Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched

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gorfias

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Arrival I will freely admit that I've got a thing for Amy Adams and I like cerebral Sci-Fi so Arrival has been on my To Watch list pretty much since release. Overall, I like the message of the movie and the structuring of the mystery itself but I had a really hard time with the desaturated colors and the darkness (as in poorly lit) of the movie. It also drags a little too much, particularly towards the end when everything feels mostly resolved and it still keeps going for scene after scene as if it is afraid to end. Oh, and I find "dying/dead kid" to be one of the worst backstory/motivation tropes there is and it kept pulling me out whenever Louise's kid showed up.

Jack Reacher or "Hyper Masculine Dream Fic: the Movie". Tom Cruise is a former military police officer who's also a superb martial artist and crack shot, massively intelligent with a physique like Adonis and he's free of societal constraints and mores. Ayn Rand couldn't have come up with a more implausible action hero if she tried. If you can get past the hilariously Gary Stu main character Jack Reacher is a pretty decent movie though. Reacher gets involved in a frame job against a former marine sharpshooter and quickly unveils a conspiracy. It is a movie with a brisk pace, good action and Cruise brings the kind of charisma he always does. I will say that the final revelation of the conspiracy and how it is resolved is pretty underwhelming, but that's a minor quibble.
Gotta love Cruise's confidence. Reacher in the books is supposed to be twice this actor's size.
 

Gordon_4

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Jack Reacher or "Hyper Masculine Dream Fic: the Movie". Tom Cruise is a former military police officer who's also a superb martial artist and crack shot, massively intelligent with a physique like Adonis and he's free of societal constraints and mores. Ayn Rand couldn't have come up with a more implausible action hero if she tried. If you can get past the hilariously Gary Stu main character Jack Reacher is a pretty decent movie though. Reacher gets involved in a frame job against a former marine sharpshooter and quickly unveils a conspiracy. It is a movie with a brisk pace, good action and Cruise brings the kind of charisma he always does. I will say that the final revelation of the conspiracy and how it is resolved is pretty underwhelming, but that's a minor quibble.
I've read a fair few of the books. Ayn Rand wouldn't have come up with Jack Reacher as a character; he's way too nice. Oh he's an idealised action hero make no mistake. The books are......diaposable but brisk reads; a nice mix of cop drama, military thriller and conspiracy action movie.

And yeah, for this Cruise NEEDED that fill the room charisma. Like @gorfias said, in the books Reacher is like, six foot six and built like a brick shithouse. In fact in one of the books he gets shot in the chest with a .22 calibre bullet and is so muscular that his mighty pectoral stops the bullet. I swear to God, this is a thing that happens.
 
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Thaluikhain

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In fact in one of the books he gets shot in the chest with a .22 calibre bullet and is so muscular that his mighty pectoral stops the bullet. I swear to God, this is a thing that happens.
Well, to be somewhat fair, if that's a .22lr, that's the least powerful commonly used round. Still powerful enough to have killed lots of people, though. Highest ranking Australian police officer to be murdered was killed by a Ruger 10/22, IIRC.
 

MrCalavera

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I've never seen any remakes/reboots that lived up to the predecessor.
Scarface(1983) is a remake. So is The Thing(1982) - although, that one you could maybe technically count as an adapation.
It's a novel, not a short story.
The biggest difference is that in the novel there's no question regarding Deckard's humanity, and Sebastian is practically a co-protagonist. Each chapter cuts back and forth between them. Otherwise the plot plays out more or less the same. Characters are tweaked, the order of things is changed, settings are changed, but nothing major. The movie's biggest ace is turning Batty what we remember him for. He's barely a character in the book.
The movie glosses over animals being a rare commodity with Tyrrel's owl and when Deckard examines the snake's scale from Zora. That it doesn't get much more into that or the shared virtual thing hardly qualifies the movie as having nothing to do with the book.
What you said about PKD stories and adaptations definitely applies to Total Recall and Minority Report though.
Eh, to be fair the movie kinda turns the message of the novel on its head.

In the novel nothing indicates replicants are really capable of experiencing natural emotions. The problem is framed as characters becoming progressively more like replicants - cold machines, that at best simulate empathy for their own means.

Compare that to the "More human than a human" angle the movies run with. The replicants are practically genetically enginereed people and portrayed generally more sympathetic than those who hunt them(As they should be).
 
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BrawlMan

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So is The Thing(1982) - although, that one you could maybe technically count as an adapation.
It's both.

I've never seen any remakes/reboots that lived up to the predecessor. But it's a concept that's got a lot of potential for good storytelling, if done right.
Night of the Living Dead Remake
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The Blob (1988)
The Fly (1986)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
The Mummy (1999)
 
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happyninja42

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It's both.


Night of the Living Dead Remake
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The Blob (1988)
The Fly (1986)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
The Mummy (1999)
Never saw the originals of any of those, and in some cases just never saw the films themselves, except the mummy, which I didn't like at all. But fair point, those are remakes that people who love those genres say are classics.
 

BrawlMan

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Never saw the originals of any of those, and in some cases just never saw the films themselves
I recommend you at least watch Night of the Living Dead and its remake once. The Fly too, though you can skip the original film if you want.
 

happyninja42

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I recommend you at least watch Night of the Living Dead and its remake once. The Fly too, though you can skip the original film if you want.
Yeah don't know why I spaced out, but I have seen the 1980's Fly. To clarify my unclear first statement, having re-read it, I've not seen any of those originals, but I have seen the more popular remakes for The Fly and The Mummy. The Fly was good, The Mummy, I saw that for $1 at a dollar theater in my hometown after it left circulation, and felt I would've rather had a soda. Or at least that was my critique of it back then. I just really didn't enjoy it. 30 years later, if I saw it again, I'd probably say "It's fine." Though I did enjoy one scene from it, given the setup. Where the grave robbers are openly fighting with the good guys, and they are separate, but then the wave of beetles is unleashed. And the robbers are fleeing from it, go into the room with the good guys, and without any hesitation yell to them "RUN!" I thought that was a fun little bit of humanization. "Ok yeah, I'm a criminal, I'm willing to rob graves and kill people if needed, but NOBODY deserves to be eaten alive by a tsunami of carnivorous beetles! Run!"
 

Dirty Hipsters

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Without Remorse - That new Tom Clancy movie with Michael B Jordan on Amazon Prime that you keep seeing ads for.

It sucks.

The writing is fucking terrible and the story is incredibly stupid. The action sequences are pretty decent. If you can turn your brain completely off you might enjoy it, but holy crap is it not good.
 

BrawlMan

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The Mummy, I saw that for $1 at a dollar theater in my hometown after it left circulation, and felt I would've rather had a soda. Or at least that was my critique of it back then. I just really didn't enjoy it. 30 years later, if I saw it again, I'd probably say "It's fine." Though I did enjoy one scene from it, given the setup. Where the grave robbers are openly fighting with the good guys, and they are separate, but then the wave of beetles is unleashed. And the robbers are fleeing from it, go into the room with the good guys, and without any hesitation yell to them "RUN!" I thought that was a fun little bit of humanization. "Ok yeah, I'm a criminal, I'm willing to rob graves and kill people if needed, but NOBODY deserves to be eaten alive by a tsunami of carnivorous beetles! Run!"
Loved the 2 Brendon Fraiser Mummy films back then, and still love them now. Scorpion King too. They the modern Indiana Jones film for my brother and I's time. My mom especially; loves Brendon Fraiser. Also, I felt really bad for Imhotep in the second film. Even though he was evil, that hurt seeing be ditched like that.

The writing is fucking terrible and the story is incredibly stupid. The action sequences are pretty decent. If you can turn your brain completely off you might enjoy it, but holy crap is it not good.
Tell that to my parents. They thought the films was "surprising" and "deep". They have their odd tastes every so often, though my dad suffers more from this, than my mom. Dad does not watch that many action films.
 
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happyninja42

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Loved the 2 Brendon Fraiser Mummy films back then, and still love them now. Scorpion King too.
I liked the first Scorpion King film, I think mainly because watching it, I felt like I was watching a live action Mark of Kri adaptation. Which was awesome, because that game was badass.
 
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thebobmaster

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I still quote the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. They were a lot of fun, both of them.

"Hey, O'Connoll, it looks to me like I have all the horses!"

"Hey, Beni! It looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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Without Remorse - That new Tom Clancy movie with Michael B Jordan on Amazon Prime that you keep seeing ads for.
I remember many years ago my brother had a copy of The Bear and The Dragon. Obviously in any US-other match-up in Clancyworld, the USA was going to win. But I was curious as to whom Tom Clancy thought would win between Russia and China so I asked him. And the answer, of course, was the USA.

Tom fucking Clancy, eh?
 

Gordon_4

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I still quote the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies. They were a lot of fun, both of them.

"Hey, O'Connoll, it looks to me like I have all the horses!"

"Hey, Beni! It looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the river!"
Great pulp adventure period movies. Love them to death.
 
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gorfias

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"Iron Lady" on Netflix. Well made but I think it did a really poor job of its focus. In spite of what you see in this trailer, the movie spends a great deal of time on her declining years suffering from varying levels of dementia.

I would have like to have seen more about the woman. Maybe a little of her struggles to become PM but why was she ever elected? What was Britain going through that made it happen? The dramatic version told of her in "The Crown" she claims to be losing her office just as her objectives were being realized. Was that true?

Finally, in neither version, do we get to see her tell George Bush to "not go wobbly" on Iraq... and help set a policy that has, depending upon your view, squandered trillions and killed 10s and even 100s of thousands of people for, I think, nothing.

C- and only that good a grade as it is well made.

 

thebobmaster

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Just finished off another "I have almost all this series watched, but can't manage to find the last one streaming" franchises, by watching Jigsaw on Peacock.

Well, after the extreme disappointment that was Saw: The Final Chapter (IN 3D!), this was quite a step up. It's not quite at the level of the highs of the series, but it definitely stood above the lows. The traps were hit and miss, but when they hit, they were some of the most brutal in the franchise, and actually had me wincing. In addition, a lot of the Saw movies struggled with actually having those in the trap deserve their fate to any real level, while this movie makes it clear why every single person is in a death trap situation, and while their punishment may be disproportionate, you can at least see the logic in Jigsaw's madness, if that makes sense.

Unfortunately, most of the characters are hard to root for for that very reason, and while most elements of the twist did work for me, there were some that felt unnecessary, as if M. Night Shalyaman was involved in the writing process and felt the need to make the twist even twistier. That said, when they reveal who is really behind the movie's events, it clicks quite well, and it was really cool seeing Tobin Bell again. Overall, I'd put this movie pretty solidly in the middle of the franchise, in terms of quality. Gives me more hope for the upcoming Spiral.
 

Thaluikhain

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The Mummy (1999)
Ah, but what film is it a reboot of? I've heard people say the Boris Karloff film, but I think it's closer to The Mummy's Hand from 1940, though still very not like that film. To me, it seems to be one of a zillion films in the genre, not a reboot of a particular one, as far as I can see.

(I liked the first 2 of those Mummy films, not seen all of the 3rd one, the first Scorpion King is ok, the next 4 not so much).

And I'm not seeing The Thing as a reboot, rather a re-adaption, but that's semantics.