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therealadambeck
Reviews
Exception (2022)
It's fine
Yet another mediocre Netflix animation. It's fine. The art and character designs are beautiful. The concept is intriguing. The voice cast is also quite good. Tbh, it's all really quite alright. However, it leans heavily on tropes that have been played out for decades. Nearly every conversation feels like it's being had solely for the benefit of the audience. It rarely feels like characters are talking to eachother, merely acting as vessels for exposition. So much is stated that should really be common knowledge for anyone in such a universe. Not only that, but it will often be repeated several times to ensure that the audience misses nothing.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
As thin as it is enjoyable
There's not much here, really. Japes. Some beautiful scenes. Great music.
So you remember the amazing scene in Ragnarok when Thor realises his true power and unleashes thunder and vengeance upon Hella's horde on the Bifrost as Immigrant Song blew the absolute roof off the score? This movie chases that moment from beginning to end. In its favour, it does manage to get tantalisingly close several times.
However...
It's... It's a really thin movie. Not Waititi's finest. Also not a bad movie by any stretch. Thin. But immensely fun and enjoyable. Sit back. Stop complaining. Pop some corns and crack some brews. Let yourself have a good time.
Locke & Key: The Snow Globe (2022)
Downhill slide
Wellp, it was fun while it lasted. This season kicks off with a thoroughly toothless departure from the source material. Not only does it fail to live up to the books in any way, season 3 comes across as a Disnified, CW version of a show that started out strong in season 1. Characters make assinine choices purely so that a plot can be built around a shallow idea. Nothing has serious consequences. Characters seemingly fail to learn anything from their world, which I suppose is fine since the world itself never follows the very rules it tries to establish. People do moronic things to service a few key scenes which themselves aren't worth the narrative sacrifices. Were these characters to switch places with their comic book counterparts, they would be dispatched by the end of vol.1. Or perhaps not, seeing as they're all gifted with a few healthy layers of plot armour.
A real shame as the actors all continue to do great jobs with the material they've been given and are fantastic at embodying the original characters from the books.
Resident Evil (2022)
At its best, it's fine
When it's good, it's fine. Performances are mostly good, with Lance Reddick clearly enjoying himself. There's enough campiness to feel like a modern take on the classic camp of the games. If it had leaned into that camp, it could've been great. Unfortunately, it's really not sure what it wants to do for much of its runtime. It takes itself far too seriously for far too long. Relies heavily on annoying characters. And generally hinges every plot point on downright stupidity. You will ask yourself many times how such blundering doofs could manage to survive so long in an apocalypse.
RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) (2022)
Like nothing you've seen in the Woods Bolly or Holly
Actual cinematic masterpiece. Forget everything you expect from Hollywood. Forget everything you think that Bollywood is. This is a work of choreographic art. Great action. Beautiful cinematography. Stunning score. Great acting. CGI is generally great, or at least passable.
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
A missed opportunity for a really fun dino-romp
Solid acting can't help a brain dead script and pointless storyline. Dern, Neal and Goldblum shine in an ultimately dull adventure that features dinosaurs, for reasons. So many great characters deserved far better than this.
The Great North (2021)
Charming and Fine
It's fine. It's really fine. I went in expecting Bob's Burgers and, honestly, I think I did it a disservice in doing so.
If you're expecting Bob's, it's really not. Some of the same charm is there, some similar characters are there, some of the wit and wry humour makes its way across, but The Great North is not Bob's, in the same way that Futurama is not The Simpsons.
Do I like it as much as Bob's? Honestly, no. Bob's, in spite of a somewhat less polished first season, grew into its own surprisingly fast. The characters mesh in ways that most shows never manage to hit, with dry sarcasm and sometimes-not-so-subtle digs at eachother always giving way to a welcoming and upbeat family dynamic that is just heaps of charm.
The Great North does manage this to a certain extent. And it does it well, at times. The characters are charming. They work together like a sitcom family should ... at times warring, at times supportive, and always with a ready quip and a range of running jokes that feel rooted in deep family history.
The cast is fantastic, too! Weaving together many well-known actors with animation mainstays. Every single one of these people knows what they're doing and knows how to do it well. From Jenny Slate's eager middle-child sister, to Will Forte's endearingly naive older brother, all capped off with exactly like you'd expect from Nick Offerman as the head of the family, every character feels fully-realised, right out of the gate.
That said, where Bob's manages to combine purile humour with wry wit and jokes that take a little more time to pay off, Great North definitely leans more on rapid-fire purile quips.
I'd characterise the show more as that. A fast-paced family-themed animated comedy. The jokes come fast and furious, with much less breathing room between and during interactions. When it works, it works! When it doesn't, it can feel heavy-handed. At times coming across as those the jokes are being heaped at the audience to see what sticks, or to drown out the so-so with a potential gem.
Overall, it's really not a bad show, at all. It lacks the tight-knit feels and generally solid timing of Bob's, but still manages to charm with great characters and solid performances.
Locke & Key (2020)
About 1.5 seasons of great entertainment
Season 1: Oh wow, this is tons of fun! I can't wait to see what happens next. Jeez, I bet season 2 is going to be off the hook! Not to mention all the new keys we'll get to see.
Season 2: Oh for eff's sake.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)
Ignore the Naysayers and Review-bombers
Yup, it's woke. Yup, it takes a new spin on a beloved gen-x property.
On the other hand, it was a beloved gen-x property that existed solely to sell toys.
I grew up with the original series and absolutely loved it. When I was a kid. Revisiting the original now, it kinda sucks. There's no point. Little story. Barely any morale or lesson or anything much more than lasers, swords that do very little swording, weird monsters, and no consequences. What's Skeletor's motivation? Why the eff is anything happening? Doesn't matter. It looks neat and kids will buy the crap outta the toys. I sure did.
The original He-Man will always hold a special place in my memory. It's bananas and stupid and entirely pointless, but it was a big part of my childhood.
Smith tried something different with this. He took a property that was dumb as toast and tried to inject a bit of substance into it. Like the original, he tried to make something that was a product of its time. It's wry, sarcastic, and painfully aware of its roots. We ask a lot more of our animation these days, and this actually delivers. There are consequences, motives, and even a bit of character growth, without losing that gorgeous OTT 80's package.
I truly feel bad for the ego-hurt fans of the original...the ones who drop terms like "woke" and "female-led". This is both of those things, but all the better for it. He-Man was a hero, but he's now also the goal of an epic quest. The new heroes desperately seek the return of the legend.
And perhaps that's where Smith actually failed. In attempting to create something new and compelling from thin source material, he neglected the wants and desires of the fans who made it popular in the first place.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
James Gunn is an effing treasure
That's pretty much it. This shouldn't have been any good, it should've been a simple and derrivative "superhero" romp, and instead it was an epic, fun, snark-soaked love letter to OTT superhero movies.
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
Actually pretty alright, until it isn't
The film actually holds up surprisingly well... Yup, surpriiiisingly well ... until it doesn't. If you decide to give it a whirl, you'll know exactly when that moment hits.
Nope. No, it's not that one. Yeah, there you go. That's the one.
Up until then the film plays out with a reasonable amount of mostly-grounded suspense. It gives some tense moments, inventive plot devices, and solid camera work, combining clastrophobic WWII-era spaces with modern composition and lighting. Even when things begin to tip towards creature-shooty territory, the film manages to keep its feet on the ground and sets up some decent thrills.
That said, viewer: be prepared!
Sharks will be jumped and you'd best be ready to leap along lest you scoff yourself hoarse. Hear that, brain? Crank down that logic centre, cram some gauze over your guffaw hole and sit back for 80ish minutes of zany airborne shenanigans.
To be frank, even with a goofy script, even with over-the-top physics-defying tomfoolery, the actors do a good job with what they're given. Performances don't lack, even when the dialogue doesn't give them much to work with. Moretz does a great job of filling the screen with her performance. She believeably pulls off some physically-demanding moments, even when the greenscreen is clearly not putting in the same effort. Her British accent isn't half-bad, either.
That said, the film is...it's fine. The plot is flimsy, the dialogue is loose, and the story is ok.
Oh, but that music. It's ... it's something. In and of themselves they are good songs. However, most of them absolutely do not fit in the scenes in which they're stuffed. It's often extremely difficult to figure out what tone you're meant to take from a scene. Is this penultimate moment supposed to be goofy? Scary? Suspenseful? Feel dangerous? Damn, I don't care, just go with ambient noise because the director's Spotify playlist is not working.
There's also a message that's clearly being broadcast by this film. Some folks will not like it, which is fine. I think it mostly works and, shockingly, many depictions of characters in this likely aren't far from being period-accurate (if I go by my grandfather's accounts from the air force of the time). There is a moment at the end of the film that does feel unnecessary, narratively speaking. However, if that's the sort of thing that riles you up and makes you stamp your feet, you've got bigger problems than an opinion on imdb has any hope of fixing. It's fine. Get over it.
I think the film's biggest failing is that it's a popcorn flick that A, wasn't marketed as such, and B, doesn't set itself up as such. When it does jump the shark, it doesn't do so with a knowing nod or any hint of self-awareness. This leaves the viewer torn between questioning the film's intentions - is it taking itself seriously? Am I supposed to take this seriously? - or simply enjoying a fun ride.
Monster Hunter (2020)
Everything it needs to be, nothing more, nothing less
Why do I think this movie deserves a 7? Honestly, if you went in to this movie expecting anything more than a bombastic, OTT, CGI-laden monstrosity with just enough story to justify smacking giant monsters with giant swords, then that is on you, my friend.
There's a cinephile in me who really wants to set Anderson on the low shelf, resigning him to the resting place for schlocky creators and cotton candy flicks. But then I stop myself and ask, 'is it entirely fair?' Surely there must be a place in the world for the Andersons of cinema.
On one hand, movies like this will probably never net anyone a prestigious award amoung the fimeratti. On the other, Anderson is 100% aware of the movie he's making from start to finish. It's cheesy. It's fun. It's a spectacle, and it has no aspersions about what it is at any point. There's just enough story to give everything a reason, just enough character development to make the audience care, just enough budget to allow for some overall decent FX. Mostly. There are some parts where to CGI swings dangerously close to cringe territory.
Perhaps it's possible to give films like this high marks, while allowing them to land on a different scale. A 7 for a film about historical social movements would be very different from a 7 for something like Monster Hunter. Neither film is similar and we expect vastly different things when we walk into each. One can earn respect and inspire dialogues, capturing a moment in time, shining a light on painful moments from our past while asking us deeply cutting questions about our present.
...and the other can feature leather-clad Ron Perlman, leaping through the air while brandishing a bone sword easily twice his size. That's Monster Hunter, in a nutshell ... except with less Ron Perlman and more Tony Jaa and Milla Jovovich.
I got the distinct impression that, not only do Jaa and Jovovich work well together, but they had an absolute blast on set. The chemistry is palpable and leads to some genuinely cute moments of character interaction. There's even a bit of expectation subversion to be found, which distracts from some of the heavier barrages of trope.
Is the film going to knock your socks off? No. Will it touch on difficult social issues or ask biting questions about the human condition? Ha, good grief, nope! Not even a little bit. It's probably not even going make any big turns you don't expect. What it will do is give you a damn good reason to pop some corn and settle in for 90ish minutes of good times.
It's a lightly-plotted CGI romp through a fantastic world where tiny humans don massive plot armour to battle yet more massive monsters. With fire. And sometimes rpgs.
Batman Ninja (2018)
Not really worth the time
Gotta say, this is a beautiful looking film. The animation is lovely and smooth, not to mention the art style, which brings a fresh look to CGI.
But that's all dressing atop a disappointing script that's as misogynistic as it is stupid.