The difference between Japanese and American Godzilla movies has never been more evident than here. In the US, we see him as a hero, in Japan, he's a force of nature. It's a testament to the general ubiquitous of Godzilla that its so flexible as a concept.
I'm not talking about the movie because it is honestly pitch perfect.
Just...copying from my Letterboxd review with a few additions, that will be in italics.
I didn't hate this as much as I expected, but there are some huge flaws.
The rules in this world regarding magic are not set up too well, and that could be easily ignored if the story didn't focus so much around it.
ex. yeah we don't know why Mirabel didn't get a gift from Casita, but the story isn't finding out why and giving us a story about a magic system, the story is about how Mirabel is being poorly treated by people for not being magical.
It's so funny how Dreamworks last year beat Disney at its own game with a story about wishes.
There are 9 Archibald Lox novels, 4 Larten Crepsley novels, 12 Darren Shan and Zom-B novels,and 10 Demonata novels - and I own digital copies of all of them, a few digital copies of the Vampire's Assistant manga issues, and physical copies of 5 or 6 (look I don't have the space).
When I say I'm a fan of his work, I am a fan of Darren Shan's work.
Some spoilers.
This movie has 2 huge problems that doesn't quite make this accessible for audiences who didn't read the book;
You see in the book Snow's internal thoughts and monologue, that his care for Lucy Gray is 75% based on his own survival, how possessive he feels over her to better himself. It's very hard to portray that in a movie without having a voiceover of internal thoughts.
You do see some other mentors (the rich kids who are still starving probably but) who get lines that Snow could have had about the self-serving attitude they had, but a lot of it is simply "Here's a close up on him, hope you get the idea."
So it works, to the uninitiated audience, as "Oh this boy went bad because of circumstances [also his girlfriend didn't like that he was a murderer]"
Also, the first 45 minutes is really rushed. This movie is 2hours and 37 minutes. Slow down.
Outside of that, as someone who read and really enjoyed the book, I really enjoyed this. Viola Davis as Volumia Gaul is awesome.
The music and performances are impactful (I do not give a shit what some people have to say online, Rachel Zegler is great).
Watch the first episode for free;
Posted this review before I saw one of the creators is Zionist, damn, well. That sucks. Free Palestine.
Better than the first, but I find the rules of the world a little inconsistent. Some witches are born, some are made. Huh?
It's as standard and typical as can be, but the little girl is fabulous.
It's okay not to act @ John David Washington.
This is apparently the best of the Branagh-Poirot movies, which says a lot.
It was enjoyable and fine, beautifully shot and visually interesting
In the early 2000s this would have been made for 20m$ and grossed enough for one -- only one -- sequel.
In 2023, this cost 45m$, grossed 7$m, and will limp on to not be profitable. If it was cheaper and relied more on visual style tricks of the subjects in the movie and not so much CGI (which, I get, it needed CGI to a point), it would have been a smaller pill to swallow.
It's not an awful movie at all, and something I'd happily watch again on TV. This is the 3rd ill fated attempt for Universal to kick off its Dark Universe, and is probably the second most engaging attempt.
I do appreciate how they keep trying and they make it clear that the leads are not going to be the standard.
Appeals to both people who were teens and young adults in the 90s and teens today. Light on material, telling us nothing new, but it works, and looks awesome.
I am 9000% times more interested in Fireland culture and the culture of (Little Fireland?) than 90% of the movie.
An engaging world full of style, that shows you can still have adult characters in a stylized world full of punch and flashy appearance.
An impressive twist on what you think it might be, with enough grounded heart to resonate across demographics.
Quite spoiler heavy.
I felt that the filmmakers were under the pressure to do something so much bigger, so much more bombastic than the first movie, which was a surprise hit, that the movie kind of falls under its own weight.
We know there's going to be a third part, coming out sometime next year (thank goodness they were smart enough to make both of these movies at the same time) but it's really just the story lines that, are good, they don't have enough room to breathe. Well, they do, that's what makes the movie a lot longer than it really needed to be.
I will say I love Daniel Pemberton's score for this, and the variety that still has a link to the droning theme that usually signifies triumph in this world. A lot of his scores are still on rotation for me, especially Founders Pier from Birds of Prey.
The first movie had some original songs by some people, and those songs were interspersed in the movie equally. Here I think there's only about two or three in the first maybe 45 minutes and then I don't remember hearing any lyrical songs ever again.
They blended in, but they blended in almost a little too well. Now look, again, the filmmakers are smart enough to not try and go beat for beat like the original movie. Nothing was ever going to touch the what's up danger sequence.
I know this, you know this, they know this. So they didn't try to replicate it, which I definitely appreciate it, but even the songs I don't listen to from the original soundtrack, I remember what they're called. I remember the melody.
I don't remember any of the lyrical songs in this one.
For all the advertising that it got. The spiders society is a small part of the actual movie.
I definitely understand why you didn't want to have literally a thousand different variants of Spider-Man on screen for more than about 20 minutes.
But the spider society actually had the plot that we needed to focus on in the story, the plot of you don't necessarily need people to accept you, you don't need them to tell you who to be to be one of them so to speak.
That's the story that actually should have been told a bit more than. I don't want to say "whatever was they were doing ", because Gwen's story is actually really good in heartfelt, even though yes it does veer into the realm of copaganda. They definitely could have acknowledged the tie in on how miles treated the spot to how Miguel treated miles.
The movie is basically outside forces pushing upon miles and him doing little to push back until the 2099 chase sequence and beyond.
It's not better than the first one. It's not even my favorite movie of the year, but it is still a great, beautiful movie.
Halle is great, but I feel there's a bit less Ariel than we need underwater. We need a little more.
You can hate the man's theater kid personality, but Lin-Manuel Miranda is very good at what he does, and I am a fan of everything outside of Hamilton (Sans "The Room Where It Happens", that slaps).
I love "The Family Madrigal", "Dor Orugitas", "We Don't Talk About Bruno", and from "Vivo", "One of A Kind", "One More Song", "Inside Your Heart".
Here, he wrote several new songs for Eric, Scuttle (Oh no) and Sebastian (who already has the second best Disney song in "Under The Sea", so), but they're pretty good! I genuinely like the Scuttle and Sebastian duet.
Melissa McCarthy ATE, absolutely killed it in a good way.
I have it on somwhat good authority that a lot of this movie is not only inaccurate, it paints Joseph as a far more forgotten figure than he was, rewriting the story to reflect more contemporary racist than the flavor of racism he dealt with in his time in France.
I also completely forgot to write this until a week later, so that says that.
Yeah it's a little out of order.
As someone who is very familiar with both aspects this movie prides itself on (tech and dolls), it didn't scare me. I mean, it is PG-13, it's not like "Annihilation" or anything.
Honestly this review is 4 months late and the movie wasn't that impressive anyway. Did love the "Walk The Night" sequence.
After years of deliberation, hateration, holleration, in this dancery, finally, the moment has arrived -- The Super Mario Bros. are back in theaters, 30 years after their last disastrous outing.
For a time circa 2014 -- 2016, I really liked Chris Pratt. Those times are over, and I'm trying to not let my personal feelings about the man color my impression of his work. Unlike other people, I do admit that he is a voice actor, not particularly a good one, but at this point, after being in "The LEGO Movie", its sequel, and "Onward", he fits the bill.
But he's not awful. I forgot it was him after about 10 minutes. Miss Anya is worse. Peach gets some zingers that would be better with better delivery. Not everyone with a voice is a voice actor!
On the other side, I have been a Jack Black fan for nearly decades at this point and in the trailer, his Bowser does slip into comical accidentally, but here, it's 100% all the time. When it's menacing, whoo boy, I love it.
Somehow, the part I adored is the Jungle Kingdom? I am even less of a DK fan than I am a Mario fan (SEGA does what NINTENDON'T, of course), but Donkey Kong was probably my favorite.
In short, we have to talk about the elephant in the room; Is this better than either Sonic the Hedgehog Movie?
They're two different types of movies: Sonic movies have a narrative, as trite and clumsy as they are, and they integrate touches of Mobius into our world.
This is just straight up "OH I KNOW THAT," , "I RECOGNIZE THAT", and no story. If this had been a Sonic movie with all the references, it still would be very slight.
This is winning no awards (Except animation for characters at The Annies). This is getting no nominations.
I saw the Amazon Prime preview on March 19th -- For what used to be a "customer-centric company", they didn't do anything special besides advertise themselves. Hope they used the money they didn't spend to pay warehouse workers fairly.
Anyway, the movie is very approchable if you aren't familiar with the material. There's a few minutes in the middle where it can get a bit bogged down with fantasy names, but it moves on quickly, treating you to another stunning action sequence.
CGI can be a little patchy for the fantasy creatures, but the practical effects are amazing and truly well done.
The story is simple, and the DnD-ness serves as a setting, not the entire basis of the plot, which I will not spoil, as this movie does not come out for another 2 weeks.
If you have 2 hours to kill in the upcoming month (or if Mario is sold out), check it out.
It's carried by Lupita, because the narrative doesn't have the strongest punch to really get across its themes.
