SciFi

Darke Reviews | Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 (2017)

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So nearly 3 years later and we have moved from the late summer “Oh I hope it does well but oh well if it doesn’t” dump slot to the first of the May blockbuster releases. Guardians of the Galaxy practically minted money for Disney and Marvel then, surprising everyone from the fans to the critics to the execs. I mean sure the cast and crew may have known what they had, and I know how carefully cultivated the Marvel Cinematic Universe is – but this one felt like a “think we can do it?”, “Have we built up enough good will to try this?” “Well no harm if it doesn’t work, its not on earth right? *insert weak laugh*”

  • Budget: $170 Million
  • US Gross: $333,176,600
  • Non-US Gross: $440,152,029
  • 3rd highest grossing movie in 2014 (beating out The Hobbit, Captain America The Winter Soldier, and Transformers by no less than 70 million dollars)

So it’s safe to say they did well that year. That a sequel order was in the mail on release day. Like suddenly they knew they had something and ran with it before the final numbers even came in for the opening weekend. 3 years and a $200 million dollar budget later we return to the wider galaxy and the adventures of its guardians with their quirky personalities, and early 80’s theme music?

But should they have been ignored like the B sides of a tape?

James Gunn returns with pen in hand for both writer credit and gets the oh so comfy director chair as well. If you had told me the guy who wrote the two Scooby Doo movies and Lollipop Chainsaw (video game) would be directing not just one but two movies in a film series that’s profits exceed the GDP of several countries combined – I would laugh. I mean He wrote Tromeo and Juliet (a classic for Troma lovers) – now he writes the story of a gaggle of guardians gallivanting gregariously about the galaxy. What? I had to try anyway….The story picks up an indeterminate amount of time after the last movie in media res with the heroes defending a McGuffin from a thing. Which leads to another event and then another. Things look up. Things look down. Things go wrong. Things go right. Secrets are revealed!

This is a no spoiler review. I am not giving you more than the trailers do.

What I will say is that the movie shifts tones a few times. There are parts of humor that for me largely fell flat, but the audience around me laughed at most of the jokes. Most. The problem with some of these is that they jump from a scene that is emotionally compromising or otherwise somber to a moment of near slapstick humor. It can eject some movie goers from the moment – especially as not all the jokes work. A majority didn’t work on me, but if you are a frequent reader you know I have a lot of issues with humor and me not getting it. Thankfully humor isn’t everything the movie is based on. It also bothered, unlike so many other films, to stop and let you breathe. Let you have character moments and get a little closer to them so you are feeling with them. Would these moments have worked without the first movie? No. They require you to know the barebones you were given before so when more is revealed about them you form a deeper connection with them.

Tonal quality shifts are not the films only area of flux. Visually the film goes from amazing make up and computer effects to something I would have expected from the late 90’s or early 20’s. There is one part that I swear the movie goes full cartoon and it absolutely ejected me from the film; which was then re entered by the next beats character moment. Granted for some of the effects I feel nothing but pity for the animation studios called upon. Having to create rich visual effects that are believable for this is a daunting task. They largely succeeded.

What didn’t succeed in the flux category beyond some of the visuals, some of the characters, and some of the story beats? The music. Hold on! Hold on! I know I loathed the soundtrack of the last one. Not so here. Volume 2 Awesome Mix is a much better tape, not one I’d listen to regularly, but it doesn’t have songs I despise. In fact Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” is easily in my top 100 songs of all time. No, the accompanying soundtrack is fine and works within the movies diagetic sound as much as it does non-diagetic to the point where you aren’t sure and it doesn’t matter.  The part of the soundtrack that doesn’t work is the score. Its recycled. You will hear the Avengers theme…a few times. It is disappointing when so much care is put into it that they are recycling their musical queues from other films.

If you are curious about what I mean – check this video from the awesome Every Frame a Painting –

 

Do I believe most people notice or care? Fair question and I would say no – but that doesn’t earn my forgiveness or the fact it needs to be called out.

At this point I normally talk about the actors, but everyone is absolutely fine. New comer to the series Pom Klementieff (Old Boy, Ingrid Goes West) merges amazingly well with the existing party as Mantis. As I mentioned in my recent Fast and Furious review. I want Kurt Russel in all the things ever. This has only reaffirmed that.

I’ve avoided talking about the action because I found it…wanting. It’s there; just not as visually compelling or character driven as it could be. Marvel – please note – swarms and masses of faceless attackers does not make your combat more interesting or the stakes any higher. It was just very very safe.

TL;DR?

I would hit play on the Volume 2. Despite the flaws I perceived in the movie, of which there were many, I had a good time. It wasn’t great, but it was solid good pop corn fun. It got me emotionally invested in the stories of the characters and that is hard to do. It succeeded on a personal level where some of the production failed on an intellectual level. Audiences will love it and no one left the theatre until the last of the credits rolled. Again its flaws need to be called out in that the action is kinda bland and safe, the story and scenes have some amazingly jarring tonal shifts – but beyond that its absolutely serviceable and watchable.

Should I see it?

I don’t believe you will regret it. It’s a good time to be had by most.

Will you add it to the collection?

Yes.

Ok serviceable and watchable don’t sound like high praise though?

In this day and age it is still praise. It is also not the best Marvel feature but it is far from the worst.

End Credits scenes?

Three of them cut throughout the credits. It’s also worth *watching* the credits as there’s some easter eggs, jokes, and other cute things in them. I rather enjoyed those.

Stan Lee?

Of course with an easter egg of his own.

Anything else?

Brace yourselves. Summer movie season is coming. Next week King Arthur.

Darke Reviews | Life (2017)

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If you are not new to my site you know that I love good sci fi. If you are new to my site, you now know I love good Sci-Fi. If you want to make it horror sci-fi then you better hold to your science while telling me your fiction. I think this belief of mine comes from most horror sci-fi being relatively close in period to our own and with our own rules of science, biology, chemistry, and physics. If you want to violate these rules you need to establish you are acting outside of them early on or you risk losing me to wondering how within the confines of known science you are operating.

It’s why I buy phasers, lightsabers, xenomorphs, and flux capacitors. You laid forth rules. You have not violated them within your own fiction. We’re good. Tell me your rules, your world and I will board the suspension of disbelief train and ride it to the end. If you present me my world, my rules (as I understand them) you have established the protocols by which your science will be held standard. Violate them at your own risk or at least the risk of me ripping your movie apart.

So does Life need to find a way or is it worth exploring?

Written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, LIFE is the story of scientists aboard the I.S.S. in a “near future” time that is otherwise undisclosed. During a mission in which samples are being brought back from Mars for study, they find proof of life. Maybe they wish they hadn’t.

Rheese and Wernick who worked on Zombieland and Deadpool together  would seem an odd choice for this movie as their comedy/action and comedy/horror don’t lend themselves to a tension based sci-fi thriller when you first think of them. Yet – somehow they did it. In the vein of Alien nearly 40 years ago they  did a well paced, no forced humor thriller.  The science is good, the fiction is good,  the thrills are solid enough; but within that something is missing. The characters themselves. You don’t get to know them as much so when the movie begins traditional Ten Little Indian’s as it needs to, you don’t feel it as deeply as you could.

Swedish director, Daniel Espinosa (Safehouse), shoots the movie rather well and he apparently knows how to deal with the limited space provided and uses that to add to the innate claustrophobia of having no where to run. Though, much like I feel about the script I don’t think he teases enough out of his actors to elevate the characters and really get their motivations – beyond the one who gets a bit of a monologue. It’s clear though he had a vision along with the writers and I feel that they executed the vision well enough but didn’t quite elevate it. More on that in the TL;DR.

From an acting perspective everyone is absolutely passable. Ryan Reynolds was well Ryan Reynolds in space, but he dialed himself back from an 11 to a 5 and the restraint was to his benefit. Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai, The Wolverine, 47 Ronin) may not be able to turn out a bad performance if he tried. Russian actress Olga Dihovichnaya makes a good mission commander despite this being her first American produced film. Ariyon Bakare, mostly a TV character actor, satisfies as our biologist. Rebecca Ferguson (Ilsa Faust from Mission Impossible Rogue Nation) plays my favorite character, the CDC specialist; leaving us with Jake Gyllenhaal who is the only one who just has a weird read. Each of the others despite having limited dimension still come off as normal people, Jake’s character just comes off …odd. I don’t know if it is a specific affectation he was directed to do or choose to do but he just was…odd to me.

From an FX standpoint they are 90% solid. The creature is interesting in its design and it’s movements. The overall space scenes and movement through the zero-g environment is beginning to be mastered after films such as Gravity nailed it as well as they did. The best effect though is a subtle one involving one of the characters. While it was an attempt to give one of them more depth (it kinda failed) it did succeed in making you believe the visual trickery before your eyes without looking overt. I would guess it was a mixture of practical and CG and that is often a winning combination.

TL;DR?

Life is good. The movie that is. Maybe the cereal too. I think what frustrates me about it is it could have been more and I think it wanted to be. I just don’t think the director or the script knew how to take it up just one more notch from something good to something great. There’s half-hearted attempts to ask the deeper questions that could come from this, but it’s just that half-hearted. Effort was definitely put into the production; but the net result was a “Good”. I honestly believe this movie could have been great, but it just didn’t know how to get there.

One other thing in it’s favor – the trailer did it’s job and was cut very specifically and rather well.

Should you see it?

It’s not bad sci-fi. So if you enjoy a lil in the Sci-Fi Horror genre give it a go. I’ll be curious to what you think.

Would you see it again?

Matinee maybe? If someone else paid.

How about buying it?

…the magic 8 ball says undecided.

Last thoughts?

Life is a good movie in its genre, well above average but not quite making a mark. Effort was there and it shows and that alone gets merit. I don’t hate it, I don’t love it and if nothing else someone tried and succeeded at a good sci fi horror. There is a lot worse coming this year (*stares at Geostorm*) and I do believe it deserves to make a profit just so we keep getting good pictures in this genre. It just could have been better.

Darke Reviews | Passengers (2016)

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I like good sci-fi. I think my review of Arrival and The Martian show that. Hell I even like some bad Sci Fi (5th Wave) and Mediocre Sci Fi (Morgan , Transcendence) so long as I am entertained.  Though as 10 Cloverfield Lane found out – if you keep beating me over the head with a specific trope I will be unforgiving. I want to expect more. You as a viewing audience should expect more.

What’s the point I am getting to?

First a warning. I have to violate the No Spoiler Rule here. You can click here to skip to the TL;DR

Spoiler-Warning
spoilers

Still reading?

Ok.

I wish this movie had a face so I could punch it.

The entire contrivance of the movie after the system error that wakes *him* up is that he is the one that wakes her up. Why? Because she’s beautiful. Because he has cyber-stalked her sleeping beauty. Because he thinks she’s perfect and he loves the idea of her. So he wakes her up knowing this will be a death sentence for her as much as the one he is already subjected to. There’s no consent. No permission. No anything, but his man guilt. Him wrestling with the decision for 5 minutes of screen time is enough apparently.

Of course she finds out about the 2/3 mark of the movie, long after they’ve become a thing through their isolation and his charm. He doesn’t even tell her himself, but she finds out by accident. Oh sure he kept saying he was going to tell her, but he never did.

They do allow her to be rightfully angry. Justifiably so, as he has all but murdered her by waking her up nearly 90 years prior to the time she should have been. She goes to lengths to avoid him, but he uses the ship wide communicator to try to make an apology for it so she can’t even actually escape him. Then at least two other sources in the film tell her “…you just have to deal with it and him”; which she finally does and forgives him in a scene that had me clenching my jaw where she after being angry at him was willing to let everyone on the ship die so he could live.

I really hate this movie. I really hate that the producers allowed it.

ITS CREEPY. I don’t care anything else that happens, the premise from the time he woke her up is WRONG.

This is rape culture the movie. “It’s ok because he was alone. We have to think of HIS life. His sanity. Her life and her agency doesn’t matter next to his.”

The movie was written by Jon Spaihts, who also has an executive producer credit which explains why the producers allowed it. He has writing credits on the abysmal bomb The Darkest Hour, Prometheus, and Doctor Strange. He is the writer on the upcoming Mummy movie with Tom Cruise. Oscar nominated director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) was at the helm on this.  Gee, two guys write a space Sleeping Beauty movie where the Prince is a handsome ‘every man’ that of course she’d fall in love with despite you know stalking her and committing one of the universes slowest murders. They use consistent and constant plot contrivances and writing to make it so she does forgive him and they die happily ever after.

When your biggest plot point is similar to parts of Fatal Attraction, Captivity but you are going for actual romance – you failed. I suppose if you want to see Stockholm syndrome the movie this would suffice.

Ok, beyond my rage at that. There are other components to the movie that are a colossal mediocre. I mean if you want to see what life is like trapped in an ever refilling shopping mall you’ve got something to watch here. If you want to watch your typical just in the nick of time save the ship from disaster with no actual tension or risk because you know they won’t kill your lead actor as they spent the previous 80% of the movie man-splaining him for you. Also – the heroic save – doesn’t redeem the bad act. Sorry it doesn’t.

What really kills me is the opening was good. His waking up and handling it was good. How he tried to deal with things was good. Then the bridge between Act I and Act II comes along and poof. Rage. I mean would you REALLY root for Tom Hanks in Castaway if he had intentionally pulled someone from a peaceful happy life and potential just so he wouldn’t be alone? If you said yes – I am a little worried.

*sigh* I really could keep going. I really *SHOULD* keep going, but if you don’t have the idea by now I am not sure what else I could say.

Actors? Pratt and Lawrence are fine. This should surprise no one. She has three Oscar nominations and a win. She can act circles around people. Chris Pratt is charming as ever and we know he can bring intensity when he wants to thanks to Magnificent Seven, Jurassic World,  and Guardians of the Galaxy. They are FINE. She handles the bits of rage and avoidance as well as anyone can, probably better.

Effects? Solid. Nothing to write home about. Nothing particularly new. Definitely very clean and top of the line don’t get me wrong but there was nothing we haven’t seen before.

 

Spoiler-Warning

spoilers

Technically the spoilers are above this, but I am hiding them above the fold with the image…

TL;DR

Do not see this movie. I spent money on it so I could confirm the stories I had heard. They aren’t too far off the mark.

I spent money so I can ask you not to.

If you want to watch a better movie about people waking up from hibernation? Pandorum. It’s good sci-fi horror. That’s what this should have been. If you want a decent stalking movie – there’s always Fatal Attraction. I heard The Resident was pretty good too.

Seriously readers – don’t give this money. Don’t let Hollywood think this is alright. Let it bomb for the controversy it rightfully deserves.

I understand some folks will see this because they just love Pratt. I get it. He’s cute. He’s charming. Just spend the $20 (Ticket+Concessions) to buy Jurassic World or Magnificent Seven. If you like Jennifer Lawrence and want to see her vamping it up, there’s American Hustle.

Just don’t see this.

Please.

Thank you.

~The Management of Amused in the Dark

Darke Reviews | Arrival (2016)

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If you’ve been paying attention to me over the past few years I have been running this site, you will know I love Sci Fi and Science in general. I was raised on Sci Fi movies, with some of my favourites from childhood being things like Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Aliens, The Blackhole, 2010, The Last Starfighter, Enemy Mine, Dune, The Abyss, Tron…ok so the list goes on. Alright the list does go on *deep breath* Flash Gordon, Altered States, Flight of the Navigator, My Science Project, Explorers, Lifeforce, Night of the Comet…ok ok I will stop now. That’s still but a fraction of what I grew up with and love. Some holds up better than others, others such as 2001 and Blade Runner I didn’t appreciate as a kid but do now.

When it comes to sciences, Chemistry, Archaeology, Linguistics, Physics, History, Astronomy, and Psychology are but a tip of an iceberg of things that fascinate me to no end. Put an article in front of me around some of these fields I will read it and do my best to understand it. Give me someone in these fields to talk to and I will probably pick their brain and ask questions, even if I only understand about a third of what they are saying. There was a time in my living room two linguists started speaking about various complexities of language and the breakdown of components of language and language groups. I comprehended a fraction, but still found it fascinating and had I chosen could have studied more to understand the rest. With this combination of fascination it should be no surprise that on Stargate and SG-1 my favourite character is Daniel Jackson. That I spent time making a character for a game who had a journal and was deciphering Goa’uld. That I love studying how Dothraki and High Valyrian work; which by the by enabled the creation wonderful relationship with someone, simply by speaking just a little Dothraki and sharing the geekness.

So whats the point and how does this apply to the movie?

Well let’s talk about that then. The film deals with the arrival (roll credits, ding), of an alien race and our protagonist is brought in to help decipher their language. So we have the marriage of Sci Fi and Linguistics. Ok so that’s technically repeating myself as it is SCIENCE Fiction, but for so long we have been moving away from the science part of science fiction relegating it’s existence to that of technobabble and gimmicks, without asking the important questions. Like The Martian, this movie goes back and puts the Science back with gleeful abandon and still manages to make it accessible to most any film goer who chooses to watch this.

This is not entirely an original work as it is based on the book Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. It was adapted for the screen by Eric Heisserer who also penned The Thing (2011), A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), and this years Lights Out.  As I’ve started recently, this tells me he either has been offered projects that have ties to classic 80s or he has a passion for it. Success rate of the film notwithstanding. He also seems to understand and appreciate dramatic tension, or strives to do so. With this, while still unfamiliar with the original material, I feel he succeeded as the dialogue choices and plot points either hit or tropes avoided brought me great joy. He also managed to make it accessible to people who don’t have a passion for science. While not as open as the Martian was, there’s a lot here that they do explain and it works. The rest of the time you can follow along and it works with little explanation.

That means a credit must go to director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario). You see a script can tell you one thing, but your decision to show not tell makes all the difference. What makes this movie work is a combination of showing and telling, ironically a plot point of the film. In combination with the script he is able to weave a cohesive story that tells you what you need to know, asks questions to keep you engaged, and delivers an ending that was surprisingly well handled. The direction of his actors was good as was his blocking and choice of camera angles. There are a few scenes where very intentional tricks of the camera are used if you are watching. That is the best term to apply to the direction here. Intentional. This is well thought out and I believe there is very little deviation from the plan as the scenes unfold in practice vs on paper.

Of course you need your stars to deliver as well. Amy Adams (Enchanted, American Hustle) delivers a fantastic performance as our Linguist – turned Xenolinguist  – who must carry the film. She brings the appropriate levels of shock, scientific methods, and inquiry that I wanted to see in this. Jeremy Renner (Avengers, American Hustle) is a ‘hard scientist’, physicist I believe, who works for the government and is brought in with Adams to help uncover the purpose of the aliens. What I absolutely love is the chemistry and partnership between both actor and character as the film progresses with good delivery and solid execution on his own sciences while they unravel the mystery of the aliens.

But….

There are flaws, I really wish directors would stop adjusting the contrast and colour balance of their work. While it’s clear it’s an intentional choice, I don’t know that it was a necessary one. Retaining your normal palette here would have been sufficient and forced other techniques to come into play to show other components of the story. That’s it. That’s my big flaw. OK there are a few minor tropes they hit which were…able to be dealt with and quickly which made them bearable in an otherwise near perfect product of science fiction.

TL:DR?

As Passengers has not come out yet, Morgan was disappointing, I am the lone dissenting voice on 10 Cloverfield Lane; this is hands down the best Science Fiction movie of the year. I will easily put this up there with films such as Contact, The Martian, Ex Machina, and others of their ilk. It proves we haven’t lost how to do good Sci-Fi just that people may be afraid to. Without trying to sound too elitist, this is Sci Fi, the rest is space action or space fantasy. Let’s face it Star Wars is a space fantasy, we can all accept this and love it as much as we all do anyway.

The performances are good. The camera work is good. The script and direction are good. The movie had a very tight (by Hollywood standards) budget of $47 million and you can see the amount of control they had in making this and we all benefit for it. This is the kind of movie, like The Martian, that lets you and your friends have good intelligent conversation coming out of the movie about what you just watched.

My recommendation? Help them make their money back and then some.

Should you see it?

See immediate sentence above.

Will you buy it on BluRay?

Yes. No doubt.

Any warnings?

It’s appropriately slow, but methodical. This has the pace of a good drama. It is NOT an action set piece.

Folks that’s it for this one. We have a really good movie here that was really enjoyable.

If you are a reader of my reviews and have a passion for Linguistics, see it and come back and tell me what you think of the science.

Darke Reviews | Morgan (2016)

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Yes, I saw this last night and am just writing the review now. Based on the fact no one I talked to at work today even knew this movie was coming out tells me a lot about it’s marketing. The poster (see title image) was entirely uninspired and did little to tell you what the story was. The official trailer did not really tell you much more and I am unsure now if it was a trailer that lied or aspects of the movie that were cut. Possibly both? The trailer of course, is here for your perusal if you should wish to see what the bill of goods we were sold on this was.

 

Sure we see the Scott Free Logo, which means of course the master of Replicants and Xenomorphs, Ridley Scott. He too has stumbled in recent years with projects such as Exodus: Gods and Kings (Prometheus is up for debate), and even in the past (1492: Conquest of Paradise). Though this time he sits in the producer’s chair not director…but does it matter?

Should they not have let Morgan out of the editing room?

Well to the first question – not really. The film is directed by his son Luke Scott with this as his debut to the general public. He did work as Second Unit Director on Exodus, but never the big chair himself. I can see the inspiration he has gained from his father. There are a lot of brilliantly directed shots in this movie where the blocking, camera work, and imagery tells a story all on its own. He also has a flaw of his father where sometimes a scene goes just a hair too long, but has also a flaw of his own in which scenes that really should be longer are broken by a cut or another event. Something that I feel took away from the effectiveness of the storytelling going on. There were so many very clear intentional choices being made in so many aspects of the film that I know there’s a good director there. He just didn’t really communicate some of the decisions well enough in action or word to let you know why it was made.

I have to blame the script for some of this though with only the indy film Peepers to his writing credit  back in 2010, there’s not a lot to discern his choices. I think, but I cannot prove, that he watched Ex Machina and got an idea. The problem is he didn’t know how to execute on the idea. He wanted to do a story about synthetic life (Replicant prototypes?) and make it an American-ized thriller. The problem with this is you have to have the dialogue to support it. You have to have the flow of logic to reach ideas and to understand the underlying objective of the science. Ex-Machina is a Turing test to the next level. This lacked that. They went for an almost slasher vibe by the trailer, which the movie doesn’t support. It also requires more bad science and scientists than I can bear. I don’t mean the scientific aspects itself, they work within the context as the movie follows it’s own rules fairly well. I mean the scientific and lab procedures themselves were bad. This wasn’t a lab. It was a daycare center with an observation window.

So while the script and overall plot required stupidity to function, the actors themselves played their parts as best they could. Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a fantastic muted performance, which I am starting to wonder if they are getting too easy to play? Her work in The Witch was one of passion and emotion, while this required the reverse and again I blame the script for not giving her all the room to explore that. I really want to see more work from her in the future as this was a solid performance that sadly the request of the role is quickly becoming typical enough to have a checklist.

  • Thousand yard stare – ✔
  • Stilted communication – ✔
  • Quirky and alienesque body language – ✔
  • Muted or Manic Emotional Responses – ✔

The role itself is uninspired, even if the actor in its place acts their butt off. I think of Soldier with Kurt Russell – which is an amazing performance and more rare then than it is now. This just comes across as another creepy child and there is little Taylor-Joy can do to make it more with what she has. Kate Mara (Shooter, The Martian, Fan4stic) has a similar problem. She is quite literally asked to do little with her performance, which she does marvelously. I suppose that is the sign of talent. To have someone who can deliver complex emotions and is good at it and ask them to deliver little and be stoic despite their urges to want to deliver more.

I would talk about the rest of the cast, Jennifer Jason Leigh (Hateful Eight), Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones, The Last Witch Hunter), Toby Jones (Captain America), Paul Giamatti (San Andreas, Sideways), Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), who all try to bring their characters to life. Try, but the characters were stillborn. The actors do what they can with characters told with so broad a stroke the brush is the size of an aircraft carrier. They don’t even reach caricature status and are so plagued by inherent stupidity that I wonder how they got their jobs. The actors are fine. The role itself – not so much.

From a technical aspect, I wish I could talk about something innovative here, but the movie was shot on the very cheap with an 8 million dollar budget (of which it made back only $2.5). With that understanding it seems to me the studio itself wanted to try the current trend of low budget supernatural horror with sci fi; again inspired by the masterpiece of Ex Machina.

TL;DR

It’s…ok. It’s not bad, but it is annoying with the scientists. I’d like to say it was good. I’d like to say I cared. I just can’t. I have to lay the blame entirely on the script as I can see everyone and their mother trying to do more with what they have and not being able to do much. I really wish someone had taken another pass at this and made a decision on the tone of the movie. Do you want horror? Do you want thriller? Do you want slasher? Do you want sci fi? I really don’t care, but pick one. Not all of them.

I wish they had gone further. I wish they had explored some of the ideas…any of the ideas. I wish they had done something…at all.

In the end there’s a lot of neat concepts and half hearted ideas but none of them click. It isn’t thought provoking at all.

I wish it had been. This could have been so much better than an “ok”.

Should you see it?

Y…no. Not really.

Will you buy it on BluRay?

Nope.

Are you seeing Sully this weekend?

No. I am tired of movies about events I watched on the news within the past decade and a half. They are well made films no doubt, but I just am tired of Tom Hanks playing captain savior and survivor. He’s good at it. The movie is good I am sure, but I cannot bring myself to care when we had 24/7 news coverage of Captain Phillips and Captain Sully.

Darke Reviews | Star Trek Beyond (2016)

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I was asked today are you a Trekkie or Star Wars fan. The immediate response “I have the blueprints for the NCC 1701 D, but I also have the blue prints for a YT-1300 freighter and an X Wing.”  Yes, it is allowed to love both series. Screw anyone who says otherwise. I watched the original series in syndication, the original animated series, I was the perfect age for Next Gen when it premiered and watched every last episode on its first run appearance. I’ve seen, and own, every Star Trek movie – which is more than I can say for Star Wars. I was in love with the first movie of the reboot, and overly kind in my review of the second one. I looked back on that one the other day and wondered what I was thinking when I wrote it.

So where does that leave us with Star Trek Beyond? Should it have stopped before the final frontier?

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now. Director Justin Lin (Fast and Furious 6, 5, 4, and 3)  is a good director. He does ensemble well and when I heard he was picked for the chair I was happy despite the haters. He made a very entertaining and profitable franchise that focuses on the story of multiple characters with a few in central focus. This is his “thing” as a director. He does it well again as the crew is separated and each get their own mini arc and he services each intelligently.

Writing. Rule of Three violation inbound. Simon Pegg (yes…) and Doug Jung (Dark Blue) have official writing credits. Uncredited are Roberto Orci (Transformers 3, Star Trek Into Darkness), Patrick McKay (absolutely nothing -alias maybe?), and John D. Payne (also nothing). Five writers, one of which is an accomplished comedian, one of which has only done TV, one who may have sold his soul for profit and production, and two who may or may not exist. In my perception this has created a hot mess. Knowing about 11th hour reshoots and the insertion of a new member of the cast back in March probably left me with a nice quiet dread.  Simon Pegg tried to pass them off as common place, but normally this indicates the movie is missing something or audiences/producers didn’t like something and a change was needed. Adding a full character just doesn’t happen. Seeing the scenes with the new character makes me wonder what else was added as part of these, how the story flowed otherwise? There were other technical flaws that made it feel disjointed as some characters inexplicably vanished during parts and some wardrobe adjustments between beats that told me we missed something.

I want you to focus on the next paragraph…really.

That said they do one thing right. The crew. They are a family. They make this work! They care about each other and aren’t afraid to show it. Every last one of them is family to the others and have absolute faith in that relationship. It was really really pleasing after some of what we saw in Into Darkness and so many other movies with forced conflicts. They also show that multiple races (literally) regardless of skin, sex, orientation, eye socket placement, appendages do come together and truly show the ideals of Roddenberry’s Trek. We haven’t had that in so many many years. I rather despised what happened with many of the TV series as they grew darker and more like something that Alan Moore would write to highlight the flaws of government. They did it right here. While George Takei may have (legitimate) issues with making Hikaru Sulu gay, John Cho had his own, knowing a friend who saw it tonight about cried seeing non straight orientation in such a big budget film in a known verse. Representation is important folks and I could do a huge post on that alone…I probably will another day.

Overall the writing was very disjointed to me and I can see why now as there are full on beats that I didn’t care about or have any emotional response to, yet others did make me smile.

From an acting perspective, there isn’t a lot to say. It’s movie three and the crew is the crew. Pine is Kirk. Quinto is Spock. Urban is Bones. These are facts, nothing more nothing less. When they are in frame you know who they are and the idea of it being someone else doesn’t cross your mind. I about cried when I saw Anton Yelchin. He is going to be missed and I am happy they announced they will not recast Pavel Andreievich Chekov. Idris Elba (Pacific Rim, Jungle Book) was given bad direction and so so make up, and doesn’t really work as the villain for me. Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service, upcoming The Mummy reboot) is a gem as Jaylah. They do everything right with the character and absolutely nothing wrong…except one thing.

They don’t let you see her actually fight. Oh she fights, but the cinematographer needs his camera privileges taken from him. The camera work was absolutely abysmal for most scenes either panning and zooming without a point of focus or unnecessarily shaky. I would have loved to watch a lot of the physical combat, I think it looked interesting from the few frames I saw. Other shots were so derivative as to be distracting and I am almost sure I got someone nauseous from the work. The make up effects were mostly solid. Some creatures were new, original, and others just looked good with smart designs. Others….not so much.  The other FX are ..ok. I mean well well above average; so I guess they were good. Though I really really want to ask if Simon Pegg or the production designer play Mass Effect, if you watch it you will see why.

TL;DR?

*sigh* I didn’t like it.

Wait wait wait!!

The audience around me applauded. The friend I saw it with really liked it too. They acknowledged the flaws but were able to move past them and enjoy the film. Unlike last week with Ghostbusters, I couldn’t. It has points I clearly do like, aspects of Act III that made me give a damn, and is solid. It just doesn’t work for me. It didn’t resonate and that kind of makes me sad. It is absolutely better than Into Darkness. It is ORIGINAL. not the plot so much, but it’s not a rehashed episode or plot from a previous movie.

Should you see it?

Yes, yes  I think so. I mean there were overall applause from the audience and that means something. A movie like this not resonating with me doesn’t make it bad or unwatchable, or even un-recommendable. It’s very clear that there’s good here and good should be celebrated.

I think a lot of people should and will enjoy this.

My friend said it best, “it’s like an episode with a bigger budget!”

Will you buy it?

Probably? I mean I can give it a second chance in the comfort of my own home. I know my friend is and they never buy movies.

What about? You know…

They handle the legendary Mr. Nimoy’s death in a way that had me tear up. Both he and Anton are acknowledged in the credits.

What’s next?

Suicide Squad!

Darke Reviews | 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

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I owe you all an apology, I got home from London Has Fallen  last week and didn’t have the energy to write a review that night. The next day I still didn’t. The day after still no. I realized the movie was that mediocre that I had no energy to write it because I didn’t care enough. The action was ok. The effects were on the whole cheap. The tension was laughable. The acting, you don’t watch London Has Fallen for acting. You just watch it to see Gerard Butler kick butt – which he does. So there’s that.

Now during the Superbowl this year they revealed a trailer for a movie almost no one had heard of called 10 Cloverfield Lane. It’s rare in this day and age for a production to stay under the radar. Seeing the first trailer without any media hype a mere month and a half prior to the films release on something with names attached is even more unheard of. Then using the Cloverfield name in conjunction with J.J. Abrams automatically begins to conjures questions?

“Is it a sequel?”

“Is a prequel?”

“Is it tandem?”

“How is it related to the blockbuster first film?”

The producers then use that media buzz to let people talk about the movie – which is a smart play. They also spend their time answering all of those above questions “No it isn’t”. JJ has lied to us before (It’s not Khan) and cannot be trusted in that regard when it comes to a production. Why else call it Cloverfield when you have all the same names attached? “It’s a spiritual successor”, is a cheap answer. My feeling is that they wanted to created an anthology of movies around the “Cloverfield” conceit; which by it’s nature of real people in completely whacked out situations would wear thin. I mean the idea has merit once or twice, but to franchise the concept of Cloverfield can’t possibly work in the long term as a film series as you then need to spend time getting us to care (or not) about the characters then eventually have a reveal to the scale of their situation. Much like Shyamalan and his twists, when people come to expect them they spend the entire movie looking for the twist which then takes the wind out of it when it appears even if it is done intelligently.

400 words in and I haven’t discussed the movie I just watched. I’ve talked Hollywood, a movie I didn’t care to review to warn you to see or away from because it was that mediocre, JJ Abrams, and the concepts of how to build a franchise. I am really avoiding talking about the movie.

I didn’t like it. I wanted to. I really wanted to. I *like* the original Cloverfield. I didn’t get sick watching it. I liked the look of the monster. I cared about the characters and wanted to see Rob get to his girlfriend and them escape the monster. I wanted to see this and see how it ended.

I didn’t care here. The acting was fantastic. John Goodman was in full heavy mode and brought his impressive abilities to bear in a purely one dimensional role. He made it something more by using his physical presence and his acting to try to make it more than what was written. Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character of Michelle was engaging. She was smart, she was willful, and clever. I have liked her since Wolf Lake, Sky High, and thought her Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim was on point. She didn’t do anything out of character, she didn’t turn into a “Final Girl” she just was. It worked and I liked her. John Gallagher Jr. as Emmet was a solid everyman. I went to school with people like him, I’ve worked with folks like him. The acting was FINE. It was Solid. It was Good.

What they had to work with sucked. There’s no twists. The tension doesn’t hold because they let you see some of the elements too early. They, being Matthew Stuecken (producer of GI Joe Rise of the Cobra and the Mummy 3), Josh Campbell (editor of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Van Helsing), and Damien Chazelle (writer of Whiplash) have invoked the three writer rule.  I lay blame on Dan Trachtenberg, in his big screen directorial debut, as well. They give you too much too soon of the wrong elements and it takes away from the movie. It breaks rather than builds the tension because you become certain of things and those things are only solidified rather than challenged when opportunity presented itself.

I verge into spoiler territory if I say more, and even though I dislike the film I need to keep to the rules.

If the intent here was to give novice writers and directors a chance to tell a story within the guardrails of a type of universe under the watchful eye of successful novices such as Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In) and Drew Goddard (The Martian, Cabin in the Woods), and Bryan Burk (Star Wars the Force Awakens), then I feel they failed. They succeeded in the attempt, but they failed in the guidance. I found nothing beyond the acting enjoyable here. The movie struck emotional chords in the performances, but gave nothing else for me to do with them. It was not well constructed or articulated.

If anything I would compare it to…hmm no. That would be a spoiler.

TL;DR?

Don’t see it. Expect more from your sci fi. Expect more from your movies. They need to try harder.

This was an attempt to do something original, for that I could praise it, but when we have things like The VVitch out there which also do original and do it better. We need to expect more.

Do I recommend it? No. Save your money.

 Will I buy it? No.

Next two weeks have a chance to give some enjoyment with Allegiant and Superman v Batman. Here’s hoping.

Darke Reviews – The 5th Wave

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So the first review of the year. January release. Not good usually. Examples? Sure!

Let’s face it January is mostly garbage so the Oscar bait at Christmas and whatever other studio juggernaut came up at the end of the month. *stares at Star Wars* It just isn’t a good month for film. You can fully expect that the studio just dumps something they have no faith in and hope they get another Cloverfield.

Did they get it here?

 

Based on a YA sci fi novel by Rick Yancy, the film covers the story of a young teenage girl who survives several waves of an alien invasion and her quest to save her brother. The first wave is an EMP that takes out technology, the second is an earthquake/flooding to take out coastal regions, the third disease, and fourth …well watch the movie to learn about the 4th and 5th waves. It’s not a bad setup and the overall execution is pretty solid on the narrative with the story taking place in two places with simultaneous arcs happening with the girl and her brother.

The novel was adapted for the screen by Susannah Grant (Erin Brokovich, Pocahontas – yes that one), Akiva Goldsman (Insurgent, I Am Legend, and…and), and Jeff Pinkner (Amazing Spiderman 2 and a lot of TV). Most of these guys are also producers in their own right and spent a lot of time with the TV crowd.  They have a pretty good pedigree of things just above mediocre as the group with Grant being lauded for Brokovich. So with that in mind how is the overall plot so…Ok? I mean the dialogue is Ok. The Plot is  Ok. The contrivances are  Ok. It’s Ok. Ok?

Maybe it’s the director? J Blakeson, who gave us the less impressive sequel to The Descent. I can see so much in the writing and direction that wants to be more than it is. There’s nuggets of something more here that just don’t come to fruition. One of the plot points requires everyone’s IQ to drop by about 50 points. The entire row of people in front of me in the theatre had the same reaction I did in one of the moments with a Spock level eye brow raise.

SpockEyebrow

Sense. That made none.

 

That being said, it annoyed in the moment and was gone. That is because of the actors involved. Chloë Grace Moretz leads the cast in admirable fashion bringing a natural charm and humanity in what typically is a blandish role without much character. She (with some help from the script) deftly avoids some tropes and charms us as she glides into others. Helping the movie along is also Nick Robinson (the older brother from Jurassic World); and while his role is largely reserved he does a lot with a few expressions which keeps him from being a cardboard cut out with lines. The same cannot be said of Alex Roe, who tries. He really really tries and just can’t be more than the stereotype his role gave him.

Production wise? The effects are just slightly better than average. The flooding is getting to the point of being over used. Since the Japan disaster a few years back and Sumatra before that everyone is in awe and fear of the Tsunami so any disaster needs one now that we can see what they look like. A few other tricks aren’t bad, not great, just not bad. There’s very few eye rolls from the effects side which made me happy. Some of the transitions were done fairly well. I had to admit there was a good colour palette from the cinematographer to reinforce which of the two arcs you were dealing with. Very intentional and very functional. The music does what you expect, but otherwise is simply pleasant.

TL;DR?

Despite how middle of the road this sounds, the movie was kinda enjoyable. I had moments of fun amidst moments of meh. While this may seem like a compromise (and it kinda is), I am ok with that. I do expect more of movies. YOU should expect more of movies. But if I even have a bit of fun I have no problem rewarding the film with that faint praise. It’s better than a meh and that means something since at least I felt *something* about it.

It does some things I haven’t seen before. There is inspiration here, I think if the Three Writer rule had not been invoked it may have been an even better film. Something more than Ok.

Though for a January? OK is good. I will take the win I can get.

Will you buy it?

Actually – yeah. I think I will. There’s stuff to the main characters arc I really enjoyed seeing handled.

Do you recommend it?

Ahhhh maybe. If you like Young adult style films? Sure. Go right ahead. You’ll probably like this more than some Hollywood has tried to give.

 

So that’s it. First review of the year. Could have been A LOT worse.

Darke Reviews | The Martian (2015)

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This is not part of my October reviews, fortunately or unfortunately, my regular reviews do not get trumped by October. I had every intention of seeing this Thursday night but exhaustion kicked in and a desire for a record 6 hours of sleep ended up winning. Having seen it today and after some rest I can provide you the review you deserve.  I will say this, do not let Matt Damon or Jessica Chastain near the space program. Something goes wrong every time; how is it he is the one always stranded?

Anyway; does the movie hold up to the hype machine?

The film is based on a book by Andy Weir and adapted for the screen by Drew Goddard. I understand from some friends it is an excellent book and will be curious to hear the comparison between the two. Goddard on the other hand was the producer of the much loved (and very awesome) Netflix series Daredevil, The Cabin in the Woods, and Cloverfield. He also wrote one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Conversations with Dead People.” So the source material is very strong, the writer has some solid understanding of characters and tension but do they have a director who can do something with that?

Well lets talk the story for a moment. This is a what you see is what you get. The movie literally is: Matt Damon gets left behind on Mars. NASA tries to figure out how to save him, while he tries to save himself.

Simple story. You need good actors and a good director to make it work. I give you Ridley Scott. I give you the man behind the camera and actors of Blade Runner, Alien, Black Hawk Down, and the list goes on. He doesn’t have a flawless list (Robin Hood, Hannibal, Exodus) but a solid one. He, despite his stumbles, is a brilliant film maker who can do more to create tension with a shot and space than a dozen of the modern horror directors combined. That is what this movie needed. Tension. You don’t know if they will bring him home, you don’t know if they will all survive doing so. Goddard, Weir, and Scott have masterfully crafted a story where you just aren’t sure.

Of course some of the work must go to the actors. Matt Damon by necessity carries the film and he has the chops to do it. I was watching the movie and thought is there another actor who could do this? Short answer I came up with is no. End to end of this movie, there’s not another bankable actor who could do this with such charm and such range.  Then you combine it with the following cast members

  • Jessica Chastain (Interstellar, Mama, Zero Dark Thirty)
  • Michael Peña (Shooter, Fury)
  • Jeff Daniels (Newsroom, Speed)
  • Kristen Wiig (Despicable Me 2, Brides Maids)
  • Sean Bean (duh)
  • Kate Mara (House of Cards)
  • Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier, Once Upon a Time)
  • Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, 12 Years a Slave)
  • Mackenzie Davis (Halt and Catch Fire)
  • Donald Glover  (Community)

This is the literal definition of a powerhouse cast. Each person despite how much or little screen time they are given manages to translate that into a memorable or otherwise engaging character. That’s art folks. This movie would die in the vacuum of space if you didn’t want to root for the characters. If you didn’t want to sit at the edge of your seat or bite your lip. Everyone is understandable in every decision made. Every action. Every consequence.  The movie lives and dies because of the performances these people gave in conjunction with solid directing, and source material.

In other words, this is everything Fantastic Four was not.

It is also not as pretentious as Interstellar, which I wanted to like, but really couldn’t.

As a technical point, the CG enhancement of the landscapes, the background, the skies made me really believe that they could have been on Mars. This is the George Miller lesson folks. Use CG to enhance not dominate. There’s only one slightly jarring, but appropriate effect in the movie. Everything else to me is beautiful. I was commenting the other day how claustrophobic modern movies tend to be. Tight locations, tight camera’s, fear of long range shots or appropriate long range shots. This movie is anything but. It uses distance as a tool as much as it uses sound and lack there of when needed. It really lives by show don’t tell on a lot of points and again is a better movie for it. If there are any other flaws, there’s some pacing issues (a Ridley Scott natural flaw) but otherwise that’s it.

TL;DR?

This is a good movie. This is a damn go0d movie. This isn’t a good sci fi movie. This isn’t a good dramatic movie. This IS a good movie. I watched the movie on the edge of my seat more than a few times.

I came out of the movie inspired.

I came out of the movie wanting to Science!

I came out of the movie satisfied with my experience in a way few movies this year have.

I highly recommend The Martian to anyone.

Darke Reviews | Terminator Genisys (2015)

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31 years. It has been 31 years since the line “Come with me if you want to live” was first uttered on the silver screen. Sadly, I was too young to see the original on the big screen, but have watched it dozens upon dozens of times since. Terminator 2 came while I had one of my best summers ever, living in Virginia, and I had the joy of watching it 5 times in the theatre. Watched dozens of times since then. One of my best friends and I planned a judgement day party for August 29, 1997. I even made labels to put on sunblock labeled SPF 2,000,000 – you know so we didn’t have a bad day. I think you can safely assume I am a fan of the mythology and first two movies. I didn’t even hate Edward Furlong.

Then Judgement Day came and went. The party didn’t happen as we had all moved away. Then 2003 came with a promise to give us the Rise of the Machines and it lied to us. It lied so badly. If I thought Furlong was bad, then Nick Stahl was a walking abomination. Then they tried 6 years after with Terminator Salvation, trying to apologize for how bad 3 was…but I fell asleep from boredom through the apology. I couldn’t tell who was more machine the T-800’s or Sam Worthington and Christian Bale. So

6 years after that, what do we get?

Let’s start with a two writer script, though obvious credits are given to Gale Anne Hurd and James Cameron for the characters themselves. Laeta Kalogridis, who gave us screenplays for NightWatch (Timur Bembekov’s supernatural thriller) and Shutter Island.  Patrick Lussier, he who gave us Dracula 2000 and Drive Angry. Both of these individuals, while having western films under their belt, also lean towards lower budget European films designed for international audiences. I don’t know that I would have picked them to try to reboot and reinvigorate this franchise considering their previous works; which, while I enjoy, are mostly low end popcorn fare or weak on the script but high on atmosphere. Much of these traits can be found here, the script is kinda weak and some of the dialogue is down right painful.

Sarah is fine, the Terminator is fine, John is fine, Kyle is a walking travesty. Part of that goes to the casting director, Ronna Kress who needs a smack upside the head. I have no idea how a person who could cast Mad Max: Fury Road so perfectly could so screw up here. I have to assume studio interference. It is the only logical choice. The other part goes to the studio and director, Alan Taylor (who is best known for his season 2 Game of Thrones episodes).  A better director may have gotten a better performance, but I doubt it; but perhaps he could have argued to have a better Kyle Reese.

There is no reason to cast Jai Courtney. I recently commented that he needs to find the tree he was carved from, no one is buying him as a real boy. He is without any charm or charisma in Divergent, Die Hard, Jack Reacher, and gives me less hope as Captain Boomerang in Suicide Squad. Hollywood STOP TRYING TO FORCE HIM DOWN OUR THROAT. Please. Stop. Aside from being a terrible actor he is horrifically miscast as Kyle. Michael Biehn created the role and despite not being the prettiest belle at the ball had a charm and handsomeness to him that lead us to like him. He was so damn earnest and believable  that I cared that he served in the 132nd under Perry from 21 to 27. When he said, “I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you; I always have…” it is the most romantic thing ever. Courtney and this script can’t pull any of this off. He is positively the worst thing about this film. Every line he uttered comes from a place where I wanted to throat punch him. Aside from being unable to make me care, and in fact look forward to his demise, he just looks bad. He is too damn handsome. Too full. I blame that on the director and casting again. Beihn, and even Anton Yelchin in T4, looked thin, looked worn, and looked like they grew up in a wasteland after Judgement Day. They were lean, he is cut. His physique makes no sense in a world where humans are scrambling to get by like little more than cockroaches in the ruins of the world. He’s just too pretty. You want someone who looks like he could be Kyle? Try this image:

Yes. I am Guy Pearce. You are welcome.

Yes. I am Guy Pearce. You are welcome.

At least we had Jason Clarke and Emilia Clarke – no relation. While Jason Clarke doesn’t quite carry the beat to hell, hardened military commander that Michael Edwards did in T2 (his stare is bloody iconic). He does a good job at least making me believe he is Connor, a boy who knows the future to a certain point. I like Clarke as an actor with excellent performances in Zero Dark Thirty,  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and even The Great Gatsby.

John_Connor_T2

My stare can kill a terminator at 1000 yards.

John_Connor_T5

I at least wear the scars better than Christian Bale.

 

Emilia has probably the toughest role to play of all the cast. Going from the mother of Dragons to the Mother of the Resistance. She has to fill shoes left by the epic Linda Hamilton who gave us two startlingly amazing performances of a character at two different times in her life. Now, having just watched Terminator (1984), just now while writing this she clearly paid attention to Hamilton and her performance. She hit enunciation, body language, and even lip motions from the first film. While there are moments she over reacts and hits too much emotion for someone who is raised the way she is, overall I buy it. I know other reviewers are having trouble with her, but to be honest I think she did well. She didn’t have an easy job or good script, but did very well with what she did. While the writers clearly didn’t get Kyle, they did get Sarah and some of her reactions were spot on.

I can’t finish talking about the cast without talking about Arnie. The role is like an old glove that he slipped into. He was on the mark 100%. He also could tell this film wasn’t great, but makes sure to let you know HE is enjoying himself. Honestly, this is the Arnie I miss. Even as a bloody cyborg he overshadowed almost everyone on screen with the weight and charisma of his performance.

From a technicals standpoint? It suffers as so many movies do these days. It is too clean. Too polished. Their post-apocalypse is all shiny and chrome, with beautiful body armor and fashion models for soldiers.  Even the current timeline they give us has the same problem. There’s no grit, no weight, and no atmosphere to this. Ultimately a  lot of movies in the past decade suffer from this, where there is no atmospheric heart to help sell the movie and the world. It is just meh and you don’t care. The CG work on the Terminators has not improved since 1991. Thats right 24 years later and not only has it not improved – it got worse. The computer effects are just down right awful. Nothing is redeeming about them. Not a thing. There’s also not enough practical effects in the future scenes to make me buy it. Both Terminator and Terminator 2 had just the right amount of practical to let me believe there was an HK rolling into position to kill Kyle. That a flying HK was moving overhead chasing our heroes was there. The only technical effect that works is the de-aged Arnie for the 1984 T-800. I liked it. I looked for flaws and nothing screamed at me, even as the reproduced the original shot from 1984.

TL;DR?

I want to hate this film. I really want to hate it. I can’t. I almost feel like I owe them an apology for lambasting them so badly before the film. It isn’t great. It doesn’t redeem the franchise in any way shape or form, but it is better than the last two laughable attempts at a movie with the Terminator name attached. I did laugh and enjoy all the callbacks to the original two movies, there’s plenty of lines there that will bring out the nostalgia factor, which did make me look more favorably on it. It felt like they were at least trying – even if they failed. I did care about Sarah at least.

  • If you were curious – go in with low expectations. You will probably be entertained.
  • If you need MST3k bait, it’s there if you need it.
  • If you hate that it’s PG13 – you should. It doesn’t have any real power due to the MPAA.

I will say that the 3D is pointless and even the XD sound system was wasted without the original theme playing at epic levels of volume.

All in all – if you don’t want to see Jurassic World again this weekend and aren’t saving up for Ant-Man – go ahead. You probably will find yourself enjoying the nostalgia factor at least. It is at least fun.

 

The movie schedule for July is looking pretty good with such films as

  • Minions
  • Self/Less
  • Ant-Man
  • Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation

Pixels is also coming out, but I am debating this…will probably boycott to avoid giving Adam Sandler and his problematic productions money.