jo_men_visst Reviews

Bleach (2018)

Wait, is this the correct imdb entry?

[5/10 · 30 September 2018]

On a lark I thought I'd try to watch this version of Bleach. I love anime in general but have never actually seen more than a few glimpses of this franchise even though it supposed to be in the top 3 of long running shounen jump stories, along with One Piece and Borutos Dad if I remember correctly. Ok I may not be a huge fan of the never ending battle anime genre (I tend to think that if you cannot end the story within 100 episodes you're probably just treading water) but I've seen enough to get the tropes. And as I said, I kind of randomly decided to see this movie version on netflix tonight. And...

Yeah, it kind of exists. It doesn't anger me in any way, but it doesn't wow me either. Effects were decent, I recognized characters, nothing upset me. But... It's so bland. So run of the mill. Pop idols pretending to be school kids pretending to swing giant massless weapons at monsters with no presence. And in the end status quo was achieved so they can repeat the major beats in the next part. At times it was so blatantly held back by its source that I at every 20 min beat or so expected hiragana in a corner of the frame to spell out "tsuduku"/ aka "to be continued" and that a jpop song would accompany the episode credits.

But no. They just stand there awkwardly as the next "episode" autoplays.

It's probably one of the main reasons I usually prefer the parodies of these shows (One Punch Man for example) because they can be more creative and actually subvert the expactations that we have as an audience. Do something unexpected. Something new.

But this one seem to have a checklist of all things the fans want and it checks them relentlessly. Judging by the long string of 8-10/10 reviews on here it seems it was enough. I was simply not the audience they aimed at. Or is it that the bar is set so low by the endless barrage of downright awful feature length liveaction adaptations that the fans are just happy to get one that scrapes by with simply being not offensive?

Who knows. I just wonder where the live action adaptation industry in japan are hiding the people with actual creativity? And why those guys and gals never get to make an adaptation that actually blows their audiences expactations away and are actually great? I mean, Japan has no shortage of talent. But none seem to be able to be tapped for these adaptation projects.

A Monster Calls (2016)

Curiously torn about this one. And that might be part of the point?

[7/10 · 30 September 2018]

Probably like mamy others I tend to confuse this film with Spielbergs BFG simply because of the similarities in marketing and it probably hurt its sales more than it should. Because despite my critisisms. There is a great film here.

My main gripe is how it feels not so much like a Spielberg ripoff as it feels like a director desperately wanting to be Guilermo del Toro, a filmmaker I feel is overrated in some ways himself . Things feel so heavyhanded at times that I wonder if I'll be leaving the film with my face black and blue from the bruises.

But suddenly. About the halfway point the actual goal becomes apparent. The point that sometimes kids (and adults too) just want to be punished for sins they believe they commited. And the film brings home the lesson repeatedly. "What could possibly be the point in that?" And you are forced to confront the whole reasoning behind the concept of "punishment". And as the kid wrecked a room and both grandma and father refuses the kneejerk responses we assumed were coming and instead tried to build up a broken boy instead of breaking him further. That's the point that the film suddenly went from "dear god this is tediously derivative" to something almost profound at times. At least for me.

These moments continue throughout and the lessons of not assuming that simplistic moralistic forces are at work at all times does become increasingly clear.

It's just a crying shame that interspersed between those insightful moments I was so dreadfully pained by the obvious saccharin and run of the mill family movie moments that felt more forced than natural.

In short. I just wish that the director kept his attention at what the story needed because if he did it would quickly move the score from good/great with caveats to a damned masterpiece.

All the above being said however. If you aren't as allergic to the factors I griped about I would highly recommend the film simply because I honestly think the lessons herein is humbling and worth contemplating for all ages.

The Titan (2018)

What kind of briefing did they get?

[3/10 · 29 September 2018]

The most frustrating films I've seen were frustrating not so much because they were bad. No. They are frustrating because of squandered potential.

You have this story of a man who undergoes a dangerous body-altering hail mary attempt at finding a way to make a human that can survive on one of Saturns moons... Ok. Let's ignore the glaring omission to tell us why this tech can't help us survive ON EARTH... among other things. Let's ignore that. What you have is a very interesting premise that let's you explore what a group of families would go through during a potentially traumatizing and even deadly bodyhorror transformation. The homes are set up to monitor daily lives in case things go wrong (they are essentially lab-rats after all). Everything is planned out and thought through.

Except... While they supposedly gave out health and safety manuals the size of russian novels, no psych evaluation seems to have taken place. Noone bothered to tell the subjects of not only the risks but even what they could expect if everything went as planned. They have a world class scientist among the spouses but refuse to brief her about what would happen if things were a success. Oh, and the head doctor supposedly idolizes nazi war criminals as they imply.

Why these counterproductive elements shoved into the script? Because we need drama and conflict . Nevermind that it cheapens the narrative, makes characters look moronic and is just plain distracting. We need drama. And we can only get that from shoving stupidity down audiences throats

If this story had a director like Cronenberg it could have been a harrowing emotional journey even if they never got to titan. Now? It ended up being a frustrating 90 minutes as all I saw were the interesting directions they could have gone in.

Oh... And an evolved human is still a human. We have quite a few orbital bodies around the sun which have atmospheres. If you want to swim you are probably better off going to europa. According to many futurists we probably would be better off hollowing out asteroids than terraforming planets and moons. And movies like these need science advisors if they want to be taken seriously.

In short. Like a Nolan movie (but much worse), it promises a lot but delivers on little and is to busy checking hollywood checklists to do anything interesting with a subject that is utterly fascinating if only the distracting fluff was shaved away.

Voyage of Time: Life's Journey (2016)

Malick so desperately wants to be Ron Fricke. But Baraka this is not.

[6/10 · 2 August 2018]

I knew mostly what I was in for. I've seen a few of Malicks other work. So I expected basically another glorified cinematography showreel. And for the most part that is what I got. And yes, it is stunningly beautiful.

Also, a couple of my favourite films of all time are the works of Ron Fricke. Beautiful imagery set to music and sound effects. So I'm no stranger to these "documentary" films. When they are left to their own devices they can be the closest thing to a transcendent experience that a stonehearted heathen like myself is ever going to achieve (hyperbolae, but I guess you get waht I'm getting at). This isn't the usual educational Macgivilray Freeman Docu short that usually has screentime at natural museums. So let's not expect that either.

What really holds this film (I have only been able to see the feature length Cate Blanchett version) back is essentially the narration. If Malick could just let the images speak for themselves it would not feel nearly as vapid and navel-gazing. Imagine if we had a chance to take in what we are seeing instead of hearing the interruptions of the rambling infantile questions directed at a anthropomosised mother earth. Just imagine then what kind of conclusions we could get to if not hindered by a director that, I'm starting to suspect, have some serious parental issues.

And on a smaller note I'd say that the random miniDV footage may have its place in the story that is being told. But I've seen quite a few IMAX documentaries and I suspect that in the giant screen 40 min version the miniDV is either not present at all, or if present the size of non IMAX footage is usually reduced to only a small part of the screen. This is done for two reasons, first, it lessens the dramatically pixelized and almost no dynamic range nature of the cheap miniDV. But mostly it helps contrast the grandure of the 15/65 footage. Having it as tall as the imax sourced parts does neither part any favor.

Also. It may be just me. But I feel that the character cgi wasn't as jawdroppingly seamless as the dinosaurs in Tree of Life (where we first got a real peak at this long gestating project). I see in the featurette that Douglas Trumbul wasn't the VFX supervisor, so that may be it? The space stuff is flawless but the cgi animals were surprisingly lacking in simulated weight and realism.

So yeah. Mostly jawdroppingly stunning visuals. Sound design will give a good home system a nice workout, the music is mostly christian church choirs which isn't really my thing but the main complaint is that darned nothingness of a narration.

Some films are released with separate music and effects tracks... This one would greatly benefit from a bonus feature like that!

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)

Like the usual DC animation productions

[3/10 · 2 August 2018]

As a fan of both animation and The Bat I have long wondered why Warner is so reluctant to actually want to try and deliver anything but this cheap looking tripe.

The usual is here. Uninspired designs, purposeless movement in some shots and deadeyed stiff awkwardness in the rest. Dead camera angles and radiodrama soundwork. Not to mention that the story is about as riveting as a dry wall.

One can tell that underneath all this mediocrity is a hard hitting gritty and gory retelling of The Dark Knight as the victorian era Gotham's Sherlock vs a very gruesome Jack The Ripper... But the final product feels more like an early cd rom era point n click adventure than anything worth mentioning after the credits rolled. Such a shame they refuse to do anything worthwhile with these endeavours.

Dc animation fans deserve better...

Terminal (I) (2018)

Reminds me of Black Mirror... In that I just want it to end.

[2/10 · 24 July 2018]

I loved John Wick 1 & 2. I greatly enjoyed Atomic Blonde. I love Tarantino flicks and I am excited as Guy Ritchie releases each new outing. Hell, I even greatly enjoy stories inspired by Alice in Wonerland. I've loved to watch Simon Pegg since Spaced. Mike Myers needs a comeback. And Margot Robbie makes for a stunning femme fatale.

Why do I bring this up? Well... Because, simply. This film had all the right elements. And a great cinematographer who I hope gets great gigs from this. The only thing it doesn't have... Is a script worthy of the pieces it's built around. It wants to be a clever noir filled with chocking twists and turns. But after 30 minutes all twists were severely telegraphed and by the hour mark all threads were effectively over and done with. But this director decides to wave the script in my face and prance around with endless montages of stuff we've already figured out just to show me how clever he is and... because he had to pad it out to a contractually obligated 90 minutes.

In that way it reminds me of Black Mirror. A lot of effort put into an uninspired mess. And after half of the story ImI groaning at the screen JUST BLOODY END ALREADY!

Simon Pegg was a delight as always though.

Future My Love (2012)

Makes its point loudly and clearly... and then dulls it out...

[5/10 · 3 August 2013]

These filmmakers bring up a concept of future utopia that I first heard of in the Zeitgeist films. And even in those I found these world changing ideas fascinating. But just like in Zeitgeist, the Venus-project is relegated to the sidelines as an afterthought while the film as a whole is far more concerned with musings of conspiracies (Zeitgeist) or poetics of lost loved ones and questions of gender (this one).

So it's so frustrating when there's tidbits of Venus-project that tantalize the mind with possibilities, and then the narration cuts in and bladder on about loving in moderation and gender-issues. Some may find it beautiful and poetic. I find it dulling and irrelevant. Sometimes I wonder if the filmmakers only chose the project, not because of the widening of horizons it can widen, but because of the connotations of the word Venus. Somehow missing the point.

Or, of course, it could very well be me that missed the point that they were trying to make with all of those meandering monologues. Maybe I am judging it according to a movie and message it wasn't trying to be or make... either way I think this was an opportunity so very missed.

And coming back to that message. I think what they are actually envisioning is a sequence of events curiously similar to Things To Come by H.G. Wells. Because it will take an almost insurmountable amount of trust between ideologies to go from today's economy to the Venus Utopia.

It's just a pity this film is so distracted.