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Reviews
Migration (2023)
Kumail N voice really distracting
Kumail Najiani's casting as the father duck left me scratching my head, as I was trying to understand the thought process behind the choice. His accent was distracting throughout the movie, as I kept thinking is this duck meant to be Indian? It detracted till at least halfway through the movie before I got into the actual plot and it went to the back of my mind. Was it a diversity thing, or was it because he has a bit of a lisp, so sounds like what people might imagine a duck sounding like (e.g. Daffy duck). He's not a big enough celebrity for people to recognize his voice and be like "wow it's such and such playing the father". For the movie itself, i went in with low expectations to watch the movie with my kids but turned out to be a better watch than I imagined.
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Emma watson not beautiful enough to play Belle
As shallow as this may sound, Emma Watson is not beautiful enough to play Belle. This ruined the entire movie in my eyes. If it were any other movie it would've been fine, but this was BEAUTY and the beast. Anyone disagreeing is likely a Harry Potter fan. A MUCH better choice would have been Emmy Rossum, who is both a talented singer, and also beautiful (nope don't think of how wasted she looked as Fiona in shameless, that character is meant to be a trashy alcoholic), and had been in Phantom of the Opera. She'd been singing as a child, and I dare say is a better actor. The Watson version also seems to be a more quirky version of Belle, which doesn't work honestly.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Fantastic follow-up to the originals
A fantastic follow up to the original 2 movies (ignore and avoid the 2016 version like the plague). Very worthy successor. Good cameos. Great story.
The story does take a little while to develop. But a lot happens in the 1nd and 3rd acts. The casting has been done well. It was a good way to honour Harold Ramis. The movie has a good storyline, has parts that truly are on the edge scary, and has a good dose of subtle comedy. This movie had the feeling that it wasn't just made to have the flavour of the month political views that film makers seem to think nowadays. I think it light-heartedly made fun of the 2016 version in one scene. A great watch.
Black Snow (2022)
Takes you on a journey in solving the crime
Very good show. Some things about it left me scratching my head (e.g. Why the dead person's niece was so angry when she wasn't even born at the time, so never knew her). Among a couple of other things, like a character throwing out the race card, when I didn't even think it was the case.
Apart from that, the show is really good. Travis Fimmel is amazing and plays the character of a tortured soul really well (I saw a little little Vikings style unstableness in the character).
*partial spoiler*
Some things like the beating and the self inflicted pain wasn't explained very well, but am hoping they flesh it out better in season2.
Laal Singh Chaddha (2022)
Why remake Forrest Gump
Why would you remake an excellent movie like Forrest Gump into an hindi version? If it was merely inspired, it might have been okay. However this is basically a scene by scene copy (everything from the Run Forrest Run scene, to him becoming a runner - he even has the same kind of hat and beard). Grossly puts me off. I think the Hindi film industry needs to stop plagiarising stories from other countries, and come up with something original. Aamir Khan usually makes decent movies (although Ghajini was a remake of a Hollywood remake of a south Indian movie) I'm not sure why he made this steaming pile.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Last of the ACTUAL live action movies
Watched this movie twice at the cinemas. Can't remember doing that for any movie. In a world of green screen, this was a much needed film with actual action and actual stunts. I got my money's worth. Although it helps if you've seen the original, it works well as a standalone movie.
The New Legends of Monkey (2018)
Whitewashed garbage
Whitewashed garbage not even resembling anything close to the story of Journey to the West. Nor does it come within a mile of the classic Monkey Magic.
Young generation don't know how much they're getting screwed
Scare Tactics (2003)
Older seasons were better.
The older seasons with Shannon Doherty were better, and genuinely funny reactions from victims. The new host Tracy Morgan is terrible and not funny at all. The new episodes also seem to end the prank just when it's getting interesting.If you binge watch it, you'll notice the same people popping up multiple times as accomplices. There will be camera angles that wouldn't be possible unless the victim could clearly see the cameraman. Example, in one episode a scared "victim" runs up some stairs to get away from a killer. There is a shot with camera pointing up the stairs at him and another shot with the camera pointing down the stairs towards the killer. So this "victim" would have had to run past 2 cameramen. Also some of the reactions terrible and not genuine.
The Outsider (2018)
A very good film, that leaves a bit too much to imagination
Firstly this movie is definitely worth watching. The trailer hooked me, and in all fairness it did not disappoint. There are a couple of points which if done correctly, would have made it an excellent film. Japanese settings were not greatly utilized and due to the monotone/bleak look of the film and framing of shots, I found myself constantly confused as to where the scene was taking place. Was it his house? No it was her house? No it was a hotel.
Those saying Jared Leto's acting is bad, must have been watching another movie... because he does as good a job as anyone could have for the role. It would have been good to see why he was in jail in the beginning (we do find out that he's a US army deserter presumed dead).
The opening scene is very confusing, the character of Kiyoshi is seen to be hanged, presumably by a bunch of other prisoners. Were they a rival yakuza gang? Were they trying to help him stage an attempted suicide? It's not really known as we do not see them again.
The ending seems to almost leave on a cliffhanger, with Jared Leto's takuza family being pretty much wiped out except for around 5 members. Leto is bowed to and it is presumed that he is now the boss (similar to Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather). However where the Corleone family is at its strongest at the end of Godfather 1, Leto's yakuza family is almost eradicated at the end of this movie (in fact he is spared by the rival yakuza boss almost out of pity) So the expectation would be to make a part 2 and Chronicle the family's rebuilding. Leaving it as a standalone movie and ending it at this point makes no sense.
Message from the King (2016)
Good payback but a lot unexplained
All in all I liked the movie, which was a good old fashioned payback movie. Man avenging a loved one. *SPOILERS*
However, some things leave you confused. Firstly, the main character's sister is tortured, beaten and murdered, and you never really find out why this overkill. You do find out why the bad guys want her out of the way, but not why the hatred with which she was killed (which the killers were specifically instructed to do).
Secondly, there are numerous bad guys (the dentist gangster, the movie producer, the local hoods, the politician), and you don't fully find out who is working for who.
Thirdly, the "rescue" of Armande, and him running away, leaves you with a "what? What happened? Is that it?" feeling.
It seems like the filmmakers tried to have a shocking reveal similar to 8mm, but in my opinion they failed to deliver. The actions scenes are quite good though. I give it a 6/10.
Born Into Mafia 2 (2016)
All those movie rip-offs and still no logical sense
Absolutely awful. This movie rips off scenes and plot from various movies (mostly "Taken"), but ends up being a jumbled nonsensical mess. It just seems like an hour long trailer. I've categorized the different ways this movie killed itself.
RIP-OFF: From the very beginning a shot which is obviously copied from the wood-chopping intro to "Commando", you can sense that you're in for an hour of cr@p.
TIMELINE: The editor doesn't seem to know what chronological order means.The timeline of this movie jumps back and forth more than your brain can keep track of. At first they try to let you know where in the timeline you are by captions like "2 weeks from now", and "2 days before kidnapping".... but after a while they seem to give up. You'll be shown shots of girls being kidnapped, then the same girls auditioning for a calendar, then trying to escape, then being "introduced", then being operated on, then taking photos at photoshoot...and it goes on leaving you with a feeling of "wtf is happening?"
NARRATION: Narration by two different guys, very random and don't match the scene, and they same the same things over and over again, like "I'd do anything for my daughter", "he'd do anything for his daughter", "born into mafia". After a while the random phrases just turn into random words, and seem to talk about events that happened 30 mins earlier in the movie, but as if they just occurred ("she was excited to se the keys, but didn't realize how much she hurt her father".
STEREOTYPES: OK so every middle-easterner wears literally towels on their heads which are timber clamped to the back of their heads (i sh1t you not), sells bodyparts, slaves and is a threat to national security.
FACTUAL ERRORS: So despite the writer/director being Russian, he assumes that KGB and Russian mob, and CIA are all the same thing, and the lead character is or was in all of them.
....there's more to come, but I've only seen 40 mins of the movie.
Split (2016)
Had potential but......
This movie had a lot of potential but I feel it was wasted.
*Spoilers*
Whilst the girls are in captivity, you do feel involved with them and you feel genuine feelings of hope/let down when they are about to escape/get captured.
Though you can't help actually getting annoyed with the female main character. She does certain things to make you think she's a smart survivor (for example telling one of the other girls to pee herself to avoid being sexually assaulted), but then other things she does makes you want to scream in her ear.
Firstly she seems to encourage the other girls to try to escape, but doesn't do anything to help. She sits there the majority of the time with a stunned mullet expression on her face. Examples: -When a total strangers sits in their car and begins to put a face mask on and spray her friends with a knock-out gas, she just sits there instead of opening her door running and screaming (she subtly tries to open the door but then stops when the car's warning chime comes on), then patiently waits for man to put his mask back on and spray her. -When one of the other girl's hits their abductor over the head with a chair, she just sits on her own chair without getting up and also beating him.
There are other major peeve moments in the film. For example, she sees a name written on a random piece of paper, but she somehow knows that this is the abductor's real name and he will become "sane" again when this name is called out loud. She had no way of knowing this.
Another example, is right at the end when a woman in a diner is watching the news story, and says something like "That's like that other guy 15 years ago" *cue the Bruce Willis cameo mentioning that the man's name was Mr Glass. This case is nothing like the Mr Glass case. This is the abduction of girls by someone with split personalities, whereas Mr Glass was basically a terrorist.
The ending is lack luster too, the main lead seems like she's ready to go back living with her abusive uncle. There's some BS Midnight Shyamalan 'twist' where they turn out to have been kept under a zoo.
The portrayal of the bad guy was done well, and well acted. However, it is very hard to feel scared by him. I constantly felt that if all 3 girls ganged up on him, they could have easily beaten him up (especially when in his female or child personality).