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MikeyLikesIt_357
Reviews
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
It's ok. Not great, not terrible. Just ok.
As a stand alone movie Endgame was fine, but as the penultimate conclusion to a decade-long franchise I would say it was disappointing. Some of that has to do with the fact that they had to follow up Infinity War which was such a great movie, and some of it comes from already established issues with the MCU in general. One of my biggest gripes is that, once again, they are completely inconsistent with pretty much everything:
They don't follow the original story lines much and the abilities of EVERY character wildly swings between movies. Somehow half of the Avengers were able to hold their own against Thanos when he had the gauntlet and 4 stones, but then later they fair poorly against Thanos without the gauntlet or stones. The same goes for the "Children of Thanos". They were a formidable force in Infinity War and were completely wasted in Endgame.
They relegated the two most powerful Avengers to comic relief. Look, I liked Thor: Ragnarok. I'm sure most people did, the comedy was a breath of fresh air over how serious the franchise has been. But they way over did it in this film and even worse, the comedy points were not well placed.
There are issues with the entire time travel plot. I'm not even going to go into the whole "alternate timeline" idea because I don't really understand it well and everyone else who is a theoretical physicist on IMDB already has. My issue with the plot is simply that they decided to bring back everyone and fight Thanos in the 5 years later timeline. There are many issues with un-snapping half the population of the universe 5 years later. First off, every single person on a plane or space ship when they disappeared is going to die. The same goes for the vast majority of people on boats like cruise ships or military vessels that suddenly find themselves in the middle of the ocean. But my biggest gripe here is that a sudden doubling of the population is going to have apocalyptic results across the galaxy. After 5 years every government or organization would have adapted their infrastructure to support the current population. And this would only apply to the governments that were able to "thrive" after the snap. As Black Widow said early in the film, most world governments are barely holding on. I sure hope Spiderman: Homecoming at least mentions the massive famine going on world wide.
In the end it felt like the directors were too focused on paying homage to all the different versions of the Marvel comics that have run (no matter how short) and completely threw away a decade's worth of character and story development from the films.
That's not to say that there weren't good aspects of the film. The CGI was fantastic and the acting from most of the characters was phenomenal. That definitely made up for a weak plot and poor pacing.
So, yeah, not a great movie and not a hot pile of garbage. I just wish this review was about some middle of the series movie and not the final one.
Triple Frontier (2019)
Wasted potential and typical Netflix BS
What would typically be rated as a 6 for being an average action flick was rated instead as a 4 for me because there could have been so much more to this film. Sadly Netflix continues with their policy of quantity over quality and took a good premise and great cast and simply phoned it in.
The entire second half of the movie is one long chain of improbable situations made even more unlikely by poor decisions from so-called experts.
Yet another let down from Netflix, but hey, at least they managed to shoehorn their interracial couple into a film that didn't even have a white female or black male character. So I guess they still have that going for them....
Papillon (2017)
A solid remake of a great original film
It looks like I'm going to be one of those rare reviewers that saw the original Papillon many years ago and actually liked the remake as well.
I was especially surprised at how well Hunnam and Malek portrayed the main roles. This kept true to the original for the most part and I was never left looking at my watch or phone.
What really sets this one apart, though, is the score. The music is beautiful! It helped convey emotions of despair, hope, sadness, loss all on its own. Truly a well made remake and worth the watch. I totally get what other reviewers are saying about this being unnecessary and whatnot, but believe me, you can enjoy both the original and this remake.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Great acting, but a jumbled story
I had high hopes for this film as the first Sicario was fantastic. The movie seemed to even have a solid plot at first, but about a third of the way through they just drop it completely and take up a different theme. It's almost as if they changed directors or producers part way through filming and decided to just keep what they had at that point. There was great emphasis on starting a war between the cartels that ultimately went no where. They even focused on a mysterious character that they were watching via satellite and then you never hear about that character again.
It's a shame, really, because Brolin, Del Toro and the other supporting cast really did a great job. It's just the story that was the weak point and unfortunately that can really drag down a movie.
IO (2019)
A steaming pile of bad
Boy Netflix sure is pushing the "quantity over quality" philosophy right now. They keep spamming out really terrible movies hoping that hype or misleading trailers will hook us in.
This movie is no exception. It's dull, pretentious and ultimately meaningless. Even if you ignore the usual Netflix BS about pushing climate change and their never ending love for a white girl/black guy relationship (hello, other race combinations do exist) it's still just a complete waste of time.
Honestly the worst part is just how laughably bad the science was in this. A simple 5 minute romp through Google or Wikipedia could have fixed the glaring errors on topics that are taught in High School chemistry. In this day and age of literally EVERY type of information being at your fingertips there is no excuse for the level of factual mistakes in this movie. This is especially true if you're going to try to use big words to make you sound smart.
Listen to the reviews here, people, and skip this waste of time.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Ok movie, but gives concern for the future
Don't get me wrong, I think THIS movie was more or less fine. The actors all did a good job, the CGI was good and the story was ok. I'm just really concerned that Disney will continue pumping out "ok" Star Wars movies for the next 20 years.
And that's the main fault with this movie, it was just ok. Growing up watching Star Wars I always felt that the movies were grand spectacles of that particular universe. The characters, scenes, ships and dialogue were ALL so deeply seated in the Star Wars lore that they couldn't possibly represent anything else. Solo was a pretty decent heist movie that, with a few tweaks, could have fit any generic sci-fi mold and that's NOT what Star Wars is supposed to be.
Solo never had that defining "moment" that all other Star Wars movies have had. In Rogue One it was when the Rebel fleet jumps into the Scarif system and when Vader goes all slicey dicey with the rebels. In Solo I never had that moment that made me say, "Yep, THIS is a Star Wars movie!"
I just hope Disney won't continue to pump out generic Star Wars movies that are "just ok".
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Could have been better
I'm pretty mixed about this movie. I would say that it was better overall than the first Deadpool in terms of plot, but it wasn't nearly as funny as the first.
The jokes in DP2 were a carbon copy of the original ones, but they felt too forced and fell flat more often than not. There were still scenes where I was laughing out loud, but they did not come as often as the first Deadpool. Unfortunately I think they became just a little too aware of how they could push this type of comedy and just went too far with the references and little in-jokes.
I'm also mixed on the characters. Deadpool is more or less the same, as is Dopinder and most of the other side characters. I REALLY enjoyed Cable and also thought Domino was ok. Unfortunately I was very much disappointed in how they used Negasonic Teenage Warhead. In the first movie she played a useful role as the young, nihilistic, attitudinal brat that contrasted with Deadpool's over the top exuberance. In DP2 she was only there to showcase that she was a lesbian. I'm sure there is plenty of more meaningful footage of her collecting dust on the cutting room floor, because she just felt like half a character. The same thing goes for Yukio. A completely pointless character other than as a political tool.
Overall it just felt like they took themselves way too seriously this time around. The first Deadpool was so clearly a gamble of a movie that they treated it as the character should be treated. This time around it felt more like a corporate owned studio movie that had to tick off their list of items/political commentary that they always need to cover rather than just making it a fun movie.
Captain Fantastic (2016)
Beautiful scenery, disturbing characters
It's a shame that it's so rare to have a "back to nature" movie without flooding it with radical left wing ideologies. This movie would have been great if the family had stayed in the woods and talked about nature.
Instead you quickly find that they're all sociopaths (with at least one true psychopath) they all hate capitalism while they clearly enjoy the benefits of it like most of the latte sipping lefties. Clearly this guy has set up his own little cult of followers that (had they been Christian) would have triggered mass anger from the left to the dangers of Fundamentalism.
3 stars for the beautiful nature scenes, 0 stars for everything else.
EDIT:
By the way. Subsistence living is HARD, and doing so without large arable farmland is even harder. There is no way that this small family could not only hunt and gather enough food to survive (to say nothing of vitamin deficiencies) and ALSO become experts in philosophy, biology, quantum mechanics, mountaineering, economic and political theory, and music. They would be spending the vast majority of their day simply gathering enough food to survive. This is especially true since the Pacific Northwest is most certainly not the breadbasket of the American continent.
One final note: Ever notice how the "tolerant and enlightened" leftists ONLY insult Christians? Why don't they go after Islam or Judaism? All three make up the Abrahamic religions and are very similar in the core concepts. I guess it's not trendy to insult Muslims. Either that or they don't want a Jihad proclaimed against them like Charlie Hebdo...
The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017)
Repetitive, cliched, overacted. Just not good.
Let me set up a scene for you.
Ryan Reynolds is trying to accomplish a task (picking a lock, shooting a guy, etc.) and is taking a very neurotic approach to it. He's also got a major beta white male vibe that the left so loves to force anywhere they can. Well Ryan can't cut it, so Samuel L. Jackson steps in and does it instantly with zero mistakes and zero repercussions, all the while saying "motherfucker" 10 times per minute. Ryan Reynolds says something stupid and Jackson stares at him for 2 seconds and busts out into a loud and obnoxious laugh. End scene.
Now take this scene and repeat it 20 times. Congratulations, you've just seen the entire plot of this move. No need to thank me for saving you the cost of the rental.
Blade Runner (1982)
Pretty, but boring.
I can completely understand how this film has influenced the science fiction genre as it is visually appealing and the score is outright fantastic.
Unfortunately that's where any good qualities for Blade Runner end. The plot is a Xerox copy of any noir detective novel, the characters are impossible to emotionally invest in the acting, for the most part, is bland to outright silly (seriously, Harrison Ford was NOT good in this movie), and the pacing was S-L-O-W.
Yeah there was that one speech at the end that was moving, but it really doesn't make up for the previous 2 hours of the movie that really tried to put me to sleep.
You can call me an idiot if you want, but there was a reason why this thing bombed in the theaters and there is a reason why it has been cut and re-cut half a dozen times.
The Defenders (2017)
Let Down
I tried to like this show, really I did. Daredevil was/is a great series and Jessica Jones and Luke Cage were fine as well. But Defenders just didn't seem to have any redeeming qualities. The chemistry between the characters felt forced, the pacing was haphazard and didn't allow a good flow to the story and there were too many inconsistencies.
I thought The Hand was supposed to be this big bad shadow organization. All I saw in Defenders was a bunch of cardboard characters squabbling around a table non stop. Then it seemed they were quite easy to kill or have their plans completely disrupted. And what happened to Black Sky? She was supposed to be some sort of doomsday prophesy manifested in Elektra, but all we got was a lady that was pretty good at martial arts (Hell Daredevil could hold his own against her and he's not supernatural).
Everything felt rushed and poorly planned out. It's almost like they wanted to get the first season of this series completed before the next Avengers movie or before DC could put out Justice League or something.
All this hype and potential for very little payoff.
And, please, all of you that feel the need to rabidly defend this show, it's possible for people to have criticisms or disappointment without being "haters".