What films have you watched recently?

Reggaebass

Another shout for Top Gun Maverick, if you liked the original you will really like this, there’s some great scenes and the story carries over good 

Philly_Q

Initiation (Amazon Prime)

I thought this was going to be a dumb slasher movie set in an American college.  And it is exactly that... but it's also far too serious in tone, extremely boring and has a resolution which really doesn't make much sense even by horror movie standards.

The Empty Man (Disney+)

An ex-cop investigates the disappearance of a teenage neighbour, leading him first to a legend of a mysterious figure known as The Empty Man and then to a cultish society called the Pontifex Institute... I thought this was going to be a Candyman-style horror but it goes in completely different directions.  There are familiar plot elements here, but the slow build-up is very effective and there are a couple of genuine WTF moments.  I'm surprised I'd never heard of this film before.

SRich

There are movies that you can suspend belief and go along with the ride and then there are movies that very understandably make you question why they were made..........AND why you invested 90 mins + to it.

Inteceptor 2022 (Netflix) reminds me of Dwayne Johnson's Skyscraper (2018) without the Rock's charisma. Really implausible (both) - physically impossible (both) with a redonkulous fluffy end sequence (unless I missed something).

It DOES have Mrs Chris Hemsworth - Elsa Pataky (and he has a TV Salesman's tiny role - heaven knows why $$$$)

Lowest Common Denominator Netflix.

4/10

 

Moominpapa

Rewatched Call of Heroes (2016). Got to say I absolutely love this film - must have watched it six or seven times now and it never gets  old. Everything about this film is top notch, but if I just point out  "Action Director - Sammo Hung" anybody who knows anything will have already signed up. Destined to be a classic in the HK martial arts pantheon.

equalsql

Hildago
Viggo Mortensen's first project after The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Streaming on Disney plus.
An American rider of a mustang/pinto horse is persuaded to take part in a brutal, Arabian, cross-desert race.
Cultures clash and horses dash in this entertaining, old school movie about man vs nature and corrupt bedouin forces.
The stuff of Sunday matinees. Way better than I was expecting.
A solid 8/10 and definitely worth your time.

stufisher

Overlord (2018 WW2 movie)

What a load of 5h1t!
Atrocious CGI

See-through plot

Trash acting by trash actors

Cheap and tacky FX that detract from story

No light and shade or fast and slow

Trust me it's utter pants!

I HAD to watch it so that I could do the honourable thing and report back!

For the sake of clarity it's 0 / 10 ... just don't watch it and save yourself.

Stu

Gassage

Jurassic World whateveritisnow 8/10

An absolutely shameless fun romp in a world where dinosaurs have becme as ingrained in society as Coca-Cola.

It's almost Mission Impossible meets Jurassic Park with some crazy stunts and a Bond esque villian well played by Campbell Scott.

It was wonderful to see Sam, Laura and Jeff return to the series that really gave them superstardom and the dinosaurs are bloody brilliant.

I won't say too much as I know peeps want to see it, but I have spent the last 10 years confusing Jessica Chastain with Bryce Dallas Howard and to me they are actually the same person until I see them in the same room together.

I loved it, highly recommended- pure fun.

boogieman

The Good Liar, Netflix. 

Ian Mckellen plays an old fraudster with Helen Mirren in his sights for one last payday. Starts off quite light and fluffy but gradually mutates into something far nastier. Nicely paced and well plotted with loads of twists and turns along the way. Well acted too, as you’d expect with those two leads, plus some good support from Jim Carter and Russell Tovey. 

Recommended. 

Offset

stufisher said:

Overlord (2018 WW2 movie)

What a load of 5h1t!
Atrocious CGI

See-through plot

Trash acting by trash actors

Cheap and tacky FX that detract from story

No light and shade or fast and slow

Trust me it's utter pants!

I HAD to watch it so that I could do the honourable thing and report back!

For the sake of clarity it's 0 / 10 ... just don't watch it and save yourself.

Stu

It isn't great I admit, but it isn't that bad :-) .  I've seen others in this WW2/horror genre that are much worse and whilst it won't win any awards, there are worse ways of spending 110 minutes.  I'd have given it 4.5/10. 

Philly_Q

Offset said:

stufisher said:

Overlord (2018 WW2 movie)

What a load of 5h1t!

It isn't great I admit, but it isn't that bad :-) .  I've seen others in this WW2/horror genre that are much worse and whilst it won't win any awards, there are worse ways of spending 110 minutes.  I'd have given it 4.5/10. 

I remember seeing a preview of Overlord at Frightfest and thinking it looked amazing, I thought it was going to be a huge epic with legions of undead super-soldiers, and the title itself kind of implies that... Then I actually saw the film and it's got about five characters in some little French (Belgian?) village.  I was just massively disappointed by the scale of it.

Offset

Philly_Q said:

Offset said:

stufisher said:

Overlord (2018 WW2 movie)

What a load of 5h1t!

It isn't great I admit, but it isn't that bad :-) .  I've seen others in this WW2/horror genre that are much worse and whilst it won't win any awards, there are worse ways of spending 110 minutes.  I'd have given it 4.5/10. 

I remember seeing a preview of Overlord at Frightfest and thinking it looked amazing, I thought it was going to be a huge epic with legions of undead super-soldiers, and the title itself kind of implies that... Then I actually saw the film and it's got about five characters in some little French (Belgian?) village.  I was just massively disappointed by the scale of it.

Not an unreasonable summary @Philly_Q . 

Haych

Jurassic World Dominion

Umm, yeah!  I thought it was going to be another rehash of previous stories, new island/theme park, bunch of man eating monsters in the vicinity of masses of people.

But, it was much more than that and at the same time quite subtle.  There was a lot less of people running from the t-rex but it still managed to be a decent and worthy part of the franchise.

I also thought there was a message in there about the current covid situation, but maybe I was reading too much into that.

I wonder if Spielberg knew what Jurassic Park would become when the first movie hit the cinema screens back in 1993?

Good to see Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum back together again, and enjoyed the way they brought the characters back into the story, it worked very well.

The baddie was also a lot more subtle and seemed to be modelled on a combination of Tim Cook and Elon Musk.

Go see it, it's pretty good, not the best in the franchise, but still very good.

7.5/10

menamestom

Top Gun: Maverick

Not a massive fan of the first movie but it had it’s place. I prefer gritty and realistic.  In fairness they could have murdered this quite easy but it was pitched just right.  The use of actual planes rather than too much CGI made it much better.  The sentimentality was not OTT and had a bit of depth and purpose when it was there.

A good watch, as long as you…….

Don’t think, just watch

7/10

paulnb57

Interceptor, Netflix

What a load of old pony……we watched until the end though

5/10 for being utterly predictable

Brio

American Gangster (2007)

Denzel and Russell Crowe at the top of their game.

Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. As a result, his product is superior to what is currently available on the street and his prices are lower. His alliance with the New York Mafia ensures his position. It is also the story of a dedicated and honest policeman, Richie Roberts, who heads up a joint narcotics task force with the Federal government. Based on a true story.

9/10

Philly_Q

Underwater (Disney+)

OK, so basically this is Aliens, set on a deep-sea drilling rig, with Kristen Stewart as the Ripley character. 
It's all shot underwater (or CGI-underwater), in the dark, with stuff floating around, on shakey-cam, and mostly in closeup.  Only in the last ten minutes or so can you actually tell what's going on, and it's not worth the wait.

I started watching this yesterday and fell asleep... probably should've taken that as a sign that it wasn't worth trying again.

Haych

Fast and Furious

Mrs Haych has never seen any of the F&F films - I've only seen a couple, so we thought we'd start at the beginning and maybe, if we could stomach it, work our way through.

Now, I have seen the first movie and as we were watching this last night I kept thinking to myself that I don't remember any of it.  

As it happens, the first movie is The Fast and the Furious, and the movie we watched last night was something like the fifth film in the franchise, D'oh!

Anyway, it was garbage!  Hadn't got a clue what was happening most of the time and even the high octane car race/chase scenes were complete rubbish.  

Avoid!

Offset

Philly_Q said:

Underwater (Disney+)

OK, so basically this is Aliens, set on a deep-sea drilling rig, with Kristen Stewart as the Ripley character. 
It's all shot underwater (or CGI-underwater), in the dark, with stuff floating around, on shakey-cam, and mostly in closeup.  Only in the last ten minutes or so can you actually tell what's going on, and it's not worth the wait.

I started watching this yesterday and fell asleep... probably should've taken that as a sign that it wasn't worth trying again.

I love Underwater!  I must have watched it at least three times.  It's Alien meets H.P. Lovecraft, with the big beastie presumably representing Cthulhu/Dagon.  I'm a sucker for anything Lovecraftian in a film but unfortunately, most of the output has been disappointing with a few notable exceptions - this being one, The Void and In The Mouth Of Madness being two others.

It isn't perfect by any means, but it does push most of the buttons for me for a movie in this genre.

Philly_Q

Offset said:

Philly_Q said:

Underwater (Disney+)

OK, so basically this is Aliens, set on a deep-sea drilling rig, with Kristen Stewart as the Ripley character. 
It's all shot underwater (or CGI-underwater), in the dark, with stuff floating around, on shakey-cam, and mostly in closeup.  Only in the last ten minutes or so can you actually tell what's going on, and it's not worth the wait.

I started watching this yesterday and fell asleep... probably should've taken that as a sign that it wasn't worth trying again.

I love Underwater!  I must have watched it at least three times.  It's Alien meets H.P. Lovecraft, with the big beastie presumably representing Cthulhu/Dagon.  I'm a sucker for anything Lovecraftian in a film but unfortunately, most of the output has been disappointing with a few notable exceptions - this being one, The Void and In The Mouth Of Madness being two others.

It isn't perfect by any means, but it does push most of the buttons for me for a movie in this genre.

I did think Cthulhu, briefly, but I don't think there's anything remotely Lovecraftian about the atmosphere of the film.  And we have to wait through 85 minutes of murk to get there! 

Agreed that The Void and In The Mouth Of Madness feel a little more Lovecraft-y.  Stuart Gordon's Dagon is a direct adaptation but it's not very faithful to the text.  I have seen a couple of Lovecraft adaptations made in a 1930s style which were quite cool but very low budget.  And of course there's Call Girl of Cthulhu...

DrCornelius

Jurassic Park Dominion - I have read reviews that slate it but ignore them.  If you liked the slightly more measured pace of the first couple of films you'll like this . A good cast that share the best lines (although Jeff Goldblum has such a way with delivery that you can't take your eyes off him). Good stunts, a cool story with almost a James Bond villain and great effects.

Solid 8 out of 10