I had a lot of thoughts, feelings and questions during my time watching the sequel to Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon. What follows, in no particular order, are those musings.
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The most frustrating part, however, is Snyder’s refusal to ever delve deeper into the universe he creates. We see this in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, where he clearly has an entire library of stories and whole universes planned out, and he ever so subtly hints at them.
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I had trouble sitting through this film without getting frustrated and throwing up my arms in disgust. It was far too simplistic, and too often I’m wondering why Julianne Moore, Brian Tyree Henry and Tracy Letts (who wrote the screenplay) were so underused
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The script is too thin to really grapple with the moral dilemma. We get a few sequences where the characters individually break down due to the stress, but the drama never builds to the wrenching height that the situation demands. Maybe you can chalk that up to the immense training and professionalism that these characters would exemplify, but it did leave me a bit cold.
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As good as the cast and the script are - setting aside how you feel about Oldman, 62, playing a 43-year-old - the setting and Fincher’s self-indulgent flourishes still make me hesitate before recommending it to everyone. If you’re a ride-or-die Fincher fan, or a committed listener of a film history podcast like You Must Remember This, climb aboard.
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Given the huge range of results, it gets harder to believe that anyone would actually take the stuff. The extent of the movie’s commentary about drug epidemics is “they exist.”
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It is easy to root for Angie, whose characterization departs drastically from the usual East Asian trope of the meek daughter of a domineering father who needs a Romeo to save her. In Triad Princess, Angie is Romeo and Xu Yi Hang the more passive and obedient Juliet.
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In the library of action films, The Old Guard doesn’t really excite and it’s definitely not memorable, but consider it a good-enough entry into Netflix’s ever-expanding library of films you can simply put on the background, or skip to the parts that interest you.
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The multiple timelines make it difficult to follow, and each episode feels different; at times, it’s a family drama moving at a snail’s pace, and during others it’s an action epic or a sadistic crime thriller. Chen’s vision is expansive, but its weak storytelling and confusing editing muddies the final product.
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But it’s not the presence of middle-aged actors in the period combat scenes that smothers the tension in Da 5 Bloods. It’s a list of smaller choices, subtle details that might be chalked up to style but took me out of the experience. Several characters’ deaths seem to share Tropic Thunder’s taste for comedic violence, applied to moments that are pitched as drama. The soundtrack alternates between patriotic orchestral anthems and R&B, though the tracks often don’t match the expected tone of the scene.
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It feels oddly disjointed; unlike The Office or Community in which any episode could take place on any weekday, Space Force has to follow a linear timeline of events, but at times it’s difficult to make heads or tails of what is actually going on and it never really focuses on one conflict long enough before moving on.
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However, where Game Night featured a memorable network of supporting characters and some surprising kinks in the plot, everything (even the leads) in The Lovebirds is noticeably underwritten. Other than the onscreen presence of Nanjiani and Rae, the movie doesn’t give us much else to work with.
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He’s powerless from the start, and it’s a dangerous fuel to Jahkor’s pride and short fuse, both of which end up consuming him. The film constantly reminds you about institutionalized racism; “they teach you how to survive, but they don’t teach you how to live” is a common refrain.
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t’s a heavy-handed action film, with each cliché delivered to you hand over fist. When we meet Tyler, he casually jumps off a big cliff and into the water, where he stays submerged. He’s drowning himself with the heavy memories of a troubled past, which the film is all too eager to remind you any time there’s a quiet moment.
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My internet research tells me Yang was born in California to parents who emigrated from Taiwan, so it’s not exactly clear if the film is biographical. If it is rooted in real-life experience, then the historical and cultural inconsistencies and inaccuracies are rather odd.
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