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John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
One too many
Right off the bat, the second scene where he is chasing three guys on a horse in the desert (why? Who are they?) and then kills The Elder who's just sitting there, with very little fanfare in the middle of nowhere, no protection or even servants, I was immediately underwhelmed. This is supposed to be like a big deal, yet it felt meaningless.
After that, it's just a bunch of barely credible fight scenes, over and over and over and over... All with convenient bulletproof clothing, and apparently none of these trained killers and thousands of bullets can hit the man's head. The cream of the crop is at the Arc de Triomphe, where he gets hit by four cars no less and just walks it off each time. Or where he jumps 4-5 stories high and slams his body basically head first on a parked car, and just walks that off too. Or when he falls down 222 stairs and walks THAT off.
In the end, this is all just a cheap video game, where your character goes from set piece to set piece and has to shoot his way out; but in God mode.
This thing is getting great reviews all over. What a low point we've come to.
Violent Night (2022)
Does not deliver
When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought it was a great idea. Looked very promising, if you didn't expect much. Santa meets Rambo meets Die Hard. Perfect. Don't take yourself seriously, add some humour and some killer action scenes and you're golden. Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, what starts out as good enough turns into more and more of a mess as the movie slowly chugs along. The directing and editing just keeps degrading as time goes on, the dialogue gets worse and worse, and the action scenes just aren't cutting it.
I just looked it up and this is a 20 million dollar budget movie. I guess you can't do as much as you'd like with that kind of money in Hollywood these days. My guess is they started running out of money, and boy does it show.
Could have been a classic, instead it'll be forgotten before next Christmas. Too bad.
Black Adam (2022)
Where to begin. Oh yes...
Dumb. Really dumb. Foolish. Futile. Ill-advised. Irrelevant. Laughable. Ludicrous. Shortsighted. Simple. Trivial. Unintelligent. Unoriginal. Half-baked. Deficient. Idiotic.
Borrowed. Derivative. Hackneyed. Unimaginative. Absurd. Predictable.
Why do they keep giving roles to "The Rock"? He's a terrible actor (Red Notice sure proved that). He just looks the part and he's got name recognition. Terrible.
They didn't do him any favours either. How are we suppose to care about this character? "Well, he's bad-ass, that outta be enough right?"
And here's another great idea, let's bring in a whole bunch of new DC characters, cram them all real quick into this 2 hour mess. We can set them up like they're the X-Men or something, with a cool flying ship filled with over the top tech, yeah! And Hawkman can have a cool spinning gold mace, that can also turn into a huge axe! Oo, ooh and the bad guys can have these crazy hover bikes than can dematerialize and pass through stuff!! And at the end Adam can fight a big dumb demon guy with fire powers!! Boom, crash, pow!!!
I hope they paid that 9y year-old writer a regular adult salary at least.
RIP DC.
Bullet Train (2022)
Kill Bill wannabe, fail.
Kind of interesting for the first half, even though already over the top. It tries to be a 90's movie, a Tarantino movie. Kind of a Kill Bill for the 2020's. The thing is, Tarantino can make movies that are really over the top, but serious all a the same time. He can make us feel for the characters, add drama, even if it's all surrounded by surreal unbelievable events or even kinda silly dialogue.
But that's Tarantino's gift, and he's basically the only one who can do it well, even to this day (we're way past the 90's). These guys are trying to do that, but they don't have the skills, or confidence, so they do a lot of bad jokes, lots of CGI, and turn a story that started out as interesting into a big dumb mess. Two thirds in, it starts hitting you: this is gonna get really really stupid isn't it? And boy does it, and quickly. For the last 20 minutes or so, you just want it to end...
It's too bad really, cause at it's core the story idea was at least original. And all these actors, all those cameos: wasted. This thing isn't any better than say "Red Notice". "Hey let's not take ourselves seriously, that way they can't dump on us". Seems to be the usual attitude nowadays.
Family Business (1989)
Why the hate?
I don't get it. We'd kill for a movie like this in 2022...
It's not perfect, but it's original, fun, and it's Sean Connery and Dustin Hoffman!
It's not about "the caper", it's about the family. How they relate to each other despite how differently they turned out. The son, the father, the grandfather, all three had very different lives, made vastly different choices (or didn't get to make choices). And they've paid for these choices.
The robbery is just an event, a moment in their lives, one that brought three generations together. For better, and for worse.
I love Dustin Hoffman in this. Every little reaction he has to this and that. The quiver in his voice at times, the way in one scene he doesn't know quite how to put stuff back in the fridge he's so upset. All these little subtle details in Hoffman and Connery's performances, we don't get to see much of that anymore.
All and all, I just don't get how this movie can have such a low rating. With all the crap we're getting nowadays, I think people should go back and check their reviews on this one ;)
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
SONY: Just Give Up...
I mean it's SO bad...
Every aspect of this movie is mediocre :
- Story, terrible
- Character development, none
- CGI, awful
- Cinematography, painful
- Score, cheap
- Sound design, bad
- Acting, they didn't care
What a waste.
Red Notice (2021)
Bland.
Predictable, underwhelming Netflix junk.
No charisma between anyone, basic acting (why does Dwayne Johnson keep getting so many parts...) and in the end you don't care about any of these characters. I LOVE Ryan Reynolds, but this makes me think his acting career is wearing thin. He's always the same guy in every movie.
The 3rd act is just ridiculous, but by then you just want it to be over with. And yet they let you know real hard they're trying to create a franchise here...wow. Not going to happen, not even a sequel.
Just a big waste of time.
Greyhound (2020)
Make it longer...
There's no character development, would have been nice to care when a ship goes down or crew members die. But you can't, because you don't really see it. A tanker burns up, they could only save four men. Which men? Don't know. Who were the ones that didn't make it? Don't know.
And the crew of the Greyhound, who are they? How long have they been together as a crew? Don't know. What about the XO? How long has he been in service? Has he served with the captain before? How well do they know each other?
Don't. Know.
If you take out the credits, and the 5 mins of company logos at the beginning, this thing isn't even 80 mins long. Comedies are longer than that... They couldn't make it a little longer to introduce us to some of these men? Keep it all on the ship, fine (once we start we don't really leave the ship, other than shots of other boats or U-boats). They still could have had some dialog at the beginning, before things go bad. Give us some insight, some depth, anything.
The whole thing feels cold, distant.
They also keep making it a point that the captain isn't eating, sleeping. Everyone is constantly looking worried. And where does that go? NOWHERE. There's no consequences, no arguments, nothing. He's just very very tired at the end. And he goes to sleep in his bed. Good stuff...
The Tom Hanks "worried devoted captain" role (yes, again...) is getting a bit old as well. It's not enough anymore, we're use to it.
All in all, a movie that will be forgotten pretty quickly.
Loki (2021)
Just short of...
Another Marvel show where they can't bother us to care for any of the characters. Shots are wide, barely ever any close ups on characters' faces. Everything is dark and dreary. Loki (character) becomes sort of a side note as early as episode 2 and is reduced to just "a guy". His relationship with Sylvie is forced, rushed. Often times the dialog seems unnatural, also forced.
By episode 4 we're suppose to care, apparently, about Mobius and Hunter B-15. But how can we? We don't know anything about them, who they are, what makes them tick. Especially Hunter B-15, who's cold as ice and has no background to speak of, no hopes and dreams, nothing. And yet when they "rebel", we're meant to care about that?
Also, maybe it's because I haven't watched DC TV shows (cause I'm not 15), so my standards for "action" scenes haven't dropped, but these fight scenes are some of the worst paced I've ever seen on a big budget show or movie. Or maybe it's because you don't really care about anyone in this thing? Most likely both.
Too many channels/services I guess, makes it impossible to find good writers/show runners nowadays...
Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021)
Aliens wrote this?
Dialog is just weird at times, stuff nobody would say.
Character movement is odd, it's like watching Thunderbirds in the 60's. "Personalities" are just big stereotypes. It's like an 80's teen flick. The "leader", the "nerd", the "jock", the "dark and brooding" and the last one, no personality.
Things go very slow (hmm, it's almost as if they were stretching things out...)
Every episode they face a setback, then there's a so-called "cliffhanger" (which we can usually see coming a mile away). Rinse an repeat.
Omega is pretty annoying. And why are they taking her with them and putting her in danger constantly? Why is she still wearing her pyjamas from planet ClonyMcClone? They wanna protect her at all costs but don't outfit her with some protective gear? Oh right, because toy sales...
There's no character development at all. The guys are still the same by episode 7 as they were in episode 1.
Could have been a thing.
Playing with Power: The Nintendo Story (2021)
Long-winded and self-important
These episodes could be cut in half, truly. Long, long sequences of boring animations for transitions, long shots of uninteresting miniatures used for lack of content, overly dramatic music that never stops (even when people are finally talking). This thing takes itself way too seriously and it's incredibly annoying to watch (and hear).
Seems like it was made by some guy just out of film school, who wants to make an "epic" documentary about Nintendo... The music is so out of place and over the top at times. In the beginning we find ourselves in feudal Japan, late 1800s, and the soundtrack makes it feel like we're somewhere in interstellar space in some sci-fi movie.
And it's SO LONG in-between actual dialog and information... Like I said, could be half as long.
Such a shame.
Biography: WWE Legends: Ultimate Warrior (2021)
Now I know.
I always remembered the Ultimate Warrior from my teenage years. And since then I've seen many documentaries about all these wrestlers. From the story of André the Giant, to all the tragic stories from Vice's "Dark Side of the Ring". After seasons 1 and 2 of the ladder, I couldn't help but wonder "what about the Ultimate Warrior?"
I knew nothing about the man beyond the character, and I think he's the one I was the most curious about, him being so extreme and never showing who he really was. Now I see how some of his actions and those of the WWE created a sort of cloud over his character's legacy. And that's why I, not being among the super fans of wrestling, didn't really know anything about him.
I'm glad I got to find out.