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

[Hattori Hanzo]

The Last Kumite (2024)

Fun homage to Bloodsport with good fights. Full of all stars but they've all got old.
The soundtrack is by Paul Hertzog.

It's fan service at its best but the budget was low. The acting isn't great either but who cares in a Bloodsport clone when the fights are so good?

 

[Taiso]

Armand Assante's The Odyssey

Still the definitive version of the epic that I've seen on a screen to this point (haven't watched Nolan's adaptation yet and not sure I'll bother until it's on a streaming platform). A few parts are a little cheesy but overall, it's held up rather well for me over the years.

I kind of wish they didn't have to keep showing the end of the Trojan War in these adaptations, though. It still amazes me that we live in a society where, 2800 years later, people don't know the setup.

And before anyone asks, I am not that into Nolan as a director.

 

[100proof]

Evil Dead Burn - The "let up and coming filmmakers take a crack at Evil Dead" trend continues to continuing moderate success with the new one by Sebastian Vanicek (French director of Infested). There's a lot of good in this one: the camera work is terrific. Once the movie gets going, the tension is butthole-puckering wild for over an hour. There are some seriously gruesome moments and it seems like these guys are always trying to out-do the previous director. They also both try to do something a little bit different (not nearly as many callbacks and tropes as the remake and Rise had) and do a smidge of world-building which I feel like was one of the things that frustrated me about the previous two movies (the need to adhere so closely to the original movies' member berries).

They try to tell a story about dysfunctional families and the roles people play in them (enabler, pleaser, bully, victim, etc.) but I don't know that they necessarily stuck the landing.

That said, there were a few things that bothered me. None of the characters are particularly fleshed out or interesting (even the ex-wife of the dead son who you're supposed to be rooting for is kind of a wet blanket). While there's a lot of great use of practical fx in the movie, the final creature is the most generic, unfinished CG looking yawnfest. You could easily cut out that last 10-15 minutes and lose pretty much nothing from the movie. Finally, there's a post-credits scene that calls back to a previous movie (They're bringing back the deadite mom from Rise? Why?) that just feels like stupid nerd bait.

All in all, I enjoyed it with minor misgivings. Even though these new ones certainly aren't par with ED2, there hasn't been a bad movie in the bunch yet which is high praise for a horror movie franchise. Christ, look at Scream.

 

[Hot Chocolate]

Armand Assante's The Odyssey

Still the definitive version of the epic that I've seen on a screen to this point (haven't watched Nolan's adaptation yet and not sure I'll bother until it's on a streaming platform). A few parts are a little cheesy but overall, it's held up rather well for me over the years.

I kind of wish they didn't have to keep showing the end of the Trojan War in these adaptations, though. It still amazes me that we live in a society where, 2800 years later, people don't know the setup.

And before anyone asks, I am not that into Nolan as a director.

You get half of what you want in Nolan’s movie.

 

[Tarma]

Dark Breed - naff sci-fi action film that riffs heavily on Aliens, a bit of Predator, and a pinch of Lifeforce.

Jack Scalia is the man called upon to find six astronauts who crash land back on earth infected with an alien virus. Cue some explosions, car chases, cars exploding and people catching fire. The plot is ropey, there are a ton of plot holes, the acting is all over the place, and the pacing is off. Kind of expected a bit more from this after seeing Scalia in T-Force (both that and Dark Breed are PM Entertainment flicks), and while he's not bad, the whole film is just forgettable nonsense.

If you've ever wanted to see Jonathan Banks literally punch straight through a man's body, then this is the film for you.

 

[LoneSage]

(haven't watched Nolan's adaptation yet and not sure I'll bother until it's on a streaming platform).

I 'unno man, it's been getting tons of perfect reviews. At the very least, watching Nolan movies in the theater are the way to go. I'm honestly kind of intrigued by just how many 100 reviews it's been getting.

 

[joe8]

Blade Runner deleted/alternate scenes. I haven't see these scenes in any of the multiple versions of the movie that I've seen.

 

[Taiso]

I 'unno man, it's been getting tons of perfect reviews. At the very least, watching Nolan movies in the theater are the way to go. I'm honestly kind of intrigued by just how many 100 reviews it's been getting.

The modern critic isn't worth the time to listen to. The entire industry is too compromised. I will never trust what is obviously access media on its opinions.

Making my own determination (surprise), I find most of Nolan's movies ponderous. If I determine that most of a restaurant's offerings are 'good but not to my pallette', why would I keep eating there?

This isn't to say I find ALL of his work meandering and dull. I liked The Prestige quite a bit, The Dark Knight was pretty spectacular for a cape flick and Dunkirk was excellent. Keep the rest. I am fine with waiting for streaming but I'd go if someone paid for my ticket.

 

[wyo]

I'd rather watch O Brother, Where Art Thou again...

Nolan's Batman movies are the only films of his I really like and occasionally rewatch. All the rest are one and done or, in some cases, didn't finish.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

He only had one good Batman movie. The Dark Knight is a Joker movie

 

[HornheaDD]

I'd rather watch O Brother, Where Art Thou again...

Nolan's Batman movies are the only films of his I really like and occasionally rewatch. All the rest are one and done or, in some cases, didn't finish.

I actually like Tenet, Interstellar and Inception quite a bit. Are they mindblowers that OMG THIS GUY IS THE BEST DIRECK-TOR EVERR? No, they are not. No.

But I like em ok. And making Kenneth "Whatever Im in I bring a little extra class to it" Branagh a villain? That was fun, at least for me. I might be in the minority, but I thought Dunkirk was a snooze fest. I honestly don't even remember much about it. I enjoyed Oppenheimer as well, (Flo Pugh's titties bro. come on thats oscar material right there). And of course Memento is a fun one too. But Inter/Incep/Tenet/Batman Begins/DK I do like. Edit: Dark Knight Rises can eat the corn outta my crap that movie is fucking balls.

Also I agree with Hanzo - Dark Knight is indeed a Joker movie, but to me it still stands as arguably the best Batman/comic book movie ever, not counting Superman 78. Im a HUGE Spider-man dork, and for the longest time Raimi's Spider-man 2 was the top of the pile for me (not counting Superman). But Dark Knight kicked it off 1st place for me. (not counting Superman).

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

Tenet is only clever for college dropouts

 

[Taiso]

Eggers > Nolan

Sorry, that's just how it is.

 

[terry.330]

The Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows- Possibly the worst sequel to anything I’ve ever seen and I don’t even like the first one. Fucking clown shoes.

 

[100proof]

I enjoy pretty much all of Nolan's movies on one level or another. Memento is basically a really good student film. Insomnia is underrated and has one of Robin Williams' better dramatic performances. Prestige is a brilliant treatise on obsession. I really enjoy the cinematography and filmmaking of Inception even if the story is ultimately all style and little substance. The first two Batman movies are good to great but I've definitely soured on them over the years as the sheer volume of capeshit broke my spirit. Not really his fault. The only ones I wouldn't rewatch are Dark Knight Rises (it's overstuffed and plodding to the point that it's kind of boring when Bane isn't on screen), Tenet (he somehow figured out how to make a time-travel action movie a boring, interminable slog) and Interstellar (way too long and melodramatic for my taste). Still a pretty good run and I'm all for a director who's given the ability to still take moderate risks with the studios' money. Speaking of which...

Christopher Nolan's Matt Damon's Homer's The Odyssey - Brilliant technical achievement retelling a story that I have zero emotional investment in. Amazing looking and sounding (hey you can actually hear the dialogue in this one!) and he recreates just about every critical moment of Homer's epic in ways that are believable and feel like they're at the correct scale. Largely pretty good performances that don't feel too broad. I also found it interesting that he emphasized Odysseus's internal struggle and the breaking of Zeus's law aspect of the story. Modern movies are often accused of being too on-the-nose with their political messaging (and there are certainly some poorly written ones that are guilty of the crime) but this felt like a message that could be relevant at almost any time in the last 100 years. War never changes and its atrocities committed for the most petty of reasons rarely get easier to manage for those who return.

All that said, the meat of the story just bounced right off of me. A shame really as there were few things I loved more than mythology and ancient texts and scriptures growing up and through my college years. Some of it could just be where I'm at in my life and some could be because Nolan's work in general is very cold and clinical and he just might not have been the right person to tell this story. However, I think some of it is that The Odyssey has been repackaged and retold fifty different ways over the years so the basic framework is beyond tired and there have been enough well-done versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey done over the years that another one that's technically brilliant just doesn't get me excited anymore. It's great that this will be the definitive version of the story for some Gen Alpha kid that gets them in to the classics but it largely left me cold. It's very similar to how I felt about Eggers' Nosferatu.

As for actual flaws/nitpicks, my biggest issue with this version is some of the dumb decisions made around language. I fully appreciate that you can't release a $300 million dollar tentpole movie in 2026 and not update the language of a 2,500 year old epic poem a little bit for a modern audience and there are definitely parts where I thought their use of modern English was done tastefully and even cleverly but there are a couple of lines that are so 21st century American English (in critical scenes) that it took me right out of the movie. It was just an unforced error and I was waiting for them to start calling each other "bro"... like some "Living Bible" nonsense.

Also, while I like that Nolan has his stable of actors that he likes to re-use, not all of his regulars felt like good choices for their roles. I think part of the problem there is that the Hollywood system has spent the last 25 years putting out largely capeshit and vapid garbage so we don't have a lot of trusted, veteran actors in their 30s and 40s that we can reliably put in serious roles and not be like "oh look it's Spiderman and the Punisher retelling the story of the Trojan War!" I'm generally able to separate actors from their most famous roles but Jon Bernthal either hasn't had the chance or doesn't cover himself in the kind of glory that makes him a good choice for Menelaus.

 

[100proof]

The Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows- Possibly the worst sequel to anything I’ve ever seen and I don’t even like the first one. Fucking clown shoes.

I always wondered if the internet would try to do its usual "b-b-b-ut it's actually good if you squint and ignore how terrible it is" re-reckoning for that movie like it seems to do with so many other movies that were generally agreed to be crap. I remember seeing that in the theaters and the only reason I didn't leave the theater was because I didn't drive that night.

 

[fake]

Eggers > Nolan

Sorry, that's just how it is.

Eh, two totally different styles and MOs.

I actually like Memento, Dark Knight, and Inception, as well as the exploration parts of Interstellar. I’ve always thought Batman Begins was incredibly boring.

 

[terry.330]

RE: Nolan:

The best thing about The Prestige was Bowie as Tesla. That’s probably the coolest thing is any of his movies honestly.

Not much of a Nolan fan. I like about 50% of TDK, The Prestige and Interstellar. Insomnia is solid but not something I’d probably ever rewatch. Didn’t care for Momento or Inception at all and found Tenet laughable. While he’s on his own level technically he almost always seems to over stuff his projects and often bog them down with superfluous scenes. At best they are a little self indulgent and worst they are smug nonsense.
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I always wondered if the internet would try to do its usual "b-b-b-ut it's actually good if you squint and ignore how terrible it is" re-reckoning for that movie like it seems to do with so many other movies that were generally agreed to be crap. I remember seeing that in the theaters and the only reason I didn't leave the theater was because I didn't drive that night.

I was talking to a buddy about it earlier and I said it felt like a fake movie you’d see them watching on a crappy TV show in the 00’s. Like some episode of Law & Order SVU or CSI. It’s that bad.
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The Keeper- Oz Perkins has yet to miss for me. I really enjoyed this one although I can definitely see it turning a lot of people off. I had no idea what to expect from this and really didn’t even know the basic premise. That probably increased my enjoyment.

I really dug the whole vibe. Perkins is excellent at creating a very effective feeling of unease, paranoia and increasing tension without it ever feeling cheap or gimmicky. I loved the way this looked. The way the cabin was used, a lot of reflections, the woods and the heavy shot layering and transitions.

I would recommend this if you’re a Perkins fan, particularly if you enjoyed Blackcoat’s Daughter and Gretel & Hansel. Don’t expect Longlegs.

 

[Taiso]

Eh, two totally different styles and MOs.

I actually like Memento, Dark Knight, and Inception, as well as the exploration parts of Interstellar. I’ve always thought Batman Begins was incredibly boring.

This apple can taste better than that orange.

This is one of those cases.

 

[lithy]

Tagging along on Taiso's point...

When did just saying 'It's a Nolan film' become some sort of guarantee? Seems like only between Oppenheimer and this. And it ends up feeling like an astroturfed studio/media effort to give an air of intellectuality to your average movie-goer. "I'm not going to see a movie, I'm going to see Nolan's The Odyssey." And then what seems like plenty of confirmation bias happening, going both ways.

I dunno, maybe my cynicism is undeserved, and I don't want to say anything about the movie itself, I haven't seen it, although nothing from the previews makes me want to see it either. I've enjoyed some of his movies, but never felt he was worthy of a 'following'. Memento was good, I really like The Prestige. Begins and Dark Knight are great but they also couldn't be buried by pretension like Inception. Several of them have a bit of the 'smart' movies for dummies feel to them.

 

[terry.330]

When did just saying 'It's a Nolan film' become some sort of guarantee?

Since everything turned into slop about 10 years ago and directors with actual vision and talent who don’t have to compromise at the big studio level became a rarity. There’s only a handful and a lot of the old guard (cough Spielberg) have pretty much completely fallen off in recent years so it’s even rarer. Guys like Nolan, Villenueve and Tarantino etc. are a dying breed.

Not that it being a Nolan movie is a guarantee that you’re going to like it but a guarantee that it’s going to be an actual real film by someone with vision and the juice to get it done their way. People want that sort of experience.

Hell, just look at this summer’s releases. The slop that the studios were banking on all tanked, Mario 2, Moana, Supergirl etc. While the small original stuff did gangbusters, Obsession, Backrooms. People are tired of slop.

 

[fake]

Not to sound like Fami, but Mario 2 did amazing numbers. 110mm budget, 430mm domestic and over a billion worldwide.

 

[terry.330]

Not to sound like Fami, but Mario 2 did amazing numbers. 110mm budget, 430mm domestic and over a billion worldwide.

Yeah but it’s an animated kids movie they always make money. It got pretty bad reviews and everyone I know who saw it said it sucked.

 

[StevenK]

Not to sound like Fami, but Mario 2 did amazing numbers. 110mm budget, 430mm domestic and over a billion worldwide.

I really think this should have been in bullet points, or at least in the context of a top ten.

 

[Taiso]

There was a time, for me, when seeing Nolan's name on a movie was a promise, at the very least, that there would be some degree of effort put into the production. It wasn't going to be 'slop'.

While I feel that Nolan still 'gives it his all', his body of work has been all over the place in terms of final grade for me. Simply put, I don't care much about most of it but I can acknowledge that there is some pedigree associated with his projects.

But I am also very cynical about the industry that he works in and, to some degree, I see some of his choices as a kind of artistic surrender to the machine.

For example, I am absolutely, 100% Zendaya'd out. The girl version of Pedro Pascal. She's everywhere and she's not that good at, well, anything. Let's call her 'shitty Anya Taylor-Joy'. After the new Spider-Man movie and Dune 3, I hope I never have to see her in anything again. I am good on Zendaya for the rest of my life. But Hollywood, for some reason, really wants to make Zendaya 'a thing'. And that's fair enough. But she's not 'my thing'. Utterly average in every capacity.