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brucefinch
Reviews
Halloween Kills (2021)
Just a mess...
I've followed the Halloween franchise on and off from day one. Saw the original in 1978 and liked it so much I stole the poster outside the cinema. (Still have it). ("The trick is to stay alive" - so cool)
Have seen many of the sequels but they lost me a little in the middle there. Then 2018's version got good enough reviews to entice me back. It was pretty good and I thought 'they've breathed life back into the series'.
Maybe I should listened to my gut when I saw Danny McBride's name attached to Halloween Kills. He's pretty hit and miss in my experience. This was a miss...
It was lots of other things. Well cast, well shot, with an instantly recognisable John Carpenter soundtrack. What could go wrong? It was also silly, chaotic, irrational and bloodthirsty. None of those things matter a darn if the movie is entertaining. Alas... It was far from entertaining. My wife called it 'dumb'. And, as much as I wanted to like it, I found it tedious. I yawned. A lot.
Ultimately, it felt like it was nothing more than... a mess.
Occupation: Rainfall (2020)
So much explosive action - but I still yawned...
Watching this knowing it's such a personal project, I was definitely impressed with the overall effect. But... though Sparke does a sterling job emulating the appearance of the franchise he loves so much - I felt he fell well short of Star Wars' emotional involvement.
That said, every actor gives 100% embodying their character - to the point where I almost cared about them. Almost... Our connection with the key players is so thin that among all the brilliantly staged action choreography, I genuinely found myself yawning. In a spectacle on this scale that shouldn't happen.
The light relief from Ken Jeong and his mate was a bit jarring against the sheer earnestness of every other character - but, again, they played it for all they were worth...
The special effects were dazzling and virtually flawless - on the odd occasion you could 'see the joins' it was easy enough to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. And it was nice, as an Australian, to see all the recognisable landmarks.
So, kudos for pulling off what they did - even if it was a bit silly and uninvolving at times.
Footnote: 2 hours in I began to suspect they weren't going to wind things up... then, sure enough - It's only Chapter One! They didn't tell me THAT going in...
Happiest Season (2020)
Surprisingly moving
I went in expecting fairly typical cheesy Christmas fare - which this had a liberal sprinkling of - but was pleasantly drawn in to an engaging story.
Solid cast who all seemed credible in their roles - nobody overplaying to a stereotype. And as the threads all wove together I found it all quite touching. I didn't expect 'great' cinema but was happy to experience 'very good'.
Close (2019)
Those 3 stars are only for Noomi - & only just earned
Netflix have self-produced a lot of top rate content - this, unfortunately, is the weakest contribution I've seen with their name on it.
After a promising start, it quickly fell into a series of poorly conceived and directed executions of some very well-worn tropes.
The hyped-up soundtrack tries hard to have us believe we were experiencing dramatic tension that just wasn't there.
Key character roles were thinly sketched stereotypes while the plot and action took jumps of jarring incredibility.
I ended up utterly ambivalent to the protaganists' outcomes - which was more "meh" than "ah ha!"
It was nice to look at with classy locations, but that wasn't enough...
& why was it called "Close"?