Incredible, it's like looking into young James Cameron's soul and finding all the bits and pieces that would eventually become his premier films. Viewing a director's earliest work is certainly a rare treat.
Took me well over 2 decades to finally find this childhood movie. For years I always thought that quite possibly it was the more famous Dragonheart that was bouncing around my memory but the two films are wildly different. The dragon's antics were hysterical as a kid, a cute nostalgia trip.
About what you'd expect from an action popcorn flick in the supernatural genre. Has a bit of work to do with worldbuilding and manages a halfway decent job. Diesel is ok in a role that allows for very familiar character development. I think as far as witch hunting movies go I prefer Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Mostly because watching Gemma Arterton onscreen never gets boring.
A halfway decent war movie. Quite a bit of propaganda spread throughout but it'll certainly give you some historical knowledge of the battle of Wake Island. Would've hated to have been stationed there, it's pretty much a few sandbars out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It's even smaller than Midway Island, incredibly.
The only thing it accomplished for me was making me crave to watch the original. Despite being a prequel it is essentially the exact same story as Carpenter's version. Though finding a ship in the ice was obviously closer to the original 1951 version. Carpenter's movie is practically a love letter to horror practical effects and any fan of that movie is going to be sorely disappointed on principle alone as that aspect was totally whitewashed by CGI. According to the behind-the-scenes featurettes they tried to make the cut with practical effects but decided to mask it all digitally. Not even cute Mary Elizabeth Winstead could save this one.
There's a lot of good and bad in this Marvel offering but it seriously does enough things very well that it's worth a serious look. The premise from the get go can be hard to believe at first, 11 main characters crammed into one opening film. The Avengers only had 6 heroes, and had 5 movies to serve as the introduction. How well does the Eternals do with this monumental challenge? Fairly well, actually, certainly better than it had any right to.
This might be the slowest Marvel movie I've ever seen and I mean that in a totally positive way. It doesn't feel the need to give a crash course to introduce all 11 characters and instead ops to put them in real-life situations and let the development happen organically. There's more human story in this one alone than probably 6 or 7 of Marvel's other offerings combined. It's a far, far cry from the traditional Marvel formula and it pays off. The humor was also a few shades different than what we're used to which was extremely welcome.
The worst sin has to be blatantly race-swapping and gender-swapping just to suit the ongoing agenda. I'm sure it went totally unnoticed by the masses though unless you were familiar with the source material.
Is it the best Marvel movie of all time? Uhh no, but as someone going into it expecting just another Marvel popcorn flick I was totally blindsided by it. The Marvel execs should be playing close attention as to what worked here.
Haven't really liked anything with Bats in it since Dark Knight so it's been a long time for me. The overall mood is rather interesting. It's dark, but in ways that even the Nolan trilogy didn't touch on. They really excelled in giving the impression that it's Batman and Gordon alone, standing on that skyscraper and all of Gotham corrupted to the point of no return below them. It manifests an interesting amalgam of emotions ranging from "this Gotham absolutely needs Bats like it needs oxygen to breathe" and then eventually by the end "it's too far gone, let it all burn." Paul Dano is great, haven't seen him ever give a bad performance. Pattinson isn't bad either. Farrell was great as the penguin but he's wearing enough prosthetics that it could just be anyone underneath them.
Part of me couldn't help but wonder though if a lot of people are honestly tired of DC putting Bats back on the movie treadmill yet again. I mean, this will probably be the common thing now, we can probably expect another recasting of Superman and yet another trilogy of films. Marvel has their own problems with fatigue and making all kinds of unknown heroes into movies while DC has the same kind of fatigue in a different way with sticking their heroes on a carousel and endlessly spinning it.
The completely skippable 3rd film in a tired series. The practical camera effects were a fantastic highlight in what is a boring, plodding attempt at what is supposed to be horror? The script work is all over the place and as with the second movie it struggles to make sense of any sort of supernatural explanations or phenomena. Even the characters are bland and somewhat annoying but none more so than Dr. Seaton. The man works at a kind of real-world version of Dr. Xavier's school for gifted youngsters and is a firm skeptic in anything Carol-Anne can do. Simultaneously, he believes that she can induce mass hypnosis on a whim which would be supernatural power in of itself while also refusing to believe anything she says or does. Super annoying.
After Ragnarok I was kind of curious if the Thor movies were going to turn into the film equivalent of that silly family member that nobody in the family can take seriously anymore, and yeah... I think that's now a thing. Marvel is known for its interjecting humor into nearly every nook and cranny but the god of thunder just seems to be the new repository of truckloads of all of Marvel's gags. We've come a long way since the original film in 2011, and not for the better.
Christian Bale does what he can with a rather lackluster villain. I don't know, but I tend to struggle investing myself into any Marvel offering when the villain's arc is so simple and bare bones (felt the same way with Dr. Strange 2.) In both instances the villains were just "you know, they aren't really bad people, they're just very misunderstood" and I can cetainly do without that kind of rationalization. If this whole Phase Four of Marvel Studios didn't produce an insane amount of "Marvel fatigue" then I'd be pretty shocked.
The goats were funny the first time, after that...
This second outing is more tame in many ways compared to the first, it lacks the kind of whimsical horror and humor that the first one was shot through with. It suffers with now trying to better explain all the supernatural elements that is hunting Carol-Anne when we were more than content to just sit back and watch in the original.
I don't recall any other movie that so effectively reminded me that a great movie is more than just having a stellar cast, excellent plotting, and philosophical weight, it's also a "planets aligning" kind of situation when the movie was released at just the right time. That's what the original Matrix was back in '99, a perfect movie for a perfect time. That kind of magic can't be recaptured, and so sequels get judged rather harshly. This one was far too meta for my taste, even becoming almost exhausting. The technology had to evolve in order to make the worldbuilding more relevant but with so much of that taking up space it just makes the whole vehicle feel lackluster.
Feels like an opportunity wasted. I don't know why I was expecting more of a spy/espionage type of movie (probably due to Widow being the lead) but instead it's just another generic Marvel entry. Widow has consistsntly been hinted at as one of (arguably) the most mentally tortured and complex Avengers and instead of really delving into that past its all glossed over with a lot of action and yet another "save the world" plot line. Could've been a lot more, Marvel phoned this one in but perhaps not surprising considering the character was already dead and gone when released. Awkward...
Watching a major motion picture that chronicles about how your own church got started is... rather surreal. Well acted by all those involved, Grammer really shines in a role that he claimed resonated more with him than any other. Christian cinema has come a long way.
Liked the original much better, but that comes with my heavily biased history of classic movie watching. The haphazard filming techniques were rather jarring, that and so much of the dialog seemed like the writers thought they were making a b-movie from the fifties (maybe like an homage to the original? I'm not really sure.) An incredible amount of the written dialog didn't jive with the character's emotion. Goldblum in particular consistently looked like he was one line of dialog away from cracking up.
I'm a sucker for excellent set design and the examples in this movie are one for the books. It's an entertaining romp in the dystopian Mad Max style, but in a more cheesy action sense like a theme park's stunt show. It's one of those films that in an odd way I think Hollywood might resurrect for either a remake or a series.
The aesthetic style is unlike any other kind of Sci-fi I've seen and Blomkamp gets full credit for that. There's also a wonderful, grounded sort of reality that permeates the film which makes it seem both visceral and realistic. The world building is also on par, you can tell they spent some serious time thinking about what would actually happen if an alien spaceship parked itself over Jo'burg for an inordinate amount of time.
Put together with the same amount of subtle touch as a fever-induced nightmare. Laura San Giacomo reciting Shakespeare over and over is enough to make you want to end it all. If it hadn't been one of four movies on the same DVD disc I would have ejected it and snapped the sucker in half without hesitation.
The B&W Noir template got old really fast for me. There are a few choice shots that are incredibly artistic due to the contrast but it's a lackluster film from start to finish. Not even the talents of a rather star-studded voice cast even buoy it into interesting territory.
Long, long before Narnia got the Hollywood treatment, this was how so many of us were introduced to the famous series. It's a real classic example of the aesthetic that the BBC productions in the late eighties, early nineties were known for. A lot of great costumes abound (they spent some serious time and money on Aslan) and it fairly closely follows the source material. Acting is so-so but nostalgia does a great job glossing over that stuff.
Can't say I ever expected "zombie bank heist" to be three words ever strung together so I guess the film gets credit for that. Oh, and zombie warlords, that's also a new one for me. Kind of fun to watch in a popcorn-y way if zombie films are your thing. Doesn't exactly play by the traditional undead archetypes and that steers it clear of generic zombie fare.
@Goellnerd, I'm super glad I read your comment before watching because as long as I convinced myself that Keanu was actually Nic Cage in disguise it made the whole experience much more bearable. Hard to take any of it seriously, though. Even the first 30 minutes is chock full of sorely unintended laughs when you should be feeling sad. Agree with @Siskoid, this could have been one of the greatest tear-jerking and poignant films of all time with a better script and solid direction due to the themes it touches on. Instead it turned into the kind of film that you watch with friends and laugh at.
It rips off enough Sci-fi that it feels somewhat authentic if you don't look super close. Visuals are stunning though, absolutely stunning, and probably worth watching for that aspect alone. Keeps you somewhat off balance with where the plot is going and yet builds toward an ending that leaves you wanting.
Respectable Sci-fi/thriller, even if you try to guess the twists and turns in advance there's a good chance it might surprise you. Sinise and D'onofrio make for interesting adversaries and the worldbuilding is decent.
This one is always talked about as one of the classic examples of pre-80's Sci-fi but I expected a lot more than was given. It tries to be Western but doesn't have quite the charm of that genre going for it, but pretty much all of the Sci-fi works for what it's worth. It's fairly obvious that directing is not Crichton's forte and is more comfortable with a pen in his hand rather than a camera. The concept is great but not spectacularly executed, it's little wonder that he would recycle the idea a few decades later for the much superior Jurassic Park.
Comments 126 - 150 of 733
Movie comment on Xenogenesis
DisneyStitch
Incredible, it's like looking into young James Cameron's soul and finding all the bits and pieces that would eventually become his premier films. Viewing a director's earliest work is certainly a rare treat.Movie comment on Dragonworld
DisneyStitch
Took me well over 2 decades to finally find this childhood movie. For years I always thought that quite possibly it was the more famous Dragonheart that was bouncing around my memory but the two films are wildly different. The dragon's antics were hysterical as a kid, a cute nostalgia trip.Movie comment on The Last Witch Hunter
DisneyStitch
About what you'd expect from an action popcorn flick in the supernatural genre. Has a bit of work to do with worldbuilding and manages a halfway decent job. Diesel is ok in a role that allows for very familiar character development. I think as far as witch hunting movies go I prefer Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Mostly because watching Gemma Arterton onscreen never gets boring.Movie comment on Wake Island
DisneyStitch
A halfway decent war movie. Quite a bit of propaganda spread throughout but it'll certainly give you some historical knowledge of the battle of Wake Island. Would've hated to have been stationed there, it's pretty much a few sandbars out in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It's even smaller than Midway Island, incredibly.Movie comment on The Thing
DisneyStitch
The only thing it accomplished for me was making me crave to watch the original. Despite being a prequel it is essentially the exact same story as Carpenter's version. Though finding a ship in the ice was obviously closer to the original 1951 version. Carpenter's movie is practically a love letter to horror practical effects and any fan of that movie is going to be sorely disappointed on principle alone as that aspect was totally whitewashed by CGI. According to the behind-the-scenes featurettes they tried to make the cut with practical effects but decided to mask it all digitally. Not even cute Mary Elizabeth Winstead could save this one.Movie comment on Eternals
DisneyStitch
There's a lot of good and bad in this Marvel offering but it seriously does enough things very well that it's worth a serious look. The premise from the get go can be hard to believe at first, 11 main characters crammed into one opening film. The Avengers only had 6 heroes, and had 5 movies to serve as the introduction. How well does the Eternals do with this monumental challenge? Fairly well, actually, certainly better than it had any right to.This might be the slowest Marvel movie I've ever seen and I mean that in a totally positive way. It doesn't feel the need to give a crash course to introduce all 11 characters and instead ops to put them in real-life situations and let the development happen organically. There's more human story in this one alone than probably 6 or 7 of Marvel's other offerings combined. It's a far, far cry from the traditional Marvel formula and it pays off. The humor was also a few shades different than what we're used to which was extremely welcome.
The worst sin has to be blatantly race-swapping and gender-swapping just to suit the ongoing agenda. I'm sure it went totally unnoticed by the masses though unless you were familiar with the source material.
Is it the best Marvel movie of all time? Uhh no, but as someone going into it expecting just another Marvel popcorn flick I was totally blindsided by it. The Marvel execs should be playing close attention as to what worked here.
Movie comment on The Batman
DisneyStitch
Haven't really liked anything with Bats in it since Dark Knight so it's been a long time for me. The overall mood is rather interesting. It's dark, but in ways that even the Nolan trilogy didn't touch on. They really excelled in giving the impression that it's Batman and Gordon alone, standing on that skyscraper and all of Gotham corrupted to the point of no return below them. It manifests an interesting amalgam of emotions ranging from "this Gotham absolutely needs Bats like it needs oxygen to breathe" and then eventually by the end "it's too far gone, let it all burn." Paul Dano is great, haven't seen him ever give a bad performance. Pattinson isn't bad either. Farrell was great as the penguin but he's wearing enough prosthetics that it could just be anyone underneath them.Part of me couldn't help but wonder though if a lot of people are honestly tired of DC putting Bats back on the movie treadmill yet again. I mean, this will probably be the common thing now, we can probably expect another recasting of Superman and yet another trilogy of films. Marvel has their own problems with fatigue and making all kinds of unknown heroes into movies while DC has the same kind of fatigue in a different way with sticking their heroes on a carousel and endlessly spinning it.
Movie comment on Poltergeist III
DisneyStitch
The completely skippable 3rd film in a tired series. The practical camera effects were a fantastic highlight in what is a boring, plodding attempt at what is supposed to be horror? The script work is all over the place and as with the second movie it struggles to make sense of any sort of supernatural explanations or phenomena. Even the characters are bland and somewhat annoying but none more so than Dr. Seaton. The man works at a kind of real-world version of Dr. Xavier's school for gifted youngsters and is a firm skeptic in anything Carol-Anne can do. Simultaneously, he believes that she can induce mass hypnosis on a whim which would be supernatural power in of itself while also refusing to believe anything she says or does. Super annoying.Movie comment on Thor: Love and Thunder
DisneyStitch
After Ragnarok I was kind of curious if the Thor movies were going to turn into the film equivalent of that silly family member that nobody in the family can take seriously anymore, and yeah... I think that's now a thing. Marvel is known for its interjecting humor into nearly every nook and cranny but the god of thunder just seems to be the new repository of truckloads of all of Marvel's gags. We've come a long way since the original film in 2011, and not for the better.Christian Bale does what he can with a rather lackluster villain. I don't know, but I tend to struggle investing myself into any Marvel offering when the villain's arc is so simple and bare bones (felt the same way with Dr. Strange 2.) In both instances the villains were just "you know, they aren't really bad people, they're just very misunderstood" and I can cetainly do without that kind of rationalization. If this whole Phase Four of Marvel Studios didn't produce an insane amount of "Marvel fatigue" then I'd be pretty shocked.
The goats were funny the first time, after that...
Movie comment on Poltergeist II: The Other Side
DisneyStitch
This second outing is more tame in many ways compared to the first, it lacks the kind of whimsical horror and humor that the first one was shot through with. It suffers with now trying to better explain all the supernatural elements that is hunting Carol-Anne when we were more than content to just sit back and watch in the original.Movie comment on The Matrix Resurrections
DisneyStitch
I don't recall any other movie that so effectively reminded me that a great movie is more than just having a stellar cast, excellent plotting, and philosophical weight, it's also a "planets aligning" kind of situation when the movie was released at just the right time. That's what the original Matrix was back in '99, a perfect movie for a perfect time. That kind of magic can't be recaptured, and so sequels get judged rather harshly. This one was far too meta for my taste, even becoming almost exhausting. The technology had to evolve in order to make the worldbuilding more relevant but with so much of that taking up space it just makes the whole vehicle feel lackluster.Movie comment on Black Widow
DisneyStitch
Feels like an opportunity wasted. I don't know why I was expecting more of a spy/espionage type of movie (probably due to Widow being the lead) but instead it's just another generic Marvel entry. Widow has consistsntly been hinted at as one of (arguably) the most mentally tortured and complex Avengers and instead of really delving into that past its all glossed over with a lot of action and yet another "save the world" plot line. Could've been a lot more, Marvel phoned this one in but perhaps not surprising considering the character was already dead and gone when released. Awkward...Movie comment on Jesus Revolution
DisneyStitch
Watching a major motion picture that chronicles about how your own church got started is... rather surreal. Well acted by all those involved, Grammer really shines in a role that he claimed resonated more with him than any other. Christian cinema has come a long way.Movie comment on Invasion of the Body Snatchers
DisneyStitch
Liked the original much better, but that comes with my heavily biased history of classic movie watching. The haphazard filming techniques were rather jarring, that and so much of the dialog seemed like the writers thought they were making a b-movie from the fifties (maybe like an homage to the original? I'm not really sure.) An incredible amount of the written dialog didn't jive with the character's emotion. Goldblum in particular consistently looked like he was one line of dialog away from cracking up.Movie comment on Waterworld
DisneyStitch
I'm a sucker for excellent set design and the examples in this movie are one for the books. It's an entertaining romp in the dystopian Mad Max style, but in a more cheesy action sense like a theme park's stunt show. It's one of those films that in an odd way I think Hollywood might resurrect for either a remake or a series.Movie comment on District 9
DisneyStitch
The aesthetic style is unlike any other kind of Sci-fi I've seen and Blomkamp gets full credit for that. There's also a wonderful, grounded sort of reality that permeates the film which makes it seem both visceral and realistic. The world building is also on par, you can tell they spent some serious time thinking about what would actually happen if an alien spaceship parked itself over Jo'burg for an inordinate amount of time.Movie comment on The Apocalypse
DisneyStitch
Put together with the same amount of subtle touch as a fever-induced nightmare. Laura San Giacomo reciting Shakespeare over and over is enough to make you want to end it all. If it hadn't been one of four movies on the same DVD disc I would have ejected it and snapped the sucker in half without hesitation.Movie comment on Renaissance
DisneyStitch
The B&W Noir template got old really fast for me. There are a few choice shots that are incredibly artistic due to the contrast but it's a lackluster film from start to finish. Not even the talents of a rather star-studded voice cast even buoy it into interesting territory.Movie comment on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
DisneyStitch
Long, long before Narnia got the Hollywood treatment, this was how so many of us were introduced to the famous series. It's a real classic example of the aesthetic that the BBC productions in the late eighties, early nineties were known for. A lot of great costumes abound (they spent some serious time and money on Aslan) and it fairly closely follows the source material. Acting is so-so but nostalgia does a great job glossing over that stuff.Movie comment on Army of the Dead
DisneyStitch
Can't say I ever expected "zombie bank heist" to be three words ever strung together so I guess the film gets credit for that. Oh, and zombie warlords, that's also a new one for me. Kind of fun to watch in a popcorn-y way if zombie films are your thing. Doesn't exactly play by the traditional undead archetypes and that steers it clear of generic zombie fare.Movie comment on Replicas
DisneyStitch
@Goellnerd, I'm super glad I read your comment before watching because as long as I convinced myself that Keanu was actually Nic Cage in disguise it made the whole experience much more bearable. Hard to take any of it seriously, though. Even the first 30 minutes is chock full of sorely unintended laughs when you should be feeling sad. Agree with @Siskoid, this could have been one of the greatest tear-jerking and poignant films of all time with a better script and solid direction due to the themes it touches on. Instead it turned into the kind of film that you watch with friends and laugh at.Movie comment on Oblivion
DisneyStitch
It rips off enough Sci-fi that it feels somewhat authentic if you don't look super close. Visuals are stunning though, absolutely stunning, and probably worth watching for that aspect alone. Keeps you somewhat off balance with where the plot is going and yet builds toward an ending that leaves you wanting.But still, those visuals...
Movie comment on The Titan
DisneyStitch
Really just a generic "make a monster" film from Netflix. A bit of a low point in Worthington's career. Don't feel bad if you missed this one.Movie comment on Impostor
DisneyStitch
Respectable Sci-fi/thriller, even if you try to guess the twists and turns in advance there's a good chance it might surprise you. Sinise and D'onofrio make for interesting adversaries and the worldbuilding is decent.Movie comment on Westworld
DisneyStitch
This one is always talked about as one of the classic examples of pre-80's Sci-fi but I expected a lot more than was given. It tries to be Western but doesn't have quite the charm of that genre going for it, but pretty much all of the Sci-fi works for what it's worth. It's fairly obvious that directing is not Crichton's forte and is more comfortable with a pen in his hand rather than a camera. The concept is great but not spectacularly executed, it's little wonder that he would recycle the idea a few decades later for the much superior Jurassic Park.Showing items 126 – 150 of 733