I’m probably among the ideal adult audience members for a movie based on those games. I recently played through both Galaxy re-releases for Nintendo Switch, so I was primed for any of the visual references the studio would include. And visuals are definitely where The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is at its strongest. But no matter how ready I was to see games I knew so well get blown up on a big screen, the movie struggles on a story level at every turn.
Read MoreEggers’ film drags you bodily into a world where zombie kings, eyeless witches, and the talking severed head of Willem Dafoe are as real to the characters as their windswept settlements.
Read MoreEnvisioned as a haunted house psychological thriller-horror — and those elements are certainly quite good, there just isn’t enough of it — no character embodies the main antagonist. The idea that mutants are a danger to themselves and society is interpreted literally in this film. X-Men is supposed to be a reflection of what it’s to be like an outsider, but when the film traps all five mutants in one location without outside contact, they aren’t given a chance to show why they’re ostracized.
Read MoreHowever, while parts of the movie don’t really work, Shyamalan’s ultimate goal is to make the audience doubt the truth of the characters’ abilities. In a climactic scene outside the facility, Shyamalan uses extreme wide shots, fish-eye close-ups, and clumsy staging to strip a fight between Dunn and The Horde of the thrilling, Marvel-style grandeur we might expect from the subject matter.
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