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MattTB87
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Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Feels like anime, looks aren't everything
Alright so I went into this cold, not knowing much beyond the trailer several months ago. First impressions "hey this feels like Warhammer 40k meets Samurai 7 (the anime from the mid 2000s)".
By the end, that's exactly what it is, a weird mix of 40k and Samurai 7 with a heavy dose of star wars, and i'm all for that.
Really needs another 30-40 mins of character development for the "team" that's sorely lacking but honestly, super distinctive CGI, cliche yet familiar and fun story, too much slow mo.
Quite honestly the whole thing feels like anime and that's not a bad thing. Got more enjoyment from this than the last few Star Wars movies, Dune or a lot of the recent SciFi. Solid hard scifi for scifi nerds. 9/10 if you like mid 2000s anime, warhammer 40k and 80s action movies.
Dragon's Dogma (2020)
Nice world, shame about the boring spods who live in it.
A real shame here, as this could have been so much better.
Just watched a couple of new Samurai series on netflix and this came up as the "suggested" for you so gave it a go.
Well, it's got a real feeling of "budget" witcher about it. There's no depth or breadth to the characters, and no context for anything. Episode 6 especially is a real let down with it's "new monster introduced, then offed within 5 minutes" and again, no context for anything.
Really this needed a full 24 episode run or at the very least 45-60 minute episodes to fully flesh everything out.
As it stands, nice world, animation is fine, real shame about the total lack of context for.... well, anything.
Bumblebee (2018)
Truly awful transformers movie
Having just gone back and watched the whole lot (including the new beast wars one) this has got to be the absolute worst of the lot, and that's a really low bar to follow with the hot garbage that was The Last Knight. I grew up in the 80s, this is not at all how it was, especially at 18. Do Americans have something against swearing and violence? The attitude the 'youths' in this take is not one shared by anyone else who is now 35-40 and certainly wasn't back in 1985.
I don't know what else to say beyond useless bland protagonist, humor that doesn't really land but at least the soundtrack is half decent!
And before anyone says 'oh it's not for you its a kids film' if that was the case it wouldn't be full of 80s nostalgia, 80s music and based on an 80s franchise would it.
Justice League: Warworld (2023)
Adds nothing, offers nothing, takes nothing away.
A series of beautifully animated, overly bloody, poorly written and totally inconsequential stories that culminate in a disjointed ending that ultimately serves no purpose.
I'm genuinely not sure there's been a properly good DC Animated movie since the Flashpoint series, although the standard of the new voice acting is excellent and overall the animation quality is higher than it used to be, but the last few have been so incredibly lacklustre that it really makes no sense why they're putting money into these stories instead of further Elseworld adaptions or any of the million excellent Batman/Superman standalone graphic novels.
If you've got 90 minutes to burn, this one is fine, but it really doesn't add anything if you've got fond memories of the adaptions of 10 years ago.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
Decent Transformers movie.
Solid 7/10 here, and far better than the last few offerings, although admittedly I lasted exactly 12 minutes in "The Last Knight" before turning it off.
Rise of the beasts is pretty thin on story but there's just enough to hold interest and having the Gen 1 designs make a comeback is a nice addition, despite my lack of nostalgia for them.
I honestly don't know what to say beyond that, perfectly serviceable action movie with giant robots. Would have been nice to see a bit more of Unicron and a bit more development / depth to Scourge but hey, I grew up watching Transformers: Beast Wars and this delivers on that, all your favourites from the series, in one big brawl for the planet. 7/10.
Sisu (2022)
Superb action romp let down by European release.
TLDR; Over the top action in a world war 2 western adventure with a middling story and really stellar acting. Solid 8/10 if you liked Nobody, Django Unchained and Inglorious Bastards.
Not TLDR;
Excellent work all round from this tarentino-alike 90 minute action fest. The biggest shout out has to be to the finnish actors who headline it as they're superb in their roles. The German tank commander especially and Sisu himself (yes I know that's the not the characters name) put on excellent performances and carry the story where it needs to go while working with very limited dialogue and interactions.
Unfortunately, and it's a real kicker, there's some absolute nonsense with a staggered release in the US and not being able to purchase this via prime video in Europe for another 2 weeks (or see it at the cinema), so to watch this right now you've got to go through 'other' channels which is going to seriously hurt it's EU release.
The Pope's Exorcist (2023)
Not a horror film in any way.
First up, massive respect for the makers of this to not have a single jump scare in the entire film. That should show you what we're dealing with here; Action thriller, rather than horror.
There are of course horror elements, but this is more akin to Constantine or The Last Witch Hunter, an overly serious but totally solid 6/10 action film with both too much and too little exposition.
Crowe gives a decent performance, as does the kid, he's like a de-aged Andy Serkis and honestly is great, but again, let me remind you, this is not a horror film in any way and honestly, it should never have been marketed as that. Because as an action thriller, it's perfectly fine.
7/10 - would action thriller again.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Perfectly fine action romp.
Played d&d in my youth and basically all of the video games since. This movie certainly has the d&d fan service down, calling back to familar places and people, events and rules.
It's hard to say why this is a 7/10 given all of that but largely it's just a bit of a :nothing: movie; a quick 2 hour snacky fantasy romp.
Feels like something you watch, barely remeber a day or two later but did nothing wrong, just didn't do anything new or adventurous.
Not that it's dissapointing or dull, it isn't, it's perfectly serviceable in every way.
I doubt, however, that we'll ever see a sequel to this. Given the production budget I can't see how it can do well enough to justify any further films in a franchise.
So yeah, that's it, serviceable 7 out of 10 fantasy action.
65 (2023)
Where's the rest of it?
This appears to be a 2hr 30 min film with an hour of exposition cut out of it, and it's poorer for it.
3d effects and the sets are excellent, no complaints about look or feel of the movie, dinosaurs strong, gun goes whoosh boom effectively.
Story is your typical heroes journey against adversity but with all the driving motivation and Character development cut out in favor of more running and shooting stuff.
Overall then, solid 6 out of 10 at best, be interested in seeing a directors cut down the line with the hour worth of exposition, drive, development and downtime that this is sorely missing.
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023)
Best "elseworlds" adaption to date.
In Brief: Solid 7/10 - Well rounded experience following the major plot points of the graphic novel with above average VA work and lovely anime-esque animation.
Caught an advance screening of this over a month ago and have been waiting to review it ever since. David Giuntoli lends his voice to Bruce/Batman in this outing and honestly it decent justice to the legacy of batman voice acting, sounding pretty much exactly how you'd expect - closer to the Arkham games than to more recent adaptions. The same can also be said for Harvey and Alfred, who are particular high points, but sadly this doesn't extend to the supporting cast, with the younger voice actors coming across a little rigid at times.
Animation wise, it leans into an anime style for the action oriented series and falls back to traditional western styles for backgrounds and story moments, providing a well rounded experience that looks excellent for the vast majority of the movie.
Why have you given it a 7 instead of X?
Without spoilers, there's some younger characters (Sanjay, Kai) who lose a lot of their agency between the source material and the adaption and are relegated to "let's drive the plot forward" instead of having motivations or proper backstory but y'no, it might just be the best elseworlds adaption to date!
Give it a watch, if you liked Red Son, Gotham by Gaslight and felt utterly betrayed by the Injustice adaption, then this will likely be for you!
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Much much better than you'd expect.
Let's start by saying saying this film is better than it has any right to be. Seriously, it's excellent. Aaaand if you want to leave it at that, feel free, because below is going to get into the nit picks.
Alright, now we're set up for some criticism, the opening sequence isn't great, it's not bad, but it let's the rest of the movie down and lulls you into a "oh no it's gonna be one of THESE dreamworks movies" kinda moods. Thankfully that's kicked into touch within 5 mins or so and the story begins proper.
Without spoiling, the wolf design is superb, equal parts menacing and beautiful, modelled and animated with a passion that doesn't come across in too many other characters.
Speaking of the animation.... it's... well, not to my taste. Substantially deviates from the original style and leans more into modern anime for the "exciting" scenes (fights and what not), which while interesting to watch, does lead to an odd deformed cell shaded look perhaps more often than i'd like. Certainly not up to the standard Dreamworks put on show in the 1st film.
And now the 1st films been mentioned, yes, some time has passed but the 2 main returning cast both sound like they've been smoking 40 a day since then, which is unfortunate if you watch these back to back as it's a little jarring.
Oh and you might have to look up who the hell Tom Thumb is, because that isn't prevalent in the UK amongst my generation.
In any case, minor niggles aside, it's excellent and fully deserving of all the praise heaped on it. Best animated film i've seen for years. 9/10.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
The best marvel films since the Captain America trilogy
So this is a tricky one for me, as a british white guy in his 30s, a lot of this movies major themes about cultural identity are wasted on me, that being said, It's by far the best marvel film of the last couple of years and at least on par with the Captain America trilogy (which would be my "top" marvel films).
Characters aren't the strongest across the board with Riri Williams being a little on the annoying side however offsetting that against the personal growth of Shuri really puts the talent to work, transforming a formally "brat" character into a strong lead who has to deal with loss and grief while carrying a stellar cast is not as easy task but thankfully one that is pulled off here.
Without spoilers, it's difficult to talk about the major plot points so we'll leave those well alone and just call it a 9/10 and say "if you liked Black Panther" and character driven story scifi then you'll probably like this!
Medieval (2022)
Should have been a series.
Ben Foster isn't bad. Michael Caine isn't bad. Atmosphere isn't bad. Story is grade A mid week dross.
Setting is that bit of fairly generic medieval history where everything looks how you'd expect but everyone speaks the queen's English and talks about people and places you vaguely know how a history text book 30 years ago.
Really not much else to say about this one other than it should have been a limited series or a longer adaption, because frankly there isn't enough characterisation and what little plot there present is stretched far far too thin for a 2 hour long movie.
So yeah, acting fine, action fine, cinematography fine, plot dross. Perfect 5.
The Rig (2023)
Worst 3D I've seen for years!
First up, Ian Glenn is as always, excellent.
That's pretty much it though, support cast is bland and frequently speak like no person has ever spoken to another before, dialogue is more video game levels than big budget drama.
The main issue here is the greenscreen and 3d work, its terrible. Not even a bit terrible. Absolutely properly terrible. Ive tried this is 1080 quality and it's immediately obvious the water and most of the backdrops aren't real things, I've seen better water effects on 20 year old movies. 4 seconds on a scene with any water in it and you're immediately pulled out of the immersion on a good quality screen. Does amazon thing we're all streaming this at 480p using DivX? Jeeez.
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
Solid writing, if a bit weird at times.
In brief; engaging thriller, solid writing, sub plots are nonsense, some of its a bit weird.
Bale delivers an excellent performance but is an odd choice for this role, you could easily see it being played by a more 'intellectual' actor, or an older one. Not that he does a bad job of it at all, I just expect to see him in more action oriented roles based on previous films.
Confused why this has been tied to E A Poe as well, could easily have been any nameless poet, presumably this is something to do with the source material it's based on but that also goes unexplored here.
Overall then, well worth a watch if you like slightly weird slow burn thrillers. Part detective story, part murder mystery, you won't feel clever for the ending twist because there's no possible way to see it coming.
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
Visually Beautiful, but that's it.
First up, this film looks stunning, seriously, you have to see this, it looks incredible for stop motion. The voice acting, lip sync and score are all top notch.
Now, on to why its a 5 and not a 10.
Pinocchio, as a character, is just incredibly irritating. As a mid 30s man with no kids, he might just be the most irritating child ever written into a movie. Every single scene he isn't part of is incredible, and every scene featuring him is a aural assault of grating dialogue and constantly wishing someone would just throw the little wooden horror straight onto the fire.
So yeah, beautiful film, solid story, utterly ruined for me by the supposed main character and how he's been written to be the worlds most mewling sproglet.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Not what I expected at all!
So having seen the trailers for this you could be forgiven for thinking it was a straight up black comedy revolving around a pair of 40/50-something Irishmen and their devolving dysfunctional friendship.
Having now seen the film, yeeeeeeees, that's what it's about... sort of, a bit.
Without applying enough spoilers to warrant the tag, what you actually get is part black comedy, part social commentary with a little bit of harrowing despair thrown in for good measure. Sadly, the despair is what I took away from this, and what I remember now while the black comedy elements and at the time genuinely funny situational jokes have faded into the background noise.
I enjoyed it while I was watching it, but it's not a feel good romp, it's not even really a comedy and there's parts of it that still make me a little sad thinking back on it 24 hours later.
Would not recommend if you're expecting to be amused. Would recommend if you want a film more akin to Three Billboards or In Bruges.
Black Adam (2022)
It's fine.
Since DC currently have all their mainline characters on lockdown while they figure out what to do with "The Flash", Black Adam fills a void that really should be another Superman or Batman movie.
It's not Zak Snyder's Justice League, but the overall tone is similar. Think Samaritan or the first Captain America movie rather than an epic superhero romp.
Side characters come and go with no consequence, the audience stand in androgynous teen becomes a driving plot point for no reason I could work out and the attempts to humanise Adam and turn him from "all powerful destroyer" into "oh okay we're basically superman now" are a little jarring but hey, some JLA characters turn up, new Hawkman is cool and Dr Fate portrayed by Pierce Brosnan is excellent so it's not all bad.
Solid 6/10 superhero action, not as good as Watchmen, The Batman or the majority of Marvel films, but perfectly watchable.
Injustice (2021)
Tricky to pin down, a different line to the source material.
Full disclosure right off the bat, i've not played the Injustice games however I did read the comic books some years ago and have fond memories of how good they were.
This isn't that. It's Injustice in the broad strokes only.
This isn't a horrible adaption, but it's lacking in every area, from character development to overall run time. Really this should have been a much closer adaption of the source material (like Superman Red Son was) with a run time nearer Zak Snyder's Justice League broken up into chapters but hey ho, we work with what we've got, and sadly what we've got is boring once the first 15 minutes are passed. There's also certain characters that are vastly underused here, who played a much larger role in the source and changed the whole tone of it, as well as ones that if you're not familiar with current DC comics you'll be all over google to look up who they're supposed to be.
So yeah, 5/10, could be better, worth an hour of your time but the comics are far better.
Moonfall (2022)
Not nearly as bad as critics claim.
I should probably open with saying my all time favourite movies are Aliens, Robocop, and Terminator 2, so that should give you an idea of the 'usual' movies I like.
Critics and the user reviews have panned this enormously, to the point that it's currently sitting at 5.1* rating, well, I don't that's really all that deserved.
The dialogue is weak sure, and the mid points are slow and the story is utterly ridiculous, but that really does add to the charm of a luke warm (if not hot) mess of a movie. There's a lot to like here, from the visual effects to the over the top space action, although the family drama elements do fall short, for someone in their 30s without kids or family anyway, that all feels very forced.
All of that being said, it's a silly film with lots of visual loveliness and more than enough going on to occupy 2 hours. If you're into old action movies, you'll probably enjoy this!
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Lots of stuff happens but no agency.
At tine of writing only 2 episodes are available so take this for what it's worth.
Visually looks great, characters are fine, good to see bits and pieces from the modern 'shadow of' games making their way in to thr plot.
Story however is lacking thr journey and agency of the Jackson films. Sure lots of 'stuff' happens in the first 2 episodes, but none of it ties together yet or is clear how it's going to come together, less Lord of the Rings, more Witcher or Game of Thrones.
Certainly not bad and high hopes for the test of the series but this is the risk you run when you drop a weekly series in 2022, give us all of it to binge at once, or risk disjointed reviews with a rating that doesn't reflect the series as a whole. 7/10 so far. Magic 8 ball says 'ask again later'.
Samaritan (2022)
I expected Logan or Watchmen, I got Steel meets Batman
I'll open this review by saying that the last 15 minutes of Samaritan are excellent and Stallone is great in the aging superhero role but that's it, that's all the praise it's getting.
Characters: Aging superheroes have been done right by the likes of Watchmen, Logan and The Boys, and while this Stallone does fit this role perfectly, there's far too little of that makes those other properties good present here. The main character (a 13 year old kid and not the titular Samaritan) is annoying, doesn't behave with any agency or feel like a real person performing real actions, he's just there to push the plot forward, in fact there's at least 80% too much annoying kid which should have been used on character development for Stallone.
Plot: Elements pulled from 5 other movies, is a good premise, would love to see it done again but done to the standards of Nolan's Batman or The Boys.
Script: Nonsensical and bland. Written by the guy who created Threshold many years ago (an excellent 1 season scifi aliens bonanza), you'd expect better, or at least something that isn't 2 parts batman to 1 part Last Action Hero.
Effects: Generally really good, explosions nice, suits good, combat visceral, some of the fire later on looks a bit dodgy in 4k, as does the de-aged Stallone in flashback scenes, he looks a bit overly plastic and 3d-ified.
Overall then, a huge amount of wasted potential. With Amazon behind it you'd think they might have at least provided Watchmen or The Boys as a box set for the director to give a cursory glance over, because when those exist, there's no reason for this to be such a bland mess for an hour and a half with a great final act.
Final Verdict : AlmostBatman/10.
Note to director/writers/producer: People who watch super hero movies aren't 14 anymore, we don't need an audience surrogate character, go and watch The Boys, Logan, Watchmen, Dark Knight, Invincible and
Zak Snyder's Justice League then make a sequel to this and flesh out your damn characters properly!
The Sandman (2022)
Incredible, up to Episode 6.
This is a hard one for me, I went into Sandman blind and not really that familiar with the source material so I don't have any nostalgia for it.
First half of season 1 is brilliant, it's a slow burn and builds Dream up to be a tortured character with plenty of potential, he embarks on the typical heroes journey to regain his lost power... and halfway through he does exactly that. This is where the series nosedives off a cliff.
Post episode 6, we're introduced to a good range of frankly random character that feel like they would be more at home in Garth Ennis's Preacher than with this series, and Dream's own journey is stopped dead in it's tracks with him becoming a side character in his own show!
So... yeah, up to episode 6 is fantastic watching with deep character development and gripping story, post episode 6 is a big load of old tosh. I wish i'd stopped at the end of episode 6, then I wouldn't feel so bitter for what could have been.