The Movie Review Thread

[BiomedDood]

Streamed the following since I love old school action heros ..good ole Arnie and Stallone.

- Terminator: Dark Fate ....It wasn't great but it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be ..I mean, shouldn't this franchise be dead by now? Arnie looks so old but Linda still looks in excellent shape considering her age!
- Rambo: Last blood: Lots of wtf moments and kinda lame expected plot but good entertaining action movie. Stallone still kicks some ass in his 70s!!

I hope Hollywood is done with these 2 franchises though..for real!!

[Dec4y]

6 Underground starring Ryan Reynolds and you will find it on Netflix is a decent enough watch. The plot is pretty good with a billionaire who witnesses a tragic event and decides to right that wrong and set the world on the correct path. Tons of action but also a ton of plot holes that you need to ignore as well as a few continuity issues which I despise such as a car getting all shot up and then is pristine, then it's all shot up again and suddenly pristine again. Major plot hole is how does someone who has "died" still have access to all of their resources? Anyways ignore those details and it is an enjoyable watch.

Lord the continuity was awful!!! The first car chase was just full of it. They make it a point to show the Alfa's side mirror get destroyed, then literally next shot it's back on!! I haven't made it to the halfway point - but I'll finish it.

Knives Out was a great flick. Went in with no idea what it was about, and was pleasantly surprised - worth a watch for sure! Stellar performances and a fun "whodonenit?" that kept me guessing

[Bando]

I've seen this offered up on netflix and thought "how the heck could being trapped on a chairlift hold my interest for almost 2 hours?" And I used to work at a Ski resort.

.

Just watched "Frozen" about 3 late teens caught on a ski lift overnight. Got rather long about halfway through and it was all rather obvious.

Took 9 years but finally got around to watching this. Thought it was based on a true story but guess not. The teens are actually up there on a Sunday night and the mountain doesn't reopen until Friday, so they're apparently looking at a week up there. It's actually very gripping, edge of seat stuff. There's obvious holes like they are wearing good parkas with hoods and face flaps but they never put up their hoods or use their face flaps, don't use body heat, have a lighter they don't use etc. The idea that someone might wonder why their car is still there doesn't come up , but all in all it's as good as an early Stephen King story IMO.

[Corbi]

Watched The Do Over starring Adam Sandler and David Spade the other day, overall it wasn't bad and I got a few good laughs out of some of the lines. Sure there is the typical infantile jokes at times we expect in a Sandler movie but it's still worth a watch.

Then tried to watch the Cloverfield Paradox, OMG what a $hit movie. I managed to make it about 45 minutes in and gave up, read how it the rest goes on Wikipedia and glad I stopped.

[Corbi]

Saw Birds of Prey last night and I enjoyed it, not your typical DC superhero movie where everyone flies and is overpowered. Here there is only 1 character with any sort of actual power and it's only used 1 time. You will need to enjoy Margot Robbie's depiction of Harley Quinn because she is the star of the movie, narrates it, etc. There are no mid or end credit scenes but there is a little something at the very end of the credits that was worth sitting the extra few minutes for.

[Corbi]

Watched a couple on the plane, Terminator: Dark Fate & then Gemini Man.
Terminator was freakin lame, Linda Hamilton is so wooden in the film and her lines were laughable, overall simply a bad movie on all levels.
Now Gemini Man is a totally different story, the critics were savage but I enjoyed it quite a bit, the ending was a bit soft and quite how I would have done it but the storyline is pretty good, the action and stunts are excellent and Will Smith does what I consider to be a damn fine job.

[Samraiwise]

Watched a couple on the plane, Terminator: Dark Fate & then Gemini Man.
Terminator was freakin lame, Linda Hamilton is so wooden in the film and her lines were laughable, overall simply a bad movie on all levels.
Now Gemini Man is a totally different story, the critics were savage but I enjoyed it quite a bit, the ending was a bit soft and quite how I would have done it but the storyline is pretty good, the action and stunts are excellent and Will Smith does what I consider to be a damn fine job.

Doesn't matter, Linda is and will be my love forever.

[x-trainer ben]

Redbox had 1 copy of Ford vs. Ferrari left last night and we snagged it.
4.5/5 stars
Lots of action, great acting, and an amazing story that keeps you wide awake until it ends. Never do you want to fast forward or take a break because the story is so captivating. Run and get this one on a boring night.

[Bando]

Now Gemini Man is a totally different story, the critics were savage but I enjoyed it quite a bit, the ending was a bit soft and quite how I would have done it but the storyline is pretty good, the action and stunts are excellent and Will Smith does what I consider to be a damn fine job.

Trailer looks good, not sure why the critics hate Will Smith now, I think he's great.

[thebigzakbowski]

checked out Dark Fate. Not bad, but honestly that's all I can say about it. grace and Dani are the two main characters straight away and you don't have the years invested in them that you do for the Connors or Arnold's terminator. Sarah has her moments but I agree she seems wooden and phoning it in. Arnold comes into the movie pretty late

[stingray72]

Redbox had 1 copy of Ford vs. Ferrari left last night and we snagged it.
4.5/5 stars
Lots of action, great acting, and an amazing story that keeps you wide awake until it ends. Never do you want to fast forward or take a break because the story is so captivating. Run and get this one on a boring night.

yeah i liked ford v ferrari as well.

[stingray72]

Watched a couple on the plane, Terminator: Dark Fate & then Gemini Man.
Terminator was freakin lame, Linda Hamilton is so wooden in the film and her lines were laughable, overall simply a bad movie on all levels.
Now Gemini Man is a totally different story, the critics were savage but I enjoyed it quite a bit, the ending was a bit soft and quite how I would have done it but the storyline is pretty good, the action and stunts are excellent and Will Smith does what I consider to be a damn fine job.

I thought gemini was good as well.

[Wayne Evans]

Might one be looking for an entertaining SciFi related/interesting story/sufficient action/very little trite humor/good cast and a good family movie?
I'd recommend Race To Witch Mountain which is on Netflix.
We've seen it a few times over the years and I threw it on as a backgrounder while practicing my lack of guitar skills.

Cast:
The Rock
Carla Gugino
(Both of which were also cast in San Andreas)

Carry on....

[Bando]

Kind of loosely based on Stephen King's Firestarter. Takes that story into a wonderful 1 hour sci fi masterpiece, just brilliant, edge of your seat stuff. The effects, the acting and most of all, the story is really engaging and gripping, a real treat for sci fi fans.

Only problem is that the movie is an hour and 44 minutes long. So for an hour of brilliance, you're gonna sit through 44 minutes of background stuff that could have been done in 8 minutes. The last minute of the movie wasn't to my liking but I'll let you be the judge so I don't give anything away.

[sy2502]

Ford vs Ferrari - It's the story of how in the 60s Ford teamed up with Shelby to beat Ferrari in the racing circuit and use that as a marketing tool to make its cars more appealing. I love cars and love racing so it was definitely my kind of movie, but left me wanting for more. For example, it's called "Ford vs Ferrari" but tells close to nothing about Ferrari other than the fact Ford tried to buy them and got turned down, and that they were the guys to beat. They should have called it "Ford and Shelby" really, but again, the movie doesn't give much story about Shelby either, other than he was a car racer himself who had to give up racing for health issues, and was hired by Ford to beat Ferrari. I know that's a lot of backstories to cram into a movie. If you are a car enthusiast, you can't go wrong with this movie.

Rocketman - Biopic of Elton John. This movie decided to go a very different way from say "Bohemian Rhapsody". Where BR made the actors look as close to the real people as possible, and get as many details right as they could, Rocketman gave up on that from the start and went with more of an "interpretation". I know many of Elton John's song (anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows many of his songs) but I am not a big fan of him so I wasn't particularly invested in the story. I thought it was an odd choice to use the actor's voice for the songs. He has an ok voice, but it sounds just that, some guy singing Elton John's songs. Kind of odd. Also I felt the movie didn't know if it should be a musical or a biopic with songs thrown in, because there's some scenes of concerts and recording sessions in which they sing, but also some random song and dance scenes like in a musical. So to sum it up, not horrible, but I wasn't impressed.

[Mark1T]

Hey sy, were you involved in making Call of the Wild?

I watched it the other evening and I enjoyed it. The dogs are obviously CGI, but it was the closest to real as I have ever seen. The dog was the star and all of the dogs had some human behavioral characteristics, but since the movie was a movie with some fantasy added, it was tasteful and believable if you've had a couple glasses of wine

I gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars

[sy2502]

Hey sy, were you involved in making Call of the Wild?

No, sorry. That was The Moving Picture Company. Phuking Brits stealing our jobs...

[Mark1T]

No, sorry. That was The Moving Picture Company. Phuking Brits stealing our jobs...

Awww. Ok, I changed my mind. It wasn't that good

[Bando]

Spenser Confidential on Netflix

I'm a big Mark Wahlburg fan so not sure why someone with a resume that includes The Fighter, Boogie Nights and The Perfect Storm would ever sign on to this predictable car chase movie with nothing new. I'm even unhappy with Netflix for producing this, half the episodes of Better Call Saul have more intrigue and are more engaging than this worn out plot with half baked jokes.

[Bando]

More bad news, and this one has Arnold. Follows two families after a disaster with many lives lost. Just a depressing, dark film, no action, no intrigue and no reason to watch this. Once you start watching you'll be compelled to finish, but I'm imploring you now not to even start watching.

[Corbi]

Dr. Sleep a sequel to The Shining is flat out horrible. I didn't like the story one damn bit and unless you read up on the film beforehand you won't truly know just who is who and what the hell is going on. In addition I do not like movies where children are murdered, instant turnoff.

[sy2502]

Dr. Sleep a sequel to The Shining is flat out horrible. I didn't like the story one damn bit and unless you read up on the film beforehand you won't truly know just who is who and what the hell is going on. In addition I do not like movies where children are murdered, instant turnoff.

Then I strongly recommend watching "It", no kids killed there LOL...

They just... float....

[Corbi]

Then I strongly recommend watching "It", no kids killed there LOL...

They just... float....

Hated that as well, wasn't scary and again the killing of children.

[sy2502]

Hated that as well, wasn't scary and again the killing of children.

I remember when the movie came out and some people got all triggered because there's a scene where a gay couple is attacked, and I was like "well chit, never mind all the kids dismembered and eaten alive, but a gay couple being beat up? Terrible I say, just terrible!!"

[Bando]

Dark, gritty, Dystopian, SciFi. Right up my alley. The beginning warnings have something about scenes of people smoking, trust me, there are times in this movie when you wish you just saw people committing the abhorrent act of smoking. If you read "The House of Stairs" as a kid, it's a similar concept, where getting up a level means greater comfort. Despite the occasional gore and odd inexplicable relationships between characters, I kept thinking "this is a great story and a 10/10 movie," but....

And I'll just leave it at that as I don't want to influence anyone else's experience with the film.

*It was shot in a different language, but the American language people who did voiceovers will make you forget that in like 3 minutes.

[sy2502]

1917

Was marketed as the best war movie since "Saving Private Ryan". I thought it was really well done cinematographically but pretty boring. If you think of watching it for big spectacular war scenes there aren't any. It feels almost like a documentary on how phuked up war is (let's face it, it was). There are many more movies about WW2 than WW1 so good to watch for education purposes, but somehow I didn't feel emotionally involved. I liked that they didn't use macho-studly actors as soldiers, more plain and average looking guys, which I thought was a good choice because let's face it, in reality they were all ordinary next-door guys.

But as I said, it's beautifully shot. The schtick of this movie is that it's almost one continuous shot with very few cuts (actually there are plenty of cuts but they are artfully hidden so that it LOOKS like one continuous shot) which is quite original. "The Revenant" used a similar technique for some shots, but this is the 1st movie to use it so extensively. Thing is cuts make for a more dynamic movie so maybe that's why it felt a bit boring or like a documentary? Anyway, if you appreciate good cinematography and want some idea of WW1 and trench warfare, this may be worth watching. If you are easily bored maybe pass.

[Bando]

1917

Was marketed as the best war movie since "Saving Private Ryan".

That's a pretty big boast. Glad I didn't pay for it, will wait for it on Netflix thanks to your insightful review.

[sy2502]

"Once Upon A Time in Hollywood"

This is Tarantino going down memory lane I guess? The story follows an actor that used to be famous and is now relegated to the occasional cameo role, and has a chance encounter with the "Manson Family". While the main character is fictional, there are also characters that really existed, like Steve McQueen, Sharon Tate, Charles Manson. There's remarkably little violence for a Tarantino movie, and certainly not as much humor as some of his other movies. The story is pretty random, and ends in such a ridiculous, over the top, random way that I was left in complete WTF state. I imagine like most Tarantino movies, you'll either love it or hate it. I didn't like it and don't get all the hype. On a side note, Leonardo Di Caprio is a really good actor, I think it's a shame he got marked as pretty boy and not much else at the beginning of his career, because I think he's one of the best actors around right now. In the movie there's a pretty funny moment in which the character he plays tells how he was almost cast in "The Great Escape" and then the role went to Steve McQueen, so we get to see a scene from "The Great Escape" with Di Caprio instead of McQueen. Not sure if because I adore that movie, but I thought that was great.

[debandmikeb]

We saw the Netflix "Spenser" movie with Mark Wahlberg and really enjoyed it. Nice action, humor, plot and Boston locations. Mostly believable but a few stretches. His on again off again girlfriend is a hoot! I enjoyed the original Spenser show and would not be dissappointed if they made this a series.

Mike

[Dre4]

Watched Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Stars Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers which was a masterful acting job, gives a great insight of how much Fred Rogers meant to American children and how adults still idolize him.