What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Avaitor]

Oh yeah, I finally got around to seeing all of the Mission: Impossible movies, including Fallout. Here's my rankings.

1- MI- Fallout- As exciting as a modern blockbuster can be, with one great set piece after another. Bringing McQuarrie back was a great call, as his experience with the franchise helps to make the film feel as confident. I also like the nods to past films in the franchise. This is probably the least newbie friendly of them all, but there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not sure if it's really the next Fury Road that many are calling it, but I enjoyed just about every moment.
2- MI- Ghost Protocol- Brad Bird proving his sense of great timing for action can translate just as well to live-action as his animated works. Jeremy Renner was a good addition to the cast, while Benji gets more to do and becomes more likable after only being mildly entertaining in III. And that Burj Khalifa sequence gives me chills.
3- MI- Rogue Nation- Maybe equal to Protocol? It's worth a rewatch for me to decide, but on my initial thoughts, GP feels more fresh. But that opera sequence. Rebecca Ferguson was also a terrific addition, and helped to make the crew feel whole. Really solid stuff.
4- Mission: Impossible- It's definitely a classic, but I'd be lying if I said that I was expecting to love the franchise after seeing this one. The story's pretty eh, aside from a cool opening twist, the dialogue feels quite robotic, and I don't think the train sequence really holds up. The wire sequence absolutely does, though, and really helps to set the ball rolling. Sometimes all you need is that one great scene to set up something special.
5- MI III- Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing in this film. He pulls off the rare kind of villainous performance where sounding kind of bored isn't at all a deterrent. I also give it credit for introducing Simon Pegg as Benji, who really helps to add some joy to the series. But maybe I'm biased, but I'm just not a fan of Abrams' mystery box bullshit, which is totally prevalent here, as well as his absolute lack of artistic style. Also, Keri Russell is totally wasted. There's enough good here for me to give it a pass, but just that.
6- MI II- Damn John Woo, what happened? I don't come into these movies for great stories, but there's not even an attempt here, and somehow he doesn't even make the action all that exciting. If nothing else, it feels very much like what it is- a dumb turn of the century action movie.

I'm interested in investing in the box set and rewatching some of these (I'll probably ask for Fallout for Christmas to keep up), but I also just bought the Planet of the Apes set, so I should hold off.

Oh, and I also saw Ant-Man and the Wasp, which is pretty enjoyable, but no classic. I feel the same way about it as I do the first, which is a good way to kill an evening, but is hardly among the best the MCU has to offer. I'd argue that it feels like more of a movie than Infinity War, which almost comes off as a highlight reel in hindsight, but I probably do enjoy that one more. Black Panther is their true winner this year.

Oh, and I also got to see Teen Titans Go to the Movies, which is surprisingly sharp and enjoyable. Moreso than I'd expect from the series, but I feel like the critics are right about it. There's a lot of good jokes about the state of DC and comic book movies in general here, even a couple of Marvel shots, not to mention tons of references to the characters. It works best when it goes for the jokes as opposed to trying to be a traditional movie, and it could have been a little shorter, but that's to be expected.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

My MI list would mostly be the same as yours except with Ghost Protocol in my top spot. I think we can both agree though that the second trilogy is actually an all-around improvement over the first.

After re-watching Infinity War multiple times, I'd argue that it feels like more than just a highlight reel. I still really dig Black Panther, but now that the hype has died down I can definitely see some of its flaws. Infinity War has its own share as well but if I'm to be honest it's easily the MCU winner this year for me. Everyone gets so caught up in how it not being standalone makes it inherently inferior in some way but to me that doesn't sit well because that would be like saying any culmination movie is inferior to something standalone, but The Return of the King and War for the Planer of the Apes are some of my favorite blockbusters and neither of those are standalone.

[Avaitor]

To be fair, I do have more interest in rewatching Infinity War than Black Panther, so it has that going for it. Maybe another viewing will raise it higher for me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I read the plot twist of the new Predator movie and can't stop laughing.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, it's honestly quite dumb, but I did still kind of like The Predator. It at least knows it's worth more than Alien: Covenant. Although I can't really defend the twist.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The Predator is an odd-one. It knows it's bad and just kind of plays up to that. The end result is a semi-enjoyable movie, which I could normally just kind of accept, but then why did Shane Black even agree to do this project if he didn't think that he could turn out a good product? Like, he has two solid crime thrillers under his belt with his directorial credits, as well as several successful screenplays, with the Lethal Weapon franchise being the most notable among them. And I'll even throw Iron Man 3 a bit of pity here and say that I didn't really mind the Mandarin twist and found the overall movie to be dumb fun for what it was. If nothing else, no one of his previous movies ever made me feel like he wasn't at least trying, so why'd he just give up with this one?

[Avaitor]

That's fair, and I'm curious about it too.

Hell, apparently even Arnold thought the script was crap, since he turned down reprising Dutch for the ending.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Venom in a nutshell:

-It feels like a lost early 2000's superhero script that some Sony executive just happened to stumble across while cleaning his office and decided to turn into a movie.

-It's not good, but it's not AS terrible as the reviews would have you believe. This isn't Fant4stic or even BvS or Suicide Squad levels of terrible....which is kind of disappointing, in a way, since I feel as though a complete trainwreck would have been way more fun for me.

-Much like The Predator, this movie also seems to be somewhat self-aware that it's bad, so it tends to play up the humor a lot more than I expected based on the trailers, but also just like The Predator, while it softens the blow, it doesn't really give it an excuse for being bad.

-Tom Hardy was fine for what he was given, but it seems like such a waste of one of Hollywood's most talented actors in today's industry. Most of the other actors range in performance quality from forgettable to downright cringe-worthy. I've seen plenty of instances that prove that Riz Ahmed can be an incredibly good actor, but his performance in this movie was just embarrassing.

-There are a lot of action scenes in this movie that honestly feel like they were designed and intended with an R-rating in mind, but had to be heavily censored when Sony decided to chicken out and go for a family-friendly PG-13 rating. It actually really bothered me because something felt really off about having so much clear decapitation and brutalization going on yet either having the camera cut away at the last moment or in some instances seeing really odd images of people clearly being cut into with either little to absolutely no blood being shed. It just didn't feel right.

-There are two mid-credit scenes in this movie. The first one is a hilariously bad tease to a sequel that we will probably never get unless the negative reviews don't effect this movie's box office. The second is a pretty lengthy (perhaps about 5-minutes) preview for Into the Spider-Verse, and I'm REALLY digging what I'm seeing. I'm still as excited for that film as ever.

So, overall verdict is don't bother, but if you're really curious to check it out then wait for it to show up on streaming or just rent it from a Red Box or something. It's not good, but also not nearly bad enough to be all that much fun to pick apart. Anyways, that's just my two-cents on Venom.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Oof, sounds mediocre and boring on all levels. I was at least hoping for an entertaining trainwreck. VLord and I already made plans to see it this weekend and there's really nothing else out this week we're interested in, so hopefully we'll find something to be amused by with it.

[Rynnec]

Venom in a nutshell:

-It feels like a lost early 2000's superhero script that some Sony executive just happened to stumble across while cleaning his office and decided to turn into a movie.

-It's not good, but it's not AS terrible as the reviews would have you believe. This isn't Fant4stic or even BvS or Suicide Squad levels of terrible....which is kind of disappointing, in a way, since I feel as though a complete trainwreck would have been way more fun for me.

This was the best I could hope for at this point.

-Much like The Predator, this movie also seems to be somewhat self-aware that it's bad, so it tends to play up the humor a lot more than I expected based on the trailers, but also just like The Predator, while it softens the blow, it doesn't really give it an excuse for being bad.

At least they're being faithful to the source. The humour (intentional or not) of the Venom mini's were one of the most endearing things about them so they seem to have gotten that down, if nothing else.

-Tom Hardy was fine for what he was given, but it seems like such a waste of one of Hollywood's most talented actors in today's industry. Most of the other actors range in performance quality from forgettable to downright cringe-worthy. I've seen plenty of instances that prove that Riz Ahmed can be an incredibly good actor, but his performance in this movie was just embarrassing.

Tom Hardy feels like a pretty good Eddie Brock Venom going from the trailers, and certainly better than the last live action Venom we got. If Disney were somehow allowed to use him in the main MCU, I definitely wouldn't mind Hardy reprising the role (hopefully in something truly good this time).

-There are a lot of action scenes in this movie that honestly feel like they were designed and intended with an R-rating in mind, but had to be heavily censored when Sony decided to chicken out and go for a family-friendly PG-13 rating. It actually really bothered me because something felt really off about having so much clear decapitation and brutalization going on yet either having the camera cut away at the last moment or in some instances seeing really odd images of people clearly being cut into with either little to absolutely no blood being shed. It just didn't feel right.

This is honestly the biggest blow for me. The minute I heard Sony pussied out on an R rating, my dwindling hopes were dashed.

So, overall verdict is don't bother, but if you're really curious to check it out then wait for it to show up on streaming or just rent it from a Red Box or something. It's not good, but also not nearly bad enough to be all that much fun to pick apart. Anyways, that's just my two-cents on Venom.

I may end up seeing it theatres anyway since I'm a moderately big (if casual) Venom fan, but unless what I see impresses me greatly, I more likely than not won't be getting the blu-ray/dvd.

It really bums me out that some of my favorite Marvel characters haven't received any movies that did them justice.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

This is honestly the biggest blow for me. The minute I heard Sony pussied out on an R rating, my dwindling hopes were dashed.

Yeah, supposedly over 40-minutes were cut from the movie in order to bring it to this PG-13 rating. Granted, a chunk of those minutes were probably just replaced with re-shoots to at least get off the same story beats, so I don't think that it would have made the movie's story any better, but at least the action and humor could have been far more entertaining than what we got. Tom Hardy himself claimed that all of his favorite scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

[Avaitor]

I've also heard that the rest of the cast and crew of Venom seem to have had a different experience than Tom Hardy did with the movie, and don't believe there's an R-rated cut. I've been getting Jared Leto vibes from Hardy from what I've been seeing.

Right now the movie I want to see is Mandy, which I just found out my local independent theater has... for only a few days, and I'm booked for each of those.

I'm also cautiously optimistic about the new Halloween, and growing an interest in the Suspiria remake. The latter especially surprises me, since I'm in the vast minority who thinks the original is boring as shit and can't stand Goblin, but it's looking like that may be somewhat to my advantage.

Until then, I may end up going to see A Star is Born, which is getting glowing reviews, but I'm expecting to not be as blown away with. The template is something that can easily be remade over and over again, as it has, but I haven't been eating up the press as much as others in the film community has. But I still have more interest in it than First Man, which looks like the most tedious boilerplate biopic. I don't get how Damien Chazelle went from Whiplash to this.

[Foggle]

Right now the movie I want to see is Mandy, which I just found out my local independent theater has... for only a few days, and I'm booked for each of those.

God, I was SO excited for that movie, and I just didn't like it at all. It's molasses slow, style over substance from beginning to end. Once the Cage is unleashed in the second half it gets kinda' fun, but he's barely in the first hour and the story/characters are just nothing. There are a few good kills in the last act but outside of some Raimi-esque visual comedy the attempts at humor felt really forced to me. Soundtrack is fucking good though.

Maybe if you don't go in expecting something like Con Air, Face/Off, The Rock, etc. it might be better, but it's the kind of artsy film I don't care for, unfortunately.

[Avaitor]

I actually just came out of Mandy, and while I can see it not be for everyone, I really liked it. I've been told to expect something among the lines of Terrence Malick directing Nicholas Cage through an Italian exploitation horror flick, which this more or less delivers on. It also happens to be metal as fuck, which I couldn't help but enjoy.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I've been getting Jared Leto vibes from Hardy from what I've been seeing.

How? Always found him more of a Christian Bale type: A guy who's willing to break his body to fit into his role and gets angry when the director doesn't dedicate themselves to that same level. And from what I've seen, most of the cast didn't dislike him. At the very least, he never sent Riz Ahmed used condoms like Leto did.