Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 39- Spiderman: Far From Home The start of the film had me worried that this would be bad, since it was Full of unfunny awkward humour, and an uninteresting teenage love story. But Mysterio does show up and salvages the story, even though Him being the bad guy was entirely expected (not from reading the comics, just from how little time was given to who he supposedly is). I also quite liked Spiderman’s arc, it did a good job of transitioning from Stark to the Avengers with Spiderman. I would have liked this film much more if it cut down on the high school drama and had more things like that Mysterio encounter. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 38- Abominable The better yeti film from this year. The story is mostly expected, and some moments feel a little rushed trying to get through as much as possible, but other than that it’s well done. It’s exciting, has some inventive and beautiful graphics, and it the story is touching when it tries to be. Overall a fun time, but just not enough to it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 37- Shazam! The best part of the film was billy’s growth as a person and the whole family dynamic. Unfortunately, Shazam didn't really do a good job connecting the superhero part with the family story, with the superhero parts being reserved for the more lighthearted stuff. Zachary levi did a good job acting like a child, just not the child he was supposed to be. I never believed that Shazam was really Billy. Apparently one of Shazam’s superpowers was becoming a charismatic goof, because Billy was a quiet and reserved person. The villain starts with an interesting story that gave him a good motivation. However, as the film progressed, he became more and more like just any generic villain. Comedy was hit or miss, it certainly had some funny parts but elsewhere it was quite irritating (the final villain speech in particular). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 36- The Aeronauts This film has such a stark contrast in quality between its two parts. The parts that take place in the balloon are great. They’re exciting and look beautiful. The two characters infect you with wonder towards what is happening. Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne both do a good job and have good chemistry together. Unfortunately, everything on the ground is a big jumbled mess that doesn’t really tell us anything. It doesn’t do a good job of explaining how Glaisher pulled it off and got funded, it only shows the times he failed. Amelia is constantly changing her mind without proper explanation, she is first convinced to go by Galaisher and makes a big deal of how much she wants to go up again, and then in the next scene, with nothing in between, she changes her mind and needs to be talked back in. Then there is the opening scene which I enjoyed while it was happening, but doesn’t make sense in retrospect. Her behaviour is nothing like any other part of the film, and Galaisher talks as if they barely know each other, and that what he does know of her he has disdain for. But then in the flashbacks, we see that they have known each other for a while and he seems to like her just fine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 35- Judy A generally competent film which told its story effectively and was well acted (the talking part, not sure about the singing). I also liked the scene with the gay guys, it brought some warmth and humanity to an otherwise bleak and sombre film. But I just don’t find the whole “past their prime broken down version of a star” captivating enough to make a whole film about, and Judy doesn’t really bring anything unique to the genre to spice things up, so what’s left is fine, but nothing more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 34- Anna My worry with These kinds of spy films that are full of twists is that they keep changing so much that I often don’t care enough about the original story to care when the twists come. Luckily Anna does a pretty good job avoiding this and managed to keep my interest. The story might be a little silly if you think back on it, but it worked in the moment. The action is good too. Don’t really get the point of the girlfriend though. It didn’t really seem to be why she wanted her freedom, and they never did anything of any importance together. Maybe if they made a good love story that made me believe that she was why Anna wanted out, but as it is I’m not sure what really would have changed if she were to be cut. The fight at the KGB might look good, but it also makes it seem like bad planning that Anna had to go through all that to get out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 (edited) 33- Little Women The film touches on some important themes which give Jo some depth, especially with Saoirse doing a great job here. The story is fine, although I have seen films with similar themes done better (Sense And Sensibility in particular). I found the non-linear mostly distracting, and having all these characters in combination with the different timelines gives the feeling that the film is skimming through the story in a way I don’t find engaging. This might only be a personal problem of mine, but I found that my first thought in each scene being “Where does this fit in the timeline? I could figure it out of course, but it was still annoying. Edited January 30, 2020 by Tower 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 32- Cold Pursuit This film feels like someone saw those old Guy Ritchie films and tried copying those, but without quite having the talent. Not that the film is bad mind you, it’s pretty good actually, but just not quite at that level. We get the quirky characters, but not the craziness of snatched. We get intertwining storylines, but not on the level of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Also the start of the film with the depressing sadness and Laura Dern, feels out of place with the gallows humour direction this film takes. But if you like those films I think this one is worth a try. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 31- How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World A satisfying ending to this animated trilogy, and in particular to the Hiccup and Toothless relationship which is as good as ever, and really shows some unusual depth for an animation that has children as a major target audience. Most of the other characters aren’t nearly as good. There are a bunch of one note comedic characters that aren’t actually funny and just repeat the same joke every time (fake beard guy and hots for mom guy). The villain is passable, but I felt like he had the beginnings of an interesting character that could have lead to an interesting battle of ideas, but ended up being just being a generic villain. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 30- Avengers: Endgame I’ll get the more nitpicky parts out of the way first. Thanos destroying the stones means that the snap is a single event, but populations aren’t static. The human population has doubled in the last forty something years, if they did that again then the human population would be back to pre-snap levels in a single lifetime. And that is just for humans, I expect there are species that could be back to the same levels within the 5 year timespan of the movie. The other issue is with how Stark could pretty easily figure out time travel in the quantum realm, but making more Pym particles, where he already has a model of this thing that was made in the 70’s is supposed to be impossible? But those are minor issues in the grand scheme of things. The film is well paced and has good dialogue and action scenes. I also thought the first part of the film with the reactions to the snap was well done, showing the different ways the Avengers were affected by it. The final battle certainly looks good, but at the same time it was strange how a culmination of all these disparate superheroes felt so similar when fighting Thanos. Captain America fighting Thanos feels the same as Captain Marvel, they both get thrown aside without being hurt. But based on their backstory, shouldn’t Stoneless Thanos look like a joke compared to “flying through spaceships like they are made of paper” Captain Marvel? Time travel in movies often feels convoluted and leaves a lot of questions, and this one does the same. If Captain America could just go back in time put back the stones and live for decades with Peggy Carter and then just meet up with the same people that sent him back in this different world, couldn’t they use the same logic to kill baby Thanos? Especially weird because they have a whole conversation about how this film works differently to those other films, just to ignore all that in the end anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 (edited) 29- The Irishman A nice change of pace from some of the films this year that jump from one thing to the next without letting the scenes play out. At 3.5 hours it certainly takes its time, and manages to do so without boring me. I don’t think there is anything about this film that I thought was outright bad. Those things make the film capable and good, but this film is missing the things that would make it great. The plot is a decent but unremarkable gangster story, and outside of Hoffa, none of the characters were all that great. The Departed is one of my all time favourite films, and compared to that film, The Irishman is missing the great story with all its suspense, it’s missing the great characters, and just lacks the energy of that film. As for CGI, it made De Niro look younger, but it didn’t make him look young. So instead of him going from a young man to an old man, he started as a middle aged man and aged from there. Edited January 30, 2020 by Tower 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 28- Bombshell This film takes an interesting and important story and generally did it justice. The makeup is incredible, with the actors really transforming into their real life role, and the acting itself was really good. I do think that the film could have used some better scripted scenes that show you the culture of the place without having to blurt things out, and that Gretchen’s story felt rushed. But for the most part, the film did its job. Margot in particular did a great job representing the young person finding out the ugly truth of the real world. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 27- The King The big battle was done in the style of the battle of the bastards from Game of Thrones without being as well made, but still good enough. Also the change from being about peace and forgiveness to chopping off heads and going to war seemed abrupt and could have used more time. Chalamet is good though and generally so is the character it has interesting subtleties that portray a genuine hero even with flaws or lapses. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 30, 2020 Author Share Posted January 30, 2020 26- Ad Astra Brad Pitt is a great actor (in this film and in general), the cinematography is good, and the plot and the details of it generally work well, and I even liked the themes of abandonment by the father and the disappointment in the direction of humanity. Not entirely clear on why going to Neptune is such a big advantage if you just want to look at planets in other solar systems, but this isn’t the main issue with the film. The most obvious feature of this film is the direction style which overshadows everything else, and I don’t think for the better. There is so much monologuing going on that it ends up detracting from the events as they happen. When Roy is being attacked by lunar pirates, I’d rather get into that rather than his opinions about it with the fight in the background. The film is still good, but it missed its potential to be great. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 25- The Best Of Enemies I had some problems at the start of the film. Some things weren’t explained well, like how they got to the charrettes, or how they chose who was on the committee. And it isn’t the most groundbreaking film when it comes to race relations. But this film also gets things right. Both Sam Rockwell and Taraji Henson do a great job, and once the main story really gets going, I think it’s told very well. The climactic speech is really excellent, distilling the whole film into this one scene. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 24- Us This film gets most things right. the acting is great, and all the technical stuff with the cinematography and direction working well. And the story itself is unique and did a good job of drawing me in and getting me invested in both the characters and the plot. The horror here also works really well, in this sense it was a big improvement over Get Out. There were two main flaws though, the first and less important flaw was the whole reveal scene that was just so obvious that I just assumed that everyone was supposed to have figured it out by then. I mean you see her meeting with the doppelganger and then you know that she couldn’t talk afterwards, not exactly the most complicated thing to figure out. The main issue was just that the actual doppelganger world making no sense at all. I can accept the existence of these tethered people as part of the plot, but that doesn’t mean that you can just do anything with their world. There are supposed to be millions of people down there and all we see is a couple of rooms and some bunnies to eat (with no explanation for how they get there). I Wish they either took this world into either a Sci Fi or Supernatural direction to try to make it believable. The way it is made though, it is more interested in its concept and allegory about class privilege then making a logical story. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 23- Ready Or Not A delightfully absurd film full grotesque violence and ridiculous characters. It’s entertaining and exciting, with some good humour (although some of it gets in the way). The dialogue isn’t always the greatest, especially at the start of the film, and the more hand to hand action can look fake. Overall though it’s good silly time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 22- It Chapter Two The story mostly ends up the same as the first, sans the bullying but with having each loser face Pennywise by themselves, each learning to overcome their fear, and then coming together to defeat Pennywise in the same place. But while I might have preferred more deviation from the original, it is still a well made film. Whenever it tries to be, the film is intense and creepy and exactly the sort of thing that works on the big screen (I saw the original at home and this one in the cinema). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 21- Dolemite Is My Name The actual Dolemite comedy act sounds terrible, just a bunch of sexual content for the shock value. The film about it on the other hand is really good though. Eddie Murphy does a really good job, really bringing a unique kind of filmmaker to life. The best part of the film was the filming of the movie with all the weird crew that was assembled. I don’t think I would enjoy the actual Dolemite movie, but I have to admit I laughed at the sex scene, so it might be OK. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tower Posted January 31, 2020 Author Share Posted January 31, 2020 20- Hotel Mumbai One of those films without much to say about it. Not in a bad way mind you, it’s just that it gives you exactly what you would expect from the description. It tells the story of the terrorist attack quite well, it’s appropriately intense, and does a good job of having characters for you to care about. If this kind of film sounds like something you would like, then you should watch it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
