Movie review rant 2018

Thor:Ragnarok

The third film in the Thor series is by far the best, visually amazing and with an absolutely cracking script as well. The film centres on Hela, Goddess Of Death, coming back to take control of Asgard in the wake of the (spoiler alert) death of Odin!
Who's Hela? Hela is Thor and Loki's older sister, who neither knew about as Odin had tried to distance himself away from once he became the peace loving protector of the nine realms, so obviously when he dies she comes back for the throne.
And let me say right now, Hela (played by Cate Blanchett) is bad ass, probably the best marvel villain since the introduction of Loki back in 2011. She destroys Thor's hammer and that's just for starters. But anyway, she's only a part of this cracking movie...
After the first encounter with Hela, Thor and Loki end up on Sakaar, a planet run by an absolute nutter called The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, brilliant!) who basically pits unwilling contestants against his champion fighter. The champion is Hulk (you've seen the trailer?) which is pretty handy because that's where this film becomes a buddy movie but with a twist, the twist being the buddies are super heroes (obviously). After this the film careers along at great speed and the comedy comes thick and fast whilst none of the jokes feel forced and the character of Valkyrie is introduced, along with the comic double act of Korg and Miek.
Anyway the main gang get back to Asgard where a huge battle against Hela and her army of the dead (and giant dog) ensues to Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin in typical Marvel-lous style. Obviously our heroes win but it comes at a price. And the post-credit scene sets up part of Infinity War, as is the way of these movies.

Now, as is apparent from my glowing review, I absolutely loved this movie. Obviously it's not perfect but the quibbles are minor and to complain would be churlish really. Highly recommended for everyone, even those not overly familiar with the characters. a solid 9 out of 10.

Addendum - A lot of the cast are of Kiwi origin so if Chlidonias watches it he may recognise more people than most of us! ;)
 
Brum said:
Thor:Ragnarok

The third film in the Thor series is by far the best, visually amazing and with an absolutely cracking script as well. The film centres on Hela, Goddess Of Death, coming back to take control of Asgard in the wake of the (spoiler alert) death of Odin!
Who's Hela? Hela is Thor and Loki's older sister, who neither knew about as Odin had tried to distance himself away from once he became the peace loving protector of the nine realms, so obviously when he dies she comes back for the throne.
And let me say right now, Hela (played by Cate Blanchett) is bad ass, probably the best marvel villain since the introduction of Loki back in 2011. She destroys Thor's hammer and that's just for starters. But anyway, she's only a part of this cracking movie...
After the first encounter with Hela, Thor and Loki end up on Sakaar, a planet run by an absolute nutter called The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, brilliant!) who basically pits unwilling contestants against his champion fighter. The champion is Hulk (you've seen the trailer?) which is pretty handy because that's where this film becomes a buddy movie but with a twist, the twist being the buddies are super heroes (obviously). After this the film careers along at great speed and the comedy comes thick and fast whilst none of the jokes feel forced and the character of Valkyrie is introduced, along with the comic double act of Korg and Miek.
Anyway the main gang get back to Asgard where a huge battle against Hela and her army of the dead (and giant dog) ensues to Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin in typical Marvel-lous style. Obviously our heroes win but it comes at a price. And the post-credit scene sets up part of Infinity War, as is the way of these movies.

Now, as is apparent from my glowing review, I absolutely loved this movie. Obviously it's not perfect but the quibbles are minor and to complain would be churlish really. Highly recommended for everyone, even those not overly familiar with the characters. a solid 9 out of 10.

Addendum - A lot of the cast are of Kiwi origin so if Chlidonias watches it he may recognise more people than most of us! ;)
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Got to agree that Thor Ragnarok is easily the best Thor movie. I wasn't a huge fan of the Asgard parts, but the Grandmaster and Sakaar as a whole is brilliant and Hela is much better than the average cookie-cutter Marvel villain.
 
tschandler71 said:
Just out of Black Panther. Weird thing I've noticed (with a Zoochat flair). Why are Rhino's specifically so hard to CGI? Disney did such a good job with the Jungle Book but the One Horned Rhino were the worst looking animals in it as well. Makes me worry for the Lion King.
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I thought the rhinos in Jungle Book looked great, but I definitely agree that they generally seem had to CGI. Black Panther's in particular looked so odd to me and I couldn't get past the fact that that's not how rhinos run... until I Googled it and realized that is how white rhinos run and it looked almost as unnatural to me in real life :p

~Thylo
 
I thought Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle looked pretty good. I agree that the Jungle Book has great CGI'd Rhinos.

I really hope no one writes a review of the Black Panther as I haven't seen it yet:p
 
I watched a couple of new movies yesterday. And by "new" I don't really mean new. Well, one was new(ish), the other was not.

Van Diemen's Land is from 2009 and is about the escape of eight convicts from the Sarah Island prison on Tasmania in 1822. The movie is based on the true story of Alexander Pearce, the only survivor of the escape. The reason he was the only survivor is that he basically killed and ate most of the others. The movie itself is incredibly bleak. The cinematography is marvellous - it made me want to go back to Tasmania - but there's really not much to the plot. They escape, and then walk and walk and walk and walk and walk, interspersed with butchering and eating one another. That's about it. It's kind of like what my trip to Tasmania was like, except with more cannibalism.

Gun Shy from 2017 was my next movie. It stars Antonio Banderas and Olga Kurylenko. I like Banderas, and I very much like Kurylenko. The poster and title make the movie seem like his old Mexican-westerns, but it isn't. At all. Not even a little bit. It is actually a comedy, where Banderas plays a washed-up rock star, Kurylenko is his ex-super-model wife, and during a holiday in Chile she is kidnapped by wannabe pirates. The movie made me want to go to Chile... erm, I think I just like travelling. And Olga Kurylenko. If only there was a way I could combine those two things. While technically the movie is a comedy, there's not much to laugh at really. It's more the sort of movie which you can sit through when you've got nothing better to do. There were a few amusing bits, but mostly it didn't seem to know what it was doing as a movie. I watched the trailer a few minutes ago and somehow it makes the movie look like it would be even more listless than it really is, which is quite some feat. Not Antonio's best work I'm afraid.
 
TheMightyOrca said:
I noticed that The Good Dinosaur has made it to RedBox, so I rented and watched it. The trailers did not appeal to me at all but I intended on seeing it eventually just so I can say I've seen every Pixar film. My thoughts? A better title would be The Mediocre Dinosaur. It's not a horrible movie, but it's not very good either. (though certainly much better than Cars 2, seriously, that movie was just awful)

The plot: in a world where dinosaurs (and other reptiles of the time) never went extinct, they live side by side with modern animals, including humans. The dinosaurs are sentient and have developed agriculture complex enough that they've domesticated corn. Arlo is a young apatosaur living on a farm with his parents and two siblings. He's very fearful and not good at much, he feels like a disappointment to his parents (though they do believe he'll make his mark someday) and really wants to find a way to make them proud. Soon after his father dies, Arlo has an accident and falls in the river near their farm. When he wakes up washed on shore, he's a long way from home. He makes friends with a feral human child (incapable of speaking) and names him Spot. Together they fight the elements, and other dangers, to get back to Arlo's home.

The most immediate issue, as you can see in the previews, is the character design. Years ago when I heard Pixar was making a dinosaur movie, I was pumped. Scientific depictions have changed a lot in the past few decades, and people now acknowledge that dinosaurs probably looked a lot crazier than we can ever imagine. Throw the animation geniuses at Pixar into that and we'd get some awesome stuff, right? Wrong. The designs are horribly generic, the same stuff we've been seeing for a long time. Another issue is that the backgrounds are realistic, but the character designs are very cartoony, the contrast is jarring and distracting. Another issue I have with the whole dinosaur thing is that they just don't really do anything with it. The dinosaurs (and pterosaurs) could be replaced with modern animals and it wouldn't change things at all. If dinosaurs are your selling point, they should matter a bit more.

The story and characters, two areas Pixar is usually strong in, fall flat as well in The Good Dinosaur. The storytelling overly simplistic, there really isn't much to it. There's nothing wrong with a simple story, but this movie doesn't really have enough content to make it work. The story type has also been done a million times before and they don't really do anything different enough to make it stand out. Most of the film follows Arlo and Spot. Arlo is fine as a character, but Spot's character can be described as "dog". He may be a non-verbal animal but if he's going to be a major character, he should be given more personality than that. Feels more like he should've been the comic relief sidekick pet in a film with a larger main cast rather than the x in the "a boy and his x" story.

I'm gonna make a few comparisons to Finding Nemo, since both movies share some major themes. They're both about a fearful animal that becomes separated from its family, and to reunite it must travel a dangerous landscape. (or in Marlin's case, seascape) While they get into a lot of danger, they also have cool experiences and meet cool and interesting people (well, animals) and learning not to let fear get in the way of experiencing life.

Finding Nemo did a lot of things right that TGD just didn't do well. For starters, the setting was much more interesting and varied. Marlin and Dory come across lots of different dangerous situations, and we see different environments. They get chased by a shark that tries to abstain from eating fish, they get help from a school of fish that loves impressions, they navigate through a huge group of jellyfish, meet some totally chill sea turtles, get swallowed by a whale, a pelican takes them through a chase scene with seagulls. None of these scenes feel pointless and the new characters we meet are developed and enjoyable despite only having a small amount of screen time. We see coral reefs, open sea, a sunken warship/submarine, and more. Background and side characters consist of a huge variety of marine animals. TGD is mostly just one environment without much variety. Granted, FN goes over a longer distance (I think...) while TGD tries to go for an old west feel, but with the premise they set up they could've done more even with a smaller setting. Arlo and Spot run into only a few characters, they are interesting but we don't spend a lot of time with them. The focus of the film is on Arlo and Spot, but as I mentioned, their relationship isn't interesting enough to carry a lot of scenes on its own.

The movie isn't unwatchable or anything, but it definitely lacks polish and doesn't have a whole lot going for it. It's so generic, it doesn't do anything new or interesting. The movie has been in development hell for a long time and it kind of feels like they rushed it out to get it over with. (granted, I understand how difficult it is to get a good movie out of something with a lot of production troubles) Unless you're a big Pixar/Disney fan, there's no reason to go out of your way to watch it.

On the plus side, a personal note... Growing up, I watched (against my will) Finding Nemo so many times that I got sick of it. I know it's a good movie, but it's hard for me to enjoy because of that. After seeing TGD, I have a better understanding of how good FN really is. And now I enjoy it a lot more, dare I say, I think I finally enjoy it the way it deserves to be enjoyed. I'm so happy right now, you don't even know.
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This is a great review, if I could give your first paragraph alone more than one 'like', I would as it truly sums up this movie. I watched it this week for the first time and also thought the title, the mediocre or even the adequate dinosaur would have been a more accurate title.

I didn't like the father Apatosaurus at all. Any kind of father would have allowed the kids to all put their 'mark' on the tower, along with him and the mother, rather than creating this stupid mindset of 'earning your stripes.' Maybe this is the millennial in me talking and anyone older would strongly disagree with me here. I just don't think the situation of Arlo not being able to make his mark, while everyone else in the family was allowed to would have been good for his already lacking self esteem. Personally I would have LOVED it if Arlo said, "Yeah, well maybe I don't give a $#&@ about making my mark!" or even going so far to sabotage the tower during the small hours of the morning. But of course this is a Pixar movie.

I also think the father shows terrible parenting by forcing Arlo to face his fears. Any parent could clearly see he was pushing that kid beyond his limits. It was also foolish to risk their lives to do this (for no real reason) and indeed the father paid with his.

A lot of people I know agree with you that the relationship between Arlo and Spot falls flat because Spot can't talk, but this is probably the one thing that didn't bother me. How many of us would love to teach Donkey in 'Shrek' or Dory in 'Finding Nemo' the gift of silence?

I also think the length of time the supporting characters were given was time enough so to speak. Any longer and they would have become irritating (especially that melancholy styracosaurus)!

I also disliked the plot line of a character getting lost and having to find their way home. Pixar/Disney have done this to death.

The film's ending was abrupt and left a lot of questions unanswered. I thought on his journey, Arlo would discover an efficient alternative to the back-breaking labor of ploughing fields, planting crops etc. No wonder these guys went extinct.

How was it that when they had a fully functioning family, they were in doubt of whether they could make the harvest, yet in the absence of the father and youngest son, and with the mother looking ready to keel over, this was apparently possible?

Why didn't Spot and his new family live on the farm with Arlo and his family? They all could have benefited from this co-existence by combining skills etc.

Things I did like:

There's usually a thing in kid's movies where the main character is inferior to his siblings/peers (e.g. Happy Feet who was the last egg to hatch). Instead of the predictable two large eggs and one little egg (Arlo), they reversed this and made Arlo's egg twice the size, giving the impression he would be larger than the others. It didn't make a lick of sense, but I liked it all the same.

The use of a styracosaurus: like the barnyard doesn't end with sheep and cows, the prehistoric world need not end with the T-rex and triceratops so it was nice to see this dinosaur used (even if I didn't like his character). I initially though the t-rexes were carnotaurus (and was really impressed), but I've since learnt they were generic t-rex.

I like the visuals of the glowing fireflies in the field.

The illustration of family (the circle) made by Arlo at the end, where he tells Spot to join his new family was done well.

Overall, I'd agree with @TheMightyOrca, this movie is nothing to write home about but it sure beats anything from the Cars trilogy.
 
Brum said:
Okay, it's been out since Friday so who has watched Infinity War? I thought it was amazingly well done, suitably epic for a film with that much hype. Looking forward to the next instalment now. :)
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I saw it on Saturday and liked it very much. As I was expecting, there were perhaps too many characters and subplots, but I thought the Cinematography, and action scenes were very well done. I was also surprised at how good a villain Thanos was. Also looking forward to the next installment.
 
Brum said:
Okay, it's been out since Friday so who has watched Infinity War? I thought it was amazingly well done, suitably epic for a film with that much hype. Looking forward to the next instalment now. :)
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I'm not really into war movies. I like sci-fi and fantasy and stuff like that. If it was a superhero movie I'd watch it though.
 
Chlidonias said:
I'm not really into war movies. I like sci-fi and fantasy and stuff like that. If it was a superhero movie I'd watch it though.
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Infinity War is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so it is very much a superhero movie, and also quite sci-fi. The name is very misleading though.
 
Brum said:
Okay, it's been out since Friday so who has watched Infinity War? I thought it was amazingly well done, suitably epic for a film with that much hype. Looking forward to the next instalment now. :)
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I saw it last night and all I can say/do is :eek:o_O I had a few issues with it but overall it's absolutely fantastic and, while every character apart from Thanos (who is by far the best villain they've ever had) varies between a little and completely underused, I did not find the film to be that weighed down by the number of characters and subplots. It's also just visually stunning (I watched it in IMAX) and has some of the best CGI work I've ever seen in Thanos (especially the emotional detail in his face). This might be the first MCU film that I like more than the original Avengers.

~Thylo
 
@ThylacineAlive @TZDugong I can only agree that Thanos does look fantastic, and Josh Brolin plays the part very well. I think they tied all the stories together well, and I liked the fact that most characters were used well, particularly Thor, Groot and Rocket. I don't want to type to much to avoid spoilers but all I can say is bring on the sequel. Can't wait to see how Ant-Man And The Wasp and Captain Marvel tie in to the story.
 
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Brum said:
@ThylacineAlive @TZDugong I can only agree that Thanos does look fantastic, and Josh Brolin plays the part very well. I think they tied all the stories together well, and I liked the fact that most characters were used well, particularly Thor, Groot and Rocket. I don't want to type to much to avoid spoilers but all I can say is bring on the sequel. Can't wait to see how Ant-Man And The Wasp and Captain Marvel tie in to the story.
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Neither can I! Marvel released a video on social media today saying a new Ant-Man and The Wasp trailer to to debut tomorrow and will give more insight into where they were during Infinity War as the two stories are supposed to at least overlap. As for Captain Marvel, I'm just hoping they properly explain where she's been this whole time and why she hasn't showed up thus far as her solo movie takes place in the 90's.

As a side note, petition to have Samuel L. Jackson portray Nick Fury as his classic 90's character from Pulp Fiction in Captain Marvel? :p

~Thylo
 
I think the thing I loved most about Infinity War is that they really went far to explore the different atmospheres that have been introduced to the MCU over the years; the scenes with Thor felt like a Thor movie, the scenes with the Guardians felt like a GotG movie, the scenes in Wakanda brought you back to the atmosphere of Black Panther, the Avengers scenes took you back to the previous 2 Avengers movies, etc.

I don't think I expected too much from the movie when walking into the theater, but I definitely walked out impressed. Good cgi, good storyline, good cliffhangers... I can't wait for more!
 
I've seen the movie twice, and it is incredible. It's the first movie I've seen that doesn't have glaring errors that are immediately noticeable. To me, it is the best movie of all time. It gives a different twist on a typical super hero movie

because, and SPOILER ALERT, the bad guy not only wins, but is the main character with by far the most screentime. It used CGI nearly perfectly. The fan fare it provided was fantastic, as seen with the red skull, whose appearance still manages to make sense with context.
 
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Vision said:
I think the thing I loved most about Infinity War is that they really went far to explore the different atmospheres that have been introduced to the MCU over the years; the scenes with Thor felt like a Thor movie, the scenes with the Guardians felt like a GotG movie, the scenes in Wakanda brought you back to the atmosphere of Black Panther, the Avengers scenes took you back to the previous 2 Avengers movies, etc.

I don't think I expected too much from the movie when walking into the theater, but I definitely walked out impressed. Good cgi, good storyline, good cliffhangers... I can't wait for more!
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With the GOTG that's probably because James Gunn, the director of the GOTG films, wrote the dialogue for them. This isn't just a cinematic marvel because of the CGI, cinematography, and successful blending of 25 hero characters (I'm going to lump Loki in as a hero for convenience sake), but also because of the insane amount of cooperation and planning this took to pull off. The Russo brothers not only had to adhere to the wishes of Disney and Marvel heads, but also to the directors of GOGT, Thor Ragnarok, and Ant-Man & The Wasp to make sure everything lined up well.

Another reason why all the different characters and locations had their unique style is because they used the original scores and themes from those movies to put us into that mindset. I didn't love Black Panther as much as everyone else did, but when the first few notes of the Wakanda theme started playing as they were building up to its presence in the film, I instantly became excited.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
With the GOTG that's probably because James Gunn, the director of the GOTG films, wrote the dialogue for them. This isn't just a cinematic marvel because of the CGI, cinematography, and successful blending of 25 hero characters (I'm going to lump Loki in as a hero for convenience sake), but also because of the insane amount of cooperation and planning this took to pull off. The Russo brothers not only had to adhere to the wishes of Disney and Marvel heads, but also to the directors of GOGT, Thor Ragnarok, and Ant-Man & The Wasp to make sure everything lined up well.

Another reason why all the different characters and locations had their unique style is because they used the original scores and themes from those movies to put us into that mindset. I didn't love Black Panther as much as everyone else did, but when the first few notes of the Wakanda theme started playing as they were building up to its presence in the film, I instantly became excited.

~Thylo
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Another thing is that everyone got a chance to shine. I hate when I'm watching a team movie and my favorite character doesn't get any attention! Here, everyone got to do something cool. But even better is seeing the different characters meeting for the first time and using their powers together. Spiderman using Doctor Strange's portals, that was so great! "MAGIC!"

The first Avengers movie was such a big deal because of the scale of it, and the years of work and cooperation it took to make. Infinity War took that and multiplied it!

The sequel is a year away, I wonder if it will keep enough hype to bring people in. Captain Marvel should help with that, at least.
 
A big plus for the movie (at least for me), was that Hawkeye wasn’t in it! My least favourite character in the MCU by far.
 
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