Film Reviews - what have you seen lately, what did you think?

gingerlover

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Den of Thieves - A nice little heist movie. Gerald Butler runs a team of officers that specialize in taking down big criminals. They begin following a crew recently out of jail that are planning a big heist. They try to flip the youngest member and from there are trying to stop them from their master plan. Although a few twists and turns happen and you wonder who was ever really in charge. Not a bad movie to kill time with, but nothing profound. 6/10.

Thank You For Your Service - About vets coming home and dealing with PTSD. I have never served so I don't know how accurate this is. From the standpoint of someone who knows nothing about this subject firsthand I would give it a 5/10. Rating could change either way if I was more knowledgeable in this subject beyond knowing what one of my former employees went through.

The Happytime Murders - You know its going to be a sh*t show, but you still watch. The movie had its moments, but missed all of its chances to be better than it was. it's not the worst thing ever made, but nowhere near good. Like most comedies today it immediately relies on jokes about bodily fluid to get laughs for the most part. I miss the days when actors could sell a comedic moment with just a facial expression rather than trying to force it.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Just got back from Bohemian Rhapsody. Boring as Fock*. Two hour soap opera about a gay man who happened to be a singer.


*Bloody boring, darling.

 
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gingerlover

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Bad Times at the El Royale - While this has lots of star power in it, the movie is a bit of a mess. Jumps around all the characters as you try to figure out the mystery of the hotel and each character. Got confusing at times. Don't even really know how to rate this movie as it could come out differently after a second viewing. For now I give it a 5/10

Creed II - If you have seen the previews you know that Drago and his son come back to challenge him. Like the first movie it is a little slow at times as it focuses on the real life going on around him, and what family means. He jumps into the fight it at first carelessly with the first fight that ends controversy and needs help to find himself again. While good, it fell flat of the first Creed. The matches in them are good and you get the good old training montage, but I don't feel as connected to these as the Rocky films (we will ignore everything after 4). This one almost feels a little forced and seems like they took elements of Rocky II, III and IV and smashed them together with the story not feeling as original.

The Drago combination did well in their time with Dolph playing a good role as the washed up outcast desperate to get his good name back while his son has been trained for years as his way to do that, but the two of them grow together by the time the movie is over. Michael B Jordan does his usual good work. His characters don't seem to change much, but he has what he does down. The interactions he has with his lady and family are very well done. As for Rocky he picks up where he left off in the first one. Happy to be helping him out, but still full of regrets in his life and dealing with his being a crappy father at times. In the end it appears he has made amends and is ready to take a step back from everything. Still a good movie, but not as good as the first one. 6/10.

Johnny English Strikes Again - There is nothing award winning about this series, but I find Rowan Atkinson to be hilarious. James Bond spoof that gets a little to corny at times, but has enough moments that make you laugh. He is called out of retirement to stop a hacker exposing agents and the hi-jinx being. 5/10
 

TheDouglas78

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Creed II - If you have seen the previews you know that Drago and his son come back to challenge him. Like the first movie it is a little slow at times as it focuses on the real life going on around him, and what family means. He jumps into the fight it at first carelessly with the first fight that ends controversy and needs help to find himself again. While good, it fell flat of the first Creed. The matches in them are good and you get the good old training montage, but I don't feel as connected to these as the Rocky films (we will ignore everything after 4). This one almost feels a little forced and seems like they took elements of Rocky II, III and IV and smashed them together with the story not feeling as original.

The Drago combination did well in their time with Dolph playing a good role as the washed up outcast desperate to get his good name back while his son has been trained for years as his way to do that, but the two of them grow together by the time the movie is over. Michael B Jordan does his usual good work. His characters don't seem to change much, but he has what he does down. The interactions he has with his lady and family are very well done. As for Rocky he picks up where he left off in the first one. Happy to be helping him out, but still full of regrets in his life and dealing with his being a crappy father at times. In the end it appears he has made amends and is ready to take a step back from everything. Still a good movie, but not as good as the first one. 6/10.

Rocky Balboa was a solid flick, now Rocky 5.. that is garbage.
 

Detroitgator

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They Shall Not Grow Old:

Posted this in the other thread, but putting here too...

OK, I went to see this Saturday afternoon while it was still in theaters...

I had a choice to see it "regular" or in 3D, and best showtime for me was 3D. I'm not really a fan of 3D movies because I hate the cheap glasses, but, I CANNOT IMAGINE SEEING THIS MOVIE IN 2D!!!! The 3D added CRAZY depth to the movie that made it even more disturbingly realistic. Here are some notes:
  1. It's not thrilling, but that wasn't the point. What Jackson did was take footage and weave a story from pre-war that kind of follows a story through the wars end and just after the war.
  2. It starts out with the stock old footage in black and white, then transitions into the color and all the CGI stuff they did, and it is CREEPILY realistic.
  3. It was so weird to see that I actually lifted my 3D glasses at 3 or 4 points during the movie because my mind thought if I lifted my glasses, my eyes would see the black and white original footage and I could go back and forth between original and remastered/colorized... how weird is that?
  4. While they talk about it a lot, film can just never, ever capture how dirty and filthy life in trenches was... nor the smell of rotting flesh.
  5. If you stay through the credits, there is a 30 minute presentation in the film of how they did the technical work.
It's not thrilling, just really interesting and one of those movies that even a 70" TV screen will not do justice.

Again, so real that I kept lifting my glasses thinking I'd see the black and white original footage so I could go back and forth and compare... would be kinda interesting to see them both on spit screen. Again, REALLY glad I saw this in 3D and that was not my original preference.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Damn it. I wanted to see Captain Marvel but now they're telling us it's not for white men. Guess I'll have to wait for Sas to review it.
 

gingerlover

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Time to update a few more.

Night School - Kevin Hart has to get his GED so he can get the nice job he needs and to impress his fiance. However it doesn't go easy for him as the Principal at the school is an old classmate that doesn't like him. Nothing to great about this movie. It has some funny moments, but feels like this is one he just cranked out for a paycheck. Only one really memorable comedic line in it. 4/10

The Old Man & The Gun - I was pumped for this one as it is based on a true story and has a great cast led by Redford. He's an old bank robber that can't stop and escapes from prison all the time. It becomes a cat and mouse game between him and the cop chasing him (Casey Affleck), while he tries to decide if he can hang it up for good due to meeting a new woman. It has a little of everything in it, but I expected so much more. Can't put my finger on it, but felt like it was missing something. 6/10

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - This one gets much darker than some installments. Continues to explore Grindelwald and how he rose to power and his charm that lured others to follow him. Newt is sent by Dumbledore to try and stop him, but it isn't revealed until the end why Dunbledore can't do it himself. Has the same four main characters together and things go bad. People change sides and the past of people from the original series is revealed. My wife is a huge Harry Potter fan and liked the first one, but didn't like this one that much. I know it also didn't get the best reviews and has another 3 to go in the series. 6/10

Annihilation - Caught this on Prime. Scifi movie with Natalie Portman and a few other familiar faces. Basically her husband comes home from a secret military mission and is not well. She is a scientist and volunteers to go into this alien like zone with 4 others to see if they can unravel the mystery of what it is doing to our planet. Things get weird and they encounter many dangerous things. I heard a lot of great things about this movie and other than the mutated bear nothing was worth the time I spent watching it. 4/10
 

ThreatMatrix

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Captain Marvel crash and Burn?

The Rotten Tomatoes poll of “Do you want to see” dropped from the 90’s to 26%. It was such a disaster that Rotten Tomatoes, under studio pressure, removed the polling entirely from their site. That's is a story unto itself. In addition projected opening box office has been halved from the original high of $200M.

So what happened? Well Brie Larson happened. The wooden-faced unknown started doing interviews and fans were decidedly turned off. On a charisma scale of 1-10 she scores a 0. But that’s not the biggest problem. Brie has used her new found celebrity to preach Captain Marvel as an agenda film. She made comments that her previous film (no clue what it was) wasn’t for “white men”. Then she went on a rant that there were too many “white men” in her press corp, in effect suggesting they lose their jobs to diversify up the crew. So much for judging one by the contact of their character and not the color of their skin. It hasn’t helped a studio exec has doubled down on her comments and said that the film is not for “white men”. So while Brie is out pushing her feminist agenda it is also apparent that she has no personality.
Think about the charismatic actors that are part of Marvel and DCU: Robert Downey Jr. Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Josh Brolin, Chris Evans, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds… I could go on and on. All actors with atmospheric Q scores. Of course I can’t leave out Gal Gadot. Gal may be the most likeable human in the Universe. And I don’t mean the make believe universe, I mean the real universe. Brie is the polar opposite. It’s too bad, I really wanted to see this movie in theaters but I’ll be waiting until it’s no-pay per view.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Time to update a few more.

Annihilation - Caught this on Prime. Scifi movie with Natalie Portman and a few other familiar faces. Basically her husband comes home from a secret military mission and is not well. She is a scientist and volunteers to go into this alien like zone with 4 others to see if they can unravel the mystery of what it is doing to our planet. Things get weird and they encounter many dangerous things. I heard a lot of great things about this movie and other than the mutated bear nothing was worth the time I spent watching it. 4/10

I like any thing sc-fi so that automatically gets a 5/10 from me. The plot is different so I give it gets marks for that. I have to admit I did fall asleep half way through tho. Ignoring agenda pushing - all female cast and her (spoiler alert) affair with a black man - it's not terrible. It's free and a cure for insomnia. Joe Bob says check it out.
 

Gatordiddy

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The Rotten Tomatoes poll

How come, with the movie only four days away, that there are no critic ratings yet... none.
Kind of unusual for a film this "big"...right?
I know some movies don't have the RT critic ratings until the last minute or opening day, but a TON of films are screened by critics ahead of time. The ones that aren't usually are going to DVD fairly soon after arrival.
Not saying that's the case here, but I am wondering why no critic scores yet.
 

TLB

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How come, with the movie only four days away, that there are no critic ratings yet... none.
Kind of unusual for a film this "big"...right?
I know some movies don't have the RT critic ratings until the last minute or opening day, but a TON of films are screened by critics ahead of time. The ones that aren't usually are going to DVD fairly soon after arrival.
Not saying that's the case here, but I am wondering why no critic scores yet.


I think he answered it here:

The Rotten Tomatoes poll of “Do you want to see” dropped from the 90’s to 26%. It was such a disaster that Rotten Tomatoes, under studio pressure, removed the polling entirely from their site. That's is a story unto itself. In addition projected opening box office has been halved from the original high of $200M.
 

Swamp Queen

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How come, with the movie only four days away, that there are no critic ratings yet... none.
Kind of unusual for a film this "big"...right?
I know some movies don't have the RT critic ratings until the last minute or opening day, but a TON of films are screened by critics ahead of time. The ones that aren't usually are going to DVD fairly soon after arrival.
Not saying that's the case here, but I am wondering why no critic scores yet.
There was a review embargo, which is being lifted today. Here's an article if anyone cares to read it:

Why Captain Marvel’s Review Embargo Is Lifting So Late
 

Gatordiddy

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I think he answered it here:

The "Do you want to see" poll is from web site visitors - usually in the form of a green popcorn bucket...?

I was referring to the resident critics but I think SQ posted an article which might explain.

thanks
 

TLB

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Well, my thanks to you all. I wasted a good 2-3h of an all day meeting reading up on MCU stuff across that site.
 

Gator By Marriage

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Apollo 11 - Not sure if it's already been mentioned, but I went to see it last weekend in an IMAX theater. Amazing documentary using nothing but actual footage and commentary from the time. Wife and both teenagers really enjoyed it as well. Was really cool to see the footage of all the folks who turned out to watch the launch and greet Aldrich, Armstrong, and Collins, after their return. Truly a different time.
 

ThreatMatrix

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Speaking of Apollo 11 but off topic. We lived in Orlando in the 60’s. Got to see Apollo launches from my back yard.
My grandparents happened to fly in from NY for a launch. My grandfather got home and opened his suitcase and it wasn’t his. Turned out another passenger came to the same conclusion so we had to go back to exchange suitcases. The other passenger - Walter Cronkite.
 

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