Reviews

2 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
2/10
This movie parallels everything wrong with modern society
16 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I went into this movie with a cautious attitude towards it. The previous film (The Force Awakens) wasn't what I or most fans were expecting, though it did leave promise for the next film in the series to really hit the mark. The only thing this film hit, IMO, is the bottom of the barrel. Let's break out a few of the many disastrous scenes and plot elements:

The opening scene with Poe playing a joke on Hux - people around me in the theatre were asking if this was the remake to Spaceballs. Mother jokes? Really?

For the first 2/3 of the movie we have to put up with a sulky Luke who admittedly has gone to Ach-To to die. TFA teases that he went in search of the first Jedi Temple presumably in search of new knowledge about the force yet this movie pretty much tells you he already made his mind up about the Jedi after Ben betraying him and what Yoda and Obi-Wan allowed to happen to the old Jedi. Why even go to Ach-To? - he could have just picked any remote place instead. The movie tries to alter the way the force is perceived by adding shades of grey (which would be just fine) but all it really succeeds in doing is portraying that Jedi no longer need training or experience, instead just do whatever you want and all is good. Luke is portrayed as a cowardly fool who contemplates murdering his apprentice in his sleep (totally out of character for him) Then when the apprentice realizes this, he is able take down the temple around him, surviving unscathed, killing most of the students and taking the rest with him while Luke is knocked out. What happened to the ones he took with him? Where are the Knights of Ren that were talked about?

Let's talk about Snoke. First off, the character is obviously a copy from the OT of the Emperor - no originality there. But let's roll with it - maybe's he a bigger, more evil, more bad-ass character than his predecessor (they certainly made it look that way) Nope ... he's an idiot that's dispatched unceremoniously in another Spaceballs moment. Then there's Rey - with absolutely zero training she can fight like a ninja Jedi warrior and accomplished swordsperson. The extent of her training was her picking up the lightsaber and swinging it around like a kid would in the Walmart toy aisle. In the scene after Snoke dies she fights just as well as Kylo, if not better. Kylo actually seems to have difficult defeating the guards and seems to have lost his ability to use the force all of a sudden.

The original series moved at a pace that was much more believable and at least had some semblance of logic to it. Finally I thought the movie was about to redeem itself when Luke apparently showed up on Crait. The force illusion thing was cool - but then he dies after it? From what? a heart attack? lol. Awful. Now everyone sees why Mark Hamill was upset with the script. He seemingly retracted his comments, probably because he's too diplomatic and didn't want to ruin the movie for anyone.

Some critics talk about how the movie pays homage to the original trilogy. It does nothing of the sort - it copies elements from Empire and Return of the Jedi and uses them to kill off the most interesting characters in the movie in a way that slaps you in the face.

Disney is ruining Star Wars. It's all about making as much money as they can in the shortest amount of time possible. They're gonna keep pumping out new Star Wars movies full of action and plot twists to keep people "surprised". Whatever happened to well thought out stories that created a legacy for years to come? The main theme I see from this film is "Let's kill off anyone that's over 35 years old (the actual interesting characters with any amount of depth) and let whiny kids take over the universe. If you read the Aftermath novel trilogy which was created to explain some of the events in between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens it explains that Luke is off in search of knowledge of the Force. What was the point when they just decided going forward that jedi don't require training - you have power in the force? Insta-Warrior - just go ahead and do some stuff and we'll idolize you!

We live in a society of instant gratification and an attitude of younger people asserting that at 20 years old they have all the knowledge and experience of someone twice their age and it's portrayed readily in this film.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Wind River (2017)
4/10
Could have been good ...
9 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This movie had a lot of good things going for it. Great, scenic location. A good cast. A decent story to start out with. But, it's like the editor or whoever screened the story had their head in the sand when it came to big events that happened in the movie and how the audience would react. I won't even get into the FBI agent / high Native American shooting scene which didn't make any sense.

Let's talk about the climax. A group of local police officers and an FBI agent head out to a drill site to look for the boyfriend of the victim. Shortly after arriving the security at the drill site attempts to flank the cops and one of the local cops notices this and calls them out on it. Guns end up being pointed and of course the heroine (FBI agent) has to step in and calm everyone down. As soon as they put their guns down she should have arrested them on the spot. Instead she chooses not to listen to the local cop and basically almost dismisses the security guards as a threat. Of course, the security guards kill everyone but her. Fast forward to the end of the ending of the movie ... Jeremy Renner gets his revenge but nothing is even mentioned of the local police and police chief that were savagely gunned down. Also, Renner convinces the FBI agent that she wasn't just lucky to have survived. What he should have said was that she was an idiot and got the rest of her colleagues killed by not recognizing an obvious danger.

Left a bad taste in my mouth.
113 out of 193 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed