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Reiko LJ (126 KP) rated Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) in Movies
Jul 23, 2018 (Updated Jul 23, 2018)
Great cast and chemistry (1 more)
A genuine message at the end of it all
Don't judge a game by its box
Contains spoilers, click to show
I can hold my hands up and genuinely say I was wrong about this film and all my pre-judgements of it.
When the initial trailers dropped I was appalled - not only had they besmirched the good Jumanji name with a cheap remake but it had tropes ahoy and fanservice nonsense with Karen Gillan running round in a skimpy outftit. Also the Jack Black playing a female character just felt like a dodgy observation on a man being funny pretending to speak like a woman.
Well. I was totally wrong.
It sold itself as good fun and it delivered with some actual depth bringing up the rear.
The tropes I was worried about were flipped on their head. The geeky guy didn't chase the popular girl and get her in the end - he always liked the geeky girl. The game gave them a platform to express their mutual feelings to each other and to gain confidence in general.
The jock learned about strengths outside of his physicality. The popular girl learned about being selfless and seeing the world outside of her phone.
The video game format was a great way to bring the film to the modern age and had some really smart nods to aspects within them.
Definitely not what I expected, pleasantly surprised. Hell, the ending even brought a tear to my eye! 100% glad I gave it a shot
When the initial trailers dropped I was appalled - not only had they besmirched the good Jumanji name with a cheap remake but it had tropes ahoy and fanservice nonsense with Karen Gillan running round in a skimpy outftit. Also the Jack Black playing a female character just felt like a dodgy observation on a man being funny pretending to speak like a woman.
Well. I was totally wrong.
It sold itself as good fun and it delivered with some actual depth bringing up the rear.
The tropes I was worried about were flipped on their head. The geeky guy didn't chase the popular girl and get her in the end - he always liked the geeky girl. The game gave them a platform to express their mutual feelings to each other and to gain confidence in general.
The jock learned about strengths outside of his physicality. The popular girl learned about being selfless and seeing the world outside of her phone.
The video game format was a great way to bring the film to the modern age and had some really smart nods to aspects within them.
Definitely not what I expected, pleasantly surprised. Hell, the ending even brought a tear to my eye! 100% glad I gave it a shot
Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated Back to the Future (1985) in Movies
Jul 23, 2018
Amazing plot (3 more)
Fantastic cast
Lovable characters
Interesting take on a time machine
1 of my favourite movies of all time!
This is a masterpiece and a classic.
The writing is spot on, the acting and cast are perfect and could never be replaced if there was ever talk of a remake (please dont)
The idea to have the time machine as a car was genius. I know the initial idea was a refrigerator which would have been weird so I'm happy they changed their mind. The effects of going up to 88 miles per hour and see the light flash in front of the delorian before it speeds through time was impressive. They got the look of the 50s spot on.
Michael j fox and Christopher lloyd give excellent performances. Their characters are lovable, fun and just perfect. Crispin Glover is as weird as ever but great as George while lea Thompson was also great Lorraine but not as believable as an older version of herself.Tom Wilson was perfect as the bully biff and was shocked not to see him in more stuff afterwards.
The plot is great. Go back in time, make sure your parents get together to make sure your born. This was great chance for many funny scenes involving Marty and his parents. But this is where the logic didn't make sense. He went through all this so why don't his parents remember him from when they were younger.
If you ain't seen this before, where have you been? It's a classic and a must see for anyone. It's funny, it's charming and it's geeky at times.
The writing is spot on, the acting and cast are perfect and could never be replaced if there was ever talk of a remake (please dont)
The idea to have the time machine as a car was genius. I know the initial idea was a refrigerator which would have been weird so I'm happy they changed their mind. The effects of going up to 88 miles per hour and see the light flash in front of the delorian before it speeds through time was impressive. They got the look of the 50s spot on.
Michael j fox and Christopher lloyd give excellent performances. Their characters are lovable, fun and just perfect. Crispin Glover is as weird as ever but great as George while lea Thompson was also great Lorraine but not as believable as an older version of herself.Tom Wilson was perfect as the bully biff and was shocked not to see him in more stuff afterwards.
The plot is great. Go back in time, make sure your parents get together to make sure your born. This was great chance for many funny scenes involving Marty and his parents. But this is where the logic didn't make sense. He went through all this so why don't his parents remember him from when they were younger.
If you ain't seen this before, where have you been? It's a classic and a must see for anyone. It's funny, it's charming and it's geeky at times.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Edge of Darkness (2010) in Movies
Aug 8, 2019
Mel Gibson is back on the screen in the winter thriller “Edge of Darkness”. Boston cop Thomas Craven (Gibson) is excited about his daughter Emma’s (Bojana Novakovic) visit home from her first post college employment position. Yet from the very start something seems wrong. Before dinner is even served a masked assailant kills Emma in cold blood on the porch of her father’s house leaving Officer Craven determined to figure out who killed his daughter and why which requires Craven to do this with or without the help of the law.
This is not a mystery but rather the story of a cop’s determination to avenge his daughter against impossible odds which are stacked with numerous shady characters that Craven must deal with to solve the murder, including senators, businessmen, and one title-less problem solver. Moreover, the flick walks directly into the muddy waters of morality, the law, business, and politics.
Tightly packed with characters, “Edge of Darkness” leaves little room for character development, thereby loosing much of the emotional response it seeks to create. However, the standout performance by Ray Winstone, who plays the insightful but questionably aligned Jedburgh, did lighten what otherwise is a dark and densely packed tale.
Further frustrating the viewer, the film’s ending is expected and not at all as dramatic as the buildup demanded. I left wondering why Gibson would remake the original award winning BBC-miniseries into a boring film that is ripe with undeveloped characters.
This thriller lacks the inventiveness or conclusion to make it worthy of Mel Gibson’s return. There were a couple of mildly tense moments and few well executed scenes but overall “Edge of Darkness” is really more of a substandard drama than an engaging thriller. The 117 minutes spent watching the “Edge of Darkness” was slightly enjoyable, but the story really is nothing new.
This is not a mystery but rather the story of a cop’s determination to avenge his daughter against impossible odds which are stacked with numerous shady characters that Craven must deal with to solve the murder, including senators, businessmen, and one title-less problem solver. Moreover, the flick walks directly into the muddy waters of morality, the law, business, and politics.
Tightly packed with characters, “Edge of Darkness” leaves little room for character development, thereby loosing much of the emotional response it seeks to create. However, the standout performance by Ray Winstone, who plays the insightful but questionably aligned Jedburgh, did lighten what otherwise is a dark and densely packed tale.
Further frustrating the viewer, the film’s ending is expected and not at all as dramatic as the buildup demanded. I left wondering why Gibson would remake the original award winning BBC-miniseries into a boring film that is ripe with undeveloped characters.
This thriller lacks the inventiveness or conclusion to make it worthy of Mel Gibson’s return. There were a couple of mildly tense moments and few well executed scenes but overall “Edge of Darkness” is really more of a substandard drama than an engaging thriller. The 117 minutes spent watching the “Edge of Darkness” was slightly enjoyable, but the story really is nothing new.
Lou Grande (148 KP) rated Monster: A Novel of Extreme Horror and Gore in Books
May 9, 2018
Long exposition (3 more)
Shifting narratives
Many typos
Anticlimactic Ending
The authors of MONSTER preface the book with a warning to the readers, cautioning them about the contents of the book. They really play it up: debating whether or not the story was too dark or too extreme and needed to be censored. It's ridiculous. If you've seen the first five minutes of the remake of The Hills Have Eyes 2, you've read this book. Matt Shaw really phones it in. He seems to be doing pretty well, popping out a book every month or so, and probably making a decent bit of cash too. So you'd think he'd be able to afford an editor. MONSTER is riddled with typos that should embarrass professional writers, like the misuse of "it's" and "its" in the same sentence, and a complete lack of knowledge on how quoting dialogue works. Also, it's almost impossible to get a sense of where this book is set until they explicitly tell you. All the characters use British slang and spellings, but it's set in Indiana. Okay.
Matt Shaw says in the introduction that he writes his endings to leave the audience reeling. That's true. Because I wasted three hours or so on one of the most underwhelming, anticlimactic, predictable endings I've ever read. It felt like he was written into a corner, so he just STOPPED. That's how abruptly it ends. And yeah, we all get it. "Who's the real monster?" Really original.
Also, it's Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, not NIcholas. Wikipedia is a thing. So is imdb. Do your research!
Matt Shaw says in the introduction that he writes his endings to leave the audience reeling. That's true. Because I wasted three hours or so on one of the most underwhelming, anticlimactic, predictable endings I've ever read. It felt like he was written into a corner, so he just STOPPED. That's how abruptly it ends. And yeah, we all get it. "Who's the real monster?" Really original.
Also, it's Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, not NIcholas. Wikipedia is a thing. So is imdb. Do your research!
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated 7 Days In Entebbe (2018) in Movies
Mar 22, 2018
Doesn't really work
Most of us (including me), when we heard about the new film 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE, thought to themselves "didn't they just make this film a few years ago...?" The answer is yes. A similar film to this - RAID ON ENTEBBE - was a TV movie made a few years ago - 42 years ago, to be precise. It starred Peter Finch, Martin Balsam, Jack Warden and good ol' Charles Bronson. Made a mere few months after the true events, this slapped together movie was an old-fashioned "shoot 'em up."
This film is most definitely not.
7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE tells the true story of the 1976 Air France Hijacking of (mostly) Israeli citizens that settle in Entebbe, Uganda (under the leadership of crazed dictator Idi Amin) - refusing to negotiate with terrorists, the Israeli government plan, stage and execute a daring rescue mission.
Sounds like a pretty good plot for a Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.
In this version, Director Jose Padilha (the 2014 remake of ROBOCOP) decides to focus most of his attention not on the hijacked Israeli citizens, but rather, a pair of German hijackers juxtaposed against the political infighting in Israel between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres. The Israeli governmental infighting was interesting to watch with intriguing characters and cat-and-mouse back-stabbing politics while the plight of the kidnappers was underwritten and underwhelming. Consequently, this film was "just okay".
Oh...and it had about an hour-fifteen minutes of content stretched over an hour-forty-five minutes, so to stretch things out, Padilha decided to cut back and forth between the action (what there was of it) and a modern dance recital. Clearly he was trying a metaphor of the dance punctuating the emotions and actions elsewhere. It just didn't work for me.
Neither did this film. Skip this one and check out the Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.
Letter Grade C+
5 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
This film is most definitely not.
7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE tells the true story of the 1976 Air France Hijacking of (mostly) Israeli citizens that settle in Entebbe, Uganda (under the leadership of crazed dictator Idi Amin) - refusing to negotiate with terrorists, the Israeli government plan, stage and execute a daring rescue mission.
Sounds like a pretty good plot for a Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.
In this version, Director Jose Padilha (the 2014 remake of ROBOCOP) decides to focus most of his attention not on the hijacked Israeli citizens, but rather, a pair of German hijackers juxtaposed against the political infighting in Israel between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres. The Israeli governmental infighting was interesting to watch with intriguing characters and cat-and-mouse back-stabbing politics while the plight of the kidnappers was underwritten and underwhelming. Consequently, this film was "just okay".
Oh...and it had about an hour-fifteen minutes of content stretched over an hour-forty-five minutes, so to stretch things out, Padilha decided to cut back and forth between the action (what there was of it) and a modern dance recital. Clearly he was trying a metaphor of the dance punctuating the emotions and actions elsewhere. It just didn't work for me.
Neither did this film. Skip this one and check out the Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.
Letter Grade C+
5 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
Not A Number: Patrick McGoohan: a Life
Book
When Patrick McGoohan first hit UK screens starring as the Danger Man in 1960 audiences were...
Where Are My Eggs?!
Games and Entertainment
App
"Where Are My Eggs?" is a remake of a classic handheld electronic game console "Elektronika IM-02"....
Edgar Wright recommended Brazil (1985) in Movies (curated)
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated FIRESTARTER (2022) in Movies
May 21, 2022
Commits the Biggest Film Crime - It's Boring
Sometimes, I watch a movie, so you don’t have to.
I watched the remake of the Stephen King novel FIRESTARTER, so you don’t have to.
The current “leader in the clubhouse” for the worst film of 2022, FIRESTARTER is based on the very good Stephen King novel that was published in 1980 and was made into a pretty cheesy, pretty ‘80s flick in 1984 that made Drew Barrymore (fresh off her work in ET) a bonafide movie star.
No such luck in this one.
Produced by Blum House, Directed by Keith Thomas (THE VIGIL) and adapted from King’s novel by Scott Teems (HALLOWEEN KILLS), this version of FIRESTARTER was dead on arrival, with a weak script, mediocre directing and less than stellar visual effects, consequently making a film that is the worst sort of film…boring. It doesn’t even have the ambition to be “so bad, it’s good”, it is just plodding and mediocre throughout.
But, at 1 hour 34 minutes, it is mercifully short, so it does have that going for it.
What it also has going for it is a “game” Zach Efron as “Firestarter’s Father” and he elevates the scenes he is in to something that comes close to watchable. And when Sydney Lemmon is along as “Firestarter’s Mom” the screen comes the closest to interesting. But the rest…”meh”.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays “Firestarter”, Charlie McGee - the young lady who can start fires with her telepathic powers - and she is “just fine”, but she does not have the star power or “it” factor that Barrymore brought to the proceedings previously. She is just not a compelling enough presence on screen to save this turkey. I don’t blame her, I blame the weak Direction by Thomas and the limp script by Teems.
The only other character/performance that sparks some interest in this film is Michael Grayeyes (TOGO) who plays a Native American tracker with his own telekinetic powers who is put on the trail of Charlie by the mysterious Institute (a shadowy Gov’t agency that chases after various “special” people - mostly kids - in quite a few Stephen King novels). Inexplicably, this role was played by an aging, pony-tailed George C. Scott (obviously chasing a paycheck) in the 1984 film. Grayeyes succeeds more.
But these glimmers of competence only aggravates more when the film bogs back down in cardboard villains (what has happened to your career, Gloria Ruben) and exposition spouting scientists (what a waste of Kurtwood Smith) and less than spectacular action sequences that, mostly, consist of Armstrong screaming while a wind machine blows her hair back while sub-par CGI flames engulf the screen.
And…adding insult to injury…the "guy in the asbestos suit” (a mainstay of any film involving fire) does not even get a day of stunt pay! It’s like going to see a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible film and Cruise doesn’t do some sort of crazy stunt!
After the success of IT, PART ONE in 2017, there was a renaissance, of sorts, of adaptations of Stephen King works and even though PET SEMATARY (2019) was pretty decent and IT, CHAPTER TWO and DOCTOR SLEEP (2019) were okay, THE DARK TOWER, the TV remake of THE STAND, LISEY’S STORY and now FIRESTARTER were all terrible, so maybe we’ve seen the end of this phase of King adaptations (I doubt it, but one can hope).
Save yourself and hour and a half of your life and skip this Firestarter. Instead, revisit the 1984 version - it plays like an Oscar-winner compared to this turkey. Or, better yet, read the original Stephen King work - it is the best of all of these.
Letter Grade: C- (and I’m being generous)
3 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis).
I watched the remake of the Stephen King novel FIRESTARTER, so you don’t have to.
The current “leader in the clubhouse” for the worst film of 2022, FIRESTARTER is based on the very good Stephen King novel that was published in 1980 and was made into a pretty cheesy, pretty ‘80s flick in 1984 that made Drew Barrymore (fresh off her work in ET) a bonafide movie star.
No such luck in this one.
Produced by Blum House, Directed by Keith Thomas (THE VIGIL) and adapted from King’s novel by Scott Teems (HALLOWEEN KILLS), this version of FIRESTARTER was dead on arrival, with a weak script, mediocre directing and less than stellar visual effects, consequently making a film that is the worst sort of film…boring. It doesn’t even have the ambition to be “so bad, it’s good”, it is just plodding and mediocre throughout.
But, at 1 hour 34 minutes, it is mercifully short, so it does have that going for it.
What it also has going for it is a “game” Zach Efron as “Firestarter’s Father” and he elevates the scenes he is in to something that comes close to watchable. And when Sydney Lemmon is along as “Firestarter’s Mom” the screen comes the closest to interesting. But the rest…”meh”.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong plays “Firestarter”, Charlie McGee - the young lady who can start fires with her telepathic powers - and she is “just fine”, but she does not have the star power or “it” factor that Barrymore brought to the proceedings previously. She is just not a compelling enough presence on screen to save this turkey. I don’t blame her, I blame the weak Direction by Thomas and the limp script by Teems.
The only other character/performance that sparks some interest in this film is Michael Grayeyes (TOGO) who plays a Native American tracker with his own telekinetic powers who is put on the trail of Charlie by the mysterious Institute (a shadowy Gov’t agency that chases after various “special” people - mostly kids - in quite a few Stephen King novels). Inexplicably, this role was played by an aging, pony-tailed George C. Scott (obviously chasing a paycheck) in the 1984 film. Grayeyes succeeds more.
But these glimmers of competence only aggravates more when the film bogs back down in cardboard villains (what has happened to your career, Gloria Ruben) and exposition spouting scientists (what a waste of Kurtwood Smith) and less than spectacular action sequences that, mostly, consist of Armstrong screaming while a wind machine blows her hair back while sub-par CGI flames engulf the screen.
And…adding insult to injury…the "guy in the asbestos suit” (a mainstay of any film involving fire) does not even get a day of stunt pay! It’s like going to see a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible film and Cruise doesn’t do some sort of crazy stunt!
After the success of IT, PART ONE in 2017, there was a renaissance, of sorts, of adaptations of Stephen King works and even though PET SEMATARY (2019) was pretty decent and IT, CHAPTER TWO and DOCTOR SLEEP (2019) were okay, THE DARK TOWER, the TV remake of THE STAND, LISEY’S STORY and now FIRESTARTER were all terrible, so maybe we’ve seen the end of this phase of King adaptations (I doubt it, but one can hope).
Save yourself and hour and a half of your life and skip this Firestarter. Instead, revisit the 1984 version - it plays like an Oscar-winner compared to this turkey. Or, better yet, read the original Stephen King work - it is the best of all of these.
Letter Grade: C- (and I’m being generous)
3 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis).
Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan
Book
The first rule of warfare is to know one's enemy. The second is to know thyself. More than fifteen...