LivingWitness Reviews

Spaceman (I) (2024)

Excellent science fiction

[9/10 · 3 March 2024]

This is very good science fiction. It's thought provoking, it's relevant to current social issues, and it stays the course.

In a lot of ways, Spaceman is almost like the anti-Adam Sandler movie. With a lot of his comedies, especially the ones he was doing back in the '90s, the case was that he'd see a woman, become enamoured with her, and get to be her partner just because he was the main character. In Spaceman, this isn't the case. He has to work through his issues in order to maintain his relationship, and it's not a given that he'll be able to do that.

This ends up being the core conflict of the movie. Some other reviews have compared it to Ad Astra and this is the main reason why. I disagree with their assertion that it's emotionally absent. I take the opposite view: it's emotionally there, and it is emotionally relevant. There are so, so many men who are like Jakub in this movie--emotionally distant, unable or unwilling to deal with their traumas, and always looking for a way to escape, but completely unable to understand why every significant relationship they've ever had has failed.

Dealing with this is what makes this relevant science fiction. It might not be the hardest of hard sci-fi because the actual scientific problem isn't at the forefront, but the social issue at the fore is what makes it good.

This also means it was much, much better than I was expecting it to be. Don't let the other reviews turn you off from seeing it. Spaceman is amazing.

The Predator (2018)

Actually a decent sequel/quasi-reboot

[6/10 · 3 March 2024]

One of the big troubles with Predator sequels and reboots is that most of them are terrible. They're terrible movies and they're terrible sequels. It's usually because they're basically just the first one with different characters and maybe a different environment.

The Predator manages to avoid these traps. As a movie, it's just okay. None of the characters are particularly likable or even really memorable, but at least they have more development than some of the other Predator sequel characters. The plot is fairly bog standard action movie fair, but at least it isn't just the first one done vaguely differently.

It also avoids the traps that it could have fallen into. It has an autistic child character for example, but unlike with other movies that have them, he isn't annoying and isn't the entire focus of the movie. It's just an incidental thing that he has it. I think this is a good example of what I mean when I say this movie has better character development than some of the other sequels, because even though it does inform his character, it's not his entire character.

Really, the big things this movie does well is how it does as a *sequel*. The stakes are higher, for a start. But more importantly, it feels like this movie does move the story along and do some more world building. While the other sequels have acknowledged the first one is canon, this is the first to actually treat it like it mattered and feel as if it's actually a story set decades later instead of a movie where the original incidentally also happened.

Really, the biggest sin of this one is that it doesn't ever capture the '80s cheesiness the first two had. If it had have done that, it would have made the jump from okay to legit good.

Morgan (2016)

Good concept and a good atmosphere, but needed a better script

[6/10 · 21 February 2024]

Morgan's concept is great. Its execution is lacking.

There's a few scenes in this movie where it feels like the director and writer thought they were really doing something deep, but in reality it often was just shallow and bordering on silly. This is Morgan's biggest issue because this could have been a deep, thought provoking movie if they had have fleshed out those scenes a little more.

Otherwise, it's a decent low budget sci-fi thriller. The action scenes aren't exactly groundbreaking, but they're passable. The tension is real and it doesn't get derailed, and it takes itself seriously enough to avoid any unnecessary comic relief.

There's also not really any fat to this movie. Every scene in it needs to be there; it's not forced to be 2+ hours long like a lot of other somewhat recent movies. Really, if the script was better, this probably would have at least a solid cult following.

The Marvels (2023)

It achieves everything it sets out to do

[7/10 · 12 February 2024]

All this movie was trying to be was a superhero movie that appeals to twelve-year-olds. It achieves that. If I had have seen this when I was twelve, it probably would have been my favourite MCU movie ever.

I can see why a lot of people were unhappy with this one because it doesn't really do much beyond that, and there have been much better ones in the last few years. However, I think people are being a bit silly if they saw this movie and expected it to be anything other than a CGI heavy movie for 12-year-olds.

For the most part, I do think this movie works, though. Pretty much all the jokes land, which hasn't always been a given in the MCU movies of the last five years or so. The action sequences are middle of the road, but you can follow what's happening and there's at least some kind of point to them.

I don't think the CGI in this movie is quite as good as the CGI in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. However, it never looks cheap, either. I also feel like they probably should have just picked an aspect ratio and stuck with it because changing the aspect ratio in certain scenes didn't really add anything. This was a problem Thor: Love and Thunder had as well.

Overall, this movie was fine. There's been much better MCU movies over the years, but this is nowhere near as bad as some people are making it out to be.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Unnecessary and overly long

[4/10 · 14 December 2023]

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny didn't need to exist. There's no getting around that. There was no particular desire for another Indiana Jones sequel, and whatever desire there was died in 2008 when The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out.

I don't think this movie even really works as a sequel. I don't really think Indiana Jones, as a character, works as a washed up old man. Conceptually, it just isn't what he was for; he was always a role for a much younger man. The only way they could have bridged that gap was to have made a few more sequels 20-30 years ago or to have hired much better writers for the movie.

Beyond that, this movie is easily 30-45 minutes too long. It was also in desperate need of less CGI and more practical effects.

There's no real merit to this movie. There's no reason for it to be around. It never should have been made and I regret seeing it.

The Guest (I) (2014)

Occasionally derivative, but never boring

[7/10 · 1 December 2023]

At least on paper, The Guest seems like a movie that should be kinda bad. It's derivative and predictable, the characters are all pretty shallow, and the dialogue is pretty bog standard for a movie like this. A lot of the action sequences also feel like a teenager's power fantasy.

However, The Guest is able to make all of this work. Sure, all of it is true, but the movie's able to dress it up in an entertaining way. The bare bones power fantasy aspects of the movie are the entire point, and at least it's not boring or dragged out for too long.

This is a well paced, reasonably well choreographed action movie. Nothing about it is particularly notable or groundbreaking, but it's worth watching at least once if you like the genre.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

If you liked the other three, you'll like this one

[8/10 · 19 November 2023]

John Wick 4 is pretty much everything you'd expect a John Wick movie to be: it's violent, and it's almost nonstop violence. There isn't really anything here that's going to disappoint you, so long as you liked the previous three movies.

This one is a little more story-heavy than the previous movies. As much as I'd like for it to have been ten minutes of plot and then 2.5-ish hours of violence as some reviewers have suggested it was, that wasn't the case: this one had a much more even split between the two than previous movies. However, I think it more or less managed to do this without the plot scenes being overly boring or simply unnecessary, which is one of the problems a lot of plot-heavy action movies run into.

Still, I'm not entirely convinced that this movie really needed to be as long as it is, given that the plot isn't really that much more complex than what was in the previous ones. The action sequences, while lengthy and entertaining, also weren't more complex in their setup either, so it's not like there was anything there that really required such a long runtime.

Overall though, I think that's kind of a nitpicky point. John Wick: Chapter 4 is advertised as a shoot-em-all movie with well choreographed fight scenes, and that's what it provides.

In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)

Decent sci-fi thriller, but doesn't lean into its premise too much

[7/10 · 21 October 2023]

So there's two things happening here: one is the time travel element, and the other is the commentary on terrorism. In the Shadow of the Moon manages to have a fairly interesting take on time travel, but I don't think it really leans into its intended commentary as much as it could.

I know there's been some criticism of this movie because the time travel elements tend to be a bit wonky if you dig deep enough into how physics actually works, but that isn't really the point. There's a lot of wonky science that can be forgiven in a sci-fi movie so long as the messaging is on point.

The core messaging here is on point (i.e., the line between terrorism and justified violence is thin and context heavy), but I'm not sure if it really goes hard enough on this to really do it well. It definitely tries, but it never quite makes it. This is a shame because most of the elements of a good movie are here; it just doesn't quite connect the dots well enough for it to be a cohesive statement.

Infinite (2021)

Bad, but not irredeemable

[5/10 · 13 October 2023]

There isn't a whole lot of pretense with Infinite. It's a very generic sci-fi/action movie about reincarnation and the end of the world. Occasionally, it'll pretend it's a little deeper, but for the most part, it knows it's just a stupid movie.

I think if this movie had have come out twenty years ago, most reviews of it would be a lot more forgiving of its faults. Some of this is because a lot of its problems would have been written off as just a thing that happened with action movies back then ("Of course the CGI stands out like a sore thumb; it usually did back then"; "Of course the women didn't have a lot of agency and occasionally had to be bailed out by the men, it was 2003"), but I think it probably would have been a nostalgia thing to some extent, too. Nowadays, however, most people sorta have a higher standard for sci-fi/action stuff.

I think a lot of the problems with this movie stem from how Wahlberg's monologues towards the start and end actually could have been a fairly reasonable subtext to include in something like this. You really could have a movie that's explicitly about building upon your life's work one step at a time, and the reincarnation elements could add some extra flavour to that story. Unfortunately, as it is, it just ended up highlighting how simple and shallow the movie is and how much more it could have been.

Masters of Horror: Homecoming (2005) Season 1, Episode 6

Okay horror and good political messaging

[8/10 · 5 October 2023]

As a horror story, is this any good? It's debatable. On one hand, it's not really any more terrifying than some of the things that had already happened in American electoral history up until the point this episode was made. On the other, most of the best horror stories are at least partially based on a premise that could actually happen.

As political commentary, this episode is pretty good. It's not exactly subtle, but nothing in Masters of Horror or its spin offs, Masters of Science Fiction and Fear Itself, are particularly subtle. A lot of the best political commentaries, especially when it comes to genre fiction like this, are very direct with their messaging, too.

The other plus side of this episode is that it has some of the best acting of the series. A lot of the other episodes in this show tend to have less-than-stellar acting typical of network television in the '00s, but this episode had better acting than that. It wasn't the best television acting of all time or anything like that, but I'd give it a solid B.

I get why this episode is fairly contentious, though. A lot of people aren't huge fans of political messaging in entertainment, especially if it's a message they disagree with. However, I happen to agree with the messaging and I think entertainment should be more political, so I liked this episode a fair bit.

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

It's a so-bad-it's-good movie from the '80s

[7/10 · 2 October 2023]

Is this a good movie? God no. Should you see it anyway? Yeah, of course. While Maximum Overdrive never quite gets to Killer Klowns From Outer Space levels of so bad it's good, it's still pretty safely in that kind of territory.

The bad: This movie is a pretty good representation of what Stephen King was like generally during his druggie years. When he was on point, he was really on point, but on his off days, he'd be cooking up stuff that make you wonder how cognisant he was of anything. This is also very much the kind of movie where you have to already either be a pretty big fan of Stephen King or even just a fan of bad movies generally to even want to see.

The good: A kid gets killed by a steam roller, several trucks are destroyed by a rocket launcher, and several other people are run over by trucks. If you ever wanted to make a list of all the ridiculous ways in which a person might get run over by a truck, this movie will certainly help you get started.

But yeah, see Maximum Overdrive. It's certainly something.

The Puppet Masters (1994)

A middle-of-the-road movie, but a bad adaptation

[6/10 · 1 October 2023]

I don't think anyone's really going to be happy with The Puppet Masters.

Die hard Robert A. Heinlein fans aren't going to be happy because while this is one of the most faithful adaptations of his work ever made, it cuts a lot of what was in the book. What could have been a pretty interesting take on the alien invasion genre (at least for films) has been watered down into a pretty generic movie.

However, people who like to see Heinlein's work parodied (as happened with Starship Troopers) or at least just treated as a suggestion to be built upon (as happened with Predestination, adapted from the short story All You Zombies) won't be pleased, either. While The Puppet Masters isn't exactly the most faithful film adaptation ever made, it's still the most faithful *Heinlein* adaptation.

Just based on the movie itself, there isn't anything wrong with The Puppet Masters, aside from its questionable quality as an adaptation. The acting, action, cinematography, and dialogue aren't amazing, but it's not going to be tattooed in your memory as exceptionally bad, either. Really, its biggest sin is that it's a middle-of-the-road movie that would have been a lot better if they'd tried being a good adaptation.

Patton (1970)

A good movie, but could have gone a lot further than it did

[8/10 · 27 September 2023]

Patton might be the single most frustrating war movie I've ever seen.

On one hand, it avoids a lot of the obvious missteps I've seen in other war movies, especially those centred around actual people. Unlike in Hacksaw Ridge or American Sniper, Patton focuses on his role in the war itself without too much padding about his life before or after the war. The battles manage to be well staged affairs that aren't just unfocused messes, and they also avoid dragging on too long. Best of all, there's also a lot of focus of the command politicking that inevitably comes with high profile commands such as Patton's.

On the other, all of this only serves to highlight some of the problems with the movie. While it focuses heavily on the drama and not on the action, it also glosses over some of Patton's worst traits. It acknowledges his disdain for the Russians, it acknowledges his tendency to speak without thinking, and it acknowledges that he wanted to follow World War II up with an Operation Unthinkable-style campaign against the USSR. However, it ignores that Patton was often just as antisemitic as the Nazis he'd defeated in combat, and that his views on race were, while not atypical for the time and not completely without nuance, also deeply racist.

Because of that, it's hard to not feel that this is a borderline propaganda movie. It might not have gotten funding or technical support from any branch of the US government, but it still attempts to gloss over some of the more extreme elements of Patton's personality. This is in spite of a near three-hour runtime, and scenes focused on Nazi commanders discussing him that could have easily been switched out for scenes delving deeper into his extremes.

All of this is very frustrating because on a pure technical level, this actually is a good movie. Just based on its merits as a movie, it's one of the best war movies I've ever seen, even. However, I can't help to feel that it should have gone a lot harder than it did.

Cradle 2 the Grave (2003)

I wish I'd seen this when I was ten

[5/10 · 20 September 2023]

Cradle 2 the Grave is a pretty simple movie. There's no real surprises in plot or character development; no real subversive elements to it.

It's just a simple action movie, to the point that it's basically a little kid's idea of what an action movie is meant to be like. For that alone, I sorta wish I'd seen this when I was ten or so, because I think that's about the age you need to be to really enjoy this. If you see it at that point in your life, you'd probably grow up to either see this movie as being so bad it's good, or see it with nostalgia goggles so thick you can't admit it's bad.

For everyone else, the issues with it are going to be glaringly obvious. Cradle 2 the Grave features just about every problem a bad action movie from the early '00s will have. The cuts go so fast that there's some scenes that gave me motion sickness, the soundtrack sounds like it should be in a low budget computer game, and the action scenes are often so generic you'll forget them within a few hours of seeing them.

While the movie never drifts off into The Room level awfulness, it's also not a good movie in any way, shape, or form. The only reason you should ever see it or rewatch it is if you grew up with it or if you're trying to get your kids to develop a love of bad movies.

Deus (2022)

Not unforgivably bad, but it's never good

[5/10 · 4 September 2023]

Deus is in a very similar vein to Event Horizon, both in terms of its plot and the end result. Both are science fiction movies trying to be somewhat philosophical about the possibility of life outside of the known universe. And while both are trying to be that, neither of them really achieve what they set out to.

The big difference is that Deus isn't ever going to have the cult following Event Horizon does, nor does it deserve to. It doesn't go deep enough into its themes to really be as thought provoking as it thinks it is, and it lacks the horror elements to keep horror fans enthused.

That being said, Deus isn't a complete waste. It does have decent production values for something of its budget, and the acting isn't godawful like you might expect. It also never really insists upon itself, so while it's not really as deep as it thinks it is, it's also never particularly obnoxious about it. And while it isn't deep, the times it tries to be do give you something to think about, so you can occasionally see what the movie might be like if it were actually good.

Really, I feel like Deus' biggest sin is that it never really breaks away from its television feel. This feels like an episode of television made somewhere between the late '90s and mid '00s by a production team that was competent, but never brilliant. The movie may have even achieved what it set out to be if this had been what it was because you could talk about the themes in the broader context of the show.

As is, I think this is worth watching if you're looking for a movie that could be good but never quite makes it. It's worth watching if you're a fan of Event Horizon especially, or just a fan of the genre in general. Otherwise, skip it--it won't have anything for you otherwise.

The Village (2004)

The twist was frustrating

[6/10 · 30 August 2023]

The Village is a deeply frustrating film. On one hand, the performances, the cinematography, and the music are all basically as good as you could hope for in a movie like this. In fact, in a lot of other movies, The Village's merits would probably take it from being an okay movie to being a really good one.

Plus, I think The Village does a better job at hiding what the twist is going to be than a lot of other movies like it. This is different from a lot of other Shhyamalan movies, where the twist is very clearly telegraphed throughout the movie.

This is both a blessing and a curse, though. On one hand, yeah, it does mean it's harder to outsmart the movie, but on the other hand, it does make it feel like the twist sorta came out of nowhere to some extent.

This ends up being the big thing that drags the movie down for me. It has a lot of build up, a lot of it is good, but it doesn't really earn the payoff the same way The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable did.

The Menu (2022)

The commentary is pretty basic, but worth watching anyway

[8/10 · 15 August 2023]

The underlying commentary of The Menu is pretty basic, and I think most people have seen variations of this commentary elsewhere: the rich are greedy and vapid, and nobody really likes working with or for them. There isn't really any new nuance that The Menu adds that hasn't been provided by plenty of other movies throughout the years.

That being said, The Menu is a good presentation of an old idea. The editing is slick, the acting is good, the writing is solid, and the story is great. While the commentary it provides is shallow, the presentation is rock solid.

I think the one thing this movie does very well is that everyone in it gets their just desserts. A lot of the time with movies like this, there'll be one or two characters who probably needed a solid eff you but never got one, either because it was inconvenient for the plot or because someone on the writing team was worried about muddying the waters. The Menu acknowledges that everyone in it needs to be told that, and they get it at some point or another.

The backstories for most of the characters are quite thin, but by the same token, I think that works for this movie. Nobody here is really meant to be super relatable or sympathetic, nor are they meant to be uniquely awful. There's definitely hints of what certain people did to deserve what happened to them, but to actually develop it further would have required ten or twenty minutes of dialogue amounting to "...and then the guy at this table did this awful thing, which sounds awful, but wait until you hear about what the guy at the next did; it's just as bad."

Overall, I think this movie did a good job with everything. The commentary was a bit shallow, but unless they were going to do a movie about the horrors of one specific industry, there wasn't really any way for this movie to go deeper without ruining the pacing.

Heart of Stone (I) (2023)

Good spy thriller

[7/10 · 11 August 2023]

I know this one has a low score right now, but honestly, I liked it. It's not my favourite spy thriller of all time or anything, but it's better than a lot of them.

It's not the smartest spy thriller, but by the same token, it's also not actively trying to outsmart the audience. There's twists, but they don't come out of nowhere and everything more or less makes sense given the general flow of the movie. I think this is probably going to end up being one of the more contentious points for this movie because people are probably expecting it to be like a James Bond movie, but this is one or two tiers down the intelligence totem pole.

The action scenes aren't the best ever made, and I wouldn't even argue they're the best action sequences in a movie this year. However, they're not bad, either. The tension is there, Gal Gadot's character never gets a free pass and has to struggle to win, and they all further the plot. So while the action scenes aren't exactly groundbreaking, they're also well constructed and well executed.

In terms of acting, this is probably the best dramatic performance Gal Gadot has ever given. While she's always been a better action actress than a dramatic one and probably always will be, I wouldn't be too surprised if this ends up being remembered as one of her better performances overall.

All in all, Heart of Stone is a good movie. Nothing about it is amazing, but it all gets a solid B. I think most of the people giving it a low score have set their expectations too high.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Mixed feelings--good movie, but maybe not the best conclusion to a trilogy

[8/10 · 2 August 2023]

I've marked this as having spoilers, but they're very minor ones.

As a movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is fine. It has a lot going for it, even. The action sequences here are some of the best the MCU has had in years, and I think in places even better than in the previous GotG movie. The emotional core is fine, and actually a lot deeper than most previous MCU movies in the past decade or so. Even the concept itself is a solid basis for a GotG movie.

A lot of my contention comes from whether or not this is a good conclusion to the GotG trilogy. If this was going to be an ongoing thing where they did two Peter heavy movies, two Rocket heavy movies, and on and on down the list to make use of the full ensemble like that, it'd actually be a really interesting creative choice. However, this is the final film in what's traditionally been the Peter-heavy trilogy.

Because of that, I'm not really sure if having a Rocket-centric movie was really the best choice here. If they were gonna do the Rocket-centric movie no matter what, then they probably should have replaced a lot of the flashback scenes with scenes emphasising Peter's character arc being wrapped up here. That would have helped emphasise the passing the torch ideas at the end, too.

The other thing this movie did well was that it did wrap up a lot of Peter's ongoing issues. Like yeah, he did have issues with treating women (specifically Gamora) as if they were obligated to be the solution to his problems, and that's been the ongoing thing he's needed to work on through these movies. Getting him to a point where he changed course was always going to have to be a part of the final film and it's good they managed to do that.

So this is one of those things where I think this movie has a lot going for it; I'm just not convinced it was the best final film of a trilogy.

Pet Sematary (1989)

Good horror in places, but uneven

[6/10 · 2 August 2023]

There's parts of Pet Sematary that are very good horror. The last twenty or thirty minutes were actually genuinely horrific--both in what happens, and in the implication that despite what's just happened, Louis had learned nothing from it. The makeup and prosthetics they used for Zelda were also really cool.

On the other hand, there were definitely parts of Pet Sematary that dragged the movie down. A lot of the performances from the adult actors were very uneven--in places, they were passable, but in others, they were horrible. The kid they got to play Ellie was so awful and so annoying that I'm glad she wasn't a huge part of this movie.

Some other reviewers have said that this isn't the worst Stephen King adaptation, and they're right to say it. It's been a hot minute since I've read the book, but this is pretty accurate to what the book was like from what I remember. It's also not the absolute worst in terms of its actual quality as a movie.

However, it's also far from the best. I don't think anyone's gonna argue that this should be the first King adaptation you see instead of Carrie (1976) or Misery. It's more like the one you watch after you've already seen the cream-of-the-crop King adaptations.

Showgirls (1995)

The movie is genuinely good and has a lot going for it

[8/10 · 1 August 2023]

Let me give you a scenario. There's this '90s film directed by Paul Verhoeven that got written off by the critics as tacky and cheesy because they were only looking at it on a surface level. However, anyone who digs a little deeper will realise that while there is a lot of cheese involved, the movie also has a lot of valid social commentary.

When you say that, most people will immediately think of Starship Troopers, and they're right to think that. It also applies to Showgirls, though. The movie also contains a lot of commentary about how sex work ends up being destructive for everyone involved, both because of sleazy management and because the kind of people who are drawn to it often aren't the most stable people.

This ends up being one of the big reasons why despite all the sex and nudity, Showgirls isn't really a sexy movie. A lot of the sexual elements get tied up in conflicts over whether or not this act is really consensual in these circumstances, or if the character would have consented if they'd have known what comes next.

I think there's also commentary on what the American dream is like. While most other "character sets off to achieve the American dream" movies will feature a character that's particularly talented or has particularly good business skills, Nomi isn't really like that. She isn't presented as particularly intelligent or talented, and mostly gets ahead by sleeping her way up (or occasionally nudging someone else down the stairs). Some would argue this is a more accurate presentation of how the American dream is achieved.

So not only is Showgirls good, it's deeply frustrating to see that it's been saddled with a negative reputation. It's about time for a popular reevaluation of this movie's merits, similar to what happened to Starship Troopers.

Blood and Chocolate (2007)

The soundtrack is better than the movie

[5/10 · 30 June 2023]

I was going to say that this movie was just another Twilight knock-off that came out at a time when every vampire or werewolf movie was a Twilight knock-off, but apparently the book it's based on came out in the late '90s.

What I will say is this movie falls into that very typical issue a lot of '00s horror/fantasy movies have where the soundtrack is a lot better than the actual movie. It seems like the rule of thumb is that if the soundtrack for a movie like this is great, than the movie itself will have a lot to answer for.

There's not a lot here worth seeing unless you're already a fairly big fan of the paranormal romance genre in general. Otherwise it's just another bad fantasy movie in a long line of them.

Childhood's End (2015)

Interesting show of what first contact might be like

[9/10 · 26 June 2023]

There's a lot going on in Childhood's End. Some of this story is about how religion and people's conception of it might change after first contact, and some of it opens up the question of whether or not humans are really ready for it.

This is science fiction as it should be. The story itself doesn't take a definitive stance on whether or not the aliens were right to do what they did, but treats their motivations as being so inherently alien that it's difficult for a human to judge them. It allows the viewer to make up their own mind and challenges them to think about it.

It's unfortunate that so few people have seen this. It's really worth seeing, especially if you're already a fan of the genre.

Mother! (2017)

Deeply frustrating movie that has deep themes and interesting characters, but borders on pretentious

[7/10 · 23 June 2023]

Mother! Is one of the most frustrating movies I've ever seen.

On one hand, it has a lot of interesting aspects of it. The relationship between Mother and Him is deeply complicated. They love each other, or at least love how the other makes them feel, but also have very different hopes about what their life should be like. The way Him's fans respond to Mother is also very reminiscent of how a lot of celebrities' fans respond to their partners--their celebrity is on a pedestal, but the partner's reputation is dragged through the mud.

Plus, there are a lot of interesting things about Mother!'s imagery. A lot of it is deeply allegorical, and only really makes sense if you look at it in the context of the movie as a whole rather than just by itself.

But on the other hand, I'm not really convinced that it earns some of its allegorical elements. Sure, a lot of it does add to the film as a whole and can be taken for something that makes sense, but there's also parts where I feel like it's a metaphor for being a metaphor.

Just because of that, I can see why this movie is such a divisive one. Metaphors in a movie are fine, but if it's just for the sake of it, it's just pretentiousness. Plus, a lot of people really aren't going to be receptive to a movie that's as metaphor-heavy as this one.

I feel like this is one of those movies that probably benefits from repeat watching. That being said, I'd struggle to recommend it to anyone. It's a tough one to get through, and I think you have to be in the right mindset for it.

We Were Soldiers (2002)

Slow to start, but ultimately a good war movie

[7/10 · 22 June 2023]

We Were Soldiers is a good war movie. It's focused on a single battle--the Battle of Ia Drang, which happened in 1965--and most of the movie is just that one battle. It does a really good job at showing both the American and North Vietnamese commanders focusing on tactics as the battle progresses, instead of turning into a convoluted, hard-to-follow eyesore like a lot of movie battles do.

Really, a lot of the trouble with this movie is how long it takes to get going. I think it would have been fine to cut the first half hour of this movie down to ten or fifteen minutes.

Other than that, the only thing in this movie I would have gotten rid of is the scene where the wives are handing out the letters to the newly widowed. I get why that scene was in the movie; it was to help humanize the people who died. I feel that most of the people who'd be drawn to a movie like this wouldn't need that explained to them though, because presumably 99% of the people watching this are adults who've already learned empathy.

The actual core of the movie, the battle, is really good, though. This isn't necessarily the most intellectual of Vietnam War movies. It's not going to really challenge your conception of what the war was about the same way Platoon or Apocalypse Now did. However, it will entertain you, and I think most viewers will be impressed with how well done the battle sequences are.