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Reviews
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
Too Many Callbacks; Not Enough Substance
Let me start off by saying that I watched this movie already having low expectations for it.
I'm trying my best to keep this spoiler-free, so I can say this: What was missing from this reboot was soul.
Here are a few other things:
NEW CHARACTERS
They didn't work. It's hard to feel any connection to them at all. They just don't leap off the page or illicit any strong affinity with them
OLD CHARACTERS
It's great to see Reeves and Moss back together again, but I really wish we could have also had Fishburne and Weaving. Pinkett-Smith is also there in a poorly-written role, for my money.
ANTAGONISTS
I was ambivalent to them. Smith came across as more of a frat boy than a threat.
SET PIECES
Most disappointing of all, perhaps, are these scenes. It really needed something to set it apart. We had 'bullet time' in the first, the highway chase in the second and the final fight in the third. Here, I find it difficult to remember a really stand-out scene on which the movie hinged. Honestly, I can't think of one.
It is more storyboard that script. The philosophical part of the story doesn't score well. It feels too rehashed. The fight scenes feel like they were (poorly) imagined first and the film built around them. There is one scene where a character from an earlier movie makes a return and you will ask yourself "why?".
My honest feeling is that this would have worked well as a graphic novel. We may have even had our beloved Agent Smith central to the story. Perhaps based off of two or three of those, we would have the movie that this franchise deserves.
Elis (2016)
Great performance but uneven storytelling
I've had a passing fascination for Elis Regina for many years and was very surprised to see this film advertised on Amazon Prime Video as I had not heard anything about it. I immediately assumed it was a documentary because of its lack of promotion in Europe, so you could imagine my surprise when I started playing it and saw a list of actors in the opening credits.
I think the reason why this movie did not resonate too well outside of Brazil is because it was not written for a global audience. The film made too many assumptions: firstly, that you are familiar with Elis' recordings and secondly you were bought up knowing a lot about the Brazilian music industry. Perhaps even more vitally, it made the assumption that everybody is aware of the brutality that occurred during the dictatorship. This, I believe, made the film inaccessible to the world.
Andréia Horta, in my humble opinion, gave an absolutely stunning performance capturing a lot of the essence of Elis Regina that I had seen in her performances and her interviews but, something was badly paced in the actual storytelling. The film either needed to be (at least) another 30 minutes longer or it needed to spread the story more evenly over the course of her years under the spotlight. Up until her television performances, I feel the director got the story right. After that, it was like a needle skating across a record. First a child and then three as if by magic.
This wasn't the main problem for me, though. Again, the movie made the assumption that the audience would immediately know in which year the events were occurring. I found it difficult to know whether the story was still in the mid seventies or the early 80s.
I also have a feeling that the story of her involvement with drugs wasn't properly told. One minute she was trying peyote and the next, we are to suspect that she died of some sort of drug overdose despite saying that music and her children were the most important things in her life.
I could watch this movie again just to enjoy Adréia Horta's performance once more (the support cast were also wonderfully portrayed), but I will end up with the same sense of unfulfillment.
I don't think you needed to be a Ray Charles fan to have enjoyed his biopic and to have felt that you got to know him not only as a singer but as a person as well, but this movie left me with more questions than answers.
Passengers (2016)
Okay Film, Wrong Actors
I often look at movie actors and wonder how much theatre work they've done and in a film with so few actors you really need to have presence and, good God, a range of expressions.
This film is minimalist enough to take place or a stage and frankly, Pratt and Lawrence wouldn't hold the audience's attention.
Pratt is okay for comedy and action, but not for thought pieces.
One could only imagine how much better this movie would have been had he and Sheen swapped roles.
Timeless (2016)
Where To Begin With This Hot Mess?
Firstly, the science. Either the creators do not understand causality or they expect industrial quantities of disbelief suspension from us. These people are changing events wholesale and, even though they mention the butterfly effect in the series, their changing of events affects very little in 'present day'.
Most sci-fi series (no matter how far-fetched) work on a premise that our 'reality' is the same where the series takes place (true of X-Files, Fringe and countless other series). However, by changing pivotal moments in our history, this clearly is NOT the case.
Also, what is so difficult about flying the lifeboat. Why wouldn't they train others to become pilots?
Secondly, the casting. There is absolutely no chemistry between the two leading actors. After a poor start, I think the only one who has grown into his role is Mason. I feel that if I were to see any of these actors in the street, I'd be more likely to say "it's that actor from that rubbish TV show" than "Oh look, it's Mulder!" or "Doctor Bishop, can I have your autograph".
In short, they could replace a main cast member in the next series and I wouldn't even care.
Thirdly, the plots. Does anybody remember Quantum Leap? It had four great seasons of creative writing after which Sam started to leap into the bodies of people involved in real life events (Marilyn Monroe's bodyguard, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc). This is largely where fans feel the show jumped the shark. The central premise of Timeless is to alter real events, therefore it jumped the shark right from the Hindenburg disaster.
Fourthly, it's just not original and doesn't even try to hide the fact that it borrows from previous TV shows ('Fringe' in particular) albeit with an inferior end product.
In conclusion, the show could really benefit from consulting scientists. It also needs a meatier soundtrack. I think it would also benefit from two-episode story arcs to help the characters grow and then they can leave behind this awful Rittenhouse subplot. It's far too lame to drag it on for another dozen episodes.
Gravity (2013)
Ignore the BAD reviews - this is a thinking person's epic sci-fi movie
You know, sometimes people are so fickle. I would like to laugh at people who turn their noses up or just feel they need to be heard and state an opinion so contrary to popular opinion so as to appear to be enlightened thinkers.
Even if you do not like the movie because it's not to your taste, there is absolutely NO way you could give it one out of ten.
I personally give it a nine because I'm a little bit loathe to calling anything perfection.
Let me tell you what it is that I like about the film and why I rated it on par with common held belief. No, it's not because I'm a sheep.
The absence of dialogue and the apparent lack of action action give your eyes time to feast on the visuals and your brain to agonise over how in the hell the crew were able to simulate the conditions of space. The way the camera passes through Sandra Bullock's helmet, for example and allows you to see the telemetry on her visor is, although minor, a breathtaking effect that takes you from first person perspective to onlooker seamlessly yet transports you from the confinement of the space suit to the immense darkness of space itself. I'm not sure which perspective was more terrifying but having the benefit of both views enhanced the suspense that was unfolding.
For those who scoff and say that it was unrealistic, what do these people want? Of course the final scene is implausible (not going to give anything away here) but I found myself on the edge of my seat.
The long shots are jaw dropping and the flowing nature of the direction really draws you in to sharing the weightlessness and disorientation of the astronauts.
The major surprise for me is that the director showed his complete lack of arrogance by not prolonging the film for any longer than in needed to me. 90 minutes for a movie of this budget must be unheard of but in this case, less is certainly more. James Cameron would have found at extra hour of "filler" from somewhere.
I, for one, will be going to see this movie again on the weekend just to pick up on all the stuff I missed the last time.
For those who didn't like the movie, I suggest they go watch a film with gratuitous violence and a couple of nude scenes.
If your idea of a complete filmgoing experience is to leave the theatre perplexed and spend the next 2 hours with friends discussing the drama that unfolded, this is a perfect movie for you.