Written by Tyrone BruinsmaSo earlier this year we had Shark Bait, another small scale shark thriller with the 47 Meters Down executive producers tag put on it. I wasn't holding my breath on it being amazing, but it was a fun enough ride and I enjoyed it. Now we've got The Reef: Stalked, a sequel to the genuinely excellent The Reef from 2010 with original director Andrew Traucki returning. But I was hesitant as his recent efforts in The Jungle from 2013 and Black Water: Abyss were not especially good. Still, The Reef is one of my favorite killer shark films so I was hoping this sequel would be good. How is it?
Yeah, I wasn't impressed. This is very similar to 2021's Great White, Black Water: Abyss and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged-a low budget killer shark thriller that's not well made enough to be Jaws, not fun enough to be Deep Blue Sea or The Meg and not willing to just be violent debauchery like Piranha 3D. I wish films like this would stop taking themselves so seriously, thinking they're either a Hitchcockian thriller or some life changing drama. The best killer shark films are Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, The Reef, The Shallows and The Meg. There's a few other fun ones like Shark Night or Bait 3D, but far too many are just generic with no ambitions and pretentions of being serious thrillers with a point. Your point is to be scary or fun, and it you're not scary...well you better be fun. Unfortunately, The Reef: Stalked (God that's an awkward name) is neither. While Shark Bait had good visuals, gore and was fully aware of its place as a B-movie thrill ride, this film believes it's some thing more. The film follows a group of girls going on an island hopping Kayaking trip after one of them finds her sister drowned by an abusive partner. No points for guessing the group ends up being pursued by an aggressive Great White and cliché boredom ensues. The film's needless dramatic set up feels very similar to Black Water: Abyss in providing nothing of value to the story, pretending to have value, getting in the way of the immediate danger and feeling token as hell. The death of the sister is represented as a scene (which the character never actually saw) wherein we see the partner strangle the sister in a bathtub and it frequently comes into the film in a rapidly edited mess to show the main character's fear. The again msot of the editing isn't that good. It's unintentionally hilarious in parts, which is something you don't want depictions of domestic abuse to do. Australia has had an increase in psychotic men abusing and killing their female partners...so for this film to make that kind of silly is a failure of intent as execution. Every scene of characters talking in dramatic tones might as well be white noise, which isn't something I'd say about Jaws or The Shallows. Even the original The Reef didn't have this pretention to high brow drama. So how's the actual shark stuff? Pretty bad. Despite being depicted as a normal animal like the first film, this creature acts relentlessly hostile. Considering the shark seems to exclusively target women and pursues our heroines, I'd almost say "It's a metaphor for abusive men"...but that sounds righteously pretentious even by my standards. There's dialogue that implies that, but I'm not gonna give this film credit for something that pointless in a film this bad. If that was their intention...that's kind of dumb. Like Jaws: The Revenge dumb. The film's pacing is really off kilter. I can't tell if this has a really long first or second act, or if act 3 starts at the mid-way point. It really just creates the sensation of waiting. Not dreading or anticipating, just waiting. Waiting for something interesting or different to happen. Waiting for the shark to just eat everyone so the film can be over. The original film worked thanks to its barebones set-up and constant tension, while still able to convey a clear 3 act story. This one just feels like it's bumbling around and only exists to feel the space of "Well we did a sequel to Black Water, might as well do a sequel to the shark one" for director Andrew Traucki. The film's laws of reality also don't apply well. Characters fly several meters after falling out of a boat, the shark teleports at random and one characters shark bite wounds look like a high school play's fake blood smeared on someone. It's not artistic enough to create unique kills and not willing to be more extreme enough to be gory. Like I said, be a proper terrifying thriller or just give us excessive gore and TnA. Plus while the shark is mostly portrayed by stock footage cleverly composed into the film, the times they use CGI is pretty terrible. One attack scene looks so bad I'm sure you'd get the same results using arrows made in Microsoft Word. The filmmaking itself isn't particularly special, with the film mostly feeling like the original, but with a high quality camera. It looks as generic as you can possibly get for the genre and there's nothing here you haven't seen. Most of the cast is just kind one note, to the point 3 out of the 4 heroines were hard to tell apart. The one bright note of the entire film is Ann Truong, a Vietnamese-Australian actress who's been in stuff like Hard Target 2 and the Netflix Cowboy Bebop show. She's the only one given enough visual and character distinction from everyone else to feel like an actual character instead of a stock archetype. It helps she's a great actress who is trying to somewhat elevate her role in the script. The team was clearly aiming to create the dynamic from The Descent, but did not get there. And the final climactic scene is just...eh. To compare: Jaws made me scared, tense, exhilarated and like I was among real people. The Reef: Stalked made me feel bored, confused, annoyed, baffled, irritated and angry. It's got one really good actress who deserves to be in better things and like one shark kill here. So while I'm not gonna call it the worst film of 2022...it's definetley one of the worst I've seen. 2/10
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Written by Tyrone BruinsmaI didn't see Jurassic World: Dominion in cinemas and when I heard that it was the worst reviewed film in the franchise, I was skeptical. I'm presently annoyed at the current film discourse where anyone's opinion can become the "popular" consensus-even if that person is an uniformed moron, grifting bigot or jaded fanboy. So, to all the critics and clickbait YouTube mongers who said this film was bad...please stop. If this was the worst film of the year (it's not) or the worst film of the franchise (nope) then you don't know jack about jack. Jurassic World: Dominion is probably one balance the best of the Jurassic World trilogy and the most consistently entertaining. And yes, the Extended Edition is a vastly superior animal compared to the theatrical cut. Can film critique, analysis and discourse get better instead of living in the age of memes, "woke cinema" and everything being the best or worst film ever.
Following from Fallen Kingdom's climax where dinosaurs no exist throughout the world, Dominion sees dinosaurs interacting with humans, taken for research by tech giant BioSyn, used in black market dealings and causing their usual chaos. Complications arise for Owen, Claire, Dr Grant, Dr Sattler and Ian Malcolm when locust swarms cause havoc on the world's food supply, and both human clone Masie and raptor Blue's offspring are kidnapped. What proceeds is a globetrotting adventure to save two young beings and stop a tech company's unintentional destruction of the planet. This is easily the most different feeling of the Jurassic Park franchise, was large chunks set in a snowy environment and feeling closer to a James Bond or Mission Impossible installment. That's fine with me, as one criticism the series has earned is feeling too similar with "Dinosaurs on an Island" being the mostly single note it plays. Seeing dinosaur rustling in the snow, raptor chases in a city and plenty other unique dinosaur set pieces are welcome additions to the franchise. The extended edition's biggest addition is the awesome prologue showing prehistoric Earth with dinosaurs before having Rexy smash up a drive-in theatre. It was removed from the theatrical film for feeling "too much like a Terrence Mallick film" (even though Eternals was that) and released as a preview online. I prefer this opening being in the film as it shows us something the series never has, it looks really cool an even gives Rexy a small arc. Despite our big loveable T-Rex being the star of the franchise, don't expect to see too much of her. This film is primarily relying on a variety of creatures from new raptors, dilophosaurus, a giant pterosaur, and some others I won't spoil. The somewhat breakneck pace and consistent set pieces keep the film from lagging. Jurassic World speed ran through its first act and Fallen Kingdom had an overly long and boring second act. Dominion manages to make the extended edition's 160 minute runtime never feel extraneous. The extended edition does add in more character beats and even a really fun mini-dino fight that I thoroughly enjoyed. The new and returning cast members do solid work, though I think Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm was a bit silly even by his standards. Maybe he could've sacrificed himself and been eaten at some point? My two favorite characters were new girl bosses with DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts and Dichen Lachman as Soyona Santos. Seriously, they should've been in more of the film. The biggest transformation for me was Claire's character: starting off this trilogy as a somewhat cold, business focused, child blindspotting character and this film seeing her in corporate espionage and caring about her surrogate daughter. The CGI and practical effects were great as always, with returning Jurassic World cinematographer John Schwartzman creating some fantastic visuals. There's a repeated motif of shadowy figures backlight by a monochrome light and it seriously works in creating gorgeous vistas. It's very hard to say this film is badly made, poorly shot or terrible to look at. I know the story and script is where most armchair screenwriters got their nuts in a twist, but there's only a few instances of "ok, that didn't need to be there" that bothered me. Was there stuff that I didn't like? I think the obvious "locusts as Plagues of Egypt" reference was fine, I just wished they were either scarier, impacted the moment-to-moment plot more, had a big set piece or got shown off like in the Exodus: Gods and Kings sequence. And not all of the comedy lands, but most blockbusters have that problem. I'm also a little disappointed the Indominus Rex/Indoraptor storyline didn't continue and Spinosaurus never got to return to the franchise. Also, there was one sequence involving caves that I wish was longer or came back again. But a number of long-standing series arcs come to a satisfying close as far as I'm concerned. I think the film community's devolving state is one reason why this film wasn't so well reviewed. The other problem is people forgetting what Jurassic Park is. Jurassic Park is not some high art, flawless masterwork of cinema; it's an amazingly perfect version of a B-Movie made by a filmmaker who understand filmmaking. The sequels have been at their best when continuing that ethos and finding new things to do. The Lost World was a very fun, but thematically different monster film than the original with great filmmaking. Jurassic Park 3 is the worst of the series because it's a story-less retread of prior ideas and suffered from Joe Johnston throwing the script out 6 weeks before filmmaking. Jurassic World was a fun, big, colorful B-Movie that attempted meta-commentary on itself which is better than nothing. And Fallen Kingdom might've been lopsided but was at its best during the gothic horror movie moments and looked incredibly. Dominion is not the worst of this franchise, it's not even the worst big budget film of the year (that's still Secrets of Dumbledore) and is pretty goddamn fun. Learn to enjoy films more people, because I'm started to get very tired of the raw nerve, no brain, cynically motivated hot takes. 8/10 Written by Tyrone BruinsmaIt's kind of amazing that since 1987, we haven't had a Predator every few years and instead we've had LONG stretches of just no Predator movies. And what's more disappointing is that most of the Predator movies aren't that great. The first one is a definitive B-Movie action/horror classic, not in a Godfather or Schindler's List sense, hell not even in an elevated B-Movie sense like Steven Spielberg's Jaws or Jurassic Park; Predator is just a great no BS action film with a solid premise of mixing Commando with a Slasher film.
And every installment has yet to be as close to that perfection. Predator 2 is fine, but it lacks the surprise the first one had and feels too formulaic. Alien VS Predator is actually a fun enough B-Movie, but it was primarily made for younger audiences. AVP: Requiem is terrible, just feels like a cheap rip-off with terrible lightning. Predators is mostly good, but runs out of steam in the final act when it was operating on a solid level. And Shane Black's The Predator suffered from too much plot, not enough story and getting shredded in editing and reshoots. But Prey is FINALLY where we get a Predator follow up that's as close to the original's greatness. Took them 35 years, but we got there. The premise is simple, a Predator comes to Earth back in 1719 and comes into contact with a Comache girl named Naru who is trying to prove herself as a hunter to her tribe. It's actually an intentionally minimalist set up and story so we can focus more on mood, environment, visual storytelling, blunt themes and awesome action/horror scenes. Prey is molded like a mood-piece, art house action film that's also super gory and badass like Rambo (2008), The Revenant (2015) or Annihilation (2018). It's a good fit for this franchise and means we don't have to get bogged down in lore, unnecessary dramatics or anything else. This is a lean, mean, well made thrill ride that lasts for 100 minutes and completely satisfies. The fact that this movie can just have our lead heroine and monster just travel, kill or work on their gear without dialogue and not feel slow is a testament to the filmmaking. The film was directed by Tan Trachtenberg, his second feature after the excellent 10 Cloverfield Lane from 2016. I've been waiting for a new feature from him, so I'm glad he got to work in this universe and produce a truly amazing piece of cinema. I assume he'll likely be offered some other big IP project like Marvel or Star Wars, although apparently he's making a TV series of Waterworld at the moment? Ok. He and cinematographer Jeff Cutter (Orphan, 10 Cloverfield Lane) have created what's easily the best looking film in the series since Predators. The film's use of long takes, framing, lighting, colors and atmospherics makes the world feel lived in and beautiful, all while keeping the effects to look genuinely amazing. The story Trachtenberg, and Jack Ryan and Treadstone TV producer Patrick Aison is very efficient. Like I said, this is a no fat action thriller with the goal of showing you its world, characters and action scenes. And this movie really does rock as an action film, with every single action scene being perfectly paced, shot and edited. The sound design is perfect in showing emotion or the bone crunching injuries, making you feel every hit or dreading the approaching Predator. And it is gory, to where I think it might be the goriest film in the franchise with blood just flying from everyone. I really do feel the team looked to The Revenant as their primary inspiration as far as how brutal every hit is. The Predator gets to use some new toys and modified classics, but feels genuinely powerful, monstrous, but not indestructible. My favorite part of the film is where the monster just slaughters a bunch French hunters in an ashy heath, but every action sequence feels brutal and awesome to watch play out. While every actor is doing a great job here, Amber Midthunder as the lead is a star turning role. She's done good work in Hell or High Water and the Legion tv series, but Prey shows her full range as an actor. She's strong, committed to the story, able to be funny and emotional-and will likely be in every blockbuster franchise. Trust me, she's going to appear in Fast and Furious, Marvel, Mission Impossible and the DC movie is Warner Brothers will stop setting itself on fire. She's a revelation here, another bright star in film who should take any role she wants. I also love how the film does explore Comache culture in an effective way, something I think more genre films should do. Portray cultures accurately, authentically and earnestly; but put it in a big genre film so it gets seen by as many people as possible. I know that the bigots and performative outrage grifters have already cried their tears about a Native American woman fighting a Predator and it either not being accurate to "lore" or just being a "woke Hollywood" move. Guys, please shut up. The first Predator film had its bad ass heroes never kill this thing with the biggest machine guns around, and Arnie had to get half naked to beat it. I'm pretty sure a badass warrior Comache can beat a Predator. This is an example of the Thermian Argument, where someone tries to use the laws in fiction to justify something (usually racism, sexism, bigotry, fascist idealization etc). In this case, they're trying to say women of color aren't allowed to kill a Predator...because they just hate women of color in general. Movies aren't about following the "rules" about a fake alien creature, it's about exploring characters, stories and ideas. The main themes this film plays with is the entire concept of Predator and Prey. There's numerous instances of hunting from humans and animals, a scene showing the slaughter of Buffalo, and LITERAL alien hunters. Is it blunt? Yes. Is that bad? No. This is the Predator franchise, it should be blunt in its messaging. It's still one of the most awesome films of the year, and if you're one of those sad weirdos letting the existence of a Native American woman keeping you from enjoying that...well...you might not deserve to enjoy anything. Short summary: it's awesome-watch it on whatever streaming service you can. I'm not sure if it's better than the original yet, but everything else that came before hasn't been this close. 10/10 Written by Tyrone BruinsmaSo I was pretty excited for the 2022 slate of Pixar films. Turning Red looked to be something unique and turned out to be my favorite Pixar film since WALL E. But I was most excited for Lightyear, the film within a film to show what the toy Buzz Lightyear was based on. Considering how the Toy Story franchise started out as this "weird experiment" everyone thought would fail in the mid-90s (because Hollywood says everything new is bad until it makes million and then they copy to no end) and soon became a license to print money on screen and in merchandising-I was hoping to enjoy Lightyear. The trailers looked good, I liked the aesthetic and overall it seemed like a good idea.
Also, if you're one of the homophobic bigots or disingenuous grifters who pretended to be outraged that this film had a cute lesbian couple and said "oh it'll confuse the children and should be rated for adults only" or "It's Pixar gone full groomers SJW woke" or whatever nonsense. Let me put this very clear: shut up, you're bad people and need to evolve or go away. LGBTQIA+ relationships in kids media don't confuse children, but your bigotry harms them. So if you cried over this, cry more you pathetic troglodyte losers and no I will not apologize. But when the film came out, there was very little excitement, the box office wasn't so hot and regular human beings who weren't triggered about a single gay kiss weren't super happy. After seeing it, I can confirm that Lightyear is a disappointment unfortunately. As much as I wanted to like it, Turning Red will easily be the better animated film by the end of the year. Let's get the good out of the way, the film is animated and directed beautifully. The use of color, lighting, weight of characters and somewhat new aesthetic for Pixar is excellent. There's lots of visual references to more classic sci-fi such as the Star Wars and Alien franchises as opposed to more modern works. I like Chris Evans as Buzz Lightyear, his vocal performance giving us a rather nuanced version of the character that the main series avoided. I know some were angry Tim Allen didn't return, but Tim Allen decided to bite the right wing bullet (even saying that being a Republican in Hollywood was like being a Jew in the Holocaust. Gross) so I don't really have an issue. Most of the other cast members do a good job, notably Keke Palmer, Uzo Aduba and Peter Sohn. Peter Sohn is a highlight as Sox, the robot cat Buzz has along for most of his journey who is just a great character. But aside from the score also being good, the main issue with this film is the story and pacing. Before I get to that, I sadly have to say that Taika Waititi is a painfully unfunny character. I know he's a contentious "comedy sidekick character" in the Marvel films, but Korg is far funnier than his the work and character he has in Lightyear. His character's written trait as "clumsy" is mostly fine, but I have a feeling many of the weak verbal "jokes" were his adlibs. Whether they were written or improvised and animated: I was cringing every time. But the film's story, pacing and flow is what bugs me the most about it. The premise is Buzz and...actually they never quite establish if it's a research, expedition or colonizing team clearly, so that's a problem. But basically Space Ranger Buzz and a group of people are stranded on a hostile planet and need to create a fuel for lightspeed to get off world. But something happens after the initial test and Buzz slowly brings himself into conflict. Needless to say, the film moves fast when it needs to slow down and slow when it needs to be fast. Clearly a lot of editing has been done (as the lesbian kiss scene was edited out and then back in) with many scenes/shots removed. And while its action scenes are well animated and technically follow the "Haystack Principle" of reversals: they're way too short. I'm going to have to spoil the rest of the plot before I get in so if you need a score. 5/10 SPOILERS AHEAD Ok, so part of the problem with this film is its first act, third act, action scenes and important character beats fly at a breakneck pace. The film quickly establishes that the test flights for their new fuel source constantly result in Buzz traveling 4 years into the future for what is only mere minutes for him. At first this is a big moment for him to adjust to, but then we rapidly fire into a montage where he watches his friend's entire life in snippets. If the film wasn't in such a hurry, it would've given us more air to breathe in Buzz doing this. His "Finish the Mission" philosophy isn't tackled as much as it should be considering how crucial it eventually becomes. Eventually, Buzz travels so far into the future that he has to team up with his best friend's grand daughter to save his team from alien robots serving the villain Zurg. Now, I will say I love the design of Zurg and enjoy every time he's on screen. But Zurg's character reveal is a problem. In Toy Story 2, Zurg reveals he's Buzz's father. But in a somewhat unnecessary attempt to subvert that, Zurg is revealed...to be Buzz himself. Zurg is a Buzz who decided to travel so far into the future that he found some advanced tech and attempt to travel back in time to reverse all his mistakes. Neat idea, even if MANY films have done this better. The problem is that Lightyear the film, never establishes HOW that's possible. There's no established "Marvel Alternate Timelines" concept, this is somehow another Buzz that did something that only makes sense with alternate timelines. If the reveal was truly Buzz's father got lost in space and turned into a villain, I think that would have been better. As it stands, I'm not really impressed. I know the film is intended for kids and I guess designed to resemble dumb mid-90s sci-fi action films that kids would like (Stargate, Street Fighter etc), but they didn't complicate themselves this much. The script is just undercooked, overcomplicated and has far too much emphasis in the wrong places. It needed more moody scenes, less desire to be in a hurry and probably should've been kept with whatever cut was originally intended. There's also two really bad/annoying versions of "Set Up and Pay Off" that were overplayed, annoying and obvious. The action scenes are way too short, the pacing is uneven and needed more breathing room, and I just didn't end up enjoying the story told. Great animation, direction, score and cast cannot save a lackluster story. Kids will probably love the film and I know that most critic reviews are lukewarm, but positive-but I just don't think I'll watch this again. Is Lightyear a bad film because of a same sex kiss? No, and if you think that-you're a bad person and need educational help. Is it really a bad film? Not necessarily, but it's a disappointing and mediocre film. There's definetley good stuff here, but I'm not going to recommend it as anything more than content filler for kids. Sorry Pixar, nice attempt guys. Written by Tyrone BruinsmaSo this is a big improvement over the first film. Let's not mince words here people, the first 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film was kind of bad. The initial terrible design that was probably cooked up by a producer and lying market research team was soundly rejected by everyone, with the studio forcing CGI artists into crunch to redesign Sonic into good and the film at its best is barely ok. That film felt like a more action heavy version of the live action Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks or Smurfs movies. But it was a big hit because this was the "best" family friendly blockbuster before Covid hit and there was this dumb fake culture war between it and Birds of Prey. Because yes internet, Sonic the Hedgehog-a movie made for kids is completely comparable to the ultra violent Harley Quinn spin-off.
Anyway, the good thing is the sequel is not only better-but genuinely good. Now that the creatives have shown the Paramount producers and executives that if you make a Sonic the Hedgehog film actually look and feel like a Sonic the Hedgehog story-people will like it and it will still print money. So this film is basically a big nostalgic bearhug from the same studio that's rebooting their Transformers universe to appeal to G1 fans. Following on from the last film, Sonic is the adopted son to Green Hills police chief Tom Wachowski and his wife Maddie while Dr Robotnik is stranded on the mushroom planet. But no sooner than Tom and Maddie head off to Hawaii for Maddie's sister Rachel's wedding does Robotnik return with a new enemy Knuckles the Echidna to face Sonic. Luckily, a new ally in Tails the genius fox helps Sonic go on an adventure to figure out Sonic's connection to Knuckles, but also stop the bad guys utilizing the Master Emerald. It's a pretty basic story, cleverly using the better parts of the original film and what you can easily get in entertainment value out of the 2D Sonic game characters. Jim Carrey as Robotnik was the only consistent good in the first film and here, he's even more a riot. His character and arsenal resemble the classic Sonic villain more than the first's generic drones and he's clearly having fun. The rest of the human cast gets a lot more to do in terms of being entertaining and engaging. But it's Sonic, Knuckles and Tails who are easily the best part of the film. Ben Schwartz continues to be a good Sonic, with this film giving him more to do and react against. Veteran voice actress Colleen O'Shaughnessey who has been Tails since 2014 is excellent and a reminder that Hollywood doesn't need to always cast celebrities for these role (*Cough* Zendaya as Lola in Space Jam: Legacy *Unconvincing cough*), but it's Idris Elba as Knuckles who steals the show. Knuckles has been somewhat inconsistent in the Sonic series (though the games themselves are consistently inconsistent) and here he's basically James Gunn and Dave Bautista's incarnation of Drax from the Guardians of the Galaxy films. He's a very earnest, no nonsense action hero himbo and I like that. Idris has been a great vocal talent before (Modern Warfare 3, Zootopia, The Jungle Book 2016) and Knuckles is easily my favorite of his. This version of Knuckles is intimidating as a foe for Sonic, but not one note and certainly with plenty to grow for the upcoming sequel and miniseries. The action scenes are genuinely excellent here, easily outpacing the snooze-fest beats of the original. The opening has a police car chase/robbery that outshines a similar scene in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the 3 Sonic V.S Knuckles clashes are great (with the 3rd being my favorite of the film) and the blow out finale is just ridiculously fun. It's also incredibly well made, with Jeff Fowler more than proving he's a contender in the modern blockbuster sphere-maybe he should do a Howard the Duck movie for Marvel? I will say Brandon Trost is an interesting cinematographer choice, after all-picking the cinematographer of Crank: High Voltage, Halloween 2, That's My Boys, The Lords of Salem, This is the End, Neighbors, The Interview, The Disaster Artist and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile for your blockbuster animated kids film isn't a usual transition, but Trost has made a great looking film and is even shooting the James Gunn produced Coyote V.S Acme project for Warner Brothers. And I love the music by Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL) whose done many of my favorite modern scores including Max Max: Fury Road, Batman V Superman and Godzilla V.S Kong. This movie didn't need to do too much to be good, and achieved all the notes it did. The only surprise for me was one small twist that make one minor subplot not so in-significant to the plot. The only minor issues would be some things never getting explained or minor coincidences: but I'm more than happy to look over those. Also I will say it is nice for this film to have multiple black characters with their own personalities, dynamics with each other and not feel cliché. Seriously, there's a small bit where Tika Sumpter and Natasha Rothwell have their own mini-movie inside this movie and I loved it. Plus, plus the humor is far superior to the original's and I found myself audibly laughing. Even minor actors and supporting players in this film have fun scenes and interplay with other characters. But it doesn't stop the film from having a decent moral core that feels very Sonic. At the end of the day, it's a lot of fun. If you're watching as a family or Sonics fans-you'll enjoy this. I think even audiences who've never heard of Sonic will like this. Clearly the first one was good enough for people to say "ok, I'll have some more" and audiences clearly loved this one. It's definetley not the best of the year, but one I'll probably revisit a lot as the year goes on. 8/10 MILD SPOILER WARNING Oh and no prizes for guessing the mid-credits stinger shows Shadow the Hedgehog will be in the next film. I guessed that the moment a sequel was announced, but Shadow was not confirmed. We're in the age of marketing to fans and making them want more. Shadow the Hedgehog is probably the most popular character in the entire fandom-so of course they would tease him at the end of this film so fans would salivate for the 3rd one. Want a big brain theory? Ok, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will literally be Batman V Superman or Godzilla V.S Kong...but Sonic. Sonic and Shadow will fight each other a few times, but they're reconcile their differences just in time for whoever the bad guy puppeteer in the sequel is to unleash Metal Sonic. Oh and Amy Rose will probably be there too so Sonic can have a cute romance subplot and they can pull comedy and fanservice from that. That makes sense to me, introduce 3 popular characters into your 3rd Sonic film and at the end have...I don't know, the Chaotix Detectives or Rouge shows up at the end for part 4. Both would work, The 3 Stooges at Detectives, but they're a Crocodile, Bee and Chameleon is a license to print comedy gold. And having the sexy Catwoman but a Bat character show up to flirt with himbo Knuckles would be entertaining as hell. The first film made me worried about more Sonic films, this one makes me excited. Written by Tyrone BruinsmaAs far as the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes, Thor has been the weirdest in terms of working out solo efforts. Arguably being better suited to the Avengers team up films as the goofy, earnest power house thunder God-his solo efforts have been the least consistent in tone, style and quality. The first film back in 2011 by Shakespearian classicist Kenneth Branagh was a slightly uneven, if fun riff on the 80's Flash Gordon and Masters of the Universe films. The 2013 Dark World sequels suffered from director Patty Jenkins being forced out, Natalie Portman's disinterest, overly gritty tone, The Avengers making better use of him and largely only existing to set up one Infinity Stone that is better unexplained. But Taika Waititi, the New Zealand comedian behind Flight of the Concords, What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople brought a new and clearly defined style with 2017's Thor: Ragnarok. Ragnarok fully adopted the goofy 80's sci-fi action comedy mold while also being a thematically rich experience that discussed themes of anti-colonialism.
5 years later, Waititi has returned to do more or less the same job with Thor: Love and Thunder, even managing to bring Natalie Portman's Jane Foster back as Mighty Thor from the 2010's comic book iteration. If you enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok, you'll most likely enjoy it. But the largely divided response of the film from fans, nay-sayers and general audiences reads a lot like Marvel has it's own version of the Tim Burton Batman movies. As in Thor: Ragnarok (1989's Batman) is the universally beloved film by a unique director, but it's follow up is a more striking vision by the same director-though slightly unbalanced and all the negatives and positives cranked up (1992's Batman Returns). But in the same way that Burton's Batman sequel divided audiences, Thor: Love and Thunder is sure to be some people's favorite MCU film and anger a lot of others in equal measure. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good film-not as strong as its prior film (or even some of the more recent Marvel entries) but has some great laughs, emotional beats and visuals to still be the standard for this series. The story follows Thor in his post-Endgame stint in doing galaxy saving with Starlord's Guardians, but when Christian Bale's Gorr The God Butcher starts knocking off Gods across the Galaxy-Thor has to face this threat with Korg and King Valkyrie, with Jane Foster's newly developed Thor persona complicating matters. The story is a rather brisk 2 hour adventure that really does feel like the 80's sci-fi influences in the visuals, score and mostly goofy atmosphere. And despite that, it has some emotional powerhouse moments and rather dark scenes for what's one of the breeziest Marvel films. Obviously, the film has been edited down from a much longer film-but not necessarily to its detriment. While characters and establishing scenes have been cut, it's made the film feel less like a slog that some Marvel films have been considered. By now Christ Hemsworth embodies the character of Thor so well, Marvel might as well let him license his version for his own use. Thor has always been his best in the MCU as a big hearted, funny and emotional character instead of a stoic badass and this film keeps reminding us of that. All the returning players commit themselves admirably, with Tessa Thompson's gay Valkyrie unfortunately being underutilized to the point "Queerbaiting" has become a criticism. Considering Thompson herself said her character was looking for a Queen and there's only two brief inclusions of it-I don't blame fans wanting more. Natalie Portman's return of Jane as Mighty Thor is a breath of fresh air as the story allows her to be the emotional core of the film instead of a tacked on afterthought. Russell Crowe as the mythologically accurate Greek God Zeus steals the show in the middle part of the film, making me hope he sticks around in this universe. But it's Christian Bale's villainous performance that steals the show and honestly becomes the scariest MCU villain to date. While everyone else is playing the film in some degree of comedy, Bale commits Gorr the God Butcher to being an emotionally clear, vicious and terrifying villain who overwhelms the scenes he inhabits. He's like a mix between a classic Universal Monster, the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal and the boogeyman. He's so good that I honestly think his performance here is better than the 3 Dark Knight films as a whole. Bold claim I know, but that's how good Bale is here. What's clear is that Gorr the God Butcher will go down as one of Marvel's best villains alongside Loki, Killmonger and Thanos easily. The most interesting part of Thor: Love and Thunder is what it aims to achieve narratively, emotionally and thematically. The CGI is good, the action scenes are fun and the music hits the right notes-but the film's journey for its characters and audiences interested me most. The opening is easily the bleakest and darkest initial scene in the franchise since Infinity War, setting up Gorr in a tragic yet gripping manner. The film deals with the disassociation of "Gods" and mortals in this universe, themes of toxic and internalized self destruction, with our characters being made to confront the concept of why they're fighting. To give too much away would be spoilers, but the general premise starts off with "If Gods don't care about us, why does anything matter?" obviously develops into "We choose what matters to us, regardless of what Gods say". Which is a new angle from the team who let the violent colonial nation of Azgard be destroyed because redemption is hard to achieve in that state. I feel like the more people examine this film's intent instead of its CGI missteps, the more they'll find an artistic appreciation for it. Is Thor: Love and Thunder the most amazing film this year? No. I think that out of all the Phase 4 Marvel films, it's only better than the still solid Black Widow film. None of the Phase 4 MCU pictures are bad, I just think that after slam-dunks like Shang Chic and No Way Home, and risks like Eternals and Multiverse of Madness-I wish Love and Thunder was either more ambitious in one aspect or another. It's still a really fun time and will probably remain on my best of list for the rest of the year. 8/10 Written by Tyrone BruinsmaIt's kind of crazy to think the Russo Brothers went from directing comedy shows like Arrested Development and Community, to 4 of the biggest and best MCU films and now just have the ability to get any project off the ground as producers or directors. Having produced the well received action film Extraction for Netflix back in 2020, they got a $200 Million cheque from the streaming service to direct an adaptation of the 2009 spy novel The Gray Man. Considering Netflix's lackluster cinematic action outings recently with Red Notice and Interceptor: how does this one hold up?
Honestly, it's pretty damn good. I consider it even an improvement from Extraction in that the story is better on top of action at the same caliber. Honestly, I'm surprised as the lukewarm reception the film has received considering Red Notice received better reviews and this being a far superior work. It's not going to outshine the Brothers' Marvel work, nor the best spy films of the 21st Century like Casino Royale, Mission Impossible Fallout or Tenet-but it's a well crafted and mostly well told action film that you can enjoy. The best way I can describe it is a more serious/tonally consistent version of Michael Bay's 6 Underground without his maverick insanity or an actually good successor to the Bourne film series, . Ryan Gosling stars as Sierra 6, a convict turned off the books CIA operative who goes rogue after a mission reveals he's likely now a target. With the CIA struggling to track down and deal with this agent, they bring in Chris Evans as a discharged ex-agent who is a psychopath with a love of torture. This gives us a well made break neck pace plot that jumps around the globe for a decent conspiracy story, fun action beats and banter between a plethora of good actors. The movie is on par with Michael Bay's Ambulance of the same year, a non-stop action ride where even though you've been through this routine before-you're here for the quality of the ride. Like true genre appreciators, I don't mind a somewhat formulaic ride if it's done well. If the action or editing was bad, I could understand the critics shrugging this one off. But the action scenes are all really well made; great stunt choreography, variety in action beats, they're not overly long or overly short, scene geography is handled well, editing is solid, Stephen F. Windon's cinematography is good and the Russo's (like Bay) have decided to play with drones for some fun shots. Like I said, The Gray Man won't dethrone their Marvel work-but the freedom from Marvel has given them more room for creative shots, lighting and set pieces without going crazy. The best scenes include an opening party sequence, an airplane brawl and a public shootout turned tram chase; the latter reminding me of Michael Mann's Heat street shootout and the better sequences of the Call of Duty franchise. If you're arching for a good fun action ride, this movie will certainly deliver. Ryan Gosling has been great in every genre from drama (First Man), comedy (The Nice Guys), art house thrillers (Only God Forgives), but isn't appreciate much for his action work. Drive and Blade Runner 2049 aren't technically action films, but do show his skills in that genre. Here, he's basically MacGyver and Jason Bourne in one while carrying a dry James Bond style wit and it works. Similarly, while Chris Evans cemented his role as Steve Rogers in the MCU-Scott Pilgrim V.S The World, Knives Out and The Gray Man showcase his ability to play more villainous characters is untapped potential. Seriously, DC should hire him to play a villain in their movies because he'd kill it. Ana De Armas returns to the spy genre after her great role in the disappointing No Time to Die as the more serious spy heroine and does well here. I really hope her career trajectory grows and she's able to show off her skills in the upcoming Blonde biopic and whichever franchises she's offered. The rest of the supporting cast is rounded off by character actors who add texture to the world in an enjoyable way. Last year we had a bunch of disappointing big budget action films with The King’s Man, Snakes Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, Fast and Furious 9, No Time to Die, Red Notice, The Tomorrow War, Infinite all failing reach satisfactory entertainment for me. There were certainly good action films last year too, but it was a shame to see so many that are usually decent entertainment at least fall short. The Gray Man doesn't fail to meet my expectations, it actually succeeded them as I was worried it would be disappointing. It's not going to be the best of the year (The Batman, Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Northman still take those prizes so far), but it's easily one of the best non-superhero action films for a while. Michael Bay's Ambulance is still the superior action ride because Bay's pure action skill trumps the Russo's budget, but I don't think anyone should be too upset with this film. If you have Netflix already, it's worth the 2 hour ride. 7/10 Written by Tyrone BruinsmaA niche storytelling concept that has found its way into the mainstream popularity is that of the "multiverse" theory, a belief that there is an infinite number of universes and many films/tv shows have been using that for some great stories. Marvel has had Loki, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange go through various universes, the still upcoming Flash film is set to do the same and the still somewhat popular cartoon Rick and Morty made the concept almost un-special. But leave it to the directors behind Swiss Army Man to make the best version of that ambitious idea with Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Starring Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn; a stubborn, scatterbrained laundry shop owner who upon needing to file a tax audit with the IRS is pulled into an inter-dimensional battle for reality with her family. Giving more plot would ruin the fun, needless to say the story is superior than a lot of the comparisons I've laid out. If you've seen the Loki series, Rick and Morty, Into the Spiderverse or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness-this won't be too complex. The film itself feels like if you combined an emotionally mature version of Rick and Morty, Tenet and Buckaroo Banzai in a remake of The One. Does anyone remember that movie? The 2001 Jet Li multiverse sci-fi action from the creators of the first Final Destination in an attempt to rip-off The Matrix? Yeah it still sucks (I checked recently), but this film is how you fully tackle that kind of story properly. The entire cast is pitch perfect here. Michelle Yeoh has mostly played bad-ass action heroines and this film seeks to not only give her the richest character she's ever played, but also somewhat parody her iconic persona to great effect. She's able to play off scenes of comedy, action, drama and absurdist humor gags without missing and beat, so I hope come Oscar seasons she'll either be nominated or receive support for being snubbed. Seriously, she's REALLY good here. Ke Huy Quan (Short Round from Temple of Doom) as her supportive husband gives a career defining performance as just...the sweetest and most wholesome human who is kind of the soul of the film. James Hong shows up and while he's not given a ton to work with, it's James Hong and he's an icon for a reason. Other supporting players like Jamie Lee Curtis and Jenny Slate also show up to clean house, but the star for me is Stephanie Hsu as Evelyn's daughter Joy. She's given the most material to work with in the film starting out as a recently open lesbian daughter to...well that would be spoiling. Needless to say, she's the biggest powerhouse performance and I hope she not only gets recognized at the Oscars alongside Michelle, but also goes on to be the lead in her own works. The main reason the film works is the synchronicity between Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert backed by A24. These work so well, you'd swear they were a single entity. Not since Phil Lord and Christopher Miller has there been this level of co-creative chemistry, and hopefully they don't get screwed over on a big budget film (*Cough* Solo: A Star Wars Story *Cough*). The film manages broad comedy, Kung Fu action, crazy sci-fi story elements, absurdist humor and pure emotional heart in a way many more experienced filmmakers would struggle with. Everyone involved from studio, to creators, to crew, to cast were fully committed to this bonkers, but totally earnest story and it's great to not only see the film be praised, but also be A24's most successful film at over $106 Million. The real winning factor of the film is it exploring the multiverse concept to its fullest. First it's played for laughs and action, then it gets into the very cliché arthouse nihilism that most films end on and then jumps to a point of emotional maturity that supersedes much of its competition. If there's one thing that shows why Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Everything Everywhere All at Once utilize the concept so well-it's human emotions. It's relatively easy to use infinite universes for action scenes, comedy, franchise fan service/management and detached nihilism-it's harder to make it work in a pure human sense. I think that's why Rick and Morty burnt out as a series and with its fanbase: it was so committed to nihilistic "nothing matters" logic to the point the series itself was inconsequential. But Everything Everywhere All at Once wants to be about the small human matters of who we are and how those feel as big as infinite universes. For all the action, sci-fi mumbo jumbo and insanely funny comedy-it's probably going to be the most emotional story of 2022 more than any "serious" film will achieve. I'm mostly happy that globalization has allowed Asian cinema, Asian filmmakers and Asian audiences to truly be seen. To embrace of Chinese action films and Japanese horror in the 90s has allowed K-Dramas and K-Pop to be some of the most popular media in the west and for Anime to be one of the most viewed content in the world. Films largely made by Asian creators and culturally tuned to Asian audiences like Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite, Raya and the Last Dragon, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Turning Red and this film show that language barriers and cultural divides are dissipating. I know the paranoid, racist and stupid will see it as some conspiracy; but the world's embrace of other cultures and stories besides White/Western imposed on so many is a good thing. I want to see more unique and culturally diverse films like this come out as big hits. This is good for cinema and society as a whole. Long story short, this is a must watch and easily one of the best films of the year. 10/10 Written by Tyrone BruinsmaIt's almost weird to thing that despite being a major player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we haven't had a pure Doctor Strange movie in 6 years. It feels weird but he's showed up in 4 other movies since then and ties to him are everywhere in this universe. So Doctor Strange has the difficult task of being not just a sequel to Doctor Strange from 2016, but also the last two Avengers films, Spider-Man: No Way Home and the WandaVision tv series. And it's really damn good.
The original film was horror specialist Scott Derrickson getting a second chance at blockbuster scale filmmaking after The Day The Earth Stood Still remake didn't do to well. That film dove right into the character's psychedelia comics origin and was a solid Iron Man/Ant-Man but now with a wizard structure. Derrickson was supposed to return, but dropped out due to creative differences. Luckily he's got Black Phone out this year and that's a return to form horror film for him. In his place we got Sam Raimi of the Evil Dead and Tobey Maguire Spider-Man Trilogies returning to the superhero genre in his first directorial effort in 9 years. And seriously, Sam Raimi makes this film work so well it makes you wonder why he stepped away from the director's chair for so long. He brings a flavor to the Marvel films we haven't in forever: using tilts, zoom ins, whip pans and early 2000's crazy editing to make easily the best directed and visualized film in the MCU. The plot itself sees Dr Stephen Strange thrown back into the multiverse after a teenager drops into his universe. She's being hunted for her ability to hop across the multiverse seemingly at random by monsters who it turns out are entities made by Wanda aka The Scarlet Witch. Wanda wants to kill this teenagers and absorb her powers to jump into another universe where she can be with the children she's never really had. It's basically a blown up and expansive version of the ideas at play in Spider-Man: No Way Home, giving us a view of multiple worlds and multiple Stephens. The cast is fantastic here. Benedict Cumberbatch has that continued sense of seriousness/sarcasm Robert Downey Jnr's Iron Man had, Benedict Wong continues to be a vital piece of the universe, newcomer Xochitl Gomez as the teleporting child America Chavez carries her own and many new/returning players all do their jobs well. But Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch steals the show from everyone. She's been on the verge of having her big showy role in this series ever since Age of Ultron and while WandaVision gave her the emotional depth-Multiverse of Madness makes her an icon. Raimi and Olsen play up Scarlet as a terrifying, yet immensely sympathetic villain-probably understanding the baseline character more than anyone has so far. She's played up as a classic evil witch who wants to take over the world, arrives from the skies as a monster and kills people to abduct a young girl. It reminds you why Raimi was so interested in giving a prequel to The Wizard of 0z back in 2013. There's actually possible subtext to be read in here as Wanda is a mentally unwell white women trying to murder a Latino girl (wearing an LGBTQIA+ pride flag pin) for an idolized 1950's American home. Regardless, Olsen is the character to see this movie for. Raimi's skill also comes into the action scenes, both in a directorial sense and creativity in action scenes. He uses reversals, creative powers, varied action scenes and some gruesome finishes to keep the tension going. Some people said this pushed the limits of PG-13 violence and was closer to a horror film. I wouldn't go that far, it's more akin to a horror themed sci-fi action film like an expanded Doctor Who episode. Some of kills, finishers and horror themed ideas are truly nutty and gnarly stuff. I imagine anyone under the age of 9/8 seeing this film might've had their version of Gremlins. One of my favorite creative sequences in the film is two magic using characters literally fighting with musical notes and the music matching. It's great to see Danny Elfman and Raimi working together again, with Elfman outshining the score he did in Age of Ultron by miles. I won't say Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is one of the best Marvel films, but it's definetley a very good one. There's not a lot wrong with it and the creativity on display with the filmmaking and horror elements is easily some of my favorite work in this franchise. It's an improvement over the solid original and I'm looking forward to see what else comes to our friendly wizard, but after Shang Chi and Eternals-I think the 4th Phase of the MCU has stepped up. Totally worth seeing still. 8/10 Written by Tyrone BruinsmaSo Morbius has been thoroughly labelled a failure in terms of cinema for 2022 by film goers, critics, the internet and possible film studios themselves. As a spin-off to Sony's Venom film in I guess what is their Spider-Man Villain Universe, Morbius is Jared Leto Dr Frankenstein-ing himself into a vampire based on the Spider-Man villain. The film was originally supposed to come out in the Summer of 2020 after reshoots, but Covid pushed it all the to March 2022. It was roundly stomped by critics and largely ignored by audiences. After that, the film took on life as an internet meme immediately with a fake quote "It's Morbin Time" taking off like wild fire. Then weird Snyder Cultists tried to say there was a conspiracy against the film because of Jared Leto's role as Joker in the Snyderverse and...yeah that's stupid. And because of the memes, a lot of someone's at Sony decided to re-release the film-believing there was a demand for it...and it bombed at the box office. So, most of the terribleness of the film has existed outside the film itself; but what's the actual merits outside of that?
For context, I actually like both the Venom films (despite the critical dislike by many) and the final product of Morbius is...not as bad as I've heard. Don't get me wrong, this thing is a mess. In the 2 years Sony has had this, it's clearly been hacked from a 2+ hour film down to just over 100 minutes. Going by the trailers, there's probably around 15 scenes that have been either cut or trimmed down. Even before double checking lost trailer footage; the film is not only missing pieces by the sense of jumping around and missing context/set ups, but also has probably been restructured. The result is a film that starts with the inciting incident as a prologue before having another less impactful inciting incident later. It's the closest thing to Sony's own version of Suicide Squad or Fant4stic, in that it wasn't that good a product and they needed to strip it down. But it's got enough good stuff that I almost want to compare to an indie production nightmare like Neon Maniacs from the 80s. I say the film probably wasn't that great due to the screenwriters. The script was penned by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless and I've not been a fan of their work. While they've done a decent job for the Netflix Lost in Space reboot, their film work has been very poor. Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter and Gods of Egypt were all their penmanship and the scripts were really bad on those films. A lot of the humor from the film appears to have been cut, but the remaining parts were not good. Al Madrigal is clearly trying his best to make the comedy character work, but he's just not able to. The story overall doesn't flow as it's mostly just Jared Leto as Morbius trying not to drink blood or hurt people. Jared Leto has become a bizarre creature in real life. He has a cult, supposedly did things with a minor and for this film-used crutches to stay in character and waste everyone's time. He's fine in the role, but he's underplaying a character who needs Nicolas Cage or Gary Oldman scenery chewing. The rest of the cast is also fine, with Matt Smith clearly knowing what film he's in and loving every minute of it. What I actually like about the film is its production craft. Daniel Espinosa has done solid work before with Safe House and 2017's Life and has been circling the superhero genre for some. His alien horror films Life was actually rumored to be a possible Venom backdoor prequel due to Sony's involvement, the alien creature story and even one of the trailer's having unused Spider-Man 3 footage. This obviously wasn't the case, but he was also considered for the Suicide Squad sequel before that slot became filled. His direction is solid, clearly having a visual goal for achieving the films neon gothic look and the vampiric powers. It helps he has Oliver Wood as cinematographer, a man who started with junkie b-movies like Q The Winged Serpent before shooting films like Die Hard 2, Face/Off and The Bourne Supremacy. And while the structural editing is a mess, the moment to moment editing is pretty dang solid. I liked a lot of the action and horror scenes, clearly drawing from classic iconography of the genre. I like the score and also like the neon opening and closing credits, so I think writing the film off as a complete failure is a little extreme. The end-credit scenes with Michael Keaton as The Vulture are pretty sloppy. The final scene was clearly part of the reshoots. I wouldn't mind if Drew Goddard's Sinister Six movie finally happened with Vulture, Morbius, Venom, Kraven and whoever is one the table or in the cards. I do think it's a shame to hear that because of this film, studios think audiences don't want vampire movies now. While we've got Chris McKay's comedy horror Renfield starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula next year, there's been reports of Robert Egger's Nosferatu remake and Karyn Kusama's Dracula installment of the new Universal Monsters Series being scrapped. Studios honestly think that when they sell a product and people hear it's a product...that it's not the quality of the product that made people leave, but some random other element. Like when Catwoman and Elektra were bombs in the mid-2000s, studios assumed people didn't like super heroines instead of those films just not being good. Morbius isn't gonna set the world on fire and Sony may just dump all of its Spider-Man projects to Marvel's hands if Kraven The Hunter and Madame Web bomb. I wouldn't mind seeing the Vampire return for Sinister Six...if they do and Edward Norton/Mark Ruffalo swap. I've seen worse movies this year, 3 of them from Netflix. So yeah, Morbius. It's a fun enough watch. 7/10 |
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