident or even comfortable in its skin. You cannot for a second be immersed in Barbie because it’s not a story so much as a visual dissertation without a central thesis, it’s a student film riffing on the big dogs hoping it’s underdog audacity will carry it but given a budget in the millions. It so desperately wants you to like it, to know it’s in on the joke too.

Everythng is an ouroboros here: an endless loop of argument and counterarguement feeding itself. Isn’t it shitty how the Mattel boardroom is full of men? Ah, but isn’t it cool how Mattel’s acknowledged it with this niche? And it’ll mythologize Barbie’s creator but uh don’t worry she did tax evasion we know that, now let her impart into Barbie the experience of all women. Barbie helps women, Barbie hurts women, Barbie is told to be everything so isn’t she just like women, but it is better to be a creator than the idea, and in the end, hasn’t Barbie helped all these women? Oh uh why is this blonde white Barbie the centerpiece of it all and helping not only her diverse Barbie friends but a Hispanic woman and her daughter? Don’t worry we’ll have the daughter call her a white savior! But don’t worry we’ll have the mom say she’s not! It’s fascinating to watch, honestly. It’s a film that wants to prove to you so so bad that it works but it doesn’t and it knows it doesn’t and it knows you knows. It’s Gerta Gerwig wrestling with taking this job for an hour and a half.

The cast is more than game and able. Margot Robbie is doing her damndest to find the heart and soul in this role, and there’s one scene with an old lady near the end of the first act/beginning of the second that actually works, for just a moment, more than any of the big third act soliloquies or montages with emotional ballads. And as someone who’s seen Blade Runner 2049 and Drive, this is the best Ryan Gosling performance I’ve seen. The man commits and delivers a surprisingly compelling and entertaining antagonist. The movie can’t quite reconcile what he’s done with his ending, or tie it into the themes- is Ken letting go of Barbie and the need to define himself for or against her symbolizing the need for men to do the same, and if so, why play it so lightly and sympathetically?- but that’s not his fault. And the supporting cast are entertaining, but you just can’t have big laughs with a movie that feels like it’s constantly checking in the corner of its eye after every joke to see if you’re laughing, grin stuck in place. It’s not as funny or as smart as it wants to be, and the sad thing is, it feels like it knows that too.

There is some great set design, cinematography, dazzling choreography, popping colors, and some fun high points. But I can’t imagine many kids liking it. And we’ve seen how conservatives have taken this movie. And anyone’s who’s progressed beyond the politics of. Well. A feminist blockbuster Barbie movie will find it cloying or condescending or just incredibly basic. It’s aimed at a very specific crowd who will buy what it’s saying, the liberals who see corporate feminism as progress, who agree that it’s just about a little change sometimes, who are ready for something just a little more complex than a SNL sketch. I don’t regret seeing it, because I was deeply engaged the whole time seeing it struggle at war with itself, in pain for its whole existence. It’s not a boring movie by any means. It wants to say everything before the audience can say it first. It’s the endpoint of The Lego Movie and Enchanted- the corporations interrogating and justifying themselves, and the cracks in this formula are too large to ignore. It wants to be so much, and the attempt is as darkly mesmerizing as a fly thinking it can somehow and someway metamorphize into a butterfly and suffocating and struggling in its makeshift cocoon, but this is one Barbie that fundamentally just cannot break out of its box.

If last year's Top Gun Maverick gave everyone the slightest bit of hope in regards to films that click with the general audience and blow up at the box office, this is the kind of film that'll make any self-respecting film fan lose all hope. Here's the deal: kids will pretty much like this by default, adults who are looking for validation of their childhood obsession will like it, and people who show up to see an actual movie won't. It's pretty much the blandest, calculated, do-nothing film they could've made out of this material. The animation is devoid of style and looks like it was originally rendered for a Dreamworks project back in 2008, the voice acting is mostly ass, it triggers the nostalgia & reference button way too often, the story & characters are watered down to a point where they're almost non-existent, it's not funny and its boomer rock soundtrack choices make absolutely no sense. It's irredeemable trash, like every product that rolls of the Illumination Entertainment conveyor belt. Nevertheless, I'm willing to bet that due to the large fanbase of the IP, this will be one of those films where in the short term some of the discourse will insist that "some people/critics don't know how to have fun" or "it's made for the fans" (only for those same people to deny ever liking it in the long haul, of course). Here’s hoping Illumination doesn’t listen to those voices in the same way that DC did after the release of Suicide Squad. This is not a foundation to build a franchise on.

2.5/10

Yeah I mean, it is very much that movie. If you want my unfiltered opinion: it's glossy & loud, it's discount Tarantino/Ritchie, it's engineered to be forgotten about almost instantly, it's very Youtube reviewer friendly, it’s edited for people with no attention span, it’s postmodern and cringy; it's all of that. It's aiming to be a 6, and I was kinda expecting it to hit that target given how much I was into David Leitch' previous directorial effort. Unfortunately, this is hampered by the fact that it very much feels like a product of the pandemic. I'm pretty sure everything was shot on sound stages, and you can really tell, because the effects are dogshit. The same goes for the action, most of it feels like it was choreographed based on what was possible for the day. It's a shame, because good visuals and punchy action are two of the key ingredients if you want to make this kind of movie work. Now, its biggest saving grace are the characters and some of the comedy. I think most of the characters are quite well done and colorful (props to the writing and actors), especially the duo played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree-Henry (again, even if they feel like they walked straight out of a Guy Ritchie movie). It did make me laugh occasionally, but there's also a lot of cringe in it, especially with its obnoxious use of bathos and cameos by people I didn't need to see. I'm also getting pretty sick of the Marvelization of movie dialogue, I could’ve sworn some of Pitt’s lines in this were written with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool in mind. The story itself is a mess pretty much right from the start and completely flies off the rails in the third act (no pun intended). I'm not sure if that's due to the writing or editing though. In true Tarantino fashion it's told out of order, but here it doesn't enhance the experience in a positive way. I don't know, I'd wait for this to appear on streaming, it's only occasionally fun and not really worth of the big screen.

4/10

Well, so I just saw this movie for the first time yesterday. Almost 40 years after it was released. A bit late yeah, but it never really seemed interesting enough to check out. And what can i say? To be honest, I expected the movie to be pretty bad considering how much praise it gets (usually in horror that's a sure sign it's only trendy to like it somehow). But I never expected it to be this bad.

• The characters are just a big mess. The acting is atrocious and the casting choices are very weird. Everybody looks way to old for the role they play, and the dialogues are just some of the worst I've ever heard. My favorite being Laurie saying "was that the boogeyman?" which had me burst out in laughter. Great stuff. Anyway, none of the characters ever sound realistic in any way. And there is NO chemistry with any character and I mean zero. Michael Myers himself is just nothing special at all. The opening scene with him is pretty great tbh (when he's a little kid), but after that, it's all downhill, and we don't get to know anything about him at all whatsoever. He's truly lacking any character whatsoever. He doesn't speak or even have motives. He just goes around strangling people. Yeah very creative.

• The story is among the worst I've ever seen. Almost not a single thing makes sense, and it becomes very slapstick at times. It is the perfect example of all the archetypes everybody hates in horror movies like "go randomly into the closet" and "stab the killer and toss the knife away afterwards and sit and wait for him to get up" or my personal favorite "just give him the car". The main storyline itself is extremely narrow and it truly feels random. For like 70% of the movie there are no real interactions of any kind between anyone and some overgrown babysitters just sees spooky things and gets killed in (extremely) predictable and stupid ways. There is a doctor too, but that part is so ludicrous that it almost seems to be for comedic relief. He's sure funny when he breaks out his doomy and gloomy speeches, I'll give him that. Especially when he's peeking on the kids from behind the bush. That was hilarious. The ending is atrocious too. Worst end sequence I've seen in a while. And that brings us to...

• The directing is simply awful. Some shots drag out for a laughable long time, so much that it gets really awkward. And there is so much repetition too, and some parts that (I guess) is supposed to be scary just looks very funny. Like the times when Michael collapses. Or when they are being tailed by a car accompanying the "creepy music" for like the 5th time in like 10 minutes. The editing is poor also, like when Michael cracks the car window. And the movie is shot in such a way that not many scares are unexpected. It's a very predictable movie. Like the music will always let you know well before hand when something creepy is about to happen. Which brings us to...

• The score is very amateurish and very often plain bad. Yes the main theme is kinda good, but not after you've heard it slapped on like 50 scenes. It starts to get funny after a while to always hear that tune. Not very scary.

Overall, the movie felt like a very bad low budget horror of it's time. But would it have been better back in the days? Hell no. It's a bad movie, no matter what time period it's from. It's just a very trendy movie, and now that I've finally seen it, I can safely say that I wasn't missing out on anything. Phew.

I'm a huge fan of SF and AI based plots - I was really looking forward to seeing this but it was a frustrating disappointment. It has terrible horrible shamefully bad writing. Not a single original idea about AI and in fact they don't really deal with AI apart from robots basically being exactly like humans but nicer. No original futuristic sci-fi ideas either with a lot of the futuristic stuff not making any sense. For example the AIs speak to each other in English, no super fast data pours between them. They can't even speak remotely over cellular or whatever... they use walkie talkies lol. They had an old women robot that limped around though the robots do not age?!? I could have forgiven all of this in the 80s or from an adaptation of an Isaac Asinov novel but we're in 2023 and we've all watched the Matrix etc... Also it had very little action and the action sequences it did have were bad and boring with yellow lazer tracers zapping around in the near dark or fog. Visually it was ok and the score was decent but the poor writing completely ruined it for me. Half way through, I couldn't wait for it to end. You can't be a serious Sci-fi fan and think this is any good, it's just not possible... yes that's you good reviewers.

Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia.

If anything, Hollywood has boiled that concept down to a science over the past few years, as this film is basically a summary of everything that’s wrong with the industry in a neat, 148 minute package.
It thinks it’s meta and self-aware by pointing out how cynical and cheap franchise filmmaking is.
That might sound similar set-up as 22 Jump Street, but this film proceeds to be cheap and cynical itself without saying anything substantial beyond its own set up, so it embraces what it’s trying to criticize.
Everything in this movie is structured as an excuse to show stuff you’ve seen before, there are little to no original concepts or ideas that push the franchise in an interesting direction.
It’s mostly a rehash of the first film (mixed with some stuff from Reloaded and Revolutions in the second half), except the action isn’t nearly as good, it’s more predictable and convenient, the performances are nowhere near as memorable (that’s what you get from replacing your 2 best actors), it looks uglier and more synthetic, the pacing isn’t as tight, and it’s a lot more dull because of how much it overexplains itself.
It also ditches the cyberpunk aesthetic, and replaces it with something a lot more bland and boring, stripping the franchise from a lot of its personality.
It’s honestly quite an accomplishment when you think about it: the original is one of the best, most successful, big budget films ever made that still maintained a strong artistic and alternative impulse.
This, on the other hand, couldn’t be any more lowest common denominator if it tried to.
It’s a parody of itself and modern blockbuster filmmaking.
I suppose that was Lana Wachowski’s goal to some extent, but it isn’t very compelling to watch.

3/10

I like the craft a lot, this might just be Wright's most well made film. You can also feel that he's challenging himself by stripping away a lot of the humour and irony that's found in all of his previous work. However, I think that this exposes a lot of his weaknesses as a writer. For one, the logic of the plot doesn't make a lot of sense and the plot twists are very predictable. The characters and dialogue are so one dimensional and on the nose that it reminded me of 80s teen horror flicks. It's probably intentional, and I get that most of this is directed from the perspective of the protagonist, but it doesn't make her more interesting or likable. On top of that, the horror elements feel tacked on and goofy, it's almost like Wright briefly forgot that he isn't making Shaun of the Dead here. As the film goes on it starts to embrace its Argento influence, which is an interesting experiment, but the execution of the tonal shift isn't smooth. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the sequences taking place in the 1960s. The constant switching between Eloise and Sandie is a nice visual cue and the soundtrack picks are amazing. The theme about romanticizing the past is handled pretty well, more so than its commentary about gender. It's a masterclass in editing and pacing, as expected from Edgar Wright. Lots of inventive cuts and great scene transitions. Overall it's alright, but it does show that Wright's style is at its best when he fully embraces the cartoony and ironic nature of his scripts.

5.5/10

Denis Villeneuve is the man!
There’s only one word that came into my mind after watching it: finally.

Finally, a blockbuster that isn’t afraid to be primarily driven by drama and tension, and doesn’t undercut its own tone by throwing in a joke every 30 seconds.
Finally, a blockbuster that puts actual effort in its cinematography, and doesn’t have a bland or calculated colour palette.
Finally, a blockbuster with a story that has actual substance and themes, and doesn’t rely on intertextual references or nostalgia to create a fake sheen of depth.
Finally, a blockbuster that doesn’t pander to China by having big, loud and overblown action sequences, but relies on practical and grounded spectacle instead (it has big sand worms, you really don’t need to throw anything at the screen besides that).
Finally, a blockbuster that actually feels big, because it isn’t primarily shot in close ups, or on a sound stage.
And of course: finally, a blockbuster that isn’t a fucking prequel, sequel, or connected to an already established IP somehow.

(Yeah, I know Tenet did those things as well, but I couldn’t get into that because the characters were so flat and uninteresting).

This just checks all the boxes. An engaging story with subtext, very well set up characters, great acting (like James Gunn, Villeneuve's great at accentuating the strengths of limited actors like Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa), spectecular visuals and art design (desaturated but not in an ugly washed out way), pacing (slow but it never drags), directing, one of Hans Zimmer’s best scores: it’s all here.
I only have one real criticism: there’s too much exposition, especially in the first half.
It can occasionally hold your hand by referencing things that have already been established previously, and some scenes of characters explaining stuff to each other could’ve been conveyed more visually.
Other than that, it’s easily one of the best films of the year.
I’ve seen some people critiquing it for being incomplete, which is true, but this isn’t just a set up for a future film.
It feels like a whole meal, there are pay offs in this, and the characters progress (even if, yes, their arcs are still incomplete).

8.5/10

Let's be real here. This isn't a good film. And it's flawed from the get-go.

The casting. Dreadful. Hanks is a creation from Batman Returns. Priscilla has none of her beauty. And the most fundamentally unforgiveable issue - Elvis doesn't look like Elvis. Who signed off on an actor to carry this film where the eyes nose and mouth are absolutely incorrect?

The editing. Horrendous and overdone. There is barely a moments peace from the onslaught. However, for this catastrophe of cinematography to only cost 85 million USD is a triumph.

The pov aspect. Why in the hell would you base this around the ridiculous story of Colonel Tom Parker only to then leave out half of the facts? And it's not short on time at 2hr 30.

And finally, the pacing. When Elvis is washed up prior to the 68 Comeback special we haven't been fed enough of him at his peak for the rise and fall to make sense. When he passes, the bloatedness isn't shown and then arrives unexplained but for a single line of voice over. Periods that needed to be shown are glossed over and periods of relative unnecessity are dragged out.

But the real crime is the music. I counted 2 uninterrupted performances. The rest were manic collages or mixed in with - wait for it - modern hip hop... What egotistical mind decided that was a good idea...?

I watched. Now I'll hope to forget. And for anyone who wants an actual representation of Elvis from an actor who actually looks like him and tells the actual story, look for the Jonathan Rhys Meyers TV miniseries biopic.

To paraphrase a Bill Burr routine... Elvis was the first to be a major superstar. He made all the mistakes because he had nobody who had led the way.

Why is that not spelled out?

The 'theft' of black music. The 'child' marriage... I get that 2022 eyes see the world differently but a film like this shouldn't pander to the modern trend for rewriting history. It should provide perspective.

If Elvis hadn't grown up surrounded by black culture and organically witnessed that music, he'd be Pat Boone. But he wasn't. He was a true child of the musical influences. If he hadn't had his career, then it might have been another 20 years before black music found white ears... And it wouldn't have been a black artist who brought it. That's the sad truth. There needs to be a conduit and Elvis was that.

To labour this point... Tom Hanks being cast as a gay man afflicted with HIV (Philadelphia) opened the door to films of that nature being mainstream. Nowadays a gay man must be cast in that role. But you don't get to where we are without Tom Hanks being the conduit. That seems to be lost on people these days.

Progress is a series of incremental steps.

And look at the Priscilla marriage. The age of consent and the times and the location were all a world away. Don't be outraged at this, be outraged at Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry.

How sad the film was so overwhelmed by its desire to create ridiculous camerawork that it failed to deliver any of the impact of the first major superstar.

5/10

I'm old enough to remember the original Hellraiser (1987). That was a true horror film. There were horrible people, doing horrible things. It left you feeling really quite disturbed about the worst aspects of human nature.

The follow-up Hellraiser 2 (1988) managed to recapture a small part of that. But after that it was downhill fast. The sequels were nothing but parodies.

Well, for some reason, Hulu decided to remake it.

Shamefully, the film fails on nearly every level. It's not well written (terrible dialogue) and poorly acted. There's little horror and you simply do not care about anyone or anything happening in it. It doesn't give you a reason to care either. The Cenobites are not scary, or grotesque looking... they just look like cheap make-up and some bad CGI.

Like the later Hellraiser films It has more in common with trashy slasher flicks than anything else. Poorly done ones at that.

As is common today they gender-switched the main role. Did it add anything? Nope. In fact, I keep hearing about what a good performance Jamie Clayton was as The Priest. I don't know what they were watching. There isn't a performance, it's literally all make up and some lines read out flat. Look at the originals: Pinhead's character is all about small, slow movements and looming dread. He's literally an overwhelming threat and you are the prey. Not in this one though.

Or look at the secondary villain. In the original it's Uncle Frank, who is an awful person who fully deserves his fate. Even in the end as he's pulled apart by the Cenobites... he's drawn to it, and much as he tried to run he still wants what the Cenobites offer. In this new version... there's none of that same grimy, disturbing look into subcultures. It's all clean, boring and badly acted.

Watch Hellraiser (1987) and Hellraiser 2 (1988) and stop there. They did it better on much smaller budgets.

From the comments here I think people are missing out the idea I think is behind the movie and it's actually a good one.

The level below doesn't exist. I think Goreng died at the bottom and threw the Panna Cotta because the rules of not keeping the food should still apply but didn't, as part of his illusion. The little girl couldn't survive the last level and was too clean for the place, also an illusion.

I think she's the Panna Cotta, which found it's way up and we see it in one of the earlier scenes, where the head chef tried to find whose hair is on the dish.

Goreng thought that his message doesn't need a messenger, that it will be clear - but it was missed. The administration, which I think is a analogy to God which is mentioned a few times in the movie and at every level the question of belief is asked, misses the whole point of it and is clueless to the pain and the suffering of the people below (Imoguiri worked for them, didn't know what the people really go through and thought there are only 250 levels).

They make everyone their favorite food of the highest quality and they probably think it's enough for everyone because each one should get his. The people being people, take more than they should or have to and as a result there's only enough food for the first 50 levels and the familiar hierarchy (the rich take most of the food that can be enough for everyone).

I usually don't have any problems with the sports movie formula. Quite the contrary, it actually almost always provides a certain qualitative floor that guarantees I can enjoy the film. However, I really haven't seen a flick as formulaic as "Gran Turismo" in a long time. And even that wouldn't be the biggest problem if at least a few of the elements hit the spot. But nothing really convinced me here.

The script, which contains every cliché imaginable, is undoubtedly the film's weakest link. Whether it's the grumpy mentor, the one-dimensional rival, the unnecessary love interest, or the disapproving father, everything is totally predictable. The actors aren't even the problem, for the most part—except for Orlando Bloom, who really is abysmally bad here. Furthermore, you have to look for humor in "Gran Turismo" with a magnifying glass. The film takes itself far too seriously, while the characters are all uninteresting. And the whole "gamer" versus "real" driver nonsense seems completely out of date.

Only the racing sequences could have saved the film for me, but they also failed to click. Although they are nicely shot in places, they are also regularly intercut with some kind of effect. There is never any suspense, and for a film that advertises so aggressively that it is based on a "true story," the individual race situations seem incredibly contrived. Even in a boring Formula 1 season like this year, I've seen much more suspense than in this film. In the end, this movie is nothing more than a PlayStation and Nissan commercial. If you want to see some cool Le Mans action, watch "Ford v Ferrari" instead.

I believe that RLM in their review of the last one compared these movies to Taco Bell.
Everything has the same 5 ingredients, just placed in a different order.
It’s hard to argue with that after seeing this film.
It’s plagued by the exact same problem as the Terminator franchise; the creatives behind it are clueless on how to expand the franchise beyond the lore of the classics.
As a result, you get these rinse and repeat movies that are high on the nostalgia bait and devoid of anything interesting.
This somehow manages to be the worst one of the trilogy, I’d say it’s about on par with something like Jurassic Park III.
It’s somehow the dumbest Jurassic film (no, I haven’t forgotten about the military subplots in the previous 2, but this one literally introduces a new dinosaur nicknamed the ‘Giga’ and an evil company called ‘Biosyn’) with some of the cringiest dialogue and acting I’ve seen in a long time, none of which is embraced by the filmmakers. I think it’d play much better if this material was treated like a spoof, or at the very least more tongue in cheek (could’ve used more hallucinations of a dinosaur screaming “ALAN!”). It’s trying so hard to be sincere and Spielbergian, but it doesn’t work.
Moreover, the new characters are still either boring clichés or annoying, it looks too glossy, it’s way too long given how little’s going on, action’s alright but nothing that’s truly impressive or visceral; it’s just a bland mush of forgettable nothingness, and Jeff Goldblum’s charisma can’t save any of it.

3/10

Didn't have high hopes, and thank god. Still sad to see yet another fan favourite video game character be ruined by the adaption to film.

It's bad, and mostly because of the script. The story is awful and is very inconsistent. Sonic can run around loops and jump on missiles in mid-air but can't run up a slightly tilted wall? Also the amount of force-feeding of exposition they give in the first third is so bad. Not to mention the non-original and unneeded "Ya, that's me, how did I get here?" trope at the very beginning. The writers clearly didn't care how their story would be so generic and fall into the background because Sonic would draw people in. Like, in the action scenes, people should be dead. But, when you look around the streets, there's no one there. It honestly feels very empty throughout.

It feels like a rushed and cheap way to give a character that has been prevalent in the gaming community for almost 30 years a film. It really seems like they found someone's fanfiction and made it into a motion picture. Because if the first trailer was anything to go off of, they probably saw Sonic fanart on DeviantArt and thought that's what he looked like.

But speaking of looks, some positives. The colours work well, the art direction is okay and cinematography ain't half bad. The production design is pretty good and we all know Sonic looks much like himself again. As for a score, I don't remember it. Flat sad music is all that comes to mind.

I truly believe hardly anyone cared about this project, and that goes for the actors as well. I was kinda intrigued by how Jim Carrey would play the role here. After his great show Kidding where he used his over the top acting in a profound way. I was hoping to see it continue with this weird eccentric character. But no, it's just the old Jim Carrey again. His ability to move the way he does did seem to fit right in my mind, but when he spoke it just didn't work. Plus, the way he was written is so lazy.

I laughed once, right near the end at that damn Fitbit joke. The tonal shift of that character and her delivery honestly caught me off-guard. The best part of the movie.

Not the worst video game movie, but certainly not improving the general view on them either.

3/10

Initial Reaction
After two viewings

The Good
• Deadpool himself is as funny as ever. Ryan Reynolds keeps up a fantastic performance and really gives it his all.
• Cable is also really good. Josh Brolin, despite being in many movies this year. Has given a great performance.
• Jokes are really funny when they hit, and they hit hard.
• Secondary characters are also really well done. Some anyway. More on that, below in the spoilers
• It has a true charm to it. Making it more distinct than the first. But not outshining it.
• The action was on point. The director really knows how to capture a great fight scene, and there are plenty here to enjoy and marvel at.
• Villain. This point is actually a fairly good one, but also has spoils. So read below if you really want to know. What I can say is that Ajax is nowhere near as memorable compared to the bad guys here.
• The amount of balls this movie has. It just does things, I would never expect them to do. The first movie gave us shocks at what they could say and show. Now they just go and toy with that to the next level. And I loved it.

The Bad
• Plot. It's not the best. It's also not that simple. The first Deadpool was very straightforward even with the time jumps. Here, it's a bit of a mess. Not to mention it's kind of a rip off of T2. But it acknowledges this at least
• Some jokes don't quite land. They reuse some of the same lines from the first movie, and it feels as if it really is lazy writing. As far as it seems, they are trying to make Deadpool's catchphrases more clear. But to me, it was just annoying.
• The jokes seem to build off the story in this. Whereas the first one felt more improvisational and made it seem like the plot revolved around the humour. Here it just seemed like the comedy was slotted into this action film. But it's not all that bad, just let down the overall tone of the movie.
• CGI is actually pretty bad. It's so distracting, it takes away from the comedy they try to sprinkle over it.
• Wade. He is focused on more than the first. And I just didn't like how they were trying to go about it.
• Along with the focus on Wade, the emotional scenes don't mix that well with the comedy like they did in the first.

Other Things
• You're going to want to stick around for the mid-credit sequences. They are some of the best ever in a Marvel movie, and in movies in general.
• There are two mid-credit scenes (almost back-to-back) and no end-credit scenes.

Spoiler Things
• The X-Force joke is so damn good that I can forgive the lack of build in the team up until the very humorous end. Again such a great ballsy move. Props to the studio.
• The villains in this movie, aren't really present in terms of villains. The first Deadpool had a villain, he had to beat him. Done. This sets it up to be all about Cable, but it actually gives us villains that turn out to be the same as Wade. Which is great for a Deadpool movie to show anti-heroes having a connection with the villains they are fighting.

Conclusion
DP2 is not better than the first. It lacks the simplicity and catchy humour that it had. But, it does grab onto you and takes you on a ride that is not as funny, but is just as enjoyable than the original. I don't see it being as rewatchable like the first. But as its own movie, it holds itself up for a fun experience, wonderful character portrayals, and a damn good time.

While exiting the theater, my brother commented that the trailers for this movie were misleading, as he thought it would explore more of the details, perhaps even the origin, of the titular civil war. Instead, the civil war is simply a back drop for a deep character study and a sequence of well acted and incredibly well shot vignettes that explore the small scale affects of the war while sweeping the practical details under the rug. Interestingly, it even feels like the underlying politics behind the division are kept intentionally out of focus. Luckily, I don't watch trailers, so I didn't experience this disconnect and could appreciate the movie for what it is - and what it is, is great.

First, I want to call out the technical filmmaking. As I already mentioned, this movie is incredibly well shot, and though I didn't see it in IMAX, I can safely say that it is deserving of the format. Perhaps even more impressive though was the sound, as the action sequences were explosive, with every gun shot feeling far more powerful than I've come to expect out of recent films. Combine that with the chaotic mix of shouting soldiers, helicopters overhead, and cleverly leveraged silence, and you get an Oscar worthy sound design. This sound also heavily contributes to the film's successful use of tension, which was near constant throughout.

When it comes to the writing, this movie is actually incredibly simple. In a lot of ways, it plays like a zombie road trip (which the director is no stranger to, having written 28 days/weeks later), except instead of zombies it's random militia encounters. But the key point is that each sequence is largely stand alone, with the throughline being only the characters. But because the characters are complex/compelling and each sequence offers some unique obstacle or idea, the vignette structure is a success despite lacking some narrative connective tissue. On top of that, the moment to moment dialogue is fantastic. I think it also helps that the film keeps its length reasonable, as this structure might have outstayed its welcome at 2+ hours.

Finally, I've got to call out the performances, which are all fantastic. I'm sure Kirsten Dunst and Caille Spaeny will get plenty of deserved praise, but Wagner Moura's performance might have been my favorite. Jesse Plemons also deserves a shoutout for nailing his disturbing role.

Ladies & gentlemen, they & them,

Early 2000’s superhero movies are back, baby!

Madame Web is a top-tier dumpster fire.

• It has some of the worst dialogue I have heard in a while. How are these writers, who brought us such gems as Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt, and the trillion-dollar hit Morbius, still working?

• “Every day that goes by, my appointment with death gets closer.” is an actual line from the movie. There is plenty more to go around.

• The editing and visual effects are atrocious.

• The acting from everyone is awful. The line delivery is shockingly low energy, and I did not believe a word any of the actors were saying.

• I have seen these actors do great work in the past, so this is 100% the director's fault here. It's crazy how a director can get piss-poor performances from good actors.

• The characters had no chemistry with each other. The scenes together felt so awkward and unnatural.

• There are so many character choices that don't make sense.

• The villain fucking sucks. There is no real character to him. He's just a boring evil guy who wants to kill three “teenagers” because he dreamed of them killing him in the future. He is not threatening at all.

• I noticed the actor who played the villain was dubbed over with ADR for most of his scenes. You can tell.

• None of the humour landed. Painfully unfunny.

• The 2003 pop culture references were a pathetic excuse for creating a time capsule setting.

• Adam Scott and Emma Roberts have nothing to do here. You wonder why they are even there.

• For a superhero movie, there are barely any exciting action scenes. Whenever there is some action, it's nothing special. I would not mind the lack of action if the story, characters, and acting were superb, but it has none of that.

• The fact that the final battle scene takes place underneath a Cola/Pepsi sign is another example of the terrible product placement from Sony.

• The final shot is the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen.

My jaw is on the floor of how a movie like this can be shit out by a big studio. Sony REALLY needs to cut it out with these unnecessary Spider-Man spin-off films.

Madame Web is the worst superhero movie ever made. Yes, I mean it. At least the other bad superhero movies had some redeeming qualities to it. But this movie has nothing. Everything about this movie is wrong. Fant4stic is better than this. It makes Morbius look competently made.

The current state of superhero movies is in trouble, and Madame Web is not helping.

[4.8/10] What if you managed to wrangle a host of England’s finest actors, and threw them into a movie devoted almost entirely to the meaning of Christmastime and love, with a horrible, arguably repugnant understanding of both? As Love Actually itself predicts through the story of its aging rocker cashing in on a turgid cash-in X-mas album, that turd would become a venerable number one hit.

Love Actually is an embarrassment, a bit of holiday hokum suitable only to lull you to sleep after large doses of eggnog and honey ham. That is, perhaps, a little too harsh a pronouncement. When the film tries to be something other than adult romance -- whether it’s parental encouragement, sibling comfort, or simply friendship -- it is cute at worst and heartwarming at best. But when it tries to spin tales of actual romantic love between grown-ups, it lays the film’s horrid ethics, thin romcom tropes, and sexist leanings bare.

So let’s alternate between the two and attempt to uncover the best and worst of this misguided but seemingly unkillable film in the process.

The most prominent offender is the Hugh Grant plot. (Fair warning, I’m going to refer to these vignettes by performer rather than by character name, since that’s about as much thought as the film put into the characters.) The story, which stars Grant as England’s Prime Minister and Martine McCutchen as the assistant he falls in love with, can basically be summed up as “What if we did the Monica Lewinsky scandal, except played it as romantic?” and is pretty much that wrong-headed throughout.

The film at least commendably tries to distance itself from that sort of thing, making Hugh Grant single and caking the whole thing in meetcute energy. But it’s emblematic of all the things that make this movie’s romantic leanings so repugnant. For one thing, it’s focused on a power imbalance between the romantic leads, that is only obviated when the Prime Minister fires (or “redistributes”) the girl he’s crushing on after he’s caught her making out with the American president, in a bit so ridiculous and contrived, all the film can do with it is make it the motivation for Hugh Grant to find his backbone as a leader, as dumb a dramatization of implicit sexual harassment as you’re likely to find.

But it’s fine, you see, because Hugh Grant loves his assistant despite the fact that she isn’t rail thin, and we’re supposed to admire him for this “I love my curvy wife” affection. It’s part and parcel with the raft of idiotic fat-shaming in the movie, from the multiple unnecessary comments about McCutchen’s size, to the Portuguese father in Colin Firth’s story bitching about his overweight daughter, to Bill Nighy’s continued references to his “fat manager.”

At least Bill Nighy’s behavior as washed up rockstar Billy Mack is framed as bad behavior, and maybe that’s why Nighy’s plot goes down smoother than some others. There’s a teenage boy perspective to this whole movie, and that finds more purchase under the mantle of an aging rockstar than it does to any sort of romantic feelings between adults. Watching Nighy misbehave in the guise of promoting his new turd of a Christmas cash-in to hit #1 on the charts is one of the more entertaining threads throughout the film. And Bill realizing that his best friend, and the person he loves most in the world, is the manager he’s been jostling with in the lead-up to the holidays, manages to wring the slightest modicum of heart out of the plot, even if, like most other bits in the film, the ending manages to squeeze in treating women like disposable objects.

Speaking of which, the absolute dumbest bit in the film is Colin, the libidinous pick-up artist who’s convinced that American girls would fall all over him, and travels to Wisconsin over the holidays to prove himself right. The whole story has the maturity and romantic POV of an American Pie movie, and the contrived, cartoonish way that women in the USA stumble over themselves to bring him into a foursome and are ready to jump into bed with anything speaking the Queen’s English is foolish at best and gross at worst.

And yet somehow, the most wholesome storyline in the episode is the one where the soon-to-be couple spends most of the film naked. The story of Martin Freeman and Joanna Page, who play sex scene stand-ins with no qualms about chatting in the buff on screen but feel shy and retreating in normal situations, manages to take a ribald premise and actually make it cute. It’s telling that the most normal-seeming, even-keel romance Love Actually can muster is built on the fact that two people who have every opportunity to be attracted to one another on a physical level instead connect on a personal level.

That’s a mirror image of Colin Firth’s storyline, where after finding his wife cheating on him with his brother, his character (a writer) retreats to a french vacation house to recover. There, he meets a hired housekeeper named played by Lúcia Moniz, who only speaks portuguese and whom he’s generally indifferent to. Then, all of a sudden, he sees her strip down to her underwear (with the film careful to pan across her body in slow motion) and magically he is in love. The film tries to paper over this, conveying that there’s a nigh-spiritual connection between them as they express the same feelings even though they can’t understand one another. And there’s an O. Henry-esque finish with the duo each learning the other’s language in order for a spur-of-the-moment proposal to work. But in the end, it’s another power imbalance with Firth deciding that his housekeeper, who doesn't speak his language, is hot, and the film shifting into rapidly implausible romcom mode to try to not only justify it, but make it sweet, to few returns.

The best the film can manage, and really what it coasts on the whole way through, is due to the talent of actors like Firth, who make these absurd and frankly repugnant situations have the faintest patina of humanity to them. That’s the saving grace of the story where Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson play a married couple, where Thompson discovers Rickman’s wandering eye. It’s one of the more down-to-earth, non-saccharine stories in the film, which bolsters it, and Thompson in particular wrings the comedy, pathos, and relief her character experience at various point. But even here, the plot is bogged down by the third member of the love triangle being another power-imbalance secretary whose only purpose or character in the film is to be Rickman’s seductress, replete with even more gratuitous lack of clothing. There’s an extended, not especially funny interlude from Rowan Atkinson that feels dissonant, and the climax of the plot, what should be its high point of a confrontation, bottoms out with an overblown, overly dramatic exchange between Rickman and Thompson rather than something that feels more grounded and real.

That’s something only managed by Laura Linney, whose character in enamored with a handsome co-worker, but whose romantic life is all but scuttled by her mentally ill brother, whose unfortunately-timed phone calls require her to pause her life to look after him. It’s another story here that succeeds by not being focused on romance, and instead on a filial love, that’s bolstered by the twinge of tragedy and realness to it that isn’t realized nearly as well in Thompson/Rickman infidelity plot. The film still goes big at times with the timing of the brother’s phone calls or his behavior in the hospital, but it’s founded on the hardship for Linney of sacrificing her love life for the good of a sick family member, but also the corresponding joy and warmth she’s able to wring from looking after someone she cares about.

That’s the opposite tone the film strikes when trying to depict impossible love in the Keira Knightley/Andrew Lincoln story, which is arguably the most iconic in the film. Enough has been written about this storyline already, but suffice it to say, nothing speaks to this film’s befuddling values more than the fact that it wants the audience to find nothing sweeter than a guy creeping on his best friend’s girlfriend/fiancee/wife from afar, and then confessing his feelings after they’re married and she’s found his secret tape of her. If you want to understand this movie’s confused view of love, you could watch this segment alone and comprehend, if not necessarily understand, how backwards Love Actually is when it comes to its titular subject matter. And as a bonus for fans of The Walking Dead (another work with some quality performances but not always admirable values and oft-atrocious writing), we discover that it’s not Andrew Lincoln’s cheek-chewing Georgia accent that’s holding him back, but rather his inability to seem like a real human being, whether he’s playing a trauma-swallowing southern sheriff or a creeptastic English romcom lead.

But again, Love Actually finds its footing when it instead focuses on the puppy love of middle schoolers, the sort of romance that is chaste and rudimentary enough to dovetail with the film’s naive-at-best view of human interactions. The notion of Liam Neeson’s character, newly widowed, connecting with his stepson by coaching him through a crush is one of the few genuinely sweet and heartwarming bits that the movie offers. It’s buoyed by the fact that the storyline centers more around Neeson’s growing relationship with his stepson, and leaves the tween romance material for school pageant pop songs and silly airport chases. Nothing in this plot is mindblowing, but there’s a bit of knowing fun and true feeling in it that’s all but missing from the rest of the movie.

Despite all its faults, Love Actually remains eminently watchable, which perhaps, more than its series of saccharine scenes, explains its longevity. Whether you want to attribute that to the killer cast director Richard Curtis assembled, or the light tone the film maintains, or the fact that jumping between plots keep the movie light on its feet, it’s an easy film to leave on, whether you’re genuinely touched by its stories or more apt to make fun of them. The linkages between plots are occasionally contrived, but generally clever, and even at its most eye-roll-inducing, the film is too insubstantial to really hate.

But the more you think about Love Actually, the clearer it becomes how ill-conceived the whole enterprise is. Between the cavalcade of men in positions of power lusting after their underlings, the body-shaming-in-the-guise-of-affirming and male gaze-y camera work, and the fundamental misunderstanding of what motivates genuine caring, affection, and yes, love are, it soon becomes apparent that this film is a pile of rusty nails covered by a thick layer of frosting and doused in ipecac. It seems sweet enough at first, but it’s more baffling and painful the deeper you go, and god help you if you start regurgitating it.

The good:

• Love the new setting, it's a breath of fresh air (feels nothing like New York though).
• Peak brutal slasher kills.
• Easter egg gold mine, once again they really fed the fandom.
• Amazing fight scene choreography.
• Entertaining and fun throughout.
• Unexpected opening, it really surprised me.
• Most epic moments were Gale vs. Ghostface and the metro scene.
• The multiple twists in the third act were clever.

The bad:

• People get stabbed and then act like nothing happened more times than I could count.
• Cheesy Riverdale teen drama: Never in a million years did I think I would gag watching a scene with Jenna Ortega in it.
• Melissa Barrera's acting didn't get any better, it's all in the eyes girl you gotta control them. Can't take her seriously.
• Gale and Kirby didn't add much to the story which is sad.
• Awful music choices.
• Mindy got stabbed by Ghostface but is then rescued by the other Ghostface. Why not just leave her there, people were ignoring her she would have died.
• Nobody really died except a few extras, what's up with that?

I thought they would make Sam the official Ghostface at the end, just felt like the perfect origin story. They unfortunately opted to make her a Disney princess for the moment. Seeing her against Sydney in a future installment would be awesome.

This was a huge step down from the previous film. I thought the first act was straight-up bad and not at all enjoyable. The COVID mentions felt dated and overly forced, and this film only just came out. That doesn't bode well for how this film will age. However, once the film gets going it gets better and is enjoyable, and they drop the COVID stuff, which in turn, actually makes the COVID mentions at the beginning feel even worse and more pointless than they had felt initially.

I thought that the plot felt far more simple and extremely predictable compared to the first film. I also thought that the characters (aside from Blanc), were largely much worse - both in writing, and performances given by the cast.

Daniel Craig and Benoit Blanc is just as good as he was in the first film, and he absolutely steals the show every time he's on screen. I also found Janelle Monáe as both Andi and Helen to be decent. Edward Norton's billionaire character, Miles Bron, was a mixed bag, and although he started out quite interesting with some potential, I found his character to inevitably be overly shallow and poorly written.

As far as the rest of the cast went? It wasn't so good. Most of them, such as Whiskey, were simply bland and forgettable. But others were downright awful characters that were overly shallow and just plain annoying. Kate Hudson's 'Birdie' was probably the worst offender here, and I found that her character lowered the quality of every scene she appeared in.

I realise that this review has been largely negative, but what I will say is that Glass Onion is still a mostly fun and entertaining experience for the majority of its runtime. I had a lot of fun watching it (aside from the first twenty minutes or so), and I don't regret it at all. I'd recommend watching it if you enjoyed the original film, but I just don't think it's anywhere close to being anything great like its predecessor was.

I think this was the 4th time I've watched this, and every time I'm left wondering "Was this supposed to be horror, or satire, or just campy B-movie horror with over-the-top buckets of blood?" I've still yet to figure it out. It's gruesome enough to be considered "gorror" (gory horror) but insanely stupid enough - and satiric enough - to be almost comedic. Yes, there are some jump scares but the whole thing was just so incredibly asinine that it's impossible to see it as a real "horror" movie. I can imagine that, in 1983, it was probably "th' bomb" with teenagers who were starting to get into really gruesome stuff (with the advent of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies) but watching it today, it's just impossible to take it seriously. The first time I saw the "tree scene", it was pretty freaky; now it's just stupid. The one "shout out" I can give to this is the pencil through the ankle; that scene STILL makes me cringe like only the Achilles' tendon scene from Hostel can do. Hopefully this will be my final time to watch this; it's gruesome and probably as gory as they could get back then but - I don't care what any other review states - this one, by today's standards, is just ridiculous. Kudos to Sam Raimi for what he created back then, but that was then and this...well, today this is just laughably dumb.

Look, I'm very much in favor of giving directors the creative freedom to put their own spin on whatever they're adapting.
In fact, I think it's quite shallow and close-minded to judge an adaptation against its source material, pretending as if that's meant to be some holy grail of perfection.
That being said: the whole appeal of the Uncharted games in the first place is that they feel like a mix of Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible, with this sassy, horny, shit-talking protagonist at the center of it.
This movie captures neither of those aspects, and replaces them with basic movie tropes.
It doesn't feel like the aforementioned franchises. Instead, it looks and feels like your generic, throwaway action movie that usually stars The Rock (e.g.Rampage, Red Notice, Skyscraper).
Tom Holland plays Spider-man with attitude. He's not playing (a younger version of) Nathan Drake.
Mark Wahlberg plays Mark Wahlberg.

Like, why was this project treated like a tax write-off?
It has everything a Hollywood executive could want: the source material is cinematic, action packed, fun, and best of all: it has a built in audience.
This could've easily been the next big summer franchise if this was given a proper treatment. It should be much easier to get this right than other videogame based adaptations.
So why is Avi Arad producing this? Why is Ruben Fleischer directing this? Why is this script burning through four games of material? Why is the dialogue so clunky and unfunny? Why is the casting so lame? Why does it look like plastic, when the cinematographer of this thing shot Last Night in Soho and Oldboy?
Fuck.

3.5/10

That was pretty bad.

From the scenario that probably took two minutes to write, to the shitty blurry fx, and the constant inconsistencies.

The story is so basic and predictable it hurts, and basically nothing happens.
1) He finds a cure
2) It turns him into a superhuman monster
3) His friend take the cure anyway and becomes a killer
4) He chases him
There's basically no side plot or anything else happening. The cops part are 100% useless. The romance is almost inexistent, but still turned into an important plot point.

Most of the action is just blurs. Blurs because they're moving fast (with shitty effects, see below), and falling a lot, and if it wasn't enough let's add a batnado so that it's really really unwatchable.
The echolocation effects are just as bad and useless.

The other bullshit:
:arrow_forward: Of course the science part, but that is expected
:arrow_forward: When he measures his need for blood, it's 6h and he basically reverts and suffers almost immediately, and duration is going down. However later in the hospital, it's 6h and nothing happens. Later in prison it's very probably a lot more than that. Honestly we don't care, but then why the constant repeated shots of his watch ringing 6h ?
:arrow_forward: Nicholas has time and ability to call him but let himself die without calling an ambulance
:arrow_forward: It's all about "they will die young", since they are children. But then we're 25 years later and it's the same.
:arrow_forward: The bats are supposed to be secret, but as soon as she finds them, they are always exposed
:arrow_forward: The bats "would kill anyone but accept him" because he's like them, well they didn't kill him the first time, when he was still human
:arrow_forward: We never hear again of the little girl, what was the point ?
:arrow_forward: Why are they smoky when they move ? They just move fast because they're strong, they're not magically changing themselves into smoke. This is stupid, very annoying and unwatchable.
:arrow_forward: Why can't Milo do the same thing he does ?

Ending is very anticlimatic, with no post resolution, it just ends.

Then come the post credits. And I was like "wtf, this looks like DC". In the sense that it was trying to very hastily trying link / create a hype / build a universe believing that hastily adding a glimpse of information or characters plus a post credit scene would be enough to build the MCU. The I realized this is not Marvel, this is Sony trying to build a Spiderverse, and boy are they as shitty as DC to do that.