Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

[laggyteabag]

I watched WALL-E last night, for the first time in years.

Its really impressive how much of the film doesn't really have dialogue, yet the plot is perfectly understandable. I think pixar did a really great job with this, though I think I do definitely prefer the first half on earth, than the second half in space.

Its a cute, fun time,

Monster Hunter - 4/10

My favorite scene was a 5 second bit of a Palico chef cooking a giant steak. Looked f'ing delicious.

I honestly had no idea that the film even came out.

47% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, seems about right.

 

[SilentPony]

Okay so watched a spooky movie last night and I want to talk about it because it was okay, it had one GREAT and I mean GREAT action scene, and then the ending is so bonkers, so out of nowhere with the twist isn't not even a U-turn, its a upside down mobius strip of a turn.
Ghosts of War. Premise is its occupied France during the invasion and a small group of American soldiers are assigned to recon and secure an old French mansion that was being used as a Nazi HQ until a full force can reach them and secure it. But could the mansion be haunted?!? Well yes, its a spooky movie.

Spoiler: Prt 1 for length

Opening scene our GIs are camped in the woods and one of them starts awake and sees a shadowy figure watching them, smoking a cigar. The man calls out "What do you want?" and then starts awake again. It was just a dream. Now remember this part because its important.
They set out and find a wandering group of Jewish escapees and make friends. The man from earlier gives one of the shivering Jewish women the coat of an SS officer they killed, and they give them all the money and loot they took off some Nazis from earlier so they could maybe trade them for food or shelter. Stand up guys sharing spoils of war.
The guys arrive at the mansion, finding a pair of British scouts sleeping outside in their jeeps. The Americans are all "Inside it warm and fresh sheets and toiler paper and food" and the Brits are all "Yeah...nah, we tried that, so we're outside now." Ominous! Could it be the ghosts are spooky? Yes.
Anyway the Americans sorta spread out, checking things out, going into the attic, the basement, the wine cellar, etc...A few spooky things happen, like one of them seeing a woman in the reflection of a mirror but turns around and she's not there! One of them tries to open a door, but its locked. And then the door opens on its OWN! One of them is in the study and finds the rug is all burnt, and that there are grooves in it suggesting the nearby chair was sitting right there on the burnt spot. And then he hears footsteps but there is no one there. These ghosts are fully committed to the classics. I mean this is straight out of Spooky 101.
Come night and things get a little more direct. One of the Americans, the NERD because he wears glasses and the others call him egg head, finds a journal and begins to read it.

 

[SilentPony]

Spoiler: Prt 2 for length

One of the guys, the so far main character who was the one who woke up in the beginning and saw the woman in the mirror is on guard duty in the attic with his sniper rifle. He's looking around in the scope and spots a twitching woman hanging from a tree in his scope. Spooked he looks again and she's gone! So naturally he goes alone into the yard with just his flashlight to look, finds nothing, but when he looks back to his old spot in the attic he sees the woman looking straight at him!
Back inside the egghead American is reading from the journal and finds out the family that lived here wasn't French at all, but Islamic immigrant. And they were sheltering Jews from the Nazis and working with French resistance.
A few more spooky things happen, one of the guys is dragged into a tub by an invisible force but through the water above him first sees the ghosts looking down at him, and then it flashes and its a group of Nazis looking down. Then the ghosts stop and he gets up and walks away. The main dude is in a long hallway and a door opens at the far end. So he raises his scope and sees a woman standing in the doorway. No scope and she's gone. Raises the scope again and she's closer. Lowers scope. Raises scope again and she's right in front of him screaming. And he's spooked.
I should point out the ghosts have been giving them good spooks for about a day now, but none of the Americans want to talk about it. The main guy even says "I think this place is haunted, want to talk about it?" and the tough guy is like "Nah, let's just wait for orders".
Some more spooky stuff happens and a pattern is starting to emerge. Its 4 ghosts, a father, mother, son and daughter. The father is only seen upstairs in the lounge, either horrifically burned or on fire. The mother is the one going around screaming and she can be seen anywhere. The boy is the bathroom ghost drowning shit, and the daughter is the hanged ghost chilling in the attic mostly.
And what you think happened is exactly what happened. The Nazis learned the family was sheltering Jews in the walls, set the father on fire in the lounge, drowned the son, hung the daughter and left the mother alive who then went crazy with grief and died. Good, great.
The soldiers decide they need to find the bodies and give them a proper burial, literally citing watching horror movies back in the states and that usually works. So props to having characters in a horror movie who have seen other horror movies and recognize what's going on. They start looking for clues. The main character and egghead go into the basement looking for clues, and while the egghead is looking around the main character picks up the journal. And it turns out all the pages are blank. Ooohh spooky. And the egghead snatches the journal back and says all child like and innocently "No peaking" and you're all like "Oh this is good, maybe he's like a secret Nazi and its all that Nazi occult stuff." and before you get your hopes up, no. This scene and plot point is never brought up again. I assume there was something, but it was cut for time and they just kept the spooky jump scare scene.
Some other stuff happens, they find a pentagram on the floor in the attic, they find a box of cigars, they find an Islamic word carved into the wall. It ends up being some sort of vengeance curse word that brings people back from the dead.
Now this is where the movie goes from middling if functional to GREAT. Nazis show up. A full group, like 50+ with evil looking SS officers. They spread out and see the mansion looks deserted because the Americans turned off all the lights and hid. Just as they're about to get back into their trucks and leave the daughter ghost appears in the attic again, standing on a chair and kicks it over to hang herself and make a noise. The Nazis know someone is in the house now! Shits about to get real. And they attack, storming the front door into American fire. Its now 5 Americans vs a full platoon of Nazis. But then the ghosts get in on a fun! The son tricks some Nazis into the bathroom and drowns them, the father sets one on fire in the lounge, the main character is wrestling with a Nazi in the attic when the daughter appears with a noose and hangs the Nazi. The mother is running around Home Aloneing the shit out of Nazis, tripping them on stairs so they fall onto shards of glass, screaming at them so they stumble off a ledge, distracting them so the Americans can get the jump on them. Its actually great. Americans and ghosts teaming up to fight Nazis. Its a fairly satisfying ending. But here is the twist. This isn't the ending. We're still a good half an hour away from the ending. They finally kill all the Nazis and one of the Americans, the brave one, sacrifices himself by jumping on a grenade. He doesn't die, but he's stupid badly injured. However while outside the main character is attacked by the mother ghost who drags him around and the others give chase and she drags him for a bit and goes to like a mausoleum type thing in the back, kicks open the door and shows there are 4 bodies in sacks just stacked in the corner. Okay so she was trying to show them their bodies. Fair enough. So the soldiers gather them up and give them a proper burial, setting up little grave stones and the egghead reads a passage from a Quran they found about resting and yadda yadda. Things should be done. They decide its time to leave, and the brave one is about to die from his injuries and gasps that its not real, they're not really here, and they did it all themselves, and the Americans are to blame, and then dies.

 

[SilentPony]

Spoiler: Prt 3 for length

Spooked the Americans leave but its not that simple. As they're walking they pass the exact same group of Jewish refugees from earlier, with one of them still wearing the SS coat, but they don't remember the Americans. They pass the same burned out tanks from earlier, and ambush the same group of Nazis from the beginning. The egghead references Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and suggest they're actually dead and they're trapped here. All roads lead back to the mansion, they can't escape. Most shocking the brave one is alive again, still horrifically injured and repeating from earlier its not real, they did it all themselves and he grabs the main character. FLASH
And this is where its gets bonkers and I think it ruins the entire movie. No joke, what happens next might as well be from a different movie.
The main character wakes up. Its the future. He's strapped to a future looking device, with a headset and wires going to a central tower, and the rest of his men are strapped up too. They're all horrifically injured. One of them who has been complaining all movie of an itchy foot has had both his legs blown off, the egghead has had his entire jaw blown off, and the main character has lost both his legs and a hand. Doctors are around. They explain they are soldiers, but they're modern American soldiers. Flashback time.
The solders are special forces sent to Afghanistan to retrieve a high value asset - a doctor and his family who have been feeding intel to the Americans in exchange for medical supplies. Its the family, the dad, mom, son and daughter. The dad offers the soldiers cigars. Just as they're about to leave wouldn't you know it, terrorists show up, and there's like 50 of them, similar to the Nazis. The family hide the soldiers in the walls, just like the family had done with Jews earlier. The head terrorist guy is all evil and takes a cigar for himself. The soldiers know the terrorists are going to kill them, and want to act, but they're too afraid. The terrorists drown the boy in the sink, hang the daughter and set the father on fire, leaving the mother completely insane with grief and screaming, and then just up and leave. A helicopter shows up for extraction and a firefight begins between the terrorists and Americans as they're evacuating. The mother shows up, screaming, with a makeshift bomb and attempts to suicide bomb the terrorist's but the main character drags her away, just like her ghost did to him. The mother is snarling the Islamic curse word from earlier as the bomb goes off, killing her and doing all the injuries to the Americans.
Cut back to modern times and the Doctors are explaining wibbly wobbly tech stuff how the group is undergoing experimental group therapy to overcome their PTSD of their injuries and letting the family die by having a WW2 Matrix style reality played where they're the heroes and fight off some Nazis. And only by coming to terms with themselves can they ever wake up, which is why the main character woke up, and the brave one kinda knew what was going on before he died, and the rest of his men are still under. So the main character decides to go back in and save his men, and they explain to him he'll lose his memory and have to do everything all over again. He agrees and they put him back in the Matrix. However here's the spooky part. The head doctor is all like "What was all that talk about ghosts and a family? Did we put that in the simulation?" and the nurse is all "Oh it's probably just a weird memory mix up, nothing like that is in there, we just programed the Nazi fight."
Cut to the beginning of the movie, the dudes are all camped out again and the main character gasps awake, seeing a shadowy figure with a cigar. We now know this is the main terrorist. He calls out "What do you want?" and credits.
So the implication is they really are just trapped in a loop, and the family of ghosts are somehow real ghosts who are haunting the Americans in the simulation, tormenting them with never being able to leave, and the simulation is just on loop and who knows how many times they've repeated everything.

Typing this out I'm a little more charitable to the ending because its kinda cool, but trust me in the moment after such a satisfying climax of Nazi killing, its just a turn. It goes from a spooky war haunted house movie to a futurist sci-fi cyber horror movie in a literal flash. And the execution just doesn't work. It had so much good will from me towards the end, and then they just pull a Neo waking up and redoing the entire plot in like 15minutes, its just so jarring.
Do I recommend it? I do but this is not a late night by yourself spooky movie, this is a get the gang together and create a drinking game and make a movie night of this spooky movie.
7/10 for the first 4/5ths, 2/10 for the ending.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Bone Tomahawk

I would've had a better time if I tattooed a penis on my forehead with a rusty nail. This movie is really kinda terrible and shit. I heard good things about it, but now I have to wonder what the hell those people were smoking. The movie looks cheap and the acting is crumbs; they actually managed to make Kurt Russel boring, which is one hell of a feat. The set design feels like they took some plywood to make these old timey buildings. They didn't even seemed to have bothered adding any sort of wear and tear to anything. And the flat, overly bright lighting only makes it look worse.

The movie also barely attempts any establishing shots. We don't get an overview of the town where the movie starts, or the houses and buildings that we see people walk in and out of. There's zero connective tissue from scene to scene scenary wise.

I could complain more I guess (like about the really blatant and period inappropriate sex scene), but I didn't finish it, I was barely able to sit through an hour and a half of it. It was really fucking bad, and I could've been watching Mandy.

 

[gorfias]

Between Worlds

One of the most dreadful movies I've seen in a while. The gist of it: Nic Cage starts a relationship with a woman whose teen daughter (fresh off a coma) is possessed by the spirit of Cage's dead wife. The "daughter" starts fucking Cage behind "mom's" back and I dunno, I'm just grossed out by the icky, porny fanfic that barely passes for a plot. All the more offensive is that the movie pretends to ape Twin Peaks by ripping off Angelo Badalamenti's music (Badalamenti's credited for "Title Music", I suspect to avoid a lawsuit) and having the cast made up of Twin Peaks doppelgangers (just to triple the irony). So the daughter is a dead ringer for Laura Palmer, her bad boy bf is a dead ringer for Bobby Briggs, and the mother has that Sarah Palmer desperation written all over (even watches violent NatGeo programs). Oh and they use the Marilyn Manson cover of "I Put a Spell On You" just to crib from Lost Highway at one point.

You me and my boy may be the only 3 people that ever saw this dreck. Long story short, I thought this was "Mandy" which got some very enthusiastic reviews. I was wrong.

 

[happyninja42]

I watched WALL-E last night, for the first time in years.

Its really impressive how much of the film doesn't really have dialogue, yet the plot is perfectly understandable. I think pixar did a really great job with this, though I think I do definitely prefer the first half on earth, than the second half in space.

Yeah I think stuff like the first part of WALL-E and other silent sequences in films, perfectly illustrate how well we are set up to take in a ton of contextual information, purely on visual cues. That we can figure out just fine, very important plot elements, like motivations, personality, etc, just from seeing how someone behaves in a location.

I think it's key to try and point out to some people, how when it's done badly, how the visual elements can contradict, and destroy the intended meaning of a scene, by contrasting, or contradicting the stated words. Now, I'm not talking about when this is done INTENTIONALLY, from a director who knows exactly what they are doing. I'm talking about things like trying to tell us a character is kind and loving, but every scene we see of them, is one where they are NOT behaving in a kind and loving way. They make choices that directly contradict that statement of their personality, and so you get a tonal dissonance when watching it.

 

[McElroy]

Marriage Story
It's an odd one. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are ending their marriage as Nicole moves from NY to LA. Noah Baumbach's not not-autofictitous story that's definitely not based on anything he might have lived through.

The pacing takes you through carefully selected scenes and the viewer must trust the director that we get the right version of this story. Some are beautiful and some are a little weird. There is another level with the marriage itself that presents as this wonderfully bourgeois struggle in which you burn quite a lot of money in exchange for hugs from your kid. 7/10

 

[Ringo]

Relic

Remember when a lot of independent films were these depressing dramas about bad relationships, grief, and addiction, and they were mostly set in some producer's friend's house and people placed more importance on the films for 'tackling a tough subject'? Well now we have lots of horror films that are depressing, about bad relationships, grief, and addiction, and are mostly set in a producer's friend's house, except now it's really dimly lit. And we have a bunch of moronic horror fans or 'serious' moviegoers that try to explain the very obvious metaphor and symbolism---and obvious might be the wrong word because theme isn't even subtextual in these films, they're just blatantly about what they're about. All that making horror movies about these sort of subjects achieves is robbing them of their nuance. Anyways, this one sucked like the rest.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Cuck.
Ooh boy. Despite not seeing it first-hand, I did part with money to experience it second-hand through audio format, which was more than enough to know it isn't something I want to taint the visual memory with. For perhaps the first time ever, I feel offended for trump supporters, or the average working class supporters at least: not so much the wealthy grifters. So if film's true purpose is as a tool for empathy, then congratulations on achieving what I suspect these writers dearly lack and did not intend. A merciful summary for this would be "an out-of-touch and slightly demented upper-class liberal's artless attempt at portraying right-wing young male radicalisation." "Tone deaf" would be too kind. I would rather classify it as a mental health hazard, akin to daily hugs of the communal mecury bowl.

 

[gorfias]

Marriage Story
It's an odd one. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are ending their marriage as Nicole moves from NY to LA. Noah Baumbach's not not-autofictitous story that's definitely not based on anything he might have lived through.

The pacing takes you through carefully selected scenes and the viewer must trust the director that we get the right version of this story. Some are beautiful and some are a little weird. There is another level with the marriage itself that presents as this wonderfully bourgeois struggle in which you burn quite a lot of money in exchange for hugs from your kid. 7/10

I loved this movie but agreed with this negative review regarding things that did not really fit the narrative and were just gob smaking

Spoiler

you can cut your arm so badly you pass out, but then just take a little lie down and you're all better?

 

[Breakdown]

Constantine.

It's the first time I've watched it from beginning to end. It was pretty good.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Relic

Remember when a lot of independent films were these depressing dramas about bad relationships, grief, and addiction, and they were mostly set in some producer's friend's house and people placed more importance on the films for 'tackling a tough subject'? Well now we have lots of horror films that are depressing, about bad relationships, grief, and addiction, and are mostly set in a producer's friend's house, except now it's really dimly lit. And we have a bunch of moronic horror fans or 'serious' moviegoers that try to explain the very obvious metaphor and symbolism---and obvious might be the wrong word because theme isn't even subtextual in these films, they're just blatantly about what they're about. All that making horror movies about these sort of subjects achieves is robbing them of their nuance. Anyways, this one sucked like the rest.

So, not the 90s movie with the giant lizard monster in the museum?

 

[Dalisclock]

So, not the 90s movie with the giant lizard monster in the museum?

That was my first thought anyway.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Been watching a pair of Samurai movies with some mates recently.

Yojimbo

Akira Kurosawa production from 1961 about a wandering Samurai coming into a village controlled by two warring clans, playing them against each other to rid the village of them.

It's pretty good. There is an inherent appeal to that sort of premise, of a character playing people against each other using his wits, walking a thin line and outsmarting everyone around them. The protagonist is played by the always effortlessly cool Toshiro Mifune, one of the prototypes of every unflappable stoic action hero who came after him. It all feels a lot like a Western, though obviously it's more that Westerns, italian ones at least, owe a lot to Yojimbo. It's a Kurosawa flick so I don't have to tell you that it's brilliantly shot.

I feel like there was some weak plotting in the last third of the movie, where it felt like Mifune's survival was more due to lucky coincidences and stupidity on the side his enemies than to his own intelligence but at this point, that's a minor complaint.

It's a good movie. Extremely strong premise, fantastically shot and Mifune's a badass. Not Kurosawa's masterpiece though I don't think anyone's gonna claim it is.

Shura, released as "Demons" in the West

Exactly 10 years younger than Yojimbo, shot in 1971, though still in black and white. Very stark black and white, which really sets the tone for the entire film. Shura is a revenge drama and an extremely bleak one at that. Ronin warrior falls in love with a Geisha, but gets betrayed by her and her husband. He vows to take revenge on them and, well... it ain't pretty.

Shura has a very distinctive visual style to it. It's based on a stage play, accordingly most of it is set in claustrophobic interior locations, at night, with incredibly high black and white contrasts. All those locations feel like they're floating in a black void and the direction adds to a general feeling of disorientation. Occasionally the movie shows alternate outcomes of various scenes without any forewarning and then snaps back to the moment immediately before, there are double takes and dream sequences. It all adds up to a very uncomfortable, nightmarish tone. Once again I have to praise the performance of the lead actor, Katsuo Nakamura. As far as depictions of a man driven utterly insane by revenge goes, he really sells it.

So, yeah, this was great. An unrelentingly grim story about revenge and the lengths someone might go to carry it out. It's not exactly an easy watch but it sure is a memorable one.

And while I'm at it, I also saw

Silent Hill Revelations 3D

You know how they made a movie based, loosely, on Silent Hill 1, at some point in the late 00s and it wasn't very good? Well, they made another one, based on Silent Hill 3 a few years ago. Why they haven't made a movie based on Silent Hill 2 first, you ask? Because sometimes God has mercy on us.

Now let's be honest here, Silent Hill 3 wasn't a game with a very good story. Actually, the story of Silent Hill 3 was just a worse version of that of Silent Hill 1, albeit with a cuter protagonist. The movie sticks slightly closer to SH3's plot than its predecessor did to that of Silent Hill 1. The protagonist ist once again Heather Mason, real name Cheryl, excuse me, Sharon DaSilva, she's the reincarnation of a girl groomed by a lovecraftian cult to birth their god. Heather and her father are in hiding in... in the game I think it was Portland, Oregon when one day the cult catches up to them, leading Heather to return to Silent Hill to end things once and for all. In the game the cult killed her dad, in the movie they just kidnap him, whatever, it's a character motivation.

So, yeah, it's pretty bad. Assuming I didn't know the game, it would still be a bunch of nonsense. Silent Hill 3 never had good writing, but was elevated by extremely strong, extremely evocative visual design. The movie doesn't have that. Revelations environments and creatures invoke Masahiro Ito less than they invoke American horror shlock, say, the kind made by Rob Zombie. An attempt was made to cast an actress that resembles Heather from the game, but the haircut is just slightly off in a low key irritating way. Also joining the fray are Sean Bean as her dad and Kit Harrington as Vincent, her love interest. So there's a minor Game of Thrones reunion going on here.

What else is there to say? The CGI is bad. The 3D is gimmicky. Pyramid Head is in it, but Valtiel isn't. If you're a fan of the series, don't watch it. If you're not, there's a good chance you didn't even know it existed, in which case, feel free to forget about it again.

 

[McElroy]

I loved this movie but agreed with this negative review regarding things that did not really fit the narrative and were just gob smaking

Spoiler

you can cut your arm so badly you pass out, but then just take a little lie down and you're all better?

Yeah I don't think that was medically very accurate either. Unless maybe if Charlie has a phobia for blood. Big spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

UpperEchelonGamer seems to take it a bit personally that the divorce stuff favors foremost the lawyers and ex-wife. One thing I agree with is that her "rebirth" in LA is depicted so neatly that it's evident the lack of "space" in NY was holding her down. Charlie never cared about this ethereal West Coast space that everyone else seems to want, and thus the marriage was doomed. For a spicier take I hard disagree with Charlie's extramarital affair being indefensible married behavior. If the wife doesn't put up, she risks an affair and subsequent problems. It should be realized eventually too. Because waiting for the right moment for breaking up (a job offer in LA in this case) is just as shitty and comparable to cheating with another person.

 

[gorfias]

Just watched , "The Losers" on HBO Max. Lots of shooty shooty bang bang that just goes over my head. Lots of scenes were the makers of this film don't seem to understand what bullets do to the human body. There are a couple of decent action scenes and the characters are likeable.

One neat thing: it opens with a shot of the USA flag. A voice can be heard stating that he cannot ever betray his country. His country has given him everything and means everything to him. The voice is actor Chris Evans. The movie came out in 2010. Captain America came out a year later. His character does have more in common with the Human Torch than Cap. 6/10.

 

[BrawlMan]

Just watched , "The Losers" on HBO Max. Lots of shooty shooty bang bang that just goes over my head. Lots of scenes were the makers of this film don't seem to understand what bullets do to the human body. There are a couple of decent action scenes and the characters are likeable.

One neat thing: it opens with a shot of the USA flag. A voice can be heard stating that he cannot ever betray his country. His country has given him everything and means everything to him. The voice is actor Chris Evans. The movie came out in 2010. Captain America came out a year later. His character does have more in common with the Human Torch than Cap. 6/10.

The A-Team remake was way better. Too bad it never got a sequel.

Been watching a pair of Samurai movies with some mates recently.

Yojimbo

Akira Kurosawa production from 1961 about a wandering Samurai coming into a village controlled by two warring clans, playing them against each other to rid the village of them.

It's pretty good. There is an inherent appeal to that sort of premise, of a character playing people against each other using his wits, walking a thin line and outsmarting everyone around them. The protagonist is played by the always effortlessly cool Toshiro Mifune, one of the prototypes of every unflappable stoic action hero who came after him. It all feels a lot like a Western, though obviously it's more that Westerns, italian ones at least, owe a lot to Yojimbo. It's a Kurosawa flick so I don't have to tell you that it's brilliantly shot.

I feel like there was some weak plotting in the last third of the movie, where it felt like Mifune's survival was more due to lucky coincidences and stupidity on the side his enemies than to his own intelligence but at this point, that's a minor complaint.

It's a good movie. Extremely strong premise, fantastically shot and Mifune's a badass. Not Kurosawa's masterpiece though I don't think anyone's gonna claim it is.

Shura, released as "Demons" in the West

Exactly 10 years younger than Yojimbo, shot in 1971, though still in black and white. Very stark black and white, which really sets the tone for the entire film. Shura is a revenge drama and an extremely bleak one at that. Ronin warrior falls in love with a Geisha, but gets betrayed by her and her husband. He vows to take revenge on them and, well... it ain't pretty.

Shura has a very distinctive visual style to it. It's based on a stage play, accordingly most of it is set in claustrophobic interior locations, at night, with incredibly high black and white contrasts. All those locations feel like they're floating in a black void and the direction adds to a general feeling of disorientation. Occasionally the movie shows alternate outcomes of various scenes without any forewarning and then snaps back to the moment immediately before, there are double takes and dream sequences. It all adds up to a very uncomfortable, nightmarish tone. Once again I have to praise the performance of the lead actor, Katsuo Nakamura. As far as depictions of a man driven utterly insane by revenge goes, he really sells it.

So, yeah, this was great. An unrelentingly grim story about revenge and the lengths someone might go to carry it out. It's not exactly an easy watch but it sure is a memorable one.

And while I'm at it, I also saw

Silent Hill Revelations 3D

You know how they made a movie based, loosely, on Silent Hill 1, at some point in the late 00s and it wasn't very good? Well, they made another one, based on Silent Hill 3 a few years ago. Why they haven't made a movie based on Silent Hill 2 first, you ask? Because sometimes God has mercy on us.

Now let's be honest here, Silent Hill 3 wasn't a game with a very good story. Actually, the story of Silent Hill 3 was just a worse version of that of Silent Hill 1, albeit with a cuter protagonist. The movie sticks slightly closer to SH3's plot than its predecessor did to that of Silent Hill 1. The protagonist ist once again Heather Mason, real name Cheryl, excuse me, Sharon DaSilva, she's the reincarnation of a girl groomed by a lovecraftian cult to birth their god. Heather and her father are in hiding in... in the game I think it was Portland, Oregon when one day the cult catches up to them, leading Heather to return to Silent Hill to end things once and for all. In the game the cult kidnapped her dad, in the movie they just kidnap him, whatever, it's a character motivation.

So, yeah, it's pretty bad. Assuming I didn't know the game, it would still be a bunch of nonsense. Silent Hill 3 never had good writing, but was elevated by extremely strong, extremely evocative visual design. The movie doesn't have that. Revelations environments and creatures invoke Masahiro Ito less than they invoke American horror shlock, say, the kind made by Rob Zombie. An attempt was made to cast an actress that resembles Heather from the game, but the haircut is just slightly off in a low key irritating way. Also joining the fray are Sean Bean as her dad and Kit Harrington as Vincent, her love interest. So there's a minor Game of Thrones reunion going on here.

What else is there to say? The CGI is bad. The 3D is gimmicky. Pyramid Head is in it, but Valtiel isn't. If you're a fan of the series, don't watch it. If you're not, there's a good chance you didn't even know it existed, in which case, feel free to forget about it again.

I disagree with Silent Hill 3's story being bad. It may not be as good as 2's, but it ain't horrible. Plus, I feel the second game gets way too overpraised at times and inflated it. But I 100% agree with you on the movie. It makes the first Silent Hill film look Oscar worthy. At least they were trying in the first movie.

 

[Dalisclock]

The A-Team remake was way better. Too bad it never got a sequel.

"What are they doing?"
"They're trying to fly that tank"

I mean, it's a stupid movie but at least it's embracing the hell out of the stupid and having fun with it.

I disagree with Silent Hill 3's story being bad. It may not be as good as 2's, but it ain't horrible. Plus, I feel the second game gets way too overprated at times and inflated it. But I 100% agree with you on the movie. It makes the first Silent Hill film look Oscar worthy. At least they were trying in the first movie.

I never saw the 2nd movie but I kinda liked the first. It wasn't great but it wasn't horrible. I've never played the games so that might have something to do with it.

 

[BrawlMan]

I've never played the games so that might have something to do with it

my main problem with the movie is that they replaced Harry Mason, the protagonist from the first game, with a character that was never in the Silent Hill games to begin with. The reason why they replaced him was beyond stupid. Apparently it's not masculine enough or too feminine for a father to rescue his daughter. So it has to be a mother that does the job. A reason like that makes no sense. There's nothing wrong with a man trying to rescue or protect his daughter and not always going in guns blazing like some action movie or suspense thriller. It is a sexist attitude that that is not needed. Even when I was in high school when the film came out I called bullshit. I do agree that the film is decent, but I still felt there was some unneeded changes that weren't necessary. The cult is still there, but they're no longer satanic cult. The reason why they changed it was not to offend christians, but the monsters are still demonic so it's a pointless change. Doom suffered from the same thing. I didn't know what it was with 2005 and 2006 films trying not offend conservative Christians who wouldn't even watch these anyway.