ZeldaNerd

This will probably end up being my hottest take of the year but I thought this movie was absolutely garbage. Not only is it dreadfully dull, so much so that my fiancé walked out of a movie for the first time ever, but it's also miserably paced, horribly shot, and embarrassingly on the nose with its commentary. I agree with this movie's message, I think it's great that a widely released theatrical film is about refusing to roll over and take abuse from those in power. But this message is brought to "life" in the most boring, unsubtle way possible. The hints of praise I can throw at this movie essentially boil down to Andrew Garfield is giving it the good old college try and a couple of the action scenes are good. Everything else is just dreadful. As I mentioned previously, this has some of the worst, strangest pacing I've ever seen out of a film. With only two minutes of setup, the titular uprising has already begun. Within ten minutes the rebellion has already grown ten thousand strong and the crown is already talking about negotiating. This should have been the most interesting part of the movie, the rebellion slowly growing its numbers and overthrowing the kingdom little by little. But instead, it's all rushed through within 15 minutes. Then the rest of this two hour film is dedicated to boring negotiation scenes, lifeless battles, and the most basic, predictable rebellion plot of all time. Also the camera work is shockingly bad and ugly here too. Most of the film is shot with shaky cam, and there's genuinely even more out of place crash zooms than **** Madame Web. With how much of a slog this was, I genuinely want to slap a 1/5 on this and call it a day. But I suppose Andrew Garfield breathed enough life into this film and some of the action had a nice sense of brutality to it that a 1.5 is more fair. Still, I really hated this.

I kinda loved every single second of this. It's a near perfect blend of Mad Max: Fury Road and a small town alien invasion story. If that sounds like your thing, then read no more and go support this film! Anyways, this is easily one of my favorite theater experiences of the year. The opening hour is nothing but expertly crafted nail biting tension. It's essentially just one long chase sequence, but the way it ramps up the tension is unlike anything I've seen this year. It very smartly holds off from showing the monster until a very significant amount into the film, only showing the carnage it leaves in its wake. Sure it's a tried and true formula, but it's exceptionally well executed. It makes it so that when the monster really does show up, it's both terrifying and endlessly entertaining. The last hour is similarly paced, with the film going from one massive chase spectacle to another without ever letting up. The final chase scene specifically is nearly 30 minutes of uninterrupted chaos, somehow constantly reinventing itself just when you think the scene has finally hit a formula. Then there's the middle 40 minutes of the film, where there's little to no action. Some might say the film drags here, but I was just as invested as any other point. It takes this time to deliver genuinely interesting exposition and offer the audience a chance to catch their breath before once again assaulting the senses with non-stop exhilarating action. It's also during this portion of the film that I completely fell in love with the world-building. The fantastical elements they introduce here have me ecstatic to see how they're expanded upon in the sequels, as this is supposed to be the first in a trilogy. Especially with where the film ends off, good Lord I can't wait to see what happens next. Something that really blindsided me though was how laugh out loud funny it was. Not in a quippy MCU way, but with some really clever jokes that pay off something set up earlier in the film. Also there's an extended sequence that blends nail biting tension and scatological humor that should not work but ends up being the funniest part of the film because of how earnestly it's played. If I had to dock this film points in one department though, it's the CGI. Not that it's bad, in fact some of the CGI looks excellent here, but there are certainly plenty of moments where the CGI looks rubbery and unconvincing. I'm not faulting the film too much for it though, because it was clearly a budgetary issue. This is already the most expensive film ever produced in South Korea, so it makes sense that some CGI models got more love than others. That aside this is just genuinely an incredible film, and easily the sleeper hit of the year for me. I understand why it's divisive, some people might find non-stop action like this repetitive, and I can certainly understand some people finding the more fantastical elements as cringe or stupid. But for me, this is everything I could have wanted out of a film like this, and even then it still managed to blow me away.

If I were to rate this by the first half alone, it would be one of the worst movies of the year. For over half the film, the three main characters are some of the most annoying, insufferable teenagers I've ever seen in a film. They're the biggest morons ever, and while I understand that's the point and it's a coming of age story, that doesn't change how much pain I was in watching these dumbass **** make the dumbest decisions ever. The movie tries to play their stupidity for laughs, but almost every joke fell flat and it just ended up pissing me off more than anything. Not to mention it was excruciatingly boring and predictable. Admittedly the second half was significantly better, had a couple of genuinely touching moments where the characters matured and faced reality, but that still doesn't excuse how unwatchable the first half was. Yes I know the point of a coming of age story is to show teens act stupid and be annoying, only for them to learn their lesson and grow up, but you have to make the characters at least a little endearing, give the audience just enough to latch onto. But here, I couldn't stand watching these absolute morons just act stupid for over an hour before learning anything. For what it's worth the ending is pretty good, and all the music in the film is great. I mean it's Green Day what do you expect? But yeah, I just didn't like this at all.

This was so, so great. Spielberg has not lost his touch and proves he can still make movie magic with ease. First and foremost there aren't very many aliens in this film despite it being marketed as Spielberg's new alien movie. This is a very tightly written, tense conspiracy thriller. There's not much action, but there is a lot of outstanding tension built through expertly written dialogue. Something that surprised me about this movie was how effective the villain was. He always felt like a looming threat that never really went away. Usually in movies like this the villain is either hilariously incompetent or the characters are just so smart they get away every time. But here there's legitimate tension, constant back and forth in who had the upper hand. While the film is light on action like I mentioned, the action that is here is incredible. There's one scene in particular involving a train where the tension just keeps ramping up higher and higher, and just when you think they've got the situation under control a completely new element comes into play that turns the whole situation on its head. It reminded me a lot of the cliff sequence in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which regardless of how you feel about the movie as a whole, that's just one of the most tense and insane sequences Spielberg has ever directed. My point is, this man is a master at ramping up tension, and he is operating at full force here. But probably my favorite thing about the movie is how it just throws you right into the middle of the action. The film very easily could have slowly introduced the main character as a government employee with a mundane life who discovers a secret that makes him grapple with the choice to betray his job or not. But right when the film starts it throws you right in the middle of things and you've gotta play catch-up alongside the characters who aren't in the know. It's a bold choice but an effective one, allowing the film to slowly string the audience along with more and more information, making you feel just as confused but also invested as the characters. If there is one downside to this style of storytelling it's that when everything does finally get explained it can feel like the film loses a little bit of its mystique, and there's about ten minutes there in the third act where the film stagnates a little while it sets up the climax. Not that this part is boring, there's just no more mystery, you're on the same page as the film, and you're just waiting for the conflict to resolve. But once the climax begins, the film goes right back into high gear for one of the most satisfying movie endings of the year. There are also a couple moments that felt a bit cheesy and out of place in a film like this, moments that would feel right at home in a Spielberg family movie but here just feel tonally jarring. All that aside though I think this is a really great thriller and I'm so happy to see a new Spielberg classic on the big screen. I've got a feeling a lot of people will be disappointed by the lack of aliens in the film and this will go on to be one of his most underrated movies, but if you're okay with a conspiracy thriller with a really tight screenplay then I can't recommend this one enough.

Hands down this film has the best action of any film since John Wick 4, and not just that, it's easily got the single best martial arts action sequence I've ever seen. This is one of those relentless, perfectly crafted action films with some of the most tightly choreographed action you'll ever see. But what makes it work as a movie and not just a great action showcase is how much you care about the main conflict. The film follows a father trying to rescue his kidnapped daughter, and the character work they do between the two of them in the start of the film might be simple but it's so effective. It's a pretty familiar plot, every action star from Liam Neeson to Jason Statham has done a couple movies with this setup, but it works so well here because of how excellent the action is. Words really can't do this movie justice, it's simply a sight that needs to be seen to believed. The ONLY thing holding this back is a couple of the performances can feel a little stiff in the scenes outside of the action, and at least for the version I saw in theaters the film made the INSANE decision to have like a couple specific characters be dubbed over in English, with other characters just speaking in English without a dub, or speaking in Chinese with English subtitles. Everything else about this movie is perfect though, and if I saw a version with no dub I could easily see this going up to a 5/5. Either way, this still has the best action of any film of the last 3 years, and the third act alone is well worth the price of admission.

Man that was disappointing. On paper this should have been an easy slam dunk: Evil Dead Rise meets mummy horror, what could go wrong? A lot. A lot could go wrong. When the film is solely locked in on being a body horror film it's solid. There's some phenomenal gore here, with several wince inducing shots that had me squirming in my seat. The film also is able to build some great tension in a couple of key sequences, invoking some of that feeling Evil Dead Rise gave me. Unfortunately though, most of this film is an extremely predictable and boring mystery that spends way too long to explain the most basic mummy/possession lore. It also doesn't help that the writing is awful throughout the whole movie. The characters are some of the most insufferably boring and stupid I've seen in a horror movie lately, and the whole mystery is just so embarrassingly one note. Going into the third act though, the film had enough of a balance of boring mystery work and effective gore to balance out at a 2.5/5, but then much like Scream 7 the third act is so stupid and cartoonish it kills the entire film. Without discussing spoilers, Lee Cronin essentially rips off his own movie Evil Dead Rise with some of the possession stuff in the third act, but it doesn't have the balls to commit to it like that film did and pulls away before anything interesting can happen. There are even exact scenes that are carbon copied straight from Evil Dead Rise, just done a lot worse. But it's so frustrating because for a sizeable chunk of this movie it's a really effective horror movie with amazing gore, but it constantly shoots itself in the foot with ridiculously stupid lore, a boring mystery, and awful character decisions. What this film proves to me is that Lee Cronin is phenomenal at creating gross, intense gore, but he should never be allowed to write a narrative driven film again. There could have been a great movie here, but unfortunately I think Lee Cronin might get sent to directors jail for a while so it might be a few years before he gets to try again.

This was an absolutely excellent thriller about running away from yourself and the anxieties of being alone. I was extremely excited for this film since the album Hurry Up Tomorrow is easily my favorite album of the year, and seeing the film that the album came from was an absolutely fantastic experience. They integrated the music spectacularly, each track from the album felt tailor made for a specific scene from the film, especially the title track. But the thing about this movie that really stuck out to me was how amazing the direction is. Trey Edward Shultz is absolutely spectacular behind the camera, there were so many shots that literally took my breath away, and it added to the uneasy tone of the film incredibly well. The film also poses a lot of fascinating questions about what we put into art we create, how it can take so much out of us and how nobody who experiences the art we create will never know how personal it is. Jenna Ortega also delivers a fantastic performance, riding the lime between insane and charming incredibly well. I don't even really have any complaints about the film other than maybe there were some pretty serious lapses in logic in the third act, but everything surrounding said plot holes were was so goddamn good it's extremely forgivable. I can see this being an extremely divisive film, with a lot of people most likely going to call it self indulgent and tonally confused, but I couldn't disagree more! I found all the elements involving just Abel singing and talking about his music to be extremely effective in building the tone and establishing his character. In fact, my favorite scene in the whole film is what will probably be the most divisive, and it involves a character dancing to The Weeknd's music and then the character does a deep dive about the themes of the songs and connected it really well to the dark themes of loneliness and ignoring your feelings. This film is exactly what I wanted it to be, and outside of a couple elements in the third act not completely landing, I **** loved everything about it and I think fans of The Weeknd will be very pleased with it. Especially since it really does feel like the perfect sendoff to this most recent era of his music.

A fantastic, wildly entertaining horror film with some of the absolute best kills I've ever seen. Every single second of this film is stupidly entertaining, from the insanely gory opening sequence, to the absolute jaw dropping domino effect that lasts throughout the entire film, I was blown away by just how fun this movie is!! I won't spoil it or anything, but this film officially has the worst child in all of fiction, and I'll just leave it at that. Also, the characters in this film are really well written, I legitimately didn't want to see any of them die which almost never, ever happens for a horror film. Usually for movies like this the characters are just canon fodder for the spectacular kills, but here everyone is actually fleshed out and the scenes where they inevitably die are really intense and nail-biting. The film is also incredibly funny, it has such a sick sense of humor and very early on the film establishes that there are literally no lines it won't cross, and that made for some of the funniest uses of dark humor I've ever seen. If you can't tell I loved this film and was extremely pleasantly surprised seeing as this was my first Final Destination film. It was extremely fun, very gory, and stupidly hilarious. Amazing horror film.

With no exaggeration this is the single worst movie I have ever seen and it's not even close. It's so fascinatingly horrible. Like at times it feels like a PG-13 action family comedy, but then for the majority of the runtime it's the HARDEST R rated movie ever made. There's so, so much swearing. The violence is unnecessarily intense. The villain is literally British The Terminator. Holy ****. I'm excited. I'm excited to tell everyone this is the worst movie I've ever seen. Wow.

**** I have never seen a worse Oscar nominee in my whole life.Offensive, boring,and just so much awful **** all throughout. But it has more nominations than Wicked

This. Was. Incredible. I was locked in from beginning to end, utterly captivated by the amazing performances, the beautiful camera work, and the mesmerizing score. I went into this film with incredibly high expectations but also very deep worries that it would come off as pretentious, confusing, and unable to justify its own existence. Suffice it to say, those worries were quelled, and those expectations were met. I had a blast watching this film from beginning to end. From the absolutely beautiful performances from Phoenix and Gaga, to the incredibly engaging and truly bold writing, there wasn't a single dull moment to be found. While it isn't a stand alone story that speaks for itself like the first film, this feels like a fantastic epilogue tying up the loose ends of the first film while bringing a few new ingredients of its own that do warrant this being a full fledged two and a half hour film rather than a special or short film on HBO Max. While yes the first film had a perfect ending and didn't need a sequel, I'm very glad we got one because there was clearly much more of a story to tell. The ending to this film I feel like is what will be the most controversial and divisive among fans, but for me I felt like it was the only way for the film to end. If you can't tell I absolutely adored this film and really hope it gets the same love from audiences and the academy the first film did. Is it better than the first film? Probably not, but it's close. I think the first is a better film on its own merrits and tells a more self contained story with more to say about mental health and society, but it's also much more difficult to watch because of how heavy and intense the film is, but when it comes to which film I would rather rewatch, I'd pick this one any day of the week. It's simply more entertaining and easier to watch. That does mean it loses some of that shock value the first film had and I can see that being a big issue for many audiences, but for me I thought it worked really well. This film isn't trying to be as shocking as the first, and it's not trying to be better either. It's simply complimenting the first film and giving this legendary character (both in universe and in real life) the send off he truly deserves. I adored this film and will absolutely be seeing it again as soon as humanly possible.

Genuinely one of the funniest theater experiences I've ever had. Just, goddamn

Felt like **** off Damien Chazelle even more tonight, the man is a master of his craft and has created three of the greatest films of all time. Name another post 2010 director who has done that. I'll wait. Also this losing best original score to All Quiet on the Western Front is still one of the biggest crimes in the history of the human race.

I thought I was seeing Paw Patrol with my kids but when I saw the anal centipede, I knew I was in for a much more exciting movie! Granted, this did prove to the court that I am not a responsible parent of a four and seven year old, and my now ex wife has a restraining order against me, but it was more than worth it for the extremely exciting film known as THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE III (FINAL SEQUENCE). Not quite as good as Morbius tho.

NO SPOILERS Full disclosure, this is a terrible movie, and if you're not a fan of terribly written, stupid movies with no logic, you won't have any fun with it. But me, I absolutely loved this movie, I legitimately had a BLAST with it. The fight scenes were so messy but had a certain comicbook-esque charm to it, so while I couldn't tell you what happened in a couple of end-film scenes, I did have a lot of fun. I laughed more than a few times at how serious the tone and dialogue was (supposed to be), and how it just utterly failed at trying to be a horror drama. But, all that being said, I do think the movie succeeded in a few aspects, namely Jared Leto's acting was surprisingly spot on and he stayed in character, even through the cringe worthy lines. Matt Smith also did a surprisingly remarkable job in the movie, delivering a very entertaining over the top performance. Smith very clearly understood the kind of movie he was in and did a very good job playing that key, over the top ridiculous role. Also the movie was just very fast paced and entertaining, which worked really well for some scenes and not so much for others. My favorite scene in the movie was definitely the scene when Morbius transformed for the first time, because it felt the most like the fun, over the top gruesome movie it was supposed to be (damn pg-13 rating). Although the story here is very by the books, and the writing is downright abysmal, I had a lot of fun with this movie, and if you think it's the worst piece of s**t you've ever scene, then I get that. I just had a lot of fun with this movie, and the post credit scenes were very confusing and extremely fun at the same time.