Alright team, it is movie review time as I saw Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 yesterday. Now, I know it is important when providing feedback on things to start by pointing out the positives. But I can’t. At least I am struggling to think of anything good in this 2.5 hour train-wreck of film. Well, I enjoyed the popcorn, so there is that.
What was wrong with Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 – everything. From the lack of plot to the terrible acting to the extraordinary length, this film was a slog.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 movie poster; image from the internet.
Let’s start with the story, which is really what the developers should have done. Ostensibly, this is the backstory of Rocket. Normally I like first movies because they cover this information. I quite like a good backstory. Unfortunately this movie did not add any additional information that we hadn’t already learned from meeting Rocket in other movies. We always knew he was a racoon that had been cruelly experimented on. We already knew he was smart. We already knew he had trust issues, but was still capable of forming friendship bonds – he was tightly tied to Groot. Sure this story added some more experimented animals to befriend Rocket when he was young, then killed them tragically. But this did not expand on our understanding of Rocket’s character.
As many people have pointed out, a good superhero movie is defined and supported by its villain. There is nothing like a really good villain to unite the audience into rooting for the good guys. Unfortunately, this was not a good villain. In fact, I can’t remember their name and I refuse to bother searching it up. The villain was a mess. Their goal was to create the perfect Utopian society. But why? The villain’s motivations were not explained. He was just some random bio-engineer designed to make us afraid of genetic manipulations? Despite being a dictator-like leader, he still had a plethora of followers. I suppose most of them had been the results of previous, undefined experiments.
Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 movie poster; image from the internet.
So, with no interesting plot and a forgettable villain I might have passed this movie with ambivalence and boredom. But then they had a scene that had the villain doing evil science by rapidly “evolving” Earth animals into “higher” life forms. I am puzzled and frustrated that the evolved forms were always humanoid in appearance. This is a self-indulgent, arrogant and completely erroneous way to look at or discuss evolution. It annoyed me. And if this was done to save on budget, then I am still annoyed at the creatively lazy approach to story development.
The characters seemed flat compared to the last time I saw them in their own movie. Their dialogue was filled with what should have been playful banter and amusing quips. I confess I do like a good amount of banter and one-line quips. This dialogue was just irritating. It was like listening to a class of grade 8 students – the epitome of annoying. They were not funny. They were not informative. They did not evolve as characters.
Also, this movie threw in characters that I don’t remember seeing before with nearly zero introduction. Honestly, who was the talking, telekinetic dog? Which brings me to the other frustration I had with the storytelling – constant references (without explanation) to past events. I have seen all three Guardian movies, but there were things mentioned that I didn’t know what they were talking about. I also saw all the Avenger movies and I was still baffled. Half explanations and “hey do you remember when” moments did not alleviate my sense of confusion. Yes, these movies are connected in a series and a larger world, but they need to work harder to make new viewers (or forgetful old ones) feel welcomed into the story. This movie failed and mostly made me feel like I was missing a lot of story.
Picture from the Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 movie – image from the internet.
Bloated with bum-numbingly long fight scenes, music I could not connect with and really obvious stupid moments, I actively did not like this movie. The plot should have been scrapped from the beginning – there was nothing fun or adventuresome about the checklist of scenes weakly tied together. I mean the characters had to regularly remind themselves of their own mission goals – which accounted for 70% of the dialogue. In conclusion, I would give this film 0 (zero) stars out of 5. It annoyed me and was not worth the 2.5 hours of my life when I could have been doing anything else, like cleaning the house.
I confess, I am late in writing my review of the Glass Onion. See, I saw the movie (in theaters) in November, but that was also the month I participated in Nanowrimo and I got sick. It was a busy month, so here I am quite late but still wanting to share my opinion of the movie: It was Great!
This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Edward Norton, Madelyn Cline, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, and Daniel Craig in a scene from “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” (Netflix via AP)
I really enjoyed Knives Out. It wasn’t perfect – but nothing ever is. There were some distinct flaws to Knives Out, but I liked that old-time murder mystery feel to it. It was like an Agatha Christie mystery, but new and modern. One of my biggest complaints about Knives Out was that it had an amazing caste of characters, but ditched them about half way through the film. This is one area I think the sequel did better.
The Glass Onion has an amazing caste of characters and actors to portray them. And this time, all the key characters get lots of screen time. This made the Glass Onion so much better than Knives Out. By far the best of them is Janelle Monae – she gives the most amazing performance. And since I really don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the film, I wont say anymore – but gosh she was brilliant!
Really, Knives Out was the better movie title. The Glass Onion sounds silly to me.
While it is true that Danial Craig’s southern accent for Benoit Blanc wavers in and out, he still plays the detective quite well. Benoit has all the self-confidence of a classic, world-famous detective. He can even back up some of his boasting with the ability to notice details.
It was also really interesting watching a movie that so clearly referenced the pandemic and some of the impacts it had on society. In fact there are a number of modern issues that run though this movie placing it nicely in current times, while still having a classical flare to the filming and script. It was really well done and easily deserves 4.5 stars out of 5 (because I am feeling slightly too stingy to give out perfect scores!).
Image from the internet.
Oh, so what is the plot of the Glass Onion? Well, I don’t really want to give too much away. But it follows a group of old friends, from different walks of life, getting together for a weekend on a private island. It is a murder mystery – so death is involved. Really, for more information, you should watch the movie. I know I am definitely going to see it again!
It is movie review time! The movie is Mr. Malcolm’s List. It is a light-hearted, fluffy regency romance along the lines of Pride and Prejudice if it were written by a modern author. It was fun and very predictable. The plot was predictable – which is mostly good for me as I got what I expected.
Spoilers ahead.
Movie poster for Mr Malcolm’s List – image from the internet.
There were some very interesting moments. I liked Lord Cassy, who played the part of supportive fool very well. I liked the issues that were mentioned (but not fully developed) in several of the scenes. I would say the overall plot of misunderstanding and expectation is a good starting point for a romance.
So much like modern times, appearance is everything. Julia Thistlewight is trying to engage the affections of the most eligible Honorable Mr Malcolm. When he appears to snub Julia, it becomes the fuel for a caricature. Feeling publicly embarrassed and deeply unhappy about the experience, Julia uses her cousin to better understand the sudden change in attention. Discovering that Mr Malcolm has produced a list of requirements for his prospective wife, Julia comes up with a scheme to bring the wealthy bachelor down a peg or two. Julia enlists the help of a school friend, Selina Dalton, to enact her revenge.
Movie poster for Mr Malcolm’s List – image from the internet.
Of course as Selina plays her part to become the perfect wife according to Mr Malcolm’s list, she is increasingly apprehensive about the deception Julia has planned. Things finally come to a head during a masquerade ball, where Mr Malcolm believes he is proposing to Selina, when in fact it is Julia. Without saying a word, she hands Mr Malcolm a list of requirements for a husband, for which he fails.
For me the biggest issues were the character development and the pacing. We reach this climatic moment of tension, when Malcolm believes he has been rejected and in the next heartbeat, it is clearly shown that Julia was the perpetrator, although Selina was complicit. I would likely have played with mistaken identities longer. But worse than that, there is only one really good scene where Malcolm and Selina talk – well fight – over the deception. Then two speeches of forgiveness between other characters and Malcolm propose successfully to Selina. I think it needed to explore the hurt feelings further. I would have cut some of the earlier wasted time to explore how these two reconcile their different perspectives.
Movie poster for Mr Malcolm’s List – image from the internet.
I suppose in that way, this was not the same as Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Darcy have their misunderstanding earlier (and more than one), and it is really over the course of the story that they come to appreciate and love the other. While this is not the same formula followed in this movie, a longer ending would have made for a stronger story. I also would have sharpened up the dialogue.
The characters and their motivations needed some work. Take Julia, the manipulative friend. We are supposed to be sympathetic towards the woman. But we really need to see how she has suffered because of the public humiliation. We need to see more explicitly her role in society. The story could explore how she is trying to change her personality to attract an eligible husband. For instance, it is demonstrated that Julia is a crack shot with a gun – an extraordinary skill for a female in that world. So build on this. Why is she good with the gun? Is she secretly more of a sporty female, but works hard to hide that aspect in order to appear more lady-like? If so, how else can this be played up so that the audience is more connected with Julia and also for comedic effect.
Movie poster for Mr Malcolm’s List – image from the internet.
Malcolm would have been stronger if he was less silent. I get the stoic vibe they were going for, but there was not nearly enough interaction with other people for anything more than ‘silent-type’ to present. He needs to be thrust into conversation with others, willingly and unwillingly if we are to swoon over the leading man. Afterall, he is supposed to be the catch of the season, and not just because of his money. He also needs to exude more charm.
Visually, it was fun to watch. I am always fascinated how they can film historical images that lack the obvious modern elements – like hydro-poles and such. The costumes were nice. The diversity of the cast was well done. It was a good movie, perhaps not a classic, but decent. A little more polish with the script (the dialogue) and pacing and this would be a really great film. Still, I am giving it 3 out of 5 stars.
It has been months since I have been to a movie – in the cinema. But the other day I went to see Top Gun Maverick. If you like the original Top Gun movie, then I think you will love this sequel. It is everything that you think of when you hear the words Top Gun – military uniforms, cocky pilots, fast motorcycles and even faster airplanes.
Overall, I would say that Top Gun Maverick was better than I expected. But not as good as I would hope.
Top Gun Maverick – image from the internet.
I liked the secondary focus on the relationships between Pete (Tom Cruise) and the other characters (fast planes will always be the primary focus). In many ways I liked that the ‘villain’ was a nondescript insulation in a nearly impossible to reach location that needed to be exploded with a high degree of precision. There was an elegance to the simplicity of the objective.
But as a selfish viewer, I really wanted more.
Tom Cruise was either smiling or emotional – where emotion equates to quick bursts of anger or sadness. These were really his only two modes of existence and fortunately for movie goers, smiling was the more prevalent of his expressions. He was a man in motion, running, motorcycle riding or flying. Which means there was little time left for deeper character exploration.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
And that is what I would like to have seen. Development of the other characters. There were a lot of them. And the important ones are all recognized by single attributes:
the girl pilot,
the nerdy navigator,
the black American pilot,
the Asian navigator,
the cocky-arrogant young pilot (to differentiate from the old Top Gun crew),
the black supporting guy – who must have been a personal aid to Tom Cruise cause he showed up everywhere,
the angry old admiral,
the angry younger admiral,
and the love interest woman.
I know speeding fighter planes are going to feature dominantly in the movie, but they could have cut back on some of the cockpit moments of heavy breathing to build some characterization through conversation between the other pilots. I am pretty confident it would have improved the film. I certainly would have enjoyed a slightly more complex plot.
Top Gun Maverick movie poster – image from the internet.
Maverick does a great job of feeling nostalgic. The opening immediately harkens back to the classic scenes and images from the first Top Gun. Even the music is a link back to Top Gun. The new generation of pilots feel like modern analogues to the original cast – though this is more supposition than fact since I don’t really remember the original movie very well. The motorcycle is still there, the sunset shots of airplane landings and takeoffs still look good on the big screen. And some of the original cast have cameos in this sequel.
Like I said at the start, if you are a fan of Top Gun, then I think you are going to love Maverick. It delivers on its promise of fast planes, Tom Cruises’ smile and a hurrah ending.
In celebration of a loosening of the COVID restrictions, I have been to the movies. The most recent movie I saw was Free Guy. This is the movie with Ryan Reynolds, Jody Comer, Lil Rel Howery and Joe Keery. There were also a number of cameos by other actors, like Alex Trebek, Chris Evans, Channing Tatum and others – some of which I missed.
My spoiler free summary of the movie: I expected it to be either terribly bad or terribly stupid, but was surprised when it was actually a fun and funny movie. I liked it! I think it is my favourite movie this summer!
The following is a slightly more complete reflection, with some spoilers…
Guy and Buddy, best friends and NPCs walking down the street of Free City and enjoying their coffee. A wildly dangerous place to live. (Image from the internet)
Ryan Reynolds plays the titular character Guy. Guy is a NPC (non-playable character) in a video game called Free City. Essentially, Guy is a background character on a fixed loop of actions. He wakes up, talks to his goldfish, gets his coffee and goes to his job as a teller at the bank.
In this open-world video game, players are generally the villains – or heroes in their own minds. They rob banks and stores on a regular basis. They steal cars, knock out people and blow up buildings. They are your typical player in a game where there are zero real world consequences for their in game behaviour.
Of course, things are a bit different from the perspective of the NPCs. They are caught in their usual loops of actions. For example, during a bank robbery, all the NPCs capitulate without question. Buddy, Guy’s best friend and Bank security guard, never fights back. He drops his gun at the first sign of trouble and joins Guy on the floor. This cycle continues for Guy until one day he meets the player Molotov Girl (aka Millie). Seeing her triggers something, a change in his programming that causes Guy to veer off script.
Millie (aka Molotov Girl – in game) and Keys, living in the ‘real world’ and working as computer programmers.
(Image from the internet)
But the story is not limited to the actions within the video game. We are introduced to some of the players and the media world they occupy too. I was impressed with the switch between “in game” and “real world” story telling. There was a lot of different aspects of modern life brought into the storytelling of this movie. The visual shift between the two worlds was nicely done. And the connections with the story were well organized. The plot about a corrupt owner of a popular (but bland) video game company wove in well with the idea of successful AI and stolen code. The plot used just enough jargon to sound vaguely real, but explained enough that someone with no gaming background could follow along. And the AI wasn’t evil and out to destroy all humanity. The AI was nice and just wanted to do its own thing – so relatable to our everyday life.
I loved Guy. Really Reynolds did an excellent job making the character so likeable. It was wonderful to see that Guy’s method for leveling up was generally non-violent. He was just trying to do good. And he approached this goal with the idea of minimal violence and nothing permanently damaging (or tried to). It was a nice change from the pirate blimps machine gunning the streets in the background.
Speaking of background. I totally want to watch this movie again just to pay more attention to the crazy work going on in the background. There is always something insane happening – usually because of the game players. Cars are exploding, fighter jets are zooming through the skies, it is an endless flow of weird and generally violent actions that I sometimes failed to notice because I was focused on the primary plot. They did an awesome job making the background and characters interesting!
Movie Poster for Free Guy – image from the internet.
Really, Free Guy was just a great, straightforward, fun story. The actors sold the characters really well. It looked like it would have been a blast of a movie to work on. And it was not part of a franchise, not a sequel and not a remake. All of this has pushed Free Guy to the top of my summer movie list – full five stars (out of five)!
Dark and all associated images and whatnot belong to Netflix, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese.
It is, without a doubt, my favourite television series of the year. It is also quickly becoming my favourite television series, period. When people mention how well the medium has developed over the last decade, I hardly believed them. But Dark presents a very compelling argument for how services like Netflix allow a maturation of content for television that would never have been realized otherwise.
I recall now that I have not done my “favourite things” series for this year. I had plans to do so. As I always do, however, I became busy over the months where I generally list things that I love. So, let’s count Dark as a much belated entry to that list. Though, Dark would argue that it is not late – it arrived exactly when it needed to.
I’ve been trying to consider how to write a review for this series’ first season for the last couple of days and, overall, have miserably failed. It’s hard to talk about the show in any great depth without spoiling it. It’s also hard to talk about the show without rambling because there’s so much to discuss and organizing one’s thoughts on Dark requires the attention normally reserved for a paper than a quick blog review.
So let’s address the easier portion. What is Dark?
Dark is a German language Netflix original series. It is set during 2019 in the small, fictional village of Winden. It ostensibly follows the young Jonas Kahnwald whose father has recently committed suicide after writing a letter that is not meant to be opened until months later and on a specific day at a specific time.
I say ostensibly because Dark is an ensemble piece that truly follows what feels like the entire village of Winden. You are quickly introduced to a whole host of characters – all of whom are important and have their own entwining relationships and character arcs. Part of the brilliance of Dark is how it both navigates these numerous threads but also utilizes them to maintain its perfect pacing. This ensemble, however, is probably my only complaint. You’re thrown so many faces and names that it is hard keeping track of them all. It’s made even more complicated because their relationships – both familial and romantic – are important to their motivations and behaviours so it’s a constant exercise of trying to remember one round German face from another and why who hates who for what reason.
The acting in the show is absolutely top notch. I struggle to think of a weak link in a cast well into the double digits.
Dark is hardly an easy show to follow. But it is also a show fully aware of its difficulty. It introduces its various twists, turns and drama deliberately. It affords enough time for you to become familiar with the current issue before layering on another. Then another. And then another.
For Dark has multiple layers. Its story spans over three generations of these families in this sick town. And once the series starts showing you scenes from different generations, you’re left floundering while relearning the faces to names you’ve become intimately familiar with. However, Dark also uses your familiarity with these families to reveal further secrets and revelations as you understand that the issues facing these characters have quite deep roots.
But there is a greater mystery to Winden than Jonas’ father’s death. In fact, very few people seem rather affected by his suicide outside of his son. No, the crux of the show revolves around another family – the Nielsen’s. Jonas has a tie to them, naturally, as their daughter Martha and Jonas are friends/brief lovers. Things are made overly dramatic when Jonas returns from a brief therapeutic break from school to learn that his best friend Bartosz has moved in on Martha in his absence and the two are evidently dating. While trying to adjust to this unspoken betrayal, the three teenagers decide to go out into the woods surrounding Winden in search of a hidden stash of drugs rumoured to belong to a missing contemporary of theirs (Erik Obendorf) whose disappearance has gone unsolved for the last couple of weeks.
Unfortunately, the Nielsen parents leave Mikkel, the youngest of the Nielsen brood, in the care of Magnus, the eldest, and Martha while they have a townhall about Erik’s disappearance. The gaggle of teenagers’ misguided midnight adventure is interrupted when they arrive at Erik’s secret wooden hideout and find Franziska (I told you there were a lot of people) had already beaten them to the drug stash and claimed it as their own. There is a brief conflict over the weed before the children get startled by a noise in the caves behind them.
Frightened, they run for the safety of the village. In their fright, they get separated and only once they convene on the bridge beneath the streetlights do they realize that young Mikkel is missing. Frantic, they retrace their steps hoping to find him.
When that proves futile, they contact their parents – interrupting the townhall. Worried, the adults of Winden hurry out to the woods but are unable to locate the young Nielsen child. Katharina and Ulrich Nielsen are inconsolable, partly because Ulrich’s younger brother disappeared under similar circumstances thirty-three years earlier. Strange things begin to happen around the town of Winden and, chief of police Charlotte Doppel, warns Ulrich that things are “happening again.”
Phew. That should give enough of a tangled overview of how complicated the story of Dark is. Fortunately, the weave is even more knotted but I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the delightful twists and turns. The great thing about Dark is both its predictability and ability to keep me guessing where it’s going. It balances perfectly its mystery with audience expectations. Each element is a struggle to understand and just as you begin to wrap your head around the disparate elements and get a grasp of the situation, Dark throws several more twists your way. But these never feel contrived or forced. In fact, a number of them are hinted earlier in prior incongruities that largely get lost in the cavalcade of issues facing the families of Winden. It perfectly replicates the confusion and building dread of its residence in the audience.
And given its premise, it’s hard not to draw comparisons between Dark and Stranger Things. For me, personally, Dark exceeded Stranger Things on all fronts. I can see where others may prefer the latter. Stranger Things is like comfort food. It’s so steeped in nostalgia and genre cliches that you pretty much know its plot and pacing from the start. It almost never strays far from expectations since, largely, Stranger Things is an homage to the horror genre of the eighties and the influential authors and creators of that time.
Dark, to my knowledge, stands on its own. If it is a pastiche of anything then its of works unfamiliar to me. Thus, I am more enthralled with its mystery. I also found the characters a lot more compelling. For one, they are interwoven more tightly to the narrative even as Dark has a larger ensemble than Stranger Things. However, the characters of Dark are more complicated than Stranger Things. I can understand if people struggle to identify with them since they don’t represent stock personalities or generic roles like those in the American thriller show. I would think the number of people who could, say, identify with Ulrich who as a child had his brother go missing then, as an adult, had his youngest son face the same fate. That’s a pretty niche slice of the audience population that can probably understand his turmoil on a personal level. Contrasted with Jim Hopper whose child died and wife left him leaving him to spiral into an alcoholic depression and you have a more standard individual who, even if his personal circumstances aren’t relatable, has certainly been seen in various other forms of media to at least be familiar.
Course, outside of some superficial similarities, Dark never truly invites comparisons between itself and Stranger Things. It doesn’t take long into the series for it to be apparent that the show is striving for a different tone and effect. It stands on its own merits. Its plot keeps you guessing and riveted for the next revelation. If I had any other criticism of it, it would be that its premise makes it rather difficult to account for flaws in the plot. I can’t tell if some things are clues for further reveals or plot gaffes which, surely, must crop up with something as complex as Dark’s theme and narrative. Certainly, the show has already taken some elements that didn’t seem to fit with its story and later reveal that they were done purposefully. Which makes it hard to review at this junction as there are two more seasons of the show left to address all the little foibles and quirks. Course, the premise of the show always gives an easy explanation for anything that isn’t directly covered. But whether that’s a flaw or clever arrangement by its creator I suppose is up for debate. Either way, it makes for compelling television. And why I am absolutely glued to this series.
I simply love Dark.
It is, without a doubt, my favourite television series of the year. It is also quickly becoming my favourite television series, period…
Long, long ago I was standing in the book store staring at the science-fiction/fantasy section with uncertainty. I had a gift card, a desire to read something knew and no idea what to get. I kind patron pointed me in the direction of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. So I bought it, got maybe two chapters in and decided this was not for me. Thus it cannot surprise that when the series came out I did not immediately watch it. That and I don’t have HBO. Anyway, after many strong recommendations, I finally decided to give the series a try. Though I did wait until the Library had a copy.
Cover for the DVD of season one. I like the power of this image. It is dark and brooding and the character is fully clothed. It is also Sean Bean – so guess what happens by the end of the season?
And thus I have come to Game of Thrones, the TV series, after the entire projected has finished. In fact, knowing that they had completed the series was one of the selling features for me. In many ways it is the only selling feature, because I don’t like Game of Thrones.
While I found the caste of millions not as off putting as others, it does make it hard to connect with the series. Entire episodes pass without spending even a minute with some characters. Further, it is confusing to track all the names, lineages, and locations – and this is with me watching the entire first season over the course of a week.
The biggest complaint I have is the gratuitous nature of the visuals. There is a great deal of explicit sex and violence scenes which do little or nothing to forward the plot or character development. In fact, the sex (in particular) seems added for shock value or titillation only. And quite frankly, it is more than I care to see. Besides the graphic presentation of sex, it is also unrealistic to the time they are trying to imitate and also demeaning. Show me one character (over the age of 13) that is not demonstrated to be a whore. And don’t tell me this is reflective of the times. Because so much of this show is most definitely NOT reflective of the times (assuming the times are a pseudo-medieval period).
Welcome to the North, where the Starks reign. It is cold, grey and ominously close to the Wall. Here everyone wears a cape. Sometimes two. Except the prostitutes who continue to run around naked – is this because they were too poor to own clothing?
In terms of violence, wow do those bodies bleed in ways I am sure most modern coroners would find extremely odd and unrealistic. Also, the swordsmanship of these people (who in theory have spent their lives learning the art) is comically bad. I will say this for the violence, those who are dead stay dead – unless they die on the other side of the Wall.
One thing I do like is the way that large battles are dealt with off camera. I thought that was a clever way of dealing with a limited budget and time. Unfortunately important dialogue is also dealt with off screen, which is not good. How do two men go from supporting Ned to betraying Ned in the 6th or 7th episode? Well, that is a question that was never answered and does make me wonder: Did the writers not know why these characters suddenly had a change of heart? OR Did the producers cut this important bit of dialogue so they could show two naked people having sex instead?
So the Dire Wolves were supposed to be a thing, right? I mean each Stark child was given a wolf. And occasionally, the wolf appears on screen. But then is conveniently absent the next time something terrible happens. This is the sort of inconsistency that I find frustrating. Cute puppy though.
What could be an interesting story, even with all its multitude of factions and questionable characters, is destroyed by a focus on something I hope is not in the source material. Too much sex and not nearly enough substance makes for a tedious series. There is too much political plotting going on to be sidetracked constantly by boobs. Also, is there not even one strong female character in this world whose plot does not focus on her reproductive organs?
Here’s a relevant review of a product that’s meant to cash in on your nostalgia.
I bet, of all the things you expected me to write about, it would not be on the new Detective Pikachu movie. I would not blame you for being surprised. I would not have expected to be writing a review about it either. Detective Pikachu is the sort of movie wholly outside of my wheelhouse.
Detective Pikachu is profitable trainwreck of Warner Bros. Pictures, The Pokemon Company and Rob Letterman. Obviously the images and rights belong to them and not me.
Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true. It is a video game adaptation. And I do play video games. I’ve even seen some of the other video game adaptation movies of years past. All of them have been stinkers.
So if you’re as good at pattern recognition as I am, then you can probably guess how well this movie turned out to be.
Course, as a movie review, it should go without saying that I’m going to be spoiling the movie in order to discuss it. But if you’re also trying to keep yourself from spoiling yourself on Detective Pikachu then… well… frankly I’m surprised that your interests overlap so much with mine for you to have arrived on this humble blog in the first place.
So, for the short version of my Detective Pikachu review: It’s scattered, terribly paced and poorly acted.
For my long version review: It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
And we’re done here.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. There are several kinds of bad movies. With varying levels of emotional response from me. There are the bad movies that are so bad they’re good. My heart shall always belong to the hot hail of Flash Gordon and I will fight anyone who cannot comprehend its majesty.
This is not Flash Gordon bad, however.
Then there are the bad movies that are so boring and uninspired that I completely forget what happened the moment I emerge from the movie theatre. There the ones I can hardly be upset about, largely because they induce in my a temporary amnesia that blocks any recollection of what I’d seen. It’s like a nap but not nearly as restful. I’d give an example of these kinds of movies but I simply can’t recall any.
And Detective Pikachu isn’t that bad either.
There’s the insultingly awful. That type of movie that seeks to impart a personal grievance in its audience. The sort of movie that wraps itself up in some false pretension or manages to garner a suspiciously loud group of supporters and lulls you into the sense that it might be good – or at the very least, not bad.
But this wasn’t Gone Girl.
This was the Get Out of children’s movies. I expect Detective Pikachu to do well. It’s the sort of bad movie that drives a deep seated anger within me. It’s the bad movie with a large soul of promise that, through either studio meddling or directorial fumbling, completely squanders its potential on face-palming idiotic decisions that should never have cleared the writing workshop let alone survive the editing room.
And I’m surprised to see Detective Pikachu to land itself in this category of bad movie.
Full disclosure: I have never beaten a Pokemon game. I’ve played one, largely in Japanese, and am familiar enough with the franchise to follow its particular quirks and jingoisms. I did not grow up with Pokemon, missing the memetic phenomenon by the measure of two or so years. In terms of things that are popular, I respect it without having any interest in it. For me, Pokemon is pretty harmless. Sure, it butchers the idea of evolution but it is pretty nondescript in its existence and there are far worse things that have had just as much mass appeal.
I did not expect to like Detective Pikachu and thus I was taken by surprise when I actually found myself enjoying myself. Course, that was fleeting as joy turned to confusion pretty quickly. And once the confusion set it, it took hold with an iron grip that didn’t let go right up to the hilariously unoriginal Bill Nighy finale which was strangely contradictory with the few establishing scenes used for it but a mere forty minutes prior.
I want a Detective Mr. Mime movie.
So, let’s spend some time about what went well. This should be short, because it was fleeting in the movie itself.
What caught me off-guard was how… unfocused Detective Pikachu was. It’s a movie that doesn’t seem like it knows itself. It waddles between a bone-headed children’s movie whose sole and blatant purpose is to push merchandising and nothing else and some strangely adult mystery thriller rooted in childhood nostalgia.
Obviously, I’m attracted to its latter leanings. But also, much like Captain America: Winter Soldier, this strange dip into a secondary genre left me realizing that I desperately want a Pokemon detective thriller. It works and it works really well when it embraces this direction. I’m reminded of the television show Fillmore!
Fillmore! is a children’s parody of the stock 1970s police drama. And it’s really clever in taking that genre’s tropes and exploring them through a juvenile lens. There’s a lot of cross-generational entertainment and humour that can be generated from this, demonstrated by Detective Pikachu’s interrogation scene with the Mr. Mime Pokemon. The movie also extremely excels in its realistic portrayal of Pokemon characters. Which first comes across as entirely creepy but is so ubiquitous and seamlessly integrated that I found I bought this aspect of the movie pretty quickly.
Couple this with an older protagonist and the decision to frame the narrative as a detective story, and I can’t help but feel this mature direction for the movie was deliberate. And, honestly, it was rather refreshing. I can’t think of many children’s movies that have a main character so old that they’re out of school and I give Detective Pikachu mad respects for doing so.
Thus, it’s a shame when the movie, also much like Winter Soldier, quickly drops its detective tropes and falls gleefully into mindless action and brain-dead spectacle. What starts off as a really promising story about a young man searching for his father quickly degenerates into power fantasy nonsense that’s so illogical, more than half the screen dialogue is the characters trying to explain everything going on because the premise is just that stupid.
There’s also the issue that the movie has so many visual nods to its game origins that it can’t help but stuff character dialogue with highlighting these nods. There’s an inelegance on display here that is stupefying. Movies are already pressed for time with character development and narrative progression that it leaves me wondering why you need characters to constantly inform the audience that “these are tortugas” and “this is a greninja” star especially when you just showed this stuff a second ago.
And then the movie decides it really wants to focus its plot around Mewtwo because surely the audience is going to be emotionally invested in this purple, weirdly cat shaped deus ex machina instead of focusing or strengthening the emotional plot of the protagonist and his relationship with his father and the world around him.
And that’s really when the movie goes off the rails.
Course, there’s a lot that’s bad with the movie beyond its empty plot. The acting is, quite frankly, embarrassing. The two leads are so flat and boring that I can’t even remember their names. I get that CGI flicks are difficult to act in, but it doesn’t excuse these two people for being so wooden amongst themselves. I believe the girl loves her duck more than she does the boy and her attempts to sell the otherwise embarrassingly juvenile dialogue only highlights how poorly the lines are written.
And, of course, the lead male’s performance left me reminiscing about Keanu Reeve’s portrayals in the Matrix. The Matrix worked around Keanu’s constant state of flummox by having his character legitimately confused with everything he encounter. Detective Pikachu is nowhere near as savvy and anytime an emotionally demanding scene arrives, we have a man (who I still can’t remember his name) staring vapidly either at his yellow rat or right into your soul.
And, let’s be honest here, Ryan Reynolds is reprising Deadpool here.
Simply put, I would not recommend Detective Pikachu unless you’re a diehard Pokemon fan (in which seeing all the Pokemon on screen with such a… surprisingly art style) will surely tickle your fancy. Or if you have kids. Because let’s be frank, if children can like Peppa Pig, they will literally like anything so long as its colourful.
Now, normally I would sign off here, but I want to present to you what would have been my ideal Detective Pikachu movie. Because, as I said, this movie is frustrating due to its surprising potential.
I think the movie should have committed entirely to its detective parody. Play up the secondary characters as greater pastiches. The reporter would make a terrific femme fatale, especially if you lean into her intern background being at odds with her killer journalistic instincts.
I also came to love this idea of having everyone with a Pokemon companion and there is no reason that more sight gags couldn’t be incorporated into the movie with these critters. A simple one would be having a young girl or refined lady come to claim the weird and gross tongue creature on the train. Even more, I would have liked the Mr. Mime – easily the best character of the movie – to have played a greater part. Make the Mr. Mime the companion of one primary antagonist and allow it to have additional opportunity to vex and frustrate the heroes.
Bonus points awarded if you gave the Mr. Mime burn scars after the interrogation with the protagonist.
Course, I think for the movie to really shine, it needs to drop the weird Mewtwo insertion. I don’t understand this need for grandiose plots and perhaps this is Hollywood trying to desperately cash in on the comicbook hero craze. But Detective Pikachu should have had a much narrower focus. It’s a little cliched but honestly, this movie would have benefited with the emotional struggles of an estranged son searching for his absent father.
This is an apt representation of the Detective Pokemon experience.
As such, a more typical detective plot would work better as it would detract less from the father/son relationship. I’d personally suggest a story revolving around underworld match fixing of Pokemon battles. Because I both recognize that children want to see these creatures beat the living snot from each other and it further pulls at the nostalgia strings of the older generations. It allows easy insertion of action beats (an unfortunate necessity in this day and age) and can also be tied back to the protagonists childhood dreams of being a Pokemon trainer (thus allowing character development). I’d personally through in Pokemon Rights protestors as a cheeky way to poke fun at the fact that Pokemon is little more than glorified cock fighting but that’s just me.
With this setup, I’d give the primary underworld mob boss the Mr. Mime as his (or hers) Pokemon companion. And, of course, I’d have a chase scene with the Mr. Mime, pretty much go as one would expect after seeing the movie’s interrogation scene.
Also, price fixing is the sort of villainous action that requires but a fraction of an explanation compared to the purple mist of Detective Pikachu. For greater stakes, you could say the city’s mayor is indebted to the mob or whoever due to gambling debts if you wanted. And maybe have the villain trying to legalise underground Pokemon battles or something else if you really wanted.
Course, this would necessitate removing a talking Pikachu from the movie. But I say leave Ryan Reynolds to cheap romantic comedies and the Deadpool franchise.
Oh hi there. I didn’t see you there. Come in, come in. It’s been some time, hasn’t it. Well take a seat. This place is just as comfortable as it always is. Everyone is welcome.
Pay the dust no mind.
So, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. And boy, have we had some big changes in that time. A new look and a new address, all of which we have Derek to thank. So, thank you Derek, your hard work is always appreciated!
A little bit of an update: I didn’t fall of the face of the earth for no good reason. I’m hard at work on the Clockwork Caterpillar sequel. We’ve got pre-order and previews in the works and hopefully we’ll be making more noise about that in no time. So keep an eye out for that.
But now that I have some breathing room from scribbling out draft after draft, it is high time that I go for a little bit of a ramble about just life and all the minute things that make it up.
The title of this article gives enough of the topic away but let’s add a dash of context. A friend of mine – let’s call her Rikki for no particular reason – and I really like to watch horror movies. Now, I’m not a horror fan. I’m not a true believer in the genre and I’ve certainly expressed my thoughts on its shortcomings in the past. No, specifically we like to watch bad horror movies. There’s some measure of joy to watch a work of art that utterly fails to achieve its goal. It’s another thing to watch such a trainwreck fail to reach any goal. This is essentially an endorsement of Wiseau’s The Room. Check it out!
So Rikki and I like to get together every month and just sit back and scroll through the movies that no one wants to see. We prefer the comfort of our own homes because we engage in the age old tradition of heckling while the flick is on. A meta-commentary of work is so popular it spawned its own long running series (Mystery Science Theatre 3000 – check it out as well!). I would never record and release this sort of thing, obviously. But it is immense fun.
Only, every now and then there’s a snag. Every now and then we screw up. Instead of putting on a real stinker we stumble into an actual good movie.
And this has lead into an interesting revelation for me.
Now, I’m well aware of the subgenres of horror. You have body horror, slasher films, cosmic horror, splatterhouse or even the oddly specific holiday horror. But one of the more interesting elements of this style of fiction is how telling it is of its creators. Many philosophers and artists allege that fear is the greatest emotion known to mankind. I’m sure Lovecraft has waxed poetically about it before diving into his strange fetish for scaly, long noses. But while fear is certainly a common experience for mankind, what scares us certainly is not.
In a way, if eyes are windows to the soul, horror films are the garage door to the director’s psyche. You get to see the shadowy shapes that wiggle just beneath the surface of the subconscious and see just what causes the bumps which keep them up at night.
For some, it is incredibly mundane witches, ghosts or witch ghosts that can’t stand you having more Facebook friends than them. But every now and then, a director is able to take their midnight terrors and do something extraordinary with them.
They make a message.
So here I list Rikki and mine’s worst failures. Here are two movies that, against our best intentions, actually turned out well.
The Babadook
The Babadook and all associated images and whatnot belong to Causeway Films, Entertainment One and whoever else.
Sure, anyone who follows the horror genre is probably rolling their eyes. Of course The Babadook is good. Anyone who doesn’t keep their head in the sand during 2014 would know this. Well, first, I like it there. The sand helps to regulate temperature really well.
Second, I don’t take critical consensus seriously after I was convinced to watch a horror movie about a lethargic walking STD despite everyone crowing about how brilliant it is.
Thus, I recommended the Babadook based on the fact that I wanted to see some silly Australians running around from a ridiculous looking person in a top hat.
And I have to admit, I was not prepared.
Now, the Babadook isn’t scary. I don’t really find horror movies scary. But the Babadook is good. And it’s because it managed something that I had not thought possible. It used our feelings of fear to peel back the layers of psychological defences the director had raised to reveal a very compelling story about the difficulties and shame surrounding grief.
Thus, the Babadook did two things I had not seen. One, it was a story very strongly feminine. As I’ve stated, I’m not a horror genre expert, but so often are we presented what scares men. Even when the protagonist is a woman, the films themselves are very… attuned for the male’s perspective. I mean, how many times do we have the female protagonist running through showers of blood or rolling around in the mud while wearing a shear blouse or, more often than not, just her panties and bra?
In contrast, The Babadook is positively mormon. Here, Amelia Vanek is a single mother attempting to raise her precocious and not-entirely-all-there son Sam. The story is, largely, a slow boil wherein Sam’s awkwardness and social failings cause ever growing stress and grief for Amelia. Sam is convinced that he must protect his mother from a monster only he can see. And Amelia, as a single working mother with strained relations to her sister, is stretched to her wits end.
It’s an excellent story which, handled by any other, would surely have looked simply through Sam’s eyes and watched as his mother turned into a raving, murderous creature which the son must slay in order to save. But, instead, despite Amelie’s inability to address this mysterious Babadook (which is so thinly veiled to be the representation of her grief towards the death of her husband – I mean it manifests as him at one point when it demands that Sam be brought to him!) the story never really abandons Amelie. This is her tale, even as she does unspeakable things in her attempts to calm her child and hold to the fraying threads of her unravelling life.
But even more impressive is the finale. It’s a staple in horror films that even when the supernatural threat is banished, there’s always that last minute shot of it coming back or having ultimately succeeded. This is represented with a happy Sam collecting worms for Amelie and presenting her the dented dog dish with the earthy insect laden mess. Sam then asks if he can “take care of it” and Amelie’s answer has stayed with me ever since:
“You will when you’re older.”
The Babadook is more a story about responsible parenting: Don’t let others buy your kid children’s stories.
It’s such a sucker punch reveal that the grief we carry isn’t just our own. Sam, who had no hand in the creation of this devastation in his mother, will later inherit this morbid manifestation once he’s fully capable of understanding the loss of a father he’s never known. Then he too will have to learn to take his own bowl of worms down to a monster that he will never live without.
I had not signed on to learn something about life.
Await Further Instructions
Await Further Instructions belongs to Johnny Kevorkian and Dark Sky Films.
This one is entirely on Rikki. To be fair to her, however, not only does this movie have a ridiculous title, it’s also got a really cheap film look to it that just screams “unintentional comedy.”
And I’ll readily admit that there’s a distinct difference in quality between Await Further Instructions and The Babadook. But this movie is still way better than it has any right to be. I don’t know what it is with foreign films but somehow they seem to churn out more thought provoking horror than their North American counterparts.
I wonder if there’s a thesis topic in there.
Await Further Instructions takes the opposite approach to The Babadook. While it focuses on a family Christmas dinner in what I can only assume are the suburbs of Britain, it’s subject matter branches far afield from the intensely personal tale of Amelie. Instead of commenting on the human condition, Await Further Instructions is leveraging its critical eye to society.
And there’s just something about fascism that simply does not gel well with British artists. Well, fascism doesn’t gel well with any artists but certainly its a topic that the British are far more willing to address their ire.
Await targets what I can only assume is the very British response of clamping down during an emergency and being as obedient as possible to authority. Not a necessarily inappropriate response in many circumstances. Certainly if a building is madly aflame, most would encourage trapped persons to obey the fire marshal.
But what happens if the fire marshal starts giving questionable directives?
Await follows the Milgram (heh) family as they awake Christmas Day to discover their house has been sealed by a mysterious black synthetic barrier. Concern spreads quickly, especially since Nick wanted to depart early given that his Indian girlfriend Annji was not going over well with his slightly racist family.
Then the television flickers on and an otherworldly green message flashes its instructions to the family. This cements in the mind of the patriarch Tony that this is a government quarantine and they must wait out the catastrophe following good old daddy parliament’s directives. Course, this quickly turns into a question of blind obedience to authority once the television begins flashing highly suspect orders and Tony puts his entire family’s life in danger while trying to maintain his quickly unravelling order.
Now, Await struggles in presenting a well written and well performed piece. But its theme is certainly far stronger than most the ghoulies and goblins are offered in the genre. Someone really hates Fox Nows. Or, more precisely, whatever form Fox News takes in Great Britain. All the family’s bad decisions are preceded by obeying the ever growing ridiculous demands of the television which mostly seems to want to torture the Milgrams. This is obviously contrasted with the seemingly normal Christmas Eve were dear old Granddad is watching the news and commenting on how the world is going to shit because of the immigrants and they need to kick them all out while staring hard at the doctor-in-training Annji.
Nick’s rebelliousness uncovers the horrible truth that the television hosts some strange alien synthetic organism which wants nothing more than the adulation and worship of its viewers. A goal that is easily achieved with the highly susceptible Tony who keeps appealing to the cross hanging above the television anytime he’s about to carry out the next unimaginable order against his children. There’s a lot of good ideas wrapped up in here that, given a skilled hand, would have really taken off.
Course, in the end, it’s a bit heavy handed. But the horror is far more ambitious than the ghost of a little girl trying to get revenge on her sisters thirty years after they accidentally contributed to her drowning. It’s a fear with a message and elevates a work that would otherwise have been ripe for parodying and mockery. Course, it’s elevated to more a position of awkward mediocrity wherein it’s a flawed but somewhat valuable work.
I have to say the weird green glow did get a little tiresome.
But it has done more than a lot of other films better crafted than it: It showed that horror can be more than dopamine for the id. It can provoke thought and conversation over difficult matters of both personal and societal importance.
And these movies demonstrate that not all our fears are unfounded. Its how we address what we fear that matters, and whether we can turn that terror into a better solution.
I really wanted to like this movie. Despite my best efforts to temper my expectations, I was still hopeful – unreasonably so. I will not go so far to say that Captain Marvel was a bad movie, but it was lackluster. It was missing the punchy colour and world building that went into Black Panther and sadly, unlike Wonder Woman, I found Captain Marvel largely lacking the ability to engage the audience.
Charismatic Wonder woman on the left and flat Captain Marvel on the right. Both of their superhero names are kind of dumb (personal opinion only). Image from the internet.
I wanted to say how I thought that Captain Marvel was missing a personality and any decent characterization. I still think this is true, but I have been reminded by friends that most superheroes are pretty flat. They have a good point. Thor and Captain America – particularly in their first movies – were rather drab as characters. They did not emote a great day, being all bushed with warrior stoicism that we attribute to epic heroes. So, really it comes back to my foolish hope for something more. Because I certainly don’t think it would have take much to make some huge improvements to the movie.
For a better Captain Marvel, I would only tweak the script enough to give more dialogue and character development to the principal leads and supporting cast. Something I strongly feel should have been done as there really is a rather small cast on this film and small cast means we should know them better.
I love the fists of flames. And the blowing hair. Image from the internet.
Starting at the begging, please give Vers more of hook than occasionally emotional. Also, if she is going to be the joker on the team, the reactions of the others should reflect this role. Not only do they fail to make interesting the alien homeworld where we first meet Vers, the also fail to explain who the Kree are. Now, I am not an expert in superheros. I have never read a Captain Marvel story and I come to this movie largely ignorant. So, please, take a few minutes to lay the framework for the plot. Who is this collection of various aliens, spread across the galaxy with incredible tech and an AI overlord/god? What is interesting, unique or quirky about them? What do they stand for? Are they a melting pot of alien cultures? Doe something with these first few minutes beyond a generic hand-to-hand training room and public transit railcar.
[Note: I have since learned the Kree are not a melting pot of different alien races, rather they show some variation in their appearance. I wish this had been noted in the movie.]
Team shot! But who are these colleagues? I couldn’t name one of them. Not good since they were both friends and enemies of Vers. Image from the internet.
When Vers goes to join her team for that first mission, I cannot tell if this is her first mission ever or if she has worked with these people on many prior occasions. I almost wonder if the writers know this information, because the reactions of the rest of her team should be either to welcome/tease the newbie or role their eyes at her regular antics. There should be either feel that Vers is just joining a group of strangers, or that they have a longer (6 year even) history of working together. If the latter is more true, then some of these teammates should demonstrate this history through their comments and actions. There should be passing references to previous missions, or inside jokes that develop between friends. Some of the team can hate or dislike Vers, but some should be friendly. Also, their names should be far clearer. Coming out of the film, I couldn’t name anyone of Vers’ Kree team that I think she worked with for at least part of her 6 years with them. This would certainly make the twist at the end more impactful.
She was the mother of Captain Marvel, in a sense. Mar-Vell helped to shape Carrol Danvers into the superhero she became. Image from the internet.
I really liked the pre-2000 time setting. I thought the jokes about slow and simple tech cute. While I would like to have seen more for this time, though I am not actually certain what they could have done differently. I thought they did a great job with Nick Fury – one of the highlights of the movie. I also thought that the impeding of Vers’ powers until the end was notably well done. I understand that Captain Marvel can easily be overly powerful, so their use of her fire-blasting hands and military training to kick butt and still be at risk was a good balance.
While I will always argue that more time should be spent on dialogue and character development and far less time should be spent on fight scenes, there were some moments of visual interest. One that stood out was the early fight with the old lady on the train. I liked that the bystanders worked to stop Vers – I would have loved to see them have an even faster, stronger reaction, but the scene ended in a pretty good manner. I guess, that is something I would have liked to explore, the cultural differences between life on the Kree homeworld and Vers’ return to earth. After all, she is missing her memories, so she wouldn’t know or understand things. They had a moment or two of this, but there could have been greater humour derived from these social misunderstandings.
There were good points in the Captain Marvel film. Not knowing anything about the comics, I would not change the arc of the plot. But certainly, this film needed stronger characterization of not just Captain Marvel, but also her friends/enemies too. With the notable exception of Fury, everyone else needed some character work. Oh, and I don’t like the explanation of the eye. That was better left to the imagination as mystery is more powerful than explanation. In the end the movie was fine, feeling more like a middle chapter in a longer narrative and over missing the engaging hook to make it stand out from the rest of the Superhero Movies.
Some of the key players from Captain Marvel. Image from the internet.
