Back to the Future Part 2 I hadn't seen this movie in many years and saw it again on cable. I couldn't believe how badly it had aged and how absolutely wrong it was about the future. To be honest, we may not have hoverboards or flying cars, but the stuff we do have, like smartphones and the internet, actually ended up being way more useful than any of the wacky stuff depicted in this movie. Maybe I'll avoid rewatching the first one. I have fond memories of it, but now I'm wondering if it's just nostalgia.
Are you serious? I don't think I've met anyone who criticized a BTTF movie for having a dubious prediction of the future. I mean, sure we grew up watching them as kids and at the time it all seemed somewhat plausible completely accurate, but since then I never re-watched it and thought "pfft, they got it so wrong" and extended that thought to the movie being worse because of such misguided predictions. The movies are a whole lot of fun, and that aspect still holds up just fine. Maybe I thought similarly to you when re-watching it in my early teens. I guess I've seen all three of them a lot since then, so it's just pure fun nostalgia to me. If you hadn't seen them since you were a kid, I guess your dreams might be kind of shattered. I found this with The Never Ending Story, but still enjoyed the nostalgia regardless. Dated special effects is one thing, criticizing BTTF for having a poor vision of the future is a little silly and missing the point of the movie.
It's largely pointless to complain about visual FX being dated in films. That's guaranteed to happen regardless. The LOTR trilogy is already dated per Gollum etc.
The Hunger Games I found it a bit slow to start and when it did get going I thought they killed too many people off too quickly or off screen. I would say it is an OK watch.
I think we have established Monkey just likes to hate on films regardless. Wreck It Ralph: Just finished watching this and it was awesome. I have a soft spot for Disney-Pixar films but with the added notion of gaming and cameos took it to a whole new level. I really hope that suggested sequel happens.
Wreck it Raply was good. I kinda wished they ventured into more game worlds. I got sick of candy land racer or whatever it was, but I guess the movie needed something to anchor the story to. The first half was pretty original, then the second was pretty standard Pixar/Dreamworks/whatever. It just seemed like two separate movies in the end.
Agreed. Halfway through that candy land I was waiting for more worlds. Makes sense about it being there for the duration due to the bad guy at the end. Then again the lack of worlds sets itself up for a sequel for more worlds to go into.
The Last Stand It felt like a straight to video movie. Arnie is just getting too old and slow to do this kind of thing. The fight scenes at the end where he was fighting the evil drug kingpin guy were pathetic. He looked like he needed his walker just to move around.
Dark Skies I wouldn't say it was the best film in the world but I wouldnt say it was terrible either. Pretty average but I found it more entertaining than any of the paranormal activity series.
Total Recall I thought this was pretty average. A boring re-imagining of the original. it lacked any kind of distinctive style; felt very generic and by the numbers. It was an OK sci-fi film that really didn't justify the link to the 90s one.
it was more of a re-envisioning of the Philip k. dick short story rather than a remake of the original. they added the 3 boobed lady to pay homage to the arnie vision.
Gangster Squad This movie was a complete mess. Sean Penn wears ridiculous looking rubber face prosthetics and screams at people. The movie can't decide whether it wants to be serious, or some cartoonish Dick Tracy type thing, and it doesn't work on either level.
Warm Bodies It was alright. I think they did the best they could with a zombie themed romantic comedy.
Cloud Atlas It's six stories about people struggling against oppression in different time periods. The movie is unique, ambitious, and when everything works, it's absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, it's also a very messy film with a lot of problems, chief among them is that Tom Hanks just isn't that good of an actor. The other actors seemed to blend pretty seamlessly into the various roles, while Tom Hanks was hamming it up, and not in a good way either. I can't fault it too much though, because they actually tried to do something different. Actually the plot and the writing and the way everything connects is pretty ingenious. They needed a chameleon like Daniel Day Lewis to play the lead. Tom Hanks dropped the ball on this one. Still a good movie overall though. 7/10
I agree. It has something for everyone, and all of the stories are good. I really enjoyed the two sci-fi subplots in futuristic Korea and post-apocalyptic Hawaii. I wish they had gone into more detail about what The Fall was. They mention radiation poisoning, so I'm guessing a nuclear war. Not surprising considering the world looks like it's in bad shape by the time of Neo Seoul. You can see that part of the city is flooded due to global warming. Probably a war over the Earth's remaining resources.
I watched Cloud Atlas on the weekend also. My opinion mirrors yours almost exactly. I'd potentially give it 8/10 if they had cast a better actor than Tom Hanks, but it still had many flaws non-related to casting. I did enjoy it, but my understanding of events was severely hampered by the trouble I had hearing the dialogue at times, especially the future valley tribes people with their simple talk. I'm having minor sinus issues right now so I probably should've watched it with sub titles - I did watch another movie last night with no problems hearing the dialogue, so the movie is somewhat to blame. I couldn't turn it up any more because the action was way too loud and my remote has dead batteries, so I just left it at a level just high enough for the dialogue but borderline too loud for action.
The future speak was hard to understand, but at the same time I thought it was kind of neat. I'm sure in a few hundred years there will be enough language drift that the English language would be hard for us to understand. Shakespeare is 400 years old, and it's like reading something in another language at times. As far as the last plot with the tribes people, they were searching for a long range communications array that would allow them to communicate with off-world colonies established before civilization collapsed on Earth. This was the same array Sonmi used to transmit her message during the rebellion in her story, hence the statues as the place had become a landmark. Not sure if you got that. I know my wife found that story confusing due to the dialogue. Clearly they succeeded as Tom Hanks is telling the story to his grandchildren on another planet at the end. Overall, even with all of the messiness and Tom Hanks' bad acting, I still loved the movie. The themes of redemption and people fighting against various kinds of oppression throughout the ages were good. It was brilliant and unique in a lot of ways, and I'm surprised it even got made.