Movie Reviews 2.0

I actually think Episode III, while still flawed, is a damn good Star Wars movie. Certainly enjoyed it a lot more than The Force Awakens. I also really liked Rogue One. I still have high hopes for episode VIII because it's not a JJ Abrams joint, though.
 
I know that all the cartoon episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars are significantly better than any of the Episode 1, 2, 3 movies in the series. The should have turned the events from the cartoon series into real films and had all the kiddie origin crap designated to cartoon fodder.
 
Laa-Yosh said:
Phantom Menace actually has a sort of dichotomy in its story - the surface level stuff is probably juvenile indeed, but on the other end is the ascension of Palpatine / Sidious, with all the political machinations, which is, at least for Star Wars, perhaps even a bit too much. I mean some people didn't even realize that the two were the same person :)
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I was hoping it wasn't the same person because it was so clichéd and obvious that they were. I was hoping for some amazing twist.

Also forgive me but the people who didn't realise Palpatine was Sidious must be stupid. Come on, I mean really. Did they also think Clark Kent and Superman were different people?
 
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London-boy said:
If by "meh" you mean "Pretty shit" then yes, I agree. [emoji3]
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Ugly shit, as well.
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Star Wars: Episode II - The Attack of the Clones. :) Nice. Also, Yoda rocks. Definitely not as juvenile as the first one, and we don't have Jar Jar Binks doing his stuff in this one, so... what's wrong with this one, in your opinion?
 
Alien 3 is underrated IMHO, even though it was a mess because of the conflict between newcomer Fincher and Fox.

It was both a return to the "haunted house" concept of the first movie and a cool extension of it. The prisoners had even less of a chance without even improvised weapons, and they also had so many more internal conflicts within the group that made the situation a lot worse. It was just as beautiful to look at, and the decision to make them all bald (including Weaver) made the characters even more distinct and captivating. The sheer speed of the Alien was another nice new element and made it even more dangerous (the costume has really constrained the actor in Alien). All in all it had a comparably depressing atmosphere.
I also liked the bravery of killing off Ripley; but getting rid of Hicks and Newt was a bad decision.

Predator is also pretty damn good IMHO.
 
Picao84 said:
(like how did they know exactly how to defeat the new dead star planet thing in less than 10 minutes after discovering it existed, while a few decades before they actually had to steal the plans for it!).
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They didn't have an insider/defector for the Death Star.
 
Saw Wonder Woman. Really enjoyed it. Much more so than Guardians 2 actually. That said, I'm getting exceedingly tired of superpowered individuals having big-ass slow motion clashes during the finale. Whether it's Supes clashing with Zod, Batman clashing with Supes and Wonderwoman against a black monster thingie, or Wonderwoman clashing with someone I shall not name due to spoilers, these scenes all look the bloody same. Action scenes were the one Achilles Heel of Wonderwoman in general. That and some rather dodgy CGI. Good thing it wasn't the focus of the film.
 
I think the problem nowadays is that there is an expectation of big budget superhero movies that they must have big action scenes and especially a HUGE third act with the big bad and massive destruction. This is true of the DC movies at least, but it applies to all superhero movies and I'd say all action movies. It's the traditional 3-acts structure of films that has been used for a century and unfortunately it's hard to break differentiate yourself and actually have new elements in such a structure. Sometimes it really works (the first Avengers, IMO) and sometimes it doesn't (BvS). I also think we need to account for a lot of superhero third act fatigue. With more and more of these films, all structured pretty much the same, you need a lot of creativity to keep things fresh. Guardians of the Galaxy did it the first time, but the second one was already much less fresh.
 
I don't think the structure is necessarily the problem. I'd agree that fatigue is, though. So is the need to get bigger and bigger. That said, by far the biggest problem ist that pulling off great action scenes is actually really fucking difficult. Still, in DC's case it's also down to a lack of imagination. For example, by the time the third Captain America movie came out, I was very much getting tired of superhero movies. Quip-tastic Marvel ones in particular. But to my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed every single action scene in that film. They were just so well choreographed and creative. There has to be a way to do more than just slowmo punching with shockwaves, right? Even if your characters are essentially gods.
 
Civil War was just a joy, but also a relative rare gem in terms of how well it flowed from beginning to end. Marvel do seem to have a better idea of how to make this work, but they too aren't infallible. GOTG2 was a bit messy, even though I liked it. Doctor Strange was great. The Iron Man movies after the first one, nope. Thor movies, so so. Avengers, great, but the second much less than the first. As for other studios, look at the mess Fox did with the Xmen and FF. But then Deadpool comes out and you think God exists.

It's one of those things, you can't kill it every single time. But you can try to avoid spectacular, epic fails like the Fantastic Four.

Now I feel we will enter the era of cinematic universes and then the associated fatigue will come with it.
 
I dunno, I kinda liked the finale of Iron Man 3... There was just enough buildup with the hints that Tony has been working on new stuff, so that the plot twist didn't feel like Deus Ex Machina (pardon the joke :) ). It was also well executed, with all the armors flying in and the way they helped Tony utilize them. And yeah, maybe I was also a bit influenced as I've attended a talk by Weta on how they almost literally saved the movie, by completing the entire sequence in like three months ;)

On the other hand I still don't really like Civil War, mostly because it felt sanitized with that ending almost completely restoring the status quo. Hey Tony we broke all your stuff and released all the imprisoned trouble makers, but here's this cell phone and call me as we're still friends. The story had little weight already as all the characters lived, but this final move took away all that.
 
Predator 2. Cheesy. It had some good shots, though. And the sex scene was so lame... It was done just for the sake of having a sex scene and boobies. Plus, the lady moved like she had a problem down there, as if she were in pain.
 
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