I AM FULLY ON BOARD THIS LANGSKIP.
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Definitely getting some glorious Inigo Montoya vibes.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Youâll want to sit down for this one, chaps.
Now, perhaps lockdown has got to me, and after all those years of dancing on the precipice, Iâve finally went over the edge and into the deep end of the insanity pool, but this is actually a decent film. Itâs almost complete fan service, from start to finish, and it appears to have been made by people who actually know the games. The director, Johannes Roberts, has a track record of successful low budget films, and this is another. The story is an odd mix of stuff from the games, taking whatever it wants and smashing it all together like a ball of clay, to then go on and make its own thing. Iâm not sure how they got Neal McDonough to appear (for all of five minutes, I might add), but he and the rest of a surprisingly good cast do a solid job. Robbie Amell is a bit too generic as Chris, but thatâs fair enough because the character is extremely bland. Tom Hopper as Wesker is a solid choice. Avan Jogia as Leon S. Kennedy (âWhatâs the âSâ stand for? Stupid?â) is also not a bad call. Kaya Scodelario and Hannah John-Kamen as Claire and Jill Valentine respectively are not how I see those characters, but theyâre good in their roles. Donal Logue has probably the best smaller role as Chief Irons, the cop happy to abandon the city at the first sign of trouble. One of the best scenes is just the camera watching him, as shit kicks off, and he reacts and drives away. Also, seeing Nathan Dales in this, when Iâm only used to seeing him in Letterkenny, was wonderful.
The story is ramshackle, but it bangs along at a good pace, there are several particularly good scenes, especially when it comes to frenetic, flailing action, and virtually every character, line, event, set, and visual, hearkens back to the games. One of the most enjoyable things for a fan of the games is just to see things on the screen that you know intimately from the games, but that no-one has bothered depicting before. Arguably itâs slavish, but the film is not beholden to the games in terms of style, and thereâs some excellent camerawork. Even a half-decent Resi film would look good against the previous ones, and this makes a staunch attempt to actually be a horror film.
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Scott.
Iâve played only about half of the REs, but I played the everloving shit out of RE4. I think one of the baddies uses his full name at one point, like a dad chewing out his current least favorite child.
Itâs dialogue!
The best thing about this is itâs never mentioned what it stands for in 2, the game in which heâs introduced, but in 4 is constantly called âLeon Scott Kennedyâ by one of the villains as if making up for the omission.
Matrix Resurrection. They should of let the corpse lay dead. What a hot mess of a story. I enjoyed the premise of the original Matrix movie, questioning the nature of reality vs simulation if all sensory input is reduced to electrochemical signals in the brain that can be manipulated. The messianic plot line of âThe Oneâ was not very original and the subsequent sequels that leaned into this trope was why I hated the sequels. This movie is more of the same with a nonsensical plot and poor acting (Lawrence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving probably took one look at script and said âhard passâ). Keanu Reeves mostly sticks to his soft-spoken, brooding performance that we have seen in most of his movies. The movie has some decent cgi and wire work fight scenes.
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I was re-reading some earlier posts for fun this morning, and didnât realize that Roy Kent was your name IRL. 
Mary Poppins Returns.
Jesus fuck, this atrocity of a screenplay shouldâve been shot and buried at sea. The only redeeming quality of this shitstorm, which was about 2 hours too long, was that my kids kind of enjoyed it. (Caveat being they could watch an hour long documentary on seal coating an asphalt driveway and not give fuck all because itâs on a screen). Iâm not even English and I was insulted by the accents, which were easily one of the least awful things about this hot remade mess.
Jane and Michael Banks (the kids in the original) return as grown up and more irritating adults who somehow failed to gain the ability to act over the last however many years. Michael is a financial idiot who has somehow wormed himself into debt, yet misplaced the one and only document proving that he is, in fact, wealthy enough to avoid the unscrupulous banker seizing his childhood home. In swoops Mary Poppins, two hours and ten minutes of unnecessary and forgettable song and dance ensues, and lo and behold, this fuckwit had painted a goddamn picture on the document he needed then let his kid patch a kite with it what the fucking fuck. Iâve never regretted not bringing a flask somewhere more than I did sitting through this abortion.
tl;dr - lighting myself afire wouldâve been half as painful and twice as entertaining as sitting through Mary Poppins Returns. Learn from my mistake kids, avoid this movie like leftover fast food.
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This may be the best compliment Iâve ever gotten lol
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Havenât watched it yet, but reviews so far have not changed my opinion that the Matrix sequels get increasing worse on a logarithmic scale. The original remains the only one worth watching start to end. The fun fighty-fight bits from all the others are available on YouTube, so thereâs no reason to ever sit through them.
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Wow, that is a take-down! Wasnât it with Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, too? Ouch!
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@js619 is correct, itâs both terrible and nonsensical. The original was also nonsensical, of course, but in a charming and endearing way. The only remotely charming component of MPâs return is that Emily Blunt makes a fairly hot MP.
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This and only this. And thereâs better ways to get your kicks.
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Just finished it. I wanted to love it, as I want to love all things Matrix.
Fully agreed on the nonsensical story and meh acting all around. All of the characters are forgettable, the CGI is nothing youâve never seen before, and I spent a good portion of it wondering who that character was that I should remember from 20 years ago.
tl;dr, just rewatch the original and be happy.
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My wife and kids like MP Returns but I keep insisting that is so much a duplicate of the original film that it renders itself irrelevant. Every story beat matches almost perfectly, from the whimsical visit to a relative to the chase scene in the middle of a fantastical location. The music is fairly good (although the lamplighter song sucks), but the CG is blah and Whishaw canât replace the perennial Disney antagonist who played the original dad in Poppins.
I have no excitement for Matrix. I was way into all that extended universe stuff with it around the time Reloaded hit. Enter the Matrix, Animatrix, it was all great. And I like the second movie, an unpopular opinion to be sure. But the third took my love for the series and shot it right between the eyes. The subsequent Wachowski films did little and less to win me back to their side.
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LOL, despite all your reviews, we needed to watch Matrix anywayâŠI thought how bad could it be? I watch a lot of bad stuff and donât mind.
I fell asleep half way through.
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Yeah. Itâs me of those Iâll have to watch at some point no matter what the reviews say. I wasnât expecting much to begin with and Iâm not surprised by the reception. But MatrixâŠ
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The Matrix Resurrections.
Well. Where to begin with this one. I do appreciate that thereâs a stronger supporting cast this time, and many characters are not there just to be bumped off. However. The entire central premise of the film is bad. There is a good half an hour of âwe did x/you are not allowed to do x/we are going to do x/you are being court martialled for doing x/no actually itâs cool, go and do xâ which is largely wheel-spinning before they get around to doing x, and I have no idea why, because the film is nearly two and a half hours long. I do appreciate the self-referential nature of the film and the way it plays around with its own source material. Itâs quite possible thereâs a thoughtful film here somewhere, but this is a victim of the trilogyâs âsuccessâ and itâs impossible to simultaneously carry the hefty baggage of decades and do something new, and perhaps the filmâs greatest crime is it has no new ideas.
We are told that Neoâs overwrought sacrifice/embarrassing Christ allegory changed things, but we are shown a situation that is much the same, and a film that breaks its own internal consistency under the strain of coming up with something new. Itâs a ghastly prospect but the only really original thing I can think of is Smith, and thatâs a bigger condemnation of the rest of the film than I care to consider any more deeply.
The fight scenes in particular lacked the precision I associate with the Matrix films (at least, the first one), and while I realise not every film can have you stuck in a room with Yuen Woo-ping beforehand for months until you get it right, you donât need to resort to hosing people down at point-blank range either. The best moments were unfortunately those that deliberately echoed previous films; sadly one of the worst things about this film is the inclusion of footage from those films, which is some of the purest cringe Iâve ingested via my eyeballs in quite some time. There are several melees that are just messy, and donât compare to any of the fights in Matrix or Reloaded. The film looks lovely, but some of the CGI is painful and looks quite amateurish next to quite a lot of good effects.
The biggest surprise is Reevesâ acting, which is quite good for the first third of the film, and is markedly less wooden compared to a lot of his previous performances. Thatâs also where most of the promise of the film is, including a genuinely awkward scene with Moss. Yahya Abdul-Mateen as a more flamboyant Morpheus was nice. Jonathan Groff as Smith was a good attempt, considering he has none of Weavingâs menace. Neil Patrick Harris does what he can with a role that is the smart stupid bad guy.
The series has taken its own blue pill, and is just offering the same set of choices again, with the same justifications.
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Worldâs Greatest Dad. One of Robin Williamsâ best films, and a blackly cynical one at that. After his arsehole of a son dies in a wanking accident, Williamsâ frustrated writer/teacher exploits the situation for his own gain. It is impossible to adequately describe how much I like this film. Watching Williams and his resting smile face in every scene, whether itâs negotiating with his son, sliding haplessly through conversations in the staff room, fake-crying badly on TV, and inevitably lying about every aspect of his son after his death, is one of the best extended jokes in film, where the audience and exactly one character is in on it, and it is joyous agony. In each scene, Williams is compelled to embellish earlier lies, or invent new ones, until they become self-sustaining. A wonderful film.
Those Who Wish Me Dead. Probably everyone who read the script? An awful film. Angelina Jolie, unfortunately allergic to lightning and heroically scarred by PTSD after watching people discover they are vulnerable to fire, has to look after a boy, spawn of a tragically stupid forensic accountant, who believes important information, pertaining to a criminal case, should not be safely stored with a lawyer, but should be forced into his sonâs grubby hands, as he bleeds to death from many gunshot wounds. The fuck is the point of getting Tory Kittles, Jon Bernthal, Aiden Gillen, and Nicholas Hoult to star in this shit? It drags everyone down. Even Jake Weber is better than this, and what was his last good film? Taylor Sheridan has more talent than this, even if it goes awry sometimes, and itâs deserted him here.
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I second your endorsement of Worldâs Greatest Dad. Robin Williamsâ range as a dramatic actor was remarkable.
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Donât Look Up. Contrary to people saying itâs heavy-handed, I point to everything going on currently. It suffers from not being able to satirise enough, in fact. Whatâs all the more galling is the limitation, even in fiction and the imagination, on trying to change systems that arenât working. When people are ignoring the thing thatâs openly killing them, thatâs not heavy-handed satire, thatâs just the news.
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