Lucy
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film)
The audience for Lucy was split evenly between men and women, with 65 percent being over age 25.[54] Nikki Rocco, president for domestic distribution at Universal Studios, said, “To have a female lead in an original property absolutely made a difference. Scarlett is a star, and her presence [in the film] made it a lot more appealing for women.”[55] Michael Bodey of The Australian commented that women having comprised half the audience is “a seemingly new precedent for an action film” and that, because of its box office performance, Lucy is the film out of all of Besson’s film work “likely to have the greatest cultural impact.”[18]
It seems like it definitely resonated with a lot of people, will check it out. Luc Besson can be hit and miss, but his films are always memorable
Jurassic World. Just give me 90 minutes of dino mutants fighting, I don’t give a shit about Chris Pratt nor some random kids.
+1 for I do not give a shit about Chris Pratt
CATS
Cats is not a complicated musical. All they had to do was animate it and get actual voice actors/singers. I’ve seen sketches for what I think was a Tim Burton sketch, and that would have been a million times better. I don’t know who looked at Cat’s and was like, “Yup, we need CGI.” It looks horrendous and sounds bad more often than not. The musical is already pretty out there, how much more fun would that movie had been if we had animators working on it. The creative visuals, colors, motifs. Not to mention a cat is a wonderfully complex animal to animate just because of how they move. That movie could have been a visual delight in part with the Spiderman movies if they let it, but noooooo. Let’s make a nightmare.
I still feel obliged to post it, so that the memories don’t fade.
The original Purge. I thought all the background stuff and setting were super interesting, but the film itself was a generic home invasion movie. The sequel expanded on all the stuff I was interested in, though.
The sequels really explored the idea with impressive worldbuilding. I admit the first one was more a horror flick, but the others were definitely digging deep into social commentary
Yeah, it wasn’t even that the first one was bad, it’s just that all the things they mentioned in passing, like the New Founding Fathers and the exemptions for Level 10 Government Officials, were building a world that sounded super interesting. Then we got saddle with some boring rich family for 90 minutes. I only got around to seeing the first sequel, but it delivered on all the stuff I wanted to see after I heard that first announcement.
NostalgiaCritic did a pretty decent analysis on the Purge series a few years ago, and it touches on a lot of this:
Cabin in the woods
100% agree. It’s a fine twist on the subgenre, but the twist introduces an idea that begs to be expanded upon as part of a larger, cross-subgenre arc. And yet we only get a sliver and then it’s done.
My hot take is that Joss Whedon’s writing is like JJ Abrams’: perfect premises with bad sense of follow-thru, so all their work gets the Netflix “over before it’s satisfyingly concluded” treatment
I feel like everything was explained. I’m not left with any lingering questions about why or how any of it happened
Yeah, so much more there, they set up a very good universe to explore a tiny sand grain of it.
you shut your bastard mouth!
Hot take.
I loved cabin in the woods!
everyone and their mother did
I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning ‘In Time’. It had such a great premise, and I didn’t even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said “fuck it, that’s good enough”. The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point… A movie just isn’t the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I’m not sure belongs here. It’s not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it didn’t do better. That movie is called ‘Push’, with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn’t that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn’t a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It’s just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don’t seem to get those anymore.
Will check out both, thanks for this
Timeline! The movie was completely forgettable but the concept was pretty cool. I loved the book.
Madam Web. The premise of your perception being un-stuck in time and the ramifications that has for your psyche is really cool. What’s not cool is hiring bad writers and nepo baby actresses to portray that story
nepo baby actresses
which ones
Eragon.
There is a reason that most fans pretend the film never happened
What film? as I look from my bed to my bookshelf with all 4 books
Terminator Genisys
First creative use of the time travel the series ever had… And totally botched about every other aspect of the movie that wasn’t an action sequence.
That whole 30 second idea of a Terminator in the 70s with a young Sarah Connor was far more interesting than what the movie did with Kyle Reese.
Oof yeah, what were they thinking with doing that to Kyle? He was the one pure aspect of the entire franchise (a friend, a lover, a father, a sacrificial pawn) and they cheapened his sacrifice with that nonsense
Tusk
Came here to say this. That movie showed me depths of fear I didn’t know I had yet, it could have had better production values.
Reign of fire. Don’t know if that’s what you were referencing in the picture but it’s immediately what came to mind when I saw the drawing.
Wait, but Reign of Fire is the best dragon vs. helicopter movie ever made!
Dude yes, I was so hyped for it, but it really underdelivered
Bits of it were good. Seems like something went wrong in production or they ran out of money or something. Some of the effects were really good and there was a real mood to the post apocalypse world but it was very uneven especially the way the entire process of civilization ending was just a montage of newspaper headlines. It’s ok to be post apocalypse of you don’t want to show the apocalypse but that was just cheese. Also there were the odd shots that were of just such a lower standard than the rest of the film. Like this scene where a guy climbs up a watertower and stands atop it getting ready to throw a spear and for some reason after the effects extravaganza up until that point in the film it looked a cheap television blue screen that was super awkward. I guess they wanted it to look taller than in reality and show the desolate landscape but it’s so weird that after all the aerial dragon combat they’d pulled off pretty well for the most part that THAT was somehow difficult. I seem to recall storywise there was some very disappointing ending too but it’s been rather too long for me to recall it now anyway.
I’ll take “Movies of the Current Decade” for $1000, Alex.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Amazing world building and visuals that was destroyed by terrible casting and wooden acting.
The box art put me off thisnone, but skimming the plot and it reads like an amazing visual spectacle. Might watch this one
The film opening is the best part, and honestly one of the best openings to a movie ever. It’s such a shame the rest of the movie is hindered by the awful writing and casting.
This was the movie I immediately thought of.
It’s a terrific LOOKING movie, but the two leads had absolutely no chemistry. At first I couldn’t figure out if they were partners, spouses, dating, brother & sister, etc.
The production design was spectacular, though.
It’s based on a comic series so we can read that at least
Mickey 17 is the latest one for me.
will definitely watch this one
Oof is it bad? I was beating myself because I didn’t get to watch in on theatre because of its very short run. I was waiting for digital release to watch it.
It’s not bad, but the pacing is terrible and it’s not really the movie that the trailers made it out to be. The concept and trailer made it look like a completely different movie.
I still enjoyed it, but I’d only give it a 6/10. Robert Pattinson is quickly turning into one of my favourite actors though, he’s great in it.
Have you seen him in Good Time? One of my favorite movies ever.
I haven’t, but I’ll add it to the list now. Thanks :)
For me the pacing was bad. Like they could have cut a combined 30 minutes and it would be recommendable.
I also think they left a lot unexplored with the whole concept. Like cut back on the relationship and politics stuff and focus on what it means to be Mickey/clone.
I thought it was great, premise and execution.
Yeah I liked it, thought the lead did a great job.
There was an odd disconnect between first and second part imo.Yeh this was it - great acting by Robert, but the first half of the movie was what the trailers made us think the whole movie was going to focus on.
