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

Paddington 2: Awesome 9/10. Really enjoyed it at home because my kids decided they didn't want to see the second half in the cinema
Jumanji remake: 5/10. It's a good attempt but really just vacant, mind numbing, cheaply produced with piss poor story when compared to the first.

 

The Shape of Water 7/10
It's well designed, well acted, solid (if very predictable) story, and ultimately rather slow. I understand WHY it won all those oscars, but it's not a particularly special film in my books.

American Made 7/10
Tom Cruise playing in a "based on a true story" film about the Medellin Cartel. It's entertaining enough, if not ground breaking. The plot seems to stick more or less to the broad outlines of the actual story, which was a pleasant surprise to me.

 

Its not a Tom Cruise film unless he runs...

 

i THINK he does... not sure...

 

If Tom Cruise is in a movie then there is running at some point. I think there's a clause in his contract demanding it. Same as with Mel Gibson; any films starring him is required to feature at least one scene involving his naked buttocks.

 

Spectral 8/10

Very good Sci-Fi from Netflix. Well worth the watch and a really refreshing narrative.

Black Panther 7/10

Great action flick, quite different from other Marvel movies.

 

glad to see you enjoyed it.

 

Annihilation - 9/10

This was different, but in a good way as it is quite a ride. It's a bit slow maybe, but I heartily recommend it.


Edit: After thinking about it some more I realised I had to adjust my score up...

 

Patlabor 2 - 9.5/10

After being left for dead by his superiors a soldier returns home and wages a guerrilla info war turning the country against his superiors forcing them to experience the scenario he himself was left to die in.
arguable one of the finest political thrillers ever made imo, stunning cinematography and soundtrack. loses half a point for being a little slow in places.

 

I watched this last night and thought it was great as well. There were a few moments in the movie where it crosses the line from sci-fi to hokey IMO, upsetting immersion a little bit, but they're fairly few and far between. I thought the pace of the movie was perfect, just added to the slow-burn creepiness.

On a different note, I didn't realise it was basically an all-woman cast - this is fine, the movie was great neither because of it nor in spite of it. It surprised me though as assumed they would have made a big song and dance out of it, and there was none. Extra kudos.

Spoiler

I may have nightmares about the screaming murder-bear-thing and the doppelganger at the end for years to come though

 

I agree on all statements made. Great watch, visually impressive, extremely solid cast, no fanfare, Spoiler is also true as f***...

 

Yep spot on, an spot on with that spoiler to.

 

I'm gonna have to disagree with the above comments on Annihilation... sorry guys. I mistakenly bought into all the hype expecting an awesome movie, and that's certainly not what I got.

To me it felt extremely pretentious and woefully unoriginal despite the pretty visuals. It has some strong elements and the female cast is great, but that doesn't make up for the lack (or absence) of substance and integrity.

Spoiler

You might find yourself asking numerous questions about this moive, and the best answer is (to quote Portman herself): "I... don't know."

I'd give it 5/10 at best.

 

Death of Stalin. Very well acted but a certain kind of funny. Absolutely enjoyable but you have to really keep engaged with what's going on. 8/10
SWLJ: Watched half of it with my 4 y/o son. He loved the action. Was WTF at the milky space titty ("Why didn't he just go to 7-11?"). Thought Leya was superman flying. Personally it's not a re-watch movie it's a one-time spectacle movie. I watched it with Rian Jones' commentary and she's just gushing over everything. The more I analyse scenes with her the more the more vacant and wrong it all feels. 4/10

 

Jumanji - Welcome to the Jungle - Smoldering/10

I don't think I've ever seen the original, but I knew going into this what kind of movie it was. So considering it by those merits I think it succeeds very well at what it is trying to do. It is silly and cheesy, and it is also quite funny at times. I enjoyed it. Also, from here on in I shall strive to make smoldering intensity my special power (tried smoldering at my wife after the movie yesterday, but she just laughed at me so I think practice is in order).

 

Annihilation - 7/10
This was decent. It reminded me a lot of Interstellar at times, complete with the "deep BS w***ery" that annoyed me about interstellar. This is why it gets point deducted.
Besides that, it's rock solid, looks GREAT and has a good cast.

Star Wars: The last Jedi - 6.5/10
I think I have reached maximum Star Wars, TBH. It's not that the films don't look great - they do. The throwbacks in this were fun as well. When the duality and balance of the force gets emphasized to a point where eye-rolling is a regular thing, things get a bit irritating, though. Also: random scene that has elements thrown in for pure visual effect (that last battle and the salt...).
I don't know.. .It wasn't bad, but I found myself less interested.

Jumanji - 7/10
Is it as good as the previous one? No. Probably not. The scenario is less fun, for sure.
The casting of this is spot on, though. Even Kevin Hart, who I normally cannot stomach, was on the money in this.
It's quirky, it's mindless, it's funny at times, and ultimately, it's just a fun adventure film with The Rock and a scantly clad Karen Gillan...

 

Fast and Furious 8 - Popcorn/10
Pfff, I've seen too many of these, the story gets wilder and wilder, and they are just not enough tongue in cheek to make the impossible stuff happening bearable.
The next one should be called "Matchbox - the Movie" complete with kids hands pushing the cars. and doing tripple backflips and the likes.

 

Baby Driver - VROOOOOOM/10

I loved this film. It was brilliant. Characters were just the right level of OTT for the kind of film it was, the chemistry between the male and female leads was super authentic, the car chases **** all over any F&F film, the little touches to do with music and timing were sublime.

The soundtrack in general was just spot-on... I mean, a chase sequence to Hocus Pocus by Focus? GENIUS.

Only criticism I have is that it made it SUPER difficult to drive sensibly after watching....

 

Oh yeah, absolutely. Actually, I'm totally blaming the lack of a second date on the way I drove her home after I watched that movie...

 

Ready Player One - 7/10

This is a tough one for me because I really enjoyed the book and it's hard to judge a movie objectively when all these good emotions from the book are being conjured up.

The plot points are mostly identical. Some parts of the egg hunt are condensed for the sake of time, and the specifics are changed, but otherwise the movie's story beats parallel the book's.

And I want to get this out of the way. I love the book, like really love it, but it's hardly "good" in the classical sense. It's nostalgia and fan-service wrapped into a power fantasy that's competently written, but just barely. It's full of tropes and bad writing that can be excused as being "Wade's voice" instead of just the bad writing of Ernest Cline, but I don't care. I still love it. The one thing the book really succeeds at is building an emotional investment in the reader. There's a real feeling of betrayal when an unbreakable force field is placed around the last challenge, like IOI (evil company) isn't playing by the unspoken rules of the egg hunt, like they're not playing by the spirit of the game.

In the movie you never feel emotionally involved in any of the characters or action. Even the first action sequence (a car race), is a really fun spectacle that is somehow still boring.

I think the movie is a passable adaptation. It's a better adaptation and better movie than Ender's Game, which is the closest comparison I can make despite Ready Player One and Ender's Game being vastly different books and movies.

I think part of the issue lies in the intended audience. I'm 31. I'm barely old enough to really have gotten all the references in Ready Player One, the book, and only because I'm a huge nerd who cared about Captain Crunch and early computer games and things that I spent time to learn about as a kid whose first home computer was an original Pentium. I should be too young for the book.

And the movie isn't really for me. It's for kids twelve to twenty-something. The nostalgia is still there for me, but many of the pop-culture references have been updated to appeal to a younger generation.

If you've read and loved the book, the movie will be fun. If you haven't . . . it might still be fun, but don't plan on being blown away. In either case, you should go read the book.