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wyattwhite3
Reviews
Last Sentinel (2023)
Nothing groundbreaking, but a decent watch.
Came across it on Tubi and though the premise was cool. Turns out the actual movie is too!
It's your classic "small cast stuck in a location under stressful circumstances and limited information" and it totally works as that. I'm a bit of a sucker for these kinds of movies, but it mostly holds together well. The actors all show up and do their part
Not a Z-List Asylum pic you'd assume a random Tubi movie to be. Last Sentinel has energy in performances, writing, and direction. There are real sets that mostly look convincing, as well as actual photography out on the water, some totally passable CG (or maybe very creative miniatures?)
There are twists towards the end but to me instead of "oh wow I didn't see that coming" it was more the "Yes I know does this movie think I'm dumb?" which is a minor stain against it. Some of the writing is heavy handed and kinda comes out of nowhere, presenting themes that are logical for the scenario, but don't feel properly set up.
Overall totally worth a watch if you're looking for a sort of near future character drama.
The Lair (2022)
A true 5/10
A true 5/10 meaning that the movie averages out to be more or less average for it's class.
There are some scenes that are genuinely well done, and some that were done pretty poorly (specifically in the monster's initial attack, there are several cutaways that put the monster on-par with the Sleestak).
You can take issue with some of the production value, some clunky/cliche writing, some poor shot choices, and some odd pacing, but if you're going in expecting an action/horror movie and knowing it's in that midrange direct-to-video/made-for-streaming category, then I think it'll hit all the marks fine.
On the other hand, most of the cast does a solid rendition of the "dirty half-dozen" collection of burnouts and outcasts. The lead works well enough, (though the tone can't decided if this is serious or b-movie over the top) as an anchor an relatively capable gun to lead us through the movie. The creature effects also work pretty well when up close. The suits look pretty good, and as long as the action keeps moving, it's all pretty good.
Personally, I think Marshall and Kirk should just keep doing their thing. I had issues with the Reckoning, but it seems like they're having fun, turning a profit, and making some fun movies. Do I want Marshall to make something on par with The Descent? Yea sure that would be great, but I think he's proven he's much more interested in doing wild and weird action than he is in making another masterpiece.
M3GAN (2022)
Fun if a little toothless
Overall it's solid. It's a fun little horror movie. Core relationships are well done, visuals are fun even if they're not groundbreaking, and some decent atmosphere.
There are several scenes that seemed like they were setting up a "This scene goes to 11" moment, and then they just kind of sidestep it, which I'm guessing is a side effect of the PG-13 rating. The kills that do happen end up being just hard enough to have some shock, but probably won't leave anyone traumatized.
There are some pretty clear "this will come back later" setups, as well as a couple sequel hooks.
While it's probably not going to be anyone's favorite horror flick, I'd say it's a solid introduction to horror movies for younger teens.
R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned (2022)
An improvement in everything but budget
Clearly a lower-budget sequel, but RIPD 2 generally manages to be much more enjoyable than the first. Swapping the bloated Scooby Doo monsters for normal humans and occasional Venom symbiote looking things was a smart move IMO. I liked the leads, even if some of the line reads were clunky and the avatars accents were an odd choice.
The action is passable, though not particularly amazing. Later scenes have some better choreography and clearly got a little more budgetary love, but there are certainly some awkward cuts and sub-par stage fights in the middle.
Overall, while this isn't anything mind blowing, I went in expecting trash and found myself actually enjoying the straight forward story of an undead sheriff and an undead knight on a quest to stop the apocalypse.
The Predator (2018)
Embarassingly Bad
Everyone deserved better than this. I don't beleive that any creative involved legitimately looked at this and thought it was good. I hope everyone has gone on to better things. I hope Shane Black can go back to making good buddy-cop movies.
The Predator is somehow the worst combination of expensive, boring, stupid, slopy, and stale. The end movie feels like 3-4 scripts for different predator movies crammed into one and then left out to dry. The action feels limp (outside one decent in a dark forest near the end) the gore feels excessive and lifeless all at the same time, and the ending sets up a superhero-style sequel that will never (and should never) come to exist (thank christ).
Not worth the 100 some-odd minutes it takes to watch, let alone money.
Bullet Train (2022)
Very Good action/comedy
It's just a rock solid movie. Moves quickly, has fun memorable characters, some good laughs, well done action. The ending sequence goes juust a little to big and CG heavy for me personally, which fumbles the ending a tad.
Overal though, an excellent movie that everyone should go see.
Nope (2022)
worth seeing
Much different from Us or Get Out (which I'm guessing is why there's a lot of very positive or very negative reviews) but JP is once again delivering a really strong mix of original ideas and recontextualizing old ideas.
Not gonna work for everyone, but I kinda loved it.
Resident Evil (2022)
Pretty Good Translation of RE
Not really sure what other reviewers watched (or maybe they just didn't finish it?) but from my perspective, the season as a whole was a pretty good RE adaptation?
The teen drama seems to be a sticking point for lots of people, which I kinda understand. There's about a full episode of highschool shennanigans total, and then another episode-ish of teens sneaking around Umbrella or getting captured, that kinda thing, which is quite a departure from the RE universe. I think in context this all feels a little filler-ey but mostly harmless.
However the future timeline is basically perfect RE as far as I'm concerned. Dumb corporation still operating in the apocalypse? Yep. Hordes of gooey zombies which are (mostly) very well executed? Yep. Big dumb monsters that smash around and the die in big bloody explosions? Yep. Ridiculous Mustache twirling villians? Yep, like 3 of them. People shooting guns at a bunch of zombies? Yep. The whole apocalypse centering on the actions of like 8 people in 2 families? Yep. Pretty good RE adaptation.
The acting comes and goes. Some scenes feel perfectly executed, some falter on super basic continuity and delivery. Overall no one stands out as amazing, but no one really fumbles their character. Lance Reddick does well most of the time, and has some real fun later in the season, but even he has some really stiff deliveries and awkward exposition.
All in all, I think it was a solid Resident Evil show. Nowhere near perfect, but certainly worth the time if you can make it through the first few uneven episodes.
South of Heaven (2021)
The vibe is off
South of Heaven isn't a bad movie by any means. It's got strong performances, well directed scenes, some pretty great shots, and some solid 3rd act action direction .
Unfortunately the pace and tone are all over the place. Rather than building scene-to-scene up to events, things just kinda happen and then things move on. Characters make massive decisions and take huge actions that don't feel earned or properly setup. The film iteself seems unsure if some of it's characters are bad people trying to do better, or monsters hiding well (which certainly can work, but here feels more like lack of consistent writing than drawing a three dimensional character)
There's really no terrible scenes, there's no line of dialogue that hs that "Wow that's genuinely awful" element to it, so I can see why people like the film, but taking the whole story into account, it feels confused on multiple levels. Sort of like a crime drama, a dark comedy, and an old school "bad man trying to go straight" movie were each shot with the same actors, and then the scenes were spliced together at random into this movie.
All in all, it's not bad, but it failed to come together into any more than a collection of pretty good scenes.
The Ray (2022)
A decent little movie
Nothing classic, but an enjoyable little contained thriller. The central macguffin scene is an entertaining gag, there's some decent gore chase setpieces. All in all it feels like a first time director who hasn't quite gotten a handle on how to connect scenes and move the story along naturally. Lots of the movie takes place in a handfull of locations, and where a more experienced director (or maybe a larget budget) can make a few settings maintain momentum, here it feels much more like treading water waiting for the next action.
It's probably not going to be a favorite of anyone watching, but a few good kills, decent performances, and flair in the writing make it worth a stream.
Also, if you like Richard Kind, he gets a few monologues and to hang out in a nice suit, so there's that.
The Lost City (2022)
A very likeable movie
While not perfect by any stretch, The Lost City manages to put a dedcent comedy, a decent rom-com, and a decent adventure film all into one sleek 90-minute package.
Probably not going to be anyones favorite film, but feels like a prime contendor for "oh yea- that was a really fun movie, we should watch it" status in 3-4 years.
Everyone commits to their bit and play off of each other well. Even if Channing's character kind of silently morphs over the course of the story in a way that feels less like character growth and more like the writers favored the plot over the character, but that's a minor complaint.
Overall, strong movie that manages to add up to more than the sum of it's parts.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Shockingly incredible film
Went in expecting a great film, and even with those high expectations, I was completely blown away. I laughed hysterically, tears welled in my eyes, even the action (though not always perfect) was excellent.
Everyone should see this movie as soon as you can (safely of course).
No Exit (2022)
Not quite great
A fairly standard bottle-thriller, elevated by some genuinely great performances and a great setting, though it's also brought down by structural issues and a second act that lacked much tension or momentum. No exit opens and closes strong, though sags pretty heavily for a good 15-20 minutes in the middle.
If you're a fan of thrillers you'll find something to like here, though it likely won't be a new classic. A particularly gruesome and almost darkly comedic kill almost makes it worth the 90 minutes just on it's own.
It's probably not going to blow anyone's socks off, but it's a genuinely decent movie, and if you've already got hulu, it's certainly worth checking out if the premise interests you at all.
From (2022)
Really Strong sofar
Early on it's always hard to tell, but sofar From seems to walk the line between being a supernatural mystery show and an outright horror show.
Granted, I'm a pretty big fan of LOST (Including the ending, which is a hell of a lot better than it gets credit for.) which From shares *some* dna with. From, however, leans away from the global cast, exotic locations, and big punchy speeches of LOST, going much more for an intimate setting with a much more claustraphobic feel.
I was particularly surprised by the character dialogue, which tends to feel almost improved, as characters stutter or stumble over words or use somewhat half-baked turns of phrase lend a lot of believability to most characters without going far enough to feel messy or wrong. It's that perfect level of mistake that helps sell the world as real.
I'm excited to see how the series develops as we go on, and personally like having a new episode to check out every week(at lest for the next 6 or so weeks.)
--Mid Season Update--
Mysteries have evolved and expanded consistently, performances are still excellent. Writing can be clunky in certain scenes, but the performance and direction usually makes it work. The middle episodes of From have pulled away from the horror somewhat in favor of exploring the mystery and world.
I would categorize as a must see for fans of horror and mystery TV.
Uncharted (2022)
Decent Action-Adventure
A decent action adventure that manages to be a fun and quick paced (at times a little too-quick) while not overstaying it's welcome. Some good stuntwork, decent performances, and some interesting sets means it's 2 hours I didn't mind spending.
Unfortunately, while the early action set pieces focus on human-scale stuff and stuntwork, the last 1.5 set pieces blow the scale up waaaay too large and you lose whatever sense of reality the characters had been doing well to maintian till that point. Ends up verymuch feeling like a lesser Marvel ending battle where a director seems to just turn whatever is left of the budget over to the effects team and let them do whatever.
All in all, a fun movie that doesn't outstay it's welcome, despite the last twenty or so minutes feeling like pretty flat action.
American Auto (2021)
Funny, but falls short of Superstore sofar
While it's got it's moments, American Auto isn't quite as execellent as Superstore. The focus on the top earners and senior leaders of a company makes most of the characters come off much less likably.
Not mindblowing, not terrible.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
Decent action-horror, with some fun refences for the fans
I'm a big fan of the mid-late games(4,5,6,Revalations, 2/3 remake) and of the previous Alice Sage RE films, so take all opinions with a grain of salt.
Resident Evil Welcome to Raccoon City is a pretty decent zombie flick, that will probably be more than decent to fans of the early RE games. While the pacing is uneven, the characters are too numerous for meaningful development, and few dangers exist for more than 1-2 scenes, it does manage to come together into a watchable movie.
Individual scenes are excellent, and mostly well directed, however it feels more like 2 episodes of a good TV series stitched together into one movie than it does a cohesive story on it's own. The actors manage generally strong takes on each individual character, while also sometimes toying with franchise fan's expectations, though none really get the time they need to shine.
It's also worth noting that, while the movie looks genuinely great much of the time, atmospheric darkness and rain playing well on-camera, there are a handfull of CGI creatures that look dated at best.
All in all, it's a watchable movie, though it might play best from the comfort of your own home.
Feed the Gods (2014)
Better than expected, though not particularly great
There's a good bit of fun to be had here, between the better than it needed to be writing, and the better than they needed to be actors, though the whole thing is let down quite a bit by some shoddy effects and some rushed sequences.
It takes a while to get going, but in the end, the lead up to the carnage actually ends up being the better parts. The characters aren't particularly deep or nuanced, but the actors inject them with enough energy and sense of history that it really kinda works as a hangout movie.
Unfortunately when the bigfoots (Not a spoiler, that's the whole premise) d appear, they're pretty underwhelming. They're not quite "Spirit Halloween" level effects, but they don't quite inspire fear either.
In the end, it's a breezy watchable movie with some fun performances, some decent writing and directing.
Naked Singularity (2021)
Better than the reception, but not quite there
While the reception has been pretty negative, and I can see why, I disagree with it.
While being sold as a sort of melding of reality and scifi, the movie doesn't quite deliver on what it sets up. It's essentially 1/3 drama about the crushing justice system of modern America, 1/3 heist movie about good people doing bad things for dubious reasons. Unfortunately the last 1/3 of the movie is a mix of pontification about philosophy and physics that feel like they're part of an earlier draft that got cut-down and incomplete scenes that just don't totally work.
There are a stack of great performances, particularly Boyega, Skein, and Cooke, with Skarsgard turing in an engaging performance that feels under-used for much of the movie.
The direction/editing feels a little off, sort of what you'd expect from a first time director. Mostly little things like dialogue that doesn't exactly match actions, or characters seeming to just sort of appear inside or outside of a secure building.
The biggest letdown for me was the cosmic elements. Without going into spoilers (aside from those in the trailer/marketing) I feel they should have been either more obscure or more upfront, as they seem to be forgotten for stretches of the film, the appear , and immediately are forgotten again. The film has great momentum, but feels like it was much more invested in it's legal and heist plotline than the cosmic happenings (which happen almost entirely off-screen)
All in all, the film is just a little above average. The performances, ideas, and energy of the movie make it worth a rent for sure, but some shoddy editing, and the weak execution of it's cosmic element keep if from being all it can be.
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It's also worth noting that the fact that the "Best of all possible worlds" still includes police beating an un-armed black teenager is an incredibly bleak comment on how we see policing and race in America right now.
The Ice Road (2021)
Not good
A decent idea for a movie, Ice Road Truckers but it's a race against time. Unfortunately, the directing is limp, the effects are only a step or two beyond a SyFy Original(and not one of the decent ones), and some of a mid-runtime twist takes away it's one good element (the setup). The writing and delivery are fine, but come across as mediocre at best when pairedwith such mediocre direction and editing.
Points for actually shooting out in the cold, rather than a soundstage and adding in breath afterward. There are also some fun practical effects, but that's really the only saving graces. The whole thing is just competent enough to be boring-bad, not fun-bad.
Everyone involved has done much better, feels like a weak attempt from a first time director, not a return from an old-pro.
Skip, unless you're also stuck on The Ice Road.
Cosmic Sin (2021)
It's bad
I've got a pretty high tolerance for schlock(I've seen all 7 Tremors movies, AND the Show. I'm a huge Resident Evil Film Franchise fan. I could go on.) and honestly even I had a hard time getting through this one. I expected Bruce Willis to be sleepwalking his way through, like most films he's done in the last decade, but I didn't expect Frank Grillo to be pulling the same stunt.
The younger less known set of actors try to put some flavor into it and the script seems to be trying for some sort of "is war just" point, but the nebulously defined zombie/fantasy/scifi aliens make any ''''''deep''''' quotes feel haphazard and pretentious.
The sets are basic, all of the action taking place on either A) a greenscreen, B) cement bunker or C) A rough greenscreen trying to approximate space. In still images, the sort of armor suits the characters wear look cool, however any time an actor moves, it's clear they're just plastic shells hastily velcro'd onto the actor in some sort of wetsuit.
All that would be entirely excusable if the actual plot, or characters, or world was engaging. It's not. It feels like a lesser Halo plot only with less nuance, less character, and unfortunately a very "Kill them all" attitude.
Skip it.
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
Fun, Pulpy ride
Fun period thriller with more ideas than it knows what to do with and maaaaybe one or two too many twists. Any one of the 2-3 twists in the plot would have made for a totally manageable bottle-thriller. All 3 make it a little over-crowded, but also serve to keep you on your toes. Some shoddy CG and a few wooden deliveries hold it back a bit, but overall it's well acted, edited, and paced.
There are several sequences that will make more pedantic people say "Well that's not possible" or "That would NEVER happen" and they're probably right, but I disagree that unrealistic stuff makes it bad. I found it a fun adventure with some style and grace that will please fans of pulp-scifi and movies that know when to end.
Unfortunately, Max Landis(credibly accused of some nasty stuff) was involved at some point in the writing of this script. While the co-writer/director claims that most of the script was changed/rewritten I can see why people would avoid this film due to his involvement.
Love and Monsters (2020)
Fun Action Adventure
Not going to blow anyone's mind that's seen a movie before, but it's a really solidly made movie. Well paced, well acted, and basically all of it lands.
It's long enough to feel worth it, but not stretching its material. Does a good job of implying a world outside the borders of the frame, without feeling like characters are reading a wikipedia entry.
Overall, worth the price of admission, and the kind of thing I hope hollywood starts doing again.
Grand Isle (2019)
60% interesting
Starts off as an interesting sort of claustrophobic thriller, before some lazy twists and a clear lack of budget lead to an incredibly weak an incongruous ending.
I started off picking up a sort of southern gothic vibe with some Persephone & Hades allusions. As the movie went on, it sort of meandered it's way to a sudden change in scenery about 2/3 the way through, then through some TV exposition and background dialogue we sort of stumble into a lame and thematically inconsistent ending that kinda tries to make a point about something, but it's entirely unlike what the rest of the movie had on it's mind. On top of that, there are several scenes that look like they were clearly shot in a day with only a few takes, with poor angles/framing and which show characters that were never introduced before.
All in all, it seems like there was a clear vision (and an interesting one at that!) that was severely hampered by either a bad ending in the script, a low budget, or compressed shooting schedule.
It's a shame because there's some decent performances(though very heightened, they're interesting) and set design in the first 1/2, but the slap-dash last 1/3 and the incongruous ending make this hardly worth the time.
The Perfection (2018)
Not a classic, but a damn interesting ride
Wherever you think it's going, you're wrong. I won't say anything more, except that, as you might expect, both lead actresses are rock solid, the tension is on point, and the few out & out gory scenes are truly nasty.
Recommended for fans of horror, psychological thrillers, and those that like surprises.
Not recommended for people who want to feel smarter than the movie(ie, guessing twists), those that are easily offended by gore.
Side Note: I sincerely don't see what the negative comments about "Feminist propaganda" are about. We must have watched different movies.