Films The Official bit-tech Movie Thread - What have you seen lately?

The Mexican - Meh-xican/10

I could describe the film as dull and boring, but that imbues it with more life than it actually had. Good for insomniacs.

 

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Yawn/10

ummm, well, they could have shrank it to half an hour, and added it to the second movie.
Little Plot but a lot of boom-bang-hit.
That said, what good is having a wizard that when it comes to fighting resorts to hitting people with a stick?


A question...Why does Orlando Bloom not look like Orlando Bloom in the "Hobbit" movies? Was he entirey CG'd?

 

No, he got fat.

 

Fifteen years older and about fourty pounds heavier.

 

Templar Weekend!

(Alas not Simon Templar, that would have been funnier)

Ironclad 3/10

Outcast 3/10

Well that covers that

 

Ex Machina
6/10
The film looked good. The storyline was predicatable as hell in quite a few ways. Generally, slow moving and a bit pretentious to me.

Mad Max Fury Road
8/10
Yes, it's brainless and the story is not worth mentioning. It's SO MUCH FUN, though. The randomness in scenery, the overall looks, etc.

50 shades
0/10
Honestly, stuff this. The wife was curious. We both got bored to death in the film. It's not particulary risque, not edgy, not particularly steamy OR sexy... just 0 appeal.
And that's not even touching on the brilliantly scripted dialog. /sarcasm

 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) - 8/10

Enjoyed this a lot as it brought back memories of watching the series when I was a wee nipper (admittedly it was via re-runs, my Dad loved it). Bit slow in places, and sometimes the style outweighed the substance. But the character play between Solo (Henry Cavil), Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) and Gaby (Alicia Vikander) is awesome.

Favourite part:

Spoiler

When Solo bails on Kuryakin in their escape from the harbour, and starts eating a packed lunch whilst Kuryakin gets chased round and round the harbour being shot at. Absolutely genius!

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - 8/10
Mission Impossible doing what it does best. Stunt-alicious awesome-sauce. Turn your brain off and enjoy.
Favourite part:

Spoiler

Motorcycle chase around Morocco. Having driven those roads myself (albeit in a slow hirecar) it was perfect Mission Impossible.

Fantastic Four - 5/10
Well, er, that was not what I was hoping for. In some aspects an improvement on the previous iteration, but in others a catastrophic failure. Shame. Will be surprised if the sequel doesn't get cancelled.

Favourite part:

Spoiler

Nope. Cant think of any one part, its that good /sarcasm

 

Gone Girl 6/10

This is a really good movie but it would have scored higher if I didn't feel like I was watching Double Jeopardy all over again - the latter is a far superior movie.

 

My favourite scene too!

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure that the 3rd radio station Solo flicks through (the one between the talk show & classical piece he settles on) is playing the Man from Uncle TV theme!

Spoiler

I felt it broke the 1960's vibe when Solo finds the sand rail & trophy truck to chase the Land Rover up the hill. Sand rails didn't surface until the LATE 60's, and trophy truck were even later (I think)

 

Fantastic Four - ... out of 10

Fox, trying to stop the right reverting to Marvel, and demonstrating precisely why they probably should revert to Marvel.

You may as well just watch Chrionicle.

 

Didn't notice that, might have to see it again, just to check...

Spoiler

Didn't bother me, did think they looked a bit too modern, but then spies/super-villains always have more advanced tech than anyone else...

Shame no cameos from Robert Vaughn or David McCallum though...

 

How is that any different to the originals, and Mission: Impossible and the like where

Spoiler

everyone in Russia drives american cars

?

 

Spoiler

Good point. Maybe they should have been Hammer & Cavill's spymasters?

 

Oh that'd've been sweet

 

Chappie - 8/10

A very pleasant surprise this. Directed by the guy who made District 9, and follows in a line of releases this year which features AI. It's a different take on the whole sentient/conscious robot story, and while it does make you think it definitely entertains as well. I for one will highly recommend it.

Avengers - Age of Ultron - 5/10

What the frak happened? The first one was brilliant, and now they give us this? Why? Oh the humanity!

50 Shades - I will be spending the rest of my life trying to forget having watched this/10

Yeah, so the wife read the book (the first one), and sort of just "had to watch the movie as well." It felt like a six hour exercise in twisting-in-your-seat-awkwardness - with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

 

Interstellar 6/10

I saw this a while back, but the missus wanted to see it so I sat through it again. My god, the plot holes and bad science grow by an order of magnitude the second time around. Visually stunning, with a lot of good bits, but it goes awry especially in the second half of the film, where willing suspension of disbelief is an absolute must.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed most of the film - it's visually stunning and engrossing in areas and it does some of the science very well - the whole relativity thing was pretty well done, but it completely ignored any sense of reason when it came to the black hole and falling into it. I also had this nagging question about the propulsion system of the space craft/shuttle effort, and how it effortlessly and routinely manages escapes velocity despite being smaller then your average real shuttle, which requires a huge fuel tank and a couple of SRBs to achieve orbit around the earth, not to mention that they required a multi-stage launch vehicle to reach it in orbit. Why not just keep one of those two super-shuttles handy for popping to and from the Endurance craft in Earth orbit?

So much about this film was touted as realistic and I even heard it being favourably compared to 2001. In the end it was a typical Nolan piece - visually impressive with lots of holes and hasty plot devices servicing a very predictable story.



Mad Max: Fury Road (AKA Max does the Playboy Mansion) 5/10

Very spectacular with epic action sequences, which is what you're looking for in this film. However, what's with the mobile harem of spotless supermodels in this dirty, grimy, post apocalyptic world?

This isn't pitched as a reboot - Max's "madness" seems to stem from failing to protect the children from an earlier film - and this being the case, when Max started out as a cop there was still a functioning society in place (albeit seemingly on the edge of the abyss) and this must take place only 20 or so years hence, so I'm left with a few questions. i.e. what's with the immaculate vault door and what was the original purpose of the huge water pipes at the citadel? No remains of other infrastructure around - are we supposed to believe the Wayboy clan built them? Hardly, but how were they inherited, and from what?

I didn't like the portrayal of Max in this film, but I did like Nicholas Hoult's character and I loved the flaming guitarist.

 

Avengers: Age of Ultron - 7/10

Perhaps I went in with my expectations low enough. Marvel has a really tough job on their hands trying to get all these stories to tie together in a cohesive way, and this isn't a bad attempt to move it all forward.

I have two major complaints. 1) This was written by Joss Whedon. He's a great writer, but if you've ever seen/heard him in his podcasts, then you'll notice his personality coming through a lot of the characters in Avengers:AoU, especially in the first half. It feels a bit like there's 10 Joss Whedons running around. 2)Tony Stark was a great character up until the 3rd Iron Man, then he became such a worried weenie. His motivations in this movie are clear and make sense based on Iron Man 3, but I still don't like the new Tony Stark. It's toned down a bit for this film, but It's still there.

The other complaint my wife and I have (although a bit smaller) is that the action sequences are tedious. It's an action movie, so the story should progress via action. Instead, it feels like they draw out the action longer and longer to say, "oh boy, the stakes really are high now."

And the comet thing was dumb. There's only one mention that the gravity magic device will be reversed instead of just a free fall (which would be destructive for sure, but only locally), so you have to make a pretty big leap to believe that this rock will get up to 24,000 mph.

And it sounds like Elizabeth Olsen learned her Russian accent by watching Rocky and Bullwinkle.

But looking past all those things, it's still a 7.

 

Inside Out - 6/10

A solid film, good concepts and ideas, but felt a bit forced, and (for me) not up to Pixar's usual standard. Here's hoping they get back on track with the Good Dinosaur at the end of the year, or it'll be three "weak" films on the trot...

Best gag, was the last sequence.

Spoiler

For anyone that has/knows a cat, the cat version of the 'emotions' was spot on

 

Mission Impossible 5 - 8/10

Well, yeah, it's Mission Impossible. You go in expecting some wild and crazy problems with crazier solutions, and that's just what you get. It's impressive that the franchise hasn't collapsed in on itself, considering the very played out formula it seems to use.

Spoiler

Also, at what point did Ethan's wife disappear? I'm sure that was a big thing in 3, but now he's just single again or something?

Terminator Genisys - 7/10

I watched it not having watched any trailers or really paid any attention to it (Rise of the Machines, and Salvation, left a bad taste in my mouth for Terminator hype). I was suitably impressed.

Spoiler

I quite liked the re-creation of the Kyle time travel landing. That was pretty on point compared to it in the first film.

It's Arnie blowing **** up, and some one liners, and some explosions. Can't complain. Not sure about Emilia as Sarah, though. She seems a bit.. Young? I dunno, whatever it is I didn't feel like she was Sarah. Not to say she was bad, just.. I felt like the casting was a very small pool of people, kinda like a fan-movie, if that makes sense.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought a few of them had scars and whatnot? I'm sure Splendid, the one Max "shoots", has some face thing going on. That said, they're his breeding wives because of their perfection - I think that's the whole point.

As for the water thing - I believe it was supposed to have been built pre-apocalyptic event. It's the remains of an Aquifer that was taken over by Colonel Joe (Immortan Joe) and re-purposed as a fortress type thing. Aquifers are "common" in Aus, there's five or six supposedly. How they got the bank vault door up there and working, though, I've no sodding idea. I guess you can do anything when you're a mental dictator with slave labour!

 

Spoiler

He started 4 in a Russian jail, after allegedly killing the 6 Serbians who apparently killed his wife. Brandt (Jeremy Renner) is all beat up over it as he was on the Hunts protection detail, and feels he failed Ethan. At the end, where they meet up in Seattle, it's because Hunt is there to see his wife, who has been placed in "Witness Protection" there.

See MI: Ghost Protocol on Wikipedia