The year keeps barreling right on, not even waiting for me to catch up. Sigh. I think with 2016, we might have finally hit the point where February through July is one uninterrupted sweep of blockbuster after blockbuster; this March, at any rate, has two full-on big studio tentpoles waiting in the wings. This all strikes me as fatiguing, but one must push on.
4.3.2016
I am not at all looking forward to Zootopia. Any time a film comes along with (unexpectedly?) rave reviews which almost exclusively talk about its "message" over any other aspect of its creation, I'm instantly on the defensive, even if there's not a dissenting voice to be found (honestly, that even makes it worse); plus, that sloth trailer that the internet loved set my teeth on edge. It's one gag! You can tell what the gag is within five seconds! And then it goes on for two minutes! I suppose I admire the empathy it forces with the frustrated rabbit character, but the first time I saw it, I was already prepared to write the whole thing off, and that was four or five viewings ago...
But it's the new Disney film, and Disney is an important thing around these parts, and I will sullenly march myself off to see it ASAP like a good trooper (P.S. I remember that I still need to provide an appropriate review for certain other Disney films, and I am sorry to report that it will not be happening soon).
I'm kind of looking forward to Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, because I am an abysmal moron who will keep imagining that one day, they'll make a good Tina Fey movie despite the uniform evidence to the contrary. And there's London Has Fallen, the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen that if nothing else proves the existence of a spiteful, rageaholic God. I guess I can see myself being conned into it sometime if I'm drunk. Real drunk.
Most importantly, the U.S. finally gets to take a peak at Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups, which I'm sure is probably going to be bad, but it's going to take many failures in a row before I stop being excited for Malick films.
11.3.2015
Now this looks like the March of old, back when no good movies came out till May. The ever-unreliable Louis Leterrier oversees the increasingly hacky Sasha Baron Cohen (seriously, that Oscars bit was soul-crushing) in Grimsby, which for its U.S. release has been rechristened with the wholly putrescent title The Brothers Grimsby; The Perfect Match follows the springtime trend of crushing overtalented African-American actors (Paula Patton is the one I am saddest for in this case) into dire-seeming romantic comedies; The Young Messiah is exactly what it sounds like. But Sean Bean is in it, for some unfathomable reason! Sadly, he is not playing Teen Jesus. Still, it's a faith audiences movie with Sean Bean, and that's, like, amazing.
If I were a betting man, I'd suppose that 10 Cloverfield Lane might turn out ...okay... That it is a craven attempt to cash in on the Cloverfield name (eight years later!) with a wholly unrelated film seems wholly beyond dispute at this point, but it's hard to say if that's actually a good or bad sign. Anyway, John Goodman's presence isn't inclined to make me, personally, expect the worst, though something seems powerfully "off" with this one.
16.3.2015
What ho, another movie for the devout! This one is called Miracles from Heaven, it stars Jennifer Garner (!) and Queen Latifah (!?), and it is apparently about God curing a young woman's "digestive disorder". I am, at any rate, 100% sure that the actual movie has to be more compelling than that makes it sound. I mean, presumably it is at least a fatal digestive disorder and not, like, acid reflux, which is kind of what the IMDb synopsis makes it sounds like.
18.3.2015
The Divergent Series: Allegiant.
25.3.2015
Hoooooooo boy, here it is. From the singular mind of Zack Snyder, the man behind the lifelessly literal Watchmen, the monumentally self-indulgent Sucker Punch (which I've been thinking I should re-watch, for a couple of reasons, but not because I think it will turn out better than I remember), and That Thing with the Owls: Something About Guardians, comes what is, in principle, the most long-awaited comic book movie in the history of comic book movies: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It looks like absolutely unwatchable dog shit. Maybe it just has bad trailers, but "magnificent trailers for a crummy movie" is kind of Zack Snyder's thing. Perhaps he has cross into the Twilight Zone, and now he has terrible trailers for brilliant films, but right around the time that Gal Gadot was cast as the first-ever big screen Wonder Woman, I stopped hanging onto that as a particularly strong hope. You guys, I want this to be good. I'm a DC reader. Was. I haven't read a superhero comic in a really long time. But it's in the DNA. And it pisses me off something fierce that this movie is going to suck. It is going to suck bad. And while I suppose some of the individual films to follow in the hastily kludged-together DC Cinematic Universe might be good - the Suicide Squad trailer, as I'm sure you know by now, is a pop masterpiece - it's appalling that this is how it's going to hoist itself off the ground.
Gamely attempting to counter-program this, Kate Beckinsale headlines The Disappointments Room, which could probably also have been the subtitle for Batman v Superman. Meanwhile, the movie industry has one of its intermittent moments of remembering that there are moms and grandmas in the audience, with the 16-years-later sequel My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. In fact, the mom in my life has already strong-armed me into promising to see it with her.
03 March 2016
65 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
Not that my word means anything, but I have seen ZOOTOPIA, and it is good, really good, shocking good, although the "message"---which strictly speaking, isn't a message at all, more of a broadly empathetic depiction of racism's sticky nastiness in all its forms, personal and institutional, brazen and subtle, which people are *reading* as a message because it's uncommon to see it addressed in a "kids' movie", but fuck, if that's a message then it was technically the "message" of DEAR WHITE PEOPLE too---that message is really just gravy as far as I'm concerned. It's a beautiful films, full of jaw-dropping vistas and amazing design and some of the best animated *cinema* this side of a KUNG FU PANDA film or... I don't know, ADVENTURES OF TINTIN? Dare I say RATATOUILLE? (The use of shallow focus and faux tilt shift when the medium-sized mammals rampage through "Little Rodentia" is worth the admission alone...)
ReplyDeleteI've already put my critical reputation out there and asserted (in print) that it's the best computer-animated feature from Disney Animation to date, full stop. Better than CHICKEN LITTLE, MEET THE ROBINSONS, BOLT, TANGLED, BOLT, WRECK-IT RALPH, FROZEN, and BIG HERO 6. (Although that last one might still be my personal favorite.)
Just wondering, you doin' OK here, man? I know that this month doesn't have a whole lot of good looking stuff coming out, but you're coming across as a lot more caustic in this preview than your writing usually is. Life treating you alright right now?
ReplyDelete@The Caustic Ignostic: If Zootopia is better than Tangled, I'll eat my hat. And I need my hat! It's cold and I'm losing my hair.
ReplyDelete@the post: It may just be because I've somehow avoided the BvS trailers that I'm able to approach it with an open mind. Or maybe it's because I think 300 is great and that Watchmen is a masterpiece (of sorts--if providing an enormously faithful companion piece to a beloved piece of medium-busting greatness can be described as a "masterpiece"). Or maybe I'm dumb.
After all, I'm also dumb enough to have found Baby Mama relatively okay, if not remotely up to 30 Rock. (My favorite part of the WTF trailer is that every time I see it at my local theater, I like to tell whomever I'm with "look! it's noted Afghan-American actor, Alfred Molina!"
P.S. My favorite part of the preview was when you spelled "fuck this noise" "The Divergent Series: Allegiant." Bearing in mind that I haven't seen any of them, but I think it's fair to say that you are not a fan.
Sucker Punch Extended Cut. ONLY.
ReplyDeleteI'm casting my vote for the Sucker Punch Extended Cut as well. I don't know if I'll ever be able to say Sucker Punch is a good movie or even an underappreciated movie, but I find it very compelling. I've seen it probably four or five times (including the first time in theaters), and that is far more than I watched any other Snyder film.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, I think the fact that it was obviously such a personal film for him to make speaks to me. There's more there than the emptiness of a Watchman or a Man of Steel.
I think it's definitely the personal aspect of Sucker Punch that elevates it above the rest of Snyder's work. People got all up in arms about it being "problematic", and given that the theatrical cut was eviscerated by the RSAC I can see why they would just give up trying to parse it and call it garbage. But it struck me as a grand statement by a guy who knows he's part of the patriarchy trying to explain how it works to legions of men who are unaware of the problem. It's not exactly feminist, but I think there's definitely something great there. And some really awesome visual metaphors, many of which, again, the RSAC caused to be removed.
DeleteWatchmen is a masterpiece (of sorts--if providing an enormously faithful companion piece to a beloved piece of medium-busting greatness can be described as a "masterpiece")
ReplyDeleteNot that I suppose there's much point in beating this dead horse, but the problem with Watchmen the movie is that it is in fact wildly unfaithful to the source material, in a way that very clearly indicates that Visionary Director Zack Snyder hadn't the faintest clue what the point of the book was.
Hays makes a good point, you usually seem more bubbly when it comes to terrible movies, and the Snyder paragraph was leaning into toxic territory after a while.
ReplyDeleteAbout the month itself, everything from London to the Snyder stuff looks pretty awful, but that's no surprise. 10 Cloverfield has me interested more than it probably deserves, and I know it's only because John Goodman. I'm actually hoping they're ballsy enough to make a series of unconnected movies, cashing in on the name or not, if only to try something slightly different. That's pretty desperate, though.
Zootopia is pretty great from what I've seen. The concept's potential is used really well, even just for gags, and the "message" everybody keeps harping on is lot more nuanced than you would think. I mean, it still has things that don't work. There's a dose of artificial drama towards the middle, sitcom stuff that Disney always insists on adding, and things like a really bad Godfather joke and a god-awful original song stand out more when the rest of the production design and writing are so good. Animation and casting are top-notch for most of the characters, etc.
For the record, I thought the Snyder paragraph was perfectly reasonable. Also, re Zootopia, I had the exact same reaction to the sloth-oriented trailer as Tim: ARGH I GET THE JOKE JEEZUS THIS IS TEDIOUS WHY ISN'T IT ENDING?!? Based on the reviews, though, I'm still kind of looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteCount me in as another fan of Zootopia (it's been out in a lot of international markets for two weeks now, including Mexico, where I live). I don't know if the message is anything so revelatory, but the way that message is brought on, given the state of our various social structures all over the world and constant threats of terrorism, is handled in very clever ways, using different species of mammals to take on issues of race, profiling, prejudice and so on. It's also a pretty damn good buddy-cop comedy with a very well-written case for our characters to navigate.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sloth joke, it's just one gag in the movie presented exactly the way it is in the trailer (and within the context of the movie, it works a whole lot better). I really think you're going to enjoy it. Yes, it does commit the usual Disney sin of spelling its themes out in very broad and certain terms (at some point you have to figure, that's just Disney being Disney), but I would honestly say that this as well as Inside Out last year are essential viewing for kids because they both spark some necessary conversations.
Well,Hollywood needs more movies with message.Just think it about it. You Want another Scarface Remake? Or a Remake of the Naked Gun? Those kind of projects will be so depressingly boring and unrespectful to the past ,we must be thankful to recieve a message. Films should be made to the audience,not just to the studio's Executives.
ReplyDeleteWasn't the sloth joke the exact same gag as in the legendary Bob & Ray sketch "Slow Talkers of America" (which is regarded as a comedy masterpiece)?
ReplyDeleteAlso, about the sloth thing, I'd say that it lands better in the context of the movie, but really, it was always pretty good, even in the trailer. I think the complaints about it going on for too long miss the point of it. Normally I can't stand jokes were the joke is the length of the joke, but it's handled creatively, with new aspects thrown in every time it starts wearing down, and it ends exactly when it should. The great characterizations and all that do a lot of the lifting, too, and it would probably get a lot less mileage without them.
ReplyDelete- Part of the problem with the sloth gag was the voices. They didn't need to be cartoonishly slow voices necessarily, but the actor chosen was still a really bad pick.
ReplyDelete- Dawn of Justice looks shockingly bad. I feel like Snyder has somewhere in him not exactly a masterpiece, but an interesting and worthwhile movie, but he hasn't made it yet.
@GeoX: Sure, it's a discussion long past its sell-by date, but I'm not sure where the allegation of infidelity comes from. The ending is streamlined, and arguably makes more sense in terms of the villain's assumption that he'll get away with it, even if we can reasonably miss the squid. Otherwise, outside of things just being omitted, I don't get it. Is it an issue of approach? Because while Moore may not have liked his morally gross characters very much, it's pretty much impossible to tell that from the evidence of the book alone.
ReplyDeleteThe message of the book is "you'd have to be a seriously broken person to actually think that dressing up and fighting crime as a vigilante is a good idea." The message of the movie is "ultra-violence is fucking awesome." As a point of comparison, look at the scene where Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are beating up some random thugs in the book versus the movie. The difference ain't subtle.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I never got into the book, but I did not get a pro violence message from the film. It only seems like people who went in married to the book who think that.
DeleteThe only thing I'm looking forward to about Batman Vee Superman: Sad Times Abound is your review of the film.
ReplyDeleteGeoX: I dunno. That scene is, to my recollection, pretty awesome in the comic. Nearly all of the violence in the comic is rendered extremely "cool," which, of course, is famously one of the problems (or "problems") with mediated violence. But Watchmen is honestly probably more "awesome" than most. E.g., "Never disposed of sewage with toilet before. Obvious, really." C'mon.
ReplyDeleteRorschach isn't just strangling guys in back alleys here, the Comedian doesn't just die of a subdural hemotoma, Dr. Manhattan doesn't just vanish when his intrinsic field is removed. There's a huge, huge element of spectacle to the comic--we feel bad for all the people who died in NYC, obviously, because we've spent time getting to know them, and that's the point of all those asides. But, then again, the only splash pages in the whole book are that multi-page spread of the squid (while the only time the action actually crosses through two pages is when Veidt is beating the shit out of completely anonymous assassin). Moore loves to show stylish violence. (That's why the infamously brutal Miracle/Marvelman #15 exists, after all--and to a huge degree the big thematic concerns about the realistic consequences of living in a world with gods are honestly quite secondary.)
Snyder is therefore only following Moore's lead; if he doesn't get the nuances right, that's because Zack Snyder isn't the preeminent artist in his field, whereas Moore is (or was), and that's what I mean by Snyder's film being a companion piece for me: it's incredibly easy for me to fill in the gaps the movie inevitably leaves. I don't find that it diverges from the comic in any essential way, since both are more sympathetic than not to the brokenness of their characters, which is demonstrated pretty amply in both the original and the adaptation.
But that's just me; and if Snyder's aesthetic is an issue for anybody, I obviously can't just claim that I'm right and they're wrong. :)
Funny, I never got into the book, but I did not get a pro violence message from the film. It only seems like people who went in married to the book who think that.
ReplyDeleteWell, the movie did its utmost to make every single fight sequence look as intense and badass as possible even when it meant wildly diverging from the book, which it always did. If it's not meant to have a "yeah! Violence rulez!" message, I am at a loss to explain Visionary Director Zack Snyder's very conscious divergences.
(Though to tell the truth, I'm not even sure why I get so riled up about this; I liked the book, sure, but it's not like it's one of my all-time favorite things ever. I guess I just get annoyed because VDZS comes across as SUCH a dimwitted hack.)
I dunno. That scene is, to my recollection, pretty awesome in the comic.
ReplyDeleteEh, you might want to revisit it. I have the book open in front of me now, and it's really not. In the comic, it's a brief, clumsy scuffle. It's not wholly clear whether anyone actually dies in it. Whereas in the movie HOO BOY is that ever clear! The rather piquant detail I always remember is a close-up of Laurie stabbing a dude in the head. VDZS just made that up. That was his idea. Also, both of the characters are hyper-competent and graceful; it's not wholly clear that VDZS has grasped that they're not actually meant to have super powers.
And this is just one example; the movie just invents plenty of fights out of whole cloth. The Comedian is thrown out a window? FIGHT SCENE. An alleged assassin tries to kill Veidt? FIGHT SCENE. This is a very persistent pattern.
One non-fight detail I liked (ARGH I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I'M GEEKING OUT OVER THIS) is towards the end: in the comic, there's an image of a newspaper that says "RR to Run in 88?" and then you learn that "RR" stands for Robert Redford--the point being that, for better or worse, Veidt's plan worked, for the time being; he got his left-wing utopia. And how did VDZS handle this? By having the kid at the newsstand mention that Ronald Reagan is thinking of running for President. Obviously, VDZS wanted to reference this element, but the entire point of the thing went WHOOSH! right over his head.
(And I do apologize for pounding so hard on that "VDZS" thing. I know it's kind of obnoxious, but it's just SO hard to resist.)
Calling Snyder's new ending for Watchmen "streamlined" is...
ReplyDeleteSnyder literally completely missed the point of the original ending. In his defense, so do a LOT of people, though, hence the frequent fanboy cries of "a giant squid? So unrealistic!" Which is exactly the point: Ozymandias views the world through a "superhero" prism, so when faced with a genuine, complex, real-world problem like the cold war, he has no idea how to solve it except with an outlandish superhero-esque scheme (and is literally taken out of a comic book!). The whole POINT is that the superhero-comic way of solving the world's problems is simplistic and absurd, and doesn't actually solve anything.
And if you want to say "but it worked!"...the last page clearly demonstrates that, no, it doesn't work in the long run, and earlier than that, in the key panel where Veidt proclaims "I did it!", his arms with the spotlight make a very clear, inarguable clock demonstrating that we are STILL five minutes to doomsday in direct contrast to Veidt's proclamation...which would sound like conspiracy-theory overanalysis in anything but Watchmen, where it could not be more obviously intentional.
And yes, the glorification of Rorschach and violence/fights in the movie is also a massive misinterpretation of the book.
All this against Watchmen that people are saying plus the very alarming fact that Dr. Manhattan - being an American weapon brandished at every chance during the Cold War - is not with nation. Framing Dr. Manhattan as the perpetrator of all the hideous attacks at the end of Watchmen is only going to cause MORE scrutiny against the United States and, hell, since the attack will be so pointed, it may very well be enough to push the entire world in to M.A.D.
ReplyDeleteDr. Manhattan going rogue, and (in Veidt's plan) essentially being recast as the vengeful god of the new world, makes sense to me. Like I said, I like the squid: it's a better visual than the blue explodey light, and I like what Moore is saying with it, even if on a literal level it's kind of dumb (why are there recognizable sequences of DNA in this alien monster, including human DNA? who controls genetic engineering technology? Adrian Veidt, you say? should we investigate his companies?).
ReplyDelete(Oh, and of course he doesn't really win. His name is Ozymandias!)
Anyway, it's interesting how people can interpret things different ways: I've got the book open, and I'm looking at the alleyway fight. To me, it's incredibly (and very deliberately) badass, with cypher enemies who exist entirely to make a point about Dreiberg and Juspeczyk (and also, of course, to engage in the verbal/visual juxtapositions which are, to my mind, the parts of Watchmen I find at least as interesting than its genre commentary, even if as an adult I find a lot of it arbitrary).
Rorschach is the same: there's enough detail to know that he's a scumbag (albeit not one entirely of his own making), but it takes a harder heart than mine to not be thrilled by how purely entertaining he is as a action hero, even if in no sense are his fascist methods and unpleasant manner morally permissible. And Moore writes him absolutely larger than life--for a "realistic" character, he certainly never runs out of bold speeches or dry quips--and this is the case, I think, no matter what kind of feet of clay Moore gives him. So Haley and Snyder's interpretation is, to my mind, true; and it's on point with pretty much everybody. (Akerman possibly excepted.)
If the action sequences get punched up, well, that's Snyder. I recognize it ain't for everybody--trust me, I'm willing to admit it's probably not the most Visionary Genius choice--but I'm okay with it, too.
Now, I'd forgotten about the Ronald Reagan bit. That's kind of weak, and honestly I'm curious if he ever had a rationale about why he changed it, since most of the other changes make good sense on a narrative level (I mean, you gotta do something to cut the material down to a manageable amount), whereas I'm with you on this one: it seemed dumb.
Let's not forget that we can all go back to watch The Witch again, or if that's not your thing you can catch the newly released english dub of Only Yesterday, even in March.
ReplyDeleteThat's kind of weak, and honestly I'm curious if he ever had a rationale about why he changed it
ReplyDeleteWell...I'm going to go with the notion that this is just a tiny part of a massive pile of evidence that show that VDZS hadn't the faintest clue what he was doing. BUT, if you really think the fight scene I'm obsessing about so was really meant to show how rad Dan and Laurie are, I fear that our readings of this book are so utterly alien to one another that there's no point in arguing about it.
"Meant to" and "does" are too different things, but fair enough. I can see your point even if I don't share it.
ReplyDelete"You guys, I want this to be good."
ReplyDeleteYou clearly don't sir...
"...this movie is going to suck. It is going to suck bad."
Sounds like you have already made up your mind.
I've been coming here a long time, have spent countless hours reading and enjoying your reviews. Maybe I'm tired of the endless uber-snark permeating through the internet in general, or a bit put off by your uncharacteristically pre-disposed opinion-but I will definitely be skipping your review for this one. I can read vitriol for Snyder anywhere on the internet, any day of the week.
What a bizarre, pointlessly passive-aggressive comment.
ReplyDeleteWow, this kinda got out of hand. Anyway, back to coming distractions. Dunno if Tim is planning to take on London Has Fallen, but if his opinion coincides with the AV Club, and if you like "crimes against art" 0-2/10 reviews and Angry Tim, that review should be a hoot. If Tim is planning to stay away (and I wouldn't blame him), here's the AV Club's take.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.avclub.com/review/gerard-butler-scowls-his-way-through-atrocious-lon-232908
AV gave Zootopia a B, seeming to think it was good but not great and was a bit too..."obvious". Which seems a bit disappointing to me, since some of the early praise I'd been hearing made me think it would be more than another middling children's film.
PS: Has anyone else ever gotten "select all images with popcorn" yet?
B isn't middling; B is good. C would be middling.
ReplyDeleteSnyder whiffed on the thematic elements of Watchmen to be sure, but I enjoyed it as a motion comic recreation of some of the most iconic images from the novel on the big screen. My wife walked out on it (we didn't watch it together), and she absolutely hates it; I've tried to tell her that the book is subtler and more nuanced with richer character development, but I guess that's not really a ringing endorsement of the movie itself.
ReplyDeleteAlso watching blue dong flop around for three hours is a different experience than seeing hundreds of pages of still images of one.
@GeoX: On avclub B is middling, C is bad.
ReplyDeleteAlso does anyone else think avclub really went downhill last year? It's not terrible, but it's an unsatisfying middle ground between a Gawker Media blog and something I actually want to read.
I dunno; I've always found B reviews there to be pretty positive. But, whatever! As to the quality, I always kind of thought it was my sensibilities that were changing more than the site itself, but more and more lately, whether it's them or me, I've been finding the endless pop culture navel-gazing to be massively self-indulgent and solipsistic.
ReplyDeleteThe AV Club took a massive hit when the Dissolve crew left to form the Dissolve (which was never, ever as good as prime AVC, I think), has always been my feeling. It's gotten weaker at a steady drip in the last two years, but I think that was the massive plummet in writing quality (at this point, I only read A.A. Dowd with any enthusiasm). But there's definitely something going on there, and I don't know if it happened when Sean O'Neal left or what, where pretty much everything but film and video game reviews have become borderline-unreadable of late.
ReplyDeleteAnd this whole Snyder/BvS thing going on in here: I have to say, I didn't expect to stir up this kind of hornets' nest by moaning about what I thought was generally agreed to be a nightmare-awful trailer. Can I remind everybody that at one point in this century, WB wanted George Miller to mastermind their first Justice League movie? That is the reality I am lamenting with such mournful, wounded tones.
I concur with Tim's assessment that the AV club went downhill when the Dissolve was founded, but I really tuned that website out after they tried to rehabilitate the critical reputation of Halloween III. That movie sucks bad and no amount of hipster irony will convince me otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI mainly go to AVC for the movie reviews. Let the record show that I also like comparing your and their reviews; most of the time you're pretty close. I generally bypass the other stuff, though occasionally I've checked out some of the "Great Job, Internet!", etc. articles, some of which aren't bad.
ReplyDeleteAs for Batman vs. Superman and Zack Snyder...I don't have much of a dog in this fight (not having read or seen Watchmen), and even with a better trailer, I think I'd be looking forward to this about as much as to a root canal appointment. Sorry about sounding too much like a hipster, but is anyone else sick of superheroes by now?
PS: Saw Zootopia this afternoon, and I think the description "good but not great" applies. Some of the world-building was a bit...half-baked, and also lent itself to some possible fridge logic/horror. Good character designs, though, and mostly good adhesion to scale for the various animals.
ReplyDeleteCount me in the Zootopia praise camp, though I understand how all the buzz around it and how it's just what we need in These Troubled Times can reach the point of saturation and get wearying and make you resent the movie through no fault of it's own.
ReplyDeleteBut putting that aside, I thought it was a damn good movie qua movie. The animals really do look adorably furry and tangible (unlike, say, the Madagascar movies where the animals look more like painted CGI blobs), the sloth joke is better within the context of the movie (once again Disney manages to do their movie no favors with its marketing campaign), and there's a lot of great visual gags that don't belabor themselves (without spoiling it too bad, my favorite involves a giraffe and an escalator)--honestly, I could probably watch it a second time and catch a number of jokes and background details I missed on first viewing.
And despite the meta-narrative around it, I feel like it really does handle the topic of racial (species-al?) prejudice without being painfully didactic--at any rate, it's far better than the kid-gloves treatment that The Princess and the Frog used. Plus there's all sorts of nods to the studio's history that a Disney wonk (like Tim!) might appreciate.
I only go to the A.V. Club to read reviews of new episodes of Steven Universe and The Americans, two shows EVERYONE needs to check out ASAP!
ReplyDeleteNot to wake up a dead horse a second time, but I wanted to thank this comment section for prompting me to reread Watchmen this weekend. Couldn't remember which side of the debate I was on. It still strikes me as much less a meta-indictment of superheroes than an exploration of the seductive power of violence and risk of solving all problems with bigger guns. But maybe I'm caught up on the surface level? The juxtaposition of shocking violence with post-coital imagery ("the Hiroshima lovers") puts us into the heads of these characters who are intoxicated by the power violence brings them.
ReplyDeleteI was also reminded of Alan Moore's dismay that some readers, particularly Americans, reacted to Rorschach as a hero and role model rather than the horrifyingly insane villain he intended him to be. If anything that says to me that Snyder's reading is not strange or inapt (even if you see it as vile) - the author's word doesn't magically discredit the reader's experience.
@JD - So many Easter eggs to find! Though I admit I am a sucker for that sort of thing. My favorite gag involves the second time we see the weasel character, though I loved how the rodent characters mostly look like members of the Rescue Aid Society. Count me firmly in the positive camp for Zootopia, despite being underwhelmed by the concept ever since they announced it at D23.
ReplyDeleteI liked Zootopia too, but wow there were a lot of Dreamworks-style pop culture gags and references. I would not consider it a better movie than the other Disney CGI features - I'd probably put it on the same level as Bolt, below Tangled and Frozen.
ReplyDeleteI still haven't seen the film - decided to spend Saturday outside in the pleasant weather instead of in the dark watching a movie, and I do not believe that to have been a wrong decision - but I'm already looking forward to my own review of it, because I think we might be revving up for a "Rank the Disney 3D CGI Features!" comment section.
ReplyDelete@Yourself: I think that's a good middle ground, and it reminds me how that the ways each one pursues violence is actually slightly different (even if it's all "supposed" to be bad): for Dreiberg, it's a sex thing; Rorschach has gone beyond sex-and-violence into a realm of violence for and of itself; Manhattan is godlike and uncaring; and Veidt is nominally efficient and causes as little pain as possible, but largely in order to satisfy his own desire for self-congratulation. (I post on the subject again only because it's causing me to reconsider what I thought was Comic!Watchmen's greatest flaw, its most outrageous break with its formalist realism--when Veidt launches into a talking-is-a-free-action, Claremont-style 400 word speech in the middle of a 3-second fistfight--might actually be a strength when taken from a certain point-of-view.)
ReplyDeleteHey Tim. I was just wondering if you've had the opportunity to see Zootopia yet. I absolutely adored the film and is IMHO the best Disney film since Lilo & Stitch. That's just my opinion though. I was wondering when we might expect your review. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI've gone from profound disinterest in Batman v Superman to schadenfreude over the brickbats it's getting in the reviews. I almost want to see it to see if it's ACTUALLY that bad.
ReplyDelete@Unknown: Yes. Yes, it is that bad.
ReplyDeleteTim, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. Your venom towards BvS is 110% justified. I just wish someone had gone through a time portal to warn me.
Boy oh boy, is it going to be awkward when I sit down to write a nobody's-more-surprised-than-me "I kind of liked it!" positive review of BvS after all that.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a hypothetical. I saw it tonight. I kind of liked it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tim. The plot largely makes no sense and Eisenberg is terrible but overall I found BvS entertaining. I think the critical drubbing it's getting is over the top.
ReplyDeleteHow could you?
ReplyDeleteNo, seriously, I'm genuinely curious as to what you enjoyed about it, given how much you've railed on property adaptations like Transformers and TMNT for stretching "disaster happens, person/team of people save the world" into 2 hours of grimdark color palettes, unrelenting noise and terrible CGI.
And oh god, the CGI. If there's a way to make humans with eye-lasers and the power of unassisted flight look plausible and not at all laughable, it sure as hell wasn't here.
Real talk Tim:
ReplyDeleteWhat was Superman doing there when he crashed the Batmobile?
What is Superman's problem with Batman?
In the final battle, why did Superman only try talking for 10 seconds before resorting to attempted murder?
How did Batman find out about the Kryptonite and what it did in the first place (remember, he knew about it BEFORE he got the encryption device)?
BvS lacks any sort of common sense. There are no logical arcs, characters have no motivation and I'm not even scratching the surface here.
- Everything revolving around Batman and Alfred in the first hour is awesome. The rest of the film....why was there no proof-reader?
- Superman is a non-entity in his own movie.
- The casting of Gal Gadot and Jesse Eisenberg was a horrible miscalculation.
- The action...lame and incomprehensible. The fights are BOOOOORING.
- The dozen-or-so dream sequences are the definition of "a big lipped alligator moment"
- There is a scene where the movie stops for 5 minutes so the audience can watch literal trailers for future DC movies.
- Lex's plan makes no sense and is self-contradictory.
- The movie gives no justifiable reason for Batman and Superman to fight.
- The way the fight resolves is stupid.
- The inciting incident and the driving force of the narrative happens OFF-SCREEN so the characters are constantly referring to events the audience don't know anything about.
- The Batmobile is awesome, but Zack Snyder can't direct vehicle chases.
- Act 1 of the movie starts 70 minutes in.
- The editor has clearly never watched a single movie or read a single story in their life. The editing and structure is THAT bad.
- The three hero's plan to defeat Doomsday is one of the dumbest plans I've ever seen.
- The titular fight is 5 minutes long. It doesn't happen for 2 hours.
- The movie takes place 18 months after 'Man of Steel'. The audience aren't told what happened during that gap and the events of MoS have clearly not impacted Superman. His first moment in the film is an act of unwarranted, deliberate murder.
- Batman has been working for 20 years, but everyone acts like he's JUST turned up and that everyone is hearing about him for the first time.
- How Doomsday is born...I don't even know how.
It's so poorly put together, the Wikipedia synopsis missed out numerous sub-plots, doesn't even mention the inciting incident (that's how badly established it is) and actually changes the order that certain things happen (so the story makes more sense).
How could you like that garbage!
@ J.S.
ReplyDeleteI did not mind Gal Gadot. She did not have that much to do which was a little bit Henry Cavill's problem as well, I think. I suppose we all agree though that Jesse Eisenberg is leading the pack for worst supporting actor at next years razzies.
I do think that while Batman's activities were nothing new his brutality increased a little bit which - I speculate again - Superman probably found distasteful.
The titular fight may only be five minutes long but they clashed several times before as you pointed out.
Superman's decision to use lethal force in the beginning and try to do so against Batman is quite understandable; in both cases one of the two women he loves are in danger.
I also found the mere action setpieces not bad at all. But what made it almost impossible for me to enjoy them was the score which I found wildly misjudged. To give you an example: I think the fight choreography in the scene where Batman disposes of Luthor's henchmen is excellent but I am so thoroughly ticked off by the music during and before this scene that I just want it to end. I also think I would have found the resolution of the fight between Batman and Superman only half as annoying if the music had not made me want to strangle someone.
I thought the idea to tell the story more like a crime-thriller than an action-movie was interesting but you are right the plot was poorly told.
Overall I would either rate it 5/10 or 6/10.
Jakob: this review sums up my arguments http://trilbee.com/reviews/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-2016-movie-review
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, now your BvS review is topping the list of stuff I can't wait to read, even more than what you have to say about The Forbidden Room. I have to admit that I didn't walk away from it immediately regretting my decision to watch it, though I'm sure a large amount of it should be credited to the tequila I was drinking throughout.
ReplyDeleteOh my yes, the BvS review has to happen.
ReplyDeleteI saw it yesterday on the biggest screen I could find. As the Man of Steel apologist in residence, I'll say that I don't think it's a good film, but definitely an interesting and compelling failure. The script is a dumpster fire, but the whole thing is straining so hard for scale and mythopoeic resonance that I found it hard not to be at least a little taken in.
My plate's a little full, and I'm not sure that it's coming tonight, but it is absolutely the next review I'll be writing. Do keep in mind that "I kind of liked it" isn't exactly a full-throated statement of praise.
ReplyDeleteI'll throw some gasoline on the fire, and now you won't hear from me until the full review is done:
-Whatever else is true, I find it incredible that anybody could think that this isn't at least better than Man of Steel. Obviously, people who disagree with me are in the majority.
-I think the film has a more comprehensible screenplay than The Dark Knight Rises.
Comprehensible my ass! Characters behave in ways that aren't logical and dont facilitate communication. At least sleep on your review and read the one I linked up top before you potentially embarrass yourself.
DeleteCome on now. Dark knight Rises had a plothole-ridden screenplay with Godawful dialogue. Now, Batman v Superman is guilty of both those sins, but it manages to offer visually coherent action that is aesthetically-pleasing and, most importantly, is entertaining. It's a superior film.
ReplyDeleteThe story of DKR makes sense and doesn't have pointless Dream Sequences and no reason for its two mains to fight. At the very least, Nolan can direct a Vehicle Chase and have fight scenes involving tactics and strategy and not chance. See the review at the top.
DeleteI haven't seen The Dark Night Rises or Man of Steel, so I can't speak to the quality of either of them. But if they're all as overstuffed and clamorous and tedious and headache-inducing as this one, I think it's safe to say Marvel has won the "Superhero Movie" battle...
ReplyDeleteOh. And I'm not sure I can ever forgive "Nairomi, Africa."
ReplyDeleteBvS is a lifeboat with a million holes. It has ONE job to do, is fundamentally simple in design and it can't even do the ONE THING it's supposed to.
ReplyDeletehttp://cinekatz.com/2016/03/23/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-2016-dc-deserves-better-review/
ReplyDelete