Movie Critics Thread

[Autocon]

The immortal wars. This is so Terrible. So bad its good? No. So bad its just bad. Poor cgi, poor acting and poor set design. The costumes are alright. Its a mix of mortal kombat and xmen with people that have powers forced to fight each other by the humans. I skipped to the end. 2/10

[gamblor916]

I went into Predators with low expectations and surprisingly found it enjoyable. Ok there were plot problems and I really hated the end scene but I didn't find the hot mess that everyone says it is. The comedy was a bit crass at times and sometimes inappropriate. The action was over the top and predator kills were bloody as expected. Decapitations, severed limbs and disembowelments are peppered throughout the film.
I saw a guy taking a bunch of kids on a trip to the theatre and to my surprise they filled up a row in the same screening. When the f-ing this and motherf-ing that started I thought this guy has really picked the wrong movie to bring them to.

[GoktimusPrime]

Was rewatching Thor The Dark World which was on TV last night. Despite its flaws it's still a much better movie than BvS or Justice League. Because all of these movies suffer from the common flaw of having terribly forgettable villains - and it's true, Malakai... Malakith... I've already forgotten his name. That Dark Elf dude... he is a pretty lame villain, but he's loads better than any of the villains churned out from DCCU! Heck, as much as I really enjoyed Wonder Woman, I gotta admit that Ares is still a pretty cardboard villain. He's nothing more than a walking/talking plot complication for the protagonist to overcome. Okay, every villain is basically a complication for the protagonist(s), but a good villain is more than that. And as Stan Lee has often said, a hero(ine) is only ever as good as his/her villain.

And while the characterisation of Thor wasn't as strong as in Thor Ragnarok or Avengers Infinity War - he still had more character growth than the entire Justice League put together, and that's pretty sad. Although I think one very valid criticism of Thor 2 is how Loki had more character development than Thor. Watching it again this was abundantly obvious.

Then I switched channels and watched the late night movie - 新ゴジラ (Godzilla Resurgence). Yyyyaaaaaaaaaaawwwwnnn OMG... most of the movie is just a series of meetings where people talk about how they're going to deal with Godzilla. Yeah, I get the political statement that the movie's making, but uh... seriously... not nearly enough to make the movie remotely entertaining. The actual scenes with Godzilla in it were really super well done. You can tell that it's the same director as Neon Genesis Evangelion as the way that Godzilla tears up Tokyo is reminiscent of an Angel attack, and it visually has that rather apocalyptic theme to its action. And that ending was pretty brilliant.

Being late at night I was literally falling asleep on the couch watching this. And the story/plot is almost identical to the original 50s movie, only with the use of online social media and the political commentary added in. Basically the same story as the original but updated for today -- nothing terribly new or fresh though aside from Godzilla's ability to rapidly mutate and reproduce. Oh, and the scenes involving foreign dignitaries... cos whenever foreigners appear in Japanese movies they're often really, really terrible actors. Sometimes I wonder if they just approach random White people on the streets of Japan and ask if they wouldn't mind making a cameo appearance in a film or TV series. But to Godzilla Resurgence's credit, the White people in this film actually did an okay job of acting. They didn't sound like they were performing in an excruciatingly bad school play. But the really terrible parts were when the Japanese actors were trying to act in English. Make it staaaahp!

To be fair, most actors really suck when acting in a language that they don't actually speak. And at least she's trying to string sentences together and is delivering them with attempted speed as if she's fluent. It's better than say Tom Cruise's horrific attempt at speaking Japanese in The Last Samurai where he would take forever just to speak a few words (but the subtitles would have you believe that he's saying much more!). Don't these people have dialogue coaches? Peter Jackson had dialogue coaches on the set of Lord of the Rings for the fictitious languages of Middle Earth! (although I wonder if - hypothetically speaking - native Middle Earth speakers existed, would they similarly shudder at the way that their languages were spoken in the films). I wonder if it would've been easier/better to have a fluent or native speaker just dub over these actors/actresses? Meanwhile, Vin Diesel dubbed himself as Groot in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and French!

[GoktimusPrime]

Rented and watched Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom last night. Ummm... yeah. The producers have said that this is meant to be the second part in a trilogy and boy does it show. This movie feels like the ignored middle child.

[MayzaPrime]

Took the kids to see Teen Titans GO to the Movies... absolutely hilarious

The whole family enjoyed the movie, I will say that I wasn't a fan of the cartoon series until I sat down and watched it with the kids and found myself actually enjoying how funny it is.

In my opinion, besides WW and Bale Batman it is the best DC movie.

[GoktimusPrime]

I found Teen Titans Go was... okay. It's definitely a children's movie and as an adult I didn't get a whole lot out of it (yeah. there were some neat jokes but nothing that engaged me as an audience member). Although my daughter was happy that I didn't fall asleep in the movie because whenever my dad takes her to watch kids films, he dozes off. I told her that he did the same thing when he took me to movies when I was a kid, including when I watched Transformers The Movie in cinemas. Dad was fast asleep.

Audience members on the other hand were terrible. Lots of talking, mobile phone use etc. - parents either did nothing to control their children or they themselves were also misbehaving. Seriously... if you cannot sit still and watch a movie from beginning to end without needing to talk then you're not old enough to watch a movie in a cinema. I made damn sure that my daughter was emotionally ready before I took her to the cinema (she would've been in Kindy) and explained to her that she can't talk during the film.

The mobile phone use thing is just ridiculous. There's no excuse for that level of bum-hattery.

[SharkyMcShark]

I watched Ocean's Eight last week.

I enjoy a heist film, and I quite liked the 2000s Ocean's trilogy.

This wasn't as good. It just didn't have the same level of jauntiness. No one looked like they were having a good time, Sandra Bullock got through the whole movie with a scowl on her face, and the various elements of the heist didn't seem particularly well connected.

I would rate it as don't bother.

[shockNwave]

I watched Ocean's Eight last week.

I enjoy a heist film, and I quite liked the 2000s Ocean's trilogy.

This wasn't as good. It just didn't have the same level of jauntiness. No one looked like they were having a good time, Sandra Bullock got through the whole movie with a scowl on her face, and the various elements of the heist didn't seem particularly well connected.

I would rate it as don't bother.

I just find it to be a cheap thrill of a movie that will never stack up to the original Ocean's movies.

Sandra Bullock is awesome when she's a quirky, happy or down to earth kind of character but the constant scowling and being overly serious just doesn't suit her.

[Autocon]

Oceans 8 i found to be missing any great twists. There was one but wasnt surprising or shocking. It was pretty straight forward with the heist. It was a good movie just no big bang moment.

[shockNwave]

I went to see Venom yesterday and it's a slow movie to start with then picks up some steam but nothing special until you reach the end and then the price of admission is worth it.


P.S. To see two alien symbiotes fighting each other takes fight choreography to a whole new level I've never seen before and no I'm not referring to Venom vs. Carnage (the latter is not featured in this movie).