Topic: The Movie Thread

@Zeldafan79 When Annihilation came out I read a review in a Polish newspaper and they ended it saying "I'd rather go to the dentist" - which I think was spot on

@JohnnyShoulder I’ve heard some real bad Oirish accents in movies but yeah, Matt Damon’s is right up there.

@nessisonett Almost as bad as Jodie Fosters South African accent in another Matt Damon flick - Elysium. He must attract bad accents in films! 😂

I was thinking, how does that even past the shooting stage? Surely everyone filming can tell it is not working? Or is everyone maybe a bit scared of telling these big stars that their attempt at an accent is crap?!

started watching Greenland last night. Pretty good movie from 2020 which was a bad year for new movies because of the stupid covid.

Me personally I think movie theaters should have opened back up last year where movies including Greenland would have done better being shown at movie theaters and I think Greenland would have been a good blockbuster sci fi action flick. It deserved better than to end up as direct to video.

@urrutiap Gerard Butler alone puts me off. Despite him being a Celtic fan 😂

Boy am I'm on a roll this weekend, as I watched Wonder Woman 84 last night... and did not like it. At all. My main issue was that there is too much relying on the viewer to suspend disbelief. I'm usually OK with this especially with super hero movies, but there were too many moments which were either poorly explained or just not at all. Which makes the film feel nonsensical in places. 👎

I try not to take much stock in the Oscars but I would just like to say that Emerald Fennell winning Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman is an absolute travesty. It’s an utter mess of a movie, especially the writing. It’s just a bit suspicious how much she’s being pushed by the critics when she’s essentially made her career by writing bad Phoebe Waller-Bridge fanfiction.

To me, Sound of Metal had the best screenplay out of the nominees. I also think it should have won Best Picture over Nomadland. That, or Another Round. Nomadland was shot very pretty but it almost put me to sleep.

As for Promising Young Woman I enjoyed it for what it was. But it didn't do anything spectacular for the revenge dark comedy genre.

@J_Warrior Sound of Metal was probably the best movie out of that lot. Nomadland was good and yeah, very pretty. It just didn’t grab me in the same way as Sound of Metal. Promising Young Woman... is the worst movie I’ve seen in a good few years. There’s no revenge. There’s no darkness. There’s no comedy. It barely qualifies.

Monster Movie Binge

So over the last couple weeks I decided to do a Titan / Kaiju marathon culminating with the new Godzilla vs. Kong. I had to hit the movies rapid fire in order to squeeze everything in before G v. K gets ripped from HBO Max tomorrow.

I started with Kong: Skull Island. I had heard good things about it and was pleased to find that I agreed with most of the praise. The movie was a good combination of character centered but having plenty of over the top CG action. It struck a nice balance and I felt the performances were decent enough. Samuel L. Jackson has reached a point in his career where he always feels like he’s playing the role of someone pretending to be Samuel L. Jackson, but aside from that the other actors were really solid. Even the much maligned Brie Larson was very watchable and Tom Hiddleston is just so.... awesome. John Goodman and John C. Reilly stole the screen though, as well as Kong himself. Nice popcorn flick.

I enjoyed the movie so much that I immediately loaded up Godzilla (2014), which I had planned to skip since I had seen in several years ago and didn’t particularly have any positive lasting emotions about it, but the praise that others had given it here on the forum as well as my enjoyment of Skull Island made me want to soak in the whole series properly. And I’m glad I did choose to watch Godzilla, because not only was it better than I remember, it is quite integral to the overall plot of the four movie series. I feel like I would have been a little lost without it. And it is actually quite enjoyable, starting with the fabulous Bryan Cranston (although I’m not for sure but it seemed like he was wearing a toupee, which was mildly distracting) and speckled with decent performances from supporting roles from Taylor-Johnson, Olsen, and Watanabe. Godzilla was better animated that I remember, although there was plenty of ‘suspend your disbelief’ moments. Overall, still an enjoyable time, all said, so with anticipation I moved on...

The third movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters held such epic promise, given the first two movies and the continued mingling of the plot lines of Godzilla and Kong; foreshadowing of the ultimate matchup clearly signposted. This movie, however, was a disappointment for me. It should have been wonderful, with the return of Watanabe and the presence of the surging Millie Bobby Brown and the inclusion of the excellent villainous Charles Dance. The CGI was very well done and the laundry list of famous monsters (Mothra, Ghidorah, etc) should have made it a delight, but in the end the show felt rushed, over produced, and tiresome in its relentless action. As one after another monster battles occur, eventually they lose their allure, and I finished the movie quite unappeased. In the film’s defense, perhaps my own binge-induced exposure to the movies played a role in feeling the over-saturation of monster action.

But I pushed on, nonplussed, the ultimate goal in mind of finishing this series before the end of April. Fire up Godzilla vs. Kong —
And to cut to the chase, a much better movie, in my experience. The first hour felt like a breath of fresh air, as the movie’s focus shifted a little more toward character development and an improved balance in action sequences and storytelling. The filmmakers seem to have realized they underutilized some of the good actors in the previous installment, so Millie Bobby Brown has an expanded role with more screen time and a less shallow character arc; while gratefully Kyle Chandler’s (Brown’s hypomanic father in the movies) presence is minimized and less annoying than last time. In the second half of the movie, the plot does unravel quite a bit and it loses some of the charm as it falls into predictable tropes, but it still outshines the previous King of the Monsters plotline. I’m not sure if it’s just an inherent tendency to relate better to humanoid creatures that can show familiar emotions or if it was some purposeful machinations of the filmmakers, but I found myself liking and rooting for Kong much more than Godzilla. This, despite Godzilla being a more ace monster design and having that epic radiation fire breath attack and the fab dorsal spikes. And maybe there is just an innate tendency to pull for an underdog, especially when the story paints a character like Kong in a likable way, but I’m not sure if that’s why I gravitated to him. Because I did wonder how they were going to get Kong to be even competitive in a tussle with such an overpowered monster as Godzilla with his armor, his tail and his breath attack; and the fortuitous events felt slightly cheap, I must admit. But I’ll stop there so as not to spoil anything.

It was a fitting end to the quadrilogy, even with the late events that go off the rails. There’s plenty to like here in the popcorn flick genre, but don’t go in expecting more than fun CGI monster fights blanketed loosely with a relatively serviceable round of human drama.

Final analysis:
Kong: Skull Island - 8/10
Godzilla (2014) - 7/10
Godzilla: King of the Monsters - 5/10
Godzilla vs. Kong - 7/10

the Blue Lagoon (Amazon Prime Video) - Set during the 1800's it follows a pair of kids who survive a shipwreck (initially with the help of a salty old sailor called Patty), and must learn the realities of life & love by themselves as they grow up on the island.

I remember liking it when I was around 12-14 (probably because of all the nudity), but going back to it now it's a dreadfully dull film (especially post-Patty). Pretty shots of wildlife, though.

Bumblebee (Amazon Prime Video) - Prequel of the Transformers films that follows the titular Autobot as he first arrives on Earth, and with the help of a human teenager protects the planet (and the future of his own race) from Decepticon invasion.

Pretty standard popcorn flick. All the 80's music is great, but overall I'd peg it about the same quality as all the other Transformers movies (though I had no particular attachment to the franchise as a kid, so keep that in mind).

A Goofy Movie (Disney+) - Feeling his teenage son Max is pulling away from him, Goofy decides to drag him along for a cross country fishing trip (a family tradition), but Max has different ideas for their destination as he lies about the nature of the trip in an effort to salvage a fledgeling relashonship with the girl he likes.

I always caught the sequel to this, An Extremely Goofy Movie, as a kid & always wanted to see the original but never found it on. I'm glad I was finally able to see it, as while it's probably just because it tugged at all the right nostalgia strings (our own family used to take annual summer fishing trips), I really found myself connecting with & enjoying it.

Gunbuster (HiDive via VRV) - A condensed film version of the classic anime OVA series from the creator of Evangelion that follows a young teenage girl who goes from bumbling recruit to a key figure in defending humanity from an alien threat.

Animation is absolutely fantastic & there's definitely strong story & themes behind it (I liked the consequences of the flow of time being different for space travellers, so her friends back on Earth became middle aged while only a few months passed for her), however it feels supremely rushed as you can tell tons have been chopped out in order to fit it in movie form (unfortunately this seems to be the only version legally available to stream or buy in the US), and for some reason the subtitles cut out during the last 10 minutes which was infuriating (even after backing out & trying to restart, they keep cutting out at the exact same spot).

Star Wars Episode 1: the Phantom Menace (Disney+) - the first of the prequel films which follows how a young Anakin Skywalker first got involved in the struggles of a galaxy far, far away.

I won't have much to say on it since I believe I did a big write up on it last year when I watched it, but it's one of the first movies I remember going to the theater to see, so it'll always hold a special place for me despite it's flaws.

I watched Akira last in on 4K disk. Still incredible after all these years, the animation is so detailed and smooth. I have fond memories of watching this when I was younger, so I will probably get the collectors edition at some point.

So I just finished watching that Assembled special on the making of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier and curiously enough they had a splash screen at the end with all the related MCU films that connected to the show that were available for streaming on Disney+

And one of them was The Incredible Hulk. Either this is a complete mistake or Marvel is actually working with Universal to seriously get the entire MCU under one roof now that Spider-Man is also secured with Sony

@TheFrenchiestFry It’s garbage but it’s definitely connected to the MCU if just through Thunderbolt Ross reappearing and Tim Roth coming back in She-Hulk as Abomination.

@TheFrenchiestFry yeah i thought it was connected. Stark even shows up in end scene with the thunderbolt guy. A scene that makes no sense now but it seems clear this is meant to be the Hulk that's part of avengers. Which is why natasha has to hunt him down in some remote village if I recall correctly, since he's basically on the run.

It doesn't fit too well with the other movies but it's not a bad film imo.

Also I watched Superman Red Son last night. It was fantastic.

I watched Thunderball as part of my Bond binge. Probably my least favourite so far. Overly silly without a hint of either comedy or wit, overly long. If you’re going to have harpoon fights underwater then at least make them last shorter than 20 minutes. The scenery was nicely shot though which explains the Oscar. And Tom Jones did the song. That’s a bonus.

@nessisonett Honestly TIH even though it's like a bottom 3 MCU film for me I still don't think is entirely awful

There are elements of a great Hulk film there that would've likely been fully realized had there been a longer running time. I thought making it under 2 hours was pretty criminal for a character with a dichotomy that complex. I also actually kinda liked Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and even though I prefer Mark Ruffalo overall, I think he had some room to grow and could've potentially been really good with the writing of The Avengers

@zupertramp Incredible Hulk connects to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier & by proxy the Captain America films because it was actually the first time Super Soldiers and the Super Soldier serum were seen in the MCU since they were an integral part in the experiments that turned Banner into the Hulk and Blonsky into the Abomination

Yeah, the '08 Hulk movie is definitely MCU.

From Tony Stark appearing in the post credits scene (I believe a Stark Industries logo briefly appears on something earlier on in the film as well), name-dropping the Super Soldier program, and I believe even Shield gets mentioned (I think under it's full name, though).