Critically Evaluate the last movie you saw.

[clocker]

Movies don't have to make sense to be entertaining but it certainly helps.

It's one thing to make an audience swallow improbability but once done, internal consistency is key.
Attack the Block would be an entertaining example, Primer another (but far less exciting).
Once I've bought into your premise, don't make me keep paying by heaping impossibility upon ridiculous impossibility.

Some films simply seem intent on fucking with the audience until they either walk out or become totally brain dead.

[Snee]

Battleship

Based on the game (lol), it's basically about a fleet of good guys, trying to beat a fleet of bad guys, and they have trouble finding each other.


Better than I'd thought. Unlike Transformers, it didn't re-imagine any of my childhood memories badly. And while it pretty much was a Transformers-movie without the robots, and the product-placements, it was watchable.

The acting wasn't terrible, though why the fuck someone casted Rihanna, and had her handling guns at that, I'll never know. Other than that, the casting wasn't terrible, and there were a couple of actors in it it really didn't deserve.

The plot was meh, but the effects were pretty good.


The movie as a whole went back and forth between being really dumb, and being sentimental and cheesy, but I found myself liking it as much as is possible with a movie with no depth or point.

It had no soul, really, but it was watchable.


---

Cannonball Run

A Burt Reynolds classic. About a race engaging mentals and the idle rich, those who are both, and Burt Reynolds.


What makes it worthwhile is the gallery of characters. Roger Moore and Jackie Chan feature as distorted versions of themselves, Dom DeLuise is Reynold's nutjob of a sidekick, Farrah Fawcett is the love interest, and a heap of other known and unknowns (to me anyway), bring up the rear. Obviously, it's not to be taken seriously, but if you're willing to accept it for the lighthearted comedy it's intended as, without reflecting too hard on the plot or the actions of the characters, it's fairly enjoyable.

---

Lockout


Surly, master of the one-liner, CIA-agent in the future played by Guy Pearce, breaks into a space-prison controlled by the prisoners, to save the president's daughter.

Essentially Escape from New York/Escape from L.A in space.



It's not good. Downright bad, in fact. Even the effects are at times cartoonish in a way that would have fit right into the Matrix-trilogy, parts 2 or 3, and there's really no logic to anything.

I thought it was great, but as more than one of the people I watched it with pointed out, you could take Pearce's character, and insert him into anything, and it'd be funny. And I really didn't expect him to be able to do that. That said, Pearce isn't quite the only thing worth watching, in there. Joe Gilgun, whom I've only previously seen in Misfits, does a splendid job as a psychotic scotsman, who plays a large part in the story. I didn't really like him in Misfits, but here, he works. Also watch out for Lennie James, Peter Stormare and Maggie Grace - essentially, like Battleship, I felt that this had a better cast than it deserved.

But, everything said, this isn't souless, or at least not as souless (?), as Battleship. And I don't care if the rest of you hate it

[Artemis]

But, everything said, this isn't souless, or at least not as souless (?), as Battleship. And I don't care if the rest of you hate it

Clocker REALLY hates it: https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/4...=1#post3689064

so blame him.

[Snee]

Yes. I read. And Idc.

[Artemis]

I kind of liked it, it was what Escape From New York would have been if John Carpenter was on Ketamine when he filmed it, with a healthy dash of Demolition Man's storyline heaved in for good measure, so you aren't all alone in the wilderness, and your last recommendation, Iron Sky was brill.

[Artemis]

The Hunger Games

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/

This is the story of a post-apocalyptic society, reformed from the ashes of the North American countries, it is called Panem, and has 12 districts and and the capitol (city). In the past there was a rebellion by the districts and after this was quelled, the hunger games were instated as a yearly tribute to the capitol. In this totalitarian society the tribute is a young male and female from each district who are chosen at the reaping to fight to the death in the hunger games until there is a lone victor.

In the movie there are strong visuals of the french upper class and it's idle rich at the time of the french revolution, as well as the obvious parallels to the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. This is an underlying theme to the movie, the oppression of the totalitarian state which is the backdrop to the hunger games and why the poorer districts are forced to give young people each year, while standing little chance of them surviving, yet this theme is not developed at all apart from a riot happening as a result of one incident in the games there is no real political upheaval. Which is truly strange in a story that purports to be about totalitarian oppression of the masses, the theme wanders off and becomes a story of two star crossed lovers?

The storyline for this movie based on the first of a trilogy, strongly reminds me of Stephen King's early work under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, in particular the two short novels, the Running Man and the Long Walk, yet the ending is vapid and does not live up to the promise of the underlying storylines which seem to become stillborn and are left with little explanation.

The character development too, is basically non-existent leaving you not even feeling for the deaths of the characters in the hunger games, they have no real meaning since they are so two dimensional and bland.

In conclusion, this isn't a bad movie, but it could have been so much more, and for this reason I was disappointed by it. I genuinely enjoy the post-apocalyptic near future stories, and the fact that many of them are a comment on the political situation of the times, and while this movie had that potential, it went all twilight on me at the 11th hour, leaving me feeling just a bit cheated.

[megabyteme]

I agree with you, Art. I didn't dislike the movie, but it felt extremely empty, and would have been far better delivered as a Rated-R (18+) much like the Alien films. Unfortunately, the movie (and books, I believe) are targeted towards the teen summer-movie-goer crowd and not adults. Apparently, that is where the big money is to be raked in.

Regardless, the evil-opposition (ones out to get the star of the show) had FAR too much of a paperboard cut-out feel to them. Even when we see them meet their (inevitable) demise, there is a sense that we should be counting down one more so that the ending can come.

Even the "romance" was one-dimensional. There's not even any reason to be on Team-X or Team-Y as with the Twatlight series.

Empty calories, to be sure. Are there elements that could have been developed in its 2:15 run time, certainly.

3out of 5 stars. Hint: See it on medication/street drugs/alcohol and it may gain another star.

[IdolEyes787]

I would say that the new J.J. Abrams series directly rips off elements of this but I fear the wrath of Busyman.

Anyway the main romantic relationships from the book were unsurprisingly altered for movie idiot consumption as were the generated creatures and the climatic fight which proved to be the biggest letdown for me.

Ten seconds to wrap up two hours of build up.Yawn.

[stitched]

i watched "living in oblivion"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113677/

quote from review on the site
"Living in Oblivion is an unusual, funny, and interesting example of the movie-about-movies genre, focusing on the low budget, independent movie making scene. The lead performances by Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener are first-rate, and the supporting cast is excellent as well. The film veers from satire to realism to surrealism in depicting the problems and tensions involved in off-off-Hollywood filmmaking"

i found it funny and entertaining, once you sit thru the beginning 7/10 may be even 8/10.

[megabyteme]

i watched "living in oblivion"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113677/

quote from review on the site
"Living in Oblivion is an unusual, funny, and interesting example of the movie-about-movies genre, focusing on the low budget, independent movie making scene. The lead performances by Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener are first-rate, and the supporting cast is excellent as well. The film veers from satire to realism to surrealism in depicting the problems and tensions involved in off-off-Hollywood filmmaking"

i found it funny and entertaining, once you sit thru the beginning 7/10 may be even 8/10.

Thanks for contributing, stitched. For future note, this section strongly favors original thought/writing. There is a rate the movies thread (but I can see that you were trying to go beyond that). All I'm saying is that your effort was appreciated, but we are looking for yet another notch up in this thread.