Took the kid to see The Bad Guys today, as we both had the bank holiday off.
It's not going to win any awards for originality, but I thought it was a really enjoyable heist caper.
The script isn't as smart as it thinks, with fewer parent-level jokes to balance the kid-friendly stuff than you'd get from a non-DreamWorks movie, but I was mostly too busy enjoying the animation and Sam Rockwell to be bothered.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is certainly accurately titled. It starts off with one scene to set up Michelle Yeoh's character and her situation, and then slams on the gas and does not let up for the rest of its runtime.
It's absolutely amazing, much funnier than I'd expected going in, and has a ton of heart. Some if the action scenes are a little more… Western than I'd have liked (I made the mistake of rewatching the Every Frame a Painting episode on Jackie Chan a couple days ago), but that's one very minor note on a film that I would wholeheartedly recommend.
We've watched the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy over the last couple of weekends - they're all on Disney+ now. They're absolutely superb, far far better than I expected they would be. I think they might be my 13-year-old's new favourite movies, too, he's talked about nothing else for days.
They're great. The second one in particular is fantastic.
Partly out of morbid curiosity, partly to check its suitability for the kid, I threw the new Chip 'n' Dale movie on while I had the house to myself yesterday.
It is aggressively 6/10. Its middle-of-the-roadness feels calculated to maximise comfortable nostalgia, but fails to counteract the deeply cynical attitude that clearly generated every aspect of the plot and characters.
Maybe it would be less off-putting if it wasn't coming from the voracious corporate omnivore of the Walt Disney Corporation, but the constant parade of cameos and references is a borderline haunting reminder of just how much control The Mouse has over modern popular culture. That the villain's primary crime is copyright infringement just hammers the message home: officially-sanctioned reboots and remasters are the only Real way to be a fan.
Technically it's a mixed bag; the compositing work is pretty seamless, but the animation on the lead characters is a bit flat (and the lip synch is off just enough to be noticable). The fake-2D on the 3D Chip model is also massively offputting, and I was watching on my phone while making lunch; on a bigger screen it would be even more apparent.
The performances are fine, with the exception of J. K. Simmons having a fucking blast as the claymation chief of police; Samberg is just doing a Jake Peralta schtick without the writing to back it up and John Mulaney never quite manages to sound like he's enjoying himself. Kiki Layne, almost the only live-action human actor, is very unconvincing and threatens to utterly dispel the magic in any scene where she has to interact with CGI characters (which is all of her scenes). Seth Rogan voices about five characters too many.
It's not really recommendable, all things considered, even as a family movie. The story relies far too much on audience nostalgia for a cartoon that went off the air over thirty years ago and whose characters haven't really been heard from since – kids aren't going to give a shit. Plus, it's not surprising or subversive enough for adults – and while the same could be said for The Bad Guys, at least it wasn't a cynical cash-in and has style oozing from every frame.
This is just kinda sad.
No footage in this, just the absolutely stacked cast list and frankly amazing title for Rian Johnson's follow up to Knives Out.
I bloody loved Knives Out. Well up for more of that.
I hope Daniel Craig does a completely different accent in every one of these movies.
Saw The Batman.
It was certainly a Batman.
I saw it too. Can confirm - definitely a batman.
I liked a lot about it, mostly the art direction and cinematography, but it wasn't a stone cold classic. It really got the feel of Year One etc, felt like panels coming alive on the screen, very impressive in that sense. However, it felt a little by the numbers at times - and a little one-note tonally. I know bats isn't a barrel of laughs, but you can usually rely on the villains for a bit of humour, or to switch it up in some way. Hallucinations, magic tricks, etc. No such luck here, just more grim. Spirit of the age I suppose.
Pattinson was good as batman, but pretty poor as Bruce, who looked and behaved like an MCR tribute act. Villains were fun, if a little OTT at times - there was certainly nothing as spectacular as Ledger or Nicholson. You never got the feeling of interdependence you need from batman, despite some clunky attempts to do that.
Supporting cast was solid if unspectacular - none of them brought anything new to well worn characters, but they did what they needed to do to keep things moving. Action was fine, although the big car chase wasn't particularly well done. Appreciated the actual cars rather than cgi though. .
Political allegory was heavy handed, although to be fair, I don't know how you can satirise the real world anymore.
It was also probably too long, I'd rather have had one fewer twist and a shorter runtime I think.
Despite all that, I've seen plenty worse. It's better than at least one of the Nolans, and all of the Snyders. If you fancy a batman, this is definitely a batmanny batman. Possibly the batmanniest.
Pattinson was good as batman, but pretty poor as Bruce, who looked and behaved like an MCR tribute act.
I though Pattinson was great as Bruce Wayne; the two sides of the character made sense to me in a way that no other actor's portrayal has. The brittle, high-tension anxiety while he's out of the suit, and the fearless confidence as soon as he puts it on.
Interesting, my wife thought exactly the same so seems I'm in the minority! I can see it in theory, just didn't work for me in reality though.
Bale's Bruce Wayne is too smart and controlled for his Bat-antics to make total sense; Keaton never had the darkness or conflict to justify the dual life either.
But Pattinson's tightly-wound emo kid is absolutely the sort to get dressed up in shitkicker DMs and a cape to take out his frustrations. The bad poetry of the opening narration just underlines the "tortured soul" self-righteousness that fuels him.
If the villains really wanted to get rid of his Batman, though, all they'd need to do is kick start a decent underground hardcore alternative scene. Give Battinson half an hour in a circle pit and he'd be all Vengeanced out.
See I thought keaton was great as Bruce AND Batman. As Wayne, he had layers - otherworldliness, scientific curiosity, steel, wittiness, charm. Pattinson just had a haircut and some mascara. You're right he'd be the sort of kid to become a vigilante, but he'd be rubbish at it…
We watched No Time to Die last night, which was good fun in a Bondy type way. I wished we'd rewatched the previous Craigs before this one though, as there was a lot of referencing to Casino Royale and Spectre that would have been more satisfying with it fresh in my head.
Some good set pieces, some surprisingly good visuals for a Bond film (didn't realise Cary Fukunaga was directing until the credits, he does have a good eye for a shot), and some great references to Moore, Lazenby and Connery films in there too. Plus good theme song/soundtrack, crunchy car chases and a few one liners. All Bondy boxes ticked. Some of the gunfight action felt a little weightless, especially after watching The Batman just before, but otherwise it managed to be a satisfying ending to a pretty solid run (QoS apart).
Took the kid to see Lightyear yesterday, it's… fine? I think. It's not bad, certainly; Pixar (and Disney generally) have a reasonably solid batting average such that they never make anything truly awful, but their output has tended to have more personality than this.
That might be down to the material, though. Not a lot of room for wacky hijinx in what is, when you get right down to it, a fairly straightforward sci-fi action flick.
It's reasonably funny, competently acted, has a few too many dialogue callbacks to the original Toy Story, a few interesting pieces of sound design, and looks good – though lacks any real flair in the design or animation departments. I dunno. It feels pretty safe.
The kid liked the robot cat, though.
Yeah, I'll give this a watch. Unusual to see Sam Rockwell so subdued (and doing an accent!).
We watched the latest Fantastic Beasts film last night.
Now I quite liked the first one of these, it had an interesting setting, some nice beasts, an unusual and appealing lead character/performance from Eddie Redmayne, and some solid support from Dan Fogel, Katharine Waterstone and Alison Sudol.
The second one was a bit nothingy, it had some good beasts again but a lot of the charm had worn off . It felt a bit like watching someone set up a very nice chess board - all the characters had to end up in the right place and it looked nice and tidy by the end of it, but it wasn't very exciting to actually witness (give or take a chinese lion monster thing, which was great.)
This new one… Welll… The script is terrible, the direction plodding. The charming supporting characters from the first film have been neutered in various different ways and replaced with some cardboard cutouts instead (and there are some good actors in there, just used appallingly). Jude Law as Dumbledore pitches up at random to dispense plot and look good in a cardigan but does nothing of interest, until inexplicably he does. Eddie Redmayne looks bewildered for 90% of the time, and not in a good way as he did in the earlier films, just a bit confused about where the fun went. There is some heavy-handed Grindlewald/Trump analogy floating out of reach of the writer and director, who instead fall back on close-ups of Nazi jackboots, leather trousers and pastiche Nuremberg rallies instead to subtly suggest that perhaps totalitarianism is a bad thing.
There were two bits where I thought it might turn into a sort of Ocean's 11 with nifflers, which would have been infinitely preferable and maybe even enjoyable, but both times it just collapsed on itself leadenly without any sense of thrill or fun. By the end, everyone was pretty much where they started - it was like playing a section out of the middle of jrpg where the bad guy just leaves after you get his HP down to 1, bound to return another day with a bigger suit and some different flunkies.
If I'm being kind, there was one good action scene at a dinner party and the costumes were pretty. And it didnt have Jonny Depp in it, which was nice. But basically, I think I'm done with this franchise now.
I've only seen the first one, a few years back, and I thought that was mediocre.
To be honest the thought of giving any money to JK Rowling these days makes me very uncomfortable. I'm happier just to pretend this doesn't exist.
Indeed. Probably for the best.
Don't know if this should be here or the Tabletop thread, but…
…that doesn't look terrible..?
It looks fun, though very lightweight in a "Netflix Ryan Reynolds comedy" kind of way.
I don't have high hopes for it, but I'm willing to be surprised.
I'd read that they were going for a Guardians of the Galaxy kind of mood (and, apparently, plot?) for the thing, and it's definitely very much in the post-Marvel, breezy action/comedy mold but that honestly seems to fit the vibe of most TTRPG tables I've played at, so… yeah.
It looks a lot better than I expected it to.
PREY is pretty good. Notable mainly for its setting and cast, rather than its narrative, which is serviceable, but pretty bare-bones. It is a hell of a setting and cast, though.
If I have any actual criticism, it's that there's too much on-screen Predator in the first half-hour; everyone knows it's coming, but it would have been nice to try and build up the tension a bit more.
I did like
Spoiler - click to showthat it's a bit more stripped-back, primitive version of the Predator. Obviously still very much ahead of its targets, technologically, but stuff like the bolt-thrower instead of the shoulder-mounted laser cannon was a nice touch. I also appreciate that she got to kill the thing, rather than it commiting nuclear suicide like Arnie's.
Yeah, I agree with that assessment – it's straightforward, but it was well-paced and beautifully shot, even if some of the action sequences had an over-reliance on the ol' quick-cut editing.
The more I think about Everything Everywhere All at Once, the more I love it. Which is to say, it's now up on Amazon Prime Video, so get it watched.
We watched Thor: Love and Thunder last night. It's not very good.
It has the opposite problem to most single entries in a Marvel series, though, which is that the villain is great, but the heroes are crap. Thematically void, tonally incoherent, it turns the wrong bits of Ragnarok to 11 and completely loses itself, staggering between Bits and gags with zero sense of urgency or peril.
Not the worst MCU movie, but the worst for a long while.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I have no idea what's happening.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
We watched Thor: Love and Thunder last night. It's not very good.
It has the opposite problem to most single entries in a Marvel series, though, which is that the villain is great, but the heroes are crap. Thematically void, tonally incoherent, it turns the wrong bits of Ragnarok to 11 and completely loses itself, staggering between Bits and gags with zero sense of urgency or peril.
Not the worst MCU movie, but the worst for a long while.
We actually gave up after an hour or so. It's like trying to read an average comic while someone waves a table tennis bat with a silly face drawn on it in front of your face and flicks your ears. Not worth the effort at all.
There are things about it to like, but not many.
Admittedly, some of the jokes are funny the first time they tell them
Everything Everywhere All At Once is certainly accurately titled. It starts off with one scene to set up Michelle Yeoh's character and her situation, and then slams on the gas and does not let up for the rest of its runtime.
It's absolutely amazing, much funnier than I'd expected going in, and has a ton of heart. Some if the action scenes are a little more… Western than I'd have liked (I made the mistake of rewatching the Every Frame a Painting episode on Jackie Chan a couple days ago), but that's one very minor note on a film that I would wholeheartedly recommend.
This is on Prime now - I watched it this afternoon. I've never seen anything like it, I guess The Matrix is the closest touchpoint in terms of it being a movie that starts as one thing then almost immediately swerves wildly into being something completely different, but that doesn't do justice to the sheer insanity on display here. Thoroughly recommended, and I'm glad I knew nothing about it before going in.
As an aside - it's also probably one of the most accurate portrayals of Chinese family life I've seen in a (mostly) English-language movie, and the bit where
Spoiler - click to showAlpha Gong Gong comes roaring down the corridor in his motorised wheelchair like Chinese Davros
absolutely killed me.
I read somewhere that Everything Everywhere's budget was just $25m – less than any single episode of Stranger Things season 4.
I can't help but wonder how long it's going to be before the Daniels exit an MCU movie six weeks before filming due to "creative differences".
The trailer for the Mario movie looked waaaaay better than it has any right to, I'm sold.
Yep, I'm in for that.
Bowser really is a fucking arsehole, what a classic villain.
Yep, that looks like an Illumination joint, alright.
…Chris Pratt's just, like… normal speaking voice coming out of Mario is so fucking weird.
Yeah that's a minimum-effort bit of voice casting all right. Maybe there's still time to dub him.
…Chris Pratt's just, like… normal speaking voice coming out of Mario is so fucking weird.
I dunno, it didn't sound exactly like him. Definitely not like the main guy in Lego Movie which absolutely was him. I think there's a little something going on there. I can live with it.
He's definitely doing something a little bit different, though there's not enough in there to tell if it's good.
It's more the animation that I'm iffy on, to be honest. It doesn't look like Mario, somehow. The movement's just too… ordinary. Where's the style? I expected more panache from the directing pair that made Teen Titans Go.
I think they spent all their time on Bowser. He's the real star after all.
I guess the only thing worse than Chris Pratt doing a minimum-effort Chris Pratt voice, would be Chris Pratt doing a squeaky, vaguely racist Italian pastiche for two hours.
While that is true, there are quite a lot of things better than Chris Pratt doing a minimum-effort Chris Pratt voice.
Oh dear. It looks like one of those Superbowl commercials where they dig up some old IP to sell a car.
I don't really understand the obsession with constantly getting Harrison Ford to reprise roles from 40 years ago. Like Patrick Stewart trying to do Picard, he's not really capable of it any more, and mostly just ends up playing himself. Ford's Deckard is much like his Solo and I'm sure his Indy will be the same.
I mean there must be some new, young action stars coming through, right? Right?
I mean there must be some new, young action stars coming through, right? Right?
I don't think we need Chris Pratt in another franchise.
I said "young". Chris Pratt is 43!
Tom Holland, then?
Other than the awful name, I thought that looked alright…
It's from the guy who directed Logan, so I hope there'll be more to it than the crash-wallop of a first teaser.