Tag: The 355

2022 Film Awards Day 3: The Personal

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Well I Liked It

Films which I liked, but others didn’t, whether it’s reviews or the general public.

Thor: Love And Thunder (RT Score: 64, Metacritic: 57)

It’s weird, a few years ago Marvel films were all overrated, being described as “the best films ever, they should win Oscars” but now it feels like the opposite has happened, and they’re being looked down on by Marvel fans. A lot of the time it basically comes down to one of two things:

  1. It didn’t have things the audience expected it to. This was especially prevalent for Multiverse Of Madness, in which I’ve seen people genuinely annoyed that Tom Cruise wasn’t in it as an alternate version of Iron Man. There was zero indication he was ever going to be, but that doesn’t matter, these guys heard someone say it on the internet and expected it to be true.

  2. “Too woke”. Which basically means, “It has a woman in it and she’s not overly sexualised or a damsel in distress”

I actually liked this, yeah it’s not the best film ever but it’s not the total piece of shit that some fans say it is. It has genuine emotion and deep themes. Plus the child actor is actually adorable to watch.

Death On The Nile (RT Score: 62, Metacritic: 52)

I don’t get the bile people have for this film. Is it great? Nope, and it’s definitely not as good as the first one, but it’s not terrible. Yes, the CGI for the backgrounds is lacking, but it is an entertaining film to watch. Other films did similar things better, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a good film. Just because chocolate cake exists and is delicious, doesn’t mean eclairs aren’t good too.

Winner

Bullet Train (RT Score: 54, Metacritic: 49)

This genuinely baffles me. This is a fantastic film, featuring some of the best action scenes you’ll likely to see. It also has a great soundtrack, is very funny, and has some really good performances. It’s over 2 hours long (including credits) but doesn’t feel it. Is the low score based on the fact it’s a bit sweary? I’d settle for a 7-8 out of 10 for this, but for it to be rated SO low by critics is disappointing. I’m guessing critics just hate fun things.

I Don’t Get It

Men (RT Score; 69 [nice], Metacritic: 65)

Not a fan for one reason and one reason only; I’m not really a fan of weird mood pieces. It set up a plot and depended on the weirdness and mood to carry it through. I wanted to have some idea and grounding as to why it was happening. I don’t need my hand held for every little thing, but I want some idea of the reality.

Winner

Licorice Pizza (RT Score: 91, Metacritic: 90)

This got a lot of love from people. Some people truly loved it and considered it a masterpiece. It also did very well in terms of award nominations. It’s just, I personally couldn’t get past the ages of the people involved. A love story between a 15-year-old and a 25-year-old is not something I want to see, I just find it gross.

Most Surprising

Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers

I had every expectation that this would actually be terrible, turned out to be one the funniest films of the year. It’s incredibly self-aware, and much smarter than you’d think. It’s on par with The Lego Movie in how entertaining it is. Ordinarily, I’d be worried whether my nostalgia is clouding my judgement, whether my growing up on it means that I’m either predisposed to loving this movie because “hey, these characters existed when I had hope, that means they’re good”, or alternatively, it would make me hate it because “His eye colour is Egyptian Blue in the original, here it’s Persian Blue, worst film ever!”. I can safely say that’s not the case because I never watched these characters as a child, and as such, couldn’t give a shit.

Confess, Fletch

“Oh boy, a remake of an 80’s Chevy Chase movie, this is going to be good,” said nobody. Remakes are generally not good. Especially not remakes that are pushed out with zero advertising. It was just kind of put out there for a week. It had all the hallmarks of a film that the studio was ashamed of. I don’t get that, it’s a lot of fun to watch, has a decent story, and has genuine franchise potential. It got really good reviews both from reviewers and audiences. So it feels like a case of “those who watched it, liked it, but not many people watched it”.

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

I like trailers. I don’t obsess over them and watch them desperate for details. But if I’m about to see something, I will usually watch a trailer beforehand just so I know what to expect. I purposely didn’t do that with this. I had somehow landed myself in a situation where I heard almost nothing about this. All I know was “something to do with multiverses” and “it’s very good”. I was kind of excited to go in knowing that little. I prepared for something very good, and what I got was something incredible. I expected it to be good, but I didn’t expect to fall in love with it as much as I did.

Winner

Orphan: First Kill

The first one is a, well, “modern classic” is pushing it a bit, but it’s certainly earned its place as a good showcase of modern horror. But it was built around a killer twist, a twist which the audience will know going into this one. It’s also a prequel, and those are never good. So how can this work? How can it be anything but a colossal (well, medium) failure? By being really f*cking good, that’s how. Also by pulling off a much better twist than the original, because you don’t know there’s a twist. You assume everything is going as it should, then when the reveal of a character’s true intention is revealed, it suddenly explains a lot of things. I loved this film, and considering I expected it to be terrible, the fact it’s one of my favourite horror films of the year says a lot. Are other films in this category better? Yes, easily. But the gap between “how good this film is” and “how shit I thought it would be” can’t be beaten.

Most Disappointing:

Firestarter

Why do so many films mess up King adaptations? Dark Tower was a mess, IT: Chapter 2 was disappointing, and this? This is just bad. It’s a shame as a character like this should be updated. The world we live in now is very different from the world we lived in when the original film was released (except for the threat of nuclear destruction from Russia). It would be interesting to see how the modern military would react to someone with these powers, and what would happen in an internet world where any incidents can be shared online instantly. Sadly, this film isn’t interested in showing any of those things. The only way it could be more predictable is if it actually played the Prodigy song, but at least then it would have some energy.

The 355

I thought this was going to be the first movie I saw in 2022, luckily it wasn’t, it would have kicked the year off on a somewhat sour note. It feels like it thinks that putting women in a generic spy movie is somehow groundbreaking. Without gender, it’s the same film you’ve seen many times before. Stunningly predictable, and with bland action scenes. Just not good enough for a modern audience.

Unhuman

This should be gayer. I don’t know how to explain it, but it should be. It does some good things with the villain reveal, but you can’t watch it and not feel like you’re watching a PG edit of a 15-rated film.

Winner

Halloween Ends

Obviously, this wins. I really enjoyed the first two (well, technically the second and third, or the eleventh and twelfth), to the point where Halloween Kills is genuinely one of my favourites in the franchise. But this? A steaming pile of shit would be kind. It feels like it was written on a napkin by someone who hadn’t watched the others. This is not the movie that the previous two set up. It seems like they were so focused on subverting expectations they forgot to make it workable. You can’t have the final Halloween movie barely feature Michael Myers, and you’re a dumbass if you think you can.

Worst Movie

The Bubble

This is bad. It’s such a waste of so many talented people. It feels like Apatow just got everybody to make shit up, and kept the worst options from every take. The pacing is terrible, it completely wastes what could be a good comedic sequence of them in quarantine. Absolutely nothing about it works. It focuses on the wrong characters, and the characters it does focus on aren’t likeable, but aren’t really detestable enough to be the figures of hate the film portrays them as. I’m not even nominating anything else, because this is such a colossal failure that nothing deserves to be compared to it.

Best Film

Belle

I saw this relatively early on last year, and it immediately disqualified quite a few films I saw prior to being nominated for this award. The difference between this, and films I liked that came before it in 2022 was huge. I am so glad I saw this, and I immediately told my friends about it. It’s hauntingly beautiful, and I am still occasionally emotionally affected by the flashbacks. If this was a different year, this might have won, but it was SUCH a stacked year in terms of quality films.

Fall

There’s a moment in this film where a ladder snaps and the character is left hanging in the air. At this point in the screening I attended, someone a few rows over just stood up, said “nope, fuck that” and left. There were a few moments when I considered joining him. It’s so well done that I couldn’t watch it, it was too tense. There’s a part of my brain that sees the things that happen in this and go “nope, that’s a bad thing to do”. Despite the fact it is obviously fictional, you get lost in the world so convincingly that your brain forgets it’s not real.

The Batman

Mainly for the fact that it’s only 20 minutes away from being the same length as Avatar: The Way Of Water, yet never feels it. I would watch this again, in fact, I did. I saw it twice at the cinema and was just as into it the second time. I’m not even sure I want to watch a trailer for Way Of Water again. It is not a perfect film, but it is the best comic book MOVIE in a while. It feels actually mature (rather than what it usually means when people say “we’ve made a mature comic book movie”: tits and guns). It also does the best job of showing WHY Batman does what he does.

Glass Onions: A Knives Out Mystery

Trust me, any other year, this could have won, I know people who have watched this multiple times already, and I don’t blame them. Everything about it works. It’s funny, it’s clever, and it’s just so damn entertaining to watch. I still count it as one of the best films I’ve seen and is definitely in my top 50, maybe top 10. So why isn’t it top? Because it was against something magnificent.

Winner

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Of course, it’s this. Nothing else could even come close. This is one of the best things I have ever seen in my life. This truly had everything I want in a film. It was funny, it had great action scenes, good music, yet it was also incredibly heartbreaking. I didn’t think a scene of two rocks talking to each other could make me feel as tearful as it did here. This should be a mess, it tries to do SOOO much, and the things it tries to do all have different tones. It balances the silliness of dildo fights, and the meaning of existence and trauma. It’s weirdly existential and nihilistic at the same time. This isn’t just film, this was a life-changing experience.

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

The 355 (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Spy shit happens. But with women.

I was looking forward to this, it looked stylish, slick, and fun. It had a great cast so it’s sure to be good. There’s one thing I didn’t notice before seeing it, something which would have affected how I went into it: From the director of Dark Phoenix. Obviously, that’s not all the director has done, he also wrote the 2015 Fantastic Four movie. If I knew that, my expectations would have been much lower, and I wouldn’t have been quite as disappointed.

It’s just so bland. It basically seems like the kind of film that post-2018 Bruce Willis would star in and go straight to streaming services, and not even one of the good ones. This is basically “What if Mission Impossible: But Vagina?”. It’s bringing nothing new to the table, nothing fresh, nothing exciting. It seems to want to have its cake and eat it, mocking James Bond films in one sentence and then taking a military plane to a gala the next, all in new clothes, new wigs, and futuristic tech.

It’s a shame as some of the performances are good, but if you came in after watching the trailer, and wanted a film of all these bad-ass women teaming together, you’re going to be disappointed. They spend a lot of time not liking each other, and one isn’t even introduced until the closing section. It NEVER feels like a group movie, it feels like a Jessica Chastain movie, featuring four other people. The narrative is focused almost entirely on her. So when she’s in conflict with another character, WE’RE in conflict with them. It would be like if the first Avengers movie focused entirely on Iron Man, and was also the first film in the franchise, oh and if it ended with “we probably won’t see each other again but we might”. The ending is in the trailer btw.

That’s how the trailer ends, an image they’re hoping will stick with you, so you know all 5 of them will end up on the same side, and alive. In the film it’s almost entirely pointless, the guy has been drugged and is about to be taken to a foreign prison. So why did they need all 5 of them there? By this point, he’s the head of the CIA, and they’re escaped criminals from different spy agencies. If one person sees them enter the house, alarm bells will ring.

It also spoils that his character didn’t actually die at the start. Although we know that anyway, if a character is killed but we see neither the death nor the body, they’re not really dead. And if they’re the main character’s partner in a cop/spy movie, they’re secretly a double agent who has betrayed them. So it’s not really a shock when he comes back, it’s expected. It would be more of a surprise if he was still alive. That’s the basic rule for spy films.

The other rule for spy films is that the action set pieces need to be entertaining. This fails that too. The geography of the fight scenes are confusing, the editing is too choppy (although there’s one piece of editing which is GLORIOUS where it cuts from someone being hit to a knife chopping a tomato), and they’re all ultimately rather boring. The characters don’t showcase themselves through the action either, there’s no uniqueness to the way people fight so everything looks the same. There’s no storytelling through the fight scenes, they’re just fight scenes. Compare that to the action scene in Shang-Chi between Shang’s parents, that was a fight that told us who they are, and developed their relationship through action. This, the only story is “shit gets blown up”

I mentioned in my review for Belfast that I thought the secret screening was this. I am very glad it wasn’t, I would have been disappointed to have seen this early. I’ve already forgotten most of it.