Terrible film. The slowest I have ever seen. And it's all in soft focus so that you can't really see characters' faces. Very annoying to try to watch. Jumps around in time for no good reason.
This film is hard to watch. The number of strobing screens is very unfortunate. Try to stick with it because it tells an important story. This man was imprisoned for over 14 years without being charged and with no evidence against him. Terrific performance by the lead. One lawyer fought over many years for him.
The excellent performance by Ana de Armas is wasted: I wished I hadn't watched this film after reading about Marilyn Monroe. I was revolted by the many inaccuracies and the sadistic approach taken by the director. I was left wondering why Joyce Carol Oates wrote the novel and why Netflix made the movie.
Ad Astra is an overly long mood piece, two hours of techno-malaise with occasional brief violence. There are so many scientific howlers that the movie has no credibility as science fiction, but fantasy should have some fun. Maybe as a drinking game: a sip of booze whenever somebody spots an error.
There are three types of potential viewers for this movie; I've provided a review for each.
1. people who liked The English Patient - skip ****; there is nothing here for you.
2. people are nostalgic about moviemaking and 60's Hollywood - watch all but the last 15 minutes.
3. huge fans of Tarentino - watch only the last 15 minutes; it has everything you love.
I do not understand the critics who said "weak story": there is a strong plot line with crisis and resolution; you just need to think about the ending and what it implies about Abigail's choice and its ramifications. Perhaps they were confused by the lack of physical violence and Abigail's personality. If you like slice-of-life and character studies, please see this film.
My wife and I tried several times to continue watching Bright, because of Will Smith. We couldn't. Dumbed way down, with endless violence, presumably aimed at a "youthful" audience.
Who was responsible for this? This is not science fiction, not even acceptable fantasy. It is illogical, inconsistent and avoids common sense whenever possible. Taylor Schilling is very good (and my rating of 3 is due to her performance), so if you could focus on her (it is her movie) and ignore the rest, it is watchable. With a few plot changes, it might have worked: Earth's surface is now uninhabitable due to runaway greenhouse effect. The survivors live in sea floor cities which are threatened by increasing earthquake activity. In desperation, they try to genetically modify themselves using Orca DNA. This plot change would permit an optimistic ending as opposed to a nonsensical one. Netflix has also given us Bright, with Will Smith, a fantasy film with as much violence as possible. Again, good actors, production value, but I could not get through it.
This is NOT a comedy; it has almost no humor. Hayek is downtrodden, depressed and devastated throughout. Lithgow is amoral, pompous and boasting. Neither is interesting or entertaining. There is no ethical question; she is correct and he is evil. Although I completely agree with Hayek's character, it was a struggle to get through this film. And then the end was terrible, almost a flip-off for watching the whole thing. The worst film for both stars.
The Cloverfield Paradox is a sci-fi thriller, not Shakespeare, and the Cloverfield movies are not the Ring cycle. For what it is, particularly considered by itself, it is an exciting, entertaining film. There are parts which may be hard to follow, even confusing; it demands some effort be made by the viewer. And don't expect it to reflect current reality - it is sci-fi. Enjoy the performances, the CGI, the thrills, pay attention and you should find this a worthwhile watch. My rating compares it to other genre films.
Not a bad film, but weighted down but repetition and a very long running time. Predictable, illogical, stretcher of credulity to the breaking point. Worth watching if you have the time to spend, but don't expect a superior movie.
Is there anything Charlize Theron can't do? This movie is much better than I expected from the trailers and the title: it is drenched in atmosphere and period tunes, and all the actors do very well, generating gravitas the plot doesn't quite deserve. Nothing we haven't seen many times before but still a fun watch.
I saw The Beguiled on BluRay. It was frustrating because most of the film is drenched in murk, dark and drained of color, even the daytime scenes. The actors' faces were hard to make out. Voice performances are good, and the film is worth watching (although not if you need subtitles, which are far too bright). I appreciated the ambiguity and complexity of the main characters. Southern Gothic done as French art film.
Passengers ignores the laws of physics while pretending to obey them. It should have been billed as fantasy. The glaring fallacies make it difficult to enjoy, particularly the ending. Lawrence and Pratt are pleasant to watch, and the visuals are fun.
Having great respect for Huppert, I was very disappointed. This film is crude, unfunny and surprisingly bad. I could not watch more than about 20 minutes. Some of the characters are almost unbearable.
MM:FR works much better as a series of truly impressive set pieces than as a movie. I felt beaten and exhausted (as George Miller may have intended) well before the end. And I could not turn off my mind; too much disbelief, not enough suspension. Has any other film had as great a difference between the male and female characters? The very intense and busy action sequences were easy to follow, not confusing blurs as so many are these days, and the human (collateral?) damage was not overdone (no slow motion with torrents of blood). The trailers do prepare you for MM:FR, except for the subjective length of this very long 2 hour movie.
Wes Anderson again reduces skilled actors to lifeless puppets. This is not a comedy; it is an interminable mood piece, the mood being arch, artificial, contrived and soulless. Imagine a failed SNL skit extended to 1:40, in particular, where the "humor" is based on being extremely stupid, or crude or inept. Yes, it is distinctive and engrossed in its own style. You might instead consider staring at an Andy Warhol self-portrait for 1:40.
An over-the-top movie (even pulp noir) should not be sloppily self-indulgent. Parts of Seven Psychopaths feel arbitrary and thrown together, creating confusion, not art. SP really goes off the rails in the final half hour. I was surprised that SP was less than two hours long. I would recommend deleting the Vietnamese character (and the rewrite of his story) and the fantasy shootout sequence. Without this padding, I might rate SP a six, mainly for Christopher Walken.
