Movie Critics Thread

[Gutsman Heavy]

The Man from UNCLE
Good spy flick, great visuals and music. Lacks Ritchie's usual flair but feels like a older style Moore/Brosnan Bond film. Great franchise potential, shame it flopped. Give it a go. 7/10

Oh and Megatron makes a cameo

[DaptoDog]

Spectre just came out on Foxtel so I watched it for the first time this weekend. I was somewhat disappointed but I probably should watch it a second time. At this stage I would place it behind Casino Royale (one of my favourite movies) and Skyfall in terms of the best Daniel Craig Bond films.

[shockNwave]

Currently watching the remake of 3:10 to Yuma (starring Christian Bale & Russell Crowe) in preparation for the soon to be released remake of The Magnificent Seven.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Currently watching the remake of 3:10 to Yuma (starring Christian Bale & Russell Crowe) in preparation for the soon to be released remake of The Magnificent Seven.

I need to watch the original Magnificent Seven in preparation for the new Magnificent Seven.

Oh and maybe a re-watch of Seven Samurai is in order too... hrm, I just lent that to a friend as well....

[shockNwave]

How could I forget about Seven Samurai from the director that made a big impact on George Lucas.

[SharkyMcShark]

So I saw Magnificent Seven yesterday evening.


WINS
+ Film is at its best when it focuses on the witty interplay between the characters. It should have done this more.
+ Intense kinetic action sequences.

ON THE FENCE/YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY
> Chris Pratt plays Chris Pratt. Again.
> Some of the Seven don't get that much screen time. Best comparison is to Ocean's Eleven, and how some of the Eleven characters didn't get many minutes.

LOSSES
- The film isn't very good when it strays off the path of 'ensemble cast/action film'. There are bits where it tries to show dramatic depth, like the opening few scenes, and it just doesn't work.
- In following the above point, the film sets up and then squanders, doesn't develop or entirely forgets and drops potentially interesting character arcs for several characters, notably those played by Ethan Hawke and Chris Pratt.

It was average good. More or less what you'd expect. Solid six and a half out of ten. Popcorn fun. A basic action shooter where Chris Pratt tells jokes and Denzel is a badass.

[DaptoDog]

Just watched X-Men Apocalypse, can't say it was their best effort. Was very slow for the first hour or so and I also wasn't a big fan of the Apocalypse characterisation. Still nice to see the main X-Men characters like Cyclops and Jean develop their powers. I would give it a 6/10.

[shockNwave]

Someone that deserves a mention for his part in The Magnificent 7 is Peter Sarsgaard as Bartholomew Bogue. He showed in Ant Man that he knows how to play the vile capitalist psychopath and he does it again for a wild west setting.

[GoktimusPrime]

I need to watch the original Magnificent Seven in preparation for the new Magnificent Seven.

Oh and maybe a re-watch of Seven Samurai is in order too... hrm, I just lent that to a friend as well....

Don't forget the Star Wars Clone Wars episode "Bounty Hunters," which is basically the story of the Seven Samurai compacted into a 25 min cartoon episode. It's actually a really nice (if not heavily abridged) version of the story that gets across the main gist of the tale. The episode was dedicated to the memory of Kurosawa Akira too.

[GoktimusPrime]

I recently rented a movie from a DVD vending machine ("kiosk") last week and the film was a new release. It was the first time that I'd ever done that, as my previous suburb has (had?) a Blockbuster that we still rented from, but my current residence doesn't have one. It was significantly cheaper than renting from a rental store (less than half the price!).

The film that I rented was a new release - it was actually something that my wife wanted to watch so I just selected that movie and rented it and didn't do any other browsing. But here's my question to those of you who may be more experienced at renting from automated kiosks -- do they also rent out old weekly titles or are they all overnight new releases? Cos uh, yeah... I do occasionally like to watch old titles that I don't own (nor do I want to purchase).