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What was the last movie you watched?

Discussion in 'Movies and Television' started by EbeneezerAl, Jan 19, 2008.

  1. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Men in Black: International: I don't think any MIB movie will ever touch the first one, though of course that could be my nostalgia talking. But this one did a fairly decent job of it all. Story felt a little rushed in some parts and I would have liked more time spent on some of the back story, villains, and aliens involved, but I enjoyed the acting and the main characters and that went a long way. I don't know that I'd advise anyone to throw their own money at the film, but for a rental/Netflix watch, it'd be fine.

    Can I just say that I hate kids at movie theaters? Like, the kid behind me spent the entire movie asking "Is that Thor?" Shut up, kid. He was old enough to know to zip it, and should have been old enough to understand that actors can play more than one character. Ugh. AND his mother spent the whole film making suggestive comments. I get it, it's Chris Hemsworth, but geez, some thoughts should stay in your head. Especially when you're sitting next to your underage kid. Double ugh. Blast these two into the sun.
     
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  2. Derek

    Derek Well-Known Member

    ^ Given that description of the mother it's a miracle the kid knew what a Thor even was tbh.
     
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  3. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    First one is definitely the best. I do quite like the second one though (As a side note ever since Rick and Morty threw shade at the second one with a throwaway line in an episode I've been seeing negative opinions towards the second one that I never saw before) and the third one was much better than I was expecting. Sad to hear this one is basically just average (I don't know if you meant it that way, but saying you can't recommend somebody actually spend money on it very much implies that feeling).

    Yeah, kids in the theater can be quite bad. Had a kid next to me in Endgame. He couldn't sit still and he knocked over his (thankfully empty) cup at some point. As I recall when my parents went to see A Quiet Place they said there were some high school kids who kept on talking throughout the entire movie. Which sucks since that movie especially needs a silent audience.
     
  4. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    I love the first one and think it holds up pretty well even today. I can't actually remember the second one, though I know I've seen it, so I'd say that probably means it was fine enough, not good or bad enough to be memorable. I don't think I ever saw the third one. I'm not sure how to describe Men in Black: International. I liked the main characters and thought Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson worked well together, much as they did in Thor: Ragnarok. The movie definitely focuses most of its time on them, but the rest of the cast (Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, etc.) did well with what they were given. The story is pretty simple and works well enough- the leads find themselves with an alien super-weapon in their possession and are trying to keep it away from the bad aliens who want to destroy shit with it, while also investigating a potential mole in the MIB. But it felt a little hollow to me and I wanted more of that backstory. With regards to the villains of the film in particular, it almost felt like a sequel, like I should already know about these guys, and maybe they were referenced in another of the films, I don't know, but because I wasn't really invested, the stakes didn't feel very high. That said, I don't regret spending my money on it; it was a fun time, and I'd watch it again, if even only to see if I missed out on anything because of my crappy theater-going experience. I think that someone who likes all of the other MIB films will probably like this one fine. But I also know not everyone throws their money at the theater practically every weekend like I do, so I can't really say that if you go to see only a handful of films in theaters a year, that this should be one of them.

    Luckily when I saw Endgame, there were very few kids there, and the ones who were there were really well-behaved. And I got lucky again at A Quiet Place, because there were only like 10 other people at the most in there, and none of them were kids. This audience at MIB just sucked, though. Maybe that's partly why I'm a little salty at the movie.

    I haven't seen anything new since MIB, but I am taking my nephew to the *coughcashgrabcough* re-release of Endgame tomorrow, so I'll edit in if it's worth checking out or not. I'm guessing the extra crap probably won't be worth it, but he hasn't seen it at all yet, so...

    EDIT: Eh, a few minutes long tribute to Stan Lee, a very short deleted scene from towards the beginning of the film
    featuring an unfinished Prof. Hulk effect, showing what he was up to before Steve, Nat, and Scott met him at the diner
    and another very short clip/teaser from Spider-Man: Far From Home. Not great, not terrible, but definitely not worth the extra bucks if you've already seen the film, in my opinion. It'll all be on the Bluray/DVD anyway.
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2019
  5. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I saw it again myself today. I do like the tribute they had but definitely agree those 6 minutes total weren't enough to truly warrant a whole movie ticket. Endgame itself is still just as good the second time watching, so it's not like you're not gonna enjoy yourself (The occasional person you see online making the comment about Endgame being terrible, can't help but wonder if they're a troll or they just don't like superhero movies).

    It was definitely a cash grab. Can't help but wonder if part of it is because of all the talk when Endgame initially came out about it possibly beating Avatar's record for earnings. Man that debate is ridiculous. I've never seen so many people suddenly like Avatar until it was at risk of losing it's top spot of total earnings. And the arguments some people tried to make for it. "Oh, Endgame had 19+ movies to build up to it while Avatar was itself and nothing else." "Oh, even if Endgame beats the record it doesn't count because if you adjust for inflation Endgame can never beat it." "Oh, there are so many more movie theaters today to play Endgame than there were back when Avatar came out." Funny thing about the inflation argument is that, if we were to really go by that argument, Gone with the Wind will perpetually be the highest grossing film of all time.
     
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  6. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    ^ Avatar is straight garbage, so I was kind of rooting for Endgame, but yeah, the whole thing is ridiculous.The only ones who win are the studios taking more and more of our money. And I'm not sure it matters anyway, because I bet they re-release Avatar again before the second (probably) trash movie is released, so even if Endgame beats the record, it probably won't last.

    Yeah, that's not likely to change. Gone with the Wind was in theaters for a long time, like two years or something, with little to no competition, and since it was before home video, there was no choice but to pay to see it in theaters.

    I think the deleted scene in particular was a let-down. There were so many better scenes they could have included- for instance, they apparently filmed a scene that would have featured Tony after his snap speaking with an older version of Morgan similar to the scene between Thanos and young!Gamora in Infinity War. Or they could have shown Steve putting the stones/Mjolnir back in time and reuniting with Peggy. Or about a million other things that would have been way more interesting. Instead, meh unfinished Hulk. But that's life.
     
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  7. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    Saw MIB today. It was surprisingly enjoyable for me. Admittedly I had no real expectations for it, so yeah...

    More importantly, I saw Spider-man: Far From Home on Tuesday night. It was fantastic. Definitely better than Homecoming.

    As a follow-up/epilogue to Endgame... Honestly I'm not too sure about that. It's honestly hard to balance that and having a Spider-man focused movie. It's an epilogue to Endgame in the sense that the superhero focus of the movie is basically Nick Fury stressing the importance of having somebody fill Iron Man's shoes. At this point the Avengers are basically all gone (Iron Man and Black Widow are dead, Captain America and Hawkeye are retired, Hulk is potentially permanently injured and is less of a fighter now because of Banner merging his and Hulk's personalities, Black Panther is probably trying to rebuild Wakanda's infrastructure after 5 years without him as king, Thor and presumably Captain Marvel are both off planet, and Doctor Strange is most likely focusing more on the mystic threats to Earth. I have absolutely no idea what's up with War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Ant Man, or Falcon. Point is, the movie makes it seem like Spider-man is the only active hero). So the main conflict for Peter is him wanting to be a regular high school kid while Fury keeps on trying to force him to step up and be the next big hero. Oh, and they kinda go over what happens when Banner snaps everyone back to reality (Not gonna lie, it's best to not think too much about it cuz you're gonna wonder what the hell happened to everyone who was on a plane and got dusted).

    Interesting to note is this conflict for Peter is something I feel is more unique to the MCU Spider-man. The whole point of "With great power comes great responsibility" is that Peter generally puts being a superhero ahead of his own personal life. Go on a date with MJ or stop monsters from destroying the Earth? Stop the monsters, because if he doesn't do that innocent people will die (Possibly an innocent person close to him). So, personally I think that Peter's conflict in this movie simply wouldn't happen in other versions of Spider-man. But yeah, in this movie Peter simply wants to be on his class trip in Europe and get closer to MJ while Fury is basically trying to drag him away from that in order to stop a global threat.

    Mysterio was handled quite well in this movie. It was interesting to set him up in such a way that Peter begins to treat him as a confidant and lean on him for support, and that's all I'm going to say about him (I know this is in spoiler tags, but still)

    Finally, there are 2 after credits scenes. One is stuck between the stylized credits and the normal credits, and one is at the very end of the normal credits. The one at the very end is interesting cuz it shows that something it being prepared for but we've got no idea what it is. If it is hinting towards something, it is so vague you can't tell. Could be the next big Avengers antagonist now that Thanos is taken care of, and honestly the number of Marvel characters who can fill that role is fairly small. In terms of Thanos level threats, I feel the next one to be done is Galactus.

    Back to the first of the 2 post credit scenes. Without saying what happens in the scene, I will say that I feel out of all MCU endings only Infinity War was more... Eventful? Influencing? Most post credit scenes simply are fun little jokes or are fairly uneventful. Iron Man ended with showing the Avengers were gonna be a thing, Iron Man 2 showed Thor was next, etc. Sure, Avengers ended with showing Thanos was gonna be a villain, but that didn't really come to fruition for another 7-8 years. Infinity War ended with half of the universe being dusted. Far From Home ends with a massive, irreversible change for Spider-man (Not sure if/how much I'm exaggerating), but it's not on the level of Thanos winning.
     
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  8. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    I just saw Spider-Man: Far From Home as well and I also enjoyed it a lot. I agree that it was better than Homecoming. I also agree with you about Mysterio- I liked his character a lot and thought he was used well. I enjoyed the rest of the supporting cast, as well. I thought the movie also did a great job keeping a balanced tone- it had its sad moments, but was also pretty funny, too. I also appreciate that they try to do new things with the characters, seeing how many times Spider-Man has been rebooted now.

    I think I saw an interview with either a director or writer of Endgame that at the least implied that Bruce took all that into account and made sure that the people who were snapped were brought back safely, but I agree that this film doesn't really quite support that. I just kind of brush it aside and not think about it too closely, same as I do for the people who presumably died second hand from the snap, like people who were killed in car accidents after being hit by suddenly driverless vehicles or small children who were left alone after their parent got dusted, etc.

    I had a little trouble buying this aspect of the movie. I know that Mysterio is a Spider-Man villain, and once you find out more about what's going on, it makes more sense, but at the beginning of the film when it looks like there is a massive planetary-wide threat, Nick Fury tapping Spider-Man for the job seemed a little nonsensical. Definitely seemed like something Strange should've been handling.

    I was getting some Secret Invasion vibes from that post credit scene. I know Captain Marvel showed the skrulls in a friendlier light, but maybe they're setting the stage for a similar arc. I've also seen it mentioned that it could be setting up S.W.O.R.D., which actually makes more sense.

    I agree. I'll be interested to see where Spider-Man goes from here. I did love that they got JK Simmons back.

    I'm sure there's more I could say, but for being the first film to follow Endgame, I think it did a pretty good job. It's definitely worth seeing.
     
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  9. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    While on the subject of Far From Home, I had an epiphany of sorts the other day. Honestly it probably took me longer than it should have to realize this.

    Mysterio more likely than not survived. I honestly should've realized it immediately after seeing the edited video portraying Spider-man as a bad guy. That video is obviously the first hint, with the fact that logically it would've been altered after the final battle. One of the guys working with Mysterio could've done it since we do see one of them take a flash drive out of a computer after finishing doing something to EDITH. But as I thought about it, I remembered that during the final fight we see Mysterio get shot by the drones and nothing during the fight at that point causes Peter to take his eyes off of him. Once close enough to him we see its a hologram and the real Mysterio was cloaked and trying to sneak up on Peter, which logically means either he never got shot or he got shot and used a hologram to simultaneously cloak him and keep a fake image there so Peter couldn't see him sneak up to his side. Afterwards, once its all said and done, EDITH tells Peter Mysterio died and that all holograms have been turned off. But then I realized 2 possibilities. The body EDITH said is dead isn't Mysterio but instead one of the people helping him and there was a drone not connected to EDITH to make the body look like Mysterio, therefore fooling everyone. That, or Mysterio's people have control over EDITH (Partially or completely) and told her to say that Mysterio died.

    Also also, Homecoming gave us Vulture and set the groundwork for Scorpion (And perhaps the Prowler from Spiderverse given that Donald Glover's character in Homecoming is supposed to be Miles' uncle). Those two plus Mysterio gives us 3 members of the Sinister Six. At least I assume Mysterio is one of the six. Pretty sure it changes. The Spider-man PS4 game gave us the Sinister Six but I'm not familiar enough with the comics to say if all six members in the game are the same as the comics.

    No kidding. Probably my two favorite jokes are the dark humor ones (The one of the teacher talking about his wife and the one towards the end of the scene with Fury in Peter's hotel room).

    Not being familiar with S.W.O.R.D., that makes sense (The scene setting them up). I wasn't aware that it existed in the comics, so I wouldn't have considered them building something in space to be anything more than a generic space outpost or something. With respect to the next big Avengers things, after Endgame there were some YouTube videos I scrolled past that were claiming that there were hints (somehow) that Secret War was being set up as the next big thing (Never watched the videos so can't comment on their reasoning). Secret War involves Dr. Doom, which therefore means the Fantastic 4. I'm pretty sure Galactus first appeared in a Fantastic 4 comic and is somewhat tied to them. So I could see Marvel going in that direction. Secret War/Introducing the Fantastic 4 (Not sure which order it would happen) then followed by Galactus making his way to Earth. Hell, depending when Guardians of the Galaxy 3 comes out they could include a Silver Surfer cameo as well. Plus supposedly Kevin Feige talking about wanting to essentially split Marvel movies into 2 large groups. Movies that take place on Earth and movies that take place in space.
    That part was so great. Loved it as well.
     
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  10. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    I can't actually remember how everything went down in that final battle- I don't remember how Mysterio got taken down in the end, but I agree that the mid-credit scene makes it seem as if he survived. Personally, I'm glad of it, if so. I liked him a lot and think he has more potential.

    Marvel Wiki lists the founding members of the Sinister Six as Electro, Sandman, Vulture, Mysterio, Doctor Octopus, and Kraven the Hunter. It also lists two other members: Hobgoblin and Gog, whoever those are. I'm an X-Men comics girl. But that doesn't mean the movies have to stick with that. The founding members of the comics Avengers were Ant-Man (Hank Pym), Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Thor, Iron Man, and Hulk, so I don't think faithfulness to the comics is something that the MCU holds in high priority.

    Yes to all of that. Great casting on the part of both of Peter's chaperones.

    I've seen two new films:

    Toy Story 4: You can tell that Disney/Pixar cares about this franchise and puts the work in. It's engaging and emotional in all the ways a good Disney/Pixar film is. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be the end or not. If it is, it's a decent ending.

    Dark Phoenix: *Sigh* I don't know what to even say about this one. I heard that it was terrible and yet I saw it anyway, so I'm part of the problem. Overall, I'd say that it did suck, but it wasn't as terrible as I was expecting. Low expectations wins again? First of all, I don't know why Fox keeps insisting on doing the Dark Phoenix storyline when the 90s animated series did it fine, but if they want to go there, they really need to take the time to develop it. That means multiple movies where this is the focus, not a side story. There needs to be time to build the relationships between the characters and develop their personalities enough that the audience is invested in them, especially with Jean. I personally find Sophie Turner so unlikable that it was hard for me to emphasize with her Jean at all, even when there was some crazy sad shit going on with her. The other younger cast- Cyclops, Storm, and Nightcrawler- were basically extras- I didn't care about them at all. Jennifer Lawrence was phoning in her performance same as she has been for a while now. Jessica Chastain's character and her companions should have been given more attention or else cut altogether. Story-wise, I didn't feel like the stakes were as high as they should have been and the action wasn't great except like one scene at the end. It also fucks the timeline all to hell and ignores movie continuity, even things established in Apocalypse. But, in my opinion, there were some good points. Spoilers for a pretty shitty movie ahead, although I don't think I actually give much away.
    For one, Charles is a massive dick in this film, and I love that people actually called him out on it. Charles is a dick in the comics, too, and McAvoy!Charles has always been more of a jerkwad that Stewart!Charles, but I felt like they went for it here and that made me happy.
    Also, I loved that in this film,
    they actually broke the cycle of I think every other X-Men film and had Erik actually be a decent guy the whole time. Like, there was none of that bullshit where the X-Men trust him and he betrays them at the end and everyone's surprised even though no one should have been. Did he actually mature and learn something? I don't know, but I loved his character here anyway.
    Also, my ridiculous (delusional?) shipper's heart was filled with joy at the ending of this film. It felt like a nod to Claremont's Excalibur run, which I loved, and I just want Charles and Erik to be happy and play chess and not fight each other. The Erik and Charles shit in this movie almost makes me love it, but then I remember the rest of the garbage. Like, don't pay to see this movie. It's pretty lame.
     
  11. Become

    Become Resident Tashian Staff Member Moderator Content Writer

    Spiderman: Far From Home. Not much to add. Though the very last post credits scene leads me to speculation.

    How long were the Skrulls filling in for Fury?

    Also, bit of a personal, but related tangent... and I'll probably spoiler it for the sake of my own feelings, but

    Zendaya is 100% bae, as the young kids say... god damn it am I crushing on another famous person?!
     
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  12. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    The Lion King (2019): It was fine? The original is fantastic in so many ways, so it would be hard for a remake to screw it up. The soundtrack is especially iconic and almost had me ugly crying in the theater (probably would have, if they hadn't unfortunately changed the music in a few key places). I think I had two major problems with the movie, besides the fact that it was basically unnecessary and you should just watch the animated version: 1) the animals look pretty realistic and some of them are adorable, but the realism means that the characters aren't able to be as expressive and show their emotions on their faces. It made the characters less engaging to me. and 2) I found myself missing the original voice actors. Having James Earl Jones return as Mufasa was perfection. I would have liked Jeremy Irons to return as Scar. Chiwetel Ejiofor just didn't have the same menace. And I honestly cannot tolerate Beyonce and the cult she has following her. Every time she spoke a line or sang, it pulled me right out of the film. I would have preferred almost anyone else.

    Overall, I'd say it's about on par with the other recent Disney adaptations. If you wanted to see it, you probably wouldn't be disappointed, but you're not missing anything by skipping it, either.
     
  13. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    I would assume they filled in for Fury for the entire movie, but at the very least they were filling in from when Peter finally met "Fury." I watched the movie again like 2 weeks ago, and there's a subtle detail people most likely will miss on a first viewing that hints towards Fury being impersonated by the Skrull guy (I forget his name). Basically there's talk of multiverse stuff and then "Fury" says that Mysterio is "From Earth, just not yours." Had that been the real Fury, logically he would've said "just not ours" instead, since such phrasing implies the speaker (Skrull!Fury) does not consider themselves from Earth.

    I had no idea Beyonce was in it. What role did she have?

    Haven't seen it, but I mean, if you wanna do a live action adaptation of a beloved cartoon movie right then its best to get all the original voice actors. Of course that's not necessarily possible given the 20 something year difference. Certain voice actors, such as young Simba, were literal children and now that they're adults they may not be able to replicate their voices from so long ago. Of course somebody could always suggest simply using the audio from the movie, but there's its own slew of issues including the possibility of it being flat out illegal. Which, as a side note, is one reason why they were unable to simply take the recordings of Robin Williams to use for Genie in the Aladdin live action movie. It's an interesting story really, but ultimately Disney is not allowed to use any voice work they have of him as Genie (And there's probably a couple hours of unused stuff that never made it into the movie).

    Your criticism of the animals looking too realistic is something I've heard before, and it makes sense. The criticism I heard did stretch from the Lion King adaptation all the way towards other upcoming adaptations such as Mulan. While it makes sense to cut back on the realism for something like Lion King since it doesn't actually have people in it, I'm not sure if it quite applies to all the other movies that have actual people in it. Of course the upcoming Mulan remake has it's own slew of issues. Like, Disney has apparently stated that they're not going to be including Mushu or any songs in order to be more respectful to the actual Chinese story/legend/history (I forget if Mulan is myth or if she was a real person in history). While that's not bad reasoning, I'm certain that literally nobody who's been wanting a live action Mulan wanted anything different than the exact cartoon movie, just in live action. Hell, the Jungle Book included Christopher Walken singing I Wanna Be Like You in it. I do feel that by removing certain beloved aspects of a movie when adapting it (I mean come on, Mushu is definitely a fan favorite and Be a Man is arguably the most popular Disney song ever), you're taking away a key part of that movie's identity.

    I know defenders of the changes to Mulan would simply say that if you wanna see those things then just watch the classic movie, but that ignores the point. If somebody is gonna argue that, then somebody else might as well argue that Disney shouldn't be making these live action adaptations at all. The entire point of these new movies is to cash in on people's nostalgia cuz we millenials treat nostalgia like cocaine. Plus these new movies seriously feel like they're hit or miss. I hear Beauty and the Beast was a very faithful adaptation (never saw it), but I've heard criticism for that one as well. Plus there's Maleficent, which I know came out a few years before Disney really started cranking out these live action remakes and some argue it doesn't count as one (But I sure as hell argue it counts), and that movie was absolutely terrible. Wow I really went off on a tangent.
     
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  14. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    She played the adult version of Nala.

    Most of the voices in the remake were good enough. The differences really only stood out to me in a few places, but it was enough to break my immersion. The first was with Scar. And I don't think they necessarily had to get Jeremy Irons back, although I would have loved it, but I felt like the character needed someone who could ooze more evilness. Maybe it was an issue with direction, not the actor. The second was Seth Rogen's Pumbaa and the third was Beyonce's Nala. I find both of their voices really distinctive and it took me out of the film a little, but I actually like Seth Rogen mostly, so I could overlook him more.

    I'm sorry, what? I saw the trailer with The Lion King but hadn't heard anything about the film itself. This news makes me want to cry. Why even remake the film without "I'll Make a Man Out of You"? And no Mushu? This is trash.

    You know what this reminds me of is Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. He too thought it'd be a good idea to mess with the source material to make it more "accurate" and respectful to the cultures the show pulled from. And that's how we ended up with fucking Oong.

    Wow, I'm super disappointed. The trailer was definitely serious and had none of the iconic music in it, but I thought that was just how they were cutting the trailer.

    Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to a serious film based on the Mulan source material, but that is so not what I'm looking for from Disney. As for the others, I haven't seen Maleficent (that one's getting a sequel too, fyi), but the others so far have been okay. Unnecessary, but not horrible films or anything. I would recommend the animated versions over the live action every time, but the adaptations have all been respectful. They add and/or change things a little, but it has yet to be in a way that infuriates me. Until now, it seems.
    ---
    So, I haven't seen anything new in a few weeks. The last movie I watched was Thor: The Dark World, since I've been on kind of a Thor kick, it's been forever since I'd seen it, and I wanted to remind myself if it sucked as much as people always say it does. And no, it doesn't. The villain is really lame, and they totally wuss out with the destructive potential of the Aether, especially in hindsight now that I know what it really is, but the character interactions and the acting are great. It also has a lot of beautiful imagery and a fantastic score. This seems like the sort of movie that had a lot of studio interference. I don't know if that's true or not, but in my opinion, everything that they cut out and put into the deleted scenes honestly should have been left in the film and a little more time spent on fleshing out the villains and actually making them menacing would have been welcome. It seems like they were more interested in keeping it under a certain time. *shrugs*
     
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  15. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    It: Chapter Two: I'm about to write a book here, fitting for a review of an adaptation of a 1000+ page novel, I suppose. As with the first film, the casting is top-notch and the actors do an extremely good job. The child actors are again amazing, and the adult actors both convincingly look like grown-up versions of the child actors and act like them. I would have liked more Skarsgard. One of my complaints of the first film was that he was at his scariest when he was still in the frame and just talking/interacting with the other actors and that I felt like the movie would have benefited from more of that. I felt like there was even less of that in this second installment.

    There was also some really broke-ass looking CGI in this film. Some of the CGI was bad in the first one, but I felt it mostly worked because it gave an otherworldly/uncanny valley feel to the scares. Here, I thought a lot of it just looked fake. There was no moment in this film where I felt scared.

    This movie is surprisingly funny. A lot of it is intentional, but I'm pretty sure some of it was not supposed to make the audience laugh, and people in my theater were laughing a lot. Some scenes were a miss for me in that regard. The movie did have a lot of heart, and it did a really good job of showing the bond these people share, which I always thought was the most important aspect of the book. I think my favorite scene was in the beginning of the film when they meet up again for the first time as adults, because you really see the love there. I thought that was very true to the book.

    This film took a lot of liberties with the source material as far as the story goes, and it left book-fan!me sad. Some of the changes did the characters a disservice, especially Mike. I did not like what they did with Mike at all here. I also thought Bill was underused. The kids in the book all have their own roles to play, and I felt like each one's contributions weren't acknowledged. There were a few other things that I didn't like about the characters that I might rant about later when I get my thoughts together. The final form of It was even more disappointing than the stop-motion spider from the miniseries, something I didn't think was possible. I think the supernatural aspects of the story are difficult to adapt, and while the movie wasn't perfect, it did a fine enough job with it.

    Overall, I'd say that It: Chapter One is the superior film, but fans of that one who aren't book purists will likely be satisfied with this film as well.
     
  16. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day. Honestly, I'm doubting Disney's official reasoning. I feel that more likely they're making these changes to be more accurate to the actual legend as a way to pander to Chinese theaters given that China is the largest (I think) movie market in the world. So their attempts at being respectful is seeming more like an attempt to get as many Chinese people to like it and watch it as possible. A cynical view no doubt, but it is incredibly likely.

    -----

    Let's see. The most recent movie I watched was Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw and I have got to admit that this movie is much better than it has any right being. The Fast and Furious franchise is known for it's increasingly over-the-top movies and the creators don't care for realism. This movie is incredibly fun to watch and The Rock and Jason Statham (Stathem?) play off each other well enough that the movie is essentially a buddy cop movie where the two leads learn how to work together and stop hating each other's guts. Them having trouble working together is brought up a lot (Which, to be fair, it takes a long time for them to learn how to work together) and is commented on by several characters, including Idris Elba's character.

    Speaking of Idris Elba, his character really exemplifies how this franchise just stops caring for realism and goes entirely for what's cool. His character is working for some secret organization/cult that wishes to essentially forcibly evolve humanity by killing off every person they deem too weak. His character has received cybernetic enhancements, including essentially having a computer in his eyes that predicts the trajectory and force of objects/fists moving towards him, a predictive GPS or something that allows his motorcycle (Which is self driving by the way) to intercept whatever he's chasing, and he may or may not be bulletproof (He straight up blocks bullets with his hand early on, but it may be more that his suit is bulletproof instead of him).

    There were a couple actors I was not expecting to see, Ryan Renolds and Kevin Hart. Both of their roles are amusing, so don't see me saying their names and expect something more serious than what they normally do. Ryan Renolds arguably is starting to fall into this pigeonhole sort of role, where all his roles (Or at least a lot of them) are starting to come off as really similar. Honestly though he's still really fun to watch, so I won't hold this against him yet. He's in the movie for around 10 or so minutes total, so if you're not a fan of him he doesn't take up too much screentime.
     
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  17. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Oh, absolutely. Studios definitely pander to the Chinese market. I think I remember hearing talk that this was also why Tilda Swinton was cast as the Ancient One in Dr. Strange, because they didn't want to cast a more comic-accurate actor and risk offending them/losing money. I liked her in that role, but still.

    I was talking to my sister the other day about these Disney live action remakes, and I'm still really salty about what they're doing with Mulan. I really just wish Disney would move away from this trend. The other films are mostly shot-for-shot remakes of the animated ones, and are therefore pointless even if they are watchable, and this one seems like it will have none of the charm of the animated one, making it even worse.

    He's basically Deadpool all the time. Even in rom-coms he has that same personality/sense of humor. I'm still here for it, but it'll probably get old eventually.

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    Haven't been to the theaters since It, but the last film I watched was Megamind. This movie is so underrated; I love it to pieces. I've been seeing a lot more discussion/memes since it was added to Netflix, so maybe it's finally starting to get the appreciation it deserves.
     
  18. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Finally got around to seeing Joker. I really enjoyed this as a character piece and it seemed like a pretty honest look at mental illness. This portrayal of the Joker is far superior to the crap we got from Leto in Suicide Squad, I'll say that. I'm curious to see what the plan is for future uses of the character. I liked that this wasn't a traditional comic book movie; I think that people who aren't fans of that genre would enjoy this if they are fans of films with a darker tone. DC should do more stuff like this, imo.
     
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  19. Desert Warrior

    Desert Warrior Well-Known Member

    Seeing all the attempts at politicizing it was annoying. "Don't watch this cuz it'll promote white nationalism hate crimes." Ridiculous.

    Last movies I saw were Ford vs. Ferrari and 21 Bridges. Both of them were really good. The car one was fun to watch and pretty interesting since it's portraying a true story. 21 Bridges went in a different direction with respect to Chadwick Boseman's character compared to the trailers and I felt it gave him some depth. Trailers (and the impression other characters had of him) kinda portrayed him as the sort of cop who would rather kill criminals (especially criminals who killed cops) than arrest them. In the movie though it felt like his character was the one cop who doesn't immediately try to shoot the criminals who kicked off the plot.
     
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  20. Kitty

    Kitty I Survived The BG Massacre Staff Member Administrator

    Why do people have to do that? They did the same thing with Captain Marvel, imo, trying to make it seem like some man-hating ode to feminism, and I really didn't get that from the movie at all. People should just chill and enjoy films for what they are. I can't imagine living life so determined to be offended all of the time.

    Also, that's a stretch connecting Joker to white nationalism. If anything, I thought it spoke more about wealth inequality than race, and it seemed pretty relevant to today's issues in that respect. If the film sparked rage, I think it'd be far more likely to be towards the one percent.

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    I'm going to see Knives Out tomorrow night, so I'll edit this post with my thoughts on that.

    Edit: It's really good! It has a strong cast and an interesting story. My sister thought it was a little predictable, but it didn't go quite where I thought it was going, so I can't agree with that, although I see her point. I would have liked it to be longer so that we could have more time with some of the characters who weren't used very much. Aside from that, can't complain. I'd recommend!
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2019

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