I Just Watched (Films)

[Maturin]

I actually prefer the theatrical cut of Fellowship (which is still overwhelmingly the best individual film of the trilogy IMO). It flows much better and the added scenes don't really change anything narratively.

TTT is a no-brainer though, the extended edition fixes a whole bunch of problems with the short version. RotK I can take either way - it contains scenes which actively worsen the theatrical version and PJ was a fool for adding them... but some other additions do fix a couple of problems.

[Animalmother]

Just found this. He goes into a lot of detail so it gets into a bit of military speak in places.

TLDW..

Spoiler

utter slaughter

[Wrathbone]

Enjoyed that!

"Unlike the film, we will maintain fire discipline."

[Animalmother]

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
I loved Fury Road, it was balls out insane with some amazing stunts and action. This is also nuts with some great action but it just felt a bit flat. I did very much enjoy but it feels a bit all over the place. There was a very obvious change from practical stunts to mostly CGI and it just lacks the excitement of FR. It interestingly adds characters from the recent game (Scrotus and Chum Bucket) and things like the maggot farm.

Very enjoyable but pales in comparison to Fury Road.

[Stormbringer]

Quite agree. It lacks the tight cohesiveness of the first and feels like a strange mashup of ideas that don't really adhere well.

[Hatredsheart]

Companion

Really enjoyed it. Saw a spoiler-free article that advised going into it without reviews, glad I did.

Don't watch the trailer!

[Rusty]

Literally this second finished watching it. Great film. Actually funny bits too. Great acting all round.
I saw a youtube vide from Mark Komode saying don't watch any trailers.

I thought I'd sussed it out but there weren't really any plot twists as such, but it was so different from what I'd decided it would be about.

[Alan]

Uh lets see....

Witness For The Prosecution
Fantastic! 9/10

Heart Eyes
Shite but could be worse. 3/10

Nightbitch
Could have been much better if it went less preachy. 5/10

Imaginary
Killer teddybear. Shite. Surprisingly. 2/10

Storm In A Teacup
Lovely! Lots of cute dogs, a cute Vivien Leigh and the rest was pretty good too. 8/10

[eny]

The Order, Prime


Good watch, based on real events back in the mid 80's, a splinter Aryan sect causing damage and the trials endured of the FBI agent ( Jude Law) and his team in tracking it all down.

[Animalmother]

Companion

Really enjoyed it. Saw a spoiler-free article that advised going into it without reviews, glad I did.

Don't watch the trailer!

This is indeed very enjoyable and very funny. Definitely do not watch any trailers, reviews or even look at the movie poster.

[Raid]

Borderlands

I get the impression that Hollywood really looks down on videogames as a source of adaptations, like it sees itself as the better medium. I don't see any other reason why they thought that industry-darling Cate Blanchett was a good casting choice as the lead for a series with an energy that this film just utterly fails to capture because of that casting. The film starts with a scene where Lilith declares that she's too old for this shit. Cate Blanchett is too old for this shit. It sets the tone for a film that fails utterly to capture the tone of the game it's based on, and it left a bad taste in my mouth from the outset. Lilith is not meant to be a middle-aged woman, and she's not meant to sound like Lethal Weapon's Murtaugh.

I really don't want this to come across as pure ageism, but she's a terrible casting for this character. There's a scene at the mid-point where a character announces that she knew Lilith's mother, everything about that scene suggests that Lilith is meant to be young, but she isn't, and the actress saying those words is only a few years older than Blanchett is. Basically what I'm saying is that if they'd cast an attractive 20-something, this film could have worked, because it's a setting written for an attractive 20-something. But no, let's use 53/54-year-old Cate Blanchett because she has a name people recognise. It gets almost all of the other characters wrong too, but the film focuses on Lilith. They do a pretty good Krieg and an excellent Marcus, but neither have a lot of screen time. Tina Tina is probably worse than Lilith in terms of characterisation - she's painfully surface-level adaptation of a character that people love, and the film just does not understand her character at all. Making her the film's macguffin is insulting.

It's not a complete failure; it gets the look of the game, and while it's not quite a Fallout TV series 10/10 adaptation visually, it's a solid 8. Lilith wields my favourite gun from the series, the Claptrap character's look is very accurate, and there's clearly been a lot of effort put into the sets and props. But the script and screenplay are terrible, and it's deeply unfunny for something that clearly thinks it's meant to be a comedy. It has the humour of a film aimed at 10-year-olds.

It's honestly quite an annoying film. There is no way that a general audience would get the humour of the game series from this so it was never going to appeal, and it gets too much wrong for people familiar with the source material. It's an abject failure of a film, but it feels like it could so easily have been good had they made a million more correct decisions. It's not so bad that I wanted to turn it off at any point, but I don't think it was ever going to win over fans of the game *or* people who've never played it - it just gets too much wrong for either audience.

[Snowy]

Thanks for watching it anyway Chris, now I don't have to

[Stormbringer]

I watched something called Plane on Netflix.

Gerard Butler is a shit-hot passenger plane pilot, which is just as well because bad weather puts the plane down in a very dangerous part of the world. To make matters worse, there's a convicted murderer aboard the flight.

Quite fun, straying somewhat into 2008's Rambo territory, but not to its full potential, leaving unexplored threads and at least one loose end.

6/10

[Sly Boots]

I watched Eden Lake, from 2008, which I'd not seen but heard good things about, and recently landed on Prime.

Basically, Michael Fassbender and his girlfriend go out to the country to enjoy a peaceful getaway, and get into conflict with a horrible gang of teenage chavs. It may be one of the bleakest films I've ever seen, a horrific look at how ordinary human beings can descend into barbarism as a situation escalates out of control, and generational abuse and violence. The ending in particular may be one of the darkest I've seen since Midsommar.

It's a good film, worth a watch if you've not seen it, but be aware that it doesn't pull any punches.

[Lenny Solidus]

Borderlands

Pretty much agree on everything Raid commented concerning how the film looks, a fairly decent one to one replica of the game is up there to marvel at in terms of backdrops and visual nods etc...but that I'd say is pretty much all I can favour it for. As a fan of the game series since its inception it is evident there is someone involved at some level who gets what Borderlands is as it switches from hey that's pretty close to the source material to what the hell is this amateur hour student movie and how did it cost a hundred million dollars. They represent the in game map well, specific notable skins, cameos, vending machines and more but the issue is the story the egregiously miscast characters horrible writing and general disconnect from what we know and love - there's far too many shortcomings so as hard as it may try to connect the game and the movie it never flies anything close to being an adaption of worthy note.

Any ever so slight early glimmers of hope are all but soon dashed...whenever anything new occurs on screen. Much of which ranks way up there with some of the corniest worst shot worst choreographed fight scenes I believe I've ever seen. Even Guyver Dark Hero still did it better and that movie cost a mere $3 million to put together compared to Roth's $115 million. And oh yes, the introduction would have you believe that they understand the importance of weaponry...turns out they simply don't bother with any of it outside of on screen easter eggs and an infinity pistol.

Felt as though the majority of the films budget was kept for the over indulgent (terribly acted and envisioned) ending. Should have gone straight to streaming and instantly been forgotten...which isn't too far off what did happen.

2 out of 10 Skags laying deathly still on a dusty trail.

1 for effort and 1 for finally ending so I could do something more productive instead.