Tag: Fantastic Beasts

2022 In Film Day One: The Awful

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

And so begins our annual end-of-year round-up. As you can tell by the title, these are the worst films of the year. Unusually for me, most of these are fairly obvious, I don’t think there are any here that people will be too surprised/offended by. Although I did use to know someone who genuinely said Fant4stic was one of her favourite films, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if these did have fans. I’d be disappointed, yes, and would definitely judge that person, but I wouldn’t be that surprised. For most people, these will be fairly obvious.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore

Ups: Has some good visuals

Nice to see some of these characters again

Jacob is still entertaining.

Downs: Whilst Jacob is entertaining, they need to think of a better way to get him into the story as it feels forced.

Villain is neutered

Incredibly dull

Ezra Miller is in it.

They released a “homophobe-friendly” version in China, all it took was removing 6 seconds. But no, it’s “soooooooooo vital” to the plot.

Best Moment: There’s a moment where Jacob tries to get Queenies attention and she just ignores him, weirdly heartbreaking.

Worst Moment: The rescue of Newt’s brother. Just felt like padding. If you took it out wouldn’t effect the plot at all.

Best Performer: Dan Fogler

Opening: Dumbledore and Grindlewald have lunch together. A moment that’s so inconsequential that (as of writing) it’s not even mentioned on the Wikipedia page.

Closing: Jacob and Queenie get married, Dumbledore slowly walks down the street. Makes me think they should have changed the opening. The third main scene is on the same street, and starts off in the standard Harry Potter way of “Normal scene, then it turns out this character is magic”. So if they started with that, not only would it have kicked off the plot better, then it would have had bookends.

Best Line: “Our war with the muggles begins today!” A line that promised so much, in a film that delivered so little.

Original Review here

Firestarter

Ups: Good colour scheme

Downs: Incredibly stupid adults.

No sense of a cohesive style.

Feels like it was made to create a franchise.

Best Moment: At the old mans house. The only bit of the film with actual emotion.

Worst Moment: “it’s different for us we know what it’s like….”. That scene has THE worst piece of editing I’ve seen this year. Or a bad performance. The line is delivered as if it’s half of a sentence. She doesn’t get interrupted, she doesn’t slow down or lose her bearings, the camera just cuts away and there’s no sound of her talking anymore. It sounds like she’s been cut off by silence.

Best Performer: Ryan Kiera Armstrong. The biggest flaw with her performance is that she isn’t McKenna Grace.

Opening: They had creepy music over the production logo, I appreciate that. In terms of the opening of the film itself; there’s a baby in a crib, and when the parents walk away, a fire starts.

I actually typed that whole thing as soon as I saw the baby in a crib because I knew what was going to happen. I know it is a remake, but it’s a remake of a film I’ve never seen, so it should not be that predictable. It had a much better opening during the opening credits, and if it fleshed that out it would have been better.

Closing: She’s on the beach, and meets up with someone who tried to kill her, but who is no longer being telepathically controlled. He carries her. Emotionally lacking, not great narratively, and looks a bit dull.

Best Line: “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”. Definitely not the best line, but one that sums up how much effort went into the script.

Original Review here

Halloween Ends

Ups: It’s different.

Provides a definitive and fitting end to the franchise.

A good study into social grief and how demonisation of people can create demons.

Downs: Haddonfield doesn’t feel real.

Characters have changed personalities since last film.

So preoccupied with providing a twist, it forgets to have a decent story.

Needs more Michael Myers.

And more Laurie Strode.

So much wasted potential.

Best Moment: The opening.

Worst Moment: Corey and Michael locking eyes, which makes Corey evil. So stupid.

Best Performer: Jamie Lee Curtis, always.

Opening: Corey is babysitting a kid and accidentally kills him. Apparently, this is frowned upon in babysitting circles. It was an accident (and kind of the kids fault), but the town still blames him. The film never gets close to this level of small town paranoia and fear again.

Closing: The dead body of Michael Myers gets thrown in an industrial shredder. Perfect way to end this franchise. There’s a weird cult-like nature to the whole thing and it’s weirdly beautiful.

Best Line: “My son. This town turned against him after the accident with Jeremy Allen. They would’ve felt for him. They would’ve helped him heal. But because your boogeyman disappeared, they needed a new one.” This is the crux of the plot, but it’s handled as well as I handle things when I’m juggling.

Original Review here

Morbius

Ups: Show’s that Sony does have a plan for a future universe.

Something new

Downs: Terrible fight scenes.

Poorly written.

Leto is a prick.

Best Moment: Him testing out his powers.

Worst Moment: The fight scene near the end. An incomprehensible mess.

Best Performer: Matt Smith.

Opening: Morbius goes to a cave to get bats. Completely unnecessary. Could have been covered in dialogue. The scenes of them growing up would have been a better start.

Closing: Vulture somehow ends up in this universe. It may seem stupid at first, but the more you think about it and how it happened you realise it’s actually REALLY stupid.

Best Line: “Vampire bats weigh almost nothing yet can take down an animal 10 times their size”. This film thinks dialogue like that is smart. It’s not.

Original Review here

The 355

Ups: Some good performances.

Good editing outside of the fight scenes.

Downs: Incredibly bland.

Lazy.

Seems very netflix

The shadow of the villain doesn’t loom over the film.

Best Moment: There’s one piece of editing which is GENIUS. They go from a fight scene to someone slicing a tomato and the match-cutting is SUPERB.

Worst Moment: The ending where they all walked in the room to face not Bucky Barnes. Reminded me of that bit in Endgame where all the female characters ended up in the same scene. Just there to get a “woo you go girls” moment.

Best Performer: Fan Bingbang. Not in it enough but she’s incredible when she is.

Opening: Sets up Jason Flemyng’s character well, and the electronic macguffin. But then the film relegates him to the background. You never feel his presence.

Closing: The aforementioned worst scene. I’ll say again, the film did not need all the characters there. 2 of them only said 1-2 lines each, I can’t remember if Penelope Cruz or Lupita Nyong’o said anything, if they did it certainly wasn’t anything of substance. Jessica Chastain then explained what will happen for the benefit of the audience, in a very dreary monotone.

Best Line: When they explain the title. Completely unnecessary, but interesting nonetheless. It would be like if an Adele song was interrupted by a lecture, but a good one.

Original review here

The Bubble

Ups: Interesting idea.

Downs: It does a terrible job of juggling the performers’ time.

The hotel staff are the best part of the movie, and they’re not in it enough. Which is weird as it starts with them.

Tries too hard.

Best Moment: Beck’s dinosaur rewrite of Ladies’ Night. The only music sequence that actually works in the film.

Worst Moment: The TikTok dance section

Best Performer: Guz Khan

Opening: Establishes the universe this film is set in. Does a really good job of setting the in-universe franchise. But I feel it would have been more useful if we actually saw footage instead of posters. Just seeing the posters feels cheap.

Closing: A documentary about the making of the film has been released. Seems a bit cruel, and not really that narratively satisfying.

Most Notable Line: “you remember the reviews from your last film Jerusalem Rising”. Terrible dialogue, clunky as hell, and is unnatural. That sums up this film.

Original Review here

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Dumbledore and Newt try to stop Grindelwald rigging an election, with magic!

I’ll start with the positive. Mads Mikkelsen is great, as he always is. He replaces Johnny Depp, who was fired after abuse allegations. If there’s one thing big movies like this cannot abide, it’s abusers, especially ones that are violent towards women. By sacking Depp they made it clear that there is no room for abusers in this cast, and that any sign of someone being an abuser, even just an accusation of abuse, will immediately result in that person not being in the film.

Ezra Miller is also in this.

Him being in the cast isn’t the biggest issue with this film. The biggest issue is just how dull this is. I just stopped caring very early in. I think part of it is an issue of tone. It’s trying too hard to be magical, in a way that’s not needed. The original Harry Potter series was about magic, but it took place in our world, and it was the mesh of those two that was interesting. This is almost all magic, they have wand fights randomly, there’s no talk of secrecy, they don’t check nobody is following them. It feels like the whole series takes place in a world which has already established magic, rather than one that is hiding one from people. It doesn’t help that magic is used weirdly, just to hold a cup in the air for a few seconds. It doesn’t make the witches and wizards look magical, it just makes them seem like lazy show offs.

It also provides a tonal problem. It shows us all this magic, all these impressive visuals designed to wow us, in between dialogue telling us the world is soon to be doomed. It doesn’t feel like a world on the brink of war. We all know now what it’s like to live in a world where a war is about to start which could destroy the world, we know that feeling. We know how people react in those situations, what they talk about. And it never comes across in this. Also, personally, I think they mess up the ending. They have a happy ending, but with a sense of “but bad things might still happen”. I feel it would be better if it had a downer ending. At the moment it’s “evil will be defeated”, a “sometimes evil wins and you need to figure out how to beat it” would be more relevant to modern times, especially if they are trying to compare the character to fascist dictators. He’s already been beaten a few times in this series, so he doesn’t feel as big a threat as he could. The series is so determined that each film should have a happy ending, that it hurts the overall narrative as the bad guys don’t get any momentum. They’re three films deep into the planned five, so the series only has one film really to set up Grindelwald as a massive threat to the wizarding world.

So in summary, I just didn’t care. It’s a problem that all prequels have, we know how it ends. We know Dumbledore and Grindelwald will duel, and Dumbledore will win. Yet it’s taking 5 films to get to that point, and it’s just not interesting enough to watch. It feels like it’s trying to be a heist movie, but lacks the cleverness, one of the main characters involved in it is so underwritten that if you took out his sections you’d lose nothing. It’s weird as his character has a moment where he has the memories of his dead sister taken away from him. This should be a big emotional moment, the inner torment leading up to that moment should sell how difficult this is for him. But it’s not, his character is so blank that even he looks sad, well that’s how he looks all the time so it doesn’t hit home. Long summary I know, but I just keep thinking of more reasons to say this was dull.

2018 In Film Part 2: The Meh

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

The qualifier for this is somewhat more complicated than the previous one. These aren’t necessarily bad films, just films that I don’t need to see again. Mainly films that I didn’t like, but can appreciate one thing in it. So quite bad, but had a single redeeming feature that makes them slightly worthwhile as a curiosity. There’s a few here which I can see people being annoyed about are in here. So I should point out that this is nearly all personal opinion, so please don’t firebomb me.

Adrift

I appreciate what they were going for, and it is a great story they’re telling, it just wasn’t really told well enough. I think part of this is because the central romance seemed incredibly rushed for me. They fell in love incredibly quickly and I didn’t really buy it. It also lacked tension, because if a film is “based on a true story”, and the story is about someone trapped somewhere, you know they get out, otherwise who would they have told the story to?

Original review here

+Great idea, and the lengths Shailene Woodley went to to look the part are very impressive, or the make-up team did a great job on making her look half dead, one of the two.

-A romance story where the leads lack chemistry.

Aquaman

THIS is the one a lot of people will disagree with. A lot of people love this film, and I can kind of see why, it looks good, and has some very funny moments. But personally, I was bored shitless during it. I looked at my watch so much I almost got RSI in my wrist (obvious masturbation is obvious). That’s its biggest flaw, but it is quite a damn big one. I’m not even sure if it had a bonus scene mid-credits, because I left as soon as the film ended, I couldn’t be bothered to go through any more of it.

Original review here

+It looked great, and established the character as a serious hero.

-Soooooo dull. Could have lost at least 30 minutes.

Assassination Nation

Nowhere near as slick as it needed to be. The kick-ass final section is BRILLIANT. But it takes ages to get there. Props to it for having an actual trans actor in it, that doesn’t happen often enough. I feel this film could have been great, if the rest of the film matched how great the closing is, I’d love it. As it is, I feel kind of cheated.

Original review here

+THAT closing section. Also it opening with trigger warnings was pretty genius.

-The pacing.

The Cloverfield Paradox

This is let down mainly by the script and the really poor attempt to link it to the rest of the franchise. The first Cloverfield is brilliant, and it seems like nothing from the series has matched it, mainly because of the ways they’ve attempted to link them into the mythos. All of them would have worked better as unlinked original movies. What do most people talk about in this film? The final two seconds. That’s not the sign of a good movie.

Original review here

+Daniel Bruh is brilliant.

-Bad script.

Fantastic Beasts

This does not seem like Harry Potter, it seems like a cheap knock off written by somebody who has no idea about foreshadowing and legacy. It doesn’t even have the adorable nature of the first film (which, by the way, it completely disregards the ending of within about 4 minutes).

Original review here

+Looks magnificent in parts.

-THAT ending.

The Mercy

A film that I feel was let down the story structure. The fact it went from him alone, to his family, meant that you never really felt isolated like the character was. I felt it would have been stronger to have more of the focus on him. Also, it’s just not, I dunno, ugly enough. Compare it to Adrift, which I didn’t like, but you felt they were near death, you never really got that here.

Original review here

+Looks beautiful

-A bit too beautiful.

Mortal Engines

I feel like this film should have been a bigger deal. For some reason there wasn’t much marketing about it though so I don’t think it did too well. Shame as it’s incredibly inventive and the kind of thing cinema needs to do more often. So why is it in here? The pacing is all over the place, as is the tone, and the character relationships don’t really ring true. Shame as it looks SUPERB.

Original review here

+The set design. Everything looks just dirty enough to seem authentic.

-Script is kind of lacking.

Ralph Breaks The Internet

I would probably think more highly of this film if the first one wasn’t so great. The first one is amazing and is one of the best animated films that’s not Pixar of the last few years. This one? Seems incredibly lazy by comparison. It also is way to reminiscent of The Emoji Movie at times.

Original review here

+The Disney Princess scenes. Expect for them to be ruined in spin-offs.

-Never comes close to being as good as the first one.

Slaughterhouse Rulez

Again, this was probably let down by high expectations. I expected this to be one of the best films of the year. Instead it was just meh. It wasn’t as clever as it needed to be, with only one or two scenes living up to the films potential. It’s not as satirical as it should be, the public school system is ripe for satire, particularly in a horror film like this, yet it doesn’t do it. There’s also hints of a much better film in this.

Original review here

+Asa Butterfield’s character arc is a joy.

-Constantly sets up dominos it has no intention of knocking down.

The Spy Who Dumped Me

Look, I like Kate McKinnon, I really do. When she’s on form nobody can touch her. But she has a tendency to improv too much and it can get a bit grating occasionally. That’s the issue with this film, it seems way too improvised at times, scenes go on too long just for the sake of a small laugh. It doesn’t recognise that sometimes it’s best to sacrifice a small laugh if it doesn’t serve the film well enough. My other issue? The characters don’t seem to take the threat seriously at times, running around joking way too much for people in their situation. So this means we don’t take the threat seriously, so it kind of ruins any dramatic tension.

Original review here

+At times, incredibly funny.

-Too unfocused.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

This movie was patchy as hell. Had really funny moments, and occasionally was incredibly meta and brilliant. And other times it had a farting balloon monster who was defeated by a song. Sadly the it was about 70/30, with the 30 being brilliance. It did have a lot to like about it though, it had a love for comic book movies, which is always great, and some of the moments seem like they could be extended into truly great movies. Just a shame they waste them for 4 minute skits.

Original review here

+The funniest Stan Lee cameo in a while.

-Somewhat embarrassing to watch at times.

Uncle Drew

As far as sports movies go it was thoroughly okay. Serviceable but not the kind of film I’ll remember unless someone points it out to me. Yet I did like it whilst I was watching it, the writer and director were skilful enough to know how to wring emotion when it was needed, yet also how to bring you back to laughter. It is incredibly predictable though, and goes through almost every single sports cliche you care to mention.

Original review here

+Lil Rel Howery anchors the film. Also the fact his character is shown to be good at basketball because he practiced (rather than a natural gift) is admirable.

-Not needed, by anybody. You don’t NEED to see this.

Venom

I really wanted to enjoy this. I wanted it to distract me from life, but it couldn’t. It’s too lazy. Also, it doesn’t go hard enough, this needs to be a hard-R, and it’s PG-13. It is a great potential start though, it could lead to a great franchise, but it has to learn from the mistakes of this movie.

Original review here

+The relationship between the human and the symbiote is great.

-They kept the “turd in the wind” line in.

Widows

I really wanted to like this. I like the director, the writer, the cast, and the story seemed great. Maybe my expectations were too high because it definitely didn’t meet them. It felt emotionally hollow, some of the shots were, I hate to say this, dull. The shot construction never really added anything to the film. Also, the story was a bit, well, meh. You never felt the jeopardy, and it wasn’t even fun enough to make up for it. A real shame.

Original review here

+The performances are simply incredible.

-A twist which adds nothing to the film.

 

 

 

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

The most positive thing I can say about this film? They tried. They really tried hard. They tried to build off the amazement of the first film, create their own story, set up a universe, and tie it into the Harry Potter universe. They really tried. The trouble is; they failed. Badly.

It’s like they didn’t really care that much, to the point where it seems like bad fan fiction. They didn’t care about carrying on the legacy of the first film, the ending of which was slightly heartbreaking and sweet and wonderful and completely undone within the opening 5 minutes of this film. Let’s remind ourselves of what happened at the end of the first film: Grindelwald is captured, and Dan Fogler’s character has his memory wiped. Opening of this film; Grindelwald escapes, and Fogler’s character didn’t actually lose his memory (this is explained in the worst bullshitty way possible, that’s so bad I won’t spoil here, but needless to say there is no way it was planned).

They didn’t care about creating their own story, a lot of issues people have bought up about this film have had people respond with “but it might pay off in a future movie”. No, fuck that. It’s okay for a film to be part of a series, but it needs to stand on its own two feet to be considered worthy. It’s fun to bingewatch a movie series, but if bingewatching it is the only way the movie is good, then you’ve failed as a writer.

They didn’t care about setting up a universe. As mentioned before, so many of the moments which are intended to set up the universe, just end up being annoying and frustrating the audience.

They didn’t care about tying into the Harry Potter universe. They messed around with McGonagall’s age so that she’s middle aged and working at the school before she should even be alive. They made Nagini human, which kind of makes Neville Longbottom a murderer, and COMPLETELY changes the nature of Voldemort and Nagini’s relationship, makes a it a lot creepier. It’s a bit odd really as both of those things didn’t need to be done. McGonagall being there didn’t add anything to the plot and nothing would have been lost if they just made her a completely different character. Nagini, also, never really came into the plot. They also don’t seem to understand the Mirror of Erised, treating it like a magic flashback machine.

There are other issues with the film too. A lot of the action scenes aren’t really very cinematic, and consist of people waving their arms about as pretty lights go around. It’s not an action sequence, it’s a light show. It also has an ending that’s so bad I’m not going to mention it.

 

 

Actually you know what? Fuck it I’m mentioning it. It turns out Ezra Millers character is Dumbledore’s brother, no, not the one who got caught doing things with goats, the other one, you know, the one that has NEVER been mentioned or even alluded to at ANY point. Yes, it surprises me, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. If I ordered a pizza and got a piece of shit, I’d be surprised, but I’d also be annoyed and feel cheated. And that’s how I feel about this movie, I expected pizza and got a turd.

I feel it has to be said that Jude Law does make a GREAT Dumbledore in the extremely few moments he’s in this film. If it was focused more on him, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. Also, the set design is BEAUTIFUL, the whole universe looks fantastic. It also has just enough charm to carry it through the worst parts. And finally, whenever I type the title of this film into my phone it autocorrects it to “Fantastic Breasts”, which makes me laugh as it sounds like something from Wallace And Gromit.

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“Cracking breasts”

I know it seems like I’m being overly harsh on this film, and I am. But it should be better. I’m not expecting it to be the best film of all time, but I’m expecting internal logic and consistency. People have been following Harry Potter for years now, and it deserves a lot better than this.