Search
Search results
David McK (3547 KP) rated The Commodore in Books
Apr 27, 2020
Fourth published but chronologically the ninth of CS Forester's Hornblower series of novels, this is the one that is set mainly in and around the Baltic, starting with Hornblower's investiture as Lord of the Manor alongside his second wife, lady Barbara (nee) Wellesley - yes, of that Wellesley name - and with his sole surviving toddler son from his first marriage.
Finding shore life stifling, dull and tedious, Hornblower is (secretly) relieved when he receives a summons from the Admiralty, and is sent off to the Baltic to shore up Britain's interests and (hopefully) stop further French incursion into Sweden and Russia.
As such, this is thus set before Napoleon's disastrous (for the French!) Russian campaign, with the starts of that campaign occurring in the latter pars of this novel: a novel which takes in court intrigue (even meeting the Russian Tsar), sea battles, unusual sailing vessels (the bomb ketches) and land battles before its denouement - a denouement that will see Hornblower return back to Blighty before his next mission.
Finding shore life stifling, dull and tedious, Hornblower is (secretly) relieved when he receives a summons from the Admiralty, and is sent off to the Baltic to shore up Britain's interests and (hopefully) stop further French incursion into Sweden and Russia.
As such, this is thus set before Napoleon's disastrous (for the French!) Russian campaign, with the starts of that campaign occurring in the latter pars of this novel: a novel which takes in court intrigue (even meeting the Russian Tsar), sea battles, unusual sailing vessels (the bomb ketches) and land battles before its denouement - a denouement that will see Hornblower return back to Blighty before his next mission.
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) in Movies
Jan 22, 2021
I swung between wanting to see this and not, had it been a normal world then of course I would have gone regardless, but as it is I wasn't having strong feelings about this one.
Diana's dreams come true at the hands of an ancient artefact that can grant wishes. But as a wish is given something is taken away, and when Maxwell Lord, businessman and entrepreneur, makes a wish, the world is about to learn the lesson of the phrase... "be careful what you wish for".
First off... this absolutely would have been better on the big screen. It's never been so apparent to me that a cinema experience of a film holds so much power, it's making me understand the differences in early reviews and home viewing reviews a lot more these days.
The story of WW84 is really a very simple one. Doodad does magic, people are evil, goodie must make them good again. And that somehow fills a whole 2 hour 31 minutes of film... it doesn't feel like a very satisfying experience. For all that opener, the conclusion seems to be fleeting and dare I say it... not entirely believable. Overall the whole thing doesn't get particularly deep at any point despite there being a lot of opportunities around the wishes, and there are some questionable moments that could fill several blog posts.
There's been a long pause between me writing the first part and continuing here. That pause involved me staring at my notes and contemplating just writing "meh" and finishing the review there. I'm really going to try and elaborate on my feelings though.
For a film with two villains it's not got much proper villainy in it. Barbara Minerva becoming Cheetah is massively underwhelming from what felt like a promising build-up, and Maxwell Lord, despite having the potential, was not big bad material. Neither had the drive in them to be a truly powerful force in the film, and what's the point in a villain if you can't get on board to hate them?
Kristen Wiig did give a great performance as Barbara, it was a smooth and interesting transition as she progressed, and it left me a lot less "meh" than everything else. But did anyone else just keep thinking Catwoman though?
I thought Pedro Pascal had 80's businessman down pretty well, but I found him to be a little lacklustre, and the character's story felt like the reason for that.
As with the first film, Gal Gadot is majestic on screen as Diana and Wonder Woman... but even here I found myself shrugging at what was going on, and cringing at some problematic plot points. I'm trying to work out if the appeal of the first film was partially due to the amusement of Diana discovering the world for the first time. Here she's savvy and elegant (even for the 0s), and she didn't have the same humour. Instead, we've got that role filled by Steve (Chris Pine). His discovery of the 80s world was fairly amusing, but the way in which he came back bugged me.
All in all characters really didn't grab me, out two main newbies felt very much like rip-offs of other things rather than a great recreation of their source material.
Visually the film was amazing, the bright colours, the style, all fit the era and you gotta love some parachute pants. But outside of that it just merged into other films for me.
That CGI... how can you get so many things right but somehow not do the villains? It's Steppenwolf all over again, Cheetah looked bad. Not only that, but it took an immense amount of time for us to even get to that full effect... so why wasn't it on point? How are DC incapable of animating their villains?
Will I watch this again? Probably, but I'm not overly fussed about it being anytime soon. It wasn't anywhere near as entertaining as the first for me, and didn't have enough action to cover up the disappointing story and character work. I really wish I felt strongly one way or the other on this and not having just another sitting on the fence swinging my feet review. I did appreciate some early vaguely Quidditchy vibes at the beginning though.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2021/01/wonder-woman-1984-movie-review.html
Diana's dreams come true at the hands of an ancient artefact that can grant wishes. But as a wish is given something is taken away, and when Maxwell Lord, businessman and entrepreneur, makes a wish, the world is about to learn the lesson of the phrase... "be careful what you wish for".
First off... this absolutely would have been better on the big screen. It's never been so apparent to me that a cinema experience of a film holds so much power, it's making me understand the differences in early reviews and home viewing reviews a lot more these days.
The story of WW84 is really a very simple one. Doodad does magic, people are evil, goodie must make them good again. And that somehow fills a whole 2 hour 31 minutes of film... it doesn't feel like a very satisfying experience. For all that opener, the conclusion seems to be fleeting and dare I say it... not entirely believable. Overall the whole thing doesn't get particularly deep at any point despite there being a lot of opportunities around the wishes, and there are some questionable moments that could fill several blog posts.
There's been a long pause between me writing the first part and continuing here. That pause involved me staring at my notes and contemplating just writing "meh" and finishing the review there. I'm really going to try and elaborate on my feelings though.
For a film with two villains it's not got much proper villainy in it. Barbara Minerva becoming Cheetah is massively underwhelming from what felt like a promising build-up, and Maxwell Lord, despite having the potential, was not big bad material. Neither had the drive in them to be a truly powerful force in the film, and what's the point in a villain if you can't get on board to hate them?
Kristen Wiig did give a great performance as Barbara, it was a smooth and interesting transition as she progressed, and it left me a lot less "meh" than everything else. But did anyone else just keep thinking Catwoman though?
I thought Pedro Pascal had 80's businessman down pretty well, but I found him to be a little lacklustre, and the character's story felt like the reason for that.
As with the first film, Gal Gadot is majestic on screen as Diana and Wonder Woman... but even here I found myself shrugging at what was going on, and cringing at some problematic plot points. I'm trying to work out if the appeal of the first film was partially due to the amusement of Diana discovering the world for the first time. Here she's savvy and elegant (even for the 0s), and she didn't have the same humour. Instead, we've got that role filled by Steve (Chris Pine). His discovery of the 80s world was fairly amusing, but the way in which he came back bugged me.
All in all characters really didn't grab me, out two main newbies felt very much like rip-offs of other things rather than a great recreation of their source material.
Visually the film was amazing, the bright colours, the style, all fit the era and you gotta love some parachute pants. But outside of that it just merged into other films for me.
That CGI... how can you get so many things right but somehow not do the villains? It's Steppenwolf all over again, Cheetah looked bad. Not only that, but it took an immense amount of time for us to even get to that full effect... so why wasn't it on point? How are DC incapable of animating their villains?
Will I watch this again? Probably, but I'm not overly fussed about it being anytime soon. It wasn't anywhere near as entertaining as the first for me, and didn't have enough action to cover up the disappointing story and character work. I really wish I felt strongly one way or the other on this and not having just another sitting on the fence swinging my feet review. I did appreciate some early vaguely Quidditchy vibes at the beginning though.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2021/01/wonder-woman-1984-movie-review.html
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) in Movies
Dec 23, 2020
Gal Gadot returns as Diana Prince in “Wonder Woman 1984” which has seen its release date shift a few times due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The film has started to open overseas and will arrive in the U.S. on Christmas day with a limited debut on HBO Max as well.
The story sees Diana now living in Washington D.C. in 1984. Diana is popular but has refused male companionship as she still longs for her late love Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).
Diana works in the Smithsonian Institute in antiquities and keeps her secret identity under wraps even when a daring mall heist forces her to leap into action.
A shy and passive employee named Barbara (Kirsten Wiig); who is afraid of her own shadow and largely ignored by her peers is befriended by Diana and they discover one item from the heist is inscribed with the ability to grant a wish. Unknowingly Diana wishes for Steve to return and Barbara wishes to be more like Diana which sets a chain of events into motion.
A shady business man named Maxwell Lord (Perdro Pascal) has his site on obtaining the relic as he believes having the ability to grant wishes will allow him to save his failing business and give him the power he craves.
With such a promising setup; the film ultimately does not deliver on its premise and becomes bogged down in drawn out sequences with surprisingly little action and gaps in logic that defy even standards for a comic book film.
The first 90 minutes of the film has roughly 10-15 minutes of action tops and we are instead given lengthy scenes of Steve trying to find an 80s fashion look; flying over fireworks, and Maxwell trashing from one locale to another without much needed continuity.
An action scene involving a convoy chase through the desert seems very inspired by “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and ultimately does not deliver especially with such a long gape between the action sequences.
The final act does attempt to redeem the film as seeing Barbara transform into her new persona is interesting and Wiig does a very solid job with the role. This sadly is undermined with a single line of dialogue which takes away a big part of the transformation that audiences deserved to see.
There was also a sequence where Diana races down the streets and takes to flight with her Lasso and then discovers she can fly like Superman. Not only is this not in keeping with the character; but we see this extended fast moving sequence where she is clearly heading away from D.C. at great speed only to arrive at a destination with an item which had been established to be back at her home in D.C. It is this sort of sloppiness that really detracts from the film. There is also the fact that Steve has to fly her around on a jet that even as a pilot he should not know how to fly as he has never flown a jet aircraft in his life.
When the big confrontation comes it is a letdown as it is not overly epic and the CGI really does not seem to mesh. What is an even bigger disappointment is that a certain character stands emoting for several minutes while Diana gives such a bland and extended speech that even my wife had to ask “who wrote these lines”.
The film was not a total disaster as the characters were interesting and worked well with one another making the film entertaining in parts despite being really disappointed with it.
The film strikes me as a product of the talented Patty Jenkins being able to do whatever she wanted after the success of the first film. Jenkins not only Directed but did the screenplay for it. Considering the amazing job she did writing “Monster” I had high expectations for the film but to me it seemed like it could have used a bit more attention to several aspects.
My summary would be the following… good cast, entertaining in parts, not much action over two hours, takes huge liberties with Diana and her abilities, massive gaps in logic even for a comic movie. It aims to be epic and comes up lacking. At least the mid. credit scene was worth it.
3 stars out of 5
The story sees Diana now living in Washington D.C. in 1984. Diana is popular but has refused male companionship as she still longs for her late love Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).
Diana works in the Smithsonian Institute in antiquities and keeps her secret identity under wraps even when a daring mall heist forces her to leap into action.
A shy and passive employee named Barbara (Kirsten Wiig); who is afraid of her own shadow and largely ignored by her peers is befriended by Diana and they discover one item from the heist is inscribed with the ability to grant a wish. Unknowingly Diana wishes for Steve to return and Barbara wishes to be more like Diana which sets a chain of events into motion.
A shady business man named Maxwell Lord (Perdro Pascal) has his site on obtaining the relic as he believes having the ability to grant wishes will allow him to save his failing business and give him the power he craves.
With such a promising setup; the film ultimately does not deliver on its premise and becomes bogged down in drawn out sequences with surprisingly little action and gaps in logic that defy even standards for a comic book film.
The first 90 minutes of the film has roughly 10-15 minutes of action tops and we are instead given lengthy scenes of Steve trying to find an 80s fashion look; flying over fireworks, and Maxwell trashing from one locale to another without much needed continuity.
An action scene involving a convoy chase through the desert seems very inspired by “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and ultimately does not deliver especially with such a long gape between the action sequences.
The final act does attempt to redeem the film as seeing Barbara transform into her new persona is interesting and Wiig does a very solid job with the role. This sadly is undermined with a single line of dialogue which takes away a big part of the transformation that audiences deserved to see.
There was also a sequence where Diana races down the streets and takes to flight with her Lasso and then discovers she can fly like Superman. Not only is this not in keeping with the character; but we see this extended fast moving sequence where she is clearly heading away from D.C. at great speed only to arrive at a destination with an item which had been established to be back at her home in D.C. It is this sort of sloppiness that really detracts from the film. There is also the fact that Steve has to fly her around on a jet that even as a pilot he should not know how to fly as he has never flown a jet aircraft in his life.
When the big confrontation comes it is a letdown as it is not overly epic and the CGI really does not seem to mesh. What is an even bigger disappointment is that a certain character stands emoting for several minutes while Diana gives such a bland and extended speech that even my wife had to ask “who wrote these lines”.
The film was not a total disaster as the characters were interesting and worked well with one another making the film entertaining in parts despite being really disappointed with it.
The film strikes me as a product of the talented Patty Jenkins being able to do whatever she wanted after the success of the first film. Jenkins not only Directed but did the screenplay for it. Considering the amazing job she did writing “Monster” I had high expectations for the film but to me it seemed like it could have used a bit more attention to several aspects.
My summary would be the following… good cast, entertaining in parts, not much action over two hours, takes huge liberties with Diana and her abilities, massive gaps in logic even for a comic movie. It aims to be epic and comes up lacking. At least the mid. credit scene was worth it.
3 stars out of 5
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) in Movies
Jan 10, 2021
Misses more than it hits
The first Gal Gadot-led WONDER WOMAN film (2017) is generally regarded by most (myself included) as the finest film in the DCEU and Gal Gadot’s portrayal of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman is the highlight of any DCEU film that she appears in, so it was with much (delayed) anticipation that a viewing of WONDER WOMAN 1984 (finally) took place.
It’s too bad that the filmmakers couldn’t take the time in the delay of this movie’s release to craft a better film.
WONDER WOMAN 1984 takes the titular character and places this ageless Supehero in the titular timeframe. What Director Patty Jenkins (who so wonderfully brought us the first Wonder Woman film) and the her co-script writer Geoff Johns and all of the others who crafted this film failed to do was to capitalize on their hero and this timeline.
After an opening scene that flashbacks to Diana Prince’s youth on her isolated island of Themyscira (a scene who’s sole purpose, it seems, is to shoehorn favorites Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen from the first film into this one). We then go to a fight in a 1980’s mall (in a clear homage to such fights as the ones in COMMANDO and TRUE LIES - action sequences, that I might add, that were done better by Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron). So back-to-back, this film starts off on unsure footing.
Enter Pedro Pascal’s main villain Maxwell Lord with the ability of a truly wonderful, memorable, villain to elevate the proceedings.
He does not.
Plain and simple, Pascal’s Maxwell Lord just doesn’t work as as a villain. He would have been a nice “secondary villain”.
Which is how I would recommend that Jenkins and Johns approach this character and film, for the secondary villain, Barbara Minerva/Cheetah worked better for me.
As portrayed by Kristen Wiig, we first encounter Minerva as a mousey, insecure co-worker of Diana Prince but slowly - over the course of the film - Minerva becomes stronger and more self-assured and when her transformation into Cheetah is complete, she is a viable opponent for Wonder Woman. And with Gadot’s strong (expected) portrayal of Diana/Wonder Woman the scenes of these 2 playing off each other - both physically and verbally - elevates this film above mediocrity.
As does the chemistry between Gadot and Chris Pine as Steve Trevor (from the first film). This relationship was one of the best parts of the first film, so the filmmakers had to figure out how to bring him back - and how they decided to do it was “fine” (with one issue I have that I can’t reveal but I also think a simple “tweak” in the storyline would have fixed). Because these 2 have such tremendous character - and because Pascal’s villain character is weak - this movie spends way too much time on Diana and Steve and this film loses it’s focus multiple times.
But…a few good action scenes would have saved things - but there aren’t really any. Certainly none that are as visually interesting, and emotionally satisfying, as the “no man’s land” scene in the first film.
This movie is “fine” and with the performances of Gadot, Pine and Wiig, they elevate the needle a little above “fine”. So I will give this movie about a point more than I (probably) should - which puts this film as one of the better films of the DCEU - which says more about the state of the DCEU than it does about this movie.
Letter Grade: B
7 stars (out of 10) - and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
It’s too bad that the filmmakers couldn’t take the time in the delay of this movie’s release to craft a better film.
WONDER WOMAN 1984 takes the titular character and places this ageless Supehero in the titular timeframe. What Director Patty Jenkins (who so wonderfully brought us the first Wonder Woman film) and the her co-script writer Geoff Johns and all of the others who crafted this film failed to do was to capitalize on their hero and this timeline.
After an opening scene that flashbacks to Diana Prince’s youth on her isolated island of Themyscira (a scene who’s sole purpose, it seems, is to shoehorn favorites Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen from the first film into this one). We then go to a fight in a 1980’s mall (in a clear homage to such fights as the ones in COMMANDO and TRUE LIES - action sequences, that I might add, that were done better by Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron). So back-to-back, this film starts off on unsure footing.
Enter Pedro Pascal’s main villain Maxwell Lord with the ability of a truly wonderful, memorable, villain to elevate the proceedings.
He does not.
Plain and simple, Pascal’s Maxwell Lord just doesn’t work as as a villain. He would have been a nice “secondary villain”.
Which is how I would recommend that Jenkins and Johns approach this character and film, for the secondary villain, Barbara Minerva/Cheetah worked better for me.
As portrayed by Kristen Wiig, we first encounter Minerva as a mousey, insecure co-worker of Diana Prince but slowly - over the course of the film - Minerva becomes stronger and more self-assured and when her transformation into Cheetah is complete, she is a viable opponent for Wonder Woman. And with Gadot’s strong (expected) portrayal of Diana/Wonder Woman the scenes of these 2 playing off each other - both physically and verbally - elevates this film above mediocrity.
As does the chemistry between Gadot and Chris Pine as Steve Trevor (from the first film). This relationship was one of the best parts of the first film, so the filmmakers had to figure out how to bring him back - and how they decided to do it was “fine” (with one issue I have that I can’t reveal but I also think a simple “tweak” in the storyline would have fixed). Because these 2 have such tremendous character - and because Pascal’s villain character is weak - this movie spends way too much time on Diana and Steve and this film loses it’s focus multiple times.
But…a few good action scenes would have saved things - but there aren’t really any. Certainly none that are as visually interesting, and emotionally satisfying, as the “no man’s land” scene in the first film.
This movie is “fine” and with the performances of Gadot, Pine and Wiig, they elevate the needle a little above “fine”. So I will give this movie about a point more than I (probably) should - which puts this film as one of the better films of the DCEU - which says more about the state of the DCEU than it does about this movie.
Letter Grade: B
7 stars (out of 10) - and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
