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Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Odd Thomas (2014) in Movies

Aug 15, 2020

Odd Thomas (2014)

2014 | Mystery

7.9

(9 Ratings)

Movie Rating

I'd put off watching this for a long time, I loved the books by Dean Koontz and that made me a little nervous for the film. I'd almost forgotten about it until it popped up streaming, it's been a long time so I figured I'd forgotten enough about the books to see it.

Odd tries to live a simple life in Pico Mundo but when you have the ability to see dead people and talk to them it makes things difficult, especially when everything is pointing to something disastrous on the horizon.

The idea behind Odd's ability is a good one and I feel like they manage to illustrate it well during the film, foreknowledge may have helped a bit but I honestly don't remember that much from the books and we're given a succinct explanation.

Anton Yelchin plays the lead character and he has the perfect demeanour for it. There's a calm but scared quality that fits right into his wheelhouse and it was a match made in heaven.

Yelchin is off-set by Willem Dafoe as Chief Porter and Addison Timlin as Stormy Llewellyn, both of whom give great performances that bolster to story from each side. While they're not massive roles they both influence and guide Odd in very different ways and they're particularly effective characters.

The film plays out like a supernatural detective story with Odd at its centre trying to save Pico Mundo from an unknown terror. It creates a nice sense of intrigue to latch on to early on and plenty of fantasy action to move you along with the story at a quick pace.

For a relatively obscure film it's got a solid all round feel with passable graphics and a great visual style. Normally I find voice overs in films a little off putting but the bits of the story it's combined with work really well and again, added to the storytelling. I couldn't honestly say how accurate it was to the source material after such a long time, but I can tell you I wasn't disappointed with what I watched.

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/08/odd-thomas-movie-review.html

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AJaneClark (3975 KP) Aug 17, 2020

Absolutely love this movie

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Amy Norman (1048 KP) Aug 18, 2020

Have watched this film a few times, and love it 😊
I haven't read the source material but it's been on my list for a while 😅 from what I have read about them, there are a few nods given to things that played a much larger part in the books. However, from what I can tell they may not necessarily translate well to film!

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Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Primal (2019) in Movies

Aug 22, 2020

Primal (2019)

2019 | Action, Adventure

4.4

(5 Ratings)

Movie Rating

When will I learn? Do not watch big star films you've never heard of before I see them on DVD.

A big game hunter ends up transporting his catch on a ship with a team of military personnel that are transporting an assassin back to the US under the radar. All it takes is one wrong step for the ship to be filled with danger as everyone is being stalked by killers, both animal and human.

I nearly lobbed this DVD out my window after the first scene with the CGI kitty cat, it was truly abysmal. Thankfully at some point I stopped noticing fairly quickly.

Kevin Durand plays our assassin-in-transit and he's always a pretty good bet for a bad guy. Even in this he has a great presence. Next we have Famke Janssen, I couldn't honestly tell you how long it's been since I saw her in something. This wasn't a great character though, and apart from one or two scenes I had forgotten she was even in this film when I scrolled through the cast list. It's not entirely to do with the acting, which did feel a little lacklustre, the character didn't have a lot of punch and wasn't what you know she's capable of.

There's no denying that this is below my usual Cage favourites. It's pretty low on the Cage Rage ranking, but it's still a Nicolas Cage film and as with shark films that means there's an automatic pass. It would have to do something horrendous for me to outright hate it.

There's logic of some description in Primal but it's still a distinctly average film. I can forgive the bad CGI, but a poor script and average production quality across the board mean I'm regretting paying actual money for it. The idea for the story feels like someone used a story generator to get different plot points, even so, there was potential in it but I was rather sad it wasn't a better experience.

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/08/primal-movie-review.html