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Reviews
The Lost City (2022)
The real treasure is the bits we did along the way
This is a genre parody. Don't expect ground breaking plot or setting. The opening 15 minutes were packed with enough clues that we were dealing with a witty script that we broke our the snacks and settled in. Everybody is having fun in this movie from the writers to the cast to the designers of the generic Atlantic island. The moment it started my wife and I were placing bets on the rest of the story beats and by and large it proceeded along the genre's path, but there were some delicious twists on how characters should behave in this genre. Those who think the plot is a bit dumb and shallow---of course it is, it fits the theme of her being a romance writer. The movie is dumb but not patronising. The physicality of all the leads was a treat to behold.
Hell or High Water (2016)
"slow down!" "I ain't speeding"
This is really a study in characters and in character. We open with a small town bank robbery, but most of the film is spent learning about the two brothers who perpetrated the crime, the two rangers assigned the case, and the small towns and broke communities where the action takes place.
One brother is quiet and careful, the other won't be reined in, the rangers are patient but in the dark, and the townspeople are not afraid to obstruct the law or to shoot a suspect. As the movie goes on we learn more about the backstory and the moral standpoint of the brothers. The result is a movie that keeps you guessing, and beginning to dread the inevitable climax, as you care too much about all the characters to see any of them get hurt.
Blue Eye Samurai (2023)
Looks great, engaging characters
As an outsider to gen z I started this in a sort of curious fascination. We have a gender ambiguous, racially minority mary sue with computer game level realty-bending fighting skills (the backstory talks about their training but does not credibly lead to the skills displayed). We have a princess whose life is utterly controlled by powerful men. We have a simple, oafish noodle maker with no hands and surprising stealth. And then we have lots of t&a and sexual depravity. It plays like a dungeons and dragons game, with a party of diverse characters, encounters, melodrama, dungeon crawls (at one point literally: I have to get to level nine to beat the bad guy) and a big bad evil guy complete with a horde and designs on the end of the world (i.e., of Japan as they know it).
The fight choreo is sometimes really cool and sometimes had me thinking: sure, but it's an animation, no one is actually performing this.
The hero is cool but kind of one note and appeals to the adolescent in us all, who wishes to be able to slice through all frustrations in life, but what really made the series engaging for me was the characters and their complicated relationships. The big bad is fully evil, but barely any one else can be regarded as simply good or evil. Everyone joins the narrative to serve their own needs, leading to some wonderful twists and tender moments as characters' deeper motivations are revealed or explored.
The story telling and script are high tier, with some dialog being delightfully indirect, and great use of subtext, leaving you to make the final jump to join the story together. Except in the finale there was very little ass-pulling, though there was a part where the hero revealed a new skill during a fight sequence, and the fight was then repeatedly interrupted by flashbacks to the backstory that justified this skill. That didn't work for me, it slowed the action and still felt like an ass pull. Our d&d character just leveled up mid fight and immediately used their new feat.
Complaints about the finale are probably fair but by that stage I wasn't there for any kind of realism. I don't agree that there was no resolution: I found the ending somewhat satisfying. They did a good job of bringing the season arc (really, Akemi's story) to a close while keeping the world open for a second season. Too many shows hoping for more seasons fear to change anything but we saw significant deaths and character growth here.
It's a shame about the sexual stuff because there's a lot here I would share with my kid and have some very cool conversations about.
Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023)
Nice costumes
Simon Pegg, Minnie Driver and Christopher Lloyd? And a talking mongoose?! So then, pacing, subtle and blatant hijinks, irony, Howie humiliation and pop culture nods, then? Great Scott!
Nope.
Script and direction are bad, boring, and a shocking waste of acting talent.
My wife is a determined fan of quirky movies. She lasted 40 minutes. I was already out after the laboured opening scene where slow dialog tells us almost nothing and takes a long time doing it, while we are distracted by cigarette smoke that serves no purpose in the scene.
Could be palatable played at 1.5x. I mean, they spend TWO MINUTES just showing us idents of the various production and financing companies.
Ugh.
You're better off listening to the Half Hammered Horror podcast episode that recently accidentally tied in to the launch of this movie than watching the movie itself.
Dune (2021)
Immersive first installment. Let's hope they get to finish the story.
The reviewer: I've watched the David lynch picture three times and never read the book.
The good:
imo the pacing and exposition were nearly perfect on this movie. So much clearer what is happening. Some elements you feel you have worked to put together, in a good way. The slow scenes gave me time to soak up the atmosphere rather than feeling ponderous or empty. The story hangs together and there's enough character work that you care about consequences. The family and their entourage are clearly painted and their relationships feel real. The ethnicity of actors was used well to reinforce the distinction between peoples in world though doubtless could be read as problematic, a brave choice that imo improves the aesthetic.
The bad:
Paul is something of a mary sue. Sure, lifelong training, genetic selection etc etc, but also a load of stuff just comes to him because he's the chosen one. But this is faithful to the original material, so not really a criticism of the film as such.
The sense of scale was undermined for me by the cheating of physics. Huge arks going from under the sea into intergalactic travel, then landing again scarcely blowing up dust, the classic weird movie trope of ships that almost park before dropping their landing gear and firing retro rockets. This could all have felt more gritty, more part of Duncan Idahoe's world.
The ugly:
nothing really. The darkest scenes were hard to make out watching in the daytime but aside from that the movie was gorgeous from start to end.
The only downside for me was that we missed the horror element of the Harkonnens' brutality, just getting a glimpse of the baron's pet rather that the extended, uncomfortable, filthy scenes of the eighties movie that really have you getting the Harkonnen clan.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Entertaining and better written than most
This movie is a very well put together romp through the Forgotten Realms, drawing in my dungeon master wife, me, a casual player, and even my son who has no time for media lasting more than 3 minutes.
The plot itself is a simple quest, there's scarcely even a twist, but the dialog, exposition and pacing as so spot on you just jump aboard for the ride.
There's no narrator or opening crawl, there's no explanation of "a world unlike our own", we are just brought into a freezing wasteland and follow a prisoner into the cell where our bard and barbarian are introduced.
The gags abound and smack a little of Monty Python, in a good way. Hugh Grant is the most culturally accurate English bad guy I've seen in media, and there's bags of diversity which doesn't jar one bit because the characters and world are so much fun.
So make spots I was expecting bs expositional dialog but no, the movie trusted me to put the story together myself!
Tenet (2020)
This is to time travel movies as a dog saying "sausages" is to poetry
First the positives: the action sequences are fun. The movie is essentially a set of overwrought heists with a small amount of bromance and glamour thrown in. It looks good and stuff explodes and things go fast, sometimes backwards.
But there are too many deal-breakers in the execution. The science lady who tells about entropy mumbles and mutters, and seems to be embarrassed about her lines. The genius plan for the convoy raid depends on an armoured convoy that it happy to let itself get boxed in for over a minute while the crew coordinates ready for the heist. It's clear the sci-fi part doesn't hold together. I think it was too much of a challenge for the writing team to keep the integrity of the premise.
And the movie's too long. It doesn't have to be that long, some of the action scenes could be edited much snappier. We watch the protagonist ride the fire ladder across too the truck, then lay the charge, then ride the ladder back again, then boom, then ride the ladder back across too the hole again. Pick it up, please, I've got a rest of my life to be getting on with.
Prisoners (2013)
Tight
There's barely any flab in this movie. A shot of a black crown Vic is all you need to know we're introducing the cop. Smash cut from finding the clue to being at the indicated location. It treats the viewer with respect, expects them to put together the picture themselves, which is a big part of the pleasure of watching the movie. The only exception is the expositional monologue from the big bad towards the end, which stood out to me as probably something the studio insisted on during the focus group sessions.
We don't only get a crime mystery but also a rollercoaster ride: we follow the father character as his desparation leads him way across the line that most of us would never cross.
The Loud House (2021)
Risible
Started watching this with my 7yo who is currently bingeing the TV episodes. First we have a family of ten girls and 1 boy and WHO gets the plot arc?
Then we rock up to Scotland and of course the town there just needs to be shown how to live by the American visitors who happen to be the descendants of the old laird. Insulting to Scotland and playing into the fantasies of the worst kind of US tourist. Fortunately for me, it didn't hold my son's attention and half an hour in the flipped over to watching let's play videos of Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
In Time (2011)
Air-headed fun
It's not really Sci fi, there's no answer to the "what if" in this movie. But if you were raised by boomers and spent Xmas time watching James bond then you'll have been imprinted on a certain aesthetic, and find this movie somewhat nostalgic. Accept the premise, turn off your capacity for critical thought and enjoy the confused mess of lefty rebellion, cool cars and "totty" running in heels. Underneath it all, that's what you get. Bond villain architecture, immaculately turned out women running, and a few retro cars with added whirr because future.
The Italian Job (2003)
Legally, the Italian job
When BMW bought the Mini and relaunched MINI, there was a string of cease and desist orders to small companies selling spares and aftermarket parts for the original classic mini, alienating what was then a thriving Mini fan scene. When released, this movie felt like more of the same: let's also dilute the legacy of the classic British mod movie of the same name.
Taken by itself, it's a slow burning heist caper with a bunch of fun character interactions and reasonably well written dialog that gradually increases tension until the big set piece third act. The characters are colourful but the acting/direction lacks depth: it looks like Charlie croker is supposed to grow from a control freak to someone who is finally comfortable improvising, but instead we get a Mary Sue who calmly smiles his way through all adversity.
The mechanIcs of the heist are fun, there's plenty of eye candy and enough humour, just don't expect too much of a soul to it or to have your doors blown off,.
Dave Made a Maze (2017)
Probably an allegory
Made around the time of peak irony, the movie is self parody all the way down. Except at some level there seems to be a parable about the way self consciousness messes with the creative process. The construction paper esthetic and the hipster characters have dated quickly, but it's great to be able to watch something where not every beat is from the Hollywood screenwriter howto.
Way Down (2021)
Ridiculous
I'm yet to finish the movie, but I can say that those people who are appalled at the ending failed to pick up the clues of an appaling beginning and an appalling middle.
My wife and I like to watch bad movies and dissect what production must have been like, and this movie does not disappoint in that regard. For example, why set up Thom's moral outlook and then totally fail to show how he is persuaded to join in a bank job? How come the native English speakers spoke the script word for word rather than saying "look, shall I just say the thing you were trying to say in the script?" were they just paying their mortgage, or did they try to make it better and an inflexible director made them say it as written? Freddie Highmore was amazing in finding neverland... Does he make terrible movie choices? Does he have a bad agent? Is he only capable of playing Freddie highmore and that happened to fit finding neverland perfectly? Is the hero's name Thomas Johnson so close to John Thomas as a deliberate Easter egg? Was it just an oversight due to writing the script in their second language? Was it put in by a disgruntled scriptwriter who made a mental note to take it out again when they got paid, but then never did?
Were going to watch swordfish next.
I Think We're Alone Now (2018)
Like sitting and reading a good short story.
Good movie for the right hemisphere of your brain. Don't expect explanations. Expect atmosphere, character and subtle tensions. If you need car chases and explosions, move along. If you are able to put yourself into a character's place and try to see the world like they do, it's a rewarding watch.
Now You See Me (2013)
What a miss!
I would love to know the production history of this one. It feels like it was conceived as a Jonathan-creek or The Prestige-like story where the plot is enriched by real behind-the-curtain knowledge of how magic works, then got handed around until someone with no knowledge of or interest in magic got a hold of it and let their right-brain go wild. Instead of a clever insight into how misdirection and trickery could be used for crime, we just get magic that can do anything and therefore is a very convenient and unsatisfying plot mechanic.
We step entirely outside of reality and rely on CGI to make props appear, even in a supposed stage show. Fortunately you only have to watch the first 20 minutes or so to know that this is not going to satify magic geeks or people who enjoy realistic characters or a coherent plot.