Topic: The Movie Thread

So, I almost never see a movie on opening day, but I'm doing just that with the new Pet Sematary on Friday. We'll see how that turns out. I like the trailers.

@WanderingBullet Boy, I'm confused. I thought this was an adaptation of the "Joker" graphic novel, but apparently it's just another origin story for the character.

Well, whatever. It'll still be better than whatever Marvel churns out this year.

@jacobia Yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic about Brightburn. Between that and (potentially) The New Mutants, the "superhero horror film" subgenre is off to one hell of a start!

@Ralizah odd thing, but the posters for Pet Cemetary really riled up my pedantry!

"... from the author of It." As if actually saying 'Stephen King' would have been too obscure an endorsement 🙄😂.

The Joker movie is an interesting one since it's considered as a psychological thriller (based on Wikipedia).

Also, I thought Shazam! was a good and fun family movie. The CGI at times were a bit poor, not to mention the designs for the seven deadly sins monsters which I'm not a fan of. For me, both Shazam! and Wonder Woman are currently DCU's best movies. That being said, Shazam! has a better villain than Ares from Wonder Woman.

@KALofKRYPTON Heh, I kind of like that. Most authors don't get name-dropped like that, instead being tied in the public imagination to their popular works. Almost seems like a slap across the face to his obnoxious celebrity status.

@Frigate I thought Mamoa was pretty decent, actually. He’s not Orson Welles or Sir Ian McKellen or anything, but he’s about average for action hero acting, imo. I actually felt pleasantly surprised after only having seen his work in Game if Thrones. Nicole Kidman, in the other hand, was pretty awful, except when she was fighting, which was pretty well done. But yes, the movie as a whole was ‘meh.’

And I think you’re referring to Into the Spiderverse if you’re talking about the animated Spidey movie. I was slightly disappointing in it but only because it had been blown up in the media as the best Spider-Man movie ever and I think it was good but I don’t know if I’d go that far.

Shazam was amazing!

My expectations were seriously low. But it's actually a really good film to watch with the family. On that note I thought it was a PG.

No idea how my 3 year old daughter got in as it was a 12 so the sins will give her nightmares for the rest of her life. Anyhow well worth a watch and my favourite DC film to date since Michael Keatons Batman.

@themcnoisy Shazam! is a 12A.

"Films rated 12A are suitable for children aged 12 and over. However, people younger than 12 may see a 12A so long as they are accompanied by an adult. In such circumstances, responsibility for allowing a child under 12 to view lies with the accompanying adult."

So the fault is with you for not checking the rating of film properly beforehand, not the staff at the cinema.

@JohnnyShoulder Thanks for that but I had no idea it was a 12 here's the lowdown.

My wife booked the tickets for my son and said we were going. I was like cool, having no idea what it was about. My wife's only ever booked us to watch wholesome family stuff since forever.

My Wife was in work I had 3 kids. I didn't even realise it was a 12a until it said it at the start of the film after all the trailers which tbh I thought were pretty intense themselves. I was like nahhhh bruv. It's not suitable for any little ones out there. My wife met us 15 minutes or so into the film and we took turns taking her out when the bad guy was around. He's around a lot.

And again I didn't even know what 12a was. Genuinely I never even knew that was even a thing. U, PG, 12, 15, 18 - Thats always been my take on it.

I've actually taken a look and 12a was brought in 17 years ago. I had absolutely no idea.

InuYasha the Movie 2: Castle Beyond the Looking Glass (Amazon Prime Video) - I was feeling nostalgic tonight, and since I'm a big fan of the series (as you can tell from my avatar), I decided to impulse buy this on Amazon this evening and give it a watch. I went with the second film since it's my favorite one (I last watched it a few years ago, and even then it was either a poor quality YouTube upload or on an unreputable website), so watching it in HD was a treat and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I really should purchase the series one of these days (last time I watched it through was when Toonami re-aired it 6 or 7 years ago, man it didn't seem so long ago), but I'm not sure where I'd find the time to squeeze in a near 200 episode anime series (counting the Final Act too, naturally).

@themcnoisy Eh? You didn't even know about 12a.... blimey. Not sure what to say about that. There isn't even a 12 rating for cinemas any more, only for Blu-Ray and DVD. Do you know what those are? Nice one in trying to shift the blame onto to the wife lol.

@JohnnyShoulder I'm 38. Last time I had to sneak into a movie was Terminator 2 Judgement day.

Honestly I didn't know about 12a. I'm not trying to grab attention or shift blame I have never heard of it (or more likely I have but never retained that information as I've never used it). And as mentioned other than watching films with the wife alone at the Cinema as we have a big family we always watch kids films. Anyway the films good and you should give it a watch.

@themcnoisy Ah well, at least it is a lesson learnt.

Yep, Shazam is really great! 😁

So, my family, who mostly harbor a dislike of Batman and Batman-associated media, had a really positive reaction to the Joker trailer.

Also, Pet Sematary... was a gorgeous, atmospheric film that was really hampered by a very pedestrian, generic horror movie script. Big disappointment. I feel like there's a thoughtful horror-drama in there somewhere that would live up to the fantastic set design.

Aquaman (DVD) - Watched this with the family last night. Enjoyable popcorn flick with some cool visuals, but nothing more (it was better than some of the other DC stuff, though).

Shazam was cute. Nice to see a DC movie that's just silly, irreverent fun. It wasn't trying to compete with Marvel. It wasn't trying to be atmospheric and grimdark. It was just sort of a family film and coming-of-age story that used the superhero concept as a metaphor. Very refreshing.

@Frigate Yeah, even not being a Transformers fan, I still really enjoyed Bumblebee. Very much a call back to children's adventure films from the 80's.

So, I booked my ticket for Avengers: Endgame on the 28th. Might as well go see it opening weekend, considering it'll be the big thing people are gabbing about for a while afterward, and I expect the spoilers to flow like wine across the net.

Avengers: Endgame's gonna be roughly around 3 hours long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrH_5XE0ag

I came back from Shazam! and like most others who have already reported, I liked it.
However, the movie doesn’t stand up under close inspection and granular criticism — the origin story is basically predictable, the tone is all over the place, and the protagonist is definitely inconsistent in his personality when he’s in his teen body and when he’s in his superhero body. The two actors just didn’t quite gel as the same person.

The villain is good, I liked the portrayal of the sins, but his motivation and his backstory is very shallow, and this despite the movie spending quite a bit of time in the first act trying to paint the picture of his fall into madness. It just doesn’t quite work.
And it’s too bad, because the villains powers and connection to the 7 deadly sins is novel and feels fresh, but falls flat in the implementation department.

The same applies to the hero as well, there is a lot to be excited about with regard to his interesting powers (apparently inherited from the Ancient Greek Gods - a narrative piece that definitely needed a little more time and explanation) and the whole changing back and forth from boy to man thing. But in the end it feels like there was a little untapped potential there as well. We do get to see him finally flex his superhero muscles, so to speak, but he never sheds the ‘bumbling idiot’ personification, even when he has the inevitable ‘Aha!” moments that these heroes always have in their origin story.

The best part where there is a twist at the end during the climax is also an interesting idea that I didn’t see coming, but it ends up feeling rushed and a little bit tacked on. Perhaps the inevitable sequel will explore these things more and realize the actual potential of these ideas.

Yet, with all these complaints, I’d say it was one of the better superhero movies in the past couple years. With a protagonist and a setting most of us know little about, it brings enough newness and freshness to the genre and that alone keeps it interesting. It manages to be both derivative and unique, if that makes sense. And rhere’s enough humor and cgi magic on the screen to make up for the lapses in acting and plot development.
In my opinion- I’d put it on equal footing with Captain Marvel and maybe just a hair below Into the Spiderverse, but better than Aquaman, Black Panther, and Ant-Man and the Wasp.
It’s worth seeing just because of the new things it tries though.

@Th3solution In the most recent depiction of the origin in the comics I read (which didn't even get its own book), Billy was far more of a prick leading up to meeting the wizard. They made him a nicer kid in the film which helps tie it up to the bumbling Shazam persona, which was never really a comic thing. He was often star-struck by the other DC heroes early on, but he usually kept up a fairly adult front.

I agree that there are those narrative threads that could do with fleshing out, but it's a two hour movie already...

On the whole I did really enjoy it though.
I am hoping Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam movie happens - and that they don't soften the character too much in the wake of Shazam's success.

Also, I absolutely did not see the Mr Mind thing coming! 😂😂