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Reviews
Road House (2024)
Not Awful
TLDR; Not bad, except McGregor. He's just horrendous
I'll start by saying I'm not a big fan of the original. I loved it when I was younger, but when this movie was announced I rewatched it. It's pretty rough.
Anyway, this is a decent enough movie if you can put any belief aside and also put up with Connor McGregor. God he is AWFUL in this. But it kinda works because so is his character. Hollywood, please.dont out him in anything else....
I started watching thinking I'd probably ditch it at some stage, but gyllenhall does a great job and some of the other cast members are good too and it's not a horrendous story either.
I'd say if you're after a popcorn movie, Doug Liam rarely disappoints, and in my opinion he hasn't here either.
The Creator (2023)
A really important movie for film making, but also Awesome.
I'll start by saying there's bits that are a little contrived, but overall I loved this movie.
The feel of it to me was like Blade Runner, Alien and District 9 smoothed together.
The SFX are amazing, the cinematography is right up my street (not overly clean CGI and lighting, moody, griney and feels realistic) and the story is great.
Not your run of the mill "AI bad" or "kill the robots" but brings more of a human element to the whole deal and really challenges your thinking around how that would actually work in real life.
I'm a big fan of Gareth Edwards and the way he approaches movie making, and this feels like an amazing next piece from him.
If you can, see it in the cinema. It's a spectacle.
The Last of Us: Long, Long Time (2023)
Mastery
How Druckman and Mazin understand the art of adapting games into TV is an absolute masterclass that should be used by all adaptations in the future.
This tale of love feels like the calm before the storm that anyone who knows the game will understand. We know what's coming and the flesh out this story as they did was an amazing story of hope even when everything has gone to absolute s**t.
Amazing episode and series so far.
I can't wait to see how they flesh out other small game details that were not played out in gameplay, because the whole outbreak detail in the Jakarta section as well as this have just been straight up a-mazin.
The Last of Us: When You're Lost in the Darkness (2023)
Faithful, hard hitting and SUPERB
I'll start by saying I'm a huge fan of the franchise. I've played part 1 through 7 times and part 2 4 times so I was a little worried I'd be disappointed in this as I'm so connected to the portrayals in the game by Troy and Ashley, but this didn't disappoint one bit.
Pedro and Bella do an amazing job of both staying true to the characters and putting their own spin on them. The story is soo faithful to the game, yet brings more depth and detail which was amazing and Mazin brings his usual mastery of perspective and tension.
So far, this might be the best adaption I've ever seen and I can't wait for episode 2.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Swing and a miss
I've been a fan of the MCU since day one, and found Ragnarok to be a welcome addition and a refreshing tonal shift. However, as Hollywood does, following it's success they've just taken the comedy from that movie and absolutely saturated Love and Thunder with it.
Throughout the movie, it stays in "comedy mode" and so anytime a more serious moment is needed it feels totally out of place, and Thor as a character has now just become a total characature of even the silliest moments in the previous movies he's appeared in.
It's a shame and I really hope they can pull it back.
Turning Red (2022)
First Pixar Movie my kids wanted to turn off
I'll begin by saying I'm not the target market for this movie, so wasn't expecting to enjoy it much myself.
However, my children really didn't like it, and two of them are 13 & 14 yr old girls.
The animation is incredible, but the story and overall feel is very cringey and nobody in my house enjoyed it and we're HUGE Pixar fans. Real shame.
Stay Close (2021)
Tolerable, but pretty rough
Despite the excellent acting talent in this show, the writing is pretty horrendous.
Anyone that can make Cush Jumbo and James Nesbitt look bad must be talented, just in the wrong way.
Good story, but compared to the book, it's pretty atrocious.
Mr Inbetween (2018)
Absolutely superb, well written and layered show.
Mr Inbetween is absolutely brilliant.
The way it handles the life of a hitman, between his past, his current work and juggling family life is just superb.
Ray is a likeable character that even though is killing people all over, you can really feel for him as a person and a product of his past.
The way they deal with some of societies situations and how Ray and his associates deal with those situations is so interesting and really makes you think about what would happen if it were to happen to a normal person.
Not to mention their treatment of the audience. Nothing is overdone or thrown in your face. They treat their audience with the respect they deserve and don't underplay, overstate or overdo any aspects of the story.
Love EVERY episode and have watched the whole series several times.
Highly recommended.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
It's not as bad as people are saying, it's also not quite as good.
First off, this is a decent movie.
Sure, there's a buttload of tropey nonsense, small furry Disney creatures and all that, but overall it's a good MCU inclusion and Simu Liu is great, as are MOST of the other actors.
The story is pretty decent, although a little over the place in parts, and does a pretty nice job of including it in the overall MCU as well as adding some nice Chinese mythical callbacks or whatever you would call them.
The acting is excellent, especially Tony Leung who I would say is the most relatable antagonist since Marvel's Daredevil and the superb Kingpin.
However, there's some pretty bad parts too. Awkwafina does well to not be quite as annoying as she's been in other parts, but is given WAY too much credit and screen time considering she's just Shang Chi's buddy and has no actual skill or reason to be there. Especially with how's she's treated by Wong later in the movie. Why Marvel needs her to be included quite as much I've no idea. Especially considering how great Shang Chi and his sister were in the film.
Lastly, the fight choreography. It is VERY good. An absolute tribute to the late Brad Allan and was a joy to watch. Especially the close up work and the Chinese weaponry which was displayed super well.
Overall, it's well worth a cinema visit. It's a good film and doesn't deserve all the 1 star reviews AT ALL.
Strange Magic (2015)
Awful
This movie is pretty much awful. Oddly the animation is fairly good and the environments and models are all very good, however, it can't go 2 minutes without delivery monologue with some dodgy pop song cover and doesn't really have a story line at all. Even my 3 children got bored after a while.