At the Movies!

[gamemaster1991]

I like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. It's a nice follow up to the original, updates the game while throwing refrances to the original, most of the jokes stick, and (as much as I'm going to regret typing this) I think it might be better then the original. There are things that I hate about it like how the main cast is the cliché nerd, jock, brat, and girl nerd and the jokes that involve the alter egos acting like these clichés sometimes fall flat, but all in all, an enjoyable movie. Like my brother said, "Jack Black was the right choice to play a bratty teenage girl."

[ZpaceJ0ck0]

So yesterday I watched Tom Cruise's The Mummy.

If this movie is meant to be beggining of a Dark Universe where Universal's monsters coexist, then they are off to a bad start. First of all, from point A from point B there are a handful of useless scenes such as Spoiler:the scene where Vail gets cursed/possesed on the plane and the military guys threaten to shoot him, only for Tom Cruise to remove the guns and... shoot him a couple of seconds later. What's was the point of stopping the soldiers if Vali was going to die either way?. The comedy side of the film also falls short. The protagonis is bland. The action scenes were ok, I suppose.

On the bright side of things, Sofia Boutella is just perfect for the role of Ahmanet/The Mummy. She exudes that thirst for power effortlessly in addition to being incredibly seductive.

On a side note, take shot of water everytime Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) says "Nick".

[Arjahn]

Bored waiting for carrot cake to cool so imma rank every MCU movie in chronological order. Only ones I haven't seen are Ant Man and Dr. Strange because I was pretty burnt out on superhero origin stories. Will say that the ending of Dr. Strange is fantastic.

Iron Man - 9/10
Fun ass movie with great performances, amazing editing and a tight scrip. Only downside is the cliche ass boss battle at the end, but even that was handled really well.

The Incredible Hulk - 4/10
Ehhhhhhhhhh the movie. It's every superhero origin story movie you've ever seen, only with a bland protagonist, crappy script and a bunch of actors who just don't give a shit. Tim Roth is the only real redeemable quality, you can tell he's having a blast the entire time.

Iron Man 2 - 5/10
Slightly less Ehhhhh than Hulk the movie. It's bloated as shit, the script is much much worse than the original, and a lot of the performances are kinda phoned in. RDJ is still fantastic as Tony Stark and the reason people watch these movies at all, I like that it tries to focus on a more personal arc with him and his disease, but every time that good shit gets going we have some more Avengers setup shoved down our throats. There's a good movie in here somewhere.

Thor - 4/10
It's Thor. There's very little action, very few interesting characters or well written dialogue, it's just Thor dicking around in Arizona for an hour and a half with boring and/or obnoxious side characters. I like Chris Hemsworth as Thor, a few good jokes hit their marks, but all in all it's nothing more than another superhero origin story with bland performances.

Captain America: The First Avenger - 8/10 ~ 6/10
I love the first half of Captain America. Skinny Steve Rogers is great, he's an interesting character and spending the first half of the movie just focusing on him as a person before he becomes a Superhero is sort of fantastic. I also love how, as soon as he's given these godlike powers, he's just used as a glorified Strongman clown paraded around to sell war bonds. The acting is good all around, the CGI is incredible, the casting is wonderful which is a weird note to focus on but seriously I think every actor in the first half of this movie is remarkable.

Then... we start the Action schlock, and the movie kinda nosedives. The entire last third~second half of this film is just boring CGI fightscenes between the Army and faceless nazis, but with lazer beams!. I don't think that this stuff is all that bad, but it's such a falloff in quality from the first half that it drags the entire film down with it. Also Red Skull is just kinda there, then he just sorta falls out of a plane. I mean I'm sure they'll resurrect him one of these days but he's just so goofy and generally out of place in this.


The Avengers - 9/10 the first time, 6/10 afterwards
The Avengers is great, duh. Everyone saw it, everyone loved it, it's a funny comedy with good action and snappy dialogue.

The thing is, after seeing it once, you can't really watch it again. The second time you already know the jokes, so you pay more attention to the dialogue and the plot and realize that hey, this movie isn't as good as I thought it was.

Iron Man 3 - 9/10
Welp, guess #2 was just a hiccup. I love this movie, it's got great pacing, a tight script, a wonderful plot twist that I know a lot of people hate but I fucking adore, and, most importantly, it focuses on Tony Stark as a character, which is what makes us care about action scenes in the first place. It's also really violent, which is surprising post kid-friendly Avengers, and I dig. Tony Stark just straight up murders people in this and it's great :D

Thor 2/The Dark World - 5/10
Ehhh, I like the Loki stuff.

Captain America 2/ The Winter Solider - 8/10
Very solid action movie where I like literally every character. A little overrated, it's really not a complicated political thriller or anything, but it's a great Marvel movie nonetheless.

Guardians of the Galaxy - 7/10
Another solid Marvel movie, has the same problem as The Avengers where once you've watched it once and know the jokes, it's hard to rewatch. I still really enjoyed myself both times I saw it.

Avengers 2: Age of Ultron - 1/10
The worst Marvel movie, worse than Hulk or Thor or any bland origin story. This movie is actively bad. Ultron doesn't work as a villain because they made him quippy and not intimidating at all, Quicksilver is I think the worst character in the MCU, including that dumbass comic relief girl from Thor, half the characters just straight up don't have arcs and the ones that do aren't very interesting, the action is horrible and bland since it's just CGI robots vs. mostly CGI superheros. It feels like a boring episode of a Marvel cartoon. I like the Farm, the Party at the start, and like two lines of dialogue made me chuckle, but in general it's just such a bland movie. Probably deserves a 3/10 objectively but honestly I just fucking hate this one.

Ant Man - N/A Never saw the whole thing, from what I've seen it's another generic Origin Story with a few really good remnants from when Edgar Wright was working on it.

Captain America 3/ Civil War - 8/10
Hey look at that we made a movie with a bunch of dudes who have conflicting ideologies after building their characters and tension up for years. And the movie's good. Weird how that works. Great performances all around in this, my favorite Marvel Movie ending (until spiderman), just another great flick. Also wins the honorary
"Improved Upon The Comic" award, since in the actual Civil War comic Tony's just a fucking psychopath for no reason and this one gave him some actual motivation behind his actions.

Doctor Strange - N/A
Haven't seen the whole thing, but the final "battle" with the villain is probably my favorite out of any of these movies.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 - 10/10
I think this is my favorite Marvel Movie? Hard to say since it came out fairly recently, but hot damn does this one just hit everything out of the park. It has themes n' shit. The interactions are all great, again I love every character in this, the action is phenomenal, the visuals in general are nothing short of gorgeous, I love it man.

Spider-Man: Homecoming - 10/10~8/10
Lemme explain: This gets a 10/10 for everything but the action, but an 8/10 because the Action is really kinda not great in this.
Peter Parker is great, so much better than that Amazing Spiderman garbage and on par with the Tobey McGuire originals I grew up watching. He carries this movie on his shoulders like its a collapsing building. Michael Keaton is also the best MCU villain in general; he's intimidating as shit the entire time while also being very relatable. Every actor in this is fantastic, the script is air tight, seeing Peter struggle to actually be a superhero is amazing, and I love how he just mentions the radioactive spider off hand once because everyone on the planet knows the dealio. I also really like the Avengers tie-ins here, they're not shoehorned like Iron Man 2, they're natural and impact Peter in meaningful ways.

Now for my issue: The action in this movie rangers from great to oh god that's actually bad, not just for a marvel movie but bad in general. I love how the last battle ends, but the fight itself is dark and shaky cammed as shit. I was honestly disoriented watching it.

All in all, fantastic movie, just get some better action coordinators and you're golden

Thor: Ragnarok - 6.5/10
I like it. Not as bland as the bland sequels, not as good as the good sequels. Just an alright movie with a few high points and a few low ones.

Black Panther - 6.75/10
Similar to Thor Ragnarok where it was a very alright movie, but with more extreme highs and lows.

That spear lady needs her own movie ASAP, I liked her 10 times more than BP both action wise and character wise. I loved the waterfall fights, the villain's backstory, how colorful it was in general in terms of set design and action scenes, the Wakandan isolationist debates, lots of great stuff here.

There was, however, also a lot of genuinely bad stuff in here too. BP's sister was obnoxious as hell. Not even just for the meme line, which was awful don't get me wrong, but so much of her dialogue was so poorly written that a wave of dread overcame me whenever she showed up. The spy/ex also felt kind of tacked on, like they needed more time to establish her character. Iunno, I think the writers just got overwhelmed with the 3 major supporting women and should've cut it down to 2 or tightened up their dialogue a bit.

There's also some very noticeably bad CGI in the ending battle, specifically a few Rhinos that look like they were ripped straight out of Far Cry. I feel like I might sound like one of those dummies who bemoans CGI and says shit like "Practical Effects and Miniatures or die!", but I'm not, CG is great. I just hate it when it's done poorly since it completely takes you out of the experience.

I saw a lot of people praising Michael B. Jordan, saying that he's the best Marvel villain in years and going on about how charismatic he was, and I'm just... what? Did we watch the same movie? He was bland as shit. I never saw a villain just Michael B. Jordan. His dad was great, the kid actor who played young michael b. jordan was pretty good, but he was just so god damn bland.

All in all, eh pretty alright movie.

[Hexadecimal*]

I think I forgot to say that my German friend suggested we watch Coco for movie night and I REALLY loved it. I did guess one of the story twists, but otherwise the story was very good and the animation was a delight for the eyes. I might even buy it.

We watched Moana and that one I found pretty boring. Too many pointless songs that weren't catchy or worth listening to except the "Thank You" one. With it being mostly ocean travel a lot of it was pretty bland and it was totally pointless to have the chicken there. I was waiting for some moment to happen for it to have a purpose, but it never happened.

Overall I'm still missing 2D animation.

[CLXcool]

What has been considered as 'the duke nukem forever' of movies. Is finally getting released. Ladies and gentlemen. I give you. Terry Gilliam's The man who killed Don quixote

[ZpaceJ0ck0]

Today I've finally watched (500) Days of Summer.

To say that the two leading actors have have a really good chemistry would be an understatement. I love how the movie reminds you that Tom harbors the feelings of innocent, naïve love while Summer is more of a friends-with-benefits type of gal (basically, they both have completely different ideas on relationships), yet they stubbornly continue dating, and they remain lovable all the same. The heart- rending moments of disconnectedness between the two never comes across as heavy-handed nor forced. 

The real shout outs go to Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, whose script is practically flawless. Their creative way of crafting the simple concept of a break up through unconventional story structuring is certainly a refreshing concept.

If you liked The Perks of Being a Wallflower, then you are going to enjoy this one too.

---

Happy 50th anniversary, 2001: A Space Odyssey!

[Hexadecimal*]

Anyone see A Quiet Place yet?

[Arjahn]

Went and Saw Isle of Dogs last night. Here are my (spoiler free) thoughts.

Was kinda underwhelmed honestly. The animation had great style, but even that wasn't as wonderful as I thought it could've been. They used it really well a few times, most notably when someone got in a fight or exploded, but all in all it rarely felt like the animation had any bearing on the story, it could've been 2D or CGI or even live action and nothing would've changed. I'm saying that versus. The Fantastic Mr. Fox, also by Wes Anderson, where the style felt very much intentional, like it was something out of a kids book and the movie had the same warm tone and color scheme you'd find in one.

The script was also kind of messy. I really liked the premise and there were a few great sections where the movie started picking up, but the pacing was really just off here. It takes forever to get going, throws a few loops that don't really make any sense, has some subplots that should've just been cut entirely, and all in all is just a big ol' sloppy turd.

It wasn't really bad, just not great, which is a shame since I'd say most of Wes Anderson's movies have been fantastic. Grand Budapest Hotel especially is one of my favorite films of all time, and he follows it up with a very underwhelming second picture.

[CLXcool]

I saw Isle of the dogs a few days ago. It does have a few problems, but one of the major aspects that I like about it is that its a 'mature adult animated' movie. Now. I say that because there isn't any of the stuff that you'd expect in most adult animated cartoons just for filler space time(e.g sex, grotesque violence, characters cursing like sailors etc etc), all of which you find put in any adult animated show for the sake of being there. This is one of the RARE times where I see American adult animation handled in a mature adult matter. I do hope this inspires people to make proper adult animation for film and tv.

[ZpaceJ0ck0]

R. Lee Ermey, former Drill Instructor in the US marines and later an actor, has passed away.

[CLXcool]

^The instructor from Full metal jacket.

[ZpaceJ0ck0]

During the CinemaCon, M. Night Shyamalan showed the key art and the first trailer for the Unbreakable/Split sequel Glass. Someone leaked the previosly mentioned key art.

You can expect Universal Pictures to release a better quality version of the image (as well as the trailer) to the general public in the upcoming days. 

2019 can't come soon enough!

[ZpaceJ0ck0]

Yesterday I finally got around and watched Wonder Woman.

I liked it. Gal Gadot embodies Diana's character, no other actor could have nailed better. The action scene were entertaining, but still pretty standard. It features a somewhat nice twist. Also, not sure about you, but I liked the bleak color palettes used on certain moments, which consists of (mostly) shades of gray and brown--even the reds looked rather brown. I think it was good choice given the setting of the film, which was The Great War.

[Hexadecimal*]

A friend insisted we watch Lego Batman. Hooooo boy was that hard for me. It is very much aimed at children and I was dying minutes into it. The worst was having to pretend I liked it because she was so certain I would and she had insisted it was a good movie.

Kinda weird that for something so childish the whole movie was about the Joker being gay for Batman.

[ZpaceJ0ck0]

Kinda weird that for something so childish the whole movie was about the Joker being gay for Batman.

I haven't watched the movie, but from the way you worded it seems that is a parody of the typical hero--arch enemy style of realtionhips. You know how sometimes these type of characters are so obsessed with killing each other that sometimes people joke that it could be something else? Well, it's kinda like that. Those characters are called "frenemies" if you want to be more specific.

Even Phineas & Ferb made an entire episode about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2KLyl7XocE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yM3Zh9TwtE

EDIT (June 6th): so after finally getting around and watching the movie I can confirm that... I was right.