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F9 (2021)
When Insanity Is No Longer Fun
After re-watching Hobbs And Shaw a day prior to this I must say even for a Fast and Furious movie this is too much.
Personally, I think the 6th movie reached the peak of the franchise. Back when the characters still felt a little attached to their backgrounds, personal antagonists could be taken seriously and even Paul Walker was still in the team. The 7th film was still entertaining but I think it continued the franchise beyond a point needed.
Now... the action feels repetitive, the dialogue aimless and the story empty; almost like Rise Of The Skywalker in that it wouldn't be a surprise to learn the movie was filmed as soon as a new idea came to the creative minds behind the scenes without any tweaking and refining. I at the very least expected the action to be entertaining since that's mainly what the franchise has been and yet I couldn't.
I know that sometimes even in non sci-fi movies a degree of suspension of disbelief exists but when you have constant moments of characters falling or crashing heavily into harsh materials and walk it off without the slightest sign of an injury, the audience just can't really feel invested in the action. This in addition to characters whose deaths justified arcs and plotlines of previous installments casually being retconned with a few poor lines stating "It's a long story" AND characters of street level credits fighting off evil next gen spies like either ninjas or the Incredible Hulk (in Dominic's case) really show how little effort went into keeping the audience interested.
Everything gives the idea that the movie just wants to reach the finish line as soon as possible ever since the first 9 minutes. This movie truly feels like the stereotype of a lame nerdy early 2010s superhero movie that movie snubs would suggest MCU was. You have characters awkwardly standing or sitting while giving paragraphs of emotionless exposition like a Bethesda NPC, Random cries of joy and satisfaction from various characters after every explosive moment just so they'd let you know they still exist and thousands of speaches about emotional developments and journeys everyone has had before the events of the actual movie with the sad part being that most of the single lines could be stretched into their own movie and by putting a ton of them in every scene the movie comes off as confusingly shallow, exhausting and wasted.
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Nice Plot But I Just Didn't Quite Care For It
I will attempt to make this as short of a review as I can because frankly the movie isn't worth wasting more time on it.
Now I know that probably sounds worse than I intended but I stand by it as I elaborate further.
If I were to put all of my criticisms in one basket the label would say disconnecting or not immersive. By the time the movie is over all I could think of was how despite the different plot lines fused well together I couldn't help but simply say I didn't care for it.
The first third of the movie is just the right volume of boring that I can't believe I could sit through it without needing a hospital bed. And when I think about it, I wonder if the only reason I did get through the latter two thirds was because of the violent payoffs that were hinting at a dreary experience finally coming to an end.
I then reached the obvious realization that the reason why despite complementing the plot in my mind I was still waiting for the film to end was the characters.
Unfortunately, the characters in this movie are extremely plot oriented. You don't ever feel like any of these characters have a life besides where the plot points them to. The worst among them for me was Cynthia Erivo's character since you'd think of all these people, her character would have the wildest reactions to the events that unravel yet her acting in the whole movie is way too subtle for someone who in the span of a couple of hours, witnesses multiple homicides and a bloody cult leader that toys with their lives.
I could easily imagine the same lines said by the same actors and actresses working if they were jumpy enough to make it look like the situation is as serious to them as it would be to real people.
Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
It's not irrefutably good, it's not at all bad and it certainly isn't ugly
The first time I saw this movie, it didn't feel like the typical movie I'd see at the time. It wasn't made up of chunks of expositions, emotional build ups and eventual final fights and payoffs of Disney, Star Wars or Marvel movies that you could watch, review and then forget a couple of days later.
Now that's not so say it was so groundbreaking and awe-inspiring that I couldn't think of mere limiting words to describe it, only that there was something to it that despite its forgettable nature and mostly mediocre presence I sort of liked it.
A couple of days ago I got to watch the movie for perhaps the 4th time and I noticed how it was as if every time I saw this movie I appreciated it more.
Especially the big moment of the third and final act of the movie drew me in with how consistently captivating the entire sequence was and it was there that I learnt how effective great pacing and direction can be for a story's experience.
This movie may not be flawlessly written, it may not include performances more nuanced than the plot required and you could deduce that this feature will fall short in comparison to the source material even if you haven't read it, however, the movie certainly has an excellent crispness that compels you to watch it till the end.
August: Osage County (2013)
The Jerkson Family Throws Tantrum For 121 Minutes.
Let me start by saying that if you liked 2019's Joker, you're probably gonna like this too. Now I don't mean that as a compliment but I also don't mean to be a laid back contrarian jerk trying to bash something popular to make myself feel smarter by being probably the only one to read this. But here it goes.
August: Osage County is an unbalanced, pretentious, mishandled waste of a great cast. There, if you're not convinced stick around a bit longer I guess.
I didn't know this story was anything else but a movie and it doesn't really matter or make a difference.
I've seen some good and bad dramas and from what I've gotten to know when you wanna make a good realistic drama, you spend the majority of the story doing relaxed and normal build up and introduction and then some extension for the characters and their dramas maybe with a hint of extreme hidden there at best, then you make the build ups result in forms of arguments where facts and personal frustrations reveal themselves in the dialogue; this is because this IS what happens in real life.
In this movie however, the characters are all a bunch of bloated immature jerks who constantly nag at each other every 5 gosh darn minute. There are no real ups and downs. There's just arguing and shouting. There's also no need to sit through this. They start as jerks, they don't show any real sign of change and they end it as still miserable jerks who are now maybe a teeny bit lonelier.
Making the actors cry every now and then only serves to make it even more obvious that the writer didn't know what he was supposed to do with the characters since exept for the actors' tears the characters have no real emotions. The're just nagging and shouting as always.
Now why did I say that you'll probably like this movie if you liked 2019's Joker? Well, it's because they have similarities that would make someone who hasn't seen better AND worse similar stories told by artists and wannabes think that they're both masterpieces.
Both movies are put together by creators who have been inspired by stories that gave the feelings they wanted to create in these movies except these creators perhaps didn't fully understand where the craft of the better told stories lies. The subtle consistency and necessary pace with anything in the story makes the foundation of the bigger punchlines stronger. The stronger those foundations the harder the punchlines hit the audience. But, if you just think of and put those punchlines in the story, they become shallow and meaningless.
Joker isn't deep because it's constantly trying to push that society-bad feeling so much that it sounds like an edgy teenager's whining than a deep and serious story with criticism of society. August: Osage County isn't deep and emotional because it's constantly trying to shove random drama into it's mix that after a while makes you wonder if even statistically speeking such an awful bunch could even exist. Tell you something important these movies don't have in common though, Joaquin Phoenix's acting in Joker is truly masterful but almost every main character's actor in August: Osage County just says random crap with an accent and then randomly acts emotional in some inconsistent scenes. Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper and Julianne Nicholson perform different and well but there's either not enough of them or they're given pointless lines.
So in conclusion I think this was just badly done and that more runtime perhaps or less random bullcrap that would've sparked a new series of these jerks being loud and whiny could've turned it into something more remarkable.
Shazam! (2019)
Generally good but unbalanced
2019's Shazam! is known as one of the best DCEU movies to date and although looking back at the previous projects from DCEU - which apparently aren't getting rebooted or reimagined - it isn't generally such a high bar, Shazam is a generally good but (as previously mentioned) unbalanced film that is overrated due to the good parts of the movie to an extent. As an example, Rotten Tomatoes has given it a percentage of 91%. Why do I call this an overrated flick? Allow me to demonstrate.
The movie starts with a rather interesting and mysterious tone that does keep you interested in the movie by introducing Thaddeus Sivana who looks like a decent Harry Potter fan who could himself become a real hero but won't because of having his fantasies bashed by a wizard who had the ability to make him a superhero and by his very own brother and father and setting up the backstory of the antagonist before the backstory of the protagonist which usually (Mainly in good movies and stories) is done to set up a unique type of enemy for the hero in which actually could have been an amazing alternative plot to the movie to show that both Sivana and Billy Batson have been through a lot but because in a younger age Billy has a foster family that helps him through harsh times, Billy turns into a hero but doctor Sivana turns into a villain and a dark alternative version of Billy; this type of connection and rivalry between these two would've been interesting.
But it appeared that the movie was going in the direction to show how from an irresponsible with superpowers who doesn't show feelings about his newly found foster family, Billy Batson would eventually let his foster family inside his circle of love and turn into a true hero (For instance, like the direction that Sam Raimi took with his version of Spider-Man) but after a while through the movie the plot got lost in its own purposes and instead of showing how family and heroism got important for Billy, the movie just pretty much threw it at the audiences' faces and jumped right in for the final fight scene that is as cheesy and unbalanced as it gets.
Shazam (Billy Batson) and his foster brothers and sisters fight doctor Sivana and the seven deadly sins then chase each other and then stand there and have some jokes and again fight and then again chase each other and again stand there and have some jokes and repeat the same totally unbalanced method which is rather frustrating and mostly boring. The final fight scene also shows doctor Sivana whom we had previously known as a powerful and dangerous foe doesn't know much when it comes to fighting because in the middle of the fight he tells Billy that if he doesn't give him his Shazam powers, he will kill Billy's family and so Billy kneels before Sivana and Sivana holds the staff of the Shazam (wizard) in front of Billy but apparently because Sivana has closed his eyes and is busy waiting for the power to flow through him which is frankly ridiculous, Billy just takes the staff and throws him away as if it's no big deal.
Then Shazam (Billy Batson) turns his foster family - who he had barely known and liked - into Shazams which could have been kept for the sequels after having the audience become more familiar with them and especially by showing that Billy's foster brothers and sisters are pure of heart too because the movie doesn't show or mention if Billy's foster family members are even good people and even Billy's heart being pure is vague because the wizard tested the previous contenders by observing their connection with the seven deadly sins to see if they'll be tempted by the sins or not but when Billy Batson is in the wizard's presence, the seven deadly sins were gone and the wizard only said that Billy is pure of heart and at first Billy denies at first but then accepts the offer and that does not mean that he is pure of heart because unlike others he hasn't been examined.
A short while after the final fight, Shazam (Billy Batson) pranks his Shazam family into thinking he's being possessed by the seven sins but it's just a joke and although it's not necessarily a bad joke, imagine how much more interesting it would've been to show that Shazam (Billy Batson) actually hears a voice calling and pretends he's heard nothing and that he isn't currently quite as heroic as the wizard wanted his champion to be. This could've led to an interesting arc to be explored in further sequels leading to Billy Batson becoming pure of heart through his actions rather than this being thrown around like a meaningless label.
Overall, Shazam 2019 is an overrated unbalanced flick that could've been much better, bigger and much more satisfying and doesn't deserve the appreciation and the ratings it currently has but is still a rather good movie because of the decent acting, some good and funny jokes and amazing visual effects.