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Imagine lifting the single player story from Titanfall 2 - and then spaffing it up the wall.
Atlas is badly written, badly acted and a total mess. The FX are kind of well done, but you just don't care because it's so annoyingly awful in every other respect.
Zack Snyder's films are immensely frustrating. He clearly has bags of talent for striking visuals. He rarely seems able to turn that into a good film.
The same is, sadly, true of Rebel Moon.
OK, so it's clearly choosing to take The Magnificent Seven as an influence. Fine. That's a solid story to work with.
But this part 1 just blows it. It's annoying in almost every way - the constant slow motion, the lack of any logic. As you would expect, there are some really striking visual sequences, but they are just not enough to keep you engaged.
And it all ends in an empty sequence with characters you don't care about doing things you don't care about either.
And we've got part 2 coming - which you certainly aren't left eagerly anticipating.
Bad. Basically unwatchable. I fast forwarded through most of it despite its relatively short run time.
The dialog is atrocious and the storyline is paper thin. None of the jokes land. It's just annoying and loud.
Low budget. Contains mostly teens. That's not a good recipe... but... I have to say this is a small gem. The teens aren't annoying and the story is cleverly constructed - no-one is stupid or obnoxious.
The premise: A small group heads into a cave system only to find that it contains some very odd time effects.
I can't even remember why I ended up watching it, but it really took me by surprise and vastly exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations. Definitely worth a watch if you can find it.
Avoiding spoilers:
Unreliable narrator story
It begins quite effectively as the countryside where Harper stays get weirder and weirder.
It has some truly grotesque moments... but in the end it is deeply unsatisfying and really rather shallow.
Should you watch it? Well, if you're a fan of highly stylised film-making... sure. If you're looking for an intriguing or interesting film... no.
To be honest I flirted with the fast forward button several times.
The drug trials run by the US government are a potentially interesting subject.
This documentary largely fails to capitalise on the subject.
It has the same failing as many modern documentaries. It's only very tangentially about the Edgewood experiments. It's actually about the female journalist and her team of intrepid investigators. It's a "personal journey".
They even cut away from an interview with the doctor who was there to focus on the female journalist as she writes in her notebook while watching the interview.
It's such a rotten style of documentary and betrays the material.
Absolutely spot-on sequel.
There's really nothing bad to say about this film. It hits every bit of fan service without being gratuitous and the story beats are pretty much perfect.
It hits the mid-point and everything is going wrong... and without spoiling things, Mav rescues the situation and it all plays out awesomely.
Into the final act... which again is almost perfect. It stretches a little with one attempt at fan service (those who've seen it will know what I mean), but at this point I didn't care. I was just enjoying the thrill ride.
I'm sure there's an element of rose-tinted glasses here. So many films have been disastrously bad in the last few years. This one represents a major return to form.
Thankfully the money it's raked in is demonstrating that real film-making is still needed. It's been an enormous hit. It should be pretty embarrassing that a return to a style of film from 30+ years ago was needed to show filmmakers the way forward. The money men are watching... get back to crowed pleasing.
Make films that people want to watch. Not full of politics you want to preach.
The bad:
The good:
Honestly I'm left kinda empty after watching it. The cameos fly past... the box ticking. It's all vacuous in the end and mostly doesn't make sense. I get it. Sometimes directors want to do go for a cool visual and ditch logic, but at least make an effort. This is mostly tiring to watch. Sam Raimi is a talented director (he made the 2002 Spider-Man) - and before any of that he made The Evil Dead movies - full of comedy horror. Lots of references to that show up in here.
Should you see it? I'd recommend giving it a miss to be honest, or catch it when it hits a streaming service.
The MCU hit its peak with Infinity War and tied that up with End Game.
But the movies and TV shows you are seeing now are long after Disney sunk its claws in and infected the movies/shows from the start. It's not worth saving now.
Remember it as it was.
Looking back at a remarkable series. I remember watching Millennium when it was first broadcast in the UK. It was a miserable, downbeat, depressing and fantastic show. Unrelentingly bleak for the most part. It was probably funded as a series due to the success of Se7en at the cinema - astonishingly dark film (also brilliant). Millennium depends almost entirely on Lance Henriksen to carry the show. His care worn, lived in look and carefully measured delivery are everything... the world around him is spinning into insanity as the millennium approaches. Frank's only refuge is his family. Each week is a new depraved layer to the story as he's pulled closer to the mysterious Millennium Group. If you haven't seen it, you are missing one of the great underappreciated TV shows. So ideally don't watch this first! But if you do... hopefully it will prompt you to spend time on the show itself.
Interviews with Black, Gallagher, Chris Carter but sadly no Terry O'Quinn.
Girl gets on a flight and sits next to a guy during a storm. In a drunk panic she starts spilling all her inner thoughts and secrets to him. Only to find out he's the big boss of the firm she works for. All this is in the trailer.
The leads are charming enough - Alexandra Daddario can do comedy, but when it comes to delivering lines about how ordinary she is... That doesn't quite make it. She's not remotely ordinary. But hey, that's a standard Hollywood flaw for these types of movies.
The film is short enough that it doesn't stick around and bore you. It never really surprises you either. Worth a watch if there's nothing nothing else.
This shows a lot of promise. The tension builds as the mission progresses... and then suddenly it all ends. I understand there were major ructions at the studio and the director was fired. The result is a deeply unsatisfying ending - neither one thing nor the other.
Probably worth a watch as a historical curiosity.
Ok, Morbius is not a great film... but honestly it's not quite as bad as people claimed.
Lehto isn't that bad and has to work with a pretty poor script.
The action sequences are pretty poor - confusing, poorly lit and with a slow-mo/pause to give you time to see what's going on. But it doesn't help much. It's all a blurry mess.
It's mostly crass, predictable and dull... but it's better than Venom.
I know, "better than Venom" is a very low bar. I actually did watch Morbius all the way through and even liked small parts. Venom (and its sequel) just had me fast forwarding chunks of it.
So... I suppose if you have some time to kill and it's on a service you already have, then it might be worth a watch. But it's not worth going out of your way to watch it.
Are you looking for:
A Star War documentary about how things went down at Elstree in 1976... forget it. Well... this isn't for you.
On the other hand, if you are person who goes to cons and likes to meet people who were there as extras and minor roles (or major in the case of David Prowse), well then you'll probably enjoy it.
I'm the former. I wanted to watch a doc about what went on in 1976 so it wasn't much fun to watch really.
Still, it's well made and if you are interested in that subject probably worth a watch.
Clancy Brown is decent. The stories let him down... weak and silly for the most part.
The story of Basildon... a UK "new town". Created to get people out of the wretched post-WW2 slums of London. It's a story that moves from good intentions (fresh air, light, new homes) to neglect and decay. It does take a frustrating detour into claiming that people buying council houses was bad... and before that happened it was a socialist heaven with all classes living mixed together and somehow art will fix the world's problems.
But for the most part it's an interesting record of Basildon's rise and fall.
You can't help feeling that lots of the original building work was the result of the architect's 'vision' rather than actual human need - basically 'Brutalism' in a nut shell.
Still... if you want to judge Basildon you have to remember where that story began. In the slums of East London. People crammed together, disease, decay, stench and poverty. Utopia is beyond reach, but Basildon was an improvement.
Joss Whedon's Justice League was a huge failure. I don't hate Whedon for it because... well, he had to work with another director's material. But it's great seeing the original vision ... and the result is 10x better than the cinema version. This is just a way better film in every way. Released from the constraints of a modern blockbuster cinema screening and the need to pack is as many showing as possible the length gives the story time to breath. The look is far, far more impressive and menacing.
Even at an epic 4 hours, it left me wanting more - and that's a sign of a good film.
