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tlkkel
Reviews
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
A good PotA followup, but not a great one.
What to say. It has at times stunning visuals. The characters are mostly shallow and 1 dimensional copies of the same characters in a dozen other better written better directed, movies.
Son isnt living up to Dads expectations, trouble ensues, Son rises to the occasion and lives up to his heritage, and the noble tribe overcomes the evil invaders who seek to destroy all that is good and beautiful in the world.
They mostly did a decent job of painting the ape world, but they overdid some of the symbolism. Noa's people are Eagle Clan, they sing to Eagles and bond with them for life, because it is the way of their tribe! (And it sounds so earthy and cool).
But, its just like Na'Vi bonded with a Banshee for life, or the Souix in Dances with wolves respected the buffalo they hunted and killed only what they could eat and never more. Weve seen this NOBLE PEOPLE ARE THREATENED, AND THEN FIND A LEADER WHO TEACHES THEM HOW TO FIGHT BACK story many many times, and its frequently been a little better than this. While the argument can be made that Noa has a journey of growth that changes him from a child who feels unworthy to a leader who saves the tribe, the rest of the characters are painted identically from beginning to end, No development, growth, change, or even emotional learning. Frankly they are boring characters who are simply decoration to allow Noa to do his thing and set up the next big action scene.
It wasnt bad, it simply was a little draggy at times, the story was painted generously wide and ignores logic and practicality to a large extent. Mae's mission and her group and her Enemy Ceasar, just all was plugged in a bit neatly and simply. Apes who cant understand firearms. (Apparently the original Caesar never saved any records or passed down stories of the human world or the war for Ape freedom to his descendants). However he has discovered how to make taser lances, and explosives, and build shaped charges to try and get into a military bunker on the sea shore. One that has tanks and weapons of mass destruction (which the army doesnt tend to store on the sea shore, IRL such bases are inland). Mae's people need a sat key to turn on a hundreds of years old satellite, but 5 seconds after its turned on people are answering them back from all over the world.
Just a bit more plot convenience than was needed. Better writing and directing doesnt make things that over-obvious and self serving. But still, it had action, drama, death defying battles, and god vs evil. Its a god movie to spend an afternoon or evening with. Its not god enough to watch again and again.
Unfrosted (2024)
Just, cuter than it was funny.
Lots of small gags, cute comments. Most of it was just very effortful feeling. They were strying to make us smirk, and they never really made us laugh,
The list of talent is undeniable. It was really the lines they were given, the script in general, and the directing. It wasnt awful, but it really was saturday afternoon TV quality more than movie of the week. Several of the scenes where they went for sight gags fell flat, many others where they made sarcastic comments, it was Ba Dum pum level...but it never caught you off guard and inspired laughter as much as occaisionally generated a smirk, and even those only if you are old enough to recognize many many era based references. People under 35 may not get any of those references and thats simply poor writing.
It wasnt a bad movie.
Sadly, thats the best I can offer. Because it also wasnt good, nor would I sit through it again if I went to a friends house and they had just started watching it.
The talent in this film usually does much much better.
Mean Girls (2024)
A remake that tries, has some moments, but mostly misses
It wasnt awful in the sense it had a decent script and idea, high school social politics and pressures. And that would have helped carry iot if it wasnt a carboard cutout of the original except with mostly cheesy musical numbers woven in. And not a few. A LOT of cheesy musical numbers. They took away far more than they added. They at times seemed to wanna make a point, but it never pased a moment to reflect on anything musical (the characters were oblivious to their own random belting out of showtunes) so if there was any message in any of the music, it usually got pushed aside when the dialogue resumed.
It was mostly just the original repeated, but at higher speed with lower impact and a few mostly bad songs thrown on top..
Argylle (2024)
Mathew Vaughn doing it again, but now its getting old.
The strength of Mathew Vaughn has always been his willingness to embrace excess, even absurdity with humor and sarcasm to make his audience laugh and cheer when those who arent superheroes do superhero things in his storytelling. He did this in KickAss, and again in Kingsmen.
The trouble here is that they sold and unsold the same old bill of gods, but he never showed his commitment to it. In KickAss, we had supervillains to defeat, in Kingsmen, we had end of world to prevent. And here, we have memory loss and the biggest fight scene in the movie was ruled by ice dancing.
They didnt make Bryce Dallas Howard a superhero, they made her skill a funny and ridiculous method to defeat professional assassins.
It simply didnt work. There really was little chemistry, the characters were never developed, it sorta gave its best effort, but weak writing, bad character development, and leaning on over-used spy tropes almost entirely just drained any chance from it.
It was boring, and it was relatively stupid to watch unfold. KickAss was also tongue in cheek stupid, but the better scipt and character development allowed Vaughn to give us someone to cheer for.
By the end of Argylle, you still dont have anyone you wanna see win.
It just wasnt as fun as Vaughn's previous efforts.
Napoleon (2023)
Well made, well planned, just never really comes together
Whats to say?
Great talent, great directing, a legendary story of an infamous and awe inspiring general and emperor...so why didnt it work?
That will be personal opinion. Perhaps Phoenix was a few years too old, perhaps his eccentrically fragile take on Napoleon undermined the need for him to be great if he was ever to be an emperor and conqueror.
Their play on Josephine further weakened the character. If they had drawn her a charismatic temptress who he loved deeply and madly, sure, you could sell the doomed mad love story. But they instead painted her as a liar and a con. Presumably without love for Napoleon as much as for his position. SO what did that leave? The story told was without any poetry or humanity. It was without humor or tears. It was just a retelling of facts overlaid on the image of a sad and lonely man with a talent for setting up a battlefield, but nothing else human about him was portrayed. Till its sad bitter end. There was nothing likeable, loveable, or memorable about any of the characters. And that leaves for a forgettable film.
The Bricklayer (2023)
An Action thriller with a twist (Spy turned Bricklayer). But just didnt quite work.
Dont get me wrong. Its not a bad movie at all.
Aaron Eckhart always entertains, in his usual slightly over the top (for both good and bad) way.
Nina Dobrev was beautiful and moody/sullen which fit her character well enough.
Clifton Collins bad guy never quite pulled us in sadly. His backstory was laid out in a few flashbacks, but no flashback involving the death of his family so we never really got to care much about him or his revenge tour. He was just a crazy vengeful bad guy that had to be stopped, like any other lunatic in a thousand other spy movies. Collins gave it his all, but the character was weakly written..
The script stretched the mindset a bit. The CIA was being blackmailed and made to look bad because reporters were being killed with photos left behind at each scene implicating the CIA. And the head of Greece was on a public tirade to oust the CIA from Europe because they were obviously the root of all evil.
When has anyone cared about what the head of Greece says? About the CIA, the President, or the quality of NFL football or frozen pizza? The CIA doesnt care when presidents and popes accuse them of crimes for the past 75 years, and this movie makes us think Greece is the tipping point of espionage and the global future?
And if this really were a frameup by a single vengeful former operative, why would they send a retired former agent and a rookie? Why not send a dozen undercover agents? If it really were risking the entire european CIA theater?
It simply wasnt believable ENOUGH. The plot, the setups, the action, it didnt have to be realistic, but it had to make more sense and it just never really did.
Violation (2020)
More annoying and angry than artful or meaningful. Not a charcter study, just a pissed off revenge film with bad editing
OK. I saw I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (The original!) in the theater back in the 70s! At least that movie didnt claim art as its lead. It specifically warned its audience in the promos and the media. "Woman gets revenge on her rapist , cuts off his dick!" and it sold itself on that/ Nobody pumped it up as art, opr a triumph of woman against her rapist, nobody sold it as anything but what it was. A horror revenge film...and youll get to see a rapist get his dick cut off! (2 decades before Lorena Bobbit!)
People didnt flock to the theater to see it, but they knew what they were getting. (It was part of a triple feature BTW).
This is just...a mess. Ever since Tarrantino made it fashionable to show movies in out of order chapter parts, many films have done it badly (Even he hasnt always done it well). This film has terrible character development, worse editing and screenplay, and it really isnt artful, or empowering. You dont root for the woman or against the man. You dont want him to learn, or repent, or be freed. You dont respect her journey, or cheer at her achieving vengeance. Its just, her devolving into a monster 1 step removed from Jason Voorhees (Another assault victim who then became a lunatic monster for 12 films). Its only disturbing insomuch as its so angry, coupled with effortful nudity to try and make it moire horrifying. But its not beautiful or powerful or tense. It doesnt lead us through emotional buildup to any revelation. Its I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, but without the payoff.
Id rather see the next friday the 13th/ At least then I get what I went to the theater for. This is just...boring, disjointed, badly edited female revenge violence.
NOW, if you wanna see a good movie about female revenge, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN is exceptional without this films many MANY bad mistakes and overlong runtime (or at least, overlong draggy scenes between its few high points making the film seem overlong).