Movie reviews
Feb. 4th, 2018 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatBeen binge-watching movies on HBO. I decided to do a 7-day free trail of the HBO streaming service, which is the same price as HBO Now, but a heck of a lot better.
Outside of "Get Out", which was the best of the bunch.
1. Kong: Skull Island -- which I watched mainly for the cast, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, and the lead from Longmire, who had a walk-on role.
It's not very good. Shame, had potential. Also the only Kong flick that veered away from the prevalent sexism and racism of the original ones. It's still slightly sexist, just not as bad as the original -- which admittedly wouldn't be hard.
Not much character development, and way too much emphasis on CJI monsters. But hey, monster movie.
The monsters weren't that bad, well except for the Giant Spider, that I fast-forwarded over. Because I don't do giant spiders.
Tom Hiddleston didn't have much to do. Wish someone would just cast him as Lymond in a television version of the Lymond Chronicles -- he's perfect for the role. Give the man stuff to do, please.
Thank you.
The emphasis of the film or theme was man vs. nature, and letting nature win. Or not interfering with stuff you don't understand. With King Kong as the hero, and Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman as rather layered and sympathetic villains. Actually the real villians were skull-like lizards.
The only character who gets any development or follow-through is John C. Reilly's character -- it's actually his movie, which was interesting and bit innovative. He plays a WWII pilot who got trapped on the island with Japanese pilot at an early age. They find him, and the suspense is whether he'll make it off the island.
2. Split -- starring James McAvoy and Betty Buckley by M Night Shalaman. It's not very good.
I was bored during most of it. And the twist seemed a bit lame. Also, it's apparently supposed to be part of M Night Shamalan's Unbreakable movie verse. (Which made sense.)
I've admittedly only liked two M Night Shalaman films "Unbreakable" and "The Sixth Sense", which are the two films that featured Bruce Willis in a starring role. I own Unbreakable -- mainly because it is a brilliant commentary on superheroes and villians and how they create each other. Also, Samuel L Jackson is amazing in it.
This one is a thriller about a psychopath with a split personality (24 personalities) who kidnaps three teen girls and threatens to feed them to the beast (the 24th personality). Betty Buckely is the therapist treating him.
Another film that makes me want to strangle evil white men. McAvoy is good in it. So's Buckley. But other than that, the film drags, and its hard to care about the three girls, who aren't really developed that much, except for one girl -- who falls into the last girl standing trope in horror films.
Although Shalaman subverts the trope a bit, she survives because the bad guy realizes that she's torn and broken like him, therefore pure. (She'd been abused over time by her uncle and has marks on her body.)
3. Suicide Squad - by Zack Synder, starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto and Viola Davis, among others. Like most Snyder films it's heavy on dark painted visuals. Also the action sequences aren't bad. But I found it busy and overly cheesy in places.
Robbie's Harley Quinn and Will Smith's Deadshot are by far the most developed of the characters. We get snippet back stories of the others. But most of the time is split between them, and with such a large cast -- this doesn't quite work. Also, considering the central love stories are Nick Flagg and Dr. June Moon (who is possessed by an ancient being called the Enchantress), Harley Quinn and the Joker, and Deadshot and his daughter...it doesn't quite work that we get little to no development of Flagg and Moon. I should have cared more about Moon and Flagg than I did. And the casting of both was lackluster.
They spent way too much time on the Joker and Harley Quinn. (It's worth noting that I've only appreciated two versions of the Joker, Mark Hamill's voice work of the cartoon version, and Heath Ledger's take on it in The Dark Knight. Everyone else goes a bit too far with the crazy and is just annoyingly silly as a result. Leto got on my nerves. I also have only liked three versions of Batman, Christian Bale, Micheal Keaton, and Kevin Conroy. Ben Affleck isn't bad -- he's better than Val Kilmer, Adam West, and George Clooney...but nowhere near the other three.)
Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn got on my nerves after a bit too -- which is a problem, because she's the heart of the film and its central focus outside of Smith's Deadshot. Smith almost saves the film as does Viola Davis, but not quite.
I can see why the critics hated it.
Shame, the idea had plenty of potential -- Deadshot, Doc Croc, Harley Quinn, Katana, Nick Flagg, some sort of burning death guy, Boomerang, all go off to save the world from the evil enchantress and her brother -- after Amanda Waller their handler underestimates the enchantress' ability to break her control over her.
I actually think "Arrow" did the Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad storyline better in its second or third season. To date the DC verse has been better served by its television series than the movies. Maybe because the television series have to be more innovative, they can't rely on the standard Superman/Batman tropes -- which the movies own.
5. Now as a palate cleanser, sort of watching Australia again...the film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and a lot of Australian actors.
Outside of "Get Out", which was the best of the bunch.
1. Kong: Skull Island -- which I watched mainly for the cast, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, John C. Reilly, Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, and the lead from Longmire, who had a walk-on role.
It's not very good. Shame, had potential. Also the only Kong flick that veered away from the prevalent sexism and racism of the original ones. It's still slightly sexist, just not as bad as the original -- which admittedly wouldn't be hard.
Not much character development, and way too much emphasis on CJI monsters. But hey, monster movie.
The monsters weren't that bad, well except for the Giant Spider, that I fast-forwarded over. Because I don't do giant spiders.
Tom Hiddleston didn't have much to do. Wish someone would just cast him as Lymond in a television version of the Lymond Chronicles -- he's perfect for the role. Give the man stuff to do, please.
Thank you.
The emphasis of the film or theme was man vs. nature, and letting nature win. Or not interfering with stuff you don't understand. With King Kong as the hero, and Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman as rather layered and sympathetic villains. Actually the real villians were skull-like lizards.
The only character who gets any development or follow-through is John C. Reilly's character -- it's actually his movie, which was interesting and bit innovative. He plays a WWII pilot who got trapped on the island with Japanese pilot at an early age. They find him, and the suspense is whether he'll make it off the island.
2. Split -- starring James McAvoy and Betty Buckley by M Night Shalaman. It's not very good.
I was bored during most of it. And the twist seemed a bit lame. Also, it's apparently supposed to be part of M Night Shamalan's Unbreakable movie verse. (Which made sense.)
I've admittedly only liked two M Night Shalaman films "Unbreakable" and "The Sixth Sense", which are the two films that featured Bruce Willis in a starring role. I own Unbreakable -- mainly because it is a brilliant commentary on superheroes and villians and how they create each other. Also, Samuel L Jackson is amazing in it.
This one is a thriller about a psychopath with a split personality (24 personalities) who kidnaps three teen girls and threatens to feed them to the beast (the 24th personality). Betty Buckely is the therapist treating him.
Another film that makes me want to strangle evil white men. McAvoy is good in it. So's Buckley. But other than that, the film drags, and its hard to care about the three girls, who aren't really developed that much, except for one girl -- who falls into the last girl standing trope in horror films.
Although Shalaman subverts the trope a bit, she survives because the bad guy realizes that she's torn and broken like him, therefore pure. (She'd been abused over time by her uncle and has marks on her body.)
3. Suicide Squad - by Zack Synder, starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto and Viola Davis, among others. Like most Snyder films it's heavy on dark painted visuals. Also the action sequences aren't bad. But I found it busy and overly cheesy in places.
Robbie's Harley Quinn and Will Smith's Deadshot are by far the most developed of the characters. We get snippet back stories of the others. But most of the time is split between them, and with such a large cast -- this doesn't quite work. Also, considering the central love stories are Nick Flagg and Dr. June Moon (who is possessed by an ancient being called the Enchantress), Harley Quinn and the Joker, and Deadshot and his daughter...it doesn't quite work that we get little to no development of Flagg and Moon. I should have cared more about Moon and Flagg than I did. And the casting of both was lackluster.
They spent way too much time on the Joker and Harley Quinn. (It's worth noting that I've only appreciated two versions of the Joker, Mark Hamill's voice work of the cartoon version, and Heath Ledger's take on it in The Dark Knight. Everyone else goes a bit too far with the crazy and is just annoyingly silly as a result. Leto got on my nerves. I also have only liked three versions of Batman, Christian Bale, Micheal Keaton, and Kevin Conroy. Ben Affleck isn't bad -- he's better than Val Kilmer, Adam West, and George Clooney...but nowhere near the other three.)
Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn got on my nerves after a bit too -- which is a problem, because she's the heart of the film and its central focus outside of Smith's Deadshot. Smith almost saves the film as does Viola Davis, but not quite.
I can see why the critics hated it.
Shame, the idea had plenty of potential -- Deadshot, Doc Croc, Harley Quinn, Katana, Nick Flagg, some sort of burning death guy, Boomerang, all go off to save the world from the evil enchantress and her brother -- after Amanda Waller their handler underestimates the enchantress' ability to break her control over her.
I actually think "Arrow" did the Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad storyline better in its second or third season. To date the DC verse has been better served by its television series than the movies. Maybe because the television series have to be more innovative, they can't rely on the standard Superman/Batman tropes -- which the movies own.
5. Now as a palate cleanser, sort of watching Australia again...the film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and a lot of Australian actors.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-05 01:32 pm (UTC)Can't say I liked either. And will most likely skip the sequel.
Disagree on Amanda Waller being the obvious villain. Actually, I saw the villains as being the Enchantress and the Joker. But then I didn't see Split as a supervillian orgin tale so much as a cheap serial killer story trying to look cool.