Topic: Rate the last movie you've seen

[Shorty McNostril]

So yeah....Justice League.

It's definitely better than BvS (no great accomplishment granted) but nowhere near the level of the Avengers though in my opinion.  Story was nothing special but at least it was somewhat coherent.  Now with CGI, I'm not a CGI nerd so it didn't worry me at all. But Steppenwolf is definitely sub par, especially his talking.  As for Cavill's mo, I didn't notice that at all. 

I quite enjoyed all the different characters and I felt they all had their place. 

I won't see it again at the movies, but will certainly watch it again when it releases on home formats.  Hopefully there'll be an extended cut like BvS.

[BlackNMild2k1]

So yeah....Justice League.

It's definitely better than BvS (no great accomplishment granted) but nowhere near the level of the Avengers though in my opinion.  Story was nothing special but at least it was somewhat coherent.  Now with CGI, I'm not a CGI nerd so it didn't worry me at all. But Steppenwolf is definitely sub par, especially his talking.  As for Cavill's mo, I didn't notice that at all. 

I quite enjoyed all the different characters and I felt they all had their place. 

I won't see it again at the movies, but will certainly watch it again when it releases on home formats.  Hopefully there'll be an extended cut like BvS.

Maybe there will be a Snyder Cut and and an extended Whedon cut, w/ finished/polished CG.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I saw JL last night.

Now while lots of criticism could be had at the movie, I actually enjoyed it. I did go in know full well what all the flaws were, but I was determined to either "laugh with them, or laugh at them, but I'm laughing either way" and I laughed WITH them and AT on this one. A lot of the things people were nitpicking just weren't that noticeable in the flow of the movie. there were some funny parts, and couple of cool scenes, including some straight fan service that were kinda cool, even if one in particular didn't make much sense in the flow of things (Superman catching up to The Flash for that road race in Russia after The Flash had already been running for a while and Supes was just a second ago doing something else). There was also some noticeable CG issues but I don't feel most of it took you out of the movie too much... Supes lip, Steppenwolf, CG background of everything, Aquaman's surfing the demon thing down the building  but hopping out full size over a tiny fence (WTF?), Steppenwolf... did I say that already!? and maybe a few editing errors....

Aquaman wasn't bad. That Dudebro attitude you see in the trailers is in the movie, but he was pretty cool I guess. Mera was also damn hot.

The Flash really wasn't as annoying as you thought he would be based on the trailers. His quirkiness fit the character in the context of the movie. He was actually kinda funny.

Cyborg wasn't nearly as energetic as you're used to seeing him on the Titans, but he was cool. I had no issue with him here. I could see him really lightening up in a future sequel. The scene posted in the other thread apparently had the CG fixed for the US release, as it no longer looked like a Snapchat filter. But I"m really glad they fixed his appearance in the movie at the very end.

Wonder Woman was fine. You can tell it was a Snyder production (vs a Patty Jenkins one) from the gratuitous butt shots and short Amazonian skirts, not to mention the over use of slow-mo to speed up action, but she had a few cool scenes.

Batman was ok. We finally got a bit of prep time Batman, and contingency plan Batman, but he wasn't fully prepared for everything, and not quite the Worlds Best Detective Batman either. Those are things I'm sure we'll see in the solo movie... assuming that ever happens.

Superman was alright. He wasn't in much of the movie till near the very end, but he was rightfully more powerful than everyone and they made sure you knew from the moment they brought him back. I LMAO at the "I see you" scene vs The Flash when he was fighting everyone.
Although his stache erase in the beginning was very noticeable....

Steppenwolf was like a videogame character since he was all CG, but really, I feel like this only bothers you if you are looking for things to hate. It wasn't that off putting considering most scenes he was in was all CG anyway. LOL

Now I certainly had a few issues with the movie, and noticed lots of the things pointed out, but nothing that would make me hate the movie. Now when I walked out of BvS after it was done, I was actually pissed off that I had to sit through that mess, and I don't know exactly every addition that Joss Whedon made, but I feel like if he hadn't stepped in and reshot about 20% of the character moments in this film... I might not have liked it as much as I did. It was actually a fun movie.

It wasn't on Thor: Ragnarok level of fun and funny, but it was certainly on that WW tier of enjoyable. I had a few LOL moments, and there were a few intense scenes, but honestly, anyone railing against this movie either hasn't seen it, just went in wanting to hate it, or was purposely trying to be overly critical of it and came out thinking it was cool to see who could dis it harder.
Not saying a lot of that criticism isn't justified, but as a general audience, we either aren't gonna notice lots of the things pointed out in a first viewing, or not gonna care even if we noticed it on a first viewing. (there were a few off putting CG scenes though.....) I was also heavily drinking when I saw this so I may be more forgiving than some : :

tl;dr
it really wasn't bad. I quite enjoyed it, and even though I wouldn't push anyone to go see it, I surely wouldn't dissuade them from seeing it either. It was FAR better than that mess BvS and SS.

pre-post edit: haha as I'm typing this out, I'm going back an editing in things I remember laughing AT about the movie, so excuse me if this post ends up a mess. lol


still tl: still dr
6.5/10 - Not as bad as all the critics make it out to be. actually pretty enjoyable movie.

[Plugabugz]

It definitely wasn't bad, but the Time of Snyder needs to end. The secondary characters (Lois, Marthaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Gordon) were all pretty perfunctory. Calling them "in" the movie is wrong.

Cyborg and Flash are great together - the accidents lol I really hope they apear in the others' movies.

[ThePerm]

Bladerunner 2049 - This is a fitting sequel to the original Bladerunner. It is more of the same. Which is, a good thing. They managed to capture the feel of the original film without trying to retread. I feel like if you liked this one you should watch AI or give AI a rewatch.

Thor Ragnorak : bum badada bum. Really fun.

[Stratos]

Producers claim Whedon reshot about 15-20 percent of the film, but some articles are saying it was WAY more. ALL of Superman shots were redone, except for two.


Here is a neat breakdown of the Snyder/Whedon changes.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well, the RT meter settled at 40%
the estimates for the weekend adjusted to $94M
WB is officially not happy:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/justice-league-box-office-setback-dcs-superhero-universe-1059826

[Adrock]

WB is officially not happy

Also, I saw Thor: Ragnarok on Sunday. It was good though I still have not seen Dark World. I didn’t feel like I was missing much except I thought Heimdall may have died in that movie because I forgot he was in Avengers: Age of Ultron which my phone just autocorrected to “Austrian.�

Ragnarok’s plot is a little strange in that it relies on massive coincidences to work though I suppose the same can be said of other comic book movies. Hela would have won easily if Thor and Loki didn’t happen to both end up on the same exact distant planet both Hulk and the last Valkyrie were.

Anyway, Hela was a good villain though I’m not convinced she’s as disposable as other Marvel villains so I expect to see her again. I’m not sure why she kept switching between regular hair to impractical battle helmet.

I was disappointed Sif was absent, but if she was just going to get murder-death-killed, I’m glad she was written out so she can make future appearances.

[oohhboy]

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (2008)

It's an unofficial fan film with a very large cast of Veteran Star Trek actors so reprising their roles and others playing new. The results are pretty mixed.

First the bad:

Tim Russ is not a good director. He either isn't giving the actors enough direction or maybe not enough backfill material for the actors themselves to build on as some of the performances felt like a half forgotten memories to the characters they played before. Not helped by the very close blocking and the one un-stabilised handi cam they must have used.

The ship to ship fighting and CGI is just bad. Ignoring 1960 looks better, it is bad. Tim can't make up his mind what kind of feel he wants so he does all of them. Sometimes it is the classic slow shot, then its a 3 axis rotating camera or a mix. Shadows, lighting and sense of scale is non-existent.

The worse thing about the action is the final battle. 95% of the time I had no idea what was going on, who was where, shooting at who, who was dying, what were people trying to do, just bedlam. It fell into the battle of Endor trap which funny enough that itself didn't fall into. This also applies to video games where you fill the space with as much explosions, enemies and "stuff" as you can to make it look "Epic".

The problem is unless you establish a direction, goal, an instantaneous way to differentiate between the opponents and some clear way the protagonist is influencing the battle you end up with a game title screen background of exploding stuff.

The battle of Endor avoided the problem by keeping what we saw slightly more than the minimum, choose when to show a massive number of ships. As funny as "Its a trap" is it unequivocally defines the problem. The unique looks of the ships, sub goals like "Protect the medical frigate", having a local datums to fix movement around and give geography to space. Actual tactics are described in a short couple sentences "Get closer to the Star destroyers" not "Pattern Omega 7".

The whole thing just goes on for way, way too long with more ships arriving mid battle to pointlessly extend the run time instead of being something meaningful like the cavalry arriving. If they cut back on the running time they could have had much better looking effects and tightened it up into something coherent.

The good:

The sets look excellent even if the usage was weird at times as they barely built enough space which caused it's own problems. It has that cheapness you expect from that era. The computer displays are hilariously simple with no other explanation other than it being an in-joke.

The story and script was quite good. Mostly good use of old characters long since forgotten, the dialogue for most part is what you expect from those characters except Uhura was playing a space hippy dealing in very shallow ethical questions. When the actors loosened up to do their own thing and chewed some scenery they started to shine. Not-Martok is a lot of fun. Alan Ruck (Captain John Harriman) gets good once he starts having fun as does Walter Koenig.

Getting so many Trek actors in one place is a treat.

The make up looked great on par with any of the TV shows.

They weren't shy about killing people with phasers, everyone getting shot everywhere at a drop of the hat while being absurdly cheesy from how amateur it can be. They find mildly amusing ways not to shoot the MCs when they should.

It has that love for Trek even if the end result is very mixed. They needed a much better director like Jonathan Frakes or just about anyone else. What we got was maybe slightly above film student level of skill.

So much wasted potential and that is one of the worse things you can say about a show.

It is still enjoyable if you can and willing to mentally filter out the big problems like the battles as well as the ugliness and the poor overall direction. Otherwise it is a hard pass unless you are already a Trek fan.

[BranDonk Kong]

Justice League - 5/10
The post-credits scenes are the best parts of the movie. The Flash grew on me a little bit after a while, but in the beginning his jokes are bad and forced. Cyborg actually became less interesting as the movie went on. Aquaman is a complete douchebag. Batman is suddenly in love with Superman and is basically...not Batman. Wonder Woman is charismatic and very likable. Steppenwolf should not have been cut from Batman V Superman, it would have made him a littler more interesting. The CGI on Henry Cavil's face was very poorly done - especially in the one scene where he actually smiles. A few of Cyborg's moments are equally bad, if not worse (for example when he automatically attacks Superman because of his "self defense" mode or whatever, it looks like someone used a free video editor to paste his face onto a static background). I don't think Steppenwolf was necessarily a bad villain - though his plan seemed kind of stupid, at least in execution. It's just that the team never really does anything to make you care about any of them, other than Wonder Woman. I honestly think this is the worst DCU movie so far (Man of Steel being the best).


Edit - I just read the above article from the Hollywood Reporter about their being an Aquaman movie next year. That's a really bad idea.

[oohhboy]

I saw a clip of that fight you are talking about. I couldn't stop laughing at how bad it was and how much money was spent on this trash.

To hell with them for "Sneaking" in the classic superman theme in a situation completely oppose to what it is meant to inspire.

[oohhboy]

Star Trek: Renegade + Not Star Trek: Renegade 2 part 1

An improvement over Of Gods and Men, mostly, sort of, maybe no?. It feels really Firefly or Rouge One than Trek or a good show. It is a mildly confusion sequence of clichéd events, untested moral questions, flat acting, boring battles, more save the galaxy from super weapon and general ??

A good portion of the blame can again be laid upon Tim Russ. He is a poor director at best. Actors aren't all flat but it takes effort to make them all flat and one note. He insists on using free handed shots regardless of appropriateness. Blocks faces too closely which I thought was a limitation imposed by the small sets from oGnM.

He somehow managed to make a romantic kiss a slightly confusing and awkward mess by not showing them kissing. It jumps from the back of one persons head to another without ever showing them kissing. If the actors wouldn't or couldn't kiss for some reason they should have found a work around to be romantic and be touching like slow dancing while ogling each others eyes.

The space battles are thankfully shorter but still too long and have no weight to them. The damage dialogue is weird. They say "The shields have fallen another 15%" instead of "The shields have fallen to 15%". The former tells you nothing since you don't have a start point while the latter tells you are close to zero which is bad. It is also an isolated dead moment like the movie couldn't do 2 things at the same time. Everything pauses so the shield report could be given.

Another issue is that they trade blows but it is meaningless until it's not. The Icarus at one point fires a weapon so powerful it takes out a Klingon battle cruiser in one shot and it is never mentioned again. Shields without coming close to failing would let in critical damage.

Close combat isn't any good either. While not(I am assuming) having a stunt coordinator understandable it doesn't mean the gun fights have to be bad. The crew are basically shooting in every direction yet it doesn't feel like they are surrounded as there isn't any sense of space or directionality between the combatants. I think this is likely due to an absurdly small set.

All the characters bar 2 are pretty bad. Chekov mops about high school level idea of doing the necessary thing while doing things that in no way be considered wrong especially since he is the head of Federation Security who would deal in cloak and dagger grey morality but he doesn't. It does result in a ridiculous double back stab that literally comes out of nowhere.

The Captain is meant to be some sort of badass, maybe taking after Claudia Black in Farscape but just comes off as in a perpetual state of irritation. The rest of the crew is just mostly sort of nothing, just nothing but angry or are cannon fodder and poorly executed anti-racism message. The Bajorians are dicks and I don't like most of them very much but come on. The only exception to the crew is Fixer played by Edward Furlong, yes John Conner from Terminator 2 as he seems to be having fun and does some acting beyond a single emotion.

Uhura gets to ham it a little by getting to blow off a higher up request for information. Her reason is very transparent buy she manages to sell it.

The villains are the worse. You are constantly asking yourself who the hell are these guys and why are they pissed off at the Federation for something they have zero causal connection to. The weapon they have is insanely powerful, concealable, and requires no special access to be placed and used yet they make enough noise to get tracked down. There is another big bad behind them but that just leaves you with more questions you aren't going to bother asking.

It's likely Tim is the Director because he is very good at getting the resources together in place to make the show but is a terrible baker. I met Tim once at a convention and he is as stiff and as humourless as Tuvok.

Without the cheese Of Gods and Men had it's a pass even for a Trek Fan.

[ThePerm]

The Untouchables - Pretty Good.

[Plugabugz]

Ingrid Goes West - What a painfully awkward movie not in a bad way, but just seeing the characters decisions ruin her life over and over again all because she wants attention, but still pretty fun to watch.

[Stratos]

Watched Coco over the weekend. Yet another Pixar masterpiece. Loved every part of it, the music was fantastic and of course they overwhelm you with feelings.

[UncleBob]

Last Jedi.

No Jar Jar.
No Ewoks.
No Captain Picard.

0/10.

Why reboot a franchise if you're going to take out all the best parts?

[BranDonk Kong]

Star Wars Episode VIII - 10/10
I think this could be the best Star Wars movie. Just go see it.

[oohhboy]

Based on the spoilers its trash.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Star Wars

I saw it... still not a Star Wars man. It was ok... I guess. SW is just not my thing
so instead I'll talk about how I went to a 9am showing on a friday, maybe 1/3 of the theater full, and that's being generous. they played the Infinity War trailer... and then a trailer for something else, and then 5 m inutes of COMMERCIALS.... WTF. then the movie started.
Where was my Black Panther trailer!? Disney, what's going on here!?

[UncleBob]

Honestly, I'm not a Huge Star Wars fan (like, I don't dislike it...) - but I enjoyed it a lot.

We had some great previews.  Infinity War, Black Panther, A Wrinkle in Time...

[BranDonk Kong]

Hmmm...I went to a 90% sold out IMAX showing at noon.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Well, I showed up early for reasons, and totally thought it would work out since I was expecting there to be a line of Wookies, Boba Fets and Storm Troopers lined up out the local theater, but there was no one there....

about 15 minutes before the movie started, people slowly appeared.... but granted, it was the 1st showing of the day @ 9am.
when we got out at about 11:45am, there wasn't that many more cars in the parking lot, but granted... it was still work and school hours, so that could be the reason.

Now I didn't hate the movie or anything even close to that... I'm just not that interested or invested in any way whatsoever. I can't seem to lose myself in the fantasy of Star Wars like I can with the Marvel (and DC if they were good) movies. So there are things that I just don't understand, even though I get what is happening.
.
*TLJ Spoilers*like Luke projecting himself from across the galaxy, or Snokes force choke slamming the ship commander through his hologram. He also used the force to connect 2 minds with a universe between them.... yet was somehow unable to feel/know Kylo was moving the saber next to him as well... cool moment, but there's obviously been a power buffing to the force since the last Star Wars movie I remember. Rey also got really good at her force control in a very short amount of time w/ 1 brief lesson... but I guess just understanding what is happening, makes it all sort of just click.

I also don't get why Finn would divuldge the entire plan to the guy that wasn't even the guy they were looking for who may or may not be able to help them do the "impossible" thing they were trying to do.

and another thing... was that Carrie Fisher? I thought she didn't finish... and they weren't going to replace her, or do any face/body swapping to complete her part.... I want to say that was a whole different actress, hence the "i know what you're gonna say.... I changed my hair" joke, but I just wasn't sure .

edit:
But yes, I was very annoyed by the selection and order of the previews they played. Like they did them backwards, and realized they fucked up, so just skipped the rest, cut to a few commercials they forgot to play, and then skipped straight to the movie.

[oohhboy]

It the typical power inflation poor writers do like bigger Death Star and more powerful people. Its DBZ where each villain is arbitrarily more powerful because the solution to the last villain is to squat harder so you have to squat harder since they are hacks that can't think of anything clever or creative to deal with it.

Through out the OG trilogy everyone isn't really anymore powerful by Jedi. Luke learns some skills that keep him alive but in the end it is his pleas that wins through the day. The Rebel gets a bigger fleet to fight another Death Star but it isn't the same as the last one flipping your expectations with these changes actually plot critical.

TFA blows up 7 planets but it isn't plot critical or clever, just pointlessly bigger. R1 is clever about it's use of the Death Star by not using it at maximum power giving time for the destruction to play out. We have seen it annihilate a planet, we don't need to see it again. They also use it to generate some beautiful shots that inspired terrible awe.

[UncleBob]

To reply to BnM's spoilered queries above...

I don't disagree, but with the whole Snoke/Lightsaber death scene, I'd say, in that moment, Snoke was just overconfident.  He was literally about to snuff out every enemy that the First Order had left.  Essentially the entire Rebellion was about to be blown up, he got the location of Skywalker from Rey, and Rey herself was about to die.  He had every reason to be overconfident at this point.  If he'd been in a normal state of mind, I'd guess the lightsaber trick wouldn't have worked.

Finn and the code breaker is a mix of desperation, stupidity, and not paying attention.  This Code breaker dude seems like the kind of guy who slips through the shadows and absorbs every bit of knowledge about what is going on so he can use it for later.  Finn and Rose were desperate enough at this point that they *had* to trust the code breaker and stupid enough not to keep a close eye on him.

The bad thing is, Poe is still going to be treated like a hero, but had the dude not gone through with his terrible, off the books plan, Finn and Rose wouldn't have ended up captured and 90% of the remaining rebels wouldn't have been killed.  Dude screwed up, big time.

[nickmitch]

The Last Jedi

My trailer selection was much better than BnM's.  Commercials were before the trailers and Infinity War was the last one.

Anyway, I loved the movie.

The linking of Rey and Kylo to me made a great plot point.  I enjoyed the duality of it; Rey convincing herself that she can save Kylo, Kylo slowly trying to corrupt Rey.  Their interactions made the movie for me.  I never saw that as "buffing" the Force.  The Force is supposed to connect everyone in the universe and there's like 4 Force users left, so why couldn't they be connected?  This felt to me like an extension of Vader and Obi-Wan sensing eachother's presence   The scene with Luke Force-projecting from the island I thought worked as he wasn't doing anything other than what you saw Klyo and Ren doing but on a bigger scale, which should be expected as Luke was supposed to be the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy.  Also, the act killed him and no one else.  It wasn't like he reach Super Saiyan level 90, killed the bad guys, and then everyone went home.

The cleaning house aspect of the film was something else I enjoyed.  Both sides are down with only a few players on each side, but you still get the vibe that the First Order is significantly more powerful.

The very end of the film, showing the little boy using the Force to pick up a broom was a nice little touch.  But I do wonder where the next movie will go.  TFA leaves you on a cliff-hanger, while TLJ leaves you with the conflict only minorly resolved, but with no clear direction.

But yeah, this movie was great.  I'm more than satisfied.

9.5/10