Has anybody else seen Annihilation by now? The SF movie they moved from cinema to Netflix.

I'm still wondering what went wrong with that project but while watching I knew something is horrible derailed there.

The effects are nice though low class creating a beautiful scenery and the atmosphere in the middle to the end is there. Natalie Portman is always nice to watch and she even manages to sell her role but the whole movie felt miss casted and miss directed in the character department. I still can't even figure out what the goal was with this bland female soldier team. Outside of Portman no character gets any real development. Jennifer Jason Leigh looks bored out of her mind.

Is this movie the idea to start some feminist-ploitation genre by a male director?

I'm still puzzled how this movie could be made and this way. The script may only work when you're in a coma.

 

I dunno, I'm hearing nothing but amazing things from people who've watched it. Now that's on Netflix I'll give it a looksee, but let's just say I'll be...unsurprising if it got the Ghostbusters treatment.

 

I really didn't like it. The film just had a basic theme and nothing really to say underneath it

 

I found Annihilation to be extremely intriguing to watch.

The reason it fell to Netflix so quickly was that Paramount (its producer) had no faith in the movie - which, to be fair, is understandable. Annihilation isn't a Marvel movie. I wouldn't call it a super-duper complex sci-fi, but its definitely . . . weird.

Weird in a good way, however. Like, in a really good way. I wish Hollywood would take more risks like this. The movie as a whole is tight, concise, and doesn't sequel bait. It's self-contained and extremely fucking cool. I watched it with a group of friends at my local Regal and was absolutely blown away by the visuals, soundtrack, and sheer creativity behind it. After we finished our watching of the film, we literally stood in the parking lot talking about it for thirty minutes.

Admittedly the ending will throw some people off - but from all the people I've talked to about it, the JOURNEY to the end is non-stop fucking awesome sauce.

You're doing yourself a disservice if you watch it on your phone. Go to the local theater and drop fifteen bucks. If you can't do that, put on a damn good headset and plug up your laptop and turn off all the lights. You can easily find it anywhere online in HD now.

I know this isn't a rating thread, but my post kinda devolved (evolved?) into that, so sorry.

Overall, I'd give it a very solid 8.5/10.

Definitely not perfect, but it's pretty fucking awesome nonetheless.

 

I don't think you can watch it at the cinema anymore? Netflix bought it... I don't think it even hit the theatre here in Australia.

 

It never hit cinema outside USA/China because they expected the movie to tank really badly. They must have had some really bad pre screening results.

 

Went and saw the new Tomb Raider film, and I am quite conflicted. It takes some noticeable and understandable shortcuts compared to the video game it‘s based on, and that would be perfectly fine, if they hadn‘t completely butchered the pacing and structure. But more on that later. Spoilers on the plot inbound.

Spoiler

First, the characters. Alicia Vikander‘s portrayal of this new Lara is first-class awesome. She manages to make the viewer empathise with the character. It probably helps that Lara gets kicked around quite a lot, but the payoff when she overcomes her struggles makes it worthwile, at least in the acting department. The problem is that there is no gradual improvement in her skill set. At the beginning of the film, she is shown to be somewhat proficient at kickboxing and cycling, but that‘s about it. As soon as she starts out on her journey, she tends to hit trouble every step of the way, but after failing once, almost immediately overcomes it with the next try. That just becomes really grating after a while, and the suspension of disbelief is somewhat shattered along the way.


I can’t recall having seen Dominic West in anything since the second Johnny English film (one of my all-time guilty pleasure flicks), so it was nice to see him again. He was a walking, talking exposition machine, but his relationship with Lara felt believable when set against the time the film took to develop said relationships. I‘m not a huge fan of flashbacks, but the ones we get to see between them are quite sweet and set the stage nicely for later developments.


To be honest, there‘s not very much to say about the rest of the characters, not even Lu. It‘s a solid ensemble cast, but nothing to shout home about.


Thus, we finally arrive at the points that drove me drove me to distraction beyond all others: structure and pacing. This film literally has no B-plot. None at all. It is incredibly Lara-centric. The first act is executed in a perfectly sensible manner, as they have to introduce the character nd what makes her different from the previous Lara, but as soon as she arrives on the island, all of that flies out the window. Lara is captured, and a brief introduction to the main villain is followed by a hilariously awful fight/chase scene that neither Lara nor her new friend Lu should have survived, least of all Lara, who brought the literal bow and arrow to the gunfight and evades bullets via her magic power of running away from them.


This is where the plot should have divided up into at least seperate arcs for Lara and Lu, however, almost all we get for the rest of the film is Lara as she goes through her various trials and the party journeys through Himiko‘s tomb.


Lu and the workers get only brief scenes, and the short battle in which they attack and overwhelm their oppressors, they have pretty much nothing to do other than stand around and wait for either Lara or their pick-up, whichever comes first. The rest of the action takes place entirely in Himiko’s tomb, which makes it incredibly hard to gauge the passage of time or when the film‘s climax is going to arrive, as we see next to nothing of the outside world.


Regarding the film‘s climax… well, there isn‘t one, really. Just a series of quick fights, and then everything blows up. Lara‘s plot armour really worked to the film‘s disadvantage here, as it was fairly obvious from early on that she was going to be the only one to make it out of the tomb alive. A bunch of disposable grunts, the villain, and Lara‘s father, whose death is necessary for the advancement of the larger plot. At least try to be slightly ambiguous, movie. The last few scenes set up the possible sequel, but the revelation they bring, that Lara’s guardian most likely works for the enemy, was rather underwhelming and expected.

Lastly, I want to touch on the visuals and one or two other things I noticed. This is a nicely shot film, which takes full advantage of the exotic setting. That being said, there were some shots that were very obviously CGI, and looked like they came straight out of the game. Also, at times Tomb Raider was a straight-up mumblefest, it was very hard to understand the dialogue at various points throughout the film. Lu‘s accent also tends to be a bit all over the place, while Vikander‘s snooty upper-class delivery intermingled with some non-standard elements works well for this particular Lara.


All in all, a solid 3/5, but nothing special. Vikander and West‘s performances really saved this film.

 

It pleases me to hear she sounds posh. I don't really feel that in the new games - far more important to me than the size of her tits, lol...

 

Watched Annihilation. It's not the type of sci-fi for me, I guess. I suppose it's supposed to be thought-provoking or some shit, hell, maybe I'm just shallow and need my movies to have some sort of discernible plot. I couldn't give less of a shit about the characters, most of it was boring if pretty, and I can't say anything about the acting because it doesn't seem like there was much to act in there aside from a few moments.

I found it rather pointlessly vague and pretentious, tbh. If this is supposed to be a sort of "high" sci-fi that "explores deep themes", then I'll stick to the Matrix.

Spoiler

Nothing really happens in this movie. The ending is open ended so that you have no resolution. Is it Lena at the end? Are they aliens? Was that entire thing engineered by extraterrestrials or just a random ocurrence? Like, what's the point? Pretty-looking ambiguity? The throwaway scenes of Lena/Kane domesticity and Lena fucking her work buddy just added boring runtime to an already boring movie.

I'll say that the scene when the mutant-bear-monster comes inside the house was fucking terrifying though.

I can't say I outright didn't like it, but it was strongly meh. I don't get what's supposed to be "intellectual" about it and I don't give much weight to the opinions of movie critics in the era of TLJ geting rave reviews.

 

I pretty much agree with your impression. IMHO a movie with questionable decisions. The time wasted on the beginning with the bike scenes should have been invested into the body of the movie. They should have showed Laura's life with flashbacks imho. I also don't really like how they changed the core of the story but then the material deserved 2 movies which is hard to sell.

It's really strange how a 118min movie can feel so compressed and empty of plot at the same time.

 

Saw Red Sparrow last night.

It's a 15 in the UK, and the rating is for torture, sex, violence, and sexual violence. They really weren't kidding - if you're uncertain, you're probably not going to be okay with it.


First point - it's set in the modern day/recent past, although this isn't ever exactly spelled out, but people are using smart phones/floppy disks, so it's much more recent than I'd thought.

Quite a tense film, it feels like Lawrence's Dominika is flying the whole time basically by the seat of her pants, with a vague plan to fuck people over at some point, but no real clue how to get there, and springing on each opportunity that comes her way. Maybe it was a complicated plot ahead of time, but it seems she only just skates past with luck and grit.

Some of the scenes are incredibly well built, very atmospheric lighting and backgrounds, but I honestly don't feel this gains much from seeing on the big-screen. It's good, but I'd avoid the ticket price.

 

Tom Hardy plays this character which is a big, bad, dark reflection of a superhero, by using Venom.
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This amuses me.

 

Saw Tomb Raider - really, really liked it. If you've played the new games from Crystal Dynamics and enjoyed the story, you should like this movie too. Vikander is a fantastic Lara, and she's shredded as fuck too, she makes for a really awesome and believable action hero - I should just stop, I've realised all I want to do is gush about her portrayal. I may have a bit of a crush.

 

Lara is a top tier waifu, especially as portrayed by Vikander.

 

This is my favorite comment so far about A Wrinkle in Time.



That's gotta cut deep.

 

I heard it's not very good? Lol

 

Sad.

They relied on big names, special effects, and minority appeal rather than story.

Which sucks considering how great of a story A Wrinkle in Time truly is.

 

Just got back from Ready Player One.

It's ... exactly what was advertised, and more. All the referenced were well made, respectful and faithful, the CGI was on point and even though no one will write home about the plot it at least supported the whole thing.

There were no small amount of similarities to -and hear me out on this- SAO. I'm not going to list them because it is an actual list, but I'm not saying this as a bad thing. It felt like another reference, in a way.

I went in expecting to be at the very least entertained, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had.

 

Isle of Dogs was good. Had a bit of a structural issue where it moved from an ensemble cast to single protagonist mid film but definitely worth the watch

 

Saw Ready Player One - I never read the book. Thought it'd be too pandery with too much nostalgia wank.

Spoiler

I fucking lost my shit at the Gundam scene, lol. It's probably an old enough property to be in the book too, but I defo wasn't expecting it, and having Daito go 'Ore wa Gundam' or something to that effect was just glorious.

Super fun popcorn flick. I was expecting more 80s shit tbh from what I'd heard from the book, but maybe they replaced it with more recent pop colture references? I dunno.

They already got Tracer though. They seriously missed a trick not having the avatars of Daito and Sho be Hanzo and Genji, lol. Eerily almost perfectly analogous.