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Comments
And that version of The Mummy has Willoughby Gray in it, too!
That's right! I may have to pop it in soon.
That's true too. I definitely don't expect films this great to ever be made again.
Yes!
In this studio controlled climate where films need to be around 2 and a half hours or under, I'd say you're right.
Let me start by saying I don't know anything about the Dark Universe. I'm not a Universal Monsters aficionado, although I've seen some of the 90's Mummy films (with Brendan Fraser and Mrs. Craig, which I enjoyed) as well as the Frankenstein remake from that era starring De Niro (yuk).
This film features a fetching blonde heroine (Annabelle Wallis as smart anthropologist Jenny Halsey), a deadly & creepy villain in Sofia Boutella (who rocks the screen again like she did in 2015's Kingsman as the evil Princess Ahmanet), & a star of stars in Tom Cruise (looking younger and fitter than he did even in MI-RN) as main hero Nick Morton, a sort of soldier of fortune and antiquity thief. It even has Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry, who runs a shadowy organization trying to make sense of all the sudden strange happenings which occur after The Mummy is inadvertently released.
It's entertaining throughout its relatively short (1 hr 47 mins) runtime & is a visually impressive movie too. The desert sequences in particular are very lifelike. The London scenes aren't quite up to the same level though, and like the recent Wonder Woman, there's a tad too much visible CGI (although it's not as offensive as it was in that DC effort). The film is also a bit empty at its core. There's certainly a lot happening on the screen, but it's difficult to really care about any of the characters, who are so thinly written as to be instantly forgettable. The dialogue lacks punch too & it almost seems like it has been dumbed down to appeal to a global audience and multiple languages.
This film is quite a bit darker than the 1999 Brendan Fraser film, which had more of a Roger Moore swashbuckling adventure aura. This new one is somewhat Spectre'ish in tone and like that last Bond film it's also tonally a bit of a mishmash, with the humour sometimes jarringly out of place with the sombre proceedings. Perhaps Universal has just created a new sort of 'horror adventure' genre with this film. It remains to be seen if it will be successful, and I personally would have preferred a little more emphasis on the horror elements (even if that meant sacrificing the potential box office).
It's certainly worth a watch, but keep expectations low.
I really enjoyed this film and it's great that DC has their first major hit for the DCEU, even though I personally enjoyed BVS and SS. There is much to like about this movie. The directing, action, acting, costumes, and locations. My only real overall complaint is the CGI looked terrible and quite often. It's great that we FINALLY have a superhero film directed by a female and starring a female that is successful. I looked forward to Justice League, Wonder Woman 2, and MARVEL's Captain Marvel.
I'm shocked! I thought it was a great movie and I'm looking forward to the announced sequel.
I can agree with everything you wrote.
@Thunderfinger
That's quite a surprise. I truly love the film; think it's pretty well written and executed and acted. Clever plot too.
Excellent. Best film I've seen in ages. Reminded me of the Coen Brothers in it's plot, dialogue and humour.
Chris Pine gives probably his best ever performance in this. Really low key and intense. Also good are Ben Foster and the ever reliable Jeff Bridges.
Loved the banter between Bridges and his partner, Gil Birmingham. The scene where they try to order food in a rough little restaurant is fecking hilarious!
+1
I was in the mood for some vintage Charlie Sheen. So I took in a double bill of two of his 90's thriller efforts which I quite enjoy.
Terminal Velocity features Sheen as Ditch Brodie, a sky diver who is one day visited by a beautiful blonde (Natassja Kinski) at his diving school. She isn't quite what she seems & Ditch is suddenly implicated in espionage and murder. He must clear his name while foreign baddies try to take him down. A young (and trim) James Gandolfini also stars. There's an aerial sequence towards the end of this film which brings back memories of the great stunt work during the Glen era. It's quite well done.
Shadow Conspiracy features Sheen as Bobby Bishop, special aide to the president. He unwittingly discovers a plot from within the government to kill POTUS. Along with an intrepid reporter Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton), Bishop must foil the plan while evading a dangerous silent assassin (Stephen Lang in a particularly deadly turn) who's constantly on his tail. The film deals with some interesting concepts (surveillance and 'leaks' by the Deep State) which are quite topical today and also features an early 'killer drone'. It was the last film directed by George Cosmatos prior to his death. Donald Sutherland and Ben Gazzara also star.
I must admit that I expected this one to be a critical flop. But I was proven wrong. Superb stuff.
The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only.
Both great Bond films in my opinion. To see them on the big screen as it were was a real treat. Though I wish it were under different circumstances. FYEO in particular is a film I love more with each viewing. Some wonderful cinematography, settings, story, action and an older Bond. Sir Rog is on top form with this. A great Bond film.
Then yesterday I took my son to see Wonder Woman. It was okay. Nothing terrible, but it didn't wow me like I was thinking it would. 2/3 fantastic. Last third....meh!
Gal Gadot is a good Wonder Woman though.
Then today my son got to see the film he's been hanging out for, Guardians Of The Galaxy vol 2.
Have to say it's been the better of the two films we've seen this weekend. Certainly as good for me as the first GOTG. Great ensemble cast, visually great. Some good lines. Everything I would expect from a Marvel movie. Personally I'm pretty sure I'm more Marvel than DC.
It s a good one.
THE IMITATION GAME
The well known background plot is exciting enough, but it is the interplay between the characters that makes it intriguing. The way the different time periods are edited together is spot on in terms of keeping the interest of the viewer.
This is what you get when Kevin Smith directs other people's stuff, when Tracy Morgan is directed into yelling and shouting all the time and when Bruce Willis doesn't want to be directed at all. I will admit though that upon a second viewing, with severely lowered expectations, I hadn't as vile a reaction to this film as I had the first time. This isn't in any way a great movie but some bits here and there work and if you're not too demanding of the buddy cop genre, COP OUT might be worth your time. Still, one of Kevin Smith's least satisfying efforts in my opinion.
RED STATE
Perhaps my favourite of Kevin Smith's "serious" films to date, RED STATE gives hate preachers like Fred Phelps, now finally dead, and his Westboro Baptist Church morons the finger. Michael Parks is excellent as a Phelps type of pastor, with Melissa Leo and Kerry Bishé, John Goodman and Kevin Pollack also delivering pretty good performances. "God hates critics!" is what I would write on a protest sign. (As a matter of fact, I wouldn't protest, I'd go all Colin Firth on a hate church if I could.) Anyway, critics were none too kind for this film. Why? Can't "holier than thou" America take a bit of criticism towards its aggressive and dysfunctional church groups? Of course not; that's why a technically competent semi-exploitative film like RED STATE is panned with the same arguments that were used for previous Kevin Smith films. Because that's easy. Because making fun of the poor kid in class is what makes critics feel good about their own lack of ambition.
Kevin Smith and Tom Cruise have a lot in common: no matter what they do, haters hate and it so happens that amongst critics, many anti-Cruise and anti-Smith demons dwell. RED STATE is a fine thriller, at times tense, at times just very good as a substitute for all those evil fantasies I myself have about destroying the morally corrupt foundation of America's most shameful quarter of the country: the bible belt.
TUSK
Think THE HUMAN CENTIPIDE but with a deliciously evil Michael Parks instead of Dieter Laser, and Justin Long as the victim. Oh, and a walrus instead of a centipede. TUSK, the brainchild of Kevin Smith's SModcast musings, is a hard exploitation film, mixed with a strange bit of comedy, coming from Johnny Depp (!) as Canadian PI Guy Lapointe. Despite the obnoxious content and clear resemblances to other body horror flicks, TUSK can be very good in a tense and gory and pretty upsetting sort of way. Justin Long in particular is a fine actor whom I always enjoy no matter what he does. Even as a 'class A' scumbag turned victim, he shines. Of course most people left this film untouched; I for one praise Kevin Smith for trying out new things. And as a horror fan, I have some affection for this strange project, even without the Kevin Smith connection.
YOGA HOSERS
Right, Nazi midgets in modern day Canada, shouting "Wunderbar!" as if that's funny and Harley Quinn Smith and Lili-Rose Depp defeating them along with Johnny Depp's Guy Lapointe... Kevin, my good friend, lay down the weed, man. Seriously, I can worship and defend you with all my heart between CLERKS and TUSK, but YOGA HOSERS is several steps too far, even for me. The problem is not that it's not a funny film; the problem is that it tells me I should think this is funny. HQ and LL give quite an enjoyable performance and it's great to see the likes of Justin Long and even Kevin Conroy (cameo), but the connective tissue is just not good. My least favourite of Kevin Smith's film to date.
Overall 'new' Kevin Smith ranking:
1 - Red State
2 - Clerks II
3 - Jersey Girl
4 - Zack and Miri Make a Porno
5 - Chasing Amy
6 - Dogma
7 - Tusk
8 - Clerks
9 - Mallrats
10 - Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
11 - Cop Out
12 - Yoga Hosers
I remember Treasure Planet being good but for some reason I always compare it to Titan A.E. which came out two years prior to Treasure Planet. I always prefer Titan A.E. to it though.
Really good, even if some of the ight scenes looked like coming straight out of video games. But what I enjoyed most were the little moments, like Steve teaching Diana to dance in the bombed out village. If there had been more moments like that, and less big CGI fest, it could have been a great movie. Here, it's a good movie, and I'll rewatch it with pleasure, but I don't think i'll buy the DVD (won't spit on it if someone gets it for me at Christmas, though). Oh, and Gail Gadot is a worthy successor to Lynda Carter.
@JamesBondKenya, you could interpret it as brainwashing, or his supporters were are mentally degraded by the war as Kurtz, which led to his loss of sanity and reason, despite the fact that he was right on the money about the evils of war. The film leaves much up to you to wonder about, kind of like Conrad's original story.
It's been a long time since I've see Redux, but all it really does is add in some new scenes that I don't find necessary to enjoying the film. It's about 50 minutes of extra cut footage, but I think it just bogs down a film that already feels like an epic and psychedelic horror journey. If you rewatch the original cut and end up forming a liking to it or at least an interest in the themes and ideas of the film, you might want to check out Redux just to say you did it, and to get the extra content that Coppola filmed for the picture. As I said though, I wouldn't classify it as an improvement over the original which is one of the few perfect films I've seen. I know you're quite young, so some of the things in this film you may find yourself appreciating later, as it's very much a movie meant for adult eyes. I watched it the first time when I was heading into college, and I think that was the right time for me to experience it, as I was sort of prepared for it. If I watched it in my early teens, I don't think I'd have taken as well to it, as I wouldn't have been a grown enough movie viewer. I dunno.
I'd also recommend watching Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, the documentary made about the making of the film that goes into all the issues and traumas that Coppola faced to get it to the big screen. It nearly killed him, this movie.
Okay, also this film reminded me of another movie I've seen. Silence. That was Martin Scorsese's movie from last year and it was, like apocalypse now in that it was a long journey through an unfamiliar land that people had been going to uninvited and the horror that was occurring and how it destroyed these priests. Definitely recommend silence if you haven't seen it.
They don't really make them like this any more. A slow burn. Based on the bestselling novel by John Grisham and expertly directed by the late, great Sydney Pollack, The Firm is one of the best legal dramas of the 90s. Tom Cruise stars as Mitch McDeere, an idealistic young lawyer who's just graduated from Harvard. He's in high demand in Boston, but is seduced by the family atmosphere and high salary of Bendini, Lambert & Locke, a small firm in Memphis. Mitch was born poor and comes from a broken family, & so BLL's collegial style appeals to him as a sort of surrogate for what he lacks personally. He accepts their offer and excitedly moves there with his bright & down to earth wife Abbie (Jeanne Tripplehorn: whatever happened to her?). Unfortunately, the 'Firm' ends up being quite unsavoury, and Mitch is soon faced with some critical decisions, on which his law career and even his life depend.
The greatest thing about this film imho are the performances. Everyone is truly on top of their game. There is a wonderful supporting cast, including the always excellent Gene Hackman as Avery Tollar (a cynical but care free partner at the firm), Hal Holbrook as senior partner Oliver Lambert (you just know he's going to be a bad guy), David Straithairn as Mitch's incarcerated brother Ray, Gary Busey as cheerful P.I Eddie Lomax (got to love that name), Holly Hunter as his witty secretary Tammy, & Ed Harris as dogged FBI investigator Wayne Tarrance . Even Tobin Bell (of Saw fame) has a small but memorable role.
Some of the strange policies of the law firm in this film (such as encouraging marriage to promote stability and for promotion) were also in effect at an accounting firm I used to work for. Come to think of it, so was the casual over billing of clients. The film is long at 2.5 hrs, and there's quite a bit of exposition, but the suspenseful piano driven score by Dave Grusin is absolutely first class, and helps to keep tension levels high.
I first saw this in the cinema when it came out. This is a quite enjoyable coming-of-age road movie/family drama. The music numbers bring it down, except for one. Funniest sequence is the one with Bigfoot.