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The Outpost (2018)
The further you go the better
Don't stop because of the first episode. I was initially laughing at how bad it was, but then I loved it.
×××
My wife started watching it.
As I watched that episode over my phone, I found it bad. Low budget, bad actors, just another low quality Fantasy serie, up to the point I was recognizing furnitures in the movie coming from a very popular Swedish store...
Then, as she kept on looking it, and me looking it between a book or a game on the phone, I was more and more interested in this series. And lastly, I started to binge watch it.
Some actors seem having learnt how to act as the series goes forward. The budget seems having increased. And the story gets better and better. The cheesiness of the first episodes is replaced by actually a cool story.
Could only watch until season 3, as season 4 isn't available in my country, but it is up to there a great light series. Sure there are plotholes, sure everyone finds solutions too quickly, but it's more than watchable.
Definitely a good pick!
Dune (2021)
Great movie but wrong cut imho
To start, I read the books (1&2, reading 3). Didn't see Lynch version.
As most have stated the visuals are breathtaking. I disagree the acting isn't good. I believe it is, the only problem is that the great cast didn't have a lot screen presence.
A lot of comments mention how the movie is emotionless, and how it's impossible to « pick a side ». I kind of agree with this statement but I dont on the reason.
Dune isn't about good guys vs bad guys. There isn't a side to pick. And anyway, any person having read the books and having half of a brain cell wouldn't be really simping for Paul Atreides. Dune is more of an epic story about the Arrakis and it's relation with the Atreides family and how it plays in what is about to come.
And here I believe Villeneuve did a great job about keeping the book philosophy.
But then, is it normal that when watching you just see the unfolding of a story about two (or three) houses just fighting each other without understanding really what is going on? No it's not. And I believe that it's because the film cut is wrong. Villeneuve creamed a LOT out of the story. Too much.
I understand that a lot needed to be taken out. Is it really useful and important to know yet about the Landsraad? About the CHOM, about the Merchants Guild? Probably not. Not yet.
But Mentat? I think it's an important matter. They aren't even mentioned. But it the end it didn't prevent to make things go forward in a meaningful manner.
The problem is that Villeneuve (or whoever) kept on creaming out. Too little is said about Harkonnen / Atreides feud. About The Emperor feud (one sentence about his jealousy, not more than that). The Bene Gesserit also. Only a couple of lines about their actions and involvements.
It's ok for me as I read the book. But for someone who didn't? How can someone « care » about what is going on if almost nothing is mentioned about the powers at stake on Dune. « The spice »... that's it. But there's so much more than the Spice. The book takes the time to highlight them, so that you feel connected, making you wanting to read further.
Villeneuve streamlined too much. And yet, over two hours and a half? There are too many dead moments, that bring non added value that could have been replaced with additional explanation to make things more clear, to emphasise them more.
Villeneuve took so much out that even Liet Kynes seems absurd... Yet he (or she in the movie) had his own reason to behave like he did. In the movie. She just changes sides, for no reason.
And that's why according to me, there is a wrong cut, too much focus on useless things, and yet too few on important matters.
Kaamelott - Premier volet (2021)
It's a hard one
I think Astier couldn't do better. There are 6 seasons already, of overused jokes, we all love but grew tired about. He remains faithful to the series, and all characters are there, without being caricatural (except maybe Perceval and Caradoc I'm starting to grow tired about, despite the fact they used to make me laugh to the tears back then).
I find it unfair that people mention the movie uses overused jokes, because it's not the case. There are some really subtle references to previous episodes such as:
- I wanted to be Provençal knight but that name is already taken
- Arthur! War is only an illusion [...] Arthur! War is salsify
Which are the ones that made me laugh the most. Anyway... Back to the point.
If you didn't grow up with Kaamelott and expect to have fun, you will likely be disappointed.
If you grew up with Kaamelott and expect to be surprised and amused as much as you were when the series was done, you'll likely be disappointed.
If you grew up with Kaamelott, and want the story to continue, with the characters we all know, then you will likely love it.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
The movie is great in its substance, not on the surface
Sorry for my English, it's not my mother tongue.
Many people is disappointed by comparing it with the Original Blade Runner. And I can understand that.
However bear in mind Blade Runner had a very good plot, very good intrigue and the ending scene was a total climax, one of the best shots ever done in the cinema history. As you go out of Blade Runner (1982), thanks to the ending (and Rutger Hauer actually), you're there like "oh my god this movie blows!"
Blade Runner 2049 goes actually the other way around, the first 2h30 are absolutely great in my opinion. Nothing is granted to the spectator. The visuals are astonishing, the cyberpunk world and ambience is perfectly retranscripted, the noir investigation is brilliant and the way the movie goes forward is extremely clever. The ending of the movie however totally disappoints and leaves an extremely bad taste in the mouth.
As the movie ended I was disappointed. My wife told me: "I don't really know what to think about this movie". I answered "I'm not sure either, I'll probably need some extra hours, thinking about the movie, before making a judgement".
And I was right to do so, the disappointing ending is actually necessary to provide the inherent plot of the movie. In its questioning, in questioning human reality, in questioning human society, in questioning the behaviour of humans toward the premade (mis)conceptions the society imposes to the individual, in questioning the mainstream conception about superiorship of human toward replicants (or other human beings), in question how the mainstream conception can effect the perception a person has of himself, this movie is MUUUUUUUUUUUCH superior to Blade Runner (1982).
All those questions and sentiments are provided through the entire movie and there is no clear answer provided and, that's maybe what appears to be the weak point of the movie, but actually is the strong point of it to me, *there is no real conclusion*.
If you expected indeed a conclusion you'll be disappointed because the conclusion is actually very "meh... I don't care... Did I watch a 3 hours movie just for that?"
But if you don't, and focus through the trip this movie took you with for 3 hours, if you focus on the important elements of this movie, it can be seen as superior to its original.
Barbarians Rising (2016)
Too one sided
Ok... So... As other reviews pointed out, some facts are just plain wrong and important elements totally omitted.
However, the worse thing about this documentary is the INSANE political position it takes... I mean... It is worse than Good US and Evil Russians or Germans.
Each "Barbarian" (some of which not being Barbarians... Hannibal or Spartacus for instance) is depicted as a Freedom Fighter versus the Roman Empire, the most EEEEEVIIIIIIL empire exiting on Earth.
I'm not saying Roman Empire was good and gentle and yes they oppressed various cultures, yes they had slaves (as everybody had during those times... Athens did, Sparta did, Persian Empire did and most of the Barbaric factions), and yes, like any army (even US one) they committed atrocities, but Goddammit! This is supposed to be a historical documentary not a Marvel movie...
And Ok, it's focused on the Barbarians, not on the Roman Empire. So I can get there is no reason to mention the insane development the Roman Empire provided to the entire occidental Europe. No need to say that it took almost a millenia for Europe to recover from the fall and get back to the same levels of health, safety, stable governments etc. Ok. It's not the focus and it's not what is driving me insane.
No, what drives me crazy is that you can be prepared to ear like 10000 times: "Romans oppressed and raped and killed and raped and oppressed, and raped". "In their arrogance, Roman Empire..." all this in a very dramatic way, always highlighting how bad and evil Romans were..
And then: "Boudicca killed 10,000 Civilians". This is a f****g War Crime level of evilness. But no... They say this like just a simple normal fact.. Like, "but yeah. It's OK you know? It's normal, it's again the Roman Empire, so that's fine". No mention of torture for the Barbarians? No rape? No genocide?
Give me a break.... Too cringy... Way too cringy...
What's the ptoblem? Is the producer / director jealous his country never shine in such a way for so long or what?
Tonari no Totoro (1988)
Insta-flashback in childhood
I watched this movie countless number of times with my small children.
There isn't a lot to tell to be honest. Not from my perspective. The drawing is, as usual with Hayao Miyazaki movies, exceptional and the soundtrack sublime.
My neighbor Totoro is a simple story of two girls, relocating with their father in the countryside to be near to the hospital where the sick mother is taken care of. There is nothing much else to be honest.
So, why a 10/10? Simply because it is such a nice movie. Nice in its purest form. There isn't any opposition. In 99.999% of the movies there is always a conflict. Not necessarily a fight or war between two factions or two persons, but the notion of conflict is almost always there. Most of times the distinction is clear and driven by the scenario. Sometimes the distinction is not that clear. And then there are the 0.001% movies left: the ones where there is zero conflict at all.
Some people may find this absence of conflict boring, I find it refreshing. Don't get me wrong though. That doesn't mean the movie is empty, because there are emotions popping out as you watch it. Mainly positive and kind emotions, but equally there is some tension. All adults won't necessarily feel the tension. Adults that were never in this kind of situation won't understand what feeling they are supposed to have.
SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE
The tension is present when actually the girls find out through a telegram that their mother needs to stay longer at the hospital. But they don't know why and start to panic! Did their mother became REALLY sick she is going to die? Why? And the smallest girl, incapable to wait longer to have the answer, leaves the home and try to join the hospital which is hours by walk from home. The father is absent at that moment and the older girl launches herself trying to find her lost little sister being afraid she will never find her back.
And as an adult, ex-children, you recall this tension of not knowing immediately what is going on.
Nowadays it won't make a lot of sense since we are totally interconnected with smartphones and apps, and you get notifications almost instantly, but try recalling when you where a children and there weren't any mobile phone. Try recalling when your parents where late, really late, to pick you up at school and you started panicking thinking something awful happened, an accident, the house on fire or god knows what other horrible incident, and that you'll be left alone, with your siblings and no one to take care of you. Well, the movie succeeds in making you recall this emotion, stress, panic, you had when you were a kid. That is the tension the movie creates and does it in an extremely sensible, kid-perspective, manner.
It's a real gem.
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
Every parent should watch this movie for the sake of their children
This is by far one of my favorite movies of all times.
First of all, the drawing is absolutely superb and the watcher is totally immersed in this magical world.
Then, what makes me love this movie above all is not only that the message conveyed is pretty strong, but that actually many people see, FEEL, the message differently. That is the greatest strength of the movie that, by sending the watcher back in his own childhood, succeeds in making emotions arise that will be different for each person, depending on each one life.
I don't pretend having understood the movie better than anyone else but here is how I felt it.
Chihiro indeed enters somewhere as a children, and, being forced to face a number of issues alone, by taking her own responsibilities without the presence of her parents, succeeds in leaving it.
Many people see in the movie the passage from childhood to adult, passage that is done when a children has to take decisions in certain circumstances when there isn't really someone present to take him/her by the hand. But, that is not how I see it, at least not totally. I believe that in fact this movie wants to convey this message, but equally another one.
The entire troubles, throughout the ENTIRE movie, are exclusively the outcome of human natural thirst for greed and power. There isn't a single trouble in the movie that is not related to such behavior.
The only person that succeeds in overcoming each of those issues is Chihiro. All other ones have been trapped.
And that is the subtlety of the movie: What did Miyazaki intended to tell? Simply being critic toward our own nature? I don't believe so.
This movie opened my eyes as a father: why did Chihiro succeed when others failed? Because she faced each issue while being totally immune to power and money, making very simple choices, without fear, simply following what her pure children's hearth commands her to do.
And that is an eye-opener: what if as a parent, finally, we don't have more to learn from our children than they have to learn from us? What if finally, we should try to be more like them rather than trying to make them look like us, corrupted adults? From the day I watched the movie, I'm trying to leave my kids be, take their own decision, and helping them to make their decisions following their hearth rather than my 'hard-given' advises.
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Destroys everything that has been created
Hello,
I hate this movie and it should never have been done.
Opening thoughts: if you didn't watch Prometheus, don't read through this review as it contains SPOILERS for Prometheus. If you did, you can read down to the Spoiler Alert.
The first element that immediately pop ups as a negative trait is the total lack of character development. You can say characters, except the protagonists, have never been really developed in the Alien franchise, however, AT LEAST, I recall names like Ripley, Hickx, Hudson, Bishop, Vickers, Shaw, Newt. In Covenant, I don't recall any single name except David and Walter. Not even the name of the protagonist!!! That's to say how much care has been put in characters. It totally fails in creating a background of personalities you could care of, identify with, or at least feel sympathy or hate towards! If the objective was to only care about David/Walter, then job's done, total success!!
The second element that really provides a bitter taste are the astonishingly HUGE plot holes of the movie. Every Alien movie had strong plot holes. Prometheus had the biggest ones of the first 5 movies. But Covenant, oh my God, reaches unknown levels of WTF and face-palms... I'm not going to list them as it would be just too long.
But, those two elements are not what made me hate this movie.
What made hate above all this movies are the following 2 elements:
First one links with Prometheus. I liked Prometheus despite a lot of plot holes and incoherence's. I liked it because it was (potentially) setting up a cool and deep background to all the story of Alien and the Space Jockey. As the Prometheus ended, I had the impression that Scott was taking the risk to abandon the Alien movies backbone of "Alien(s) vs Humans" in order to develop Shaw epic travel to understand and answer to all questions arising from Prometheus:
- who are the engineers. - why they created us. - why they wanted to destroy humans. - what went wrong on the Outpost. - why the Outpost was abandoned. - why the engineers couldn't succeed in claiming back the Outpost etc.
SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE
Well, if you wanted to have any answer to those questions, don't worry, I'm gonna put it simple: David just nuked any possibility to get any! Thank you David! Thank you!!!!!
The second element is how underwhelming the Aliens now are. In 1979 Alien we see normal humans fighting with an extremely powerful, unknown species, coming from an unknown ship of an unknown race that crashed in an unknown planet for an unknown reason. Imagine the huge possibilities and background Scott had to provide a super cool lore to this! And Prometheus, despite its plot holes was actually providing something really interesting.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, guess what? NOPE!!! Aliens were created by David... Yes yes. An Android created the Xenomorph as we know it. How LAME it is!!!!!!
Now, when I look at a Xenomorph I'm there like: "lolling at your face mate! You're just an ant created by a mad Android".
Pffffffffff
My wife couldn't come with me at the Cinema and she loves Alien franchise as I do. Once back from the Cinema, I told her "if you really want to keep loving Alien movies, don't watch Covenant and stay there with the unanswered questions of Prometheus, thrust me".
Zootopia (2016)
Much deeper than expected
Disney aren't generally my favorite animation movies. I find DreamWorks funnier (with the exception of Cars and Toy Story) and Ghibli studio more clever.
However Zootopia clearly is within my favorites of all times. Why?
First of all, it's funny. It's funny for adults laughing at some moments and it's funny for small children laughing at others. There isn't particularly scary scene as some Disney titles may have (thinking about Snow White) so it's watchable with small children.
It's well paced, constantly entertaining. Characters are very well thought and the story... Oh boy/girl. It is so clever.
It's not only very cleverly designed, but it is oh so actual... In the current social psychosis we, in the occidental world, are currently living with ISIS and co, this movie perfectly slams current ideas and speeches we are earring from our politicians. And just for that, it needs to be seen.
SPOILERS FROM HERE
The movie actually is an investigation from a Police Rabbit (a prey) that needs to find why some predators (like Tigers, Bears, Pumas and so on) have disappeared. It is important knowing that Predators do not attack Preys in Zootopia, the city in which the movie takes place.
In Zootopia, 95% of the people are Preys (rabbits, cows, sheep, elephants and so on), 5% are Predators.
Within those 5%, a bunch of them have become mad and attacked other animals.
Those ones who attacked other animals are secretly put in a remote jail, no one knows where they are, where they are hidden and where doctors are trying to understand what is going on.
They did so because they have been injected a poison by the Personal Assistant (a sheep) of the Mayor (a Lion).
Her objective (of the sheep) is to randomly turn Predators in killers so that she can install a psychoses of fear in Zootopia so that every Predator is being kicked out of Zootopia and finally small and insignificant Preys, find glory again. But this, the Sheep does it only for personal glory since she was small and overshadowed by a giant charismatic Lion.
So you see that some innocent children Predators are losing their fathers, families are torn, other predators are seen as pariahs and so on.
The Rabbit finally discover the plot of the Sheep and everyone can still live in harmony without fearing each other.
Rings a bell?
Copy paste what I written in World. Find and Replace: -"Prey" by "American" or "European", do that for plural equally -then replace "Predator" by "Muslim", do that for plural equally -then "Sheep" by "D.Trump" or "Marine Le Pen" or "Geert Wilders" or even by "a Populist politician".
Add equally "Guantanamo" to the remote jail.
And by magic, all Zootopia movie actually will look like the current situation in Europe and America where a bunch of persons (Trump and Co) are using what a bunch of people (terrorist) did to cast fear upon the entire population and use an entire minority of people (muslims) as being monsters that need to get deported, or killed or of which children can die in the sea or in the camps...
You get where I'm going...
I'm taking one Star out because I wished Disney had some more balls to go deeper inside the theme of "how much such stupid behavior can destroy innocent children's life". It is only seen once when the Fox went to the Scouts and has been beaten by other just because he is a Predator and others were Prey, just because he was a bit different than the Majority.
I really wished they went deeper...