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Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire (2017)
A deserved third best.
Having watched all the Dragonheart movies so far, the ranking for me goes like this now:
1. Dragonheart
2. Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer's Curse
3. Dragonheart (4): Battle for the Heartfire
4. Dragonheart (2): A New Beginning
5. Dragonheart (5): Vengeance.
The CGI is fantastic in this movie and trumps the first even. (Alright it's fantastic by Dragonheart standards). I was genuinely surprised by how good the dragon and various spells and effects looked, heartfire and all. The dragon gets a lot of screen time in this movie too, which is very welcome.
This also means a lot of the budget went on said CGI. But I'm glad for that. The set pieces and costumes were also good, but scale was often a bit out, sometimes a town looks massive and there seem to be maybe 15 inhabitants in total. They should've used the CGI for extra people maybe.. -1 star
The story, at its core, is quite engaging. A tale of twins marked at birth, unbeknownst to the dragon they're bonded to.
The writing, on the other hand is very unpredictable in quality. It actually has very good moments, then suddenly just becomes below-average for a time, then peaks again. No joke, there are some good lines in this movie. But then the writers take a couple days off. -1 star
The dragon, Drago, is written well and Patrick Stewart's voice is just great. The second best dragon in the series I'd say. Now the writers did have trouble keeping Drago a dragon. There are points in the movie where you'd think he was a man from how clumsy he is or how he loses a fight. It's very weird... but thankfully like the rest of the story, he has his strong moments to make up for it. -1 star
The feminism half-way through the movie slows it to a crawl and feels like it does make some form of sense with the story, so maybe if it was done with a bit more humour and wasn't so baked into the main story, it could've worked. -1 star.
The music is alright. It's pretty sparse and suddenly appears out of nowhere here and there, but it's good enough.
Overall, an enjoyable movie for Dragonheart fans, for others, it depends on whether or not you can stomach some bad dialogue here and there. There are good moments to be had.
Dragonheart: A New Beginning (1999)
"What is that? Music! I like music!"
The budget's might really didn't uphold this weak sequel.
The writing is abysmal. It gets marginally better near the end before tumbling down the cliff it had almost climbed out of. -2 stars
The CGI feels like something out of the stop-motion likes of Jason and the Argonauts from 60 years ago. Had this been made in the 70s or even the 80s this would've been impressive, but 1999 by a big company? No way. It is depressingly bad, especially when compared to the original. -2 stars
The set pieces and costumes look cheap-ish but generally OK. -1 star
The acting is just about passable (main antagonist and a martial arts warioress are highlights) but the writing ruins every character anyway and the casting could have been miles better. -1 star.
The story. There's a part of me that tries to ignore all the bad to see the ideas they had, at least. The story of a peasant that befriends a dragon reminds me of Eragon, one of my favourite fantasy book series of all time (not the movie, the books). It isn't executed at all well in this ovie though. The way he finds the dragon, the character progression, the way the bond together, it seems so quickly put together with no thought. The story does have some humour though, so I'll give it that. And I did still want to see how it ended. Oh yes and then there is a very random from foreigners from the "East". Odd addition but welcome. 0 stars taken
The music is very much an inspired version of the first. Feels like it was over-played at some points where the music was either not needed or a different would've been better, but the music is good. 0 stars taken here
Overall this movie is quite terrible. But if you liked the first and want to see where they tried to go with it with little to no budget, expecting cringe and only a tiny bit of usable story, you may somewhat enjoy this movie. 4/10.
DragonHeart (1996)
16/16 stars. How is the writing this good?
There are few movies I have watched where the writing makes me genuinely smile every few minutes. I hope it's not just me.
Ignoring a girl randomly falling from whatever-the-f to kick off the main story and bouncing dragon flames, this has got be one of my favourite all-time movies.
The filming style is very of its time which also makes the effects extra real to me. Nothing better than a bit of blur to mask the effects. The set and costume designs are also well done.
However, the acting, writing and story here is the main attraction for me. Every part played feels like it is important in the movie, even if it feels silly or stupid at first. There are so many instances where I'm either pleasantly surprised by the dialogue or just smile because a response was good or something turned out differently than how I expected (not something that happens often with newer movies). Each character has their own talking style and it just makes everything more interesting
I watched this today after probably years since my last watch, and I have to say the Old Code and many lines/one-liners in this movie made more of an impact on me than newer movies I've watched recently.
So yeah, this movie gets 16/16 stars. You'll get why when you watch the movie :)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Deserves the positive reviews.
I was surprised reviewers here who didn't like the movie, also parents of young kids, claim that the positive reviews are bots. It's fine to dislike a movie, but there's no need to brush off those who didn't like that.
The characters are great, even though there are quite a few! They're all given a reason to exist in the movie and I never felt like there was one just there for filler material. Not to mention each had a nice character arc that fulfilled unexpectedly at the end. The secondary antagonist is a pretty average one that you probably won't be surprised by, however, he adds more action scenes to the movie, which is surely welcome to people who need that.
The primary antagonist in this movie may be one of my favourites of all time. It's nice to see an antagonist that isn't driven by greed, power, revenge or love, for once. Something different is always welcome
The animation and the art style are also great. I can see why some find the more anime-style sequences grating, but I personally feel they add character to the fight scenes. The environments are beautifully realised here (the environment changes too.. very, very often)
The writing was stellar. Some pretty good jokes and a lot of "heh, that was clever" moments. I ended up being quite invested in each character in the end, especially due to the writing. The appearance of different fairytale characters here and there is fun too. One of my favourite lines was "you promised us our our weight in gold".
Also props to Dreamworks for making possibly the least annoying sidekick in one of their movies of all time!
Would recommend to watch. It wasn't too hot. It wasn't too cold. It was just right.
Héraðið (2019)
Brilliant.
I have seen some reviewers expecting this to be a comedy and I was quite surprised. Maybe this is due to a trailer or marketing.
I saw this on at a local film festival and had no prior knowledge of it, so I wasn't expecting any particular genre. Simply put, without that comedic expectation, this movie is excellent, well acted and filmed, with some fantastic sound design and music (and suspense-filled silence too)
The story, revolving around Inga's battle against corruption by a certain company in her country, is well paced, with some very well placed humour and suspense. All the other characters are great too. Most importantly, all of them are believable. None feel fake or over-acted or badly written.
Importantly to me, though, the main character, Inga... isn't a woman for the sake of it. This isn't a feminist focused movie trying to make Inga out to be 'powerful' or 'brave' or anything like that. She's portrayed as a normal human being who falls on hard times and is sick of it. This just makes her all the more lovable!
Overall an excellent movie. Go watch it.
Downsizing (2017)
Worst movie I have ever seen.
Decided to go to the movies with a friend when it came out and decided to choose between two movies. To this day I still wish I'd chosen the other one....
First of all is the tone. It's all over the place, under the place, in between places. This movie tries to be a comedy, a tragedy, a disaster movie, a rom-com, a drama, satire, serious, comical... I can't list more as I simply don't know what others it was (it's a few years ago I watched this. Only reviewing now) but I remember having tears in my eyes when the credits began rolling because I was so confused and genuinely unhappy. No other film has made me this down after.. not horror movies, not dramas. I've cried because of how sad or beautiful an ending was, but not this. It's truly awful
Next is the trailer. One of the main reasons I convinced my friend to watch it was because "the trailer looked cool". The trailer is massively different from what the film eventually becomes. It's misleading and falsely joyful.
Next is the plot. To put it simply, it's a science fiction comedy turned climate change critique. Let's just say both are equally awkward and cringey and neither are well carried out.
Matt's acting can be good, but that's the only good thing about this movie. Please avoid at all costs as it's not even "so bad it's good". I'll never forget the 2 hours my friend and I wasted on this. I hope I will sometime...