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Reviews
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
Conscise Comic Book Carnage
An entertaining experience in which the dialogue between the alien symbiote/parasite Venom and everybody around him provide a joyful experience. With the 90 minute screentime the filmmakers comprehend the limitations of the characters being displayed and ensures the audience can have a pleasant viewing in true comic book fashion.
Don't Look Up (2021)
Horror or Satire?
For many worried about climate change I suspect this is more of an actual recurring nightmare rather than an enjoyable political satire. Though the cast delivers it extraordinarly well at every moment portraying self-involvement and the films swings hard and wide, questioning democratically elected leadership, military leaders, business leaders, media and even (though perhaps more subtly) people in general. The story is well told and all characters fill a function to portray irrational behviour given the circumstances. In truth it is all quite entertaining though there are some very large artistic liberties taken, for instance that America would be the only nation or organization opting to and possessing capability deal with this problem. Perhaps the storyteller is a bit self-involved too.
All in all, if you like satire this would an entertaining time. If you're like me and don't like horror and is concerned with climate change, this story is more like your actual nightmare come alive.
Enola Holmes (2020)
Her name is Holmes
Quite frankly the importance of her first name is almost lost because the writers and directors are wielding the Holmes name like a hammer. So much of Enola's character development is attached to Conan Doyles famous detective, that we miss out on so much of what could have been actively shown. If you really think about it much of her cleverness is inferred because of her ability to match and/or overcome Sherlock. Imagine for a second that different names would have been used and I think many would be very underwhealmed by the storytelling. Because then we would have only the word of the storyteller that Sherlock is an expert detective and nothing to back that up with and since Enola almost immediately can keep up with her brother a suspicious mind might think that the detective is perhaps less of an expert thus diminishing the accomplishment of our protagonist.
The social reflection also rings hollow, when you utilize a character like Sherlock Holmes to display why men shouldn't simply do nothing. Sure Cavill displays him as a bit more sympathetic than he is portrayed in the novels, but it's a very poor choice of character if you want to display why men shouldn't be indifferent. Because Sherlock is generally not a very empathetic character and since the writers don't spend so much time developing who Sherlock is most will fill in the gaps with knowledge elsewhere. Quite frankly Watson or even Mycroft would have, been better suited to ake this point.
Then there is Mycroft's character which is an absolute travesty. In the books he is generally thought of as Sherlock's cleverer introvert brother disliking company of most sorts. This is not who he is in the story which makes me feel that the Holmes name have just been used as a marketing trope and I can't help but feel if we had not been better off casting of the Holmes name and creating something unique instead.
A final reflection pertains to the struggle of the suffragettes and Enola's mother. Herself an accomplished woman in many fields in addition to having raised in this case two genius children (I don't count Mycroft in this number) and she can't come up with a non-violent measure to accomplish social change? She had the potential to be a Gandhi or MLK like character instead she was depicted like Lenin or Trotsky believing terror necessary for social change, which sort of takes away from her, even if her cause is just.
Late Night (2019)
Excellent
Scrolling through Netflix during an evening of travel I found this. I wasn't sure at first when I read the summary, but Emma Thompson is usually very enjoyable to watch and I'm quite easily entertained so I thought I'd give it a whirl and I'm happy I did. The main characters grow throughout the film allowing in turn the supporting cast to become interesting. Molly (Mindy Kaling) finds herself in a male dominated workspace, except for her new boss which she seems to have absolutely nothing in common with apart from her gender. Driven by her dream Molly is determined and she faces real obstacles that any rational viewer can understand and she doesn't magically overcome them, she works hard and maintains a (mostly) positive attitude in the face of adversity. Her boss Katherine Newman (Emma Thompson) is in charge of a TV show that is stagnating in part due to her own actions, but when faced with the truth she is determined to revitalize something which she has worked very hard to build. The story offers moments to think and debate (I wound up in a very engagine discussion on infidelity for instance), to get emotional and to laugh.
There is also a lesson for writers in here, because so often particularly with respect to feminism. Many other writers opt to make their female character (Molly in this case) struggle with just her hopeless irrational male coworkers which isn't really very engaging. Instead she faces very real struggle of arriving to a workplace where she has a tremendous drive, but lacks experience and with new coworkers that are completely disintrested in anything she has to contribute. Which is inherently part of the problem the workplace faces, but she doesn't receive high marks for just pointing out what isn't working, she has to make contributions herself in order to renew and revitalize and slowly but surely she earns not just the other characters respect, but the viewers as well.
Black Widow (2021)
So much potential and yet...
This movie is a veritable treasure trove of unattained potential. There are so many interesting themes that could have been explored more in depth which was left either completely untouched or completely unexplored. The fantastical action sequences showcasing a large budget can only do so much to make the movie enjoyable.
So what is this movie exactly? I personally was hoping to see an action spy thriller with a character with a very interesting background and while it fits that criteria it comes out lacking substance. In my opinion this is because the writers attempt to explore too many themes without developing the characters. Even the titular character seem to be given no real development. The other characters central to the story remain largely undeveloped and one dimensional as well. Which is a shame because these charactes seem at first glance very interesting. Her Soviet super soldier father, her genius scientist mother, her kickass cynical assassin sister, the leader of a shadow organization and a mysterious assassin seemingly capable of replicating the powers of others. Yet for all that we spend an exorbitant amount of time on the theme of family which only really appeals to one character and even then barely. One character is reduced into ridicule and is despite of this given a massive amount of screentime which could have been given to more compelling characters whose motivations remain a complete mystery. So the family theme is given much dedication, but the characters make that theme uncompelling. There is perhaps a more interesting theme of sisterhood in the story, yet this is instead given far too little screentime to become truly compelling.
For a spy thriller the villains objectives and motivations are completely untouched. What is their purpose, their reason for being? What have they been doing all this time? Beyond their recruitment and training methods we know essentially nothing. We are told it is capable of exercising enourmous power capable of starting and ending wars at a whim. Yet no examples are given for this and once this shadow organization is vanquished seemingly nothing happens. The other villain possess an almost completely neglected connection to the main character even though it could be very compelling.
What you will get is fast cut action scenes, lavish CGI and an introduction to a new recurring marvel character so if that is what you were hoping for then you won't be dissappointed, but if you like me were excited for a spy thriller with substance featuring Black Widow. Well then you'll not be well pleased.
Ocean's Eight (2018)
It's ok, just ok
Ok, so going into Ocean's Eight I was highly skeptical. Was this just a feminist statement making a movie from a known fairly successful franchise with basically an all female cast. However because of the cast I couldn't be helped but be sucked in after all several of these women are in my opinion worldclass professionals. As one would expect the actors do for the most part deliver.
The performance of the actresses is not what makes this movie less enjoyable, it is as it often is the script and there are several points which at least I find myself disliking, but I'll offer three.
First is the choice of vindictive personal motive for one of the main characters is a bad one, I didn't like it back in Ocean's Thirteen, but atleast then it seemed somewhat just, and in the first installation which is probably what the writers attempt to mirror the character's motives for their behaviour is more intruiging. In this installation not enough time is given this motive so it feels petty and vindictive as opposed to just which it ought to.
Second is that it seems the marketing idea of targeting women have spilled into the script and the writers were shouting girlpower through a giant megaphone all the while maintaining classical gender stereotypes, so the entire script just oozes with hypocrisy.
Third is connected to the twist, those who watched and enjoyed Ocean's Eleven remember that you didn't see the twist coming and it was quite well explained and it seemed to fit with the rest of the narrative. This time it doesn't it hardly fits the description of a twist it is more like the writers felt like what they had in the end didn't suffice so they put a little extra on top that they hadn't planned for as they wrote their first draft.
These main three points is what I believe keeps the movie from in the subsection OK/Watchable instead of good or possibly great.
Pelé: Birth of a Legend (2016)
A compelling narrative, but factually inaccurate and unfair
I want to state first that I do really like Pélé, he is one of the best athletes in history, not only in his athletic performance but also in his conduct outside the pitch.
His compelling personality is well displayed and I cannot speak with certainty about his background, but I suspect that while it was challenging it was perhaps not quite as bad as it is displayed at times.
My main problem with the movie is the display of the national teams aside from the brazilians. It was at this time and unlike the depiction of the movie well known that Brazil was a good team, perhaps not the favorites to win, but by no means a complete underdog. The favorites to win were West Germany, France and the Soviet Union. Sweden who is antagonisticly depicted was a nation with many players at the very end of their career and though the population was excited at their nations participation and that for the first time (for the swedes) professional players playing in clubs abroad would be permitted to play for the national team. So people were hopeful that with homefield advantage and the addition of a handful of worldclass professionals though perhaps past their prime(Niels Liedholm 36 at the time and Gunnar Gren 38) that maybe possibly Sweden could win.
So the primary factual error here is that Brazil was by no means colossal underdogs and the Swedes were not as massively favored as depicted and certainly not as arrogant and demeaning as they are shown. Though there is some truth in their strategy in the final game, the swedes did hope to try and score an early goal hoping the brazilians would be unable to recover.(According to Niels Liedholm).
I also find it unfortunate that while racism is horrible and was certainly present even amongst my own swedish ancestors. It is very unfortunate that this media never depicted some of the really inspiring moments of people in this tournament. Because in the end Pélé have stated that the swedish king at the time went down to meet the players on both sides and shook everybodys hand and chatted with them regardless of what they looked like. For many people just like the king football have no color and whilst Péle has had to deal with his fair share of racism he has seldom dwelt on the negative, but almost always uplifted the positive.
For my parents who vividly remember this tournament and who have always held Pélé in very high regard as both a footballer and a person. It was rather difficult to swallow the depiction of his opponents(our national team in particular) and that of the tournament as a whole which is perhaps one of the most memorable world cups in history with Pélé the 17-year old wunderkind and Just Fontaine who set a record of scoring goals that to this day stands.