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December Movie Week, Part 2
So this post is coming a little later than I intended, mostly because the draft of the last post was sitting here and Dreamwidth doesn't allow you to save more than one draft, so I kept putting it off.
I've managed to see a couple of movies this week!Hopefully, I'll be able to see at least one more in the next couple of days and make a short of "best of 2018/movies I enjoyed the most in 2018" post or something. (Since I wrote that hopeful message I've become incredibly busy and just want to clean my apartment and sleep.)
And yes, one of the movies I watched is Bird Box because I'm a slave to the algorithm. I'm not watching Bandersnatch though because I've never really cared about Black Mirror.
Spoilers for Bumblebee (and the other Transformers movies I guess), Aquaman, and Bird Box.
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Bumblebee - I had marathoned the first five Transformers movies in preparation for this one, and man they are... bad. Like, holy shit they are really bad. So that may be a small part of the reason why my reaction to Bumblebee was so enthusiastic. It's a movie with an actual soul and an interest in its characters, and it's leaps and bounds better than any of the other movies in the series (no the first one is bad, everyone just wants to collectively give it a pass because they had an okay time seeing it in theaters in 2007). All the actor were great, and the limited number of Transformers meant that you got to know the ones that did get screentime better and there was more effort in the production to make them unique and actually look good.
Also Charlie and Bumblebee was a totally love story (lmao) and there's like a 50% chance I'm gonna write a fic about them at some point. Like serious kudos to Hailee Steinfeld and the production team for selling the hell out of this rapport and making it so endearing and fun to watch.Yes it aped elements of the Iron Giant but that was a good movie too.
PLEASE GO SEE IT IN THEATERS. It is very much worth your time and your money.
Aquaman - My reaction to this is more of a general "yeah that was good" because I saw it right after Bumblebee blew my socks off. It is easily the best movie in the DCEU after Wonder Woman, but what drags it down is having to spend the first act of the movie writing around the existence of Justice League, which aped Intro Story plot points like "Arthur meets Mera" from this movie which meant they had to find ways to hit those same, essential story beats but differently. It also means that the childhood story largely had to be sprinkled throughout the film so it would make sense structurally (instead of being placed at the beginning like a regular movie) which made them more distracting than anything. (No, I did not need to see the moment where Arthur found out what happened to his mother when its already been described in detail a handful of times when I could be watching Arthur and Mera looking for a magic spear).
Mamoa and Heard are excellent in this, and everyone else is proficient enough to keep everything running smoothly. I think the villains could've been punched up a little more though, and the "throne room" set in Atlantis was pretty underwhelming. That said, every other part of Atlantis was stunning, and looked way better than anything I thought they could achieve with special effects.
Recommend, but this one is a massive hit with legs so it doesn't need your help as much as Bumblebee.
Bird Box - The algorithm gave us a movie that in a lot of ways is a remix of elements from A Quiet Place. I still liked it though, mostly because Sandra Bullock is a fucking great actress who sold the hell out of everything. I think the structure of this movie also works very well, and even manages to inject some surprises despite it, which I appreciated. The world building of this post-apocalyptic world was also much smarter than I thought it would be, and I found myself forgiving a lot of elements regarding that.
Two major complaints I've seen is that the lore isn't explained and that it grossly paints the mentally ill as villains. I'd only agree with the latter criticism, which comes across as less malicious than straight up laziness on the filmmakers part. That said, I'm glad they didn't spend this movie indulging in lore and having characters trying to solve what was happening. I found the character-driven approach much more interesting, especially since whatever "answers" the movie could've given wouldn't have been that interesting. Honestly, it gave you enough information in the first act of the movie that you could pretty well intuit what was happening, and it was enough for me.
If you want an okay atmospheric horror/suspense movie with great acting and you have some time to kill, there are worse ways to spend your time than watching this. It's also on Netflix so, recommend.
I've managed to see a couple of movies this week!
And yes, one of the movies I watched is Bird Box because I'm a slave to the algorithm. I'm not watching Bandersnatch though because I've never really cared about Black Mirror.
Spoilers for Bumblebee (and the other Transformers movies I guess), Aquaman, and Bird Box.
-
Bumblebee - I had marathoned the first five Transformers movies in preparation for this one, and man they are... bad. Like, holy shit they are really bad. So that may be a small part of the reason why my reaction to Bumblebee was so enthusiastic. It's a movie with an actual soul and an interest in its characters, and it's leaps and bounds better than any of the other movies in the series (no the first one is bad, everyone just wants to collectively give it a pass because they had an okay time seeing it in theaters in 2007). All the actor were great, and the limited number of Transformers meant that you got to know the ones that did get screentime better and there was more effort in the production to make them unique and actually look good.
Also Charlie and Bumblebee was a totally love story (lmao) and there's like a 50% chance I'm gonna write a fic about them at some point. Like serious kudos to Hailee Steinfeld and the production team for selling the hell out of this rapport and making it so endearing and fun to watch.
PLEASE GO SEE IT IN THEATERS. It is very much worth your time and your money.
Aquaman - My reaction to this is more of a general "yeah that was good" because I saw it right after Bumblebee blew my socks off. It is easily the best movie in the DCEU after Wonder Woman, but what drags it down is having to spend the first act of the movie writing around the existence of Justice League, which aped Intro Story plot points like "Arthur meets Mera" from this movie which meant they had to find ways to hit those same, essential story beats but differently. It also means that the childhood story largely had to be sprinkled throughout the film so it would make sense structurally (instead of being placed at the beginning like a regular movie) which made them more distracting than anything. (No, I did not need to see the moment where Arthur found out what happened to his mother when its already been described in detail a handful of times when I could be watching Arthur and Mera looking for a magic spear).
Mamoa and Heard are excellent in this, and everyone else is proficient enough to keep everything running smoothly. I think the villains could've been punched up a little more though, and the "throne room" set in Atlantis was pretty underwhelming. That said, every other part of Atlantis was stunning, and looked way better than anything I thought they could achieve with special effects.
Recommend, but this one is a massive hit with legs so it doesn't need your help as much as Bumblebee.
Bird Box - The algorithm gave us a movie that in a lot of ways is a remix of elements from A Quiet Place. I still liked it though, mostly because Sandra Bullock is a fucking great actress who sold the hell out of everything. I think the structure of this movie also works very well, and even manages to inject some surprises despite it, which I appreciated. The world building of this post-apocalyptic world was also much smarter than I thought it would be, and I found myself forgiving a lot of elements regarding that.
Two major complaints I've seen is that the lore isn't explained and that it grossly paints the mentally ill as villains. I'd only agree with the latter criticism, which comes across as less malicious than straight up laziness on the filmmakers part. That said, I'm glad they didn't spend this movie indulging in lore and having characters trying to solve what was happening. I found the character-driven approach much more interesting, especially since whatever "answers" the movie could've given wouldn't have been that interesting. Honestly, it gave you enough information in the first act of the movie that you could pretty well intuit what was happening, and it was enough for me.
If you want an okay atmospheric horror/suspense movie with great acting and you have some time to kill, there are worse ways to spend your time than watching this. It's also on Netflix so, recommend.