Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

[terry.330]

Y2K- Man, A24 might be starting to slip.

This is a lame gimmicky dud. Just a by the numbers teen movie with the nonsensical Y2K stuff on top. I’m not really sure who this is even supposed to be for, the nostalgia isn’t done well enough (or accurately) for people our age and zoomers aren’t going to get it or care.

The Y2K virus stuff doesn’t make any sense at all and over explaining it just makes it worse.

They kill off the only entertaining characters before it even gets to the halfway point. Unless you like Rachel Zeigler or the writer/director playing a super cringe Phishhead.

I also didn’t laugh once, the movie forgets it’s a comedy at (again) just about the halfway point.

Oh yeah and Fred Durst has a very prominent cameo. Sigh.

I wouldn’t judge this as harshly if it was put out by a normal studio but A24 should be above junk like this. Plus the Y2K/nostalgia stuff is the whole selling point except they bungled that and all you’re left with is a mediocre teen movie.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Man, A24 might be starting to slip.

It's inevitable that they'd have a complete miss eventually. I'm kind of glad they've done it and gotten it out of the way. The longer their uninterrupted streak of pretty good to great movies lasted, the more devastating it would have been when the miss came.

 

[famicommander]

Jared Leto Labeled “Hollywood’s Most Persistent Predator” After Woman Unleashes Bombshell Allegations

“Jared Leto was a creep then and still is.” What started as Teilz’s single social media post recounting her own experience with Leto in 2012 spiraled into an overnight movement to take him down. Teilz’s words went massively viral, galvanizing others to come forward with disturbing accounts...

www.aol.com

How does this guy keep getting work?

I could understand if he were a box office draw, but most of his movies bomb.
I could understand if he were a great actor, but he sucks.

 

[terry.330]

It's inevitable that they'd have a complete miss eventually. I'm kind of glad they've done it and gotten it out of the way. The longer their uninterrupted streak of pretty good to great movies lasted, the more devastating it would have been when the miss came.

That’s true and I can understand them wanting to diversify their output but there’s no way someone at A24 read that Y2K script and thought oh shit we gotta put this out. Plus that unicorn movie with whatsherface also bombed. Seems like someone high up is making some bad calls and it could potentially hurt the brand.

 

[Lagduf]

THE ACCOUNTANT 2 - Thought it was great. Y’all will hate it, probably, unless you’re a special breed of autist.

Great action, buddy comedy, some wholesome family shit, and…a cat.

Film is in no way believable, no way a classic, but I’ll watch autard Affleck and high function autard Bernthal all day and night.

 

[Tarma]

Predator - I've probably covered this previously, but hey. Sci-Fi action horror classic. A testosterone infused 80s masterpiece, and clearly Arnie's best film.

 

[Tarma]

The Punisher - the 1989 Dolph Lundgren actioner, also starring Louis Gossett, Jr and Jeroen Krabbe.

This is actually a pretty decent action film, although its low budget is evident in a few places. Outside of Frank Castle's back story, I'm not sure how faithful this is to the original comics, but the film does have a comic book vibe running through it, and Lundgren looks great - just missing the signature skull motif from his outfit for some weird reason.

It's become a bit obscure now, but this is well worth tracking down for Lundgren fans, or B-Movie action junkies like me!

 

[SouthtownKid]

The Punisher - the 1989 Dolph Lundgren actioner, also starring Louis Gossett, Jr and Jeroen Krabbe.

This is actually a pretty decent action film, although it's low budget is evident in a few places. Outside of Frank Castle's back story, I'm not sure how faithful this is to the original comics, but the film does have a comic book vibe through it, and Lundgren looks great - just missing the signature skull motif from his outfit for some weird reason.

It's become a bit obscure now, but this is well worth tracking down for Lundgren fans, or B-Movie action junkies like me!

It's the best of the three Punisher movies to date. Which is an incredibly low bar, but whatever.

 

[HornheaDD]

The Punisher - the 1989 Dolph Lundgren actioner, also starring Louis Gossett, Jr and Jeroen Krabbe.

This is actually a pretty decent action film, although its low budget is evident in a few places. Outside of Frank Castle's back story, I'm not sure how faithful this is to the original comics, but the film does have a comic book vibe running through it, and Lundgren looks great - just missing the signature skull motif from his outfit for some weird reason.

It's become a bit obscure now, but this is well worth tracking down for Lundgren fans, or B-Movie action junkies like me!

The Golden God, violence, Marvel property.

Its great.

The only thing any of the other Punisher movies/appearances in DareDevil have over that Punisher is the one with Ray Stephenson where some jackass is parkouring over some buildings and Punisher shoots a missle at him.

What more could you ask for.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

The Collector (2009)

Was planned as a Saw prequel. Glad it wasn't. Not a torture porn fan but this one was good.
I haven't seen it in years.

Fun fact: Splendid fucked up the Blu-ray release and put the censored version on both releases. The "uncensored" Black Edition was actually censored.
Only watch it if you're into horror movies and you don't mind gore over substance.

Spoiler:

Madeline Zima's tits.

 

[Tarma]

What more could you ask for.

Charles Bronson blowing someone away at near-point-blank range with an M16 grenade launcher?

 

[Tarma]

Lockout - 2012 action film from Luc Besson's production team, starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace.

At its center, this is basically Escape From New York in space. In fact, I believe John Carpenter sued. However, this is not a patch on EFNY, not even close.

Guy Pearce is totally wasted, why he agreed to appear in this, beyond a paycheck, is anyone's guess. All the characters are instantly forgettable, and the script is about as original as a bear taking a shit in the woods.

There is a heavy reliance on CGI, which, to be fair, in a lot of places is very good. However, there is a chase sequence early on in the film, and I thought the film had flipped to live-action/animation hybrid... it hadn't (thank god), it was just that the CGI was that shonky.

Overall, it passed the time, but never lifts itself above average, and probably only gets there thanks to Pearce and support from Lennie James and Peter Stormare.

 

[HornheaDD]

Charles Bronson blowing someone away at near-point-blank range with an M16 grenade launcher?

lol I concede your point, sir.

 

[bubba966]

The Collector (2009)

Was planned as a Saw prequel. Glad it wasn't. Not a torture porn fan but this one was good.
I haven't seen it in years.

Fun fact: Splendid fucked up the Blu-ray release and put the censored version on both releases. The "uncensored" Black Edition was actually censored.
Only watch it if you're into horror movies and you don't mind gore over substance.

Spoiler:

Madeline Zima's tits.

Madeline Zima would be the reason I'd bother. She fine

 

[terry.330]

Conclave- A stellar cast with fantastic performances and meticulous production are completely undermined by a ridiculous twist ending.

About 30 minutes in I actually thought to myself what would the stupidest thing they could possibly do be? Then I thought there’s no way a movie of this caliber would try something so silly. Well that’s exactly what they did.

I‘m surprised this didn’t get more negative press considering the current war on wokeness and a good portion of it’s audience is likely conservative Catholics.

It’s honestly a great political thriller that really didn’t need the twist ending and it’s a shame they took it that extra step.

 

[Xavier]

Sinners (2025)
This movie was not at all what I was expecting. I imagined it as some sort of blaxploitation movie where the main characters (twins) were the vampires or turning/going to turn and recruit the patrons of the juke joint to hunt down racist whiteys. Maybe a Dusk to Dawn version for black people and the vampires win.

While there was a somewhat gratifying scene near the end, the story-line around vampires was thin and anti climatic with most of the movie evolving around them setting up the bar making it boring in my opinion. Needed more back story and dialogue and less action of people just walking around.

This is another one where the critics and Rotten Tomatoes got it wrong, it had a near perfect score when I looked it up but I'd give it a 74% and wish I had re-watched Django Unchained instead.

 

[famicommander]

R-rated cut of Dirty Work, restored from original camera negatives

 

[pixeljunkie]

R-rated cut of Dirty Work, restored from original camera negatives

Whoah!

 

[famicommander]

Whoah!

Kirkpatrick here is gonna punch you in the stomach

 

[terry.330]

The Serpent and the Rainbow- Lesser know Wes Craven voodoo/zombie movie starring Bill Pullman. A Harvard anthropologist is hired to go to Haiti and obtain a drug used in voodoo rituals for a pharmaceutical company. He arrives as a total skeptic but soon discovers that the reports of zombies may actually be real.

It’s a strange movie, really more of a psychological thriller than traditional horror. Based loosely on a true story and shot on location in Haiti it goes fairly in depth with all the voodoo stuff and Haitian culture without feeling too exploitative. Acting, writing and production values are serviceable but nothing great. It’s also fairly predictable but still engaging and the horror/psychological aspects are well done.

Worth a watch but I wouldn’t call it a forgotten gem or anything.


The Mummy- The goofy ass Brendan Fraser one. Even though I watch a lot trash and weird shit I still consider this a guilty pleasure. It’s dumb as fuck but it’s still entertaining with a great cast, a ton of action and has that sense of adventure that a lot movies try to capture but fail to. I’d actually say this is more enjoyable than either of the last 2 Indiana Jones.

I wish they hadn’t gone so hard on the CG, a lot of it was bad back then and it’s really bad now. It also contrasts poorly with all the real sets, stunts and practical effects.

Whatever, it’s big dumb fun and that’s all it needs to be.

 

[terry.330]

Companion- This was fun, kind of like if Ex Machina was a date movie. I’d never seen Sophie Thatcher in anything before (I guess she’s in Yellowjackets) but she was great in this, lots of excellent face acting and subtle movements. Jack Quaid played Jack Quaid and then Evil Jack Quaid. Oh and Gizmo from WWDITS was there as well.

Overall a fun, lightweight dark comedy that plays it fairly safe but still throws in a couple twists. Unfortunately the only way for the movie to be as effective as intended is to go in completely blind since even the trailer gives away about half the movie. Still, worth a watch.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

The Director's Cut - A reconstructed and revitalized modern version of the movie AMERICAN SAMURAI as it was intended to be. Restored by independent filmmaker Lyle Goodwin in association with director Sam Firstenberg to its original form, original vision, before it was tempered with by cinematically inapt production company executives.

 

[Tarma]

Delta Force 2: The Columbian Connection - sequel to the 1986 action film that saw Chuck Norris riding around on a rocket launcher equipped motorbike.

This is practically a sequel in name only, with Norris the only returning character. Still, it's a solid enough affair, with Chuck going up against megalomaniac drug king-pin Billy Drago, as the US ramps up its "war on drugs". John P. Ryan looks to be having a great time as Chuck's boss, especially when he's blowing shit up from his helicopter.

There's some good action sequences, including Chuck kicking ass with his martial arts skills, but the film is probably about 10 minutes too long. Not a patch on the original film, but still worth watching.

 

[StevenK]

New Life

Body horror/thriller. This was news to me until this evening and I'm glad I found it. The story follows a woman being chased by a government(?) agency for what she thinks is a murder, but there's more going on than she's aware of. You can tell this was written during lockdown and I think it works better now we're all armchair virologists, but there's nothing complicated going on if you don't remember all that crap.

It seems to be on a fairly low budget but that doesn't affect it badly in any way, the horror aspects are adequate but not that vital anyway, it's more a story about the two main leads, who are both strong. The main chaser is played by a woman who used to be in ER, and has the same quiet misery about her that she had in ER too, and it works very well here. There are some heavy handed parallels drawn between the unwell ER woman and the virus, and something about accepting your fate, and I didn't mind having it spelled out to me one bit.

Short, efficient, much better than it should have been.

8 out of 10, would infect again.

Edit - having looked up the cast, she wasn't in ER at all, it's not the same person. She does look like the one in ER though, and acts the same, so until I see them on screen at the same time I'm invoking 'my truth' rights and they're the same woman.

Edit edit - looking at them side by side they don't even look much like each other. I think I have the virus.

 

[terry.330]

Gladiator II- This sucked big time. I know Ridley Scott made this in turn for getting to make Napoleon and even though that wasn’t great you could tell it was a passion project, so I can at least respect it on that level. This on the other hand feels exactly like the product it is.

A sequel nobody asked for is already a bad start but when you start piling on the bland lead, trite plot, over reliance on the original, comical villains, desperate need to one up the action in the original and you might as well just go ahead and make an actual original movie.

Wholly un-engaging, a soulless spectacle made for no one except the studio.

At least Denzel seemed like he was having a good time.