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Dolittle (2020)
It didn't have to be this bad
Movies like this are what happens when there's no one to say "no". They're listless; no one wanted to say anything with this work (or script anyway); it's just about ticking checkboxes: animals - yes, constant noisy, busy action - yes, big name stars - yes. It's good to see a formulaic, soulless approach fail yet again.
Gisaengchung (2019)
Myth of meritocracy under a looking glass
The responses this film draws are often a study of internalized propaganda; specifically, the smoke screen of meritocracy that attempts to cover the systemic injustices of the world. The common thread is to object to the impoverished characters as being portrayed as too capable; the "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" saying being an epitome of this mindset. It's a saying that you could hear in a schoolyard, because it betrays a childish level of understanding, or lack thereof: not considering unearned wealth transfer; not considering the disparity of opportunities; and not considering that the wealth gap is particularly large in South Korea.
It's unclear how many people who are willingly ignorant about injustice can be reached at all, but art like this film must help, at the very least by sustaining a discussion of the topic of injustice and inequality.
Death Note (2017)
Uwe Boll-level bad
Adaptation issues aside, this movie is just stupid; there's no gravity to murdering people; the main character places so little worth on human life as if it was a video game, and it turns out that his crush is equally psycho. The morality is barely explored, they just matter-of-factly treat every criminal as deserving a death sentence, including their schoolmate, for the crime of schoolyard bullying. Even very young children could understand that someone still in school could have the potential to reform, but not these characters.
The 'accidental' deaths seem unintentionally 'cartoonish', basically being variations of slipping on banana peels and landing on sharp objects.
The movie has an interesting borrowed premise, but fails in execution, and as such is just a waste of time and opportunity for a better movie.
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
A pointless cash in
Emma Watson is miscast as Belle; her performance is just unconvincing. There's nothing interesting done with the premise, the characters feel flat and lifeless, the musical numbers are "meh", and the graphics don't even reflect the big budget nature of the film; some things actually manage to look bad. The hype for the film can clearly be attributed just to marketing and it coasting on the original's reputation. I don't even particularly mind corporate cash-in remakes if they're done well (see Disney's Star Wars reboot), but this is not it.
Bitva za Sevastopol (2015)
Admirable effort
It's a weird time to see a joint Ukrainian and Russian film project to come out, considering the breakdown in relations between the two countries. The production apparently begun before the conflict, and it's an achievement in itself that it's been seen through, since a project like this probably wouldn't be possible today.
Coming in the wake of Russian WWII-themed schlock like Stalingrad (2013), I didn't expect too much, and there was a somewhat similar, almost gaudy quality present, but overall the movie was much more decent, particularly considering that its budget was about 5 times smaller than Stalingrad's. The actors were well cast, with Yuliya Peresild's performance creating a main character that can grow on you, and some interesting supporting characters. This brings me to the point that, despite the title, the movie's focus isn't as much on the port city of Sevastopol as it's on the Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, and the movie being called "Battle for Sevastopol" betrays an apparent lack of confidence in selling a biopic of a female sniper. There's a fair amount of action in the movie, however, so I don't think that the kind of people who wouldn't go for a biopic would come away disappointed or feeling mislead.
Vietnam in HD (2011)
Disrespect for source material, lack of subtlety
The focus of this series is supposed to be the historical footage, but the makers seem to resent the aspect ratio that was historically used, so all the footage is crudely stretched and everything in it is made to look thicker. The end result is that the movie is better viewed in 4:3 so that the contemporary footage would be distorted instead.
The most accurate description of the narration is that it's overacted. The makers seem to have been aiming to give the series a dignified overall feeling, but it ends up feeling more cheap instead. The result would have been significantly better and more respectful of the actual history if they took a more hands-off approach and just presented the historical footage and the interviews without as much editing, editorializing and remastering.
In My Pocket (2011)
Contrived moralistic nonsense
This film is a wannabe Requiem for a Dream, with the difference being that the story of In My Pocket was written by people who know nothing about anything. To give one example, it shows a girl who was injected with an unknown drug just once and became so addicted to it she was still in rehab 5 years later having extreme craving. The film tries to present a serious subject matter, but ends up being a mishmash of clichés put together in a less than bright or informed manner. The main audience for this is people who will swallow nonsense and laud it as educational provided it vilifies drugs and at least superficially resembles reality. Even if you disregard the contrived nature of some story elements and the general lack of understandable motivation for the character's actions, parts of the film feature sub-par acting, like the main character's father trying and failing to give a strict appearance. This is one of the rare films whose lack of redeeming qualities has made me regret watching it.