Moving Pictures

Me and my partner used to have a thing where we worked through every Nic Cage movie, good or bad, when we first started dating. So he has a special place in our hearts. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent had quite a lot riding on it. And you know what? I think it delivers. It's more charming and less snide than I thought it would be. It's also more of an actual film that has a structure and plot more than I thought it would (rather than a series of skits on Cage himself). It doesn't really work well in bits, and whoever Sharon Horgan's agent is he or she deserves a payrise as she is basically now appearing in pretty much every film and TV show in the world and playing herself. But at the core it's a delightful thing and we enjoyed it a lot and it made us love Nic Cage even more (if that's even possible).

Also, while we're here, I want to chuck in a word for the Rock Baywatch movie. I'm going to say that the opening half of this movie is superb. It falls apart later on (party scene onwards), and maybe I'm smoking crack but when it's humming along I'm going to say it's one of the best comedy movies of the last 5 years. If Garwoofoo is allowed to literally have wrong opinions about everything, then I'm owning this.

This looks like the absolute dumbest fucking thing.

Presented without comment, because I genuinely have no idea

I'm confused and scared by how much I enjoyed giant Margot Robbie.

I called Sarah in to watch that, and E followed her in. She's now in tears about the baby doll being smashed.

So I don't know who the target audience is, but it's lost at least one 5-year-old…

After Ladybird and Little Women Greta Gerwig has my attention for whatever she does.

But yeah I have absolutely no clue how this is going to play out.

It's safe to say that Michael Bay has a reputation, and one that's not necessarily favourable. Lord knows his Transformers films have had diminishing cinematic returns, and even at his most auteur he's never subtle.

Which makes Ambulance all the more interesting. Set almost entirely within a single vehicle during a near-real-time car chase through LA, it's remarkably restrained. (Of course there are spectacular slow-motion car crashes and a couple big explosions, you can't expect Bay to hold back everything.)

Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) are adoptive brothers, whose father was a legendary LA bank robber. Will left the family business and joined the marines, but his medical insurance won't cover a procedure for his wife so he agrees to help Danny pull a $32m heist.

It goes poorly, and they end up hijacking the eponymous emergency vehicle, taking a wounded cop and Cam, an EMT (Eliza González), hostage as they try to outrun the LAPD with the half if the cash they managed to take.

Unusually for Bay, the cops aren't the good guys – they're not villains either, but there's a definite malevolence in how the legion of police vehicles are depicted, swarming the streets. (They're also responsible for instigating the shootout that interrupts the heist.)

The only undisputed hero of the film is the EMT, who gets both the patented Bay low-angle spin shot and the only unambiguously good conclusion (and, hopefully, therapy). As an added bonus, she's not even objectified repeatedly by leering camera shots!

Gyllenhaal chews through scenery in a turned-to-11 performance that I loved (every time he's off-screen, you can hear him complaining about the LA traffic to no-one in particular), while González and Abdul-Mateen play things more straight but provide a grounded foundation for Gyllenhaal's antics.

They don't really make movies like this anymore – and I wouldn't have expected to see it from Michael Bay of all people – but this is a solid action thriller in the Tony Scott or Andrew Davis mould and I'd fully recommend it.

Avatar was… long wasn't it..

It wasn't as bad as I thought as it was going to be, but bro.. I mean… bro… sometimes bro the young adult aliens bro and nuclear American family thing got a little bro tedious. Bro.

Watched Wakanda Forever now that it's on Disney+.

No idea what all the fuss was about.

Story has some interesting ideas, but does nothing interesting with them. Namor is more right than he is wrong, but isn't a very interesting antagonist. Truly awful introduction to Riri Williams, and her armor looks awful. Shuri's the wrong choice for Black Panther, it should have been Okoye. Instead, Okoye gets the ugliest fucking armour I've ever seen; it looks like a shit Warhammer 40k cosplay. It treats nothing onscreen with any reverence or gravitas whatsoever. Terrible VFX, and somehow even worse cinematography than most Marvel movies manage.

The only good thing in it is Winston Duke.

I’m not sure there ever was much fuss, was there? I’ve not really heard anything good about this movie whatsoever.

Yeah we watched it on Wednesday and it wasn't anything special. I think my biggest complaint is that it is completely devoid of surprise. Actually no, my biggest complaint is those suits of power armour. They were awful.

I think it's a sign of how much the quality of the MCU has fallen that I wasn't even aware this was out. Up to the start of 2022, I was genuinely looking forward to each film, but the last 4 or 5 have been so average that I've just lost all interest really.

It's partly a drop in quality, partly over saturation, partly a formula that's fading in terms of appeal (the old whedon quip-fight one/two is nearly 30 years old now…), and partly a growing realisation that this is now a property devoid of threat and/or development for any of the main characters. The individual films are not good enough, or different enough, to hold my attention, and without an obvious meta threat like Thanos, its all just lost its appeal a bit.

Twelve year old me would probably never forgive me for this view, given the absolute dearth of anything comics based on screen at that point, but that's where we are.

partly a growing realisation that this is now a property devoid of threat and/or development for any of the main characters

I mean I get what you're saying, but…

Spoiler - click to showIron Man, Black Panther, Vision, Black Widow, Loki (sort-of) and (the original) Gamora are dead, Captain America fucked off to the past and handed the shield over, and the Hulk's no longer an out-of-control rage monster.

I'd say that at least some of that qualifies as threat and/or character development.

(Edit: in response to Cheddarfrenzy)

Yeah, I think that's spot on. The only bits of Phase 4 that I'd say have been genuinely good are WandaVision, Shang-Chi, Spider-Man and She-Hulk. The rest of it has started to become an obligation, you feel you need to watch it all to keep up with it so you sit through stuff even when it's not actually all that good (helloooo Eternals).

The danger for Marvel of course is that once people drop off the treadmill it becomes increasingly hard to re-engage with it. You might like, say, Spider-Man movies, but are you going to go and watch the next one if you feel you need to have done your homework and watched six other movies and four TV shows first?

Black Panther 2 might be the first one I skip. I didn't like the first one much and two and a half hours of something everyone seems indifferent about doesn't seem like a great way to spend an evening.

With regards to Wakanda Forever, I am surprised that they made something coherent at all, given the loss of Chadwick Boseman. It's a disjointed mess, and I can't help wonder how much was salvaged from an earlier draft with T'Challa in the lead – but I found the grief palpable throughout the film. Not just for something lost, but for something stolen, in a way that dovetailed with the rage driving Namor.

Its biggest weaknesses were the MCU franchise stuff it's beholden to; this could have been a focused, personal journey about legacy and loss and the things we do out of grief, but they had to introduce new characters to set up the next thing, and up the technological stakes, and drive everything to More, More, More.

It's very deeply flawed in some fundamental ways, but there is some character stuff buried in there that's worth seeing, in my opinion.

you sit through stuff even when it's not actually all that good (helloooo Eternals).

…I kind of liked Eternals.

Black Panther 2 might be the first one I skip. I didn't like the first one much and two and a half hours of something everyone seems indifferent about doesn't seem like a great way to spend an evening.

2 hours 45, actually, and all so Shuri can go through exactly the same arc that T'Challa did in the C-plot of Captain America: Civil War (vengeance is bad, you guys!).

I think Aniki’s right that it’s pretty impressive they managed to make anything with the hand they were dealt.

And I thought it kind of fitting that Shuri’s journey mirrored T’Challa’s.

I absolutely agree that she shouldn't have been the Black Panther, though. For one thing, she's never been shown to be much of a fighter (at that level, anyway).

Spoiler - click to showIron Man, Black Panther, Vision, Black Widow, Loki (sort-of) and (the original) Gamora are dead, Captain America fucked off to the past and handed the shield over, and the Hulk's no longer an out-of-control rage monster.
I'd say that at least some of that qualifies as threat and/or character development.

Agreed - but all of those (character, rather than actor) deaths happened in the climax of the last phase, not in this one. Nothing has happened that I have seen in the last 18+ months in service of a) wider narrative or b) character development that I have seen.

The last thing that had any sort of emotional or narrative engagement for me was Wandavision, which was excellent, probably the thing I've enjoyed most in the whole MCU. Since then it's been "what if we put A and B (and C, and D, and surprise here's E!)together, and there's a thing they have to do that doesn't really matter, and they take the piss out of each other and look cool whilst we blow shit up".

Its biggest weaknesses were the MCU franchise stuff it's beholden to

Completely agree with this, for all recent films (obvs not seen BP2 yet)

They made a shed load of cash in the early phases by tying it all to a franchise, and it worked. Their mistake has been to keep the nonsense studio franchise restrictions while without any sort of obvious narrative links/cohesion or overall direction. I mean I get it's hard to introduce a metaverse concept to BIG money film audiences, but surely not that hard…

There have been some good scenes/directors in the recent stuff, but at risk of pseud's corner, Billy Shakespeare pretty much nailed it - the whole MCU is increasingly "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Somehow appropriate given the current state of the world I guess, and I'd love to think that it was some sort of meta-commentary on the current political and social order going on in tthere, but I suspect that they are just photocopying the formula that worked for so long without any idea how to recapture the magic.

I think "multiverse" as a concept cheapens everything anyway. When you can have multiple versions of a character, and bring back anyone at any point no matter how dead they are, there are no stakes. Combine that with Scarlet Witch's powers which currently seem to be "can do anything she wants" and the general get-out-of-jail-free card that is Captain Marvel, and the whole thing is just… inconsequential. They can make any old shit up, chuck it on the screen and it's going to be hard to care.

The original (MCU) Avengers worked as a team because they were vulnerable. Captain America and Iron Man had limitations. Hawkeye and Black Widow were literally just people. Hulk was as much of a liability as an asset. And Thor was nowhere near as OP as he later became. Stuff that happened felt like it had ramifications. Now, not so much.

The problem isn't so much that the characters are superheroes, it's that all the characters are superheroes. You can't have a Superman movie where it feels like Superman is in danger because he's indestructible; you need to have him making hard calls or facing impossible odds to save everyone else.

Nobody in the MCU is really vulnerable. Even the background crowds aren't really at risk (assuming there are any, and the big finale showdown isn't happening on a boat in the middle of nowhere) because there's no question that the heroes will succeed at the one thing they've got to do. They need competing objectives (and one of them needs to be "save the ordinary people caught up in the middle").

Nobody's got a secret identity either, really – which feels like it would be an easy way to put some stakes into a fight without needing a big CGI budget.

I think the early movies got a free pass because they were finally making good superhero movies. Now they are struggling with the fact that there isn't a lot of variety in superhero stories.

The trick is to tell stories about people in the world of superheroes, which to be fair they try to do, but the 20 minutes CGI climax undermines it every time.

Loki and She-Hulk were both pretty good, although they wouldn't have worked so well in the cinema. Spider-Man No Way Home did ok with it because the character stuff still mattered during the action.

Watched Black Panther 2: Went On Forever, slightly against my better judgement, as my son wanted to see it and talked me into it. Going in with zero expectations clearly helped because the whole premise of "Wakandans versus Fishmen" was so daft I couldn't help but find it entertaining.

Spoiler - click to show"Let's fight the fishmen ON A BOAT" is perhaps the stupidest plan conceived in the MCU so far?

The whole thing is at least an hour too long (they could have cut Bilbo Baggins and the forgettable scientist genius girl entirely and lost nothing of value) and Shuri lacks the charm required to carry the movie or the role, but on the whole I will charitably admit that this was better than I was expecting, and I probably preferred it to the ponderous first BP.

I watched Infinite on C4 last night. I'd never heard of it, probably because it was a Paramount+ exclusive. It was shit. Kind of Mark Whalberg trying to do The Matrix and The Old Guard, but the plot was bobbins, the characters were all cliches and more often than not you'll be able to guess the next line in any dialogue.

Against all odds, Seth Rogen's upcoming animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie looks pretty good?

It's got a lot of that Marvel bathos energy about it with the quips and the banter, but it's visually interesting at least.

I can't help but worry about the size of that cast list, though. It may be a little overstuffed.

The Mario Bros. Movie: of all the films I've seen, that was one of them. No depth, very little charm, and a transparently soulless marketing tool – but at least it's only 92 minutes.

I saw it last night with work. It was fun. Not sure what else anyone would expect, it's a kids movie with a nostalgia angle for Nintendo fans. It was hardly going to be Shawshank Redemption.

That's such a weak defence of a kids' film. Pixar has spent decades proving that you can make technically impressive, narratively engaging and emotionally meaningful films for children. Hayao Miyazaki built a career and a studio on it at Ghibli.

Even the Lego Movie managed it – with the widest imaginable open goal for "kids movie with a nostalgia angle", they took a tougher route and put a ton of heart into a metaphysical morality tale.

The Mario Bros. Movie takes no risks. At every opportunity, it chooses the safe path. It assumes that its audience – children, who are far more capable than movie executives might think, and Nintendo fans, who apparently aren't – will not only be satisfied with bright lights and a cheeky nudge, but that they couldn't handle anything more.

I don't think it's a bad film. It's just not a very good one, and it's a shame Nintendo were too protective of their corporate brand to take a more interesting approach.

Edit: Worth mentioning that the only thing it does that's even close to left field – Jack Black as Bowser – is also easily the best thing about the film.

I mean… I liked it. My kids liked it. Outside of that… shrug

Please note though, that's my attitude towards a lot of movies and, indeed, stuff. I'm too tired and old for anything more these days. I just don't care enough to bother.

With the cultural cache of Nintendo at their disposal, it could – and clearly I think it should – have been able to inspire more than a lukewarm origin story that leaves audiences feeling "eh, that was fine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯".

That wasn't really my point. The point was, I don't have the energy or compulsion to come away raving, positively or negatively, about stuff. I don't see the point. Life's too short, and all I can do when I see (for instance) fanboys niggling over stupid details in a TV show that this wasn't good enough or that should have been something else is shrug and move on.

I'll watch stuff, it'll be fine, I'll do something else. I can't think of much I've watched lately where I had any real feelings about it. I guess I didn't like Black Panther 2 as much as I'd hoped, because it was a bit dull? Book of Boba was a thing I finished watching recently and don't have any particular opinions on, it was alright I suppose. I'm enjoying replaying Breath of the Wild, but I can't say I'm loving it or obsessing over what's happening. It's all just a thing to do to pass the time until the day I don't wake up any more.

I really enjoyed the D&D movie this afternoon, certainly more than I expected to! Just like a good game it was a mix of fun characters and magic items used in unexpected ways.

We've finally got tickets for Monday evening, having convinced the inlaws to take bedtime duty. At the time of writing, we're the only booked seats in the screen.

The screen I was in was very quiet. maybe 12 people?

I loved the Mario film. We went this morning to a cinema I have never been to before, it's got massive lounger chairs and loads of space and whilst I wouldn't say its rivitalised my interest in going to the cinema (the cost didn't help) its made me interested in at least returning to see the Turtles film as was actually a pleasant experience.

We've finally got tickets for Monday evening, having convinced the inlaws to take bedtime duty. At the time of writing, we're the only booked seats in the screen.

My partner and her friends want to see this, so we'll have to sort that out eventually. I suspect it's more popular here in Deutschland, given the German disposition.

Watched Quantumania. It was fine?

It didn't have a single original thought on its head - the central plot is basically the same as Tron Legacy, and the "assault the tower!" sequence reminded me a lot of the slave workers with jobs revolt in Thor Ragnarok. Some inventive visuals, though not nearly enough of them, and they're mostly frontloaded; the only production design note anybody ever got was apparently, "WEIRDER". But it's fine.

I don't get the Jonathan Majors/Kang hype, though. His performance wasn't noticeably better than anyone else, and his accent is all over the place.

"Fine" seems too high praise for Quantumania. It's so bad.

For a movie all about size, there was no sense of scale whatsoever. The editing was abysmal. It took like half the movie before anyone had a clear motive for anything (and it was overstuffed with torturous dialogue that consisted mostly of characters explicitly not telling each other anything). The effects looked cheaper than most TV shows.

I thought Majors was solid if unremarkable as Kang (apart from the embarrassing cosplay he got stuck in for the mid-credits scene), but I'm a sucker for "rage barely contained under a thin veneer of respectability" in a villain. (Majors' domestic violence charges did lend a more uncomfortable tone to the performance, though.)

But even the worst of the prior MCU entries had something to recommend them. Loki's arc in The Dark World, Sam Rockwell having a fuckin blast in Iron Man 2.

This was an absolute mess.

I'll agree that there's too much of that tropey "everyone has secrets!"/"I'm trying to protect you!" bollocks, and the script definitely needed tightening up. I didn't notice any issues with the editing, particularly; given how much was going on in the finale, I was able to keep up okay with where everyone was and what they were up to.

The one big change I think I'd have made would have been to make things more morally murky to begin with - there was a lot of scope to make Janet's past a lot more questionable, and Kang should have given his side of the story first.

I dunno, maybe I just had such a low bar set going in that it was always going to clear it; I was half-expecting, another Doctor Strange 2, but I enjoyed it.

I'd take Doctor Strange 2 over this one any day (mostly just because it looked better, to my eyes - Quantumania was the most obvious chromakey fakery I've seen in years, which may explain the generally poor performances from actors standing in a featureless box for most of their time on "set"), though I'd struggle to describe either of them as better than "functional".

We saw Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1 the other day, and I've been Thinking about it.

It's getting pretty staggering reviews, and to be clear, it is A Very Good Movie; but on balance, I think it's marginally less good than the previous two (Rogue Nation and Fallout).

My biggest issue is that it just strays a little too close to Mission: Preposterous in the plot department. Now, M:I has always stretched the limits of gadget-related believability, but - hopefully without spoiling too much - this is the most out there sci-fi it's ever been, and I struggled to suspend disbelief any time the macguffin was being discussed, which isn't helped by the fact that it's got a truly rubbish name.

Spoiler - click to showI may be being a bit hypocrticial here; the Entity is basically Samaritan from Person of Interest, which is one of my favourite TV shows. I think maybe I could stomach it a little easier in PoI because it was the foundational concept of the show, not a new thing turning up out of left-field in movie 7 of a franchise that's previously dealt with mote "traditional" spy threats, like "OMG NO, terrorists have stolen a virus/nukes!"

Also, there's a bit of retcon around how IMF works which I found slightly odd (especially as it relates to Simon Pegg's character…). I guess for all the recurring characters, callbacks, and references, the series has never been overly fond of continuity as far as IMF's structure goes.

On the positive side, though, what a cast. I mean, Cruise is Cruise, and Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames know what they're doing - but Haley Atwell is deligthful. I want to see her to just take over the whole goddamn franchise. Pom Klementieff is another highlight, playing a great villain, mostly lurking threateningly in the background, but getting to be properly scary in places (there's a bit in a narrow alley with a pipe…).

Rebecca Ferguson doesn't get nearly enough to do, though; maybe she had scheduling conflicts with Dune..?

I think I might enjoy it a little more a second time through, to be honest; the plot/macguffin cringe might be easier to ignore now that I know it's coming.

Haley Atwell is deligthful. I want to see her to just take over the whole goddamn franchise

She's the highlight of the film for me, by a mile. If she doesn't get at least one spin-off, I'll be amazed. Though around the time of Ghost Protocol, there were rumours that it would be Cruise's last M:I outing; he decided to stick around for a few more, but I'm wondering if this two-parter might be another finale for Ethan Hunt. Cruise is getting old, and even starting to look it in Fallout and this.

I agree with the plot criticisms, though. Despite the on-paper apocalyptic stakes, it's all a bit weightless in the moment. That the big villain doesn't seem to have a clear goal (different from the goodies' "get the key", despite that being only a stepping stone to something else) makes it difficult to ramp up the narrative tension on a macro level.

Anyone seen the new Turtles film? We went on Friday and really enjoyed it, so did my kid (nearly 7) although she was probably a bit young for some of it if I was honest but was desperate to go as back on a massive turtles binge.

I realise I'm likely in the minority, but I cannot f–king wait for this.

I'm admittedly a little wary to see if it's a politically dicey as my fears suggest, though.

Yeah that looks great.

I'm admittedly a little wary to see if it's a politically dicey as my fears suggest, though.

Is Godzilla a libertarian now, or something?

I rewatched Prey the other day, and liked it even more this time. It probably helped that I wasn't constantly comparing it to Predator the whole time, and just let it be its own thing.

I still think they show too much of the Predator early on, though; we shouldn't see it until Naru does.

Is Godzilla a libertarian now, or something?

Well.

The Japanese political right has a long history of downplaying or outright denying the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army during World War 2. And this isn't just historical; Shinzo Abe, who was Prime Minister until 2020, had ties to Nippon Kaigi, an ultra-nationalist lobby group with a history of revisionist positions on Japanese war crimes.

There's a certain strain of Japan-as-innocent-victim positioning that the "post-war, Japan had lost everything" title card in that trailer kinda leans towards in a way that I'm not entirely comfortable with. (See also: discourse around The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki's movie about the guy who designed Japan's WW2 fighter jet, the Zero.)

The original Godzilla in 1954 has a certain degree of this mentality as well, but in fairness to the filmmakers the country was still very much recovering from the war (and the Bombs specifically) and the US occupation (which had only ended six years earlier). When the Lucky Dragon No. 5 was caught in the Castle Bravo test fallout, there was a real sense that Japan was the only country really bearing the burden of the nuclear arms race; Godzilla as an atomic monster wreaking mindless, misdirected havoc on Tokyo was, to some degree, a manifestation of that sense of victimhood.

(This is all complicated further by the fact that a lot of the guys who made the movie served in the Imperial Army during the war in various capacities; at least two of them were actually convicted of producing propaganda, considered a war crime.)

But all of that to say, that position has a very different flavour in a movie made nine years after the Bombs dropped than it does in a movie made in 2023.

Godzilla Minus One tickets have started to go on sale! 🥳

https://godzillafilm.co.uk/

I am, let's be honest, not an impartial witness in this regard, but I'm just home from Godzilla Minus One and it was great.

I'm going to be unpacking some of it for a while (I confess I'm not entirely sure what message it was trying to get across with its post-war setting, though it was undoubtedly effective in some regards) but it's definitely in my top five for the franchise.