Tag: Sonic The Hedgehog 2

2022 In Film: Day Six (The Quite Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Beast

Ups: Good length

The CGI animals have a real presence

Wonderfully directed.

Downs: Not essential

Dialogue is a bit simple.

Quite cliche at times.

Best Moment: When the characters walk through the village and discover all the dead bodies. Haunting, like something out of a horror film.

Worst Moment: Lion in the house, only because it didn’t feel as natural as the other parts.

Best Performer: Elba, obviously.

Opening: The characters arrive at the reserve. Good way to showcase the scenery.

Closing: Surviving members of the family recreate an earlier family photo. Cliche, but kind of sweet.

Best Line: Death came calling to my wife and daughters and i wasn’t there to say no you can’t have them

Original Review here

Elvis

Ups: Is great at telling you who he was, not in a “facts and important dates” way, but in a “understanding who he is” way.

Austin Butler. He is phenomenal.

Will make you cry at times.

Downs: Weirdly edited.

Tom Hanks is a strange choice.

Terribly paced. Tries to do too much. There are at least three stories worth telling, and they’re not given enough time.

Best Moment: The Christmas special. Punk as anything.

Worst Moment: The assassination of MLK, trying to tie that into Elvis feels a bit cheap.

Best Performer: Austin Butler, obviously.

Opening: Tom Parker is on his deathbed. He then talks about how he met Elvis. Kind of a lazy framing device.

Closing: Elvis, fat and depressed, sings at Las Vegas. Truly emotional.

Best Line: His entire speech on stage to Tom Parker. Blistering fury.

Original Review here

Looking For Venera

Ups: The central relationship between the two.

The sociopolitical subtext to everything

Some really interesting shots.

Downs: Not very engaging at times.

Best Moment: The family dancing around a room to music being played on a tinny radio. The enthusiasm the characters have for the activity and for each other is heartwarming to see. And completely stopped by a man coming home and telling them to go to bed, all that happiness and joy, gone in an instant. Really demonstrates the power that the patriarchal system has over them.

Worst Moment: There’s a scene just after that at the breakfast table. It’s really well acted and has some shocking moments, but the characters are out of focus. Very picky I know but it’s too basic a mistake to make in a professional film.

Best Performer: Kosovare Krasniqi 

Opening: A sex scene in the woods between two fully clothed people. Strange choice as you don’t know who they are. Filmed from behind some trees so you do get a wonderfully voyeuristic feel to it. It’s later talked about by the characters, so we didn’t really need to see it.

Closing: A young boy drinking water at a table at a family dinner. At first, I thought “that’s a weird way to end it”, then it hit me. He’s observing. He’s watching the family interactions, he’s seeing how men treat women, and that’s what he’ll grow up to be too. A simple shot implies that everything will repeat. Kind of genius.

Best Line: “I’m not a coward like her”, that line shows her growth so much, but also her immaturity, as saying that to an abusive dick just means they’re going to take it out on the other person.

Original review here

She Will

Ups: Very claustrophobic.

Great sound work, both in terms of music and general sound design.

Downs: The fire incident doesn’t have a narrative follow-up.

Needs to set up some of the background characters better so we know how they’re regarded in-universe.

Feels like it should be better.

Best Moment: When she enters the lodge. You really feel the claustrophobic nature of it.

Worst Moment: A close up of a slug. Really specific but it cuts to it, and then cuts back, way too quickly to the point where it seems like a mistake.

Best Performer: Alice Krige.

Opening: Closeup on a womans eyes looking up at lights. Eye close ups are always good in horror movies as they can be so expressive. We see surgery being performed on her, intercut with her putting on makeup. A nice contrast, and intriguing enough to make you wonder what’s going on, especially when she talks about her mask being one of “preservation”

Closing: A scene of chaos and female reckoning.

Best Line: “The mud here is thought to have healing properties because of all the ashes from women who were burnt as witches” *blank-eyed stare* holy fuck.

Original review here

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Ups: Better than the first one.

Funny.

Actually has a plot.

Downs: Still inconsistent with the speed.

Quite forgettable.

Tries too hard with the comedy sometimes.

The lead character is kind of obnoxious.

Best Moment: The fact that the villain is basically defeated by a punch in the balls, much like Hitler was.

Worst Moment: The bar dance.

Best Performer: Idris Elba, he is hilarious.

Opening: Sonic is attempting to be a hero. Fun start, and demonstrates both his speed, his morality, and his naive nature.

Closing: They play baseball. Quite funny actually.

Best Line: “It’s so nice when diabolical evil lives up to the hype!”

Original Review here

The Adam Project

Ups: Perfectly cast.

Always good to see new ideas given a big budget.

Downs: Some characters are sidelined unnecessarily

The dialogue could be better.

Bad CGI at times.

Best Moment: The goodbyes. Incredibly emotional. There are two fight scenes I nearly chose, which looked good. But this section is incredible.

Worst Moment: The villain’s death. Mainly because the CGI looks atrocious.

Best Performer: Walker Scobel.

Opening: Ryan Reynolds has stolen a jet and uses it to escape through a wormhole. Sets up the central theme almost immediately.

Closing: Back in the future. Adam meets his wife again. Sweet, but not sure it was the right choice. We don’t see that much of them together.

Best Line: “Hey. You have her to take care of you. She has no one. You understand? Do you understand? She wakes up every morning with a broken heart and a, and a closet full of his clothes and gets nothing from you but a fistful of crap, and not even, like, ten seconds of genuine empathy. You know, thity years, you still get sick to your stomach every time you remember how you treated her now.” More moments like that please.

Original Review here

The Princess

Ups: Bloodier than I expected.

Some good fight scenes.

Downs: Really bad CGI at times.

Feels too much like a video game at times.

The whiff of pandering never really goes away.

Best Moment: The opening because it sets it up as being something different

Worst Moment: When she sets someone on fire. Only because the CGI is REALLY bad

Best Performer: Dominic Cooper

Opening: The Princess (hey, that’s the title of the movie) wakes up in a tower and finds herself chained to a bed. Flashbacks to her being kidnapped. She breaks her own thumb to escape. Surprising but effective.

Closing: She slits a guys throat. There’s a lot of blood and his head comes off (which was a bit weird as she didn’t initially seem to cut that deep). The king announces that now women can rule the kingdom. Yay, finally equality for all rich people of that one family. Her friend didn’t actuallly die, then a guy who’s been searching for her the whole film recognises her. Kind of expected. Then there’s a completely neutered cover of White Wedding

Best Line: “You’ll learn to sleep with one eye open. To never turn your back. I’ll be in heaven, just thinking day and night of ways to kill you. And you’ll be in hell, wondering when it’s coming. And you know that it will be coming. Because you know that I’ll never rest, never idle, never stop, until i am standing above your corpse, holding – in my delicate, manicured hands – your still beating heart!”

Original Review here

Zero Fucks Given

Ups: Has the best drunk acting. They don’t make sense and they talk mostly shit.

Adèle Exarchopoulos, she’s quite good isn’t she?

Downs: There are a few plot points which don’t really go anywhere. Some more interesting plots are suggested but not followed up on.

Best Moment: Montage where everyone is recording safety videos and have to end it by standing still and smiling for 30 seconds in silence. Very awkward and weirdly funny.

Worst Moment: The moments when she’s not on a plane.

Best Performer: Adèle Exarchopoulos, obviously.

Opening: Pre-shift meeting of airline crew. Being told to focus more on individual sales. Then some beautiful shots of flying through clouds. That meeting doesn’t really lead to anything.

Closing: Her in Dubai (wearing a face mask incorrectly btw, it’s not covering her nose) watching a fountain show. Impressive but does seem a bit too much like someone’s holiday video rather than something in a film. It was all supposed to be from her phone, hence the very final shot of her turning the camera towards herself and pulling her mask down. Slightly underwhelming.

Best Line: I prefer to be the irresistible one than the good girl. There is no past, there is no future it’s just you as a cabin manager in this precise moment and her in front of you. Nobody cares about your personal life or your personal issues or what you did yesterday or what you’re going to do tomorrow.

Original Review here

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Robotnik comes back, very angry at Sonic. Robotnik has Knuckles, Sonic has Tails.

I found the first one fine. Wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad. Was one of the better video game adaptations, but not one of the better films in general. The kind of film you watch on Netflix while you’re homesick and need something simple.

This…..this is better. It’s very funny in parts, and has a MUCH better story than the first one. It also fixes some of the issues of the first film. It focuses more on Sonic and less on the human characters, realising that people that buy tickets to a Sonic movie, actually want to see Sonic. It also moves the action away from a crowded city, allowing the action to take place in natural environments. The games took place on grassland, so having so much of the first one take place in an urban area felt strange. This fixes that.

It also has a genuinely good story. It’s simple, but effective. And had a moment that actually surprised me. Especially since I didn’t know I was going to be surprised. It wasn’t like “I thought it was a straight drive from Point A to Point B, but one of the directions I took was different”, more like “I’m on a straight road and then a giant wooden Armadildo (nope, not a typo) appeared in front of me”.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t going to appear on my “best of” list at the end of the year. But if it’s on Netflix, I’ll probably watch it. If I need something on while I do something else, I might choose it. It’s just wholesome fun. It’s not trying to say something deep about humanity, or make you think melancholic thoughts about the universe. It’s just bright colours, comedic lines, actions and noises. Encanto was ABSOLUTELY the better movie, but I’d show kids this first.

The smartest thing this film does are the references to the games. And there are A LOT of references. This was clearly made by someone who has actually played the games, the little sound effects, the visual references, and similar camera angles, are all perfect. Some of the references are less subtle, there’s a coffee shop called “Mean Bean Machine”, and one of the Sonic themes is someone’s ringtone. But if you find a list of references, there WILL be some you miss.

It’s not perfect though. There are two problems from the original that they haven’t fixed in this one. One is personal opinion, some of the music choices feel too much like they’re chosen just to be “cool”, rather than working for the film. The second one is speed. Sonic is fast, and there are more than a few moments in this film where him remembering that fact would have ended a scene quicker. Like when he needs to get a map from a bar, and it’s attached to the bottom of someones foot who he is challenging to a dance contest. We’ve already seen (from the bar scene in the first film) that he could EASILY run, get the paper off the bottom of the shoe, and run back without anybody noticing. But he doesn’t. It’s a shame as it shows that the writers haven’t considered it. Him being fast means you have to be more creative with what problems you put in front of him, but this doesn’t do that. It puts the same problems to him, and then just doesn’t have him go fast.

The action, the world-building, the fact that even though the character is fast you can still tell what’s happening during the action scenes. It all adds up to a sentence I’d never thought I’d say:

This would have been a better MCU-adjacent film than Morbius. It also used Idris Elba than the Thor franchise did. He has tremendous personality with great comic timing, and him not being allowed to display any of those in the MCU is a massive waste of his talent.

It’s just overall a very solid film, it introduces the new characters well, establishing who they are and what their powers are so that even people who haven’t played the games will know what they can do. It also does a good job of making the villain imposing. You do sit there genuinely wondering how the heroes are going to win.

So in summary, go see it. It won’t change the world, but it will make your day better.