Movie review rant 2016

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Conan the Barbarian
The second movie in the boxset, and a movie I'd never seen before so I was interested to see Arnie's first leading role (apart from Hercules in New York more than a decade earlier).

Based on a popular series of books, it starts off with Conan as a boy about 10 with his father and mother, in a village several hundred years ago where swords are the weapon of choice. An evil overlord named Thulsa Doom (played by a young James Earl Jones) and his band of thugs kill everyone ion the village except for children who are taken away and strapped to a large wheel that they have to push. Over the years Conan develops big muscles from this exercise.

The rest of the story is based on Conan's quest to avenge his parents death, and there's a twisting storyline that leads to this inevitable conclusion. Along the way he becomes a thief, falls in love with a girl who ends up dead, makes friends with a wizard, and kills a lot of people.

I found the story seemed to get lost at times, but maybe that was the film-makers trying to vary the script from the book, or incorporate more than one book into the storyline.

There was a giant snake that was eventually killed (fake) and several smaller pythons were used as decoration on people (Thulsa Doom's emblem was a two headed snake).

As well as Arnie and James Earl Jones it also features Max von Sydow as a King, and Mako as the wizard.

Entertaining, but a bit slow in parts. And I found Arnie's acting to be a bit wooden. But the thing I found most interesting was when Arnie and Co. had kidnapped the King's daughter and tied her up to attract Thulsa Doom, I noticed that even in those olden days the women shaved their armpits. Presumably with a sword.

5/10

:p

Hix
 
Hix said:
(...) And I found Arnie's acting to be a bit wooden. But the thing I found most interesting was when Arnie and Co. had kidnapped the King's daughter and tied her up to attract Thulsa Doom, I noticed that even in those olden days the women shaved their armpits. Presumably with a sword.
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Hey, cut Arnie some slack; in comparison to his previous roles, it was a vast improvement-and still way better than the more recent interpretation of the character by Jason Momoa.;)
And don't forget to mention the good soundtrack!

As for shaved armpits: the shaving of body hair was already practised in ancient cultures, so no surprise there.^^
 
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Hix said:
Conan the Barbarian
The second movie in the boxset, and a movie I'd never seen before so I was interested to see Arnie's first leading role (apart from Hercules in New York more than a decade earlier).
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duuuuuuuude! You've never seen Conan?! How is that even possible? Conan The Barbarian is a fantastic movie, the most epic and sweeping barbarian movie of all time, and basically the perfect role for Arnold - especially with his limited acting skills at the time. It was followed by Conan The Destroyer which was not as good by a long shot, and then there was also Red Sonja which Arnold was basically forced into doing and which was much much less watchable than the Conan movies.

Although Batto was entirely wrong about Dredd he is dead right about the 2011 version of Conan. Just awful. Supposedly they are making a new Conan movie too, starring Arnold again, which will be ... "interesting"?
 
Chlidonias said:
duuuuuuuude! You've never seen Conan?!
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I may nor have seen it, but at least I'd heard of it. Which is more than I can say for this next movie:

Stay Hungry
Never heard of it, and the title sounds odd. It was made in 1976 and Arnie only gets third billing - according to the opening credits the movie "Stars Jeff Bridges ... co-stars Sally Field ... and introducing Arnold Schwarzenegger" - which maybe why I've never heard of it before.

The story is about Bridges' character, Craig Blake, independently wealthy after the death of his parents, joining a syndicate to buy up businesses on a block and turn it into a high-rise development. The last place refusing to sell is a gym and it's Blake's job to convince the owner to sell the place. To do this he starts spending time with the gyms regulars.

I thought it might be a gym-type movie, or sport-focussed (eg boxing), but the movie was more about the people and relationships. Admittedly, there is a Mr Universe competition in a couple of weeks which is why Arnie is there, but not a lot of the movie is filmed in the gym itself as the story is centred on Blake and his relationships, mainly with Sally Fields' character.

Despite my trepidations over the title and premise I found it enjoyable, although not particularly memorable. Certainly not a bad movie. And interesting to see everyone so young - Bridges was only 27 at the time, Arnie was 29, and Sally Field - who has a nude scene - was 30 (although she looked about 24). It also features Robert Englund who later went on to be Freddy Kreuger, Roger E. Mosley (better known as TC from Magnum PI), a young Ed Begley Jr., and Scatman Crothers (who was, amongst other things, the voice of Hong Kong Phooey).

6.5/10

:p

Hix

Chlidonias said:
What are the other movies in your box set?
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The remaining three are The Terminator, Predator and True Lies.
 
I was on annual leave for a couple weeks and did not have regular access to a computer, and as you all know (except Chlidonias, who probably still has a Motorola Startac), typing on a smart phone is a pain. I'm back at work now, so can type more movie reviews, after hours, of course. ;)

Ok, so I see that Batto and I agree on the critique of a movie - the world must be ending soon...

Jump Street reviews - my honourable mention is noted. I watched 22 Jump Street and enjoyed it about as much as the first one. Same actors, same plot, same jokes.

Expendable 3 review came much quicker than I expected. I'm impressed. I looking forward to a 4th instalment.

Ok, so I have to get cracking on a few movie reviews this week.
 
Jurassic World - 7/10
Amazingly, my wife had never seen any of the Jurassic Park movies, so we watched all three in one week prior to watching the latest instalment. I enjoyed Jurassic World, especially the nods to the first movie, like the Jeep, the Asian scientist, the animated DNA strand, the old complex etc. Other than that, it felt like more of the same. Perhaps if I hadn't watched the other movies earlier in the week, then I may have given it a higher rating. 7/10 seems about right, where the original Jurassic Park, even 20 years later, scores a 9/10 for me.
 
Circle - 7/10
A few pages back, I was giving Chlidonias some stick for some low budget movies he recommended, vowing to never watch one. I inadvertently watched one the other night on Netflix and actually enjoyed it!

Basically about 20 people wake up standing in a circle, and every two minutes or so, a machine kills one of them. It turns out that the group controls who dies and so the entire movie is dialogue between deaths. The group dynamics, prejudices, sexism, racism etc is most fascinating indeed. The ending is a bit of a let down (I didn't understand it), but I class this as a thinking man's movie that provides a dark insight into human psyche, and you will constantly be asking yourself "what would I have done?".
 
Blended - 7/10
I was reading recently that Netflix is considering changing the way viewers rate movies. The argument is that we go into 'movie critic' mode and assess the acting, cinematography, plotline etc, when they would prefer if we rated how much we enjoyed the movie. So for example, there are some crap movies like B-movies that are tonnes of fun to watch and we happily watch them over and over (such as Batto and Shawshank Redemption ;) or Sharknado perhaps).

That's the preamble to say that this is an Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore rom-com. Terry Crewes provided some comic relief to a movie that was more 'rom' than 'com', but I still enjoyed it because it was a light, yet feel-good movie about a blended family on holiday in Africa.
 
American Hustle - ?/10
Was this movie any good? I couldn't tell you because I couldn't get past the first 25mins. Too slow and meandering for my taste.
 
nanoboy said:
Blended - 7/10
That's the preamble to say that this is an Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore rom-com. Terry Crewes provided some comic relief to a movie that was more 'rom' than 'com', but I still enjoyed it because it was a light, yet feel-good movie about a blended family on holiday in Africa.
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I don't think much of Adam Sandler as an actor, but the only movies I've really liked him in are the ones with Drew Barrymore, and this is one of them. I saw it last year just before heading off to Tanzania, and quite enjoyed (apart from some of the obvious plot formulas).

nanoboy said:
American Hustle - ?/10
Was this movie any good? I couldn't tell you because I couldn't get past the first 25mins. Too slow and meandering for my taste.
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It was nominated for Best Movie Oscar, if I remember rightly. I didn't particularly like it, and can't really remember anything much about it at all. And I did stay past the first 25 minutes. Not really my cup of tea. I enjoyed The Sting better.

:p

Hix
 
I had to Google 'The Sting' and it appears to be an excellent 1973 movie. I'll keep an eye out for it on TV, Netflix, or Salvos. I quite liked the original Oceans 11 movie with the Rat Pack.
 
nanoboy said:
Ok, so I see that Batto and I agree on the critique of a movie - the world must be ending soon...
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Then World's End must have come even closer, as I agree with you (and Hix) on your critique regarding "American Hustle", too; what a dull movie.
As for Shawshank: :p

The current early positive reviews raise my hope for "Deadpool" as the first good comic book movie in 2016...
 
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Batto said:
Then World's End must have come even closer, though I agree with you (and Hix) on your critique regarding "American Hustle", too; what a dull movie.
As for Shawshank: :p

The current early positive reviews raise my hope for "Deadpool" as the first good comic book movie in 2016...
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What about Suicide Squad? It's looking interesting.
 
Mortdecai - 6/10

The three big names I recall from this movie are Johhny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ewan McGregor. It's a comedy where Depp plays a dishonest art dealer, Paltrow is his wife, and McGregor is an Mi6 agent investigating art thefts linked with terrorism. The movie is mediocre at best - it's funny in some parts, ridiculous in others, and overall just not very memorable. Watch it if it's on TV.
 
nanoboy said:
What about Suicide Squad? It's looking interesting.
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I don't know. (Almost) everything looks better when you add a good Queen song to it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0myB9YZIzeI

The Wind Rises (2013)

The last film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. One of Studio Ghibli's better recent movies, a fictionalized biopic of a Japanese WWII aircraft engineer. While the animation is as great as usual, soundtrack, story and characters didn't convince me as much as in other Miyazaki movies. The ending in particular was too vague and vacant.

7/10
 
Furious 7

The seventh episode in the street-racing franchise which has got ever-decreasing amounts of anything to do with street racing and ever-increasing amounts of whatever the opposite of logic and sanity is. They've managed to bring everybody back for this movie, well except for Sung Kang whose character is dead and Gal Gadot whose character is dead. Not that that should have stopped them - Paul Walker is dead for real and he was in it, and Luke Evans' character totally died at the end of the last movie and he is somehow still alive, albeit in a coma. I fully suspect both the dead ones will reappear in future episodes with amnesia.

The plot is unimportant, it is just there to provide a backbone for the explosions, but basically the brother (Jason Statham) of last movie's villain (Luke Evans) wants revenge, and meanwhile some other guy (Djimon Hounsou) wants a thingy that some hacker chick (Nathalie Emmanuel) has and the government guy (Kurt Russell) wants the thingy too so he asks the hero (Vin Diesel) to get her and the thingy for him.

From that basic plot the movie rushes headlong from one big action piece to the next, with nothing needing to make sense so long as something explodes. With the increasing ridiculousness of the Furious movies one needs to not think about anything while watching, but "suspension of belief" simply no longer works when the characters have literally become immortal superheroes. From Vin Diesel lifting a car with his bare hands to walking away unharmed after jumping a car off a cliff to not once but twice deliberately smashing two cars head-on with neither driver getting even a scratch, you can't even shrug and go "eh, it's just a movie" any more. Everyone knows unknowable things in order to facilitate the action, the worst example (or perhaps most obvious) being when The Rock smashes an ambulance off a bridge to take out a drone coming out of a tunnel, when there is literally not a single way he could even know it was happening. But for the purposes of the movie it had to happen to create a cool explosion.

The Rock, by the way, is utterly wasted in this movie. He is by far the best thing about the franchise, and yet here he is reduced to book-ending the movie. The plot reason: completely ignoring the movie's internal logic where brutal beating = tickle fight and gunfire = hugs and cuddles, The Rock is slightly injured after no more than being blown up and falling several storeys onto a car. Yes yes I know, in the last movie he intentionally fell several storeys onto a car with no ill effects but this time he got a boo-boo on his elbow and had to go lie in a hospital bed. What a baby.

So who is left without The Rock? There's Vin Diesel who still gurgles and splurts out sounds that he thinks approximate actual words and who still looks like a potato (although at one point they are at a party in Abu Dhabi, and in his tuxedo he looks just like a fat Pitbull!). There are various forms of Paul Walker. There are the two useless comedy sidekicks Tyrese Gibson and Ludicris. There's Jordana Brewster, I think, maybe off in the background somewhere. And then there's nobody's favourite team member, Michelle Rodriguez, who has somehow morphed from "tough girl" to "expert martial artist who can effortlessly take out elite bodyguards en masse". If you recall, in the last movie Rodriguez fought and (unbelievably) defeated MMA fighter Gina Carano. In this movie she fights and (unbelievably) defeats MMA fighter Ronda Rousey.

Ronda Rousey. Seriously? Do they not screen-test or, I dunno, even have a simple audition these days? She. Cannot. Act! What gets me is that this movie was made after Expendables 3 so the movie makers had to have already seen her appalling acting, and they still cast her! And don't even get me started on the cameo by Iggy Azalea - you know, that white Australian chick who talks with an offensive black rapper accent. Just, no. Stop it.

The bad guys are much better than the good guys (except the aforementioned bad guy Ronda Rousey and good guy The Rock). Jason Statham is always good in that bald English way although you can't help but wonder how the heck he keeps just appearing wherever the good guys are (I mean, literally wherever in the world they are, he just appears there like he has a TARDIS or something). And you know who else is in it? Tony Jaa! TONY JAA!! Hell yes. The action team-ups are all messed-up though. Could Jason Statham take more than one punch from The Rock without crumpling like tinfoil? Hell no. Could Paul Walker last more than thirty seconds against Tony Jaa? Hell no. Could Michelle Rodriguez ... meh, who cares?

On a scale of one to ten, for an actual good movie this is, like, half a point. But for a rock-your-socks-off action movie straight out of fantasy-land think of it as an eleven. (Top tip: leave your brain at the door).
 
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