I Just Watched (Films)

[Animalmother]

Yeah I never thought it was only 5 films in 16 years....Jesus we're all getting old!!!

[Raid]

Yup. So's Craig; I was gobsmacked when I looked it up; he's 54.

[Sly Boots]

Jungle (on Prime)

Enjoyed that - a true story about a backpacker who got lost for nearly three weeks alone in the Bolivian jungle, Daniel Radcliffe in the main role. Starts off as a pretty feelgood movie about a group of friends experiencing the proper jungle off the tourist trail, before they get separated and becomes a more harrowing story of one man's will to live.

The photos at the end of the real people in the story was a nice touch, but was quite shocked by the, I guess, twist in the text at the end. I won't spoil it beyond that.

Recommended.

[Animalmother]

Speaking of Danial Radcliffe stranded in the wilderness, you see Swiss Army Man? Bizarre...

[Animalmother]

Death of Stalin
Not the first time I've watched it but I'd almost forgotten how incredibly funny it is. Everyone is a scheming shit and nobody trusts anyone else. Any scene involving Zhukov is gold..

Spoiler

The trial and execution of Beria was surprisingly brutal and for a few minutes it was a completely different film.

[Achtung Englander]

Sonic 2

2 hours of noise. The last half hour was tedious. My 8 year old looked bored.

5/10

[Raid]

The Living Daylights

I remember this being better. I have for a very long time thought that Dalton was my favourite pre-Craig Bond, but there's really not much of the personality I liked him for on display in this one, so presumably all the rough action hero stuff comes in License to Kill instead. In this he feels like he's just trying to replicate the other actors and go for the smooth, charming sort, but he instead comes off as a bit smarmy.

The story's not very interesting either; I had it in my head that this was about supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets, but they're really just window dressing for an American arms dealer... selling weapons. The weapons aren't for anything in particular, he's literally just doing his job. Obviously unscrupulous arms deals aren't exactly something you want happening, but there's no world-ending circumstances and it hardly feels like a job for the 00 section. There's a counter-intelligence plot that involves killing intelligence agents, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

The action scenes aren't anything to write home about either. There's a fairly decent spy-car chase scene, with Bond's stupidly well equipped muscle-car styled Aston Martin (this one has lasers!) facing off against.... Ladas and a shed. The pre-title sequence is terrible, with Bond having a fist fight inside a Land Rover filled with smoke, and that's about it. The shots with the for-some-reason-Soviet-owned-American-C-130 at the end are pretty good at least.

I may watch License to Kill next week just to see if I've been looking like an idiot for singing the praises of the Dalton films for two decades.

[Animalmother]

And if I remember rightly the weapons aren't really all that either, just guns with a few bells and whistles attached, no nukes.

[Raid]

Yup; you only see one of the weapons being used, and it's a standard assault rifle with a face shield. You see some items in a drawer that look like a pistol with car parts glued to it. The only fancy stuff is talked about and not shown, and it's no more than infantry weapons.

[Animalmother]

The King's Man
Prequel to the Kingsman films that came out last year and seemed to almost immediately disappear without much fanfare, which is a shame as I found it very enjoyable. Set before and during WW1 the story is based around real events and people (in a totally ludacris way) in a huge conspiracy. It's all very silly fun that in places looks fantastic with some beautiful sets. There's a great time lapse of the French countryside turning into a destroyed hellscape as the war intensifies. Imagine a film set in the Battlefield 1 universe and that's exactly how it looks. On the downside it's overlong and the story gets a bit too complicated for the film it is. But it's still good fun and worth a look.

[Sly Boots]

Had no idea it was part of the Kingsman franchise, enjoyed both the first two so shall add this to my list.

[Raid]

Oblivion
Not great, not terrible. I'll be surprised if I remember much about it in a week's time, it's just exceedingly average. There's potential for a good premise right at the end, but they leave it too late to bring it in, and then don't really do anything with it. As a result you've got a fairly bland post-apocalyptic action film, and I'm not a huge fan of the technology design.

[Raid]

License to Kill

Much more entertaining than Living Daylights, although it doesn't feel much like a James Bond film, given that it's less about espionage and more about Bond being a bit miffed. It's exceedingly American, more so than most in the series, and there's so much cocaine in it (and on screen) that you can probably guess it was made in the 80s. I don't know whether it's meant to be as funny as it is; Bond films were pretty light-hearted by this point (although from a 2022 perspective, the fact that this was maligned for being too dark is hysterical), but there are so many clearly stupid things in this that I can't decide if they were written by people sampling the props.

[Solitaire]

Oblivion
Not great, not terrible. I'll be surprised if I remember much about it in a week's time, it's just exceedingly average. There's potential for a good premise right at the end, but they leave it too late to bring it in, and then don't really do anything with it. As a result you've got a fairly bland post-apocalyptic action film, and I'm not a huge fan of the technology design.

Reading your review made me smile, because we have such polar tastes when it comes to some things

I really enjoy Oblivion. I like the pace, the environments, the visuals. I like the clean, white trappings of the tech that was showcased in the movie. I'd live in that mountaintop house in a heartbeat, haha. Sure, there's tons of silly tropes, can't escape them in any film or tv show, really (looking at you, Mandalorian), but if I don't overlook them I'd never watch a single thing. The premise of a gigantic AI powerhouse destroying worlds is hardly new but I think it was cleverly showcased here. Apart from my hate/love relationship with Cruise (mentioned elsewhere) I believe he did a decent job of rolling through various emotions as he was confronted by the realities of his situation. And I'm a sucker for gorgeous Eastern Euro women, so watching Olga Kurylenko on-screen is always a good visual, and she's a decent actress, bringing some subtle tugs at the heartstrings in many scenes. I could poke lots of holes in this movie and its plot (and, as an aside, I abhor American baseball, dumbest sport ever conceived, so that scene was particularly annoying), but it leans enough into the positive for me that I can mostly enjoy it instead of mostly nitpick. Probably that's my go-to process for deciding if I like anything, really

[Sly Boots]

Oblivion
Not great, not terrible. I'll be surprised if I remember much about it in a week's time, it's just exceedingly average. There's potential for a good premise right at the end, but they leave it too late to bring it in, and then don't really do anything with it. As a result you've got a fairly bland post-apocalyptic action film, and I'm not a huge fan of the technology design.

But was he the hero of Kvaaaatch?