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lluewhyn
Reviews
Reacher (2022)
I tapped out in the 4th episode
The story starts out all right with some intriguing premises and a mysterious lead, but goes downhill after the first episode. The plot relies upon a LOT of cheap contrivances, and eventually you realize that the story makes no sense but to get the characters from A to B.
1. The main character shows up in town and is arrested for the murder of a stranger, allegedly because he was seen walking along the road where the victim was killed. Did someone call the police because they saw a guy walking along a road, and then someone else called the police to report the same guy ....sitting down in a diner?!?
2. It gets worse. The murder victim is the main character's *brother*. There was no reason for them to be in the same small Georgia town on the same day, just blind coincidence.
3. After being arrested, the main character gets into an altercation where his cellmate's glasses are broken, and he demands a copy of the sunglasses the assailant is wearing as repayment (which he then wears himself). Why is this in here? So, a later fight with convicts can be traced to mistaken identity because the thugs were told to attack the "guy with glasses", the story apparently forgetting that the 6'5" Reacher looks nothing like his mousy cellmate.
This is just the first episode, and it gets worse. Overall, the main character seems targeted to 15-year-old edgelords. The main character is built like a Pro Wrestler, makes deductions like Sherlock Holmes, and (despite previously being a military officer) has a significant disrespect for authority that tends to just descend into him pretty much being an antagonistic jerk to everyone and getting away with it. When he later starts casually talking about killing the people behind the mystery and *then starts actually increasing the body count*, the cops he's working with do little more than give faint protests and one sleeps with him shortly thereafter. That's when I had to throw in the towel. There were plenty of other contrivances I noticed too, but I've written more than enough already.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Unbearable Awfulness
This film is primarily for those who are fans of the actor. Apart from Kick-Ass, I don't think I've seen any of his films since the 90's. Apart from his distinct acting style of being fully dramatic at all times, the film also has issues with poor pacing, bad acting from co-stars, and just being underwritten in general.
The poor pacing comes in as the movie starts with what is ostensibly the main plot, but then the entire first act ignores this to focus on (the semi-fictional/semi-real) Nicolas Cage's significant personal problems. And boy, does he have some. He's experiencing significant personal, financial, and professional problems that are largely all a result of his total self-absorption and questionable mental health. Given that Cage has many of these problems in real life, this results in a distinct and deliberate meta commentary, but it also tends to make the "character" pretty unbearable to be around, and it's difficult to see why exactly his ex-wife ever was attracted to him in the first place because his issues aren't new.
At last, the second act returns to the plot of the kidnapping, and here's where the bad acting comes in. While Pedro Pascal is a delight and elevates every scene he's in (I'm giving the review a star just for him), the dialogue with the two CIA agents is very painful and every time they're on screen the film just starts sucking. Too much of the dialogue is also reliant upon repeated F-bombs, which aren't really funny the first time and go downhill from there.
Finally, the bad writing. The second act is supposed to focus on how Cage "regains his mojo" through his unusual friendship with the charming Javi, but there's not really a clear explanation of how this relationship and his investigation supposedly fixes his personal problems. This act seems to think his personal problems stem from lack of confidence in his own work which he then regains through the very flattering fanboy Javi and successfully trying to accomplish spy-work which can save a person's life, but the first act establishes that his problems are due to being a self-absorbed, narcissistic douchebag, a flaw never really confronted throughout the course of the film. It's a complete non-sequitur.
There are a few funny moments (both involving the main character being drugged), but largely most of the humor lands with a thud. The action is also horrible and looks like it was done on a shoe-string budget smaller than your average television show. I guess the scenery was nice.
Loki: For All Time. Always. (2021)
Limp ending to an otherwise great series
In concept, a dialogue-centric episode revealing what everything was leading up to thus far could be great, although it would be quite a challenge to pull off. The show doesn't quite meet this challenge,
I think the story concept was great*, but for me I think the issue was in the direction. Many scenes were just shot and edited oddly. The reveal of He Who Remains should have been dramatic, even if it his appearance is supposed to be anti-climactic in story. Instead, the scene is shot from way back, and it's like the actor just stumbles onto the set. Majors puts on a very eccentric performance, and with skilled camera work it should have taken the next step into unnerving. Instead, with Loki and Sylvie passively watching his tics, it feels more like an actor auditioning for a wacky role in front of two stone-faced casting agents.
When Sylvie stabs him, the scene is completely flat. When. Loki and Sylvie wander around the citadel with their swords awkwardly held out in front of them at all times, it just feels weird.
*There were.some odd story ideas, like the fact we STILL don't know much about Renhold, the reveal means little if you're not familiar with the comics, etc. More importantly, Loki seems like a passenger in his own story. He undergoes character development, but doesn't do much to impact events the entire season. You would think that would be different in the season finale.
Loki: The Nexus Event (2021)
A welcome return to form, and the best episode of the MCU television so far!
Episode 3 (Lamentis) was criticized by a lot for being a filler episode where the plot came to a stall. Despite ostensibly about Loki and Sylvie finding more about each other, Sylvie was oddly non-forthcoming with any details about herself other than her name, and fans were left wondering if she was even from Asgard! So, little plot development or even character development, and we got to see pointless action scenes where Loki and Sylvie got into fights with mortal guards for some reason while the world was destroying itself around them.
Thankfully, this episode jumps back into the swing of things and has plot and character development galore! Loki's forced self-examination of how his insecurities have led to his villainy back in Episode 1 are brought back into focus in a scene that's meant to make the lesson stick. We find our more about Sylvie's past and why she has a vendetta against the TVA, along with some earth-shattering reveals and plot twists one right after another.
The only criticism that I would have is that some of this (especially the scene of Sylvie as a little girl) could have been put into the last episode to more even things out. It feels a little like having an episode of dry cake followed by an episode of nothing but frosting.
Still, this episode has definitely gotten me hooked into the series again and desperate to find out what's going to happen next.
Runaways (2017)
Too slow and padded with filler
There are a few interesting ideas here, but overall feels like they took the plot of a standard 2-hour film and stretched it out over ten 1-hour episodes, so little happens. Instead, the time is spent watching characters have uninteresting conversations going over largely the same conversations they've had previously.
I have not read the comic series. From what I understand, the characters elected to runaway almost immediately once they discovered that their parents were evil. Here, the characters spend the entire first season vacillating over whether or not they should trust their parents despite all of the evidence before finally "running away" at the end of the season. Remember what I said earlier about a two hour movie being stretched into ten episodes? Imagine "The Empire Strikes Back" where Luke and Vader finally confront each other 9 hours in, or "Black Hawk Down" where the titular vehicle doesn't crash until the end of the season. Insert whatever other film of your choice here.
Rather than advancing the plot, a lot of time is spent on "Character Development". This is a problem, because unlike the comics from what I understand, the parents are made sympathetic and treated as regular characters. So, rather than 6 protagonist main characters, you have 16. So, all of this time spent on character development means you still end up with mostly cardboard cutout characters. Also, most of the character development could be summarized as 1. The kids wish they had the affection of their parents, even though they think they're evil. 2. The parents feeling guilty to varying degrees about all of the people they've killed. 3. People have crushes on each other or are engaged in romantic love triangles. Everything would have been better served by not focusing on the parents so much and spending more time on the actual protagonists. Even if you want to make them somewhat sympathetic, realize that the parents are the Antagonists, not characters to be developed on their own.
Finally, just about everything looks cheap, low-budget, and low-effort. Maybe they spent half of their budget on securing locations, because most of the time is spent in luxurious homes of billionaires. The action scenes look like they were blocked by directors without any stunt coordinators or consultants, because the action is high-school drama quality. Scenes sometimes run on too long without much point, and other times feel truncated with important parts missing. Special effects were better in shows from the 90s. Acting is mostly ok, although it seems the actors are floundering without much direction. One early scene stands out with its cheesy and atrocious acting: The victim-blaming scene will make you laugh. Why was this little effort spent on a show?
All in all, it had some decent ideas, but after watching the first season I just stopped caring and turned it off.
Knives Out (2019)
Good, not great
For all those who didn't like The Last Jedi (and still might be interested in seeing this), there is some good news and bad news. The bad news is that some of the elements people didn't like in TLJ are still present, the good news is that the worst of them are either toned down or are much better served in an original mystery than in an action adventure with an existing IP, such as the need to "subvert expectations" or to show off how Johnson's cleverness (the script is cutely clever cute, but not as brilliant as it thinks it is). The final twists seem a little over-written and not without plot-holes, but honestly that's fairly standard for the mystery genre.
This might be better appreciated by those who can't get enough of these kinds of murder mysteries, although the film changes genres several times, and stops being a murder mystery for a long portion of the run-time. A key reveal is made so early on (end of the 1st Act?), that the mystery to me at that point was more "Where is this movie going now?" than any curiosity about what else was going to be revealed regarding the murder.
Acting is pretty solid across the board , although the all-star cast is somewhat underutilized and disappears for long stretches of time. This very structure unfortunately strongly hints towards later developments, even if you can't predict the fine details.
I didn't find the movie to be a laugh riot, with just a few jokes here and there that land (the rest of the theater was silent for most of the film as well), but there are fortunately no cringeworthy jokes a la TLJ's prank-calling or milking scenes.
This might sound negative, but the film is entertaining. The payoff at the end is good, but your mileage may vary about whether it was worth the two hours of set-up.
Ready or Not (2019)
Interesting idea, but execution lacking in creativity or thrills
While the concept of The Most Dangerous Game involving a woman against her in-laws is somewhat original, the execution of this film is bad.
Problems:
1. This is probably the most undeveloped main character I have ever seen. You learn almost nothing about her history or desires, which makes it really hard to care about her more than the fact she's being chased by murderers. Most of the characterization and time is spent with the family members, who are the villains, and almost all of them are pathetic.
2. The profanity in this film is over the top. The characters probably swear twice as much as a Tarantino film, and with a lot less creativity or impact. It would be funnier to hear the "blue-blood" family start swearing once things start getting so bad for them, but all of them are swearing left and right from the beginning of the film so there's no escalation that makes the profanity interesting.
3. The film teases out a class struggle at the very beginning, with the protagonist concerned about marrying into this upper crust family, but along with the swearing from #2 these family members really don't act very high class at all, the main character Grace has a posh accent that doesn't make her come off as lower class, so this plot/theme goes nowhere at all.
4. It looks like the filmmakers were trying to make this more realistic at times (but not consistently so), so the main protagonist has no special combat skills, ingenuity, or athletic ability. As a result, too many of her "successes" are pure luck or someone doing something stupid. As a result, this film pits the Unremarkable vs. the Unintelligent. This isn't that exciting.
5. There are really very few interesting set pieces, probably due to lack of imagination or funds. The action appears in short, boring bursts, and there's no visual wow factor. You get the feeling they didn't have much in the way of stunt coordinators.
6. A related problem is that you never get a good perspective of the mansion or grounds, and with characters wandering in and out of the plot at random, you never get a really good perspective of how difficult it would be to "seek" Grace. The film just meanders from room to room, and the tension of the hunt just dissipates as a result. I'm guessing they just didn't have the funds to acquire a good interior location for the set.
Overlord (2018)
In one word: Mediocre
If I had to use additional words, "Underwritten" and "Half-Baked" come to mind. This movie attempts to mash up genres of WW2 action and Sci-Fi Horror, and doesn't do the best job, because the horror part feels somewhat shoe-horned in and at times feels like two different (but mediocre) films. I think the trailer oversells how much horror element is actually in the movie. If somebody told me the film originally started as a straight-up WW2 platoon mission and then studio execs forced 25% of the movie to be re-shot with a horror plot, I'd believe them, as it's that awkwardly mixed together. I don't think horror buffs will be very pleased, especially with how tame a lot of the gore is.
Apart from an excellent introduction in the style of Saving Private Ryan, everything about the movie is unremarkable and derivative. The characters are stock archetypes. The acting isn't great, but not really bad. Virtually all of the story beats in the movie will remind you of stuff you've seen in other (better) movies. Heck, the sense of deja vu was so pervasive for me that even some of the lead actors reminded me of other (better) actors:Wyatt Russell reminded me of Jason Clarke, Pilou Asbeck reminded me of Michael Shannon, along with some of the supporting characters. The characters make a whole lot of stupid decisions, but I was too numbed by that point to really care.
Not a whole lot of really bad parts of the movie (maybe the goofy, over the top Nazi tropes, and the really slow pacing in the middle of the movie), but not a whole lot good either.
Annihilation (2018)
Interesting concept, flawed execution
While watching the movie, I was both engrossed by the events playing out onscreen while at the same time thinking "this could be done better". To me, the writing felt like it was done by a smart Middle-Schooler: smart enough to understand some science concepts and have a few interesting ideas, but too naive in the world to create realistic or logical human behavior.
There are just too many times that things occur that have no sense or logic. I'm not talking about the "alien" aspect, which is supposed to be somewhat mysterious and incomprehensible, but about the way that the humans in the story act or react to what's going on. The way that the government is handling the phenomenon seems strangely hands-off for what should be the most important event in the history of humanity, and the individuals involved make lots of odd decisions just to drive the story forward.
On top of that, there is a framing device where a survivor is being interrogated about the events of what is shown throughout the movie, and it not only doesn't provide any additional illumination to bother with the clunkiness, it tends to deflate a lot of the tension by giving away certain plot points before you see them on screen. The ending is more just vague for the sense of being mysterious rather than making you really ask questions afterward. I suspect that if you asked the Director how the ending related to the rest of the movie, he would't be able to give more of an answer than he wanted things to be left open-ended.
Finally, the characters are all fairly morose and sedated. There's a (weak) explanation in the movie for this, but the overall low energy makes you not care too much about any of the characters.
The Gamers: Hands of Fate (2013)
Stupid and Vile
My wife and I were over at a friend's house and found out that he had obtained a copy of this movie and asked if we wanted to watch it. We ended up being tortured for nearly two hours.
We all really liked the first Gamers movie. Despite its very cheap budget, it was fairly well done and focused. Although some jokes at random gamer culture were tossed around (such as the one college gamer with a girlfriend who ditches the game to go out on an actual date), the humor was primarily about one thing: how ludicrous the story would actually look based upon the actions, rules and die rolls of the game. Although the gamers were all typically dorks, you could laugh at the portrayal and see the various ways that we all have acted like that in the past. For the most part, a lot of the scenes actually came off as actual videotapes from a game.
The second one had a higher production budget but was a lot more scattershot in its targets. Although there was a little bit of odd humor in the way the game would play out based upon player actions, there was also jokes about ineffective character classes, a complete novice somehow combining obscure feats and traits to make an OP character, a male player playing a female character completely wrong, and random gaming references like light-sabers and cards from Munchkin. There were still plenty of jokes that hit the mark, despite them being all over the place.
One other noticeable change is that the characters were a lot less sympathetic. The DM was a rail-roader, but an otherwise nice guy, and his new girlfriend was also a positively portrayed dork. However, the three main players consisted of two obnoxious jerks and one guy who was creepy and apparently mentally ill. These were the kind of players that you would quit games if they joined.
Which brings us to this third movie.
The entire movie focuses on one of the aforementioned jerks attempting to win a Gen Con card game that's like Magic combined with a campaign story. The card game isn't something that we can relate to because it's not similar to anything currently on the market. Therefore, the scenes from what's taking place have no basis of comparison to anything the audience has experienced. They are all awfully rendered with horrendous computer backdrops as opposed to actual scenes on location like the previous movies. There's also an overall narrative about the characters realizing that they're just pawns in a card game (hence the title) that goes basically nowhere.
Oh, and did I mention that the reason that the aforementioned jerk is playing a card game at this convention just so he can try to get into a girl's pants? I don't just mean end up dating her, he's literally serious about using this opportunity to try to have sex with her. Plenty of other obnoxious and misogynous comments are dropped all over the place as well, making gamer culture look absolutely repulsive. Although there is definitely sexism in gaming, the behavior of these players (including the protagonist) would likely result in a fight. (My wife said she'd knock the teeth in if other players made the kind of suggestive comments that these were making to her face).
Virtually every portrayal of a gamer is negative in some way. They're either abusive, clueless, completely absorbed in their own reality or all of the above. Even Lodge and Joanna having a healthy relationship and mutual love of gaming are picked on for having almost no sex together.
Gary, the slightly creepy player from the last movie goes full on creepy and psycho for laughs. There's a subplot about him having a hate-filled anger towards a cartoon character that caused his favorite television show to be cancelled, and taking it out on the actual hired mascot playing that character at the convention. He's shown physically assaulting this poor schmuck numerous times, and at one point kidnaps him and covers him in gasoline as revenge. Yep, we're supposed to be laughing at one of the main characters attempting to burn an innocent man to death because his favorite television show was cancelled.
So, in summary, the plot of the story revolves around a despicable character playing a game neither he nor we care about in hopes of having sex with a woman who finds him repulsive. The "money shots" of seeing the game played in real action looks horrendous with poor special effects and drags on with little point. Finally, almost all other portrayals of characters other than the main protagonist are used to negatively portray gamers as anti-social psychos who have too much time and money on their hands.
I'll give it two stars because despite all of the dreck there were actually a couple of jokes that were actually funny (the scene where the protagonist is confronted by the Legacy in the hallway was clever), and the movie finally comes to some kind of competently written climax in the final card match. The rest was just unbearable to watch.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Critically acclaimed for breaking conventions, which isn't always good.
I really was looking forward to seeing this movie due to the critical consensus and even a couple of positive reviews from coworkers.
The movie certainly starts out extraordinarily well with some deft cinematography and storytelling. With barely any dialogue, you can still tell exactly what is happening as Llewelyn Moss discovers a major drug deal gone awry, and how he cautiously explores the devastation and pockets the money. You can tell that the main character is somewhat grizzled, knows his way around weapons, would likely kill a man, but yet isn't a callous killer as he simply disarms a man and offers some rough consolation rather than just filling him full of holes.
Shortly after this part, the movie went downhill for me. Personally, it's like watching the Terminator and having someone snarkily say, "These final showdowns are so cliché, wouldn't it be much cooler if Reese and Sarah Conner accidentally got hit by a bus offscreen, and the Terminator didn't even know about so even he ends up failing in a way?" And therein lies the (deliberate)irony for the movie. You have a Terminator style movie with a plucky hero trying to escape from an unstoppable villain, and none of it matters. In fact, it's supposed to be established that the main character of the movie is not in fact the plucky hero, but rather just some old geezer that has no real interaction with any of the main characters and doesn't affect the plot line in any way(for the Terminator metaphor, this is like trying to say the Psychiatrist was the main character).
In most coherent story lines, characters and developments are supposed to exist for a reason but in this one they are mostly superfluous. Tommy Lee Jones appears to have an important role in the movie, but he doesn't. Woody Harrelson shows up in the movie as a supposed learned veteran, but doesn't affect the plot other than to give some minor info about the villain.
Many fans of the movie also find the villain extremely scary and/or creepy, but I found him completely cartoonish. It would be about as subtle as having Darth Vader stroll around Texas, and apart from one scene of him reading a phone bill to track down Moss, doesn't seem particularly skilled as a tracker. For those who like to say the film is more realistic because the good guy doesn't always get away and the bad guy doesn't always get caught, you lose that argument with this character, as the screenplay bends over backwards to accommodate this freak. He seems to have the superpower to make everyone around him drop 20 points in IQ or not raise any fuss about the dozens of people he brutally kills. A character this distinct in appearance and manner and so strongly lacking in people skills shouldn't be that hard to track down.
Finally, to drive the storyline at all the main character has to do some ridiculously stupid things to leave a trail. Once again using the Terminator comparison it's like having Sarah Conner leaving a message on her answering machine or calling her mother so the Terminator has an idea of where to find them. However, those are at least somewhat understandable actions whereas those of Moss are just downright ridiculous: 1. After successfully stealing the money without anyone noticing him, he returns to the scene of the crime to bring a dying man some water. Beyond the fact that this is ridiculously risky, it's also rather pointless, as the guy is probably dead. If anything, why not make an anonymous call to the police to send an ambulance? Even the character admits that this is completely stupid, but shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "well, we can't just have the story end here, can we?".
(A lot of the fans like to say that he's obviously stupid for stealing the money knowing that someone would likely come after him, but I'm curious as to how since he's completely off the radar at that point).
2. He never searches the money to find the transponder until it's too late. This is just baffling, as several days have passed and he's already spent a great deal of effort trying to conceal the money by this point. In addition to moving the money to a less conspicuous bag, it's rather odd that he wouldn't, you know, try to count the money to see how much is there or to see if there's anything else like drugs or guns in the bag? For those who like the movie because it has an unconventional story structure- it actually has a relatively conventional structure for the first 75% or so and then subverts it all in the end. For those who think it's more realistic to not have a Hollywood ending, the movie defies realism by letting Chigurh get away with as much as he does, and with the main protagonist committing stupid errors so he can get caught.
In fact, the only thing novel about this storyline is that it mostly follows conventions for the first 75% and then turns it all around in plot twists just to give the viewer the middle finger at the end.
9 (2009)
Interesting, but should have been a video game, not a movie.
I pretty much agree with most of the posters- the movie is very visually interesting, but the poor story keeps you from getting immersed.
What works? The movie is very beautifully drawn, and the action scenes are very creative and well-planned. In addition, the fact that the setting is actually somewhat different from our Earth(some weird fascistic government that isn't representative of any of the ones we've known so far) makes it a little refreshing and the allegory a little less heavy-handed.
That's pretty much it.
What doesn't work?
1. The movie sets us up with an odd, post-apocalyptic world with a main protagonist who isn't human, but rather an artificial construct composed of burlap, metal and wood. As a result, I felt that the movie needed to explain both the setting and the nature of the characters to me. I suppose the setting is moderately explained, but the movie fails epically in terms of character development with the "stitchpunks"(not a word actually used in the movie, IIRC).
What do they know? What don't they know? What do we as the audience take for granted, but these characters have to discover? What are their motivations? Desires? Quirks? Basically, how are they similar to or different from humans, since they are not human?
The movie just doesn't really explain this. They apparently know how to jury-rig devices like battery-operated lanterns and otherwise manipulate technology, but don't really discuss what they know about the world that was before. I think the only quirk that I remember is that the "brute" #8 used a magnet to pleasurably scramble his brain. To be honest, the movie could have swapped them out and just used human refugees from the war and very little except the end would have been different, as the stitchpunks don't really have any definable personality traits.
2. The main character doesn't appeal to the audience. Although most of the characters are one-dimensional, he's got like half a dimension. He is optimistic, and think that "something should be done". He's not terribly intelligent, has no real ideas, and gets some of the others killed for no reason at all, and just sucks as a character. And yet, everyone seems to follow his lead, and quickly accepts his pathetic apology after he gets one of their number killed for no reason.
3. The whole plot line and setting would have been more appropriate as a video game than a movie, and came across as having as much fun as watching a video game that someone else is playing. Some of the elements included things like:
a. A generic protagonist that everyone treats as special and germane to the moving of the plot, although the protagonist is otherwise not very special. b. Action scenes involving use of the scenery, and very similar to "boss fights" with horrific creatures that have no motivation other than destroying the main characters. c. Exploration through an unfamiliar and dangerous world, combined with a plot-reveal near the end where a main character gives a denouement about everything, including why the the characters are there and "how to beat the final boss". d. Dream-like logic(there seems to be no real reason why the stitchpunks were created other than to satisfy the movie), and a quick-fix ending of "it's magic and everything is good again" that makes absolutely no sense.