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Final Destination 2 (2003)
Final Destination 2 (2003)
2003 | Horror
This sequel to Final Destination is more of the same... No better or worse actually. It sticks to the same formula as it's predecessor (and all of the subsequent entries), and is pretty much where the semi decent FD sequels end.

The set up premonition is pretty good - Director David R. Ellis is better known for his extensive stunt directing, and it's shows in scenes like this.
The extra features included in the home release show that this scene was done almost entirely practically. I feel that this always makes a difference.

The extra features also reveal how a lot of the kills were achieved using practical effects, which again, is something I can truly respect and admire, even if they were polished off with the CGI.

The finished result is a film that isn't great by any means, but it is a fun ride, that follows on from the first film nicely.


The acting is hammy, but the cast are mostly fine, and even includes another cameo from Tony Todd 👍
  
Hollow Man (2000)
Hollow Man (2000)
2000 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dated
Back when this was originally released, I recall it being quite gory and having some pretty impressive special effects. However I'm afraid to say it's now looking very dated.

You can tell without a doubt when this film was made. It's got a cliched and predictable story line with lots of ridiculous and obvious actions from characters that are really rather dull. The most irritating one is by far the most overused in most horror films - oh he's dead but we won't check... 5 minutes later, he's alive & still trying to kill me! Urgh. So cheesy and there is a lot like this in here that really made me cringe. Especially the pretty poor dialogue and misogynistic Kevin Bacon. The effects whilst good at the time now seem a little dodgy and outdated which is a shame but it's made more obvious by the fact that everything is CGI.

Overall it's not a great film and I've seen much better films based on the idea of the invisible man, but it's probably not the worst film you'll ever see.
  
The New Mutants (2020)
The New Mutants (2020)
2020 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Absolutely the last gasp of the original X Men movie franchise essentially gets a dump release, which to be honest it deserves. Five young people with burgeoning mutant powers are confined in a spooky old hospital; they variously squabble and bond while creepy things happen around them.

Interesting idea to do a horror movie using Marvel characters: the problem is that this one isn't very frightening (flat characters and too much bland CGI); the script and performances aren't strong enough to support the introspective tone and inert feel of the movie. Plus, the story is built around a conceit which is very, very easy to guess if you're familiar with these characters. A couple of half-decent performances and the climax (when it most resembles a conventional superhero movie) acquires a certain momentum, but it feels very drab and pointless. Maybe the corporate politics that have kept the film stuck on a shelf for years haven't helped, but I doubt this could ever have been much more impressive.
  
Hollow Man (2000)
Hollow Man (2000)
2000 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Paul Verhoeven brings all the taste and restraint you might expect to this loose updating of The Invisible Man. Nothing terribly original or surprising about the plot - invisibility experiments go wrong, which (unsurprisingly) nobody saw coming - although the emphasis on the psychological effects of being invisible is something unexpected and genuinely derived from Wells. That said, the main character played by Bacon - second billed, perhaps because he's technically not on screen for much of the film - is such a piece of work to begin with they don't leave themselves much room for manoeuvre.

Selling points of the film are, firstly, the lavish CGI, which I suppose was very good for the time; you can sense the technicians are having fun with it. Also the violence and gore, which is fairly strong for a studio movie; it also has a hard, nasty, sometimes misogynistic edge to it (Verhoeven...!). It all plays out pretty much as you'd expect. Competently done but nowhere near the standard of Verhoeven's best SF films.
  
Warcraft (2016)
Warcraft (2016)
2016 | Action, Fantasy
Joyless and gruelling fantasy action movie, made in the bad old style. Orcs from another dimension invade Generic Fantasyland; people ride about, waving swords and hammers, spectacular mystical events occur, the CGI bill rockets upward at supersonic speed, and - I suspect - two days later you won't remember more than the most basic elements of the plot. (Most of the Orc characters are played by human actors in greenface makeup; I can't understand why there hasn't been more fuss about this.)

Half-decent score and I suppose the art direction is okay, if not exactly subtle, but this is the worst kind of fantasy film, as characters, places and concepts feel like they've been arbitrarily created to suit the story - 'cheating at cards to win paper money', as one novelist once described this kind of narrative. No depth, no resonance, no involvement - but then I've never played the game and have no awarenes of the Warcraft franchise beyond this film. (No doubt if they ever get around to doing a Euro Trucker 2 movie the boot will be on the other foot.)
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Last Witch Hunter (2015) in Movies

Apr 16, 2020 (Updated Apr 16, 2020)  
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
2015 | Action, Fantasy
Here we go again. Lumbering action-fantasy stomper based - I kid you not - on one of Vin Diesel's Dungeons & Dragons games. Mediaeval warrior Kaulder (spelt with a K presumably because it's kooler, a principle I will be observing karefully in this review) battles the Evil Witch Queen and is kursed with immortality. What ensues is basically Highlander meets Hellboy meets Harry Potter meets Blade meets Men in Black: mysteriously, this film attempts to pinch the best bits of all those films and ends up seeming worse than any of them.

Plodding script is largely to blame, also the fact that Vin basically just does his routine smirking-swaggering-smug performance for most of the film. Usual excess of CGI doesn't help the situation much either. Michael Kaine (look how kool I've made him seem) somehow manages to emerge with dignity, but he's about the only one. Lazy film-making in virtually every way that matters (although it scrapes another point for the moment when Vin Diesel dolphins a giant wooden insect). Are they really still planning a sequel? Kount me out.
  
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Sarah (7800 KP) Apr 16, 2020

Your use of ‘K’ rather than ‘C’ really made me laugh!

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
2021 | Action, Adventure
Approximately sixty-seventh Marvel Studios project to date starts off as a pretty good king fu movie, as parking attendant Simu Liu is forced to come clean to his best friend that he is in fact the renegade son of an immortal warlord, before turning into a not quite so good fantasy movie (immortal warlord wants to invade a magic kingdom, which may inadvertently cause the end of the universe).

Good martial arts choreography, but the non-stop CGI of the climax isn't nearly as interesting or fun to watch, and the movie seems to lose its edge and sense of humour as it goes on. Feels very much like an attempt to do something akin to Black Panther, but with Chinese culture; may well do very good business in Asian markets. The usual links and references to other Marvel movies are a mixed bag; some of them feel very contrived and gratuitous. Still, they're integral to the Marvel project and I doubt this movie will disappoint the faithful.
  
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Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Deadpool 2 (2018) in Movies

May 18, 2018 (Updated May 18, 2018)  
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Deadpool 2 (2018)
2018 | Action, Comedy
Some razor sharp lines of dialogue (2 more)
Clever direction
Extremely funny from start to finish
Some dodgy CGI (0 more)
The Merc With A Mouth Is Back
Contains spoilers, click to show
Deadpool 2 is the kind of sequel that knows exactly what it is. It doesn't pretend to be anything original and it's main focus is getting a laugh out of it's audience over anything else. It succeeds greatly at this with the film being hilarious throughout and it comes very close to being as funny as it's predecessor, it just doesn't quite get there. I think that the main reason for this is because it chooses to focus more on a story than the last one did and through that, the humour loses some of the momentum that it builds up.

Okay, spoilers from here on out. If you haven't seen it yet, why the hell not? Go to the cinema right now.

Although the first movies laughs have better momentum, an argument could be made for this movie's individual lines being funnier. My particular favourite was the jab Deadpool has at his creator Rob Liefeld for not being able to draw feet properly in his comics.

I loved how they chose to show off Domino's powers. Her power of 'luck,' could have came across really lame onscreen, but David Leitch's fantastic direction helped it to come across brilliantly. I also loved the cameos, from the room full of X-Men, to Brad Pitt as the Vanisher.

When they killed Vanessa at the start of the movie, I was disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing her character develop in this movie and I felt like just killing her off to give Deadpool motivation for his arc in the movie was pretty lazy. Then, they immediately rectified it with the hilarious Bond-esque opening title sequence. Then I thought that they were going to make Vanessa become Death, who is Deadpool's love interest in the comics because he has so many encounters with her, but at the end of the movie we see Deadpool going back in time to reverse her death from happening, which also sort of negates a lot of the emotional beats that the movie surprisingly managed to hit during it's finale.

The Juggernaught is the movie's surprise villain and while it is nice to see him in his comic accurate form, the CGI used is really cartoony and even hard to swallow in a surreal superhero movie like this one.

However, that's not why anybody watches a Deadpool movie. If I was looking for deep, meaningful character arcs and realistic CGI, there are a ton of other movies for that. Deadpool is there to make you laugh and there is no doubt that it succeeds at that.
There are some comedic moments that feel oddly dated, like the constant references to dubstep for example and I feel like they missed a trick not bringing up the fact that the director was swapped out during the film's production or the real life scandals involving TJ Miller, but every joke earns at least a chuckle, which justifies it's place in the film. It may not as quite as novel because we have seen it before, but there are plenty of scenes in here that will have you laughing out loud in the cinema and fans of the character will not be disappointed.
  
Hellboy (2019)
Hellboy (2019)
2019 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Oh...hell, no!
HELLBOY?!? HELL NO!

I would imagine that about 90% of my readership just got what they needed out of my review with that first line and have moved on. For the rest of you, I will now explain why this reboot of HELLBOY is now the "leader in the clubhouse" for worst picture of 2019.

I was pleasantly surprised by the 2004 Guillermo del Toro helmed and written HELLBOY and was even more surprised by how good the del Toro written and helmed HELLBOY II: THE GOLD ARMY (2008) was. I think that this was because there was a driving force - and vision - from a true auteur and was a perfect combination of material and artistic staff - including Ron Perlman in the title role.

This version of HELLBOY has none of that. No vision, no driving force and a "B" performance by David Harbour in the title role. It feels like what it is - a cash grab. I blame the studio who produced this film - Summit Entertainment - for "going on the cheap" on this one.

First off, they tapped a "B Movie" Director, Neil Marshall to Direct this thing. He is known for such artistic successes as DOOMSDAY and THE DESCENT - horror flicks that were heavy on gore, short on characters and plot - and that is what he brought to this film. Why worry about characters, plot or any kind of engaging features (including Special FX) when you can show, yet again, a body getting torn apart and blood spurting all over the screen.

The studio also skimped on the performers. Instead of Perlman, Selma Blair, John Hurt and Doug Jones you get David Harbour, Daniel Dae Kim, Mila Jovovich and a sleep-walking, just give me my paycheck, Ian McShane. It's like watching the "road company" of a Broadway show. While the actors are game (with the notable exception of McShane), they are "B picture" actors, much like the Director.

And...much like the special FX. I knew, going in, that the early word on this film was not good, but that never stops me. I like to make up my own mind, so I thought I'd "pony up" for the IMAX experience to, at least, see the CGI and FX on as large a screen with as good a sound system as possible. I shouldn't have bothered, for the CGI and FX were mediocre (at best) and all the big screen and sound did was emphasize how low quality the CGI was.

And...finally...the pacing of this film is problematic, at best. This is certainly a film that was written and edited within an inch of it's life for the "short attention span" audience of today. The prevailing theory was "why linger on a plot or a character or a moment when we can quick cut to another body getting pulled in two and watch a plume of blood spurt out in a giant arc)."

There are 2 scenes in the end credits to set up the next film(s) in this series. Films that I seriously doubt will be made. If they are, I hope they pump some more money into the budget and get a creative team with some artistic vision.

A swing and a miss.

Letter Grade: C (and I'm being generous)

4 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
  
Show all 3 comments.
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BankofMarquis (1832 KP) Apr 15, 2019

They did everything "on the cheap" - too bad, they are squandering a good property

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Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) Apr 16, 2019

Fantastic review, I'm going to see this tonight out of morbid curiosity.
My hope is that it's either surprisingly decent or it is absolute dogshit, I think if it's anywhere inbetween I'll come away disappointed.

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Movie Metropolis (309 KP) rated X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) in Movies

Jun 10, 2019 (Updated Jun 10, 2019)  
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
2016 | Action, Sci-Fi
Another case of threequel-itis
“At least we can agree the third one is always the worst” barks a young Jean Grey in ­X-Men: Apocalypse. And whilst the film stays well away from the poor efforts of Spider-Man 3 and The Last Stand, there’s more truth to that statement here than director Bryan Singer would want you to believe.

X-Men: Apocalypse picks up after the events of its brilliant predecessor, Days of Future Past, as mutants and humans continue to live alongside each other, not necessarily in peace – but not in war either.

The film begins with an introduction to our titular villain, played by Oscar Issac, in Cairo as he aims to recruit four followers – the four horsemen of the apocalypse if you will. Soon after, the audience is whisked away to a more familiar sight, Charles Xavier’s school for gifted youngsters.

After the awakening of Oscar Issac’s villain, and his recruitment of Storm, Magneto, Angel and Psylocke, the X-Men must unite to save humans and mutants alike from being destroyed.

The majority of the ‘younger’ cast return in this instalment with some exciting, and some not so exciting additions. Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner joins the series as Jean Grey, channelling Famke Janssen reasonably well. Kodi Smit-McPhee is fantastic as Nightcrawler and Tye Sheridan finally does away with James Marsden’s whiney Cyclops.

Apocalypse belongs to Evan Peters and Quicksilver. As with Days of Future Past, he brings the screen to life and as with its predecessor, stars in the film’s standout sequence. However, in an effort to improve on what came before it, the writers have tried too hard to make it bigger and better – the finished product lacks finesse with some poorly finished CGI detracting from the overall effect.

Elsewhere, Michael Fassbender is the perfect man to play Magneto but James McAvoy remains miscast as Charles Xavier. It’s only once he loses his hair that we start to see the character he should’ve been right from the beginning. Jennifer Lawrence finally gets into her groove as Mystique after failing to make an impact in First Class and Days of Future Past.

The story is a little underdeveloped, especially after the great writing brought to life in Captain America: Civil War. Despite constantly being told about the stakes never being higher, it doesn’t really feel like anything awful is going to happen. This is, in part, not helped by Apocalypse being a little bit of a wet lettuce when it comes to superhero villains.

Unfortunately, the abundance of CGI only hampers the film further. There is far too much green screen and certain scenes feel unbelievable as a result. The finale in particular is incredibly underwhelming and becomes an ugly mix of special effects.

There’s a problem with the pacing too. After spending nearly an hour introducing the audience to the new mutants; Apocalypse takes a scalpel to the ending with, well the results you’d expect. It’s choppily edited and hastily stitched back together

Nevertheless, this is not a bad film. For the most part, it’s exciting, well-acted, nicely choreographed and beautifully shot with exotic locations brilliantly juxtaposed with the lush landscape of Xavier’s school.

Overall, X-Men: Apocalypse falls some way short of the standard set by its predecessor. In yet another case of threequel-itis, the film is hampered by an underdeveloped story, poor pacing and a ridiculous amount of CGI. Bigger isn’t always better, and unfortunately, this is the case here.


https://moviemetropolis.net/2016/05/20/another-case-of-threequel-itis-x-men-apocalypse-review/