ShiningLion

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This movie is a boring slog with some really bizarre and questionable scenes. It has served one purpose however, of reminding me that it's okay to move on from relationships with people (friends, family, romantic or otherwise) when your knowledge and maturity continues to develop and theirs stagnates to a point where basic conversations become an unwholesome chore and offer little sustenance. This movie made me realize I've outgrown a lot of people in my life who just can't keep up with me because I'm a "forever learner" who is always learning new things while most of my adult peers are content to consume entertainment media, propaganda, and gossip. Most of them can't even think critically or cough up evidence to prove a point on anything, and are equally disinterested in realizing they could learn something from people who know more than them on a topic. I have difficulty ending or phasing out friendships, even when people become self-obsessed and want to hold you back to their level, and this film gives me a bit of courage to do so.

This film is a trash fire that despite how bad it is, it is hard to hate. The visuals are interesting, though never really reach spectacular or beautiful levels, just enough eye-popping color and action to maintain something like interest for a couple of hours. Is it a spoiler if by dropping the name of another movie I feel I could give away the entire plot of the film? Or does that just qualify as pathetic lack of creativity and near plagiarism on the part of the creators? As far as the story itself goes, it's basically a tone-deaf version of Karas with an almost identical plot, similar style of "there are no rules to their powers so don't even try to figure it out" action sequences, but missing the more intimate character-building moments and moral uncertainty that cemented Karas as an anime classic. There are major problems with this film. If in an action movie the sound of someone getting out their weapon makes the same boom and rattles the screen the same way a building toppling over does, or the same as an entire planet cracking apart at the seams does (that never happens in anime, right?), then there is truly no up-and-down of excitement. It's like a horror movie that never accomplishes to be scary or build tension because every few minutes there's an unnecessary fake out jump scare, making the later deadly jump scares seem less scary. It desensitizes the viewer to what's going on and makes the later moments that are supposed to be the climax of the film just feel like a different color of earlier scenes. This movie is the exact type of movie/show that people who say they hate anime have seen and is why they hate anime. No kidding, it's mindless. Another major issue this film takes from the worst of the anime industry is having endless powers and metaphysical concepts that have no set limitations or rules that must be followed, meaning they can do anything, anything can happen. There's no tension and no point caring because God could literally come down at any moment and turn everyone into fish, and there's a self-aware scene in this film involving a self-titled "Deus ex Machina" that almost seems to poke fun at the audience for that fact. Poorly paced humor in inappropriate moments soils the film. The movie is about 80% expository dialogue, where despite the lack of actual limitations to the film's concepts, characters rattle on about them for entire scenes, and the film's main character even falls asleep listening to such conversations, as a joke. I can't see how it's funny when in actuality I felt just as bored listening. Is this a deconstruction of its genre or just a self-aware film that knows you'll pay to see some half-assed eye candy even if it's plotless and ridiculous? Take away this film's color palette and it would be mediocre in every sense of the word. The colorist deserves half this film's profits. The musicians deserve the other half. The music is great, the characters are fun and spirited enough that it's hard to hate them, even though they are all extremely cliche and have zero depth. There are moments the visuals feel innovative, but they are very brief. There are as many moments where the film is visually ugly and looks like Minecraft. I honestly cannot recommend this film to anyone aside from maybe the 8-12 year old age range, unless you just want some mindless flashy images to be shown for a couple hours. But there are films that do that and actually have a compelling story, message, and characters, so if you ask me, life's too short for garbage like Promare. I couldn't wait for it to end, but if it had been 20 minutes shorter I might have been able to forgive some of its major flaws and enjoy it as popcorn fodder. 90 minutes is about the cap for my tolerance for that, though. That said, nothing short of a total rewrite could save this from being a throwaway film and another nail in the coffin for expanding anime to a wider audience. I would be happy if Japan never made another film like this, but I'm sure they'll continue to churn one out every weekend. If you want an anime that handles the same social themes with a thousand times more brains, depth, and nuance, check out Terror in Resonance or Darker than Black (minus it's horrible sequel series that destroys everything), or probably any other anime, seriously. If you want similar action done better, even Advent Children and Karas, which arguably set the tone for this style and created many of the camera innovations of it, hold up better after all these years.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I only saw this film for the first time today. I was hoping for a good werewolf movie, as I frankly can't say I've ever seen one that was very good, and this movie hit the spot. The setting and atmosphere were spooky enough, while the more silly and whimsical scenes kept it entertaining. It dragged on a bit, but I did find myself fairly invested in the characters and emotionally invested in the story. Ending made sense but that jump from the final shot to the credits is way too abrupt. Overall, I can see why this film is a classic horror film and I think it suits the Halloween season well. I'd definitely watch it again.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I somehow made it to 2021 not having seen this film. Don't get me wrong, I love a good horror movie but most are tripe to me and I think the bar for good horror was definitely lowered somewhere around the release of this film and Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the 70s. At that point they realized they could throw off all the **** pretentions of character development and plot because your average schmuck will froth at the mouth over an hour and a half of braindead silence with intermittent kills. Ones that don't even make sense, like pinning a guy to a wall with a knife hardly long enough to make it through the other side of him (yet in the shot this is show most of the blade didn't enter him so it magically grew to 2 feet in length). I can forgive liking this film if you grew up with it or like to think like everyone else, but if you have any more of a quality filter than that it's not a great time, even in October... It's so long, plodding, and boring. Hardly any Halloween atmosphere at all. The music gets old reaaaaal fast. If it wasn't so overused it may have worked better, but it became almost comedic how any time a car moved with Michael in it or any time he would move even off screen the music would start again. He's like a human ice cream truck I guess. The final 10 minutes of the film are the only actually suspenseful or eerie part, unless being set in the 70s automatically makes a film feel eerie to you. The entire thing could've been distilled into a pretty good 30 minute spooky story, but in no way shape or form deserves the praise it has garnered and the endless spinoff of cookie cutter sequels. I'm all for mindless fun but this film is just mindless and no fun, and just seems like the start of the era of puritanical propaganda where the teens who drink, smoke, and have sex die while the good girls survive. Meh. Go ahead and downvote me to hell. I don't care. I'll get back up again. >:D

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This film is gorgeously shot, and its first half is the more interesting half. The ominous presence of the birds and their gradual spark of aggressiveness seems to mirror the developing relationships of the protagonists. Then the big bird attacks start to happen and the movie forgets to have a plot. Mainly worth seeing for the sense of atmosphere and just to be in on the references and knowledge of film history. Definitely feels like a film that could be remade into something way better with a deft writer/director, but it'll likely never happen due to how rabid the fans of the original are about its preciousness to them.

This movie just passes as your average animated action movie, doesn't pass on its own merits. It's not nearly as good as I remember it from my childhood. The primary problem is that this is supposed to be a Sherlock Holmes style mystery but it is not presented as a mystery. Rather it's presented as an action/adventure movie. There's no suspense or mystery to it because we know all along what happened to Olivia's father, who did it, why they did it, and what they want. It's shown to us very early on. There's no riddle to solve here and everything that comes out of Basil's mouth sounds like a bunch of clairvoyant woowoo nonsense because they stretch the limits of what can conceivably be derived from observation and deduction, breaking the suspension of disbelief. It could be an educational movie that teaches kids how to solve mysteries, riddles, or use deduction, but it doesn't do any of that. And before you go saying "but it IS a kid's movie, aren't you being too harsh?" No. Zootopia is a kid's movie. Harry Potter movies are kid's movies, and they have at least basic mysteries that can be explored and discovered by the viewers as the protagonists understand and learn more, not from an omniscient view where there's no riddle to solve because we already see what's happening on the villain's side. What are the positives of this film? Maybe some nostalgia fodder. Fun characters for the furries and those who like talking animal movies. Maybe one or two jokes that give a giggle. It's a bit overlong for what it is, and I love talking animal movies in general, so... Eh. Even the Rescuers movies are a better mystery than this, and this one's modeled after THE great mystery hero Sherlock Holmes. Doesn't do the genre justice. Most of the points I even give this review are for Ratigan's theme song. That's a rare moment of joy in an otherwise tepid movie. He's an underrated Disney villain and you can tell some of his animations were recycled from the ending fight sequences into the ending fight sequences of Beauty and the Beast. The scene glows when Ratigan is on, but I think it's a problem to have a villain who is much more interesting than the protagonist. Basil comes off as easy to give up, ****, and can't be bothered. Ratigan by contrast has a sort of deranged charisma and humorous silliness.

This movie really moved me, so I guess it deserves the title of movie. Haha. That said, it's obviously not a mainstream film for the masses that want spooks, thrills, and chills. This film calls itself a Western but is only a Western in its pacing, structure, tone, and character exploration (reminded me a lot of Once Upon a Time in the West, in that regard). A slow burn to be sure, but I found it a really refreshing turn away from frenetic modern filmmaking that has so much happening at each moment you're never allowed to stop and think. This movie had so much subtlety and pause that I found myself thinking and reflecting a lot. It induces an almost meditative state while still letting the viewer's mind fill in the space with moral contemplation. This film is made in the foosteps of old silent films so if that doesn't sound like a nice movie night to you, save yourself the time and this film the negative remarks!

If you like this movie there is something seriously wrong with you. This film exists as a sign of societal and moral decay and nothing more. One of the most repulsive, disgusting, cruel, and vile films I've ever seen, all for a pitifully uncreative "twist" that I predicted about 20 minutes into the movie. Skip it if you don't like surprise extended scenes of realistic and brutal torture. This film has made me resolve to check all negative reviews of horror movies in the future for warnings of gratuitous torture scenes, as this movie is the last place I expected to see that. The filmmakers should be charged for child abuse for having children act in these scenes. Please chip in for the sake of humanity and continue warning viewers of these atrocities in your reviews, folks. This world is going to the dogs. It's a fight for the sickest, saddest, most morally lazy part of your brain and films like this are winning. Life's horrible enough without secondhand trauma from disturbed minds. This movie made Hateful Eight look like a birthday party. Where are the critics crying about misogyny this time? I guess you get a free pass when it's foreign or "artsy" and it makes you look cool to your hipster coven to like it. Disgusting.

Repulsively boring and unattractive character writing that leads to all the utterly predictable places. The scenes of madness near the end were choreographed pretty well in that they felt more realistic than rehearsed, so there's a gritty quality to it, but it's all a bit too "sniffing our own farts out of a wine glass" for me. I skipped through nearly the first half of the movie because the characters were just so bland and I knew the dialogue wouldn't even be important. I was right. Still 100% understood the story, and glad I spent less than an hour on this movie instead of its full run time. A major problem with this film is that it starts out with grim music and tone before things even get grim... so tonally the film goes nowhere. It starts and ends with paranoia and bleakness and we never see any lighter moments to even convince us for a moment that this might end well. Duh. The directors need to go back to film school. Also that ending was ridiculous and dumb. A page out of Shyamalan's wastebasket.

Had more than a few genuine laughs from this film and there are even a few emotional moments that managed to touch my old, cold heart in ways that some similar teen 80/90s movies like the Breakfast Club didn't manage to. The conversations felt more natural/believable and less scripted/forced in comparison. Yeah, the plot is a bit silly and many plot threads lead to nowhere, but it captures the magical feeling of being a teen in the early 90s pretty well from the viewpoint of a person at the crux of entering adulthood and having to let their childhood go, stepping into adult responsibilities. While watching, I thought this film felt like the primordial ooze that Home Alone would later crawl out of, and was surprised to find out that this movie actually came out AFTER Home Alone. That does in some ways make it feel like a cheap sort of retread of it. Didn't really have high expectations going into this film based on other reviews, but I found it pleasant. The ridiculous ending is an utter wish fulfillment fantasy of how most of us wish our lives could turn out. For that, I kind of enjoy the escapism and the ridiculous ride and forgive the fact that it doesn't really make all that much sense.

Should've seen it coming when the A24 logo flashed at the beginning. Everything they produce is overlong, slow, pretentious, boring, and dumb, the type of movies where they just point a camera at people doing nothing or the most absurd/exploitative thing they can think of and then the demented types who enjoy these kinds of films tell you you're a braindead idiot if you didn't "get it" and derive great meaning from the 2 hours of brutality, **** and nothingness. Every time I've seen one of their films I feel like I'm just looking into the creators' mental illnesses, and not in an enlightening way. I can safely say I'll never watch another A24 film after three bombs in a row with this, The Witch, and Hereditary. Films like these are indicative of the problem with our lost, bored, consumer culture of people leading directionless lives where they feel no self-empowerment to create meaning in their lives. These aren't art. They're film-school dropout trash that appeals to the most lost minds. The moral always seems to be self-defeating, encouraging viewers to become depraved to escape the challenges of life. Utter **** There's no skill involved in creating these movies aside from an occasional well-framed shot. The acting is deadpan to the extent non-actors could pull it off, and the use of classical music tricks naive people into thinking they're watching something artistic and distinguished. The fact that they got a child involved in this demented production shows you the morals of the actors. I hope they didn't let her watch it, though its still an injustice that she probably someday will, and will resent a lot of people for creating the childhood illusion of excitement to be in a movie, when it's such a **** movie.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

While I have yet to see a perfect MCU film, this one comes close. Its biggest weakness is a trudging expository middle section that really dampens its rewatchability, but everything else is great. Great visuals, lots of humor, wit, and fun, outright nutty and nihilistic in just the right doses, and sentimental and serious in just the right doses. This movie accomplished a really big and unexpected thing which is that it made me actually really enjoy the characters Nebula and Yondu, who seemed like just generic villains in the first film. Rocket is a highlight of this film, like the first one. The movie has a big heart and really feels like its about something, and that saves it from being "just another marvel movie". This and the first Guardians are my two favorite films of the MCU. So glad to see James Gunn will still be writing and directing the third one. It wouldn't be the same without him.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Mostly a good movie. It might as well be called Avengers: Civil War because they're practically all in it and there are several extended scenes that have nothing to do with Captain America. The story is a bit unconvincing but sets up an interesting conflict for the heroes. The action scenes are fun. Nothing really stands out in my mind about this movie aside from the action. Captain America gets more character development in this film than any of the other characters, which might be why it's named for him and not considered an Avengers movie. Overall, one of the more enjoyable MCU films, but at times frustrating. I wouldn't watch it again.

The last 20 minutes or so are good in this movie, and if the rest of the movie had similar qualities, I would have liked it. Unfortunately the first hour and a half of the movie is just the same old boring talking heads and men in suits that we see in so many MCU movies. The humor was an odd style for Marvel and I felt like I was being ping-ponged between an overlong Key and Peele sketch and a Ben Stiller comedy movie. In fact, Ant's actor reminds me of Ben Stiller so much that I think this is the sole reason for the effect, and that's unfortunate. If this movie had been made with a little more heart and soul as to Ant-Man's motivations and his relationship with his family I think it could've been something really special, but alas, it was just another 2 hour CGI and joke fest like most of the MCU. The formula is running dry and needs something to spice it up. This film tried to go from the heist comedy angle and just felt like something old that I've seen plenty of times in other movies that did it better. I'm trying to watch all of the MCU in preparation for Endgame and I don't know how I'm gonna watch Ant-man and The Wasp after this. Hopefully it is less boring than this one. One other thing, I know these movies are based on more fleshed-out stories in the comics, but that's no excuse to just have characters suddenly and spontaneously make out and have a stupid predictable romance that has zero foreshadowing in the film and is only expected because it's what Marvel does. It happens to nearly every single MCU hero at some point and I'm totally sick of it.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This movie is a breath of fresh air in the MCU. Unlike several other movies in the series, this film doesn't take itself too seriously. It has a perfect balance of drama, emotion, and humor. Any moment that starts to get too serious or treads on superhero movie cliches gets broken up by well-timed and clever humor, and moments that get too silly are often quickly grounded by dramatic events or serious threats. The score is great. The visuals are absolutely top notch with very crisp, colorful, and imaginative scenes. The characters are all enjoyable and complex with plenty of room for growth, and more than anything this film has a lot of heart. There are moments that are emotionally challenging or relatable to the viewer. There are moments the characters act in ways that seem very genuine to their character and unique among the genre. The action is great and well-coreographed, with lots of fun gadgets and gizmos to create unique styles of combat, though there are a few moments late in the film when the fighting starts to feel like generic stage combat on par with some of the Captain America fight scenes in his movies. I didn't expect this film to be so touching and honestly the Guardians are my favorite movies and characters of the MCU. This is easily the best Marvel movie to date at the time of its release. I am very much looking forward to the guardians' further adventures! Rocket is my favorite character of the MCU!

This film has a lot going for it as far as Marvel movies go. The cinematography looked good aside from the shaky-cam and too many quick edits during some of the fight scenes. The story is presented as a mystery and is compelling enough that the long run time doesn't seem too long. Some of the twists are a bit predictable, but the movie just manages to fit a lot into its run time and doesn't have some of the dragging pacing issues like The Avengers did. There are plot holes if you think too hard about it, but in general it's just an entertaining movie. I didn't even really like the first Captain America movie much but I liked this one a lot. I dig. I'm not sure how re-watchable this movie would be since most of its plot hinges on suspense, mystery, intrigue, surprises, etc. but it was a fun trip the first time around.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

What could have easily been a mediocre and all-too-familiar origin story turned out a really fulfilling cinematic experience thanks to straight-up good filmmaking. This film is objectively better from a technical standpoint than its predecessor, Iron Man. Cinematography is done artfully and carefully with lots of attention to pleasing compositions and meaningful movement and framing. The locations, environments, lighting, and weather are all used to great effect to give mood to the film's various situations and arcs. The score by Craig Armstrong, one of my favorite film composers, enriched each scene with appropriate energy and emotion. The performances of the main cast were convincing. I really felt the connections between the characters and the emotions of the characters. For a film that's relatively light on story, it really makes up with it with pleasing characters, visuals, and action. The action scenes were thrilling and handled particularly well, much more fun to watch than the action scenes in Iron Man, as these are more carefully planned and coreographed, with some truly surprise moments. I found there were moments of sheer awe and horror in the brutality of The Hulk and his fights with the menacing villains. I was even kind of surprised to see later parts of the film take on the feeling of a monster movie, evoking feelings of Godzilla, Cloverfield, and others of that genre. It worked very well and helped us feel the surrounding characters' fear of the "monster" they'd created in Bruce Banner. Great movie. I'd watch it again. It has a few weaknesses, namely every moment involving Mr. Blue, who gave a rather grating performance. There are a few moments that feel rushed, or forced, or cheesy, but all-in-all for such a simple story this film worked really well for me. I'm sad to see Ed Norton didn't keep the role, because I highly prefer him to Mark Ruffalo for this character.