Reviews

It's not on the same level of intellect, suspense and intrigue as Season 1 Episode 1, but that was something special indeed.

That's not to say it's bad by any stretch. There are scenes that are genuinely brilliant with regards to jumping in between the past, present and future, and Ke Huy Quan is fantastic in everything he is in. Hiddleston and Wilson do a great job as usual. The humour works.

Season 2 Episode 1 hits the ground running (literally), but a part of it feels almost by-the-numbers in a way. Plagued by Marvel-itis. Not quite enough worldbuilding. Characters in leadership positions are introduced that you've not seen or heard of before, with no backstory. Action is mostly standard Marvel stuff. There was a scene that felt extremely deus ex.

Still, it's rather too early to give a deterministic rating, so we'll see how it goes, but this episode for me doesn't quite meet the standards set by Season 1 (which for me is a perfect 10, so I guess you could say I'm nitpicking and you can ignore this review).

Fun movie, if you see the trailer, you know exactly what to expect and it delivers in spades.

Great cast, great action, fun dialogue, not meant to be a super serious movie, but still grounded enough to not be campy.

However, the third act of the movie is a letdown in my opinion; it's a fine line to straddle comedy and action, and the film mostly (mostly.) gets it right, which makes it all the more frustrating when in the final 30 minutes or so, the script, exposition flashbacks, and action sequences, just become a bit too over the top and clichéd, to the point where they become trite.

Still, that wasn't enough to detract too much from my enjoyment of the film overall.

It's still a fun popcorn flick, obviously not at all for kids, and there's Brad Pitt.

If you like Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, with a smattering of Knives Out, you will enjoy this film. If you don't, you should probably give this one a pass.

Much like Top Gun: Maverick, I went in to see this film knowing nothing about its source material. And, like Top Gun, I was very pleased with my impromptu decision. It's a solid film from a purely technical and storytelling standpoint, and a step above many (YA?) book adaptations brought to the big screen.

Ironically, the film is strongest when it doesn't entirely focus on romance. The acting isn't Oscar worthy, at least back when the Oscars meant something, but it's quite serviceable, just about (aside from when it goes all out on the romance). The cinematography and directing is decent, soundtrack is good; it's just all around competently made.

In particular, the film's notable strength is its ability to evoke emotional responses within the viewer, by allowing you to strongly empathize with Kya's experiences, and the story as a whole. It's sad, happy, touching, endearing, bittersweet.

One could argue that this movie may not have been greenlit quite so quickly if the book's story (or at least the story as told in the film) didn't happen to coincide quite a bit with the current hollywoke idpol narrative, as in, quite a few of the huwite men display 'toxic masculinity' and / or are in positions of power, wealth, or influence a la 'the patriarchy'; the story is set largely before the civil rights act and 3rd wave feminism, ergo women and minorities have fewer rights, or at least their rights are a technicality and not enforced in practice; and the theme of 'strong empowered woman' is established early on and keeps reasserting itself throughout the story. (Not to mention the main protagonist being a female).

The wokeness is not oppressively obvious, but it is there if you happen to be able to see these things. Still, I enjoyed the film, and would see it again. And I also know that everyone in my theater that saw it with me, also enjoyed it.

The 'professional' film 'critics' have completely lost the plot (literally) by this point, just go by audience reviews if you want to really gauge the quality of a film.

If this is your sort of film, go see it, it's good. If it isn't, your girlfriend will probably drag you to the theater to see it anyway.

Ah so, where to begin?

Having just seen a midnight screening of The Batman, I can safely confirm that this movie is indeed a very solid film and well worth watching.

I want to be as objective as possible, but given the pinnacle standards set by Nolan's Batman films, it's impossible to not compare the two together.

Given that, is it better than or equal to The Dark Knight? No. Is it better than or equal to Batman Begins? I believe so, although in a different way.

I really, really like the Blade Runner noir-detective cyberpunk feel of the film, and the immersion of the film in the first two acts is top notch. And if the atmospheric aura captured in the first half of the film carried out through the rest of the film, I would actually say that this film is comparable to TDK.

The film tries really hard to not retread ground covered in other films, which is a wise decision which helps to prevent storyline fatigue, and you can tell that this film is a genuine creative project and not just a generic cash grab. This iteration of the Batman explores the more psychological, analytical side of the character, with a suitable villain in the Riddler that is almost Saw-like as a methodical, intelligent, yet twisted antagonist.

That being said, and I hate to say this about long films because I love long films, but the third act could have been a lot better. If only because there needed to be more of an understanding of the stakes beforehand, which is all I can say to remain spoiler free. But then perhaps the film never really intended for there to be a proper climax, as the entire theme of this film is about exploring Batman's character and the realisation of what Batman really is supposed to represent, and perhaps achieving that realisation is enough of an ending for some people, but for me it wasn't.

You are also left with a really important question regarding what *cough* the exact reason for a certain person's motives were, as in the actual reason for them beyond a vague explanation, since it's so central to the plot. Hopefully this will be answered in a later film.

Battinson has bulked up himself quite a bit, and although his arms still look a bit lanky, its passable if you're not nitpicking, and he looks a far more imposing figure in the suit than I ever thought possible. He really sells the physicality of Batman, in particular by clever dialogue or rather the lack of it, by just standing there looking down at people while saying nothing, which is hilarious. But I will never understand why the batsuit doesn't have a full face guard, as that's a critical weak point from an armor design perspective, but whatever.

Kravitz is fine. I actually prefer Hathaway's version of Catwoman, but again, Kravitz is fine. You can interpret that either way.

Colin looks amazing in the prosthetics, you can't tell it's him at all, and he plays the part very well.

The Riddler is actually quite a well-acted, well thought-out villain; even though he presents himself masked, you can feel the pent-up rage in his voice, and in many ways I actually sympathized with the rationale for his actions, which made perfect sense in a way.

Cinematography and score are very well done, as I said, the atmosphere in the first half of the film is incredible.

In retrospect, there wasn't really all that much action, but what scenes there are, are great. They should have added more, quite honestly. Absolutely no-one would complain.

Overall, I believe that this film achieved what it intended to (more or less), which is a grounded exploration of the earlier days of Batman, set within a detective-noir semi-origin story.

Although it's not the bestest evar iteration, it is a very solid 8.3 out of 10 from me, and I for one am looking forward to see where they take things from here, because this has a lot of potential to take things to heights even surpassing The Dark Knight.

For some measure of my Bond tastes, Skyfall is heavily overrated, but Casino Royale was the best bond since Goldfinger; From Russia With Love.

Objectively, this isn't a 10, nor is it a 2. It's decent. It's not amazing, nor is it terrible. Way better than Spectre but that's not saying much. It felt like a film that had differing ideas of what it wanted to be and what direction to take the character of Bond.

Overall, the Bond theme that was the most consistent, was a more 'mature', well rounded, and empathetic Bond. It works, and yet it also doesn't. The question I found myself asking is 'why?'. They made Bond a soulless orphan in Skyfall, now they are trying to make him emotional? Also who cares? This is not what Bond is supposed to be about.

Dialogue was usually good but there were some Marvel-esque moments which had no place being in a Bond film. Likely Phoebe's work. Her writing style actually fits in the upcoming Indy movie, but here its...well...I'll let you decide.

It also isn't woke, thank god. Well, objectively it kind of is, but it's not aggressively so. It's tolerable. They treated Bond with respect and didn't make him a fat overweight bearded drunkard used for comedic relief.

One thing they did get right, where the previous two Bond films lacked in, was Bond's good-natured suavity and charm. Admittedly, this is likely Phoebe's doing as well, so you get the good with the bad.

There is no blood from gunfire ever. Pandering to the Chinese market because they don't allow blood on the screen isn't a good thing Hollywood. I missed me some John Wick R-rated violence.

The ending was unnecessary. Some characters were also unnecessary or simply annoying (again it felt like they were trying to copy Marvel). There's actually a scene towards the beginning of the film, that I swear was copied right out of The Winter Soldier (The Winter Soldier did it better). If you've seen the original trailer, you can figure it out.

On the upside, the tech was cool, the music score was one of the better ones, and the cinematography was good. Visually the camera work was very good. If you've seen Bad Boys for Life, the directing style is actually quite similar.

Some fight scenes, are illogical. Why do the bad guys always have Stormtrooper aim when aiming at central characters? This is a trend I've been seeing in movies from the past decade that needs to end ASAP. It completely destroys my immersion in any movie.

I read a critic review that Raimi went full Jared Leto from Blade Runner 2049. Made me lol since it was accurate. Stop trying to make villians Joker 2.0 guys. It's very very hard to do. To portray true psychopathy you have to actually become psychotic in some way, at least temporarily. Ledger isolated himself for a month for the role.

Raimi is also underused and was on screen fairly little, comparative to the 2 hour 46 running length. The third act is either too long or too short.

Overall, was it fun and worth seeing, as a Bond fan? Yesn't.

It's somewhat ironic that a movie about time travel can't be reviewed properly until your future self rewatches the movie.

It's bold of Nolan to make such a thoroughly dense blockbuster. He assumes people will actually want to see Tenet more than once so they can understand it properly, which some may not. This movie makes the chronology of Inception look as simplistic as tic-tac-toe.

Ergo, it's hard for me to give an accurate rating, without having seen it twice, as I'm still trying to figure out whether everything does indeed make sense. If it does, this movie is easily a 9 or a 10. If it doesn't, it's a 6.

It's further not helped by the fact that the dialogue in the first 15 minutes of the movie is painfully hard to understand / hear. Either they were behind masks; they were practically mumbling; the sound effects were too loud; or all of the above. The exposition scenes are also wayyy too brief for something this complex -- a problem also shared with Interstellar actually.

(Interstellar had this minimalist exposition problem explaining Blight, where if you weren't careful, you'd miss this one sentence / scene in the entire movie explaining that Blight was a viral bacteria:

"Earth's atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, we don't even breathe nitrogen. Blight does, and as it thrives, our air gets less and less oxygen").

I guess it's a Nolan quirk. Hopefully, a revision of the film audio sorts the sound mixing out. I do like the soundtrack, but it's too loud initially.

I liked all the actors. You think John Washington can't act at first, but he can, and he grows on you as the film progresses. And Pattinson is his usual charming self. Elizabeth is a surprise treat. And so on.

It's worth a watch either way. See it with subtitles if you can. And definitely don't expect to fully understand what's going on the first time around.

I've not read Dune, so I don't know how close it is to the book, so I'm going to have to judge it on its merits as a standalone film.

And with that, this is going to sound nitpicky. If you've seen Denis' other works, you kind of know exactly what you're getting with Dune. That's not necessarily a bad thing; in fact I thought, as I saw the trailer ages ago, that Villeneuve was just about the perfect director choice for this movie, and after having seen the film, nothing has changed. Its just....

Like, I get that this is set in the far future and ergo there will be lots of unique weird designs etc. But can we change it up a bit? And I would appreciate some spacecraft designs that make at least moderate physical sense, y-know?

Although the movie clocks in at a meaty 2 hours and 34 minutes, somehow it still felt too short. Even knowing that this is one of two parts, I think that an extra half hour, Endgame-style, to flesh out a bit more worldbuilding and supporting characters would have helped a ton. A lot of characters' screen time felt comparatively way too short and you don't always know everything you would want to ahead of time. I would gladly watch a 3 or even 4 hour version of this movie.

And while it was a wise decision to split a book like this into two parts it kind of suffers from Mockingjay syndrome where a lot of the movie is setup for part two. Don't get me wrong, a lot happens in the film, but once you watch it you will understand what I mean by that.

That being said, the subject, theme, and visuals fit Denis' strengths as a filmmaker. I presume the flashbacks (forwards?) are part of the book's narrative as well. It is definitely a moviegoing experience and I am absolutely looking forward to part two.

You already know the acting is impeccable with an all-star cast and the leads carry their roles. Timothée and Rebecca are absolutely perfect.

But I can't rate the film overall as high as some of the other folks here.

TL;DR: Does Dune stand on its own merits? Yes, it does, but expect some mild déjà vu. (Unintentional choice of words, but it's kind of funny that that phrase is also of French origin.)

I looooved this series as a kid and I still love it today, rewatching it as an adult. Do yourself a favor and give it a chance, even if the dialogue can make you smile and cringe at times!

Every single production that is or goes 'woke' is generic, derivative, uninspired, preachy, and dumb. Every actor that goes 'woke' is dull, uncharismatic, and wooden (and usually not very good-looking either).

The series was enjoyable up to a point, but with each episode I felt like I was watching a direct-to-video TV series (back when Blockbuster existed). Which actually kind of is, when I think about it.

Episode 3 was the best, but it goes only downhill from there. The 'Falconsuit' did look amazing though.

While watching, I got really tired of the diversity hires everywhere. That goes for the writers as well as the cast. If America idolizes the 'blonde haired blue eyed' folks as this show tells me, maybe there is a reason for it. Stop being generally subpar maybe, and produce something exceptional?

Nobody says 'women and men'. It's 'men and women'. The f--k? Every potential love interest and side character of Bucky is a diversity hire. Cringe. Apropos to this, the dialogue ranges from decent, to cringe woke garbage.

The subplot-which-sadly-isn't-a-subplot's main antagonist is another diversity hire. Not even in shape. Using a particular serum, which by the way isn't fully explained as to how exactly the antagonist gets ahold of it, is the only way they could make the fights somewhat believable. Antagonist's sidekicks are diversity hires too.

Who needs the Avengers? Two Wakandan diversity hires with spears are all you need.

They try to reverse-psychology-normalize the globalist NWO bullsh-t by having the antagonist spout that nonsense while trying to make the antagonist a sympathetic villain. It doesn't work.

Don't really understand how the quality can drop so much compared to Infinity War. The format isn't THAT different compared to the big screen.

The only, and I repeat the ONLY reason I even gave this a 6 is the goodwill I have remaining from Winter Soldier (which is excellent), and Infinity War (which is also really good). If this were a standalone production not tied to the MCU, I would rate this a 3 or less. Keep politics OUT of film or at the very least keep it subtle.

I haven't seen WandaVision yet, but right now I'm thinking Marvel should stick with movies.

WW84 plays like a video game adaption and unfortunately carries with it the same shortcomings associated with that genre. This movie is what happens when writers develop good characters and moral arguments to present those characters, but then forget every other rule about storytelling, such as avoiding plot incontinuity, clichés, deus ex machina, and plot contrivances en masse.

This movie is what happens when the producers have a deadline to meet, but they couldn't come up with any real inspired ideas so they just throw in the towel and use the top upvoted suggestions in their corporate brainstorming session, slap Wonder Woman (TM) on top of it, add some clichés and ship it out to die on HBO max, without bothering to develop the plot further than a barely workable concept.

It will be apparent to you right from the onset, that there is a very large tonal shift from the vastly more serious, grounded, and mature first movie, towards hard camp / silliness / soppiness in this one, which will throw many off.

This was hinted at in the trailers, but in fact the trailers underplayed the extent of it. The 'heist' scene was campy to the point of abject dreadfulness. Was this movie for adults, or kids?

You get the general impression that much was lost in the editing room, and that the movie was meant as a cheesy summer blockbuster for some fast cash, and nothing more. The movie tries to be too many genres at once, and is sort of successful at evoking whatever emotion it wants you to feel at any particular point in the story, but doesn't retain a cohesive theme overall, and isn't worth its 2 hour 30 minute runtime.

Is it a romantic comedy? A thriller? Action? Character study? Drama? Superhero movie? Who knows? I certainly didn't. If I had to pigeonhole it, I would grimacingly say that it was a romantic comedy.

Imagine Thor Ragnarok, but instead of Waititi directing the comedic beats, it's Stephenie Meyer. Exactly.

I don't mind long movies if they're worth it, but this wasn't. I wouldn't say it's because the pacing was uneven; it's more like because there wasn't too much plot to pace around to begin with. Characters magically develop abilities, then lose them or forget about them. Reality? Physics? Infinite length lassos? Nah, it'll be fine!

There's like no action. You remember that standout scene from the first movie, where the WW theme plays and Diana starts running across a certain no-mans-land? Nope there's nothing like that. Or I should say, there's some lassoing and a car chase and stuff, but it's not like, action, you know? All very lame and uninspired throughout, and massively underwhelming at best.

And then there was this weird Hallmark-eqsue ending and 'cameo' that felt totally out of place...Oh never mind. The whole movie was out of place, and should never have been made. Why on earth did they change the screenwriters from the first movie, and give Patty Jenkins complete creative control? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

3 stars goes to the cast and soundtrack. Rest is trash.

What's not to like? I got exactly what I was hoping for. A thrilling, high-production-value horror-suspense movie, that is honestly pretty good even from an objective standpoint.

People rating this a 6 and under are honestly just cynical about Kristen Steward having the lead role. Did Cloverfield explain where its monsters came from? Basically no, right? This movie has about the same depth of exposition in that regard, if not a bit more. Sometimes a full-on backstory isn't necessary.

When I saw the trailer, I was like, "Yes! This actually looks good, I want to see it!" I'm glad I did.

It's not exactly a terribly original story, but if you saw the trailer, you knew that. It's not derivative, lazy or uninspired by any means.

With regards to acting chops, lets be honest. I'm no Kristen fanboy, but very few actors and actresses are on the level of Leonardo DiCaprio or Michael Caine. Her acting was fine, and I had no gripes with it. I would see more of her in future roles like this if I am quite honest. She has improved from her Bella Swan days. The rest of the cast was also good to great, especially the Captain.

With regards to the science of it all, I'm pretty sure that any kind of suit for use on the sea floor, especially at that depth, would have to have some sort of hydraulic exoskeleton in order for people to move around at all, period, due to the immense water pressure. But, the suits are big and sturdy enough to where you can reasonably assume that the hydraulics exist within the suit. It's not a big deal. They got the compressed, specially liquefied air canisters right, so I'm happy.

There are some actual moments. Effects are great, slow-motion effects are done properly, and the mood and tone of the film is nicely foreboding.

Give it a shot, unless you've already typecast Kristen to the point of no return.

Far exceeded my expectations. I was expecting a decent-ish buddy-cop flick with some throwbacks trying to cash in on the Bad Boys nostalgia, but ultimately a movie that would be a rather tired rehash of old tropes with no real inspiration to it. This movie is original, unexpected, shocking, funny, and frankly amazing. Comedy is on point, action is on point, plot is on point, effects are on point. Stands on its own merits, and it might just be the best in the series.

January is bringing surprise delights with The Gentlemen, and then this.

The cinematography obviously is stellar, but the aspect of this film seeming like one massive take is in my opinion more of a hindrance than an improvement. It's cool and unique in the beginning, but later on in the film (especially some combat scenes) there are instances where the film would massively have benefited from cutting to a different perspective.

1. It doesn't help in this case that the film starts with only two main protagonists. There are movies that pull off suspense quite well with only a few central characters (I am Legend / A Quiet Place, for instance), but this one in my opinion does not.

2. Because once you realise that since this film is one massive take, the only realistic stakes can be towards the end of the movie, (since if both of the soldiers fail at their mission early on and no new soldiers join their quest, the film can't really pan towards anything, so based on this, you now know that if the camera only follows those two around, its highly likely that at least one of the pair will survive for the near-entirety of the movie. And that's a big problem in a film depicting brutal war. (And if this didn't occur to you before, well, sorry :3).

3. It further doesn't help that a LOT of the scenes where something meaningful happens are already in the trailer. Carrying on from point #2., if you remember seeing a scene of a protagonist in this trailer that the movie hasn't caught up with yet, well, well well.... Good films only show trailers of their beginnings, and don't show anything from the 2nd or 3rd act. It's such an obvious and easily avoidable pitfall, and yet so many films try to stuff everything in the trailer just to make people see the film, at the expense of the film itself. Having seen the trailer beforehand since it was practically everywhere, this was very bad. The plane scene, and the running-trench scene, were particularly egregious examples of this. For me, this film was like reading a book, having already skimmed the synopsis.

4.When soldiers 'just miss' targets running in a straight line (not zigzagging) 15 meters in front of them, I won't lie, the film got annoying for me, that's literally one of the easiest shots to take. Shoot in the back, fin.

Positives: Acting was good to very good, soundtrack, sound editing, and set design were spot on, and the story premise was decent. I truly felt for the characters, and I hear that it's based on a true story too, which is also cool. But Saving Private Ryan had a similar premise, however that movie was executed way better.

Overall, I didn't feel like I had wasted my money. But I felt like this could have been so much better. For logical thinkers, and for those who have seen truly great cinema, this will definitely be overrated for you.

Yeah it's not a complete dumpster fire, but only just. Turn your brain off, and you still cant engage in the story because who cares? Use logic, and the story objectively makes no sense at times. You'll be saying, wait that's awfully convenient for that to happen and highly unlikely to boot. Wait, but how did they know that was there? Wait, why don't they just use speeders that can't be hacked? And the retcons just don't work, although I understand JJ was painted into a corner. And so on, and on.

There's a few scenes near the very end where you can tell JJ knows we know he's a hack and will be comparing this movie to RotJ

I rate it a 3 because there were some legitimately cool scenes (and the special effects were great), and Adam Driver tried his best. But nothing could save this movie, and the end result feels painfully stitched together. Which makes sense because there were 6+ endings for this film. I wish I could have seen the George Lucas cut.

Objectively, TLJ was worse than this, but this movie will leave you even more depressed if you're a Star Wars fan. Don't waste your money. I certainly didn't. ;)

Everything actually makes sense, and there is more humour and depth to the story than you might notice the first time you see it, because you have to pay close attention: one line of dialogue or second of animation missed and you'll miss it. It helps to have seen the first Frozen as well. Granted, I was at the end of a 36 hour day, but this movie benefited massively from my second viewing, when I was fully awake. Pay attention towards the end, in particular.

All is Found > Into the Unknown.

If we cut out the occasionally not-so-subtle jokes and dialogue about politically meta talking points, Craig's parodical Foghorn Leghorn accent (I'm still unsure if it's intentionally bad or not, I think it is), and the puke gimmick, I'd give this a solid 9 if not 9.5. Accidental genius? Perhaps. But still, the end product somehow shines.

I hated the Last Jedi, a film which made me question the sanity of its writer-director. I'm beginning to think that Rian had some inner passive-aggressivity with Jar Jar Abrams or someone else that loved Star Wars, and that he knew exactly what he was doing by ruining the continuity of Star Wars with Episode XIII, because this film is pretty darn good despite the flaws aforementioned. Dare I say, well worth watching.

Still avoiding TROS like the plague, but Knives Out is actually not a misfire.

If you're a snowflake and are offended by gratituous cursing, nudity, sex, drugs, sexism and / or general debauchery, then please avoid this film because it will give you PTSD and then some.

If you're a woman, you may find this movie uncomfortable due to the objectification of your gender, but if you think that that doesn't happen in real life anyway, well what can I say.

Those caveats aside, it's an exceptional film. DiCaprio sells his antihero central character of Jordan perfectly, and the supporting cast are also outstanding. Jonah Hill is hilarious throughout the film as Donnie.

Scorcese really nailed portraying the lifestyle of decadent, depraved Wall Street 'brokers', and didn't play it safe.

The movie didn't drag once throughout its nearly 3 hour run-time.

I'd rate this closer to a 9.5, but bumped it up to 10 because of all the fake 1 star reviews.

I'd rate this zero stars if I could. It's not even so bad it's good. I couldn't even endure the first 10 minutes ironically--that is, knowing that it would be a bad movie and seeing it how bad it could get. It's so bad that you can't even laugh at its badness--you're too busy cringing at the overacting, underacting, lethally cringe dialogue, puzzling camera angles, discordant music score, and dreadful, lazy 'military' depictions...I could go on. Whoever starred in this movie and had anything to do with its production should cease and desist, and find a new career. Immediately.

A unique mix of intelligent satire and morbid Sci-Fi that may not be for everybody, but those who can appreciate the layers of this movie will enjoy it far more.

You can see the effort put into this episode, at least in terms of set piece design. A lot of the scenes are very dim which lessened the tension sometimes as there was a lot to keep track of. Ending was a let down though, especially if you've read the books...