Avengers: Endgame
Again, I covered this in my retrospective of the MCU, but in having rewatched it now, I have come to like it quite a bit. While the time-travel elements still irk me, I can't deny that last half-hour is a pretty awesome superhero party and a great reward to those who've seen all the movies.
I love the John Wick movies. They aren't perfect, but they do know what they're good for and focus on their strengths, which is tightly choreographed action scenes and thick, neo-noir atmosphere.
The third one delivers more of the same, but really starts to dig into the lore the previous movies have created, raising the stakes even more with some really inventive twists and complications. The twist at the end was particularly interesting and makes me all the more excited for the next one!
Of course, the action remains the focus again, but I did feel like some of the fights did run on for too long. I'm pretty sure they killed all the guys in Morocco! In terms of highlights, the ones that stand out the most are the knives fight at the beginning, and when The Continental becomes a battleground full of shadows and stealth against some heavily armed gunmen, requiring some pretty heavy ordinance for our heroes to deal with.
It may seem like backhanded praise to say it's more of the same, but when it's this high quality and this unique, I'll take plenty of seconds.
_poster.png)
After the first Godzilla movie in this continuity meh'd its way through 2014 (and I admit I never did see it), and the new King Kong was the most Vietnam-angst driven thing I'd seen in a long time (though full of Harryhausen-style epicness), it was hard to know what the next film was going to be like.
In the end, what we got was probably the most over-the-top ridiculous film I'd seen in a while! This really does feel like someone watched an enthusiastic kid smash his Godzilla toys against each other for thirty minutes, and turned that into a Hollywood script, and I mean that in the best way possible! This really is a massive monster ride from top to bottom.
Sure, I could complain that the story is threadbare, the things the humans do is almost meaningless pulp sci-fi goobledegook, and it really just pares down to an epic, CGI-laden showdown, but when it comes to the action and chaos, it's so exuberant and sincere in what it wants to be, there's no real point in criticizing or analyzing it, really. And to be honest, it's nice to see a fun movie allowed to have as much fun as it wants.
So Phase 3 of the MCU had one more after it all went down, and looking at it, it's hard not to see why this got lumped in with that phase as it really does deal with the aftermath of Endgame as one of its major themes. In fact, it's hard not to see it as a palate-cleanser after all the heaviness.
While I do think this one is better than Homecoming overall, I still have a hard time with all the teenage drama that happens in the film. This time, Peter and his class are touring Europe, so it's less connected to the high school (but it doesn't stop a pretty dopey love-confession subplot).
Holland still remains a great choice, as his teenage Spider-Man is full of inexperience and energy, which really works for this character, but the show really gets stolen by Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio. While I won't go into details, he gets to show two sides of himself and both are done brilliantly. (We need to get him in more of these kinds of movies! Heck, why aren't they casting him as Nathan Drake for the Uncharted movie?!).
However, the main reason to see this is for the twists at the end. Halfway through the credits, we get an amazing cameo reveal that's probably the best one since Samuel L. Jackson showed up in Iron Man 1. And then after the credits, another twist shows up that likely sets the stage of where things are going for Phase 4.
This is a curious one. Obviously going for a 2001: Space Odyssey/Interstellar vibe, this contemplative sci-fi journey is much more about the personal journey of the main character than it is about space travel and the science behind it (though it does have some subtle digs at humanity's purpose in space).
As a consequence, this film has a muted tone throughout, even with all the death-defying action going on. There's a rather neat little chase scene on the Moon with Moon buggies, but it's filmed almost like it's an out-of-body experience. And towards the end, when the hero is finally out on his own, it really gets pretty psychedelic and existential.
While I can certainly respect the craft and vision that went into it, I can't say if it's a good movie or not. It's one of those that's good to see once, and only if you're on-board with this kind of epic think-piece style of storytelling.
This is another one that should have been good, but wasn't. And it's a shame, too, as some of the action scenes in this one are actually pretty good. There's a chase in Columbia that really goes all over the place, not only in location, but in style as well; the hand-to-hand is actually quite visceral and intense; and the big showdown features some epic gatling-gun collateral damage through a convenience store.
The main problem is that the trailers already gave away the big twist the movie was building up to: Will Smith is an older hitman, and after retiring, gets hunted by a younger hitman who ends up being a clone of himself. And based on these trailers, I was expecting more of a sci-fi film.
However, what we got was more of a slow-burning spy thriller, and while the build up to the twist was pretty decent, it was hard to feel anything when I already knew the twist going into it. From there, it's like the film doesn't really know what to do with its ideas, so it fiddles around for a while, pretending to think it's smarter than it really is, before it all comes crashing down for a finale falls pretty flat. Only pick it up if you're interested in those actions scenes, and even then, maybe as a $1 Redbox rental.
Terminator: Dark Fate
Because I also did a Terminator franchise retrospective, I've already covered this one elsewhere as well. Overall, it does a good job of retaining the feel of a Terminator movie while at the same time wiping the slate clean for the future of the franchise in an interesting way. Of course, based on the poor box-office performance of this one, it's hard to know when that will be, which seems to be par for the course.
At this point, I'm sure you're all wondering where Star Wars is. Well, first, I didn't see it in 2019, and second, I'm working on another full franchise retrospective for that, which will be it's own two-parter. However, next will be the Anticipated Movies list I always like to do, so keep an eye out for that!
In the mean time, Happy New Year!
No comments:
Post a Comment