(1 / 5)

One of the worst movies last years was Hereditary, though it generated a lot of buzz and gathered quite a bit of critical acclaim it fell flat with this critic. To me, it was indulgence in the frankly unpleasant and awkward, not the scary, and meandered around until it gave up on the plot and simply ended, leaving nothing but ash in my mouth. But it was a success so writer-director Ari Aster is back and with probably even more creative freedom and budget.

When the movie opens, it is, actually, pretty good! We see a young woman named Dani, who is nervously scouring her e-mails, she’s conversing with someone who doesn’t sound right. She phones her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) that talking with his other friends about how he doesn’t want to deal with her anymore, but he still takes her calls and essentially gives support through autopilot. We learn that Dani is conversing with her sister who has been suffering from mental health issues and these specific words she’s been using make her nervous, she’s stopped e-mailing back. Dani calls the police and the go and investigate but its too late, her sister has killed her and their parents. This scene is unnerving, atmospheric, efficiently establishes much about the characters and their relationships and is genuinely scary. Then the rest of the movie happens.

We cut to six months later and Dani and Christian are still together, really because now would be a terrible time to break up with Dani being very fragile. It’s learned that Christian is planning on going abroad to Switzerland to visit their friend Pelle’s (Vilhelm Blomgren) home village and also write their thesis on the place and their culture. The other friends are Josh (William Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter). Out of comfort Christian invites Dani along but assures the boy’s shes not really coming, she comes!

But as soon as they arrive in the town the movie nosedives and it never stops, it just keeps going and when it hits rock bottom it just keeps going.

Florence Pugh made a name for herself with the Park Chan Wook mini-series Little Drummer Girl, then went on to impress further in the Wrestling movie Fighting with my Family. Here is a project where she really gets to demonstrate what a talent she is, she has to convey complete polar opposites of emotions to the extreme and a whole bunch of other shades in between.

I’ll give credit where credit is due this one starts on solid ground and that is used to push the characters and the narrative further going into the movie, but once we get to the place it all starts to unravel. You don’t know where the plot is going and you really start to not care as it goes on and on because it has all just become a series of weirdness and unpleasantness and indulgence. When the movie finally ended I was exhausted and one of the last images they present us with is something I suspect that the filmmakers believed was scary but was frankly hilarious, I would have been laughing except I was just too damn tired of being here.

One of the great crimes of the movie is its cinematography and the unique accomplishment of the color correction. These are meticulously composed shots, with imagery that sticks in your mind, this will probably go on to be a very iconic movie. Color grading is a process where they take the raw footage and it is processed so that it either looks more saturated, less saturated, deeper blacks, etc. What they’ve done here is make the image look like an old pastel painting. It has this grainy, flat, but also vivid look to it that I haven’t seen in a movie ever. Such effort and panache, wasted on this dismal project.

I have never hated the experience but been so in awe over the craftmanship in a movie. The sounds, the images, the performances, but it all goes to waste on an experience that I think means something but looses its meaning in its own indulgence and style. I guess this is better than Hereditary but also weaker. Just another journey of draining and unpleasantness.

(1 / 5)

A while after seeing Man of Steel and making very clear my dislike for it one of my friends posed this question for me “Is it that this is a bad movie or just that this is a bad Superman movie?” Interesting question, could it be that I’d be easier on the movie if it wasn’t meant to represent my favorite character? Well it does have Supermans name in it and the filmmakers knew that, so either way no point dwelling too much on that. But now here is Brightburn which is clearly taking the concept of the Superman origin story but pushing it through a horror filter.

Taking the concept but not having it directly be the exact thing gives the creatives the freedom to twist, reinvent and add any kind of layer over it they wish. Creatively I’m sure that’s a great luxury and could absolutely lend itself to some good stuff. But lets stay focused, we see a kindly young couple of the Breyer’s, Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman), they have a farm and are very much in love and want to start a family, it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for them, until one night they hear a loud crash outside and go to investigate, it leads them to the smoking crater, then cuts to years later and they are now parents of a young boy (any of this sounding familiar?).

The
boy’s name is Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn), he’s a shy kid, that likes to
draw and gets bullied at school. He’s not what you would call the most
sociable, but seems gentle and nice, except for one night when he seems
compelled to go into the barn and something underneath is calling him.
He also realizes that he has super strength, invulnerability, can fly
and laser eyes (know of anyone else with those powers?). Underneath the
barn is the pod that he arrived in years ago and it seems to send a
message into his head. From here on he knits himself a red mask that resembles a gas-mask, dawns a red cape embraces the use of his super abilities.

From
here on it is a series of him talking down each person that annoys him
in extremely brutal and quite frankly fetishized ways. Not just due to
the fact that the murderer has superpowers but that they dwell on all
the gory elements we are just left to watch a series of brutal murders
with the aid of superpowers

Everyone here is a very
good actor, they sell the moments of leisurely downtime and humor and
excel when they need to be scared. When Brandon toys with them like a
cat with a mouse they are so worried about their lives and it shows.
I’ve said it before but in an action movie you can have someone face
down an insane threat and look cool as a cucumber doing it, but in a
horror movie we need to feel the fear and one way you do that is to cleary show that the characters themselves are afraid.

There
is the old saying “All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely” but I prefer how Robert Caro put it “What I believe is
always true about power is that it always reveals. When you have enough
power to do what you always wanted to do, then you see what the guy
always wanted to do.” But maybe this is adding too much, the point is
that this movie doesn’t really have any of this in mind, is it that
Brandon was always a psychopath? Did the message from his ship rewire
his brain to make him perform these horrendous acts? I’m not sure and
I’m also sure neither are the filmmakers. I just feel like they wanted
to take the concept of a character that embodies optimism and hope and
put their own, mean spirited bleak icing over it.

Ultimately this is a movie without a soul and means nothing. Is about a kid who just seems to be a bad seed and because he is of a species that has superpowers can inflict his sadistic tendencies upon helpless humans, or a case of a bad seed, or the corrupting ability of power? It says nothing about why someone would be like this, about the corrupting element of power or the redemptive or limits of parental love. It wants to take a concept about pure goodness and put it own, cynical, malicious spin on it and I have, frankly, no patience or appetite for it.

(5 / 5)

From its setup and concept, Booksmart could easily be just another teen movie where shenanigans ensue and jokes are sprinkled throughout and it’s either pretty funny or a dud. But through a tightly written script, actors that have great timing and nuance and a director that knows what they’re doing and brings a few bold choices to the table it is not only very funny but one of the best movies of this year!

Opening the movie is a girl sitting in her room, in a meditating pose and listening to a motivating track, the voice tells her to believe in herself, tackle all problems in the way of her goals and to all the people that look down on her “Fuck those fucking fuckers!” we also see that her room is decorated with an assortment of ribbons, medals, and inspirational women, this is Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and this tells us almost everything we need to know about her character. Pulling up outside her best friend Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), the two greet and break into dance over a track on the radio and they tell each other that they’ve missed one another even though they saw each other yesterday. This tells us everything we need to know about their friendship.

When
they get to school it is established that it’s the last day of the
school year, they are about to graduate to college, and both girls are
very invested in extra curricular activities. The other students are
more interested in the big party that will be happening tonight as they
have for most of the year. during an encounter in the bathroom where
Molly flaunts her getting into Yale to the popular girl (Molly Gordon)
where she learns that she will also be going to Yale and the other
students that she’s looked down on are all going on to good schools.

So
it is the night before graduation, Molly is shook with the realization
that they didn’t have to make a choice between school and having a
social life that she dedicates herself to the idea that her and Amy will
be attending the big party and have fun, experience and memories before
entering college.

So this is a pretty standard setup
for a teen comedy. We have youths, we have a party that lends itself to
the very likely possibility of something crazy happening as well as
characters that want something crazy to happen. Indeed crazy things do
happen and their journey to the big party is anything but smooth, but it
is the fact that all the jokes themselves are funny and not predictable
that make this familure road seem refreshing.

When it
comes to crime movies, or mysteries, or action movies it’s a simpler
thing to make the story tight. Every character and element must serve a
function, like the old phrase “Never introduce a gun in Act 1 if you’re
not going to fire it by Act 3.” However comedy is actually a completely
different beast, it is allowed to throw in all kinds of meaningless
bells and whistles for the sake of it, there can be a moment or a
character that comes in briefly and never makes a return and as long as
we laugh I doubt anyone would really cry fowl about it. This, however,
is both tightly woven and very funny, the characters hobbies, their wild
actions, things that are said in passing come back and pay-off later
down the road and they are all funny. This has set a dangerously high
bar for comedy with not excess fat.

Filling the
directing chair is Olivia Wilde. An accomplished actor in her own right
now she helms her own project. Usually, when actors take up duties on
the other side of the camera their focus goes to the actors and their
performances. She definitely spends time with her actors, honing their
performances but she has brought a keen visual flair to this project.
She has experience shooting music videoes which was most likely the
biggest help. Many of the jokes play out for their visuals, there are
strong, bold lighting choices and there are a few times when she lets
the story play out in a purely visual way. It also comes with one of the
most unique and memorable drug trip-out scene you’ll see in a movie for
a while.

There’s a great use of music in the movie.
Much of the songs are “Gangsta Rap” which is about seeming bigtime and
bragging about all your accomplishments and worldly possetions. Whenver
the girls are in their true element it kick in but they are not doping
the actthat would most likely be associated with the music e.g. going
into a library to study. It is the knowing disconnect but filmming it
like its legitimate that makes it funny. The score adds the the
over-the-top overblown ego of these characters and situations. Later on
in the movie there is a more tender score to even out the bombosity.

All
these laughs and shock and colors are fun and everything but unless it
all means something then the movie would just be like sugar, enoyable
while your having it but the sensation quickly fades away. Underneath
all the swearing, crazy acts and punchlines is a story about two best
friends whos lives are about to change forever and just because your
outside of the normal in your school life that doesnt make you better.
There’s a tender, vry honest heart beating at the center of this movie
and that’s what will stick with you after you see it and keep you coming
back.

From it’s vivid characters that represent some form of insecurity/stereotype, to it’s basic setup that becomes on epic quest, to generous visual flourishes and a rock solid script for all this to be built upon, Booksmart is one of this years and a few other years best comedies.

(3 / 5)

Well, this is an interesting franchise that’s been started. Godzilla from 2014 was a very bad movie, however Kong: Skull Island was a cinematic highlight for me, so now we have the sequel to Godzilla that will lead to the two iconic monsters clashing. It does away with Gareth Edwards and brings in Michael Dougherty, how does all this fair?

Our
entrance into this movie is a young girl named Maddison (Millie Bobby
Brown), whose mother Emma (Vera Farmiga) is a scientist that is studying
an enormous larva, suddenly renegade soldiers burst into their facility
to awaken or steal the larva, it hatches and Maddison and Emma are
taken. Cutting then to Maddison’s father Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler)
who’s also a scientist (that’s convenient!) is brought in by Monarch,
the high-tech organization that specializes in dealing with these giant
monsters or kaiju.

Of course, it isn’t long before the
main player shows up, Godzilla himself. When you are dealing with one of
the most iconic pop culture figures, a cultural landmark and who is
essentially a force of nature within your movie you’d better do them
justice. He isn’t redesigned from the 2014 version though he has
apparently grown a few extra feet making him a nice even four hundred
feet high. He has a simple silhouette that makes him instantly
distinguishable and when we get close we can see loads of little details
that I’m sure the C.G.I. team
worked very hard on. He is mostly filmed from low angles and moves very
slow adding gravity to him. This is an honorable and appropriate
presentation of him.

Along with Godzilla, we are also
treated with a few other classic monsters from the lore. We have Mothra
who is (as the name would imply) a large moth-like creature who’s always
been humanity’s defender, Rodan a giant pterodactyl essentially, and
finally, there is Ghidorah Godzillas most popular and staple
arch-nemesis, a dragon with three heads and able to breathe lightning.

The
focus of this movie is in the right place. We are here for the
monsters, they are what are on the poster and who the movie is named
after. Really we need the humans to inject some, well humanity and to
string along the fights and their actions, maybe even give the good ones
a helping hand or a point in the right direction. focus on the
monsters, with humans along for the ride.

There are
some choices that are made, which I always fail to understand that for
you to take a movies subject matter seriously, you need to have
predominantly dark colors with a bleaker image throughout. I do
understand that an element of Kaiju movies are about dealing with a
natural disaster but even then you have a giant lizard that shoots out
fire, it is only so serious you can take that before the filmmakers look
like the silly one for trying to convince us this is serious. This
movie much more earnestly embraces it’s fantastical and overblown
concept and gives us vivid colors for each of the main kaiju, Godzilla
is blue, Ghidora is yellow and Rhodan is red. This works to make the
image onscreen vibrant but also when the monsters clash so do the colors
and so you can much more easily register who is who.

Again
in the last movie they adopted a documentary feel to the camera work,
this isn’t a found footage movie so why they decided to frame these two
giant monsters biting and clawing each other in such a low-grade way
still strikes me as a poor choice. This movie goes in the opposite
direction again, deciding to be very Hollywood with their depictions,
they frame the monsters with epic majesty. Low angles and well-composed.

If
you are to see this movie see it on the big screen. Every movie should
be seen on the big screen, there isn’t a movie that benefits from a
smaller screen less sharp and reduced sound, but this is a special case.
This movie is about big images and sounds, in order for you to absorb
the scale of these mighty creatures and hear all the music and sound
effects the movie theater is the place to see it. I would hope that’s
where you are seeing most of your movies but if not then do and if you
plan to see this one, make sure it’s on the biggest screen you can find.

Another
nice touch is that they use the classic monster theme’s from the
original series of movies. Now if you watched the movie and were
unfamiliar with the classic series then it wouldn’t mean anything to
you,  that’s ok. But fans always like to be rewarded and recognized in
some way and this is a way of doing it. Plus they are just good,
distinctive tracks so why not utilize them?

This is not
a deep movie. I can’t really tell you what this is about below its
surface. Plus there are plot elements that either don’t make any sense
or are just left dangling in the wind by the time the movies over. But
it is entertaining and it took every bad creative decision from the
previous movie, turned left and now we have a much more enjoyable,
easier to see movie.

So what we have is a movie that’s the third part of this cinematic franchise and doesn’t require you to see the previous two, these movies are generous with not being heavily continuity focused. It is a great improvement over Godzilla though it lacks the panache and memorabilia of Kong. Though in terms of paying respect and doing justice to these monsters it does indeed do its job. you won’t need to see the previous two movies in this franchise, nor any other Kaiju movie and it could indeed turn you into a fan.

(3 / 5)

Pokemon is a phenomenon. I am old enough to have been there and remember the beginning of the whole thing, originally starting at a count of one-hundred and fifty Pokemon and the show and video games continuing so they cooked up more Pokemon to interact with and sell the toys. Though I have to admit that I’ve grown out of it many people (a lot of my friends included) never did and is still a tenacious hobby. It’s a solid formula for a long-lasting franchise, a world that is inhabited by unique creatures that have also become the world’s obsession, they are used to perform battles that gain the trainer a reputation. It keeps them moving by going to different locations, has a clear goal, a target to focus and work towards and has the collectible angle with all those Pokemon.

But for a simple,
done-in-one narrative, is a little difficult, because this franchise
doesn’t lend itself to that form of storytelling very well. Oh, there
have been movies, I saw the first one in cinemas too. They just aren’t
what you would call complete or even focused narratives. You MUST be a
fan to watch and enjoy them because they give you no exposition.

Fun Fact: Pokemon translates to “Pocket Monster.”

Well,
now we have this movie. An original English speaking version of the
franchise. This has a bit of a challenge because it drops us into a
world where the Pokemon are well-established part of the world. When you
have a character and introduce them to a strange world you can have
helpful exposition that explains to the character and us the audience
what everything is and how it works, it is a much greater challenge to
convey the way the world works through the character going about their
lives (for examples of this see Blade Runner and Mad Mad: Fury Road).
But anyway Pokemon exist in this world and have for a long time, one
young man named Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) who is actually rather
uninterested in Pokemon and wants to focus on his future career as an
insurance salesman, he and his father Harry are estranged but one day he
gets a message that Harry is dead and must come to Rhyme City and sort
out his affairs.

When he gets there we are treated to a vibrant movie location. One like Blade Runner, or Rintaros Metropolis or Zootropolis.
Of high building, bright colorful advertisements and of course the
Pokemon that makeup just as much of the population as the humans. They
walk around with them and even play parts for its function. Like some
that must direct traffic and others are chefs. At night it becomes a
place of deep blacks, smoke where the streets and room are lit by
colorful neon lights. This did not need to be this good looking, but it
is!

Tim goes to his dad’s precinct and sees his dad’s
old partner and then goes to his dad’s apartment. There he looks over
the rooms and the bed he made for Tim for when he’d visit but never did
when he hears movement in the other room. In there he finds a Pikachu,
the most iconic and recognizable of all Pokemon but not only this, he
can understand the Pokemon and vice-versa. All other Pokemon usually can
only say one word, whatever species (or is it breed?) they are, that’s
important to know if you didn’t already.

The most
grating part of the movie is Pikachu and all the lines he has. Ryan
Renolds and his success clearly gave him carte blanche to say all the
lines he could think of behind the microphone and the filmmakers put as
many of them in as they could in the hopes the audience would eat ’em
up. To be fair some are funny, but many of them aren’t and are just him
throwing whatever improvised lines he came up with on the day of
recording, in one scene when they enter a character’s room and they
start speaking to them Pikachu literally says the basics of what the
character is speaking. This doesn’t need to be here, but it is and most
of the lines are a drag in the narrative.

This is a
live action movie and so the Pokemon are inserted through C.G.I. Because
of this, they need to be more realistically rendered. This is the right
decision but also a challenge. The Pokemon have a wide range of designs
but they have never overelaborated on them, they can easily be identified by their silohette
and color combination. So from a design perspective they are solid but
in bringing them into the real world more that poses a challenge.
Luckily they abide by the mentality of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
they take the original character designs and stay true to them and just
give them added textures like fur and skin so you buy them in the real
sets they have.

Back to it. Tim and Pikachu are both
very surprised that they can understand each other but after the initial
shock wears off we learn that Pikachu has lost his memories and
believes that Tim’s father’s death was no accident. So we have a
mystery, a location and an odd-couple duo of boy and Pokemon to lead us
through many different avenues of this city where one clue leads them to
another location and suspect which takes them to another clue and so on
and so on. As a mystery movie, this is a rather solid script, most
things play a function and nothing is cheaply thrown in, but well
established beforehand.

However when the movie was all done with and even while it was playing out it never really elevated with me. It was just another Noir mystery movie that looked good and was populated with Pokemon. It isn’t particularly mean spirited or shallow but it basically says that you should be a part of this hobby because if you’re not then you are unfulfilled. Which I suppose was, of course, it’s the main goal, this movie wasn’t made to get people to stop playing Pokemon. But it is, from its visuals, to script a solid movie.

(3 / 5)

This is a movie that is competent on the mechanics of it’s genre but lacking in originality. Though a substandard script can be elevated through true effort in the other elements.

The Curse of La Llorona is about a ghost from long ago that was scorned and now torments the living by praying upon families. Her latest victim is the Garcia family. Anna is a single mother who’s also a social worker, when she checks in on one of her clients that has locked her two boys in a closets and violently attacks her when she inquires whats inside she is taken away. All this seems like the perfectly sane thing to do but this is a horror movie so not all is as it seems, the boys are killed and Anna has inadvertently caught the attention of La Llorona, so begins the proses of denying, researching, surviving and then exercising the ghost, or they all die, it’s gotta be one or the other.

Everyone here is a fine actor but the biggest one is Linda Cardenelli as Anna. She has to do a lot in this movie and she does them all very well. But one thing she excels at is being scared and brave at the same time. There is one moment early on where La Llorona pays her and her family a visit and she is terrified that this spectre has suddenly appeared, she grabs a baseball bat and warns the spirit away, she is clearly terrified but also ready to defend her home and her family. These are two heavy emotions that are difficult to convey effectively by themselves and to balance the two of them at the same time deserves great praise. Which has been paid.

La Llorona herself is a suitable monster movie. She wears a white wedding dress which the production designers have kept in-mind so she pops within her surroundings and gives a distinguishable silhouette. She also comes with grey, veiny skin that is revealed in close-ups that adds a disturbing element.

I have to admit that I wasn’t scared during this movie. It got my heart pumping a few times but that’s just because something really loud suddenly happens when there was a long stretch of quiet. That isn’t scary, if someone sounded a horn while you were quietly reading a book would that be scary? No, it would just be something unexpected. These jump scare tactics and they only really work for one viewing. When you see it again you know when the thing will go “Boo!” and you’re not really engaged and just seeing the events unfold.

Though to be fair, like slapstick there is an art to jump scares, they both require understanding and delivery of setup, passing and delivery. Someone is going about an activity, the camera follows them and also conveys something else within their environment that will be important later on, a sound or movements thats a little out of the ordinary gets the characters attention, they observe or investigate and when they are reaching or walking towards it there are a good few moments of silence, at this point the thing will either go “Boo!” now or it will be fine, defusing the situation only to have the thing go “Boo!” from behind them.

Whenever you make a story about something supernatural the story isn’t really or shouldn’t be about the supernatural element. The supernatural serves as a metaphor for the deeper human fear. This one is about the fear of harm being done to your children and your house being broken into.

Throughout this movie you buy that the characters are scared. This is the right decision, if we are to be along for the ride with these characters then they need to feel things and we see them and empathise with them engage with that. If theres is some kind of a threat and the characters don’t take it seriously, be it a monster or some kind of disaster then we as an audience won’t.

This is a horror movie that isn’t really scary but it does know it’s craft, has a heart and has a truly endearing performance in Linda Cardenelli. It’s good for one watch but sometimes a good enough first watch is enough to be satisfied and get your moneys worth.

(4 / 5)

There are some movies that have a killer pitch, ones where at the end they completely pull the rug from under the audiences’ feet and are built on that (for example Psycho). Others, where it changes the perspective of the narrative, like from the villains perspective or a side character. And then, there are others still that have a fairly standard script by all accounts and through solid directing and acting are able to be a little more.

Greta is a movie about a young girl named Frances McCullen in New York that, out of the kindness of her own heart, returns a handbag to its owner, an elderly woman named Greta. Through this, we learn a few things about the other and see the beginning of a friendship that benefits each member and helps themselves. There’s already a nice contrast by the two of them being very different ages. This could be a perfectly effective comedy or drama if it were not for one night when Frances is having dinner at Greta’s place and discovers a drawer full of identical handbags. From there she quickly gets out as fast and calmly as she can but this is not the end. This is where the real movie begins.

There are some subtle hints as to the deeper nature going on within the rest of the narrative and some lines of dialogue that when they are further investigated throughout the movie are revealed to be some sinister stuff. Though to be honest (maybe because I saw the trailer), I knew most of the things that were going to happen, if you walked into this movie completely unknowing at the start then you might be fooled and the shift will be a true surprise for you. But you don’t judge a painting or a photograph of their content, you judge it on how they are framed and the techniques that went into them.

Chloe Grace
Moretz as Frances does a truly solid job. She needs to sell herself as
this simple, girl who only means well as well as having her own
emotional baggage. But it is in the sequences of panic and fear that she
excels, when she is meant to be it is vividly painted on her face
crystal clear.

Like Kathy Bates in Misery Isabelle Huppert’s performance as Greta will be the main talking point of this movie and is indeed it’s greatest feat. She is able to shift from one mood to the other, sometimes so very fast and suddenly that it is very scary, and those sudden shifts put you on edge because you know that she can turn within an instant.

Why is it that when someone does something nice in a horror movie they always get punished? I understand it when the bullies and horrible people in these movies get eaten by the monster or get dealt terrible fates but there are those times when a nice person does a selfless thing and that buys them a ticket into a crazy world of pain. I doubt there’ll be any Samaritans emerging from seeing this movie.

Director Neil Jordan
has built his career on making niche pieces of work. Like A Company of
Wolves and Interview with A Vampire. Very unique premises for movies and
dipping their toe a little in the horror genre as well as plenty of
serving of the surreal. This is one of his more grounded works, nothing
fantastical or supernatural going on, but he is able to crystal clearly
frame and passes a scene. And sometimes that’s all you need.

Horror is like any genre really, your needs to press the right button within you. Comedy needs to make you laugh, action is supposed to get the blood pumping, drama to engage you with the characters’ trials and tribulations. Horror is meant to scare you, but all of them are also meant to move you as well, that is what separates the masterful from the mundane. Just having something shocking or unpleasant may be enough for a first showing but not so much after that. I quote Guillermo Del Toro on what he said about horror “Inside every horror movie I love, there is a poem.” I believe that means there needs to be something true within the work, these are two people that find themselves alone in a city and are looking for a connection, but one takes that longing and turns it ugly. But having that solid truth at its centre helps of focus and stabilise the movie as a whole.

This is a meat and
potatoes horror movie that is minimal with its production but expert in
execution. Its deep truth carries over to the acting, passing, sound and
end result. A great movie, probably not, but something that is more
than a simple scream.R

(4 / 5)

Closing my review for Avengers: Age of Ultron I wrote: “Superhero movies have never been better, this movie now shows that they’ve also never been bigger.” That was back in 2015 which seems so long ago and I, nor do I think anyone (except perhaps Kevin Feige) could have predicted the mass scale that would make that movie seem humble by comparison. Through everything that it accomplishes and also fails to do one thing is irrefutable, Avengers: Endgame is one of the biggest endeavors as well as the hugest movie ever executed.

To properly set the stage I must now spoil the events of Infinity War.
You have been warned (though why would you be seeing this movie if you
aren’t up to date or have at least seen Infinity War?). The events of
the last movie had the big bad villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) go on a
quest throughout the galaxy to acquire six Infinity Stones, when he had
gathered all of them within his gauntlet he could fulfill his ambitions
of erasing half the population of the universe with a snap of his
fingers. He gathered them all, and he did wipe out half the universe,
reducing them to dust in the wind. Now here we are, our heroes utterly
defeated and the villain completed his goal. This was essentially the
Empire Strikes Back of the story, almost a cliche to say but it holds
true. The last movie was were the bad guys were unrelenting and for the
battle, they won. But the war is not over and so we are here, where the
forces of good regather themselves, the bad guys have established
themselves as a threat, our heroes have a tough fight to regain victory.

As
I did last time I feel I have to go through the list of all the
characters we have. Others will appear later in the movie so for now,
let’s just deal with the ones we get within the first thirty minutes.
Iron-Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris
Hemsworth), Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett
Johansson), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Rocket
(Bradley Cooper), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), War Machine (Don Cheadle) and the
latest member Captain Marvel
(Brie Larson). There are other that come into the movie later and some
that make a brief appearance but for the main plot of the movie, this is
who we have.

For the rest of the plot going forward I
will forego a detailed description, a lot of this movies appeal on the
initial watch is the shock of what is revealed and how the characters go
forth. But after the first act out heroes are in disarray and they
eventually come up with a plan, the path this takes them down allows
them to proceed with their goals while also reflect on what has come
before as well as invites the audience to do so. This struck me more as
pandering slightly, it came off more as overtly winking at the audience
rather than letting the plot unfold in any kind of natural way.

Surprisingly, the weakest element of the movie is its comedy. MARVEL has done such a good job with their comedic elements in other movies before, from Guardians of the Galaxy, to Ant-Man and others where they are either comedically focused or insert comedy within the dialogue and narrative we’ve gotten some great laughs out of these movies. Even in ones as serious and dark as Civil War and Infinity War they were still able to skillfully insert a pun to pepper the mood with some banter and levity. But here, after these heroes have been dealt such a devastating blow, and for the start, it plays it very bleak comes as too much of a contrast.

What I was worried
about going into this movie was the annulment of stakes. The whole
universe was dealt a devastating blow previous and now they obviously
seek to undo it, which makes sense because they are heroes, but
narratively it means that there is no stakes and everythings hunky dory
again. Such a thing would render all emotional we felt previously to
mean nothing. Well, again not spoiling anything, this movie still comes
with its stakes and gravity to its situation. There are still things on
the line and the heroes know that and are willing to make that decision
(that’s what makes them heroes).

As if Infinity War was impossible enough to appreciate without having seen the previous movies this one is especially so. There are so many characters and references being thrown at you that you will not be able to care without having seen their story leading up to this. You’ll be taken out of it and more be asking “Who’s that?” “What are they talking about?” “Ow I recognise them, never saw the movie though.”This is more like tuning into the series finale of a long-running television show rather than seeing a complete story begin and end on its own merits, but I guess that’s just where we are now, this is the state of things in this franchise inclined world we are currently living in. To be fair nearly all the characters on screen have had development in other movies so it’s not as if the work has been put in. It’s not like Ready Player One where they just show you a bunch of pop culture figures, smash them together and expect you to feel something for them.

These
movies have grown at an unprecedented scale in terms of having a
completely realized cinematic universe. The number of characters that
they have realized from their comic book source material and their
ability to overlap and make appearances in other movies creating a truly
realized environment should not happen. It should have crumbled before
it ever really got started. Yet here we are, nearing thirty movies and
over ten years and the number of characters has continued to expand and
the audience is not getting tired.

Writing this
screenplay is not a mammoth task, it is more like a freight shipping
mammoths. Taking on the duty is, once again, Christopher Markus and
Stephen McFeely. This pair has written all the Captain America movies
and Infinity War previously. They make tight screenplays that have
characters convey much about them with only a few lines of dialog. They
are also versatile enough to write for multiple tones, be they serious,
comedic, suspenseful and even tender.

The idea that
such a feat as this to even conceive, let alone pull off is a challenge,
to say the least, and being that it was made in the first place is a
triumph, that does not get done by lazy people. But the fact that it
stands so tall and so proud and though not without it’s shaky parts does
indeed serve as a testament to this writing and directing team.

Even
then, a movie doesn’t just get made with just it’s directors and
screenwriters, the crew and post-production team are essential in
getting the movie filmed and then creating the special effects rendered.
But I want to highlight the role of the Line Producer, a Line Producer
is responsible for calculating the budget of a feature and overseeing
the day to day progress of filming. According to IMDB, this movies was
Nicholas Simon, high praise because the organization and determination
required to get all these actors schedule to line up and makes sure
everything goes on track is a true feat.

While with
some of the other movies that I would name as my favorite, I would
acknowledge their flaws but with so much going on and the level of
confidence and skill in executing it bringing up the flaws would just be
pedantic. This movie, not so much. It has definite, obvious flaws and I
was aware of them while the movie was playing and they stare back at me
when I reflect on it. In comparison of this movie as a whole Infinity
War is the more focused and defined out of the two of them. This one is
more self-indulgent and could use some trimming, mostly with some of
their jokes. Infinity War opened with Thanos, followed him through it
and ended with him, it opened with one character and we delve into their
viewpoint and follow their struggles to attain their goals. This movie
starts out with a group of people and it’s essentially a story to avenge
(convenient being the name of their team), then there’s a padding of
some surreal humor, now the movies turned into a heist, and entering the
final act is a battle. This is much more mangled experience.

Though
it must be said that when the final thirty to forty minutes play out it
was some of the most pulse-pounding, audience-pleasing, and moving
moments I have had for the ten years I’ve been a loyal audience. I am
the one who has put in the time and effort and being paid off, I know
that means a lot of other people will be unable to enjoy it on the same
level but at this point it should be clear that you have to be a fan to
go to a movie with dozens of characters on the poster.

Could
any movie reach the scale of this movie again? True much of it is
computer generated imagery but that certainly requires a lot of work
too. Will there ever come a time when there is another cinematic
universe that takes over ten years to reach this crescendo? To be
popular enough to keep going for ten years? To amass a cast and audience
big enough for a story that goes to this many locations, and has such
variations of imagery? I don’t know, but I do know this movie works. It
went for everything, stumbled a bit but certainly stuck the landing.

As
was said, part of the story is the end. This movie is an end to many
things, but not these movies, and one of the most important parts of
life is taking the next step. The MARVEL world will certainly never be
the same again and the movie world now has a new standard for budget and
mass cast of characters.R

(3 / 5)

“Man from the big city that is a big shot ends up in a small town where he meets salt of the earth people and doesn’t really get them, he discovered potential to sign the local musical band, but they are not interested because they don’t do it for the money just for fun and love of the music, while he signs them he learns that there is more to life than being a big shot and comes round to their simple but purer ways. City people are shallow and terrible while the real people that are of true substance are in the countryside and have roots and history. This is the movie if you are interested in being surprised then turn around now and seek something else.”

Hmm, thats really it, but I guess I should elaborate more.

Fisherman’s Friends is one of those movies that does not get by on it’s
screenplay or technical feats, but through the acting and personality
of the characters. On these two things it does succeed but I feel there
are some major detracting factors that need to be talked about. 

Some London friends get together for one of their bachelor weekends, the main character Danny (Daniel Mays) is one of them. They go to Cornwall for a fun time, while there they spot a performance of the local band comprised of local fisherman and life guards. They sing a Sea Shanty, a type of work song that are very old and tell stories, not like todays music or what they play in the big city thats all electronic and not about anything.

The way that the people in the city are framed is like modern dressing, up to the minute talking business people that are obsessed with whatever is fashionable and are shallow, etc. etc. People that live and are successful in a city have to work very hard, it may not be the same kind of manual work in the country but it is work, true some come from privileged backgrounds so they have it easier but they are the minority and success is still not guaranteed.

The overall message of this movie seems to be that having roots in one place and legacy builds character, to that I say why not travel? Traveling gives you a sense of how big the world is and expand your mentality to other peoples way of life. Not this movie though, it seems to think that you are born in one place and you set up there for life and you and your descendants must do the same, keep that up for six generations and you’ll become a solid person. Granted it does break out of some of these ideals but it holds pretty true to it for most of the run time.

Almost every line in this is
predictable. Literally, within the first thirty minutes, I was able to
predict what was basically going to be said and sometimes word for word
what came out of the characters mouths.

But even with
all this said as the third act rolled around I must say that I found
that the people had started to grow on me. They do have their charm and
personality and along the way, they do get in a few jokes that are
winners while even a few tender emotional moments that do indeed strike
deep.

There are just about no surprises in this movie but some handsome cinematography, a few winning moments of humour and of course very good music and you have something that is worth a watch. I just wish they would have tried doing something new with the plot or at least thrown in some unconventional dialogue instead of the most conventional.R