Just like Encanto this review also didn't save, but I had less than what I had for Encanto. This review will be longer than the Encanto review.
This movie did exceed my expectations, but only for certain parts. If the movie wasn't split between Ruby's singing and her family and was just about her family, I still think that the movie would be very strong if not stronger. As I said already this movie exceeded my expectations a lot. I forgot that we watched the trailer so I forgot that it was about her family being deaf. I will say that I was very surprised by the deaf side of the story. The movements and emotions that everyone displayed while signing were very well done. If I'm not mistaken, the deaf family was played by actual deaf people, which is a great choice. To talk more about the deaf side of the story. It was a great story on the deaf side. I would say that it had very little weaknesses. It's interesting to see how much the family needs Ruby, and it makes sense how much that they try to keep her from leaving because of how much she does for them. The mom is my least favorite because she is only thinking of herself for 90% of the movie, but then supports Ruby at the end because we need the family to all like her at the end. That would be the only downside I have for the part of the story focusing on the deaf family. However, that means that I must also talk about the other side of the story. I didn't find this part of the story that great. It makes sense why its there, but I'm not a huge fan of the execution. We need an opposite to the deaf family and it makes sense that it would be music because the family can't hear it. All the music stuff is dumb for a while. The teacher isn't a great teacher he just says the same thing almost every time he is in a scene with singing. He also has a really nice house for being a music teacher in what appears to be a lower income area. The music stuff doesn't get enough attention in my opinion so it isn't as well built as the deaf side of things. If the movie built the singing portion of the movie I think it would be a much better film. There is another part of the singing side of the story that I find brings down the movie a lot. That is the forced relationship between Ruby and stereotypical love interest. Ruby is a very interesting character the whole film and it makes sense when she does things, but the love interest is just dumb. Ruby and him have exactly 0 chemistry and things should have just ended as soon as she found out he told people her parents were having sex while she was there. I think the movie would have been better if Ruby realized that her interest wasn't a great person or she didn't want to give them attention anymore. Yeah they have a duet, but Ruby could just talk to the teacher about her problem with it and keep the duet from happening. This entire part of the movie brings down the total score of the movie a lot because of how dumb and forced and rushed it is. Now I did say that the music stuff was dumb for a while. So that means that it was good at some point. I would say that is mostly in two spots. Its a weaker spot, but I think that the music part gets good when the two sides of the story officially meet at the first performance of the choir. This is where the family, although they can't hear it, realizes that Ruby is actually really good at singing because they can see the other people's reaction to her singing. When the music faded out and we got to see the parents looking around at the reactions, that solidified the singing and deaf parts being good together. Ruby also signing her singing when she was at her audition was also a good cross point between the two sides and it is really where they connect, but I have a different scene that I think captures the relationship between the two sides of the story perfectly. The part that I am talking about is after the choir performance where Ruby's dad asks Ruby to sing just to him. This moment is probably my favorite in the movie behind one other thing, but I'll get to that. I think that this moment between Ruby and her dad is perfect because we get the connection between these two characters that we have been hoping for for the entire movie. Dad saying GO at the end
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This is like my 3rd time writing this review. I don't know why it isn't saving, but I'm making this one short. The next line is the only thing that has saved.
I finally watched the most controversial film we have watched so far this year. This is very surprising to me since its a Disney movie. Encanto is a fine movie. I don't see how the people in our class disliked the movie. The characters are fine. Nothing really standout for me. Mirabel is just ok. Her sisters are kind of dumb. Her mom is hardly in the movie, the emotional aunt is dumb. Most of the guy characters are better, but I would gladly murder the new child that gets animal powers. He is very annoying. The same treatment goes to Abuela. The music was just ok. The first song sucked, nothing good about it, fits because exposition dump. We don't talk about Bruno is catchy but its ok. The one nominated for an Oscar is fine. I almost didn't realize it was the one nominated though. Luisa's mental song was good content wise, but the actual song is bad. Overall a fine movie. Not my favorite movie, but it was ok. 6/10 This weekend I watched Rounders. I watched this movie with my dad because he's told me about this movie and that it was a really good poker movie. After watching it, I would agree that it is a good poker movie. Not my favorite, but I can enjoy the story that was told and shown.
I enjoyed quite a bit in this film, but there were a couple of things that bugged me a little bit. I'll start with the good then finish with the bad of each things. The first thing that I'll say that I enjoyed were the characters. I think that Matt Damon, Norton, and Damon's professor all played their roles very well. Most of the other characters also played their parts well, but those three are the standouts for me. Norton played Worm so well because he is so unlikeable, and you want his character to change, but you know that it won't happen. Damon as McDermott is also very well done. His narration can be a bit much at times throughout the movie, but it makes sense because not a lot of people know a lot about poker and the terminology. I'll give a pass this time. Otherwise Damon played well because you have to root for him because even though he isn't the greatest person, everyone else is worse, so you have to root for him. I'll talk more about that after the professor. The professor (Martin Landau) was probably my favorite character simply one scene he has in the film. If you've seen this movie I think you can guess which it is, but Landau has such little screen time in the film, but he kills every scene he's in. I would like to see more of the films that he is in now. Now onto the problems I have with the characters. I don't think any person in this film is a particularly good person. Damon is our protagonist/hero, but even then he isn't the most morally good person, so everyone else around him has to be worse for him to be a clear cut hero for the film. Like with Grama telling McDermott that he shouldn't vouch for Worms. Grama is 100% correct and McD should not vouch for him, but to show how bad Grama is we see him abuse a dog so we know we shouldn't listen to him. Another problem I had with the characters is the relationship between Damon and his girlfriend. Their relationship is one of the worst I've seen in a film or tv show. They aren't good to each other and we are almost forced to like them together when neither of them are the good one in the relationship. I also think that Malkovich's Russian accent is pretty bad so I'll knock him a little bit for that, but I liked his performance otherwise. The next thing I liked was the dialogue between the characters. There is a lot of poker talk, but we aren't told what everything is. That is a good thing from the narration because it mentions poker terms, but it doesn't baby you and explain what everything is because it uses the camera to show how a character is thinking/feeling. I already said I'm not a huge fan of the large amounts of dialogue, but there is just a little bit sometimes. Now is me describing the one scene with Martin Landau. In this scene Damon goes to Landau to talk about a meeting he missed for one of his classes. Landau tells Damon a story and the story is so good. As Landau is telling the story you can tell that he realizes that Damon doesn't want to be a lawyer anymore. He doesn't quite know that Damon is going to go back to cards, but he tells this story and as he's talking you realize that it relates to Damon's situation perfectly and you feel so good watching it. Another good scene was the final scene where Damon finds out Malkovich's tell for poker and tips the scales back towards him. KGB has been calm the whole time he has been on screen, but we finally see him shaken when he realizes that he got beat straight up. Then when Damon ends the game on the final hand is a great way to end Damon's fall into the hole. The last scene I'll talk about is the Chan scene where Damon beat a pro poker player at a table. The scene isn't my favorite, but there is a line that is now probably one of my favorite lines in any film. Damon beat Chan with how he played and Chan asked Damon what Damon's hand was but Damon says he doesn't remember. That was so cool and probably one of the best "I'm better than you" quotes ever. This movie wasn't my favorite, but it had some pretty good moments. Solid 6/10. Not a bad 6/10, but a very respectable 6/10. |
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