Look at that face. That face tells you all you need to know about this film. A self-aware riff on Nicholas Cage and the film itself, what could go wrong? The second half, that’s what, which settles for drab, straightforward action and a safe resolution, shedding the first half of the film, which is very funny, like a gorgeous chrysalis producing a beige butterfly. Cage is of course very good, but Pedro Pascal makes the film what it is, and Neil Patrick Harris has arguably the best comedy and delivers it flawlessly. A very funny film overall, but let down by a pedestrian conclusion.
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That is still not enough times for me to remotely consider seeing this in the theater. I may not even watch it at home.
Also, vampires should never have mustaches.
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Operation Red Sea: This Time it’s Jingoism. I don’t think I’ve seen this level of ideology from a film outside of the Cold War. The PLAN are tasked with rescuing Chinese citizens from the murderous democratic Islamic republic of Shutthefuckupistan, complete with an ISIS-analogue organisation possessing yellow cake uranium. What follows is a truly unhinged look into the mind of a PLA propaganda officer, as the Chinese troops bravely wipe out wave after wave of turban-bedecked enemies, and a small group of Chinese special forces get bounced from pillar to post as they rescue hostages, extract citizens, engage in room clearing and street fighting, enjoy a tank battle, get shot, stabbed, and mortared, and of course come out victorious, but not without sacrifice are you getting it yet. I did enjoy the film, which uses a good amount of practical effects, and obviously in certain areas recevied carte blanche to just go mad with military kit in order to get the message across, but there’s also a baffling amount of CGI (doubly confusing when a lot of the practical is so good), and it lacks the realism needed to give the film an edge. There’s some classic stuff like sniper duels and lots of urban combat, which is nice, but it’s halfway between a ‘serious’ military film and a pure action flick. The propaganda struck me as slightly silly as a result.
Mao bless the People’s Liberation Army Navy and its coming confrontation with the West.
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Emergency.
It takes the classic ‘dead girl somehow in your house’ situation and goes in a more socially conscious direction with it, as three friends struggle to cope with a comatose high school girl. Worth it just for the repartee between the two leads, but also a funny and socially aware comedy.
Interceptor.
“What if we did Extraction without any of the budget?” asked Netflix, and this is what you get, a decent but ultimately very slim action film, with a decent but sub-par lead in Elsa Pataky, who at least genuinely looks like she could have a fight. There must have been literally hundreds of dollars spent on the sets, and the CGI is painfully obvious, none of the effects are really up to scratch (if I never see another CGI muzzle flash it will be too soon), but Pataky does manage to shoulder much of the film. Her lack of range is somewhat to her advantage, and it does play well against Luke Bracey’s smart-but-stupid villain, who is at least smooth and confident. With a better director (Matthew Reilly, who writes truly awful books) and writer, this could have been a short, sharp action film and genuinely impressive for its budget. As it is, it’s merely okay.
The Man Standing Next.
When it comes to South Korea, they really did a great line in military dictators before deciding democracy was probably worth one try before the next one, and here we have a careful, meticulous film about the events leading to the assassination of Park Chung-hee, who ruled from 1961 to 1979 with an iron fist inside a slightly softer iron glove. Lee Byung-hun (who I know well from his films because he’s fucking dreamy) is Kim, the head of the Korean CIA (that’s literally what it’s called), and is the voice of reason in an increasingly extreme coterie of advisors surrounding Park. What’s a little genocide to calm the populace down, is the main theme, and Kim finds himself slowly pushed outwards to the periphery, where his advice is ignored and he finds himself unable to reach Park, even though they were not only fellow revolutionaries but also schoolmates. The depth of history behind it is actually fairly palpable, and the film is a slow, but detailed look at the pressures piled upon Kim to do something as Park begins to alienate the USA and indiscriminately target his own people. Particularly gorgeous use of colour in a lot of scenes, even those that feel like the 70s, some great shots of Washington DC into the bargain, and a political thriller with unrelenting pressure. What’s not to like.
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I, for one, do not understand the artistic stylings of the East, I guess. I just can’t get in to anime or manga. Japanese games, yes, but that’s about it. I particularly don’t like how so many of the “classics” always seem to end with a blob monster…
Loved Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. Didn’t care for Princess Mononoke at all.
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Just another Tuesday according to my Playthrough of Ghost of Tsushima. 
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Birds of Prey.
Not good…but not bad either. It’s half of a funny knockabout film about Harley Quinn, and half standard DC film. Ewan McGregor actually does a decent turn as the villain, full of histrionics and foibles, and Margot Robbie does a fine job as Quinn, but I can’t work out why my future ex-wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, was recruited for a role so slim it’s basically 2-3 scenes. What was the point there? It’s not enough for the launching point of a series or another film. It’s clear the director didn’t get to make the film she wanted anyway, with Quinn’s asides, timeline breaking and fourth-wall piercing antics smoothed out and turned from irreverent to irrelevant, but there’s some great action choreography, Rosie Perez gets to do some stuff (not enough) despite not fitting in. Acceptable.
Valley of the Dead.
A decent attempt at a Nazi zombies film, as the Spanish Civil War offers a testing ground for their experimentation. A mixed squad of Republicans and Nationalists are forced together by circumstance and have to fight the undead. It’s okay, but genuinely amusing moments are sparse, and I’ve seen it all before, barring some absolute spectacular shots of Spain. No new ideas, decent execution.
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I really enjoyed the BIrds of Prey comic, the TV series was awful, the short cartoon eps were very good, and so I was pretty jazzed about this movie suddenly appearing with very little fanfare. And it’s ok.
Like you, I am confused about what purpose this is serving. It doesn’t appear to be a jumping off point for anything…or a jumping on point either. Rosie Perez is good, but also feels mis-cast to me. Actually, most roles felt mis-cast to me. The action scenes are weirdly good compared to the production of the rest of the film, and the dialogue is randomly periodically so good, it feels like they hired Whedon to polish up a few scenes but didn’t want to credit him because he’s canceled now (I think?). I feel like this was some obligatory contractual thing DC had to make and be done with.
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Midnight.
They must teach how to film good chase scenes in school in Korea, because I’ve lost count of the amount of them. Midnight is no different, featuring a deaf mother and daughter running from a killer, as a security guard looks for his sister, abducted by that same killer. There’s some amazing acting (I honestly thought both Jin Ki-joo and Gil Hae-yeon were deaf), and some great scenes of righteous beatings, complete with practical and competent judo throws.
The Old Man and The Gun.
Redford plays an aging bank robber, part of a trio alongside Danny Glover and Tom Waits (who we frankly do not see enough of), unwilling to reform, with a string of bank robberies behind him longer than everything including his list of escapes from prisons. He bumps into Sissy Spacek, and the pair indulge in a charming, sincere relationship, even as he goes on robbing banks. I don’t think the necessary charm is quite there from Redford, not that he isn’t charming, but the role itself doesn’t have enough charm, whether in the script or direction, to offset the fact he’s robbing banks with a gun, however politely. I admire the persistence, though, and the characterisation and Redford’s performance are flawless. I don’t like Casey Affleck and I don’t particularly enjoy him in this, however bushy his fake moustache. Small role for Elisabeth Moss for some reason.
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Black Crab.
Some nice scenery, nice shots, and a lot of suspense leading up to a hackneyed and awful ending that is trite and silly. Almost post-apocalyptic in presentation and tone, but lacking any real edge. No real stomach for unpleasantness. Rapace knows how to pick some terrible films.
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Seriously. Does she roll dice to decide which script she’s going to sign on for?
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More likely she wants to act in her native language so the choices are limited.
I thought Lamb was pretty good, even if it was a little bit too long.
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Prey.
I wanted to like this. And there’s some good stuff in it. But. The film has a completely inconsistent approach to violence, sometimes showing gore and severed limbs, sometimes doing foreground/background tricks to not show anything but vague hints, or having it happen juuuuust off-camera, and I can’t work out why.
One of the things all the Predator films apart from the first two (and even the second to a certain extent) get wrong is: they’re not about cool Predator gimmicks. With each film, more get introduced, and I feel like I’m watching Interstellar Inspector Gadget (“Go go gadget decapitator!”) rather than an alien hunter. He’s being shot at? Introduce a new shield (and isn’t it cool how everyone shooting at him helpfully targets his shield? Convenient!). He needs to slice someone’s head off? Better bring in a completely new bladed weapon, because wrist blades and a spear and and and and aren’t enough. Obviously this sprung from the tech from the first film which was cool and iconic (shoulder gun! Optical camouflage! Wrist knives! Forearm nuke! Thermal vision!) but they were cool and iconic because they were few in number and relatively novel. When you’re on your fifteenth new device, you begin to wonder at what point did they give up on the script and dialogue, and just trundle another wheelbarrow of cash over to the unlucky bastards doing the CGI.
One of the best things about the first film was the fact the Predator treated people like meat; it was horrifying, brutal, and was sharply at odds with the action hero first act. Here, there’s no real tone change, instead it’s one consistent (and rather generic) action film, and includes events that happen because the pace of the film needs them to, rather than them making any sort of sense. Characters die solely because other characters need motivation, which is cheap and stupid.
I really enjoyed the setting, I thought there were lots of good individual parts, but dialogue that was just colloquial modern English, too many CGI animals, and a basic plot you have seen a thousand times before. The cast are fine, it’s just there isn’t a great deal for them to stretch their acting for. The modern Western tale in an indigenous setting is probably really shitty in ways I can’t begin to guess at.
Young Sherlock Holmes.
This was not good. The best part was watching Watson being forcibly deep-throated by a dessert. Awful plot (you can work out who the main bad guy is in the first 20 minutes), good CGI for 1985.
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