FOUR DUMB BLOCKBUSTERS AND AN ART WESTERN
Nov. 13th, 2015 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogOne good thing about flying 15 hours on an airplane with a decent VOD entertainment system is that you do get caught up on yr movie watching. Here’s what I managed to watch.
Jurassic World
Did anyone need a new Jurassic Park movie besides Universal Studios? Probably not, and it’s just as well I waited for the airplane release. It’s silly dinosaur fun with a new raptor gimmick (i.e. Raptor Strike Force) and very dumb science. Probably the most amazing thing about it is that it requires you to believe that either the first three films never happened or that everyone involved at InGen learned absolutely nothing from the events in those films.
Terminator: Genisys
Did anyone need a new Terminator movie besides Paramount and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Probably not, and this film basically proves that. The idea of using the time-travel angle to create alternate realities of the first two films is great in theory, but the execution is pretty bad once you realize the writers were less interested in coming up with believable consequences of time travel and more in just using it as an excuse for a do-over of the original film. The result is basically a retread of the same ideas that tries to be different mostly by rearranging the pieces.
Ant-Man
It seems strange but true that some of the best Marvel films feature the least-known characters: first Guardians Of The Galaxy and now Ant-Man, where thief Scott Lang falls in with Dr Hugh Pym who has a formula and a special suit that can shrink people to ant-size but with proportionately increased strength and speed. On the downside, it’s 100% predictable, and the family angles are cliché. But Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas are great, and it has the right tone for a superhero film.
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
As franchise films go, MI has more going for it than most, if only because you can do more story-wise with the ludicrous-action spy genre than, say, Jurassic Park or Terminator. MI has generally lived up to its premise, and it’s nice that this one openly acknowledges the fact that the IMF basically gets things done on improv and dumb luck. This installment pits Ethan Hunt against The Syndicate, a rogue group of disavowed agents causing mayhem. My biggest disappointment with it is that Tom Cruise is still the big star – I’d hoped the last film would be an excuse to let Jeremy Renner take the lead for awhile. That said, Cruise is still capable of pulling off an MI film, though I did find it amusing that every scene either features Ethan Hunt or other characters talking about Ethan Hunt.
Slow West
Not a franchise blockbuster! This an indie film from Scottish writer/director John Maclean about naïve lovelorn Scottish teenager Jay Cavendish, who roams the American Wild West in search of his girlfriend Rose, who emigrated to America with her father. Jay meets Silas, a bounty hunter who knows that Rose and her dad have a $2,000 bounty on their heads. The title is apt – this is a slow-burn tribute to Westerns (as interpreted by Scotland and New Zealand) that’s often too pretentious for its own good. Still, it has its moments, and Michael Fassbender is good as Silas.
Slow ride,
This is dF
Jurassic World
Did anyone need a new Jurassic Park movie besides Universal Studios? Probably not, and it’s just as well I waited for the airplane release. It’s silly dinosaur fun with a new raptor gimmick (i.e. Raptor Strike Force) and very dumb science. Probably the most amazing thing about it is that it requires you to believe that either the first three films never happened or that everyone involved at InGen learned absolutely nothing from the events in those films.
Terminator: Genisys
Did anyone need a new Terminator movie besides Paramount and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Probably not, and this film basically proves that. The idea of using the time-travel angle to create alternate realities of the first two films is great in theory, but the execution is pretty bad once you realize the writers were less interested in coming up with believable consequences of time travel and more in just using it as an excuse for a do-over of the original film. The result is basically a retread of the same ideas that tries to be different mostly by rearranging the pieces.
Ant-Man
It seems strange but true that some of the best Marvel films feature the least-known characters: first Guardians Of The Galaxy and now Ant-Man, where thief Scott Lang falls in with Dr Hugh Pym who has a formula and a special suit that can shrink people to ant-size but with proportionately increased strength and speed. On the downside, it’s 100% predictable, and the family angles are cliché. But Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas are great, and it has the right tone for a superhero film.
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
As franchise films go, MI has more going for it than most, if only because you can do more story-wise with the ludicrous-action spy genre than, say, Jurassic Park or Terminator. MI has generally lived up to its premise, and it’s nice that this one openly acknowledges the fact that the IMF basically gets things done on improv and dumb luck. This installment pits Ethan Hunt against The Syndicate, a rogue group of disavowed agents causing mayhem. My biggest disappointment with it is that Tom Cruise is still the big star – I’d hoped the last film would be an excuse to let Jeremy Renner take the lead for awhile. That said, Cruise is still capable of pulling off an MI film, though I did find it amusing that every scene either features Ethan Hunt or other characters talking about Ethan Hunt.
Slow West
Not a franchise blockbuster! This an indie film from Scottish writer/director John Maclean about naïve lovelorn Scottish teenager Jay Cavendish, who roams the American Wild West in search of his girlfriend Rose, who emigrated to America with her father. Jay meets Silas, a bounty hunter who knows that Rose and her dad have a $2,000 bounty on their heads. The title is apt – this is a slow-burn tribute to Westerns (as interpreted by Scotland and New Zealand) that’s often too pretentious for its own good. Still, it has its moments, and Michael Fassbender is good as Silas.
Slow ride,
This is dF
