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Reviews
Joker (2019)
Not for comic book fans
Evidently this movie tapped into something with a lot of people. But I'll say I just don't see it. To me, a fan of the most iconic DC villain in history, it was a hideous representation. And don't get me started on the insulting depiction of mental illness. We have enough people thinking we (those of us with mental health issues) will randomly turn violent without a 2 hour snooze fest that plays directly to that trope.
No, my big issue is the fact that the Joker wasn't funny. They've had some serious story lines, but even then the Joker made pun, and gloried in the despair and chaos of it all. He was, at his heart, an absurdist. He was evil, not crazy. And it's been hinted more than once that he was just an every day guy. One bad day and all that.
I wanted to like this movie. But this angst ridden despair fest means this Joker is just... Sad. Not manic chaos and evil intelligence. This Joker fell into villainy with a lot of stupid mistakes, he couldn't even trick the cops, but he's Bruce's intellectual equal?
And the AGE DIFFERENCE? What? When did Joker become an old man compared to Batman? Because by the time Bruce grows up and becomes Batman, Joker is gonna be 50-60 years old. C'mon. Also, Alfred makes an appearance and he's in his prime but he can't push off a skinny, under fed Fleck? I know it's an unreliable narrator but it's still annoying to watch.
Point is, there is so much comic fodder to take from, why did they remake Taxi Driver?
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Well...that was a movie.
I'm not one of those people who demand no one messes with my childhood memories. I know things are going to change because new generations have to experience them. I'm in my 30s, this movie isn't geared towards me, but hey, nostalgia plus teacher equals can I get kids to watch this and want to read more?
Except... the movie is slow to start. The glue they tried to hold it together with wasn't necessarily bad, but it also wasn't coherent or cohesive. Making it set in the 60s seemed needless since the book was from the 80s. Even if you're going to go trip on the past, the 60s seems way too far back (quick note, Ramon could have been AWOL after being stop-lossed).
Second, the stories aren't sacred, I get the need to tweak. But they didn't tweak. They stomped on them and ground out new ones. The greatest thing about these books is the fact there are so many stories. If one doesn't work, pick another. It's hard to tell kids to read a story that is nothing like what they just saw. And I really genuinely wanted to get a new generation of kids involved in these really awesome scary stories.
Finally, the ending is abrupt and unfulfilling to say the least. It's never quite established why Sarah Billows had to be our main antagonist, beyond she had the book. If it's because they wanted to leave a sequel hook, it's a just not worth it. I started to, at one point, think Sarah had something to do with our main character's mom, but that went no where. Or maybe it did.
I see a lot of people comparing it favourably to Goosebumps. And I loved Goosebumps too. But Scary Stories isn't Goosebumps. There was a bit of silliness, but sometimes downright seriousness and maturity to the stories (Maybe You'll Remember). And we missed that here. I was hoping to bring a new generation of kids to a book that made a huge impact on a lot of us. Instead this was a focusless mess that's forgettable and regrettable.
The Witch in the Window (2018)
Not a slow burn, someone forgot to put on the kettle actually...
I have absolutely no problem with movies that are more character and plot driven, especially those with limited budgets. In fact I watched one earlier today that I was so pleasantly surprised about that I contacted my husband and raved about it for 30 minutes while he was at a conference in Germany.
I watched the whole thing, not like a lot of other low reviews who turned it off mid movie. And I can say there were some cute moments between the father and son. But there was nothing driving the plot, so to speak. A moment that struck out to me, and this is where I must say if you're not one who likes spoilers, obviously you clicked the little spoiler warning button so you must not mind, but it's not much of one...so far the house has given them a dead bird in a chimney, something out of the corner of the father's eye, and... that's it.
And the son asks "do you think there's something wrong with this house."
Now, I'm a responsible adult, I know how to answer that question. Even spooked, you answer it ... no. Of course not. Even at this point, there's nothing giving them any indication of wrongness, except the same stuff we all hear in an old house.
Yet the father answers "maybe."
Later they see the ghost, witch? And instead of running the other way they walk right up to it, face to face, stare inches into her face and say her name and are surprised when she tries to attack them. Not just the father, the son as well. Now, I can imagine when the father FINALLY tells his son to get out of the house (which he does not do at first), and the son doesn't listen, that you can understand. The kid is 12. 12 year olds don't often listen. But that is when you march your child out of the house and away from whatever it is sitting in that chair. You do not let your child get in front of you and get in her face.
Those start piling up, and then the plot twist at the end makes absolutely no sense. They barely mention why she's evil, and then they never really explain what she was a witch for, or if she was just a really evil woman, but suddenly she had the power to keep him on the property, something she never had before, but she seemed like just an evil woman before and... really the plot just unravels. And it's a shame because the actors weren't necessarily bad. It's just that...the father makes more and more terrible choices, concluding in giving up his life so his son can have a house.
And quite frankly, I think I would rather have a tiny apartment in the city and an alive father than a house in Vermont and a dead dad.
The pacing is slow, the acting is good, the kid is a good actor, but with the plot and the holes and the inconsistencies, and the fact that it's just not scary (or even disconcerting in the least), I can't give it above a 2.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
I was surprised I genuinely enjoyed it
I'm going to be flat honest, I went into this movie expecting not to enjoy it. It's a sequel 20 years later to a movie I really, really loved. And not to mention that Robin Williams made such a huge impact on my childhood and has sadly since passed, meaning anything anyone did would have to ultimately be compared to his original work, I expected to be tearing this movie apart.
I expected to be doing that.
But I'm not.
Everyone in this movie really loved this movie and it came through. And they obviously loved the original too. They didn't try to reinvent the wheel, but instead redesigned it to fit a new vehicle. The game was still the game but in a new way that was still dated (feeling old and new at the same time) just like a game that is mysterious and possibly ancient should be. The characters chemistry worked well together, these guys are obviously friends on set and probably off too. And the dynamics of the story felt appropriate for kids my this generation, just like the dynamics felt right in the first movie for my generation.
In the end I found myself laughing and saying aww and yes, even falling for the smoulderingly a time or two. If you go into this looking for a faithful remake of the first film you're going to be sorely disappointed. But if you're looking for a sequel done by people who obviously loved the original and wanted to continue the fascinating and amazing world of Jumanji, it's well worth it.
The Predator (2018)
Well, technically I've never SEEN the originals...
I've never seen the original movie, so I can't compare this to the original. That being said, I enjoyed it. It's a campy action flick, more or less what I expected going in. If you don't take it too seriously, it's not too bad.
Ocean's Eight (2018)
I really wanted to like this movie
I love heist movies. Seriously. It's one of my favourite genres. And I went in wanting to like this movie. I loved Oceans 11 (not so much Oceans 12) and Oceans 13 was pretty good too. I loved Logan Lucky. They were fun. They were campy. They were even a bit stupid at times, but they had a weird kind of heart to them that Ocean's Eight was just sorely lacking.
Right off the bat, the movie just kind of felt off when the first time you see Sandra Bullock she's in jail and in full makeup. Sandra is a beautiful woman, I think she could have gotten away with not having makeup for a scene or two since she was in jail. I know it's supposed to be a suspension of disbelief, but it's the little things that kind of bring a movie together, and this was an immediate "wait, how does she look that good?"
Cate Blanchett was severely under utilised, starting with the fact she was watering down well vodka. Okay, okay... okay... seriously? She's obviously a very successful business owner and I'm supposed to believe this conman has been reduced to watering down well vodka? Not the good stuff evidently (which if you run a successful club/bar, you're hardly ever using well stuff anyway), but the well vodka. Somehow I almost expected John Taffer to jump out and start lecturing her about bar practices and this to turn into an episode of Bar Rescue.
But I digress. The rest of the cast were introduced in similarly uninspiring ways. Helena Bonham Carter was also heavily under utilised, a supposedly frazzled designer who never really seemed to be designing anything and didn't seem all that interested in fashion at all. Anne Hathaway was having fun hamming it up, and good for her because she seemed to be the only one that realised that hamming it up for heist movie is kind of needed. Rihanna was the typical "hacker", by that I mean nothing she did would probably ever work.
I did love her making a website in a matter of minutes when most programmers, including myself, are barely capable of tying our shoes on a good day.
There was a pickpocket, she was in it. I mean that's about as much as I can say about her. Mindy Kaling was the jewel expert, and that's about as much character growth as she got. Sarah Paulson was also in the movie. Yep.
The biggest disappointment I can say is in the Oceans movies, either the original with the Rat Pack or the remakes with Soderbergh, you get a sense of the team interacting with each other and their dynamics. That was severely lacking with Oceans Eight. There was no arguing among the women. There were set-backs or quips or sitting around joking with each other. There was no chemistry which is a shame because I have no doubt that these women can have a lot of on set chemistry.
The other thing the movie was lacking was a defined villain and defined goal. Danny Ocean in the remake was getting Tess back and sticking it to Terry Benedict. And Andy Garcia did an amazing job at making you hate Terry Benedict. Oceans 13 was about getting back at Willy Bank for hurting Reuben. And Al Pacino plays a good villain, how can not hate the devil (callback). While the ex-boyfriend may have been a villain in this movie (spoiler) he's not really in the movie much. You don't get a sense of him being the bad guy until she tells her story halfway through the movie.
And even then, yeah he's dick, he's a bad guy, but he's still not in the movie so he doesn't get to define his own villainy. Andy Garcia and Al Pacino marked their character as bad guys you wanted to hate and see taken down. This guy, who I can't even recall his name, was just kind of a jerk. And unlike in Oceans 11 where Danny is able to really show how bad of a guy Benedict is by getting him to confess that he'd give up Tess for the money, we just see this ex boyfriend get a lawyer.
Lastly, and pardon me if this is taking a while, the "reveals" aren't too revealing. It was a surprise in both Oceans 11 and Oceans 13, and Logan Lucky even, when you realise just how much work went in behind the scenes that you didn't see. That wasn't really the case here. The case, and here comes the spoils, is that one, Anne Hathaway's character has been working with them for part of the time. And two, they got more than one necklace.
Which first, the trailers show Anne working with them, so that wasn't a surprise at all.
And second, they talked about getting more than one necklace. So that wasn't a surprise at all.
So the big reveal that the women all seemed shocked by was actually kind of anti climactic moment. You can't talk about doing something then say "nah" and then do it anyway and then say "ha! Got ya!"
So, the movie is missing chemistry, characterisation of anyone really, even Debra, a defined villain, and a reveal. Meaning, this movie isn't a heist movie at all. It's just two hours of people walking around, staring at things and using tech and jargon that ultimately leads to no payoff. So kind of like working for Google.
Also, really? Killing off Danny? C'mon. What? C'mon.