They also showed a Top Gun trailer before the movie, which was hilarious because they didn't even bother to remove the "Coming in 2020" stuff from it.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
- Thread starter Th3Ch33s3Cak3
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learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim...
Man, that is so perfect. Tool's music is exactly the kind of thing I felt defined by teenage white boy personality but I quickly grew out of. Well, the lyrics, I guess (I still like the music 'cause it rocks).
I enjoyed the Joker because Joaquin Phoenix truly is one of our generation's great actors, and that goes a long way to me. I also liked that Deniro played the role that Jerry Lewis played when Deniro played Phoenix's role in The King of Comedy. Because, yeah, Joker to me is a remake of that movie and I love that movie.
Heat: Great / Great
A career criminal who doesn't know anything else faces a career cop who doesn't know anything else. Classic unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
I haven't watched it in years, and a couple decades later, it's still as confusing as ever, but still captivating. Maybe it's the sheer star power: Pacino, De Niro, Kilmer, etc., but you can't look away. The story itself is quite convoluted as they jump from subplot to subplot with abandon, and they're apparently interrelated, but by the end, it's just "an unshakeable cop tracks down an insatiable criminal." Also, the movie will forever be a fond one for me as the ending scene famously features Moby's "God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" which dragged me into the electronic music scene where I've been for over 25 years.
A career criminal who doesn't know anything else faces a career cop who doesn't know anything else. Classic unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.
I haven't watched it in years, and a couple decades later, it's still as confusing as ever, but still captivating. Maybe it's the sheer star power: Pacino, De Niro, Kilmer, etc., but you can't look away. The story itself is quite convoluted as they jump from subplot to subplot with abandon, and they're apparently interrelated, but by the end, it's just "an unshakeable cop tracks down an insatiable criminal." Also, the movie will forever be a fond one for me as the ending scene famously features Moby's "God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" which dragged me into the electronic music scene where I've been for over 25 years.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. I haven't seen The Witch in a while, but both The Northman and The Lighthouse are absolutely laden with themes, meaning and subtext.
Yeah, Joaquin Phoenix was great it in, but I just didn't care for the movie much.
I did, I've read every Bond book written by Fleming except The Spy Who Loved Me.
Evidently from the "fight" earlier in the barn they were going for a cutesy roleplay moment where the girl "plays hard to get" (kind of like the playground fight in Daredevil). The thing is "playing hard to get" looks an awful lot like rape, unless both adults are shown to very clearly agree to it. But the audience is meant to be in on the joke that Bond is automatically irresistible to every woman and no sane one would turn down his advances, so if it looks like one of them is doing that, then she's just being coy.
It doesn't help that this happens well into the movie, with Bond already being openly disdainful of women in several instances where the movie is trying to be funny or sexy.
Yeah, great film, the bank shootout is one of the bestest actions scenes ever.
Interestingly, it's a remake of LA Takedown, a made for TV movie by the same person that is significantly less great.
"Force Marker" by Brian Eno during that scene is one of the most anxiety-educing tracks in film ever. Perfectly scored film.
I also watched it, it felt like something was missing. I don't know what. There was also way too much death.
I'm sure the movie won't be great but the little kid in my still wants to go see it because the only reason (allegedly) Cruise signed on was if they flew the planes again for realsies for the external shots. And as much as the original is peak 80's, Regan era flag waving, watching the actual F-14s zip around the sky is so fuckin' cool.
You forgot the part where raping Pussy Galore changes her sexual orientation.
I think the deaths are due to many of these actors not wanting to keep being in the MCU after this one. That one universe certainly looked like it would fall apart after they died.
I think I've heard that the early screening audience liked it? I mean, it looks good. Just so happens to have Tom Cruise in it and I'm pretty tired of his brand of acting.
Watched Doctor Strange 2.
I quite enjoyed this one myself (though lord knows it is definitely not perfect), but I've seen quite a few people who think that this is literally the worst Marvel movie to date.
I was in the "enjoyed it" camp, and my girlfriend was definitely in the "worst one yet" camp.
For me, lets start with the good. I really liked the overall story - the plot points, the adventure. I thought it was fun, and I enjoyed the ride. Im excited to see how they build off of this in the future.
I really liked seeing Scarlet Witch be the antagonist in this movie, and she really fucks shit up. She was honestly quite scary at points, and it was great to watch her powers just flex, and be as weird as they could be. Curious to see if she comes back, and what side she will be on.
Oh, and whilst we are on the subject of the Scarlet Witch just fucking shit up, lets talk about the gore. Some woman burns alive and turns into charcoal. Zombie Doctor Strange running around with closeups on their scar-covered face, with half a jaw. Black Bolt blows his own skull apart. Mr Fantastic dies screaming, being turned into stretchy ribbons (and lets not forget that "at least your wife will still be alive to raise your kids" line). Captain Carter gets bisected by her own shield. Fucking brutal. And for a UK 12A rating? Honestly, this came out of left-field, and I was there for it. I did enjoy the mild horror elements, too. Definitely happy to see Marvel getting occasionally more brutal.
As for the bad, for one, this film was quite ugly at points. It seems like the CG for Marvel movies is slowly getting worse or something, because some of the characters and environments looked like they could have used some more work. For example, there was this green minotaur character who was just there (no explanation given) who didn't look great, and there was this recurring thing where a character has a third eye on their forehead, and it consistently looked awful. I think the Marvel release schedule has started to take its toll on this side of their films.
There were a couple of other weird things, too. Like one of the new characters, America Chavez, starts to punch things, but it never looks like her punches are actually connecting, and she is just punching air. And during the part where Captain Carter gets cut in half, there is a close up on her face, and her face is lit completely differently from the room that she was in.
Some of the moments were also just... awful. Weird scenes, weird character interactions, weird lines and delivery, and sometimes the editing looked like it was done 20 years ago. Utter, painful cringe at some points. Honestly. The worst things my eyes have seen/my ears have heard in a while.
Like, there was one part where Wanda's kids were calling her over (and they were being super annoying about it, too), and then they started arguing over who could singing a song about they just made up about ice cream, and then they actually started singing, and it felt like it went on forever. It was so awkward.
Another part had Scarlet Witch's alternate universe variant wake up from her mind-control. She is floating around in this magical space, she is covered in blood, and then she just shouts "My children!", and then scutters back through the door she came through, and the scene ended. Really odd.
And there was this fight between (the normal) Doctor Strange and one of his evil variants from another universe, and there was one moment where he pulls all of the notes off of some sheet music to use as magical shards. No big, Magic is weird. Then the evil Doctor Strange retaliates with some notes that he conjures out of nowhere, and the sound of an orchestra starts playing. Really stretching this concept, now. And then Good Doctor Strange get knocked to the floor, and he looks at a harp, and he starts playing it with his mind to create one final note that he uses to destroy the evil Doctor Strange's energy ball. And at this point I was just shaking my head in disbelief.
Also, for some reason Doctor Strange has this electric guitar riff motif thing now? Okay.
Oh, and there were also a couple of "character stares into the lens of the camera" fourth wall breaks. Didn't work for me.
Overall, I did enjoy the movie, but a lot of the execution as to how it was shot/edited/directed, and a few of the minor creative decisions really had be cringing.
I quite enjoyed this one myself (though lord knows it is definitely not perfect), but I've seen quite a few people who think that this is literally the worst Marvel movie to date.
I was in the "enjoyed it" camp, and my girlfriend was definitely in the "worst one yet" camp.
For me, lets start with the good. I really liked the overall story - the plot points, the adventure. I thought it was fun, and I enjoyed the ride. Im excited to see how they build off of this in the future.
I really liked seeing Scarlet Witch be the antagonist in this movie, and she really fucks shit up. She was honestly quite scary at points, and it was great to watch her powers just flex, and be as weird as they could be. Curious to see if she comes back, and what side she will be on.
Oh, and whilst we are on the subject of the Scarlet Witch just fucking shit up, lets talk about the gore. Some woman burns alive and turns into charcoal. Zombie Doctor Strange running around with closeups on their scar-covered face, with half a jaw. Black Bolt blows his own skull apart. Mr Fantastic dies screaming, being turned into stretchy ribbons (and lets not forget that "at least your wife will still be alive to raise your kids" line). Captain Carter gets bisected by her own shield. Fucking brutal. And for a UK 12A rating? Honestly, this came out of left-field, and I was there for it. I did enjoy the mild horror elements, too. Definitely happy to see Marvel getting occasionally more brutal.
As for the bad, for one, this film was quite ugly at points. It seems like the CG for Marvel movies is slowly getting worse or something, because some of the characters and environments looked like they could have used some more work. For example, there was this green minotaur character who was just there (no explanation given) who didn't look great, and there was this recurring thing where a character has a third eye on their forehead, and it consistently looked awful. I think the Marvel release schedule has started to take its toll on this side of their films.
There were a couple of other weird things, too. Like one of the new characters, America Chavez, starts to punch things, but it never looks like her punches are actually connecting, and she is just punching air. And during the part where Captain Carter gets cut in half, there is a close up on her face, and her face is lit completely differently from the room that she was in.
Some of the moments were also just... awful. Weird scenes, weird character interactions, weird lines and delivery, and sometimes the editing looked like it was done 20 years ago. Utter, painful cringe at some points. Honestly. The worst things my eyes have seen/my ears have heard in a while.
Like, there was one part where Wanda's kids were calling her over (and they were being super annoying about it, too), and then they started arguing over who could singing a song about they just made up about ice cream, and then they actually started singing, and it felt like it went on forever. It was so awkward.
Another part had Scarlet Witch's alternate universe variant wake up from her mind-control. She is floating around in this magical space, she is covered in blood, and then she just shouts "My children!", and then scutters back through the door she came through, and the scene ended. Really odd.
And there was this fight between (the normal) Doctor Strange and one of his evil variants from another universe, and there was one moment where he pulls all of the notes off of some sheet music to use as magical shards. No big, Magic is weird. Then the evil Doctor Strange retaliates with some notes that he conjures out of nowhere, and the sound of an orchestra starts playing. Really stretching this concept, now. And then Good Doctor Strange get knocked to the floor, and he looks at a harp, and he starts playing it with his mind to create one final note that he uses to destroy the evil Doctor Strange's energy ball. And at this point I was just shaking my head in disbelief.
Also, for some reason Doctor Strange has this electric guitar riff motif thing now? Okay.
Oh, and there were also a couple of "character stares into the lens of the camera" fourth wall breaks. Didn't work for me.
Overall, I did enjoy the movie, but a lot of the execution as to how it was shot/edited/directed, and a few of the minor creative decisions really had be cringing.
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Definitely my biggest problem. I already talked about Chavez, but good Lord Wanda's kids fucking suuuuucked. Which is weird, because they were totally fine in their previous appearances, as far as I can remember. At least considering they are child actors. The scene you mentioned as well as the climax of the film with Wanda had me in shock at how shitty this pivotal moment was shot, directed, and acted.
Saw Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness last night. Its only okay. Probably my least favorite MCU, and one that truly underlines the problem of a multiverse.
Overall: Sam Raimi's spunk in your eyes/10, just read with Wiki when its updated this weekend.
Infinite realities means the stakes are zero. Anyone can die at any point and they can just grab another one from a dimension where they're alive. Dr. Strange dies like 5 times in this movie. It feels like Rick and Morty. You know how there's no continuity and every episode is meant to be an alternate dimension? Its like that. Every scene might as well be an alternate Dr. Strange.
And no stakes means nothing matters. Oh look Black Bolt, Captain Carter and another Captain Marvel...Oh they're dead now. 3 minutes of screen time. Oh man Reed Richards of the Fantastic 4! Oh, he's dead too. 9 lines total. Oh Professor X, in his Xmen golden chair finally squaring off against Wanda, can't wait for OH he's dead. Well that was fucking stupid. The whole Illuminati are just a bunch of idiot jocks. Smartest man in the world Reed Richards openly says the Scarlet Witch isn't a big deal, and 3mins later she kills everyone effortlessly.
Speaking of, remember WandaVision? Yeah, neither does Sam Raimi 'cause this undoes that. Remember how Wanda wanted a life with Vision? Yeah, that's gone now. Single mom Wanda only. You'd think an alternate Vision would be the one to calm her down in the end, but no. Evil Wanda covered in blood and ash sees her kids, they scream "Witch!" and she pulls a surprised Pikachu face and that's it. This woman has been gruesomely murdering people the entire movie and in one instant, one single shot, we're expected to forgive her and feel sorry for her. Its just like the end of WandaVision when they're all "these people have no idea what you sacrificed for them" and its like ***** she enslaved an entire town! Same shit here. Oh Wanda kills herself to save people, how noble! *****, she snapped Professor X's neck and blew up Reed Richard's head! She's not an antihero anymore, she's a straight up villain.
Also she's not really dead because multiverse. Literal infinite number of realities where she wins.
Also also Sam Raimi, just stop. You got away with the over the top cheesy high school drama emotions in Spiderman because the Tim Burton Batman movies were so god awful, but it doesn't work here. Some scenes are played with all the seriousness of Army of Darkness, including more than a few minutes of Bruce Campbell fighting his own hand again! Yes really, Sam Raimi jerks himself off by referencing his own movies in an MCU movie.
And the whole DarkHold book shit finally confirms Agents of Shield isn't canon anymore because they did their own DarkHold storyline that's completely different. Or not, because fucking multiverse.
And no stakes means nothing matters. Oh look Black Bolt, Captain Carter and another Captain Marvel...Oh they're dead now. 3 minutes of screen time. Oh man Reed Richards of the Fantastic 4! Oh, he's dead too. 9 lines total. Oh Professor X, in his Xmen golden chair finally squaring off against Wanda, can't wait for OH he's dead. Well that was fucking stupid. The whole Illuminati are just a bunch of idiot jocks. Smartest man in the world Reed Richards openly says the Scarlet Witch isn't a big deal, and 3mins later she kills everyone effortlessly.
Speaking of, remember WandaVision? Yeah, neither does Sam Raimi 'cause this undoes that. Remember how Wanda wanted a life with Vision? Yeah, that's gone now. Single mom Wanda only. You'd think an alternate Vision would be the one to calm her down in the end, but no. Evil Wanda covered in blood and ash sees her kids, they scream "Witch!" and she pulls a surprised Pikachu face and that's it. This woman has been gruesomely murdering people the entire movie and in one instant, one single shot, we're expected to forgive her and feel sorry for her. Its just like the end of WandaVision when they're all "these people have no idea what you sacrificed for them" and its like ***** she enslaved an entire town! Same shit here. Oh Wanda kills herself to save people, how noble! *****, she snapped Professor X's neck and blew up Reed Richard's head! She's not an antihero anymore, she's a straight up villain.
Also she's not really dead because multiverse. Literal infinite number of realities where she wins.
Also also Sam Raimi, just stop. You got away with the over the top cheesy high school drama emotions in Spiderman because the Tim Burton Batman movies were so god awful, but it doesn't work here. Some scenes are played with all the seriousness of Army of Darkness, including more than a few minutes of Bruce Campbell fighting his own hand again! Yes really, Sam Raimi jerks himself off by referencing his own movies in an MCU movie.
And the whole DarkHold book shit finally confirms Agents of Shield isn't canon anymore because they did their own DarkHold storyline that's completely different. Or not, because fucking multiverse.
Overall: Sam Raimi's spunk in your eyes/10, just read with Wiki when its updated this weekend.
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More than that, it changes her moral compass to the point she decides not to gas 60,000 people (if I heard the movie correctly). Not that Bond was even asking.
In fact Bond is barely involved in ultimately foiling Goldfinger's plan, aside from screwing his personal pilot. It's Pussy who decides not to gas the Fort Knox soldiers (tipping the heist) and some random guy who defuses the bomb after Bond panics aimlessly around it for 3 minutes. Even as he fights Goldfinger on the plane it's the villain who does the work for him by firing his gun and getting sucked out of a window due to depressurization (which has no effect on Bond, for no particular reason).
Only thing Bond accomplishes (besides getting the Masterson sisters killed) is alerting the authorities about the heist midway through the movie, and killing Oddjob before the guards can get a shot in.
Evangelion 3.0+1.01: Thrice Upon a Time, 5/10 (god what a fucking awful title)
With this an almost decade and a half of madness and production issues come to a close. Is it worth it? That answer will depend entirely on how you invested are in this franchise. For me the foremost reason was morbid curiosity, because I wanted to see how they could salvage the series from the astronomical disaster that was the third film. Do they manage it? In some parts yes, but mostly no. I feel this could prove to be one of those annoying critique-proof movies, because for every issue I have with it I can see some fanboy going "Umm, that's the point, duh", or seeing this as one gigantic troll on the audience. In which case mission accomplished I guess, but it doesn't make the movie better or more enjoyable to watch. I'd say this movie is about 25% actually interesting stuff, 35% shameless retread, and 40% complete nonsense and gibberish that's also a shameless retread. If you'd hoped this would be the Evangelion product that finally took the franchise in a new and interesting direction, I have some bad news for you.
This movie is just chock-full of memberberries moments. 'member Rei learning how to be human? I 'member! 'member how Asuka is an abusive *****? I 'member! 'member how Gendo decided to genocide the entire planet instead of going to therapy or getting an autism diagnosis? I 'member! And on and on this movie goes for most of its massive 2,5 hour runtime. I was getting serious Rise of Skywalker vibes from this movie, both in terms of how it clunkily tries to fix the misteps of the previous film, and how relentlessly it bombards you with familiar imagery and straight up recreations of iconic scenes from End of Evangelion. It's not quite as bad as R of Skywalker though, it's more of a remix in that regard. But it's still so boring and done to death! And I can just hear the fanboys nagging "duh! It's a timeloop story! It's supposed to feel familiar". Well isn't that convenient then, having an excuse to retread the same concepts, images, characters and plotlines, just slightly differently this time.
And by God do they repeat the missteps of the previous movie! I think this movie throws double digits worth of new concepts, terms and plot elements at you at such a ridiculous rate and in such clunky ways that it has to be an intentional troll. The plot itself simple as sin, but delivered in the most deliberately obtuse, wordy and incomprehensible way that trying to parse it even remotely will drive you nuts. I feel like there's at least 20 minutes worth of technobabble and brainless mecha action so devoid of context, stakes or reasons to care that you could cut it out wholesale and probably improve the movie in the process. I was seriously zoning out for sizeable stretches. Shit blows up, characters spout gibberish, some more shit blows up, rinse and repeat, and I just do not care. To the movie's credit there is slightly more worldbuilding and a sense of stakes this time around, but it still manages to lose most of it by the end. Much of this movie feels like it was made with the attitude of "Who knows, who cares?"
I feel like I'm just shitting on this movie, so let it be said that it is overall a massive improvement on the last film. It's still mostly removed from any sense of relatable stakes or humanity, but at least the first act gives some grounding to it. At first I was rolling my eyes like "oh yeah, we're doing full on slice of life fanfiction now", but over time I warmed up to it, thanks in large part to this movie cutting down on the Shinji angst a lot. It has a nice, serene and even optimistic feel to it, and there's some interesting dynamics seeing these characters grown up where Shinji is still stuck in the past (gee, are you getting the metaphor!?!?!?!??!) Therefore it's a shame that they abandon essentially everything built in the first act when the spaceship is reintroduced, and go back to the same old mindless bullshit. The movie introduces an entire cast of characters in the first act, and then does literally nothing with them for the rest of the movie.
If you can get past the absolute slog that is the second act this movie gets genuinely interesting in its finale. Though basically just a recreation of the Instrumentality sequence from End of Evangelion, there's some great visuals and atmosphere to be had. The more abstract and experimental the film got, the more interested I became, because it finally felt the movie was committing to something. Seeing Shinji's introspection recreated from EoE except this time it's Gendo's internal monologue was interesting at least partly, even if it ends up as just another retread.
The overall issue with this movie is how it refuses to pick a lane. It goes for a whole slew of different ideas and concepts, but like Yahtzee once said: "one does not put Kola Kubes, live bait, and mini Babybels in the same pick-and-mix bag." Is it a fanficcy slice of life reimagining, a shameless retread of old stuff you've seen before, a sequel, a remake, a contemplative abstract art film or a mindless action extravaganza? Yes to all of those. The result is an incoherent mish-mash that drunkenly stumbles between different ideas, and ends up passing out with one limb in each of them.
If this movie made me think anything from its onslaught of overstimulation and information overload, it's that the manga version is still the only iteration of this story worth anyone's time or attention.
With this an almost decade and a half of madness and production issues come to a close. Is it worth it? That answer will depend entirely on how you invested are in this franchise. For me the foremost reason was morbid curiosity, because I wanted to see how they could salvage the series from the astronomical disaster that was the third film. Do they manage it? In some parts yes, but mostly no. I feel this could prove to be one of those annoying critique-proof movies, because for every issue I have with it I can see some fanboy going "Umm, that's the point, duh", or seeing this as one gigantic troll on the audience. In which case mission accomplished I guess, but it doesn't make the movie better or more enjoyable to watch. I'd say this movie is about 25% actually interesting stuff, 35% shameless retread, and 40% complete nonsense and gibberish that's also a shameless retread. If you'd hoped this would be the Evangelion product that finally took the franchise in a new and interesting direction, I have some bad news for you.
This movie is just chock-full of memberberries moments. 'member Rei learning how to be human? I 'member! 'member how Asuka is an abusive *****? I 'member! 'member how Gendo decided to genocide the entire planet instead of going to therapy or getting an autism diagnosis? I 'member! And on and on this movie goes for most of its massive 2,5 hour runtime. I was getting serious Rise of Skywalker vibes from this movie, both in terms of how it clunkily tries to fix the misteps of the previous film, and how relentlessly it bombards you with familiar imagery and straight up recreations of iconic scenes from End of Evangelion. It's not quite as bad as R of Skywalker though, it's more of a remix in that regard. But it's still so boring and done to death! And I can just hear the fanboys nagging "duh! It's a timeloop story! It's supposed to feel familiar". Well isn't that convenient then, having an excuse to retread the same concepts, images, characters and plotlines, just slightly differently this time.
And by God do they repeat the missteps of the previous movie! I think this movie throws double digits worth of new concepts, terms and plot elements at you at such a ridiculous rate and in such clunky ways that it has to be an intentional troll. The plot itself simple as sin, but delivered in the most deliberately obtuse, wordy and incomprehensible way that trying to parse it even remotely will drive you nuts. I feel like there's at least 20 minutes worth of technobabble and brainless mecha action so devoid of context, stakes or reasons to care that you could cut it out wholesale and probably improve the movie in the process. I was seriously zoning out for sizeable stretches. Shit blows up, characters spout gibberish, some more shit blows up, rinse and repeat, and I just do not care. To the movie's credit there is slightly more worldbuilding and a sense of stakes this time around, but it still manages to lose most of it by the end. Much of this movie feels like it was made with the attitude of "Who knows, who cares?"
I feel like I'm just shitting on this movie, so let it be said that it is overall a massive improvement on the last film. It's still mostly removed from any sense of relatable stakes or humanity, but at least the first act gives some grounding to it. At first I was rolling my eyes like "oh yeah, we're doing full on slice of life fanfiction now", but over time I warmed up to it, thanks in large part to this movie cutting down on the Shinji angst a lot. It has a nice, serene and even optimistic feel to it, and there's some interesting dynamics seeing these characters grown up where Shinji is still stuck in the past (gee, are you getting the metaphor!?!?!?!??!) Therefore it's a shame that they abandon essentially everything built in the first act when the spaceship is reintroduced, and go back to the same old mindless bullshit. The movie introduces an entire cast of characters in the first act, and then does literally nothing with them for the rest of the movie.
If you can get past the absolute slog that is the second act this movie gets genuinely interesting in its finale. Though basically just a recreation of the Instrumentality sequence from End of Evangelion, there's some great visuals and atmosphere to be had. The more abstract and experimental the film got, the more interested I became, because it finally felt the movie was committing to something. Seeing Shinji's introspection recreated from EoE except this time it's Gendo's internal monologue was interesting at least partly, even if it ends up as just another retread.
The overall issue with this movie is how it refuses to pick a lane. It goes for a whole slew of different ideas and concepts, but like Yahtzee once said: "one does not put Kola Kubes, live bait, and mini Babybels in the same pick-and-mix bag." Is it a fanficcy slice of life reimagining, a shameless retread of old stuff you've seen before, a sequel, a remake, a contemplative abstract art film or a mindless action extravaganza? Yes to all of those. The result is an incoherent mish-mash that drunkenly stumbles between different ideas, and ends up passing out with one limb in each of them.
If this movie made me think anything from its onslaught of overstimulation and information overload, it's that the manga version is still the only iteration of this story worth anyone's time or attention.
This film truly will only be measured by individual enjoyment because it’s too ga-ga for anything else. I personally had a great time with it even if it wasn’t what I expected all up. However I did feel I was two movies or so out of the loop on shit, and I’m still trying to parse the logic of making Ryouji Kaji the film’s patron saint of selflessness.
Thunderball
Another great Bond movie from the Connery era. I can only fault it for taking too long to start - the whole first act at the health clinic feels like a waste of time. The movie could just as easily go from the cold open + title sequence to the nuclear warhead heist and skip the nonsense at the clinic, just straight ahead to the '00' meeting and take it from there. Other than that the movie's terrific and the most ambitious Bond movie so far: the longest running time, the widest screen (shot in Panavision for the first time), the biggest budget (topping all three other movies' combined) and the biggest box office take. And it looks gorgeous, by the way. A good portion of the movie takes place underwater and features some of the best action committed to these movies so far.
The movie won the Oscar for Special Effects. Yeah, you still get the choppy backprojection for driving scenes, there's a couple of awkward jump cuts and such. But there's a number of practical effects that look great. The jet pack, of all things, was 100% real, as was the yacht splitting in two. And even when (obviously) there's no real danger involved, the underwater scenes are as real as they get since you're dealing with actors actually diving underwater and performing stunts that look more convincing than they do on land.
I like Fiona Volpe a lot as a femme fatale. I think it's hilarious that, two movies in a row, Bond has developed this signature move of hugging a woman and then spinning her around to block an attack from behind (see opening scene of Goldfinger). Real suave, James. Each of the women is actively trying to kill him so fair's fair but you know it still seems a bit ignominious of him.
There's also this wonderful exchange between Volpe and Bond after they've had sex and she immediately betrays him, calling him out on his sexism in a rare moment of self-awareness that is clearly referencing That One Scene in Goldfinger.
Another great Bond movie from the Connery era. I can only fault it for taking too long to start - the whole first act at the health clinic feels like a waste of time. The movie could just as easily go from the cold open + title sequence to the nuclear warhead heist and skip the nonsense at the clinic, just straight ahead to the '00' meeting and take it from there. Other than that the movie's terrific and the most ambitious Bond movie so far: the longest running time, the widest screen (shot in Panavision for the first time), the biggest budget (topping all three other movies' combined) and the biggest box office take. And it looks gorgeous, by the way. A good portion of the movie takes place underwater and features some of the best action committed to these movies so far.
The movie won the Oscar for Special Effects. Yeah, you still get the choppy backprojection for driving scenes, there's a couple of awkward jump cuts and such. But there's a number of practical effects that look great. The jet pack, of all things, was 100% real, as was the yacht splitting in two. And even when (obviously) there's no real danger involved, the underwater scenes are as real as they get since you're dealing with actors actually diving underwater and performing stunts that look more convincing than they do on land.
I like Fiona Volpe a lot as a femme fatale. I think it's hilarious that, two movies in a row, Bond has developed this signature move of hugging a woman and then spinning her around to block an attack from behind (see opening scene of Goldfinger). Real suave, James. Each of the women is actively trying to kill him so fair's fair but you know it still seems a bit ignominious of him.
There's also this wonderful exchange between Volpe and Bond after they've had sex and she immediately betrays him, calling him out on his sexism in a rare moment of self-awareness that is clearly referencing That One Scene in Goldfinger.