What films have you watched recently?

Winny_Pooh

Civil War

Alex Garland generally delivers, slightly chilling tense movie, with a questionable ending but well made. Predictable politics.
7.5/10


Leave the world behind

Basically an M Night Shystermalan movie disguised as something more self aware, Civil War it ain't! Useless characters and pointless plot developments. 
3/10

TheMarlin

Jfingers said:

Prey - Disney +

Prequel to the Predator franchise. It was alright. Not to damn it it with faint praise, we enjoyed it well enough.

Not prepared to score it because then I would have to score the various sections.

I liked it, thought it was a damn site better than I was expecting it to be, and probably the best Predator film since the first one. 

I’d give it a solid 8/10 

rze99

Haych said:

Hit Man (Netflix)

Loosely based on true events, although sexed up for the sake of the film although this is readily acknowledged by the filmmakers.

Follows the career of Gary Johnson, a nondescript psychology professor who works part time with the New Orleans Police Department and who discovers he has a knack for playing a fake gun for hire.  His role is to basically entrap potential clients into hiring him and then have them arrested for soliciting a murder when the deal is done.

One client causes him to become too involved and his life becomes quite complicated quite quickly.

I really enjoyed this film, it's really good fun.

There is a caveat, though.  It takes a long time to get going and too much time is spent on Gary's backstory and the various characters he creates when tailoring a hired assassin for a client.  It's ok but adds very little to the story.

Thus the runtime is almost two hours and it feels over long.

Other than that, when it does get going, it is quite good fun to watch.

7/10

Just watched this. I agree.  My daughter (24) gave up on it ("too silly") just before it got interesting. 

Haych

NOPE 

There’s something in the sky above a remote horse ranch. The brother and sister living on the ranch try to prove the existence of a UFO, which is kinda hard as every time it shows itself the power fails. 

It’s meant to be a horror from what I’ve read but not in the least bit scary. No tension and no jump scares at all. 

There’s also a flashback to an earlier event to do with a rampaging chimp on a film set that has no relevance to what is happening in the present day. And they never did explain the shoe!

All that said it was better than I thought it was going to be. 

6/10 - Netflix. 

Haych

The Bourne Identity

An oldie but a goodie. Still one of the best action thrillers ever made. All the Bourne films are good, apart from that Jeremy Renner thing and even that wasn’t terrible. 

James Bond, eat your heart out!

10/10 - iTunes

Jfingers

About Time - Netflix

It's got Bill Nighy  in it and that's good enough for me. Two hours and three minutes of emotional journey.

I wasn't surprised to learn at the end that it was a Richard Curtis film, good one to watch with the Wife.

Cancer theme warning, I had to decompress with a couple of episodes of always sunny which had the same theme, so that didn't work.

DuploLicks

A Knights Tale

Didn’t see it when it came out so had the pleasure of watching tonight. Brilliant film. Action, comedy, bit o’romance, some great emotional payoff and very entertaining dialogue. Watched with the good lady & really enjoyed it. 

The jousting scenes were excellent. Even when i abstracted to “it’s stunt men” it still felt brutal. Like there were actual stakes in what I was watching not just tedious CGI. Those guys were taking serious hits & falls 

10/10 - just for the stuntmen earning their pay check. 

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

Sous La Seine

It's a film about a swarm of deadly mutant sharks that live in the Seine in the heart of Paris. It's exactly as silly as the premise would suggest! Good fun in places, just don't expect any of it to actually make sense!

6/10

Stratavarious

TheMarlin said:

Jfingers said:

Prey - Disney +

Prequel to the Predator franchise. It was alright. Not to damn it it with faint praise, we enjoyed it well enough.

Not prepared to score it because then I would have to score the various sections.

I liked it, thought it was a damn site better than I was expecting it to be, and probably the best Predator film since the first one. 

I’d give it a solid 8/10 

Agree.. was a properly engaging flick and not any kind of the usual sequel disappointment. The location work (Calgary area, not US)  and extensive use of Comanche language and cast all added to it for me.

Might watch it again tonight.

Philly_Q

Madame Web (Amazon Prime, but not for free)

I think this actually is so bad it's good.

Jfingers

Brian And Charles - Netflix

"Brian is a lonely inventor in rural Wales who spends his days building quirky, unconventional contraptions that seldom work. Undeterred by his lack of success, he soon attempts his biggest project yet. Using a washing machine and various spare parts, he invents Charles, an artificial intelligence robot that learns English from a dictionary and has an obsession with cabbages"

With David Earl who you may remember from Derek/Afterlife.

It was heartwarming, solid 9/10 for me last night.

bobblehat

skullfunkerry said:

Haych said:

Under Paris

Somehow this is number one in Netflix films and has been getting rave reviews. This won’t be one of them. 

A giant Mako shark has found its way to the river Seine and is living in the catacombs below Paris a couple of weeks before a massive triathlon event is due to start. 

A bunch of activists want to save it, the main protagonist, who resembles a young Cliff Richards and whose entire team was wiped out by the same shark by sheer coincidence three years earlier in the pacific, wants to destroy it. 

The triathlon organisers and politicians want to ignore it.  

Oh yeah, and the shark is magically able to reproduce without mating so there are hundreds of its offspring also in the river. 

To be blunt, it’s utter bollocks. It takes half the runtime to get started and the last half of the runtime for everything to predictably go wrong. 

The acting is terrible, the plot laughable and there are enough loopholes in it to knit a sweater. 

And it’s dubbed. Half the time it looks like they used AI to sync the dialogue and you don’t notice, but the budget obviously wasn’t that large to cover the entire movie. 

Save yourself and don’t bother. 

I watched it on Friday night and loved it tbh... it was atrocious, but hilariously so. Utter bollocks, but a good fun evening was had by both of us

Complete nonsense but good fun and has a certain charm. They clearly didn't know how to end it ! 

munckee

Watched The First Omen after learning of its existence on here. 

Entertaining film, fitted in with the original very well and provided a twist without jumping the shark. 

As a horror film lacked any kind of scare for me but I’d still recommend it.  

merlin

Monster (2023)     Kore-eda Hirokazu

Beautifully crafted Japanese film about a boy who at first seems to have been bullied by one of his teachers in school. As the film unfolds we see the same story through the eyes of the different main characters and we find out the true story, and cross reference sounds, scenes and thoughts. 

Poignant, touching, beautifully performed, shot and with great dialogue, narrative and character development (to die for). Original score by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Without giving any spoilers, it has the most beautiful non-conclusive ending. Captivating. 

A solid 8.5

Barquentine

Haych said:

NOPE 

There’s something in the sky above a remote horse ranch. The brother and sister living on the ranch try to prove the existence of a UFO, which is kinda hard as every time it shows itself the power fails. 

It’s meant to be a horror from what I’ve read but not in the least bit scary. No tension and no jump scares at all. 

There’s also a flashback to an earlier event to do with a rampaging chimp on a film set that has no relevance to what is happening in the present day. And they never did explain the shoe!

All that said it was better than I thought it was going to be. 

6/10 - Netflix. 

I'm about half way through this and struggling with the dark scenes. Like sitting in a windowless room at midnight looking at a black horse while wearing sunglasses.

SteveRobinson

Haych said:

NOPE 

There’s something in the sky above a remote horse ranch. The brother and sister living on the ranch try to prove the existence of a UFO, which is kinda hard as every time it shows itself the power fails. 

It’s meant to be a horror from what I’ve read but not in the least bit scary. No tension and no jump scares at all. 

There’s also a flashback to an earlier event to do with a rampaging chimp on a film set that has no relevance to what is happening in the present day. And they never did explain the shoe!

All that said it was better than I thought it was going to be. 

6/10 - Netflix. 

Watched it tonight. Okay but probably the weakest of Jordan Peele's films.

VimFuego

Bad Boys For Life, well about half of it. Don't think I've seen any of the others, but this popped in a feed so I thought why not. It started badly, but picked right up when Will Smith got shot and I thought this could be a really special cinematic experience. But somehow he survived being shot multiple times at point blank range, and it all went downhill from there. There may well be bigger things in the universe than Will Smith's ego, but there aren't many.

Sporky

Venom.

Bad, even for Marvel. Nothing for the first hour and a half, then it gets worse. 

1.1 out of 4.7