Film – Page 6

Wherein there was plenty of breathing

I watched Don’t Breathe recently, which is a movie that piqued my interest when it was first released, but I never actually saw it. A film about three no-goodniks who set out to rob a blind man, I recall hearing that it was pretty good and had an interesting series of twists. So thank you, Netflix, for finally acquiring this one. I’m always happy to cross something off my To-Do list.

I wish I could say that Don’t Breathe met my expectations, but to be honest, I wasn’t really feeling it. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad movie, I think it’s mostly that I can’t maintain focus for that long while at home. I really do need to go see something in the theater to get the most out of it. Anyway, yeah, I was a little taken aback by the big plot reveals. Nothing totally out of left field, but they certainly kept it interesting. I mean, without the twists, this would have just been like a gritty, backwards Home Alone. And that wouldn’t have been good at all.

I’m going to spoil the heck out of this movie now, so maybe stop reading here if you care.

Continue reading Wherein there was plenty of breathing

Last Month in Movies – May 2018

Avengers: Infinity War – Luckily, it didn’t take me nearly as long to get to this one as it did to finally see Black Panther. Because holy cow this was probably my movie of the summer. But we’ll just have to wait and see how Solo is.

Let’s start off by saying yeah, there’s a lot going on here, and you’ve got at least a dozen movies to watch if you really want to understand what’s going on with most of these characters. But since I’ve seen them all (except Ant-Man, but he wasn’t in Infinity War) it was all good for me. To give the very most basic gist of it: you’ve got three groups of super-heroes going about their business to stop the warlord Thanos from exterminating half the life in the universe. Iron Man and friends in space out to stop Thanos at his base of operations; Captain America and friends on Earth trying to destroy Vision’s infinity gem to thwart Thanos’ plan; and Thor, Rocket, and Groot out in a different part of space on a quest to forge a weapon strong enough to defeat Thanos.

Despite having to jump back and forth between several different plot lines, Infinity War never gets muddled. A lot of characters barely get any screen time outside of fight sequences, but you expect that. I was just happy that Spider-Man and Dr. Strange got to be pretty focal characters. But speaking of focal characters, I think the most important thing to take away from this whole movie is Thanos himself. They did an amazing job of giving him a ton of personality and making him unexpectedly sympathetic even though his endgame is to exterminate 50% of all life. And it’s all in the sake of bringing “balance” to the universe, because his own home planet was destroyed by overpopulation. He’s not really evil, he’s just grossly misguided and unfortunately, has the power to achieve his goals. My knee-jerk reaction is that Thanos is probably one of my favourite movie villains of all time. Right up there with Darth Vader and Freddy Krueger.

TMNT: Out of the Shadows – I was browsing through my Netflix queue on a Friday night, and nothing there appealed to me. So instead I watched this. I think I made the right choice.

It’s the second live-action TMNT movie from Platinum Dunes, and hands down the better of the two. For one, the Turtles get a lot more screen time. Secondly, it’s got wonderful, cartoony incarnations of Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady. I also quite like Tyler Perry as Baxter Stockman. Shame they’ll never make a third movie, because I really want to see what they do with his mutated form. Anyway, this is one of those “fun summer action movies” which I guess wouldn’t grade as an Actual Good Film, but certainly I don’t regret having watched it three times now.

Deadpool – No, I hadn’t seen it until now. I know, I’m the worst. I had been meaning to forever, and only finally got around to it because a friend invited me to go to see Deadpool 2.

I liked Deadpool, but I think that too many people giving it too much praise made me go in expecting too much. Like, it was really good, but it didn’t change my life. I still think the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are the best Marvel has to offer and Thor: Ragnarok is the funniest. Also, I have no idea why being in the oxygen deprivation tube thingy made Wade’s skin all gross? Maybe I missed the line explaining it, or just don’t have the scientific knowledge, but it didn’t make any sense to me. Whatever.

I’m sorry, that’s too much complaining. Deadpool is great! Watch it!

Deadpool 2 – People seem to be pretty strongly split on it, but I am firmly in the camp that believes Deadpool 2 is highly superior to the first film. Because it is. That’s a fact.

While the first one was very good for an origin story (they’re always so formulaic), Deadpool 2 goes a long way to mix things up. …Okay, it does a few things here and there to mix things up. It still follows the typical superhero formula, but at least there are a few surprises along the way. Like how the whole X-Force thing plays out. I honestly didn’t see that one coming. And now I’ve kind of spoiled it for you by even saying that something unexpected happens. Whoops!

Anyhow, this movie obvious shines brightest through its sense of humour. The jokes are fast and furious, as expected, and there are plenty of great fourth-wall breaks. In particular, I was happy that there was finally a little payoff for DP whining about how there are never any X-Men besides Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Xavier’s mansion. And the mid-credits scenes… ah, beautiful! Yes, you may have heard some internet rumblings about some “fridging” issues, but to that I say… whatever. It’s not like it turned the movie into a clichéd quest for revenge. It broke Deadpool with guilt and pushed the plot along by making him be an even bigger jerk than usual. But that’s a whole other can of beans. For now, just know that I highly recommend Deadpool 2.

My Friend Dahmer – Somehow, Saturday evening has become a time where my mother and I watch movies together. Which is fine, except for our tastes couldn’t be any more different.

This is the story of Jeffery Dahmer, infamous serial killer and cannibal. Except it’s not really about all that stuff. It’s about how he was in high school. And, I wish I had know that ahead of time, just so that I knew nothing was really going to happen. My mom also wishes she knew, because she never would have even watched the film in the first place.

I don’t think it’s bad. It’s an interesting look at how this guy was before he was a monster. And he was still a big ol’ weirdo, though mostly in ways that wouldn’t make you think he’s someone to be afraid of. At least until later on when he starts being preoccupied with what people an animals’ insides look like. I do wonder how much of this is factual and how much was played up to make a more captivating movie. In either case, it made me wonder how Dahmer would have turned out if he’d had a more stable family life. You know, nature versus nurture and all that. But I guess that’s why it’s a debate; we’ll never really know which way the other path would have gone.

Last Month in Movies – April 2018

Bad Moms -This happened because my mom and I were bored of waiting for a hockey game to end before people would come play board games with us. In my defense, I was playing Switch the whole time and was in the room mostly to keep mom company.

Bad Moms was terrible. It’s the story of how Mila Kunis is tired of being an overworked and underappreciated mom, and also her husband left her. So she starts spending more time trying to get boned and hanging out with other moms who feel the same way. Then there’s some kind of subplot about how she wants to be head of the PTA so she can control the soccer team or whatever, and runs on a platform of “I am going to half-ass this job” and “we’re all terrible parents so vote for me” which made no political sense at all.

I think the movie exists just to see if they could make a movie that used every known euphemism for vagina. Its only saving grace was Kristen Bell, because Kristen Bell is always a treat.

Continue reading Last Month in Movies – April 2018

Last Month in Movies – March 2018

Arrival – A science fiction movie about aliens but also not about aliens. It’s really about the main character, who just happens to stumble into a situation that involves aliens.

We open up to linguistics expert Louise, who has apparently recently lost a child to cancer or something, and then she is scooped up by the feds when alien ships start appearing around the world. Her job is to find a way to communicate with the extra-terrestrials, who look kinda like massive squids. Over the course of the film, she is teamed up with Jeremy Renner as they race against the clock to discover what the aliens want before other countries decide to declare war on the alleged “invaders.”

I want to say that this movie blew my mind -and it sort of did- but I couldn’t help feel that I’d seen this story before. And then I realized that it’s more or less the same story as… you know what, I can’t tell you what novel it rips off without giving everything away. Obviously it has plenty of unique plot elements, but there is an undeniably strong similarity to a very well-known novel. Regardless of this, I really enjoyed Arrival. It poses a number of interesting moral questions, and Amy Adams is just excellent. It made me think and feel, and that’s really enough to get a passing score from me.

Lovesick – My family nearly always gets together on Saturday nights to have dinner and play board games together. One week, my brothers abandoned ship, and my parents and I were left to find something to do. My mom decided we would watch a movie together, and this happened.

Lovesick is a story about how Matt LeBlanc ruins any meaningful relationship he has by getting super jealous and creating wild fantasies about how his girlfriends must be cheating on him. Otherwise, he is a perfectly well-adjusted adult and a highly respected member of the community. So his jealously is written off as him literally being insane. I don’t know if this jealousy psychosis is a real thing or a terrible plot device, but it made for a very by-the-numbers rom-com. The most unexpected thing that happened is that they cast Chevy Chase as the perverted old neighbour. Come to think of it, maybe that’s not so unexpected after all. Anyway, this movie is terrible. Obviously. Don’t watch it.

Justice League – I honestly had no idea what to think about this one going in. I mean, I’m going to watch all the superhero movies with my dad, for better or for worse. But the pedigree is so mixed. Batman v. Superman was pretty bad, but Wonder Woman was fantastic, so.

It seems like in this case, at least, it turned out pretty well. Justice League isn’t exactly on par with Wonder Woman, but it’s definitely moving in the right direction. And that direction, I’d like to point out, is levity. While DC has mostly put all their money on grimdark serious superhero movies up to this point, Justice League is pretty funny. Ezra Miller as the Flash was hilarious, and Gal Gadot is as charming as ever. The constant pokes at how useless Batman is against bigger threats than your average super-criminal were a nice touch, too. Not because I dislike Batman, but because I can’t wait for them to retire crappy ol’ Ben Affleck.

One thing that drove me nuts is that I’m pretty sure the whole movie was in CG except for the actors, like 300 or Sky Captain. But in a way that everything had to be wildly exaggerated, rather than just doing it for the sake of artistry. It was like, at some points I wasn’t even sure if some of the characters’ costumes were real or CG’d on in post. At the very least, it was a resplendent film for the most part, filled with so much colour and vibrance that I really couldn’t be that put off that it was all fake. Regardless, after watching Justice League, I’m more interested in the DC cinematic universe’s future than I have ever been.

Tomb Raider – My experience with Tomb Raider to this point is minimal. I’ve played the first few hours of the original game and Tomb Raider: Legacy. Never seen the previous movies. In fact, I don’t even know how many there are. Two? Seven?

This new movie, I didn’t even know existed until several days before it released. I don’t know if it’s just me who is totally out of touch (likely), or if there was a severe lack of marketing for it (also likely). It’s based on the 2013 reboot of the game series, which I’ve never played, despite having owned the game for like four years now. So I knew very little about it. And guess what, I think that made me like the movie more than I would have otherwise! That’s not to say that I thought it was especially great, but it’s absolutely on the short list of Good Video Game Movies.

I was a little confused when they spent the first 40 minutes or whatever in London, establishing that Lara Croft is a poor bike courier. Except that she is actually rich, she just doesn’t want to accept her inheritance because it means she’s accepting her father’s death. But then she sailed off to a mystical island and met a bunch of bad guys and then they all raided a tomb. Like you do. The one thing I strongly disliked about this film is that it builds up a potential for magic all along and then completely deflates it. And that makes me sad because if magic doesn’t exist in this world, then the potential for tyrannosaurs is significantly lowered.

Last Month in Movies – February 2018

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters – An anime movie made for Netflix, apparently because Toho isn’t allowed to make a live-action Godzilla until Hollywood’s done with their movies. Also, the first of three!

This movie begins with the remnants of humanity floating through space, after having been chased off of Earth by Godzilla and scores of other monsters. But with supplies dwindling and no prospects for another habitable planet, the plan ends up being to turn around and go back to Earth. After all, time dilation has caused time on Earth to advance roughly 9 thousand years for the eleven years that the people on the ship have experienced. Godzilla has to be long dead, right?

Obviously, Godzilla is not dead, and so begins an operation to expose and destroy his weak point. It’s really convoluted and incredibly padded down with anime/sci-fi jargon, but whatever. It’s still a unique plot for a Godzilla movie, and I dig it. Not as much as I dug Shin Godzilla, but it was still good. I think the only thing that I actively disliked was the 3D animation. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it just didn’t quite work for me. Mostly because despite the fancy animation, it held true to the anime trope of not much actually being animated besides mouths and special effects. Oh well.

Continue reading Last Month in Movies – February 2018

Monster Hunter World: (could be) The Movie

In the review I posted a few days ago, I made note that Monster Hunter World has a much more engaging story than any previous game in the series. While it’s been fun to follow as I play through the game, I don’t know if MonHunWorld’s story will stick with me at all after the fact. Lord knows that I have no idea what any of the other games’ stories were about any more. What I do know, however, is that this plot is scores better than the plot that I’ve read for the upcoming Monster Hunter movie.

First of all, let’s look at a brief summary of Monster Hunter World’s plot. It begins with your hunter, part of the Fifth Fleet, travelling to an island called the New World. Your fleet is part of the bigger Research Commission, who are in the New World to investigate a phenomena wherein elder dragons cross the seas to the New World every ten years. The particular monster you’re tracking is Zorah Magdaros, a gigantic turtle-like creature that wears a volcano as a shell. Throughout the course of the game, you follow tracks of Zorah Magdaros (though how something that big manages to elude the Commission, I cannot explain), learning about the New World and the creatures that inhabit it. At the midpoint, you learn that the elder dragons migrate to the New World because it’s their final resting place. But Zorah Magdaros has a massive amount of energy built up inside of it, and if it happens to reach the heart of the island when it dies, the release of that energy will incinerate the entire place. For some reason. I’ve already forgotten why exactly. Because it’s going to take a dip in the lifestream or something.

This all leads up to an exciting climactic showdown where the Commission tries to block Zorah from the lifestream or whatever, diverting it back out to sea where it can expire harmlessly. It’s actually a really great setpiece, and makes for a very entertaining climax in the game. There’s cannons, a really big ship with a giant mechanical spear weapon in the hull, and a happy ending. Putting all that on the big screen would probably be pretty neat too. The story actually does continue afterward, but it’s into another mystery that isn’t strictly necessary to get across the point of the Zorah Magdaros story arc. So let’s call it there.

Now, as far as the proposed movie goes, the first strike is that it’s being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. You might know this fella as the man responsible for all those Resident Evil movies that everyone hates. According to buzz on the internet, his script “would involve an American being dragged into the parallel universe that the Monster Hunter series is set in, learning how to fight monsters, and having to deal with the situation when monsters cross back into the real world and start attacking, such as a final climactic battle at Los Angeles International Airport.”

So basically it’s Space Jam.

Normally I like to try to be more positive about upcoming media. It’s really entitled to damn something before the final product is ready. But I really don’t care for this particular brand of the fish-out-of-water story. Especially because there’s no need for it. Why do we need to tie this into the real world? The fantasy world of Monster Hunter is so rich and interesting on its own, it would be a disservice to only give it half a spotlight to placate Average Moviegoer. Or at least, I’m assuming you would go that route so that people who don’t play Monster Hunter have a point-of-view character that they can relate to. You could also write the story this way because it’s a great way to completely avoid have to be creative and write an actual story. But hey, who am I to judge?

Anyway, that’s my little spiel for today. Just something I felt like I needed to rant about. Regardless of how uninspired the plot my be, I’ll still go see a Monster hunter movie. I really just wanna see those monsters up on a giant screen.

Ugh… Now that I say that, I just realized that there will probably be some Hollywood re-designs of the monsters. That’s… I’m not looking forward to that.

Last Month in Movies – January 2017

Star Wars: The Last Jedi – It was absolutely everything I wanted it to be and more, though it still pains me deeply to even consider that there could be a superior Star Wars movie to Empire Strikes Back. It’s seriously wreaking havoc on my list of favourite Star Warses.

While I’m sure that nobody but Future Me reads this blog, I still feel it’s necessary to avoid spoilers. So here are, in vague terms, a few things I really liked about the film: the way Luke Skywalker was handled, especially towards the end. The strong use of vibrant colours, red in particular. The reveal, and identity, of Rey’s parents. Thrilling space combat!

Quite frankly, I really appreciate that the film was constantly zigging where I was expecting it to zag. I was surprised on multiple occasions, and I think that there was only one thing that made me cock my head to the side and wonder if that was the best choice. I’m pretty sure you’ll know exactly what I mean if/when you’ve seen it. Otherwise, yeah! Awesome movie!

Suicide Squad – Speaking of movies that surpassed my expectations, this one sure did! Not so much because I personally didn’t think that I’d like it, but it seems to me that the fan/critical reception was middling at best. Also, after Batman V Superman… It’s hard to trust DC movies.

I was a little worried at first, because it was slow going and it seemed like half the run time was going to be explaining the backstories of all four hundred characters. But it picked up quickly and I really got into it. Maybe a little formulaic in execution, but I liked where all the characters went, and the acting out of most of them was really great. It makes me real excited for the possibility of a Joker and/or Harley Quinn movie. Less so for Deadshot. He’s just Will Smith being Will Smith, but a bad guy this time.

I wish that I had more to say about Suicide Squad, as this feature is awfully light this month. I guess they could have used Killer Croc or Captain Boomerang a little bit more. Or just cut them completely because neither one made a lick of difference to the story. Oh well, maybe next time.

Commence countdown

I know that I’ve mentioned it before, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually embedded the trailer for the film adaptation of Annihilation. So… here it is. Watch and get hype! Less than a month to go!

BTW, though I put it down for a while about halfway through because… probably because I started taking my Switch to work to play on lunch break, I finally finished the third book in the Southern Reach trilogy, Acceptance. It was really, really good. Better than Authority, maybe not quite as good as Annihilation. There’s definitely more going on, and you actually get a few answers about what’s happening in the story, but overall it just wasn’t as absorbing. Still great!

Last Month in Movies – December 2017

Patchwork – Important disclaimer: this is a Canadian movie, so keep you expectations to a reasonable level. Whenever I give an opinion on it, reduce that opinion’s weight by about thirty percent. And then make any other necessary adjustment on personal taste.

Patchwork is a film about three women who have been chopped apart, and then put back together as a sort of Frankenstein’s Monster. Except somehow all three of their minds inhabit the body. And somehow the creature’s head is normal-sized. I dunno, maybe two of the brains are in the boobs? I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s a horror-comedy, so it’s obviously not going to bother making perfect sense.

The film then follows the three-as-one ladies, who decide to track down whomever it was that is responsible for their current situation. To that end, they go on a bloody rampage of murdering everyone that might have been involved. This story is intercut with scenes of each of the women’s lives the night before they all got mashed into one, giving you a little glimpse into their backstories and personalities. There is a bit of a twist in this one, and I thought it was a pretty good one. It’s hinted at very strongly about halfway through, but I think the gradual reveal was fairly effective.

But is the movie good? That’s… I can’t see Average Joe/Jane getting much out of it. I certainly liked it, but probably not enough to recommend it. The horror was almost all centered around the “three people sewn together” premise, but it was significantly less disturbing than say, The Human Centipede. The comedy was light, at best. There were plenty of moments that I thought were funny, but not once did I laugh out loud. I think that the strongest praise I can give Patchwork is that it held my attention from beginning to end. No pause breaks to go do something else for a while. No phone or Switch to keep me otherwise occupied. Just me and the film for an hour-thirty.

Die Hard – Do I need to… I mean, you know this. It’s Die Hard. My second-favourite Xmas movie of all time. (The top spot goes to Gremlins.)

Krampus – Well, I watched the middle of it, anyway. From the point where the Jack-in-the-Box eats the daughter to the point where the gingerbread men start attacking. It had to be turned off then because small, easily-frightened children arrived, and I really only included it on this list because I needed some filler.

I can’t remember if I wrote anything the first time I watched Krampus, and I don’t care enough to check. I would place it squarely in the “perfectly average” category. I love the creature effects and obviously this is my favourite genre of film, but it’s just so formulaic that I can’t give it full points. There were literally no surprises in the plot. Maybe the fact that the daughter got eaten for real right away. I figured she’d somehow make it. Also I just don’t like David Koechner.

Book reporting

I finished reading The Forever War again this afternoon. Probably still my favourite book. At the very least, I can’t think of another book that I like more off the top of my head. Maybe if I take a good long look at my bookshelf. But probably not. The Forever War is just so great. Why is it that Hollywood sinks so damn much money into tween-bait garbage like Twilight and Maze Runner but can’t get a big-screen version of this off the ground?

Ah, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Maybe for the best, even. I finally watched the trailer for Annihilation a couple days ago and it looks nothing at all like the book. The broad strokes, I guess, but it seems like it’s mainly adapting Annihilation while taking parts from Authority, and also just making up a whole bunch of other stuff to fill in the blanks and make it more mainstreamey. Whatever. I’ll still be there on opening night.

Anyway, yeah, The Forever War. It’s real good. I almost think I should re-read it again right away.