The Gamers Arms

John Wick 3
Uhm.... it’s a bit boring
Fights last too long for what’s happening, added sound effects feel added and a lot of it isnt really selling the hits. The absolute highlight is Halle Berry, she’s brilliant in it but by the end I was glad it was finally over. It’s not unwatchable but it’s worse than 1 and 2. Needs 30mins cut.

Detective Pikachu

Given how commercialised the Pokemon franchise is, it's a bit amazing that this feels like it was made by people who absolutely love the source material rather than just attempting to squeeze every penny out of the property. There's very little hand-holding in this; Pokemon exist, they are an essential part of human existence, and that comes across immediately without much in the way of tedious exposition. It's a kids film that doesn't feel like it's talking down to its audience. Sure, it's fairly simplistic narratively, and you'll probably guess the ending long before it happens, but there's so much love poured into the rendering and the animation and the world building. It's much better than it has any right to be.

Also, it is officially a tongue, not a scarf.

John Wick 3

A fucking hoot of a silly film! A little on the long side but a wonderful balls out entertaining mix of insane gun battles with attack dogs, horses and vehicles mixed in. These films are dumb as fuck but there is nothing less than 100% by everyone involved and it shows. Bad guys so stoked that John Wick is kicking the shit out of them and some brutal close in gunisment makes it a joy to watch. If you enjoyed the previous films this should highly entertain.

Watched Interstellar last night.

Really enjoyed that, but what was with the fucking mumbling? I spent most of the three-hour run-time jacking up the volume for all the dialogue and then rushing to lower it when an action scene happened and blew us across the room.

Yeah, I remember having a lot of trouble with the sound balance with that bluray. I think we ended up switching off our sound system entirely and just watching through the TV speakers.

With the clear dialogue setting switched on. Could hear both the talky bits & action clearly then.

Detective Pikachu
Well I thought that was just great. Funny, sweet and quiet respectful of the audience. The best game to movie transition.

Aladdin
Not great. Aladdin's singing voice is awful for a start and Big Willy isnt any better. It looks like a lot of money was spent on it by folk that weren't great designers so everything just looks cheap. Its not offensively bad or anything and its better than Dumbo.... maybe.

Outlaw King

A pretty cool retelling of Robert The Bruce becoming king of Scotland. Compared to Braveheart this is light years more historically accurate. A slow but gripping build up with descent acting from everyone. Chris Pine as Bruce is surprisingly great. The action is brutal with guts and blood spraying in all directions. The final battle is very impressive for a Netflix film, with hundreds of extras and much horse slaughter.

Solid 7/10

An American Crime
Jesus Christ. Man, all I know about this is what is depicted in the film but fucking fuck. What a fucking fucker of a fucking fuck.

Never heard of it, but having read the plot description on Wiki, I'm definitely not watching it.

On a lighter note

Rocketman
That was fab, one of the best films of the year. Taron Egerton is really brilliant.

Baby Driver

Was really enjoying this until about the halfway point then lost interest pretty quick. It's by no means a bad film but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. In fact I don't think I've really liked an Edgar Wright film since Hot Fuzz. Hollywood doesn't suit him.

Oh...

Godzilla King of Monsters

Pretty good. Not as good as the first reboot they did in 2014 (I think it was 2014).

Another case of far too much emphasis on the really poor human drama. They tease so many monsters and you get probably about 15 seconds of each of them in the whole movie. The major fight scene between the two big boys was alright but suffered a lot from being shot super close up so you can barely tell what's happening half the time and also made the same sin as the first movie where it cuts away back to the humans just as you're gearing up for a smashdown.

Most of the best shots in the movie are in the trailer. That reveal trailer had me so hyped for this movie and they didn't deliver on the expectations set. I'd definitely have paid and preferred to watch 2 hours of constant monsters trashing stuff to Clair De Lune.

I seriously rate the first movie. This was pretty basic entertainment in comparison. It's hard not to react with an internal "Fuck yeah!" every time you see modern Godzilla bellowing out that massive roar on screen though. Probably worthwhile for lovers of monster movies.

Booksmart

It has a few funny moments but it’s very try hard. It’s that unnatural ADHD dialogue that is supposed to be endearing but is just irritating as hell to me. The trailer gets most of the good bits.

Godzilla King Of The Monsters
"That's mothra, she's went into a cocoon but we've no idea what will emerge"

It was bad, daft plot and far far too long but I enjoyed it more than the last one. Rodan got done a dirty.

Dark Phoenix

You may remember in the last xmen movie Magneto teamed up with an ancient mutant and, with no hyperbole, destroyed and presumably killed around a quarter of the planet? Certainly most of Eurasia. His punishment for this was to be gifted a small plot of land for him and his friends to stay. I dislike the MCUs general lack of consequence to global devistation but this takes the piss!

Other than that it’s not very good. Characters do inexplicable things like constantly referring to a huge swarm of space bees as a solar flare and never investigating why they all flew inside of Jean. The only good parts are really when Magneto starts tearing shit up near the end.

Skip.