This was an intensely enjoyable movie experience for me. And I realize it's at least partially because of my own personal taste-- I grew up on monster movies and watched made-for-SyFy flicks every Saturday morning with my brother. It's also at least partially because I love movies that are BATSHIT INEXPLICABLE, and this one absolutely suffices.
Some things worth noting:
- The Rock breaking his handcuffs by simply pulling them apart and having them pop off his big-ass wrists fits…
I don't remember much about it, but I remember finding it to be a pleasant experience. Needed more of Evil [Redacted], though. That person could play the shit out of a villain in a different film.
Brilliant Spielberg visuals, unsurprisingly. And I had no problem with the nostalgia stuff that seems to be chafing so many people, largely because I simply missed or didn't understand 95% of the references.
All that having been said, I struggled to care. Perhaps because the Oasis avatars aren't people-- all of the action in the real world actually had stakes!-- or perhaps because the movie would've improved significantly had we followed any character other than Sheridan's.
Still, a hell of a roller coaster. It made me long for the next Tintin movie.
Honestly could've been one of favorite Andersons ever. Gorgeous animation, lots of funny/heart-breaking stuff sprinkled everywhere... but sheesh, the Tracy stuff is woefully misguided. Knocks the movie as a whole down multiple pegs.
We probably didn't need to start with thirty minutes of LARA CROFT: SNACK DELIVERY GIRL and her wacky sub-Premium Rush bike hijinks.
We definitely didn't need to follow that with a lengthy monologue repeating every big of exposition we were given in the prologue.
And we DEFINITELY didn't need an exciting finale sequence with a dissolving floor to culminate in the earnestly-delivered line, "IT'S A COLOR PUZZLE!"
Every Resident Evil movie >>>>>
I was on The Black Guy Who Tips spinoff podcast Spoiled Movie Reviews to talk about The Hurricane Heist, because Rod knows how much I love movies about killer weather. We spoke for two hours-- that's longer than The Hurricane Heist's run time-- because there is SO MUCH to unpack here.
Like, when you watch Geostorm, sure, you may think it's goofy shit... but you can tell what the filmmakers were thinking when they were crafting the story, the character…
If you can make it through the very bumpy first act, there are rewards to be found here, especially in the last 30-40 minutes, when the narrative simplifies. I don't envy the task the filmmakers tackled trying to cram a *ton* of complicated ideas and strange characters into that first hour. They did a bang-up job, all things considered.
It's about as weird a $110 million budget kid's movie is likely to be-- so I admire that. And the emotional punches in the finale all pay off wonderfully. Better a rough beginning and a winning end than vice versa.
"You said rape twice."- Hedley Lamarr
"I like rape."- Francis Lawrence, I guess
We got that the bad guys were sadists after the first or second rape/torture. By the tenth or twelfth rape/torture, I started asking myself if the filmmakers and the Russians had something in common.
Not my bag. Fun twisty spy game stuff when the movie wasn't shoving rape and torture in my face, though.
"How can you run and plot at the same time?"
Some movies aspire to be dark comedies. This is a center of a black hole comedy.
And every new character actor who arrives is a goddamn delight, each one ready to tear the other characters on screen a set of new assholes.