Yes that is the real title of the movie. I have no idea who's idea it was to make it that, but the movie is good so it gets a pass.
This movie almost doesn't feel real to me. I'm not a huge Transformers fan, but I absolutely love them and I remember seeing this movie as a kid, but I had almost no recollection of the plot of the movie. As I watched more of the movie it started coming back more, but I made up so much stuff that was in the movie that I thought was in it. However, this was 80-85 minutes of pure fun and nostalgia for me. I will also just get this out of the way now. I will always root for the Autobots to beat the Decepticons, but the Decepticons are the better Transformers. I'll start off by saying that this movie has the shortest exposition part of the story mountain. There is less than 10 minutes of exposition before poop hits the fan. It also stays that way for the entire rest of the movie. As soon as the story starts, it just keeps on going. It hardly slows down, but I think that fits the style of the movie. This movie was so aggressively 80s to me. When I think of the 80s this is what I think of. Bright animation that isn't the greatest but it makes sense why, and some great rock music. One of the things that I thought was in the movie was Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer," but I made that up in my mind and it was a completely different band. However, that doesn't change the fact that the music chosen and made for this movie are great. If you've seen the Michael Bay Transformers movies you know that both Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are pretty important to the movies and lots of the story revolves around them, but this movie just straight up doesn't have them. Optimus Prime is killed pretty quickly on and he doesn't have a lot of screen time. Bumblebee is also a non factor in this movie and is on the screen for what felt like 5 total seconds. I'll take a guess and say that if I was watching Transformers in the 80s, this would have absolutely crushed me even more than now. It's crazy to me that the characters I know of as the most important and coolest of the Autobots are just not in the movie. However, we do get some cool characters like Hot Rod, Galvatron, and Unicron. Although I said once the movie starts it doesn't feel like it stops, that isn't necessarily the best thing to happen. The pacing of this movie did feel a bit weird to me and made the movie not so great for me. I will say that although the pacing isn't great, the movie is just a blast to watch and so enjoyable to watch. 8.5/10.
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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 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. Since last Monday, I was lucky enough to have the time to watch six of the eight Harry Potter movies. I decided to watch these because my sister mentioned that she wanted to watch the movies and I knew I had a way to watch the movies in my room so I offered to her and my brother to start watching the movies. My sister has only read books 1 and 2 and only seen movies 1-3, which she hardly remembered. So she was basically going into this blind and I felt this was a great way to not lose the place that Harry Potter had made in my mind.
The movies were both nostalgia filled and wonder at how I didn't realize how great these movies were sooner. I also watched the 20th anniversary documentary for Harry Potter recently so lots of nostalgia came back when watching the first movie. Seeing all the actors so young and seeing some actors like Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith was so much fun in the first movie. I think that while not perfect, the main three children gave great performances. I think that Daniel Radcliffe always sold being amazed at something he probably couldn't see. The VFX also held up really well in the first movie for being 20 years old. You can still tell what parts are CGI, but that didn't take away from the film for me. The casting for this movie was also great. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint all played their roles extremely well, Alan Rickman was obviously great and so was other classic characters like Coltrane as Hagrid. Richard Harris as Dumbledore really fit the tone of the first couple films as we just start to learn about this magical world. I also thought that Richard Griffiths as Mr. Dursley was also a great cast because he plays unlikable and somewhat comical very well. Watching the story play out was great even when I knew everything that was going to happen. This goes for the whole series, but the camera movements and tricks throughout are stunning as well. The Harry Potter series went through a bunch of different directors, but one shot that seemed to make it through to each director was the "impossible shot" where the camera seemed to go through glass or impossibly small gaps with moving parts that would surely hit the camera rig if it happened for real. Of the six I saw I'd rank it at #5. The second movie was just like the first where things still have the new fresh side of magic, but it obviously gets darker with the basilisk and blood writings on the walls. Still a great cast because not many changes happened. The pacing works well because in the books there is so much more that goes on that we don't get to see in the movie so shortening each book would seem impossible, but it was done for each film, and it works well because there isn't a part where you are bored. You want to find out the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets and what lies inside. The new magic we see like the magic car and the Whomping Willow are things that really show the step up in production because those both must have been very hard to pull off. The CGI still isn't perfect with people, but it is done really well with Aragog and the Basilisk. Looking at the close ups of Aragog's eyes still made me want to look away even though I'm 18 years old. The basilisk was also done really well. Both creatures benefitted from the fact that they are both shown mostly in darkness, so detail isn't as important, but we do eventually see is still very detailed. One thing I also didn't notice was that towards the end of the film Lucius Malfoy pulls his wand and starts a spell, but is stopped by Dobby, but if you listen the first part of the spell is Avada so Lucius was full on prepared to kill a 12 year old in broad daylight. I do think that this movie gets forgotten about some and that made me rank this movie as #6 of the six movies. Prisoner of Azkaban. What a great film I enjoyed this film from start to finish. Not only do we start to see the characters grow up some like the main three, we are also introduced to even more new magic and characters. Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, and Michael Gambon being the obvious stand outs in new characters. Even when I know that it's Gary Oldman, I still can't see it as him with the long hair. I'm so used to seeing him as Commissioner Gordon from the Nolan Batman trilogy. David Thewlis plays Lupin's character perfectly, and I came to the conclusion that Thewlis is underrated as an actor. I know that he was Ares in Wonder Woman, but I think that he is a very great actor and played Lupin like how he did in the book. Michael Gambon as Dumbledore... another perfect cast. He fit into the missing role of Dumbledore beautifully and even elevated it for the rest of the series. This has been said countless of times before me, but this is where I think that the HP series really does start to get to its darker points. Chamber of Secrets had its moments, and I wouldn't disagree if someone said that book/film is where it got dark, but I think that 3 brought us up a level in darkness. Part of that is the inclusion of the dementors, which are genuinely terrifying. This movie does know how to end on good high notes though. We go from saving Buckbeak, to Harry using his Patronus, and then to successfully rescuing Sirius as an innocent man. Very great way to end this rather dark film. Of the 6 I'd probably rank this at #1. Oooooh the Goblet of Fire. From all I've heard from my English teacher he doesn't like the story of this book/film and I would have to respectfully disagree. With the argument he makes I think could be made with almost any film that has some sort of conflict, so using that kind of argument to say that a story is weak because of thinking of such a simple conclusion doesn't really work in my opinion. I'll talk about the movie now. If Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't so good, I think that Goblet of Fire might be my favorite of all the HP books/movies. The Triwizard Tournament is a great breakup of the normal flow we've had so far in the first 3 books. It brings a new challenge with all new things we've never seen before. We've only seen a baby dragon and now a full grown dragon is chasing Harry around the school. This is a bit of a sidetrack, but another thing I noticed is that in every movie, if there is an animal or object that can fly it has to do a loop around the entire school before anything else can happen. Ok, back to the movie. We also don't see the merpeople before this movie as well. Portkeys are also a cool way of transportation even though they are made obsolete when someone learns how to apparate anywhere. Mad Eye Moody is an awesome defense against that dark arts teacher, even if it is Barty Crouch Jr. most of the time. Moody's actor does a great job portraying the character from the book into film. Cedric Diggory isn't a sparkly vampire, so that is an upgrade. This is also a turning point because we get Cedric's death. I haven't cried yet while watching these movies, but I was very close when Cedric's father is crying "My Boy!" at the end. I haven't given him credit in a bit but Alan Rickman playing Snape is so awesome because every reaction he has to something is so cool and you just want to like him no matter what things he does *ahem* Dumbledore *ahem*. This movie will go into the #2 spot right now. The Order of the Phoenix was not my favorite, but I still think that it had really good things in it. The actress that plays Umbridge still makes my blood boil and I wanted to scream whenever I heard her little cough thing. However, we get to see the Room of Requirement and Dumbledore's Army practice. Watching Neville finally figure out Expelliarmus is such a great moment. The moment with Harry and Cho is also good because it actually feels like they like each other. Unlike some other relationships that should not have happened at all (Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny). Watching McGonagall be a boss while still under the reign of Umbridge is awesome because McGonagall knows what she's doing and how to be an awesome role model. We also get to see Harry in his natural leader role. We've seen a little bit of it in the other movies, but this is where he seems the most comfortable being in charge of a group of other students close or even above his age. Also the final fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort is so cool. You really get to see two of the most powerful wizards go at it with different intentions in their actions. I'm almost a little bit upset at myself for not crying at Sirius' death, but it still hit hard even without any emotions. This one goes at #3 of the 6, but I think it'll drop when I finish all 8. Finally we're at the last one so far. Half Blood Prince isn't my favorite and I don't think it will ever be my favorite, but I still had fun with this one because Harry is treated like an adult and Dumbledore lets him do things an adult would probably be trusted with. Everyone is real cool in this movie. Slughorn, Ron, and Ginny not so much in my opinion, but I like everyone in this movie, even those I'm not supposed to like. Malfoy was evil, but also the tiniest bit sympathetic at the end. Bellatrix is an awesome villain as well. Harry, Hermione, Luna, Snape, Dumbledore were all great in this movie. It felt good watching them do their thing. Lots of the scenes with Malfoy were really good. Before this movie Malfoy was laughable as being seen as a villain or an actual threat, but in this he poses an actual threat to everyone even though he doesn't end up finishing the job. Again, the same as Sirius, I'm a little upset I didn't get more emotional when Dumbledore was killed. I was expecting to, but it never came. This movie did get me very excited to watch both Deathly Hallows right away though. Right now the only spot left is #4, but I might need to think about it some more if I want to put it above Order of the Phoenix. I mostly watched this because as a kid I watched this a whole bunch and was hoping for a lot of nostalgia. I did get nostalgia from watching this, but there was a lot of stuff from this movie that I completely forgot about. However, I remember seeing some lists that had Black Cauldron not very high which I found a little hard to believe before watching. After watching I can understand how this movie wasn't regarded as very popular. I'm more glad that I got some nostalgia from this film because it has been a long time.
I will say that the movie as an animation is a tiny bit rough around the edges, but I think that all the designs that aren't any of the characters are really well done. The house at the beginning of the movie is very simple, but its design is very intricate and interesting. The same goes for the Horned King's Castle. Everything in there is menacing and dark while also looking very cool. I also liked how the skeleton warriors looked which was surprising because this movie is only PG. There are lots of dead skeletons which could be not great images, and there is one 2 second bit where we see a little bit of blood, but outside of that the skeletons are the worst of the images. The design of the animated characters are ok. Not a whole lot of super detailed or intricate designs of characters. The Horned King has an awesome design. He's super cool looking and thinking about it he has similar movements to Darth Vader which I thought was cool. Other than that the character designs were just okay. However average the design of the characters may be, the actual characters are alright. Taran is a pretty cool hero and Princess Eilonwy is a pretty good female character. Most of the movie Taran's story so he gets most of the action. The Horned King is cool and genuinely a threat. However there are two characters I'm not very fond of are Gurgi and Creeper. They are some of the only characters that aren't humans, but they are just annoying because you can't understand what they are saying at all. They make sense for being in the story, but they are my two least favorite characters. I can even stand the bard and he's annoying as well. Overall this movie was a pretty good nostalgia trip. I'd really only recommend this if I had no other movie to recommend so this gets a 5/10. This week I decided to watch the new Dune movie. It was its last day for being on HBO Max so I took this opportunity to watch it before it goes away for a while. I also watched this with my brother and my dad because we agreed we would all watch it together. Overall I enjoyed this movie. I was going in with only the information of the box scene because that was about how far I got reading the book. Even though things were a bit confusing with the politics I still think I understand why things happen. The only real questions I have are about a character that didn't even show up in the film, the Emperor. I want to know more about that character, but besides that, I think I understand things. Enjoyment was still high though. Even though though the movie is 2 hours and 35 minutes long I didn't feel bored at all which is a very good thing.
I'll start by saying that so far the world that was created in this film is awesome. All the different peoples environments say a lot about how they do things. The Atreides' world was about what I expected and the same was for the Harkonnen's and how things were dark and ominous. Arrakis was awesome to see especially the main city that Paul and Co. went to when the first arrived on Arrakis. I liked how we went from the houses from Atreides being rounded to the sharp angles all around in the city on Arrakis. It shows the differences between Atreides and Arrakis. All the technology in the movie is really cool as well. I liked the designs of the dragon fly like vehicles as well as the massive hollow cylinder ship because its so massive and it makes it super menacing looking. The stillsuits for the desert are well designed and look awesome as well. The only technology I didn't really like was the shields. I guess it's because I don't quite understand how they work, but they just didn't appeal to me because why would you turn it on if it doesn't seem to do anything whenever someone is in a fight. Another cool looking thing in the movie are the sandworms. We really only get a good look at one outside of the sand, but their design is both creepy and threatening and it makes you wonder how anyone survived before the technology came around. The spice was... there. That's all I'll say about that. However, it did lead to one of my favorite little things in the film. The cinematography in this film was pretty good. I'm a sucker for silhouette shots and those got me good in this film. I also felt lots of Star Wars vibes whenever the sun was shown during sunset. I kept thinking to myself "hey this is similar to the Luke looking at the double suns shot" but I didn't think it was a bad shot at all. Another shot I remember being pretty cool was when the House of Atreides was first arriving on Arrakis in all of their ships because we were basically seeing it from the view of someone on the ground and with the silhouette shot of all the ships coming into view I saw a nice shot. It was in the trailer, but when the leader of the Harkonnen's did the first float up into the air it was so creepy looking because we see that he has feet that touch the floor, but its almost disturbing because everyone else looks normal compared to him. Now onto the scene I mentioned earlier relating to the spice. When the spice miner is going to get eaten by the sandworm and Paul falls to the ground outside because the spice gets to him Brolin's character goes to get him. The cool thing is while Paul is on the ground you can hear him lightly say "I recognize your footsteps old man." Bam! All of the sudden Brolin's character is there and grabbing Paul even though you didn't see him. I don't know what kind of cut that is, but I saw it and thought that it was an awesome shot. I also enjoyed all the different shots of people getting in or out of their ships because they were appealing to look at. The cinematography of this film was really freaking good. Now onto the characters. I really liked Paul as a character. It took a second for me to really like how Chalamet portrayed Paul. Especially in the beginning, but as soon as they left the planet wherever the House of Atreides was and got to Arrakis I really started to enjoy Paul as a character. I would actually disagree with what other people in the class have said about Zendaya in this film. Yeah I know she isn't in a lot of it and is mostly there in visions, but I think that she did really well with the stuff she did do. I agree that more of her would be nice, but from what I've heard she'll play a bigger role in the next movie. I actually enjoyed a lot of the actor's performances in this film. Oscar Isaac did really well, which was surprising because I think him being Poe Dameron in the new Star Wars movies killed my perception of him, but he really proved he is a good actor in my opinion. Rebecca Ferguson wasn't my favorite in the film, but she was still was pretty good. Jason Momoa was pretty good as well. I think that Bautista was a little wasted in this film, but he was there. Every time I heard Josh Brolin speak I couldn't get Thanos' voice out of my head. His first line was really off putting too because it sounds exactly like Thanos does in the MCU and I wanted to laugh because Brolin will only be known for Thanos now. At the end of the film when Paul fights the Fremen, both the one Paul kills and the leader of that Fremen group played their roles really well even if it wasn't for a long time. The music/soundtrack of this movie was also really well done. I just looked up who composed the music for it and I don't know why I was surprised that Zimmer did it. Hans Zimmer is the guy you get for any movie soundtrack. Looking at his Discography you know that he is THE guy for a big movie now. Some other guys are good too like John Williams, but I think that Zimmer is the most famous movie composer and is the greatest of all time. Anyways the music timing and everything was so nice to listen to in this film. Dune was a solid movie. I think that I'll need to read the book to get more when the second film comes out but I think that this movie led pretty well into setting up the second film. 8.5/10. The Way Way Back is a fun feel good movie. I had no idea what this movie was about, but my dad showed me a trailer of this and I thought that it looked liked a good movie. This movie didn't do anything major visually or the things I usually find wise, but as I said this is a very feel good movie.
I think that the story is very good and sweet, but I don't feel like I have much to say about this movie. I get second hand embarrassment easily in movies and I got this a lot in this movie for the first bit. After that I was fine, but I find it hard for someone to be that awkward a character even if it is a movie. I guess that was part of the actor who played Duncan did it so well, but it made me mad how awkward he was. Another thing that made me mad was his posture. His neck was always tilted forward and it looked like it would be so uncomfortable to do literally anything. However, with the criticisms, I still think that this was a good movie. Most of the acting was good and the story was pretty good. Steve Carrell did well with the little time he was on screen, but Sam Rockwell did very well as was pretty funny in my opinion. That's about all I have to say about this movie. 6.5/10. Ip Man was a pretty good film. It wasn't the greatest that I've watched on this blog, but it still had some strong things going for it. This is a movie that has been on my watchlist for a while, but it was always at the back of my head, so I wasn't thinking about watching it until I saw it while searching for a movie. One thing I didn't know that this film is loosely based off of a real person. The cool thing is that this person in real life was the person who trained Bruce Lee, an absolute legend.
This movie was a pretty good watch. If you enjoy fighting, there was a whole lot of it in this film. The good thing about it though, is that it there isn't a single bad fight scene in the entire movie. Every single one flows well and isn't confusing to follow at all. The choreography for these fights is also insane. At one point Ip Man fights ten Japanese fighters at one time and just absolutely beats the crap out of them. That makes it so enjoyable to watch, because the Japanese are seen as the villains in this film. The fights aren't 100% realistic because in some parts you can tell that something wouldn't happen in real life, but you don't really care because of how cool it looks that a simple kick sends someone flying about 20 feet backwards. It also isn't just hand to hand combat. Weapons are used mostly by the villains, but when Ip uses something to defend himself, he doesn't use a weapon at all. He uses a feather duster (I think) to beat Master Jim towards the beginning and towards the end he beats him with just a long bamboo pole as well. The fight scenes from this movie are definitely the stars of this movie. The acting was pretty good. However, I was watching with subtitles and listening in Cantonese which should make sense since the movie takes place in China, but something felt off. When the actors spoke it didn't look like they were actually saying their lines in Chinese. It sounded more like they filmed the movie and voiced over all of the characters afterwards. To me that just didn't make sense. I got used to it by the end, but when I first saw it I kept noticing it for a little while. The cinematography was just okay. There were not a whole lot of knock your socks off shots (I can't believe I actually just typed knock your socks off), but the movie isn't boring to look at. In the beginning when Ip and everyone else are doing well things are very colorful, but once the Japanese invade the only colors that you really see are black, grey, and white. Besides that the only color really is from the red of the Japanese flag, and the red blood after someone gets hit. That was visually interesting, but the shots were a bit lacking. I don't have a whole lot to say about this movie. It was just above average for me, but will probably be forgotten about unless someone wants to watch it later in my life. 6.5/10. HOLD ON!
Before you read there may or may not be spoilers of the movie ahead. Read at your own risk for future enjoyment. Ahh Edgar Wright, a true artist in the medium of film. From the first shot you can tell that the movie fits his style. This movie was very great in my opinion. Not Wright's best movie, but still a very good film anyways. From the trailers that we watched in class, I didn't know what to expect from this movie because every movie from Wright that I have watched is more of a comedy or fun than this movie that is a mix of Thriller and Horror. However, with unclear expectations I think that they were mostly met. The film is very beautiful in its production and looks throughout the movie. I'll start with the cinematography because it was very very well done. I mean that is almost expected from Wright, but it was still very nice to see the nice camera movements and tricks. I mean the first shot of the movie is a very beautiful silhouette shot of the main character in a door frame that is just slightly off center. I already mentioned it, but that first shot solidified the movie was going to be good for me. The rest of the film also has great shots. When Ellie first goes into the dream with Sandy in the Rialto and you see both of them in the mirrors its so cool to see. Even after they are outside of the mirror filled Rialto Sandy gets into a car and you can see Eloise in the reflection of the mirror looking in onto Sandy's actions. This movie isn't the first to do this kind of trick with mirrors, but the movie does make the shots work very well. The use of mirrors throughout the film are also very well done. In the same scene with the mirrors flipping Sandy and Ellie, Jack and Sandy start dancing and as they start dancing whenever Sandy leaves frame she is replaced by Ellie and this flips back and forth and its a really cool thing to see because you can't see any cuts on Matt Smith as he is dancing with the girls. With the cinematography being so well, the use of colors is also so satisfying to watch. In her room, Eloise has a Neon sign blinking through three different colors white, blue, and red. The first night this seems normal because the lights take up a lot of the room. This is until the red light is the one that continually flashes. Eloise then enters the first dream in the Rialto. After this as things start to get worse and Eloise's mental state continues to deteriorate you begin to fear when the red lights continue to flash because of the ghosts of the dead men start chasing Eloise. Those neon colors are very nice use of color, but another kind of nice scene to watch is when Ellie and John go to the Halloween party together and there are all of the flashing strobe lights so you see what is happening, but only so much. This is visually interesting until Sandy and the other ghosts show up and cause her to freak out. This movie also has a similar view on women that Silence of the Lambs does. In the movie after the first couple of dreams Ellie changes her hair color from brown to blonde and as she is walking from the shop you see a lot of men staring at Ellie when before almost no one payed attention to her. This is a parallel to what happened to Sandy because she was seen as a beauty from the older men that tried to make advances on her. How this happened in the movie isn't exactly like how it happened in Silence of the Lambs, but I did just notice the similarities. The movie does take a little bit of time to get to the horror/thriller part of the movie, but the scares are alright. There are a couple of jump scares which whatever your opinions on them are, they got me and did take away slightly, but it kind of has to happen. The design of the ghosts of the dead perverts is creepy, not super scary, but disturbing enough to put you on edge. There are a couple of twists in the movie. One I did guess before it was revealed to us, but the other I only had in the back of my head until it was revealed. THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IS SPOILERS AS I EXPLAIN CONTINUE TO NEXT PARAGRAPH FOR NO SPOILERS! The twist that I guessed was that Sandy was Mrs. Collins the whole time. I didn't get that she actually killed all the men instead of only getting raped and sexually assaulted by them. I did have in the back of my mind though that Sandy was somehow still alive and that Mrs. Collins was also Sandy. The other twist I didn't guess was that the creepy old dude was not actually Jack/Matt Smith, but a completely different character. Right before it was revealed, I thought to myself that the old dude wasn't tall enough to be an older Matt Smith, so I was like they kind of messed that up in the movie, but then they revealed he was actually a cop and it all made sense. So I'll give myself like one thirds credit on getting that twist. BTW Snape kills Dumbledore. I almost completely forgot about another thing that Wright is a master at. Music. The movie doesn't use the music like Wright does in other movies, but the songs that are used are so nice to hear. Almost all of the songs used in the movie are older songs, but they fit the style of the old 60s so well and are just so nice to listen to as the movie is happening. The only real thing that I disliked from the movie was the ending. It kind of had the same problem that Strangers on a Train had where it was a feel good ending, but then something comes back up. This ending is also only like 2-3 minutes long, but it did kind of negate the things that happened a little bit. For context, after the first dream Ellie starts seeing young Sandy in mirrors and as visions, but in the end of the movie, Ellie has a successful fashion show, but Sandy shows up again even thought the conflict was resolved. After Ellie sees this she goes up to the mirror and taps her finger on it which happened earlier in the movie. This just kind of ruined the ending for me. However, the rest of the movie is still very good. Altogether, this was a very solid movie from Wright. I said it earlier, but this is not his best film. I think that Baby Driver and Scott Pilgrim are still the peak of Wright. Shaun of the Dead is the only Cornetto Trilogy film I've seen, but I would say it is around that level for me. Probably just slightly lower. I'm very glad that I got to see this movie. 8/10. |
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April 2022
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