Movie Mini-Review Thread - Part III

[dualmeister]

LOL I have no intension of watching Shang Che.

 

[WaxLyrical]

LOL I have no iintension of watching Shang Che.

It's the Cuban remake - just dropped.

 

[FiestaST]

The Matrix Trilogy (1999 & 2003) 7.5/10 & 7/10 (X2)

In anticipation of next month's drop of the 4th installment I did a weekend (re)binge of the Matrix Trilogy & honestly it was just as good as I remembered it to be. No rose tinted glasses here, all 3 films stand up on their own & watching them in 2021 you truly appreciate how progressive the film's were for 1999 & 2003 ito of narrative & all manner of effects.

The 1st installment gets an easy 7.5/10 from me while the 2nd & 3rd installments both get an easy 7/10.

Even though all 3 movies seemingly ran on the longer side, at 2hrs+ for each film, there is very little fat to trim. Pacing & unfolding is absolutely on point.

I also truly appreciated what a fantastic job Reeves, Moss & Fishburne brought to the table.

In the immortal words of Keanu: "My body is ready" for next month.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

No Time to Die - 7/10

I've always liked Daniel Craig as 007, but I've not much liked the Daniel Craig Bond movies - Casino Royale and Skyfall being the best of them.

There was a formula for Bond films - exotic places, beautiful women, really cool gadgets, villains you love to hate, now Bond movies are just a version of Jason Bourne or Mission Impossible.

But what I miss the most is what always separated Bond from the rest, the essential Britishness of the genre. Bowler hats and black umbrellas, the idea of James being just an employee of the British Civil Service who draws a pay-check every month. And this -

PS: Naomie Harris is a terrible Moneypenny.

Incidentally I've been rewatching the whole series from the start (SO hadn't seen the earlier ones) - finished GoldenEye last night. Kinda forgot how routinely terrible many, if not most, of them are, including many of the Connery and Moore ones.

Will be interesting to see how the later Brosnan and Craig ones land for me now. GoldenEye was already significantly better than the previous couple, but those were the Dalton ones, so not a high bar.

From memory Skyfall was probably the best Bond movie for me out of all of them, by far.

 

[RanzB]

Shang Chi 6.5/10. Some really great action and the homage to Chinese cinema is real with Michele Yeoh and Tony Leung, but let down by a terribly fragmented story (and Awkwafina gets on my nerves)

The Farewell was a great little movie.

 

[wbot]

Incidentally I've been rewatching the whole series from the start (SO hadn't seen the earlier ones) - finished GoldenEye last night. Kinda forgot how routinely terrible many, if not most, of them are, including many of the Connery and Moore ones.

How dare you!

The only two Bond movies i really hate are Brosnan's terrible Die Another Day and Connery's Never Say Never Again which is not part of the main series.

Love all the others.

 

[HunterNW]

Last Man Down (2021) - IMDb

Last Man Down: Directed by Fansu Njie. With Daniel Stisen, Olga Kent, Daniel Nehme, Stanislav Yanevski. John Wood left the pieces of a broken civilisation behind, to go back to his roots in the woodland, after a virus pandemic struck the world.

www.imdb.com

What a pot kak.

 

[Cius]

Red Notice - 6.5/10

Had some laughs, mostly forgettable but not sorry I watched it either. Large portions required turning off your brain as usual for any action movie these days.

 

[cerebus]

The Farewell was a great little movie.

Yeah it was

 

[Ecco]

No Time To Die - 5.5/10

Didnt enjoy this one. Plot was all over the show. In some parts they tried to take this back to the style of the older movies, and it just didnt work for me. Overall, not a great one.

 

[dualmeister]

No Time To Die (2021) 5 / 10
They are really running out of ideas for the bad guys "evil plans". And using the nostalgia angle (i.e. the old cars) .... is actually a slap in the face if you appreciate the older Bond movies.

Old Henry (2021) 7 / 10
Would not have watched this if it wasn't for the recommendations. The "big reveal" was unexpected and pretty fun.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) 6.5 /10
Strange creepy little drama / horror.

Hypnotic (2021) 5 / 10
This horror doesn't have much going on expect Kate Siegel

 

[daveza]

Venom: Let There Be Carnage - 7/10

Entertaining escapism with a lot of laughs.

Some IMDB reviewers just expect too much.

 

[cerebus]

Rewatched Primer (2004). Love this movie so much. It's insane to think how much he was able to do with such a miniscule budget. Upstream Color is also fantastic. I really wish Shane Carruth had his shot at making a film with a decent budget. I feel like he could have been better than Christopher Nolan; or maybe not, who knows?

Edit: after some research it seems like he had a meltdown and disappeared last year. I guess that's probably the last we'll see of him. Ai....

 

[Neoprod]

Rewatched Primer (2004). Love this movie so much. It's insane to think how much he was able to do with such a miniscule budget. Upstream Color is also fantastic. I really wish Shane Carruth had his shot at making a film with a decent budget. I feel like he could have been better than Christopher Nolan; or maybe not, who knows?

Edit: after some research it seems like he had a meltdown and disappeared last year. I guess that's probably the last we'll see of him. Ai....

Google says he abused his girlfriend for years, then took an accidental picture of her restraining order against him, posted it on Twitter then went on a week-long ****-posting spree about it. What an idiot.

I be he kind of wishes he had a magic box to get into to undo all that

He self-financed 2 pretty great movies so we might see him back sometime. He seems like a good fit for A24, Focus, Sony Classics kind of companies so if he keeps his nose clean, who knows.

 

[cerebus]

Google says he abused his girlfriend for years, then took an accidental picture of her restraining order against him, posted it on Twitter then went on a week-long ****-posting spree about it. What an idiot.

I be he kind of wishes he had a magic box to get into to undo all that

He self-financed 2 pretty great movies so we might see him back sometime. He seems like a good fit for A24, Focus, Sony Classics kind of companies so if he keeps his nose clean, who knows.

Yep that's pretty much it. The really painful thing is that his two unmade screenplays (A Topiary, The Modern Ocean) are available online and by all accounts are both incredible. But he's just too unstable of a personality to get them made.

Also LOL@magic box

 

[Neoprod]

Dune (2021) 8.5/10

**** me, that was epic.

Some of the scoring is clunky, the pacing is a little uneven, Batista is a cartoon caricature and Zendaya has a dumb look on her face for the 2 minutes she's on-screen (while not in a vision).

But that fades into the background because it's just a great story told in a lush, John "spared no expense" Hammond way.

Glorious.

 

[Neoprod]

No Time To Die (2021) 5/10

Competently-made, lacks soul, humour, joy. I don't know what the filmmakers \ writers wanted people to feel watching this - it's so much nothing.

Spoiler

Even the ending which is supposed to be a gut punch feels calculated...I can't imagine any moviegoer would begrudge Daniel Craig's Bond a ride off into retirement with the newfound family after everything he's been through since Casino Royale. But no, they wanted to pull the rug out from under the audience so they contrived that ending and it feels wrong.

At least a cheesy Roger Moore Bond movie has a few laughs.

 

[Splinter]

I lost interest in Red Notice about 20 mins before the end. Was kind of ok up until then, one really funny scene but just got too tedious eventually.

That's round about where I stopped watching it last night.

Man, Red Notice is so, so bad on so many levels in terms of plot, obvious logic fails and actor chemistry.

It's really only meant for watching in brain-dead mode and a sort of, oh look at all my favorite actors and the pretty explosions and the nice photography and all the bullets flying around thing.

Had to laugh at the call out to the original A-Team series - zillions of bullets and explosions, but no-one gets killed.

 

[WaxLyrical]

That's round about where I stopped watching it last night.

Man, Red Notice is so, so bad on so many levels in terms of plot, obvious logic fails and actor chemistry.

It's really only meant for watching in brain-dead mode and a sort of, oh look at all my favorite actors and the pretty explosions and the nice photography and all the bullets flying around thing.

Had to laugh at the call out to the original A-Team series - zillions of bullets and explosions, but no-one gets killed.

This movie is apparently a hit on Netflix. They know that putting familiar faces in garbage is all they need to do and still be popular with the masses.

Red Notice - Movie Reviews

Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The definitive site for Reviews, Trailers, Showtimes, and Tickets

www.rottentomatoes.com

 

[Splinter]

This movie is apparently a hit on Netflix. They know that putting familiar faces in garbage is all they need to do and still be popular with the masses.

Red Notice - Movie Reviews

Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The definitive site for Reviews, Trailers, Showtimes, and Tickets

www.rottentomatoes.com

Yeah, I saw that. Monster hit for them it seems. But I can see why the critics panned it. It's just the star power that drags it through, as you say.

Having said that, the buddy-buddy chemistry between DJ and RR was very lacking.

I think Ryan announced a sabbatical after this movie?