mrdr4gon

A good, tense, psychological horror story brimming with satire. Looking forward to more of Peele's work as a director.

I actually recommend watching on the basis of it being completely bizarre and constantly ridiculous alone.

The dialogue is mostly horrifically bad in the first half and there's tonnes of eye twitching, groan inducing moments. The horrendously blatant product placement is enough to induce sickness as well but there's enough heart here to make the film at least stand on its own two feet I guess. Split on rating this a 5 or 6 but I'll be generous.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Decent comedy film. It's funny for the most part but uses the type of obvious unfunny American film comedy humour a little too often. The plot feels like its an endless cycle of setups and payoffs for mostly inconsequential jokes and it gets a little laboured but the actual story is fairly decent. The biggest issue though is that the film making is incredibly flat and bland, with the editing choices especially towards the beginning of the film being a little awkward. Its not a bad experience overall though.

This is the funniest movie that I've seen since Thor Ragnarok. It's so laughably trite and horribly executed. The two points are for the pop songs being actually decent, a rarity in a film like this, and for the lead character being performed pretty well amongst a sea of mediocre-terrible performances. Split between giving this a 2 or 3.

Honestly I only watched this because the plot sounded so ridiculous and stupid. I got it right. If the main character was at any point in the film not a complete idiot or completely self centered everything thats a problem in the plot could have been resolved by the end of the first act.

A beautiful visual feast with a cute yet brutal plotline. Surreal, cynical and above all, cleverly constructed (both in terms of its elaborate sets and its plot).

Badly written, with sketchy characters and a bit of a waste of its concept. Speilberg just about saves it through some great action direction but its not great.

The first hour is full of shock value setpieces which feels blatantly exploitative for little to no real artistic reason but get past that rather slow first half and the story is a good slow burning spy drama. Nothing special but definitely watchable.

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward, some of the third act was absolute schlock and the whole 'being shot on a phone' thing felt like a gimmick that just made the whole thing feel like a late 90s VHS movie. I think if a film student made this instead of Steven Soderbergh it'd be viewed as an absolute cringefest.

Mediocre film that never tries to be anything more than passable, Vikander tries her best but can't do much to help the film rise above bog standard direction and a mediocre script. The film is OK for the first hour and slowly loses the plot in the second hour, but even in that first hour it wastes a lot of time on pointless diversions and elements that have nothing to do with the story as a whole, with a better director and more focused script this could have been genuinely good, but as it is it's vaguely watchable at best.

The anger that the film left me with on behalf of Tonya Harding (as portrayed here as a character, if not the real person) is a testament to how brilliantly put together the whole thing was. As a piece of writing, the film is mostly terrific (only faltering a little at the climax) the acting of everyone involved is ridiculously spot on, both in terms of performance and impersonation. The stylish presentation of the film is also to be commended, with solid direction, very strong, well timed editing and cinematography that managed to be incredibly involving and visceral at times without ever feeling in your face. The only real faults with the film I could find was the jarring transition between 12 year old and 15 year old Tonya (I don't buy that something that looks like THAT aged 12 would look like Margot Robbie at the age of 15, there should have been another intermediately aged actress for those few scenes.) The aforementioned climax problem (possibly could have been solved through telling the story non-chronologically, but I don't know if that'd have made the story too hard to follow for some people as it is somewhat unconventional already in its support of multiple somewhat contradictory narratives) and most of all I think some of the more repetitive scenes could have been cut back slightly in favor of exploring other angles of the story in more depth. Overall though the film was fantastic.

Decent, well made comedy. Its a little light on the laughs though, which is a shame because there are some very funny jokes that do land. Too often though setups are telegraphed and that's when there are jokes instead of just zippy conversation. There's some surprisingly good camerawork and some strong performances from Rachel McAdams and Jesse Plemons but in the end it doesn't rise too far above being 'alright.'

Lady Bird is an excellent coming of age dramedy that features several stand out performances and a touching and funny semi-autobiographical script from director Greta Gerwig.

Get past the possibly irksome premise and a script that's weak in places, and you'll find a beautifully crafted and acted film. Not quite Del Toro at his very best but it's pretty close.

A flat and boringly made thriller that manages to be engaging enough regardless until it turns into an absolute farce in the final act. Not good, but still enjoyable due to its own silly self-seriousness.

Pleasant enough animation from Nick Park - not quite up to the level of Wallace and Gromit, but decent nonetheless. It's mostly aimed at younger children but there's enough to keep adults engaged for the most part.

More culturally important than it is good, Black Panther basically just amounts to being another decent Marvel film - though one with a great cast and music. Being a bit light on action and a bit heavy on primitive politics (the most scientifically advanced country on earth decides their ruler via combat, REALLY?) really hurts the film, as do some strange logical inconsistencies, but overall the film is OK.

Suffers from some awkward setup moments early on, with some strange character interactions that fall flat. Nonetheless Phantom Thread more than makes up for these defects by being a beautifully shot film with some fantastically subtle performances. Well worth a watch for having a rich aesthetic that harkens back to old Hollywood and of course, for Daniel Day Lewis's final performance.

Stylishly executed and at times comedic assassin's revenge film that, while maybe a little too lean, is a fun enough diversion.

Mostly just an extension of volume one, and while it's not as strong as that film, it's still mostly flawless in its execution

A ultraviolent exercise in pure visceral action and spectacle with a succession of increasingly incredible and insane setpieces culminating in one of the greatest fight scenes in film history.

Stylishly shot but the script and the acting are both so shoddy that it nearly all goes to waste.

David Yates finally makes a great Harry Potter adaptation after years of struggling. Here his, as well as everyone else on board's, work is top notch and the Battle Of Hogwarts is portrayed rather well. An immersive and emotional experience that did not disappoint.

While just setup for the superior second half of the plot, part I of Deathly Hallows is entertaining setup nonetheless.

One of the strongest books in the Potter series is here wastelaid by some poor adaptation work and mediocre direction. All of the actors give it their all but it's not enough to make this film more than just OK.

Though there is a lot of strength in the delivery of this film, it does come across as a massive waste of potential. Some strong set pieces and surprisingly improved acting weighed down by some strange writing decisions in the adaptation

Though strongly hampered by the various divergences from the source material, Goblet of Fire is a decent enough way to spend a couple of hours.

Hogwarts is a little bit darker, and rather appropriately, a little bit more grown up this time around. This third chapter in the series is stylishly in excellent delivered by Alfonso Cuaron, working from one of the strongest plots in the entire series. The best of the Harry Potter series.

Stronger than its predecessor, Chamber of Secrets excels through its strong set-pieces and delivery on a intriguing mystery plot, culminating in a grand and satisfying climax.

While dragged down by some conspicuous child acting and iffy writing, the first of the Harry Potter films is a decent enough family viewing experience.

The cornetto trilogy ends a bit older and a bit more grown up, with experience the cinematography has become even more refined, but the humour is a little more laboured and slightly slower. The worst of the three films, but that's in no way an indictment.

A fantastic mix of romantic comedy, zombie movie homage and social commentary portrayed through excellent writing and direction and helped along by the strength of the personality of the stars.

This comedic homage to slasher movies and American action films is the greatest of the Cornetto trilogy, and that's saying something - all three films are absolutely brilliant. Absolutely hammers you with laughs from beginning to end.

A rather botched and plain adaptation of a book that, while not particularly great in as of itself was ripe ground for an intense thriller much better than what this is. It isn't helped by Jennifer Lawrence's rather uncaring performance and a prevalent visual plainness.

Not quite as funny as Holy Grail, but on balance it's much more of a complete film than that one, and not being quite as funny as one of the funniest films of all time is hardly a real complaint by any stretch. So yeah, par excellence this is.

This is less a film than a feature length masterclass in comedy. Hilarious even now most of its lines have permeated popular culture. Monty Python at the top of their game.

Feels as if it writes around history a little too broadly to really be great (much of actual story behind the Pentagon Papers is talked about, or referred to, rather than told in the film), and the performances, while good, are a bit stereotyped and typical. However, there's a lot of smart writing and intuitive direction going on that makes this film more than worth a watch. The ending in particular is excellent.

An intense third act heist makes up for a confused first hour or so. There's a lot of clunky writing to set everything up, but it manages to just about hold your attention for just about long enough for all the pieces to come together. O'Shea Jackson Jnr. and Pablo Schreiber in particular put in decent performances, but the film around them is a little too cluttered and messy.

Darkest Hour is a film that missed its true calling as a Sunday afternoon TV movie. It certainly plays like it was created for television, with the lack of any real visualization of the script other than pointing the camera at the actors and having them wave their arms around as they speechify or proving a hindrance that massively tests a person's patience and willingness to pay attention. Another cinematographic grievance is the film constantly using dolly shots whenever it's not just people standing talking in a room, which isn't anything you notice immediately but it's definitely annoying after a while. The cast is OK other than Oldman, who's legitimately great turn as a fat, balding, alcoholic Michael Caine is one of the better interpretations of Churchill being performed on screen. The film feels very fluid and almost jaunty at first but it does drag on way too long, the whole screenplay doesn't really have any excuse for how uninteresting it manages to be with its material because it's based on some of the most dramatic events in history. The little touches of cliche that permeate the mess of storytelling created, such at the random interest in Churchill's typist so that we don't feel like he's spending the entire film talking to himself, or the vilification of Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, in order to give the film an actual antagonist, drive me up the wall. Maybe I'm being harsh on the film because Churchill might have actually been very personable with his typist and maybe Chamberlain/Halifax were horrible for the war effort post-Chamberlain's resignation, but honestly that'd be worse for my judgment of this film, because it makes me inherently doubt it's own historicity purely on the basis of it making plausibly historical elements feel cliche. A few other elements rubbed me the wrong way. There's a scene where Churchill literally decides the fate of the country on polling random strangers on the London underground, which must be the most cringeworthy scene in the history of film. It feels like the writer(s) of this film ran out of ways to perpetuate the themes of the script, so came up with some outlandishly hamfisted way of getting the point across that blows any pretence of realism out of the water. This movie somehow had me on the side of the people that history proved wrong, just on the basis that they were the ones that made the best arguments in the script. I think that's a bit of a problem if you're supposedly making a film based on true events, to be perfectly honest. Also, as an aside, I hate the cliche that this movie also revels in of historical films about famous people where they get eureka moments off of some offhandedly mentioned dialogue to come up with what they're most known for instead of them just doing so out of long arduous thought. It's kind of insulting to the intelligence. Despite all of this, I can't say I hated the movie as a whole, Oldman is great in this, there's a few interesting or well created scenes and a couple of small laughs here and there, and I didn't feel like I'd completely wasted my time. So there's that.

The Greatest Showman is a Disneyfied re-framing of history that tries to frame P.T. Barnum's circus freakshow as being an inspirational story by attempting to brush every character flaw of Barnum's under the table while showing them off in plain sight and just ignoring them as some sort of sorry excuse for a redemptive arc. The Musical elements of this film are mostly mediocre-horrible pop songs without much in the way of interesting presentation (except for a single stunning scene involving Jackman and Efron). Otherwise the film presents just enough to get your hopes up that the film could be good, but then disappoint you.

A beautifully crafted slow-burner that expands the world of the previous film, respectfully acknowledging the 1982 film while carving out a path of it's own. Thankfully, 2049 is a superior sequel, managing even out all of the issues with the previous film and turn it into something more substantive.

In many ways this is even better than the first film, it retains many of that film's qualities, but adds a personal sense of drama and an excellent villain to boot. BUT, and this is a major problem, the film has some fairly noticeable pacing issues that it spends a lot of time struggling against in the first half of the film. Outside of that, it's still excellent.

Masterfully witty, pacy, and tightly driven comedy/sci-fi film that proves that Marvel can make whatever type of film they want, and somehow without breaking with formula that much. The visuals are stunning, the performances are great, James Gunn as the writer-director was born to make this film, and it all comes together to be an absolute blast. Oh, and the soundtrack is incredible too.

Amazingly quotable and sharp black comedy that thrives on having been written by Martin McDonagh who is in typically fine form. The film does have a few problems, it suffers from being overlong, with a labyrinthine feel and more than a few duds of 'dramatic moments' but the script is good enough to pull the wool over my eyes.

Pleasant enough, with some decent music and animation. The main problem with Coco is that Pixar have done this very formula before, and they've done it much better.

Aaron Sorkin makes an Aaron Sorkin movie, almost to a typical degree. This almost feels like a follow-up to The Social Network. Most surprisingly, Sorkin proves to be as solid a director as he is a writer, so all is well. The film rips along decently for two hours, helped not only by the script but by strong performances from Chastain and Elba. The film's main problems come from the source material being awkward as far as books to adapt to movies go. There isn't a great lesson or a easy 3 act structure to slot into, so the film feels somewhat awkward and gangly at times. Still though, the film is as strong as one could hope despite these issues and a great showcase for some talented performers.

An atmospheric Superhero Western with a strong set of central performances (including a very surprising performance from child actor Dafne Keene). The film is gory and gritty, but never laboriously so and the script keep things moving at a very healthy pace.

A sharply written film about a single 70+ minute shootout after an arms deal gone awry. The strength really lies in the performances and wittily written script in particular. Tonally somewhere between Tarantino and Guy Ritchie but quite a bit more low-key. The only real downside is the limiting nature of the film's premise. The film does drag at times where it feels like you're waiting for the next thing to happen and the characters aren't particularly memorable even if they are distinctive and well portrayed.