I think if you're going to make a serious departure from the tired and beat to death Marvel formula of "good guys save the world" then it better have some serious thought and creativity put into it. I didn't get that impression watching this. Quite possibly I'm just completely numb to anything Marvel at this point (Ragnarok was the culprit of that) but the tearjerker story just didn't have the intended effect. Can't say I've ever cared enough about any of the Guardians to have a whole rescue plot for one of them.
Bronson always cuts an interesting war-weary kind of character and this one is no different. Even as a melon farmer he is fun to watch. He truly has one of the most rugged faces and inner character. About what you'd expect in terms of a Bronson movie but pretty entertaining. Those car stunts are something special, especially that yellow pickup!
Can't remember an Arnie movie that I genuinely didn't care for but this one fits the bill. You know things are going bad when even the classic one-liners are unfunny and lackluster. Everything is poorly executed and even Arnie comes across like he knows this one's a stinker from the get go. He's got no enthusiasm for the role.
"Modern" Westerns are always a sticky topic with me as many don't quite capture the magic of Hollywood's golden age or the familiar tones of the ol' spaghetti Westerns. This one is probably my favorite by far and ironically it full-on attacks everything most people pretty much love about the genre. It would have been so easy to be preachy with a movie like this but such great care is taken with the characters and the dialog that you can't help but nod your head and fully agree with the entire message. All the actors bring their A-game and there are so many choice scenes to ground the film in reality like the rain storm, Munny's illness, and the lack of a "good guy" protagonist.
On the surface it seems like a simple story of a biker gang invading "small town USA" but it's much more. There's a interesting plot thread of coming of age and generational divide that permeates the film. It also manages to capture a lot of the perennial angst of the younger generation trying to find itself among the norms and responsibilities that were a part of the older gen. Well acted by Brando and Murphy and they have some good chemistry. It was originally banned due to the fear of instigating juvenile delinquency.
"What are they fighting about?"
"Don't know. Don't know themselves, probably."
If you're a zealous fan of Hogan's Heroes then you'll laugh your socks off at how much that show borrowed material from this classic. Even some throwaway lines in the dialog would eventually become plotlines of entire episodes of Hogan and the gang which is just too funny. It's very well acted and the Billy Wilder touch is ever present. A top tiered war film and a good balance to the much more serious Great Escape.
If a Sci-fi film puts the character's world over the characters themselves, then problems are bound to multiply but it's a problem that Children of Men never falls into. The characters are certainly the main attraction here. Clive Owen is gritty and serious in all the right places and the plot is tight and poignant. It really is a poster child for good Sci-fi and really exposes why so many other entries in the genre fall flat on their faces. Far too often films use CGI or technology/gadgets to cover up for the severe lack of character development and it just doesn't compare to a character-driven sci-fi/dystopian story. Those long scene cuts are downright beautiful and well choreographed.
"Very odd what happens in a world without children's voices."
I know that Marvel films are essentially an advertisement for green screens at this point but this one really had me dying to watch a "green screen" cut with all the CGI stripped away, there wouldn't be much of a movie left. There's nothing worth really watching here and the entire Quantum realm is pretty much hurled at you all at once so it very quickly becomes background noise. Doesn't have the zanyness that was characteristic of the first two films and it seriously shows. Virtually every character ends up with next to zero character development over the course of its bloated runtime.
I mean, Pfeiffer's character spends almost the entire time keeping secrets in the most annoying way possible. It's so bad you almost find yourself screaming at the screen "just bloody tell them what's going on! This is the stupidest way to craft a plot!" When the entire plot of a story hinges on a character not being forthright with critical info then that's always a serious problem with me.
Oh, it's also a
rebellion
plot which you've seen a thousand and one times already and done much better elsewhere.
I can kind of appreciate what the Coen brothers were going for but I'd be lying if I said it was a entertaining movie for me. When I have to rely on the internet to tell me what the genre of the movie is that I just watched... that's always a bad sign. Was shocked to discover it was a comedy, I didn't find it humorous at all and it kept striking me as an odd parody rather than something to really laugh at. I genuinely love the idea of cinema being this ultimately fake thing that is designed to manifest emotion which is highlighted by Clooney's speech at the end, but the whole project comes across as poorly executed and leaves mountains of material on the table. It's a whole lot of style over substance but even the style doesn't leave a whole lot to look at. On paper, the premise of the film sounds downright hilarious but in execution, woah, night and day.
Knowing nothing about WoW going into it, this was an interesting experiment in finding out how much I could glean from the dialog and characters in order to understand the story. I actually liked it, for what the CGI is trying to accomplish it isn't half bad and certainly entertaining enough despite the run time. Wouldn't mind a sequel for sure.
rescuing a bunch of dinos from Isla Nublar before it's nuked off the face of the Earth by a volcano isn't the major plotline of this second film of the trilogy. I guess those stakes aren't high enough? It could have easily been the entire plot of the film and kept us on the island longer, which, let's be honest here, Isla Nublar is one of the main characters of the franchise last I'd checked. And somehow an impersonal island is more interesting than any character in the new trilogy I've seen thus far.
After all, why not just cram as much plot into it as possible, right?
So much of this is rehashed from other Jurassic films in the series that it's a fairly embarrassing venture. Just when you think that maybe, just maybe certain characters aren't cookie cutter versions of villains from the other films it turns out they are, and right down to the exact same motivations too. Money, greed, and power... wash, rinse, repeat.
And didn't D'Onofrio's character in the first film have the idea to make the dinosaurs into weapons? So they pretty much just recycled the same plotline again and just raised the stakes a little.
One would think that the good guys would at least have some character development to even out the score but it's not there. Add a heavy helping of too much CGI and this was one painful outing.
I know that 3 spoiler tabs is a bit much but it seems appropriate for this movie ridden with plot holes. The ending of the movie flat out informs you that as soon as the button is mashed and the dinos are free that there is "no going back" but that is monstrously stupid. It's well established that all the dinos have tracking chips in them and that they're powered by the dinosaurs themselves. They could have easily just used the trackers like they did on the island to recapture them again on the North American continent. This whole idea of it's now impossible to get any of those animals back and now the genie is out the bottle with dinos and humans having to share the world is utterly preposterous and easily the biggest plot hole of the film.
It can't compare to Evil Dead's 50,000 gallons of blood used for a single scene, but I wouldn't be surprised if this one was at least in the top 5 bloodiest horror flicks. I liked how, as it turned out, few of the major characters had any plot armor at all which was a welcome surprise but it's nearly impossible to give a hoot about any of them. Reviewers seem to knock the lack of comedy but I think it had tons of it, well, unintentional comedy at least. It's hard to think of a single action by any of the characters that wasn't straight up comical considering the situations they find themselves in. There are horror films that are genuinely scary and others that you feel are more suited to a group watch with your friends so you can laugh your rear ends off, this one's the latter.
It's actually impressive how paper thin the plot is within these last few John Wick movies and this one is no different. And yeah, I know that it's a Wick movie and action is what mostly everyone came for but seriously, just because a movie is action centric cannot mean that it doesn't need a compelling plot or at least a shred of character development. It's style over substance to such a monstrous degree that it is straight up boasting about it for nearly 3 whole hours and assaulting your senses the entire merry way. Color me not a fan. If any series of films ever reduced action sequences into something totally long and boring, it'd be the Wick films.
Why, just why? The story of this one is as coherent as staring into a bowl of alphabet soup. After being put on hold for over a decade it was more than enough time to let this series die but no, can't let the opportunity to score some cash get in the way, even if it's a little known horror franchise to begin with. None of the cast are believable and the attempt to shed some light on the mythos this late in the game just doesn't jive.
Part of the tagline for this movie was that some of the creeper's origins would finally be revealed and... well that was just total clickbait. Nothing more about the antagonist was revealed at all. Totally pathetic.
It was released into theaters for a total of a couple days, kind of an exclusive theater run of a direct-to-dvd movie to be honest.
The gratuitous F-bombs are so incredibly distracting. It's like the script was written by a child who just learned a cool new word and wants to use it all the time even when it's totally inappropriate. The first original film was always a kind of cult classic for me but so much has been lost in translation. Really showcases how much that Ron Perlman brought to the character on the first go around, plus whoever's idea it was to give Hellboy massive face prosthetics should've been fired. You'll pretty much handicap most actors if they can't use their face, especially the lower half (there are actors who have pulled it off, this isn't one of those examples). There wasn't a single scene that didn't scream "I can barely move my face" for me. Perlman had them too, but the difference is night and day as to how they were designed and utilized.
Sadly it commits the major error of punishing you for not knowing the comics (something that never happened with the first two films for me). So many characters and references to the source material are chucked at your face in rapid succession. It follows the classic superhero formula in a lot of ways and jam packs a lot of material into the 2 hour runtime but it's mostly paint by numbers filmmaking.
Pretty entertaining considering Lee's catalog of films. The action is good, pretty much any time Lee picks up a pair of nunchaku then you know you're in for a treat. It's the plotline you've seen a hundred times before of the one hero coming in and saving the less fortunate from being pushed around but still good to watch.
It's rumored that the final battle between Norris and Lee took a whopping 40% of the budget alone due to special effects. Namely, to edit the footage in such a way to make it appear that Chuck Norris lost the fight and died. It's well established that Chuck Norris is invincible and if you want a list of Chuck Norris' enemies, just check the extinct species list.
Enough Kung Fu action to be seriously entertaining, it's worlds better than the first film in terms of a cohesive plot and the flow of the story. That final fight sequence is a serious standout even among the rest of Lee's films even though Lee isn't even involved.
This is one of those documentaries that I'd heard about for years that always seemed to be floating through the public consciousness. I almost thought it was an urban myth until finally taking the time to check it out and watch it. Very impressive documentary that uses a solid month of eating from under the ol' Golden Arches to take a stab at much deeper issues. It's so much deeper than a guy killing himself one bite at a time and touches on some of the major political and power issues that exist behind the grinning clown face of Ronald. If all it did was educate you about some of the obesity issues facing the country rather than convincing you to put down the Big Mac, I'd say that's a win. Also, it's worth mentioning I watched it from a free streaming service with advertisements and it was chillingly ironic that some of the ads were for fast food and other sugary candy. As for the amount of criticism aimed at it, all of that is totally expected. Denial is one hell of a drug.
Chloe Grace Moretz doesn't look or come across as vulnerable as Sissy portrays in the original and it's a major strike against her (even if you throw all the pumped up telekinesis out the window it wouldn't make a difference.)
She's also a whole lot more attractive than Sissy Spacek too, so there's that. It was much easier to believe the '76 Carrie White being a social outcast compared to Moretz, who could've been one of socialite "plastics" in Mean Girls.
So much of the atmosphere and social commentary that worked well in 1976 doesn't translate at all to 2013 and so it feels like a movie out of time. No doubt whoever pitched this remake thought "well, school bullying existed in the 70's and it exists now so... we're set! After all, the original film was just about bullying right? Umm.... right?" The thinking behind this one was akin to just taking the original and dropping it into modern day and it just doesn't work, the whole project is lazy and wholly unnecessary.
This is an absolute textbook example of breaking the cardinal horror rule "don't show too much of the monster otherwise the magic is gone." Starts off with a good premise and devolves rapidly from there. So much wasted potential for what could have been a decent low-budget backwoods horror flick.
The entire project starts off with essentially 3 main characters of the siblings and the Creeper and shifts dramatically once the movie takes an urban approach with the diner, then the police station, the psychic, etc. It would've easily worked as a total cast of 3 and if it stayed in the backwoods. Definitely should have embraced the Indie horror vibes you got at the start.
While supposedly being an homage to classic video games of the 80's it comes off as a rather unimpressive and halfhearted attempt. All of the comedy is precisely what you'd expect, buckets of nerd jokes that I think I've heard all before. There are mediocre ways to make nerd themed movies and there are great ones
This movie is a very interesting take on the character of Harry Callahan if you think about it. The first film was made in response to the lawlessness that the country was experiencing and Eastwood as the no-nonsense scowling detective was the antidote for audience's frustration with a lackluster justice system. This movie pushes the moral landscape into many shades of brain-matter gray as
the group of cops exterminating bad guys are only a few shades off from our titular character. Somehow they've crossed an imaginary moral line that Harry butts up against sometimes but refrains from pole vauting over it. Yet under the right circumstances, it's all too easy to see Harrry become an enthusiastic 5th member of their little death squad, and that makes it fun to watch.
Eastwood is once again in top form. The film does such a great job of portraying San Fran-sicko as a depraved city of lawbreakers and deviants. Harry is the man making the attempt to hold back the ocean with a broom.
I don't typically like to give TV shows a checkmark on this site but totally making an exception for this one. Currently watching through it for the second time after watching it many years ago and this show is one for the books. It's a character driven show unlike any I have ever seen and everything works in stellar fashion. Mads Mikkelsen is at the absolute pinnacle of his game and disappears into the role of Dr. Lecter with gleeful abandon. Hugh Dancy stands as his match, a kind of superhero with incredible and almost Sherlock Holmes-esque abilities but with weaknesses that perfectly balance the character. The supporting cast is equally spectacular. It's a show that is artfully finished and polished with a feast for the eyes of psychological imagery.
Comments 51 - 75 of 734
Movie comment on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
DisneyStitch
I think if you're going to make a serious departure from the tired and beat to death Marvel formula of "good guys save the world" then it better have some serious thought and creativity put into it. I didn't get that impression watching this. Quite possibly I'm just completely numb to anything Marvel at this point (Ragnarok was the culprit of that) but the tearjerker story just didn't have the intended effect. Can't say I've ever cared enough about any of the Guardians to have a whole rescue plot for one of them.Movie comment on Mr. Majestyk
DisneyStitch
Bronson always cuts an interesting war-weary kind of character and this one is no different. Even as a melon farmer he is fun to watch. He truly has one of the most rugged faces and inner character. About what you'd expect in terms of a Bronson movie but pretty entertaining. Those car stunts are something special, especially that yellow pickup!Movie comment on Raw Deal
DisneyStitch
Can't remember an Arnie movie that I genuinely didn't care for but this one fits the bill. You know things are going bad when even the classic one-liners are unfunny and lackluster. Everything is poorly executed and even Arnie comes across like he knows this one's a stinker from the get go. He's got no enthusiasm for the role.Movie comment on Unforgiven
DisneyStitch
"Modern" Westerns are always a sticky topic with me as many don't quite capture the magic of Hollywood's golden age or the familiar tones of the ol' spaghetti Westerns. This one is probably my favorite by far and ironically it full-on attacks everything most people pretty much love about the genre. It would have been so easy to be preachy with a movie like this but such great care is taken with the characters and the dialog that you can't help but nod your head and fully agree with the entire message. All the actors bring their A-game and there are so many choice scenes to ground the film in reality like the rain storm, Munny's illness, and the lack of a "good guy" protagonist.Movie comment on The Wild One
DisneyStitch
On the surface it seems like a simple story of a biker gang invading "small town USA" but it's much more. There's a interesting plot thread of coming of age and generational divide that permeates the film. It also manages to capture a lot of the perennial angst of the younger generation trying to find itself among the norms and responsibilities that were a part of the older gen. Well acted by Brando and Murphy and they have some good chemistry. It was originally banned due to the fear of instigating juvenile delinquency."What are they fighting about?"
"Don't know. Don't know themselves, probably."
Movie comment on Stalag 17
DisneyStitch
If you're a zealous fan of Hogan's Heroes then you'll laugh your socks off at how much that show borrowed material from this classic. Even some throwaway lines in the dialog would eventually become plotlines of entire episodes of Hogan and the gang which is just too funny. It's very well acted and the Billy Wilder touch is ever present. A top tiered war film and a good balance to the much more serious Great Escape.Movie comment on Children of Men
DisneyStitch
If a Sci-fi film puts the character's world over the characters themselves, then problems are bound to multiply but it's a problem that Children of Men never falls into. The characters are certainly the main attraction here. Clive Owen is gritty and serious in all the right places and the plot is tight and poignant. It really is a poster child for good Sci-fi and really exposes why so many other entries in the genre fall flat on their faces. Far too often films use CGI or technology/gadgets to cover up for the severe lack of character development and it just doesn't compare to a character-driven sci-fi/dystopian story. Those long scene cuts are downright beautiful and well choreographed."Very odd what happens in a world without children's voices."
Movie comment on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
DisneyStitch
I know that Marvel films are essentially an advertisement for green screens at this point but this one really had me dying to watch a "green screen" cut with all the CGI stripped away, there wouldn't be much of a movie left. There's nothing worth really watching here and the entire Quantum realm is pretty much hurled at you all at once so it very quickly becomes background noise. Doesn't have the zanyness that was characteristic of the first two films and it seriously shows. Virtually every character ends up with next to zero character development over the course of its bloated runtime.Movie comment on Jeepers Creepers: Reborn
DisneyStitch
Surprisingly more tolerable than the 3rd film but it's long past time for this franchise to be buried without hopes of a reboot.Movie comment on Hail, Caesar!
DisneyStitch
I can kind of appreciate what the Coen brothers were going for but I'd be lying if I said it was a entertaining movie for me. When I have to rely on the internet to tell me what the genre of the movie is that I just watched... that's always a bad sign. Was shocked to discover it was a comedy, I didn't find it humorous at all and it kept striking me as an odd parody rather than something to really laugh at. I genuinely love the idea of cinema being this ultimately fake thing that is designed to manifest emotion which is highlighted by Clooney's speech at the end, but the whole project comes across as poorly executed and leaves mountains of material on the table. It's a whole lot of style over substance but even the style doesn't leave a whole lot to look at. On paper, the premise of the film sounds downright hilarious but in execution, woah, night and day.Movie comment on Warcraft
DisneyStitch
Knowing nothing about WoW going into it, this was an interesting experiment in finding out how much I could glean from the dialog and characters in order to understand the story. I actually liked it, for what the CGI is trying to accomplish it isn't half bad and certainly entertaining enough despite the run time. Wouldn't mind a sequel for sure.Movie comment on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
DisneyStitch
It says an awful lot thatSo much of this is rehashed from other Jurassic films in the series that it's a fairly embarrassing venture. Just when you think that maybe, just maybe certain characters aren't cookie cutter versions of villains from the other films it turns out they are, and right down to the exact same motivations too. Money, greed, and power... wash, rinse, repeat.
Movie comment on Evil Dead Rise
DisneyStitch
It can't compare to Evil Dead's 50,000 gallons of blood used for a single scene, but I wouldn't be surprised if this one was at least in the top 5 bloodiest horror flicks. I liked how, as it turned out, few of the major characters had any plot armor at all which was a welcome surprise but it's nearly impossible to give a hoot about any of them. Reviewers seem to knock the lack of comedy but I think it had tons of it, well, unintentional comedy at least. It's hard to think of a single action by any of the characters that wasn't straight up comical considering the situations they find themselves in. There are horror films that are genuinely scary and others that you feel are more suited to a group watch with your friends so you can laugh your rear ends off, this one's the latter.Movie comment on John Wick: Chapter 4
DisneyStitch
It's actually impressive how paper thin the plot is within these last few John Wick movies and this one is no different. And yeah, I know that it's a Wick movie and action is what mostly everyone came for but seriously, just because a movie is action centric cannot mean that it doesn't need a compelling plot or at least a shred of character development. It's style over substance to such a monstrous degree that it is straight up boasting about it for nearly 3 whole hours and assaulting your senses the entire merry way. Color me not a fan. If any series of films ever reduced action sequences into something totally long and boring, it'd be the Wick films.Movie comment on Jeepers Creepers 3
DisneyStitch
Why, just why? The story of this one is as coherent as staring into a bowl of alphabet soup. After being put on hold for over a decade it was more than enough time to let this series die but no, can't let the opportunity to score some cash get in the way, even if it's a little known horror franchise to begin with. None of the cast are believable and the attempt to shed some light on the mythos this late in the game just doesn't jive.It was released into theaters for a total of a couple days, kind of an exclusive theater run of a direct-to-dvd movie to be honest.
Movie comment on Hellboy
DisneyStitch
The gratuitous F-bombs are so incredibly distracting. It's like the script was written by a child who just learned a cool new word and wants to use it all the time even when it's totally inappropriate. The first original film was always a kind of cult classic for me but so much has been lost in translation. Really showcases how much that Ron Perlman brought to the character on the first go around, plus whoever's idea it was to give Hellboy massive face prosthetics should've been fired. You'll pretty much handicap most actors if they can't use their face, especially the lower half (there are actors who have pulled it off, this isn't one of those examples). There wasn't a single scene that didn't scream "I can barely move my face" for me. Perlman had them too, but the difference is night and day as to how they were designed and utilized.Sadly it commits the major error of punishing you for not knowing the comics (something that never happened with the first two films for me). So many characters and references to the source material are chucked at your face in rapid succession. It follows the classic superhero formula in a lot of ways and jam packs a lot of material into the 2 hour runtime but it's mostly paint by numbers filmmaking.
Movie comment on Meng long guo jiang
DisneyStitch
Pretty entertaining considering Lee's catalog of films. The action is good, pretty much any time Lee picks up a pair of nunchaku then you know you're in for a treat. It's the plotline you've seen a hundred times before of the one hero coming in and saving the less fortunate from being pushed around but still good to watch.Movie comment on Si wang ta
DisneyStitch
Enough Kung Fu action to be seriously entertaining, it's worlds better than the first film in terms of a cohesive plot and the flow of the story. That final fight sequence is a serious standout even among the rest of Lee's films even though Lee isn't even involved.Movie comment on Meteor
DisneyStitch
Every generation has its meteor extinction event movie like Armageddon or Deep Impact and it's not too hard to see why. It's seen as the penultimate motivator of human cooperation when the entire planet is going to go bye-bye and this one is no different under the guise of American-Soviet teamwork. Not very good despite a solid cast and frequently falling into cliché, it suffers from not fully diving into the conflict between the Cold War superpowers and totally bypasses any solid drama that you would certainly expect would arise from it.Movie comment on Super Size Me
DisneyStitch
This is one of those documentaries that I'd heard about for years that always seemed to be floating through the public consciousness. I almost thought it was an urban myth until finally taking the time to check it out and watch it. Very impressive documentary that uses a solid month of eating from under the ol' Golden Arches to take a stab at much deeper issues. It's so much deeper than a guy killing himself one bite at a time and touches on some of the major political and power issues that exist behind the grinning clown face of Ronald. If all it did was educate you about some of the obesity issues facing the country rather than convincing you to put down the Big Mac, I'd say that's a win. Also, it's worth mentioning I watched it from a free streaming service with advertisements and it was chillingly ironic that some of the ads were for fast food and other sugary candy. As for the amount of criticism aimed at it, all of that is totally expected. Denial is one hell of a drug.Movie comment on Carrie
DisneyStitch
Chloe Grace Moretz doesn't look or come across as vulnerable as Sissy portrays in the original and it's a major strike against her (even if you throw all the pumped up telekinesis out the window it wouldn't make a difference.)Movie comment on Jeepers Creepers
DisneyStitch
This is an absolute textbook example of breaking the cardinal horror rule "don't show too much of the monster otherwise the magic is gone." Starts off with a good premise and devolves rapidly from there. So much wasted potential for what could have been a decent low-budget backwoods horror flick.Movie comment on Pixels
DisneyStitch
While supposedly being an homage to classic video games of the 80's it comes off as a rather unimpressive and halfhearted attempt. All of the comedy is precisely what you'd expect, buckets of nerd jokes that I think I've heard all before. There are mediocre ways to make nerd themed movies and there are great onesMovie comment on Magnum Force
DisneyStitch
This movie is a very interesting take on the character of Harry Callahan if you think about it. The first film was made in response to the lawlessness that the country was experiencing and Eastwood as the no-nonsense scowling detective was the antidote for audience's frustration with a lackluster justice system. This movie pushes the moral landscape into many shades of brain-matter gray asEastwood is once again in top form. The film does such a great job of portraying San Fran-sicko as a depraved city of lawbreakers and deviants. Harry is the man making the attempt to hold back the ocean with a broom.
Movie comment on Hannibal
DisneyStitch
I don't typically like to give TV shows a checkmark on this site but totally making an exception for this one. Currently watching through it for the second time after watching it many years ago and this show is one for the books. It's a character driven show unlike any I have ever seen and everything works in stellar fashion. Mads Mikkelsen is at the absolute pinnacle of his game and disappears into the role of Dr. Lecter with gleeful abandon. Hugh Dancy stands as his match, a kind of superhero with incredible and almost Sherlock Holmes-esque abilities but with weaknesses that perfectly balance the character. The supporting cast is equally spectacular. It's a show that is artfully finished and polished with a feast for the eyes of psychological imagery.Showing items 51 – 75 of 734