Film Review & Discussion

[polerberr]

tried joining the discord but the invite link was invalid

i thought infinity war was pretty good but translating villains from comic books to the mcu is just difficult because there are a huge amount of very overpowered villains to oppose individual superheroes who all have their own arcs, so on the big screen they have to be weaker and are not as fleshed out as they are in the books - or they stay as overpowered as they are which is kind of detrimental to the film (such as in thor: ragnarok - definitely the best thor movie but i wasn't a fan of hela)

My bad. The link was by default set to expire after one day. Now it's set to never expire. https://discord.gg/PxhZppM

And yeah I wasn't too big on Hela either. I kinda wished they'd used the mythology of Ragnarok to make a stylized Norse epic, buuuuut they used it for cheap comedy. I mean Ragnarok was entertaining, but, I really dig Norse stuff and it could have been so much more.

I got around to watching the first half of Black Panther last night, and so far I'm impressed. The color grading and cinematography feels better than the other films, oddly.

[Captain Peregrin]

I only saw Black Panther recently, too...honestly, I kind of enjoyed Ragnarok more (as flawed as it is), although I can certainly appreciate BP as a milestone in African-American(ish) representation.

As for Infinity War, I liked it well enough - with the exception of Thanos & Gamora, of which I wrote extensively on my blog, so I won't repeat myself here.

Other random film stuff: Peter Rabbit was a weirdly charming kid flick (Huxley as the butt of Home Alone style slapstick just works). Also, I ranked the Star Wars movies on my blog because TLJ inspired me to revisit them.

[polerberr]

I forgot to post the new Discord link here. It's on the first post too though, and I just edited into my previous one.

https://discord.gg/PxhZppM

[Autvmn]

Are we allowed to discuss upcoming movies and films? Or is just films out?

[polerberr]

Are we allowed to discuss upcoming movies and films? Or is just films out?

Yeah totally! This thread is for anything film related, really.

[polerberr]

Just saw Deadpool 2. [no spoilers in my comment, dw]

I thought the beginning was very trite, but it picked up the pace and kept getting better and better once the kid was introduced. Overall I'd say it's on par with the first film. Solid comedy, decent plot progression and character development. The film took some turns I didn't expect, so it felt fresh. I'm impressed.

Before I saw it, I'd read that people thought the gore was too much. I kept waiting in the film for something really bad to happen, and nothing ever came up that made me wince. I'm not trying to sound edgy, I don't generally do well with gore and I tend to avoid it, but I felt like the editing went too fast and the CGI was too poor for the gore to really stand out. So I'm surprised by that.

I'd probably watch it again, but I'd skip the first act.

[Captain Peregrin]

Just felt like discussing Incredibles 2 a bit, because it honestly has some fascinating failures. Weirdly enough, the best aspect of it is the action sequences, taking advantage its animated format to do things you couldn't possibly do in a live action comic book movie. It uses its animation to the fullest, in ways you never really see from American animation studios. But pretty much everything else is sadly underwhelming. The themes lack focus and depth, the characterization doesn't add much, and the plot is honestly pretty predictable. It's just too safe to stand out much in the modern field of superhero movies.

[polerberr]

Yeah the animation was fantastic, and I agree that the plot was predictable.

I watched it at an "Incredibles Night" event at my cinema, where they screened the original film beforehand, and it was late enough that there were no children.

Probably because I've seen the original film so many times in my past that it feels a bit stale to me now, I actually preferred the new one.

(Minor spoilers below, also spoilers for the animated short.)

The fact that the film took off from where it left off, without making the entire plot about the Underminer, was a great decision. Sometimes sequels call for time gaps (Toy Story 3), and sometimes we just want to get right back into the action (Back to the Future II and III). It works especially well when you watch both films back to back.

I liked the throwbacks to the original film. The sequence where Edna shows off Jack-Jacks new suit was pretty fun. Actually, everything with Edna was fun. She's still a great character.

One thing that stood out to me was that Pixar really made it clear through the writing that they understand who the main audience for this film is. Bao, the short about the dumpling that came before the film, was about growing up and moving out, for example. It also felt like there was a higher than normal amount of adult humor. Probably the most notable moment was when the film cut away from Frozone before he finished off what was pretty obviously going to be a swear.

Also what did you think of Bao? That was crazy. The audience at my screening went nuts when the mom ate the dumpling-boy-thing.

[Captain Peregrin]

Yeah the animation was fantastic, and I agree that the plot was predictable.

I watched it at an "Incredibles Night" event at my cinema, where they screened the original film beforehand, and it was late enough that there were no children.

Probably because I've seen the original film so many times in my past that it feels a bit stale to me now, I actually preferred the new one.

(Minor spoilers below, also spoilers for the animated short.)

The fact that the film took off from where it left off, without making the entire plot about the Underminer, was a great decision. Sometimes sequels call for time gaps (Toy Story 3), and sometimes we just want to get right back into the action (Back to the Future II and III). It works especially well when you watch both films back to back.

I liked the throwbacks to the original film. The sequence where Edna shows off Jack-Jacks new suit was pretty fun. Actually, everything with Edna was fun. She's still a great character.

One thing that stood out to me was that Pixar really made it clear through the writing that they understand who the main audience for this film is. Bao, the short about the dumpling that came before the film, was about growing up and moving out, for example. It also felt like there was a higher than normal amount of adult humor. Probably the most notable moment was when the film cut away from Frozone before he finished off what was pretty obviously going to be a swear.

Also what did you think of Bao? That was crazy. The audience at my screening went nuts when the mom ate the dumpling-boy-thing.

I feel like Bao just had a very particular dark sense of humor which doesn't work for everyone. It definitely captures dream logic, though xD

What bugs me about the movie is that it's aware of the passage of time for its fans, but it has even less to say than the original (and that wasn't exactly revolutionary itself). It's a good action flick, but not much else.

[polerberr]

Oh yeah, it definitely doesn't really build on anything interesting. By Pixar's standards, it's not the best sequel. I still think Toy Story 3 is the best of the sequels. Though at the very least it wasn't bad or anything. It just... was fine, I guess?