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Red Winter (2022)
Amateurish
Don't get me wrong, I've seen some TRULY horrible films ("Rollergator" and "Feeders" come to mind), so I know just how low quality can get. This isn't that severe by a long shot. However, it's definitely a pass. "Sharknado" has better acting and production quality. This is mediocre acting, a convoluted, meandering plot and action scenes that are confusing and lazy. The production didn't even bother to use squibs on the many gunshots throughout. If this was a student's first film I would still say they have a lot to learn.
About the only moderately decent factor was the music. The rest of the sound was poor.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Very strange hatred towards this one.
I'll start by saying the obvious: Art is subjective. My rating and review is just my personal opinion, nothing more. However, I mostly want to address all the negativity about the film and the flaws in those arguments.
The most common complaint is that it's "overly feminist" and "PC". I'll admit I consider myself a Feminist (as in wanting to see true equality in the genders), and I am a Liberal. That said, I've seen movies that DO push it. Movies where it's obviously forced and incongruous with the film. I don't see this as one of them. Some have even claimed that the Terminator franchise was a "Man's film series" which this installment "ruins" by filling it with women. Perhaps these commenters didn't see or didn't pay attention, but Sarah was the one who killed the first Terminator in the first film. Reese was dead. SHE was the main protagonist. This STARTED as a woman's franchise. T2 made John the main character, with Sarah still being prominent. Of course, it IS called the "Terminator" franchise, so the REAL main character is the machine. Just as the "Alien" franchise is about the antagonists, not the protagonists, primarily. But I digress...
Other flawed critiques have claimed it was an all-female cast (it wasn't, not only was Schwarzenegger in it, there were several other male characters, including the villain), that the female lead was "androgynous" (she looked pretty feminine to me) and the complete mislabeling of Grace's character as "the girl terminator". I don't know how many times she clearly stated she was human, but augmented, but it was a lot. Pretty amateur mistake, there. Many also complained that the movie was "anti-American" and "pro-illegal immigration". I think these comments are coming from true racists, because the illegal immigration that takes place is only one of countless laws the protagonists break. Not only that, but I saw no evidence of the border security system being shown in ANY bad light. The worst we got was one rather bored civil servant who, quite sanely, didn't believe Dani's story. In my opinion, it actually shows the border security system as FAR more humane and functional than it really is. One particular critic even claimed that films were great until the mid-90s. Obviously this person has never seen "Roller Gator"... or the hundreds upon hundreds of other painfully horrid films that existed before '95 (for some good examples, watch some or all of Mystery Science Theater 3000. You'll be amazed at how bad films can get).
So, all in all, this is hardly a case of angry feminist PC virtue signaling... it's just a cast of MOSTLY female leads. To me, this kind of goes back to the first film.
Now, back to art being subjective, I would personally call this the 4th best Terminator film. T1 and T2 are still the best, but T3 was laughable (somewhat intentionally) and confusing, and Terminator: Genesys turned the savior into a villain, which I found horribly distasteful and contrived. I did, however, find Terminator: Salvation pretty good.
Is the film flawed? Certainly. The fact that it was Dani herself who was the savior of the future wasn't that much of a surprise (again, in my humble opinion). The reuse of Dani being someone who saves mankind in the exact same way John Connor did is also a bit lazy. It seems to me they could have come up with some other "fate" for her that at least made it different. I also think the replacement of Skynet by Legion was fairly lazy. Again, it seems the writers could have come up with some way to have Skynet have survived in some way, especially if they're ignoring all but T1 and T2. I will agree with the critics one one point, I didn't find the casting of the villain all that great. Like the T-1000 in T2, he had a face he would "return" to, which I think is clever for a shapeshifter, because it gives the audience a point of connection. The actor himself seemed decently capable, he just didn't seem to fit and didn't have the menace the Schwarzenegger or Robert Patrick had. Even the T3 Terminator was more frightening (let us not forget that this franchise began as sci-fi horror). It didn't even make sense that his first form was Latino, unless he knew where he was going first, I suppose. I can't see a defense system AI thinking of that, though.
Just my two cents. I say it was a pretty good movie. I've seen better, but I've definitely seen a LOT worse.
X2 (2003)
I have to say, one of the best superhero movies to date...
Though that's hard to say, mostly because a sci-fi/action film like this goes well beyond being a "great superhero movie". I'm a long-time fan of the X-Men, having read the comics (on and off) since the '80s, then going back and reading the beginnings from the '60s. I was very excited when the first movie came out, and enjoyed it thoroughly, though I found some faults to it (pretty much everything involving the senator seemed unnecessary and boring). X2 has actually managed to surpass it's original (which I've noticed a lot of sequels outdoing their firsts). The whole thing started with an overqualified staff. Oscar winners Halle Berry and Anna Paquin. Shakespearian greats Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Even Bruce Davison and Famke Janssen have been around quite a while and have many great films under their belts (hell, Bruce was the original "Willard"!). The thing that really got me excited as I researched the first film before its release was Bryan Singer's direction. Oh my God! The "Usual Suspects" guy is directing! Talk about overqualified for the source material. As a comic, X-Men was an entity unto itself, several other titles and characters have had truly great stories and runs (Batman was a household word long before any movie serials, cartoons or films), but few capture the times and hearts as much as our friendly mutants. Alienation. Racism. Sexism. Isolation. Teamwork. Love conquers all. That's what X-Men was about. So I was quite happy to find they'd gotten "over-qualified" participants. X2 did what can probably only be done by a sequel. Now you know the characters (we had to spend so much time introducing them and their world in the first one), let's tell a real STORY about them. Yeah, the women are hot, but name me a movie (especially in sci-fi or action) where the women AREN'T hot. More than that, they embrace their characters. Famke IS Jean Grey, authoritative yet gentle. Brilliant but feminine. An underlying rage of power beneath her calm exterior. Halle is wonderful as Storm, taking after her later, more angry and violent persona. Paquin redefines Rogue, who is cocky, flirtatious and rambunctious in the comics. This Rogue is lost, confused and just trying to fit in and find her strength. This was what Jubilee did in the first animated X-Men series, or what Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat did in the '80s. They gave us a connection of someone on the outside, discovering their mutantcy and joining this strange new world. Marsden plays a PERFECT Cyclops. Cool, commanding, militant, yet his underlying passion for Jean is a volcano of emotion. Would've liked to have seen a little more of his character, but... *****WARNING! PLOT SPOILER****DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!!!***** ...his powerful scene of grief with Logan towards the end is breath-taking.
Stewart as Prof. X, who else could it have been? Not just because he's a paternal, bald man, but because he's known to us, the audience, as a cerebral man (mostly thanks to Star Trek: NG). McKellen's Magneto was more than I could've hoped for. Even though the big M is depicted as a big, muscular, grim looking son-of-a-b** in the comics, McKellen managed to get that across despite being an older, shorter, gayer man himself. Amazing.
Jackman was a perfect selection for Logan. I was a little taken aback by the first film, because I knew the Wolverine in the comics. He was shorter, much older looking, and a lot less pleasing to the eye! Jackman was able to make all these physical differences forgettable, as his character was dead-on (despite even being written a little less obnoxious than the comics' version). I've enjoyed Jackman's other work, Kate & Leopold, Swordfish, Van Helsing... but he was born to play Wolverine, and I believe he does his best work at the role. In reference to some negative comments I've heard about this movie... Was Prof. X's ability to kill every mutant or human over the top? Not according to the comics. Many forget, both comic readers or film viewers alike, just how powerful Charles is. Was there some ridiculous love-plot going on between Storm and Nightcrawler?
I don't think that's what the director or writers were going for. Just because people of opposite sexes are having a connection and developing a relationship in a movie doesn't mean it's romantic. I myself am married, but most of my best friends are women. Go figure. Wasn't Deathstrike's role pointless and robotic? Maybe it's just me, but I thought that WAS the point. Yukio in the comics was a former lover of Logan's, who turned on him and became a bloodthirsty, evil person. I liked this tactically cold, calculating and nigh-unstoppable Deathstrike. Showing just a clue of her humanity at the end, and a brilliant shot of Logan's sorrow that her villainy wasn't the real girl's fault or decision, though he knew he had no choice. Ah well... I'm babbling. A truly great film in general and in it's genre. Thanks!