Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grimwald

Visually gorgeous, but the story is both predictable and utterly forgettable.

Venom, Again

So this Atom app thing coughed up a free ticket, so lacking anything else we could agree on, we went to see Venom again. Still kinda campy, and some of the visual effects don't work the second time through -- but still fun.

Venom

I liked it. Eddie is a bit of a passenger in this in that things keep happening to him, and it doesn't appear that any choices he makes in the early going (after the big one) really would have changed anything. But it's fun.

Ant Man And The Wasp

So, hey, that was a pretty good sequel that fit into the MCU happenings without it being too heavy-handed. Well done. I especially liked the line about "you put a quarter in the jukebox, you gotta let the song play."

Jurasic World: Fallen Kingdom

If what you want is dinosaurs eating people, this movie delivers. Needs more Goldblum. And full credit to whomever cut the trailer, we get to the volcano explosion sharply faster than the trailer would have you predict. After that the middle and ending are a bit saggy, but honestly no worse than the beginning is. So yes: dinosaurs eating people. Sold.

The Incredibles II

A lot has happened in the last 14 years, and I think this Incredibles story fits in well with the world we find it in. Unfortunately there’s nothing particularly compelling about this particular story that requires the use of The Incredibles, and as the first movie was just so so good this movie diminishes the body of work that is The Incredibles. It is a fairly good movie on its own, but in my opinion didn’t need to be made.

Ocean’s 8

”Ocean’s Eleven” except with women. Unfortunately a lot of the beats play straight front the “inspiration”. The ones that don’t, work very well and I think that there should have been less direct “inspiration” going on. In the absence of the source, very good; however I watch the original relatively frequently so to me it comes across as a bit of an earnest echo, one that maybe I didn’t need to see.

Solo

Took Nathan to see Solo on Saturday. Worth seeing. At times I thought the easter-egg-slash-fanboy-nods were a little too on point -- perhaps most grating example to me was found in the soundtrack of all places. In any case, characters like Han Solo don't become fully formed over one afternoon. Chewbacca's decision to run with Han rather than with his other options was a bit flimsy -- the second one especially so. The Big Reveal at the end is confusing unless you are up on the Correct Star Wars Canon No Not That Correct Canon The Other One. And their way of reconciling the "12 parsecs is a unit of distance, not time!" to Han's brag in A New Hope is not the most flimsy thing in this movie. But a heist movie in this universe is fun. Overall: would watch again; not sure it needs the inevitable sequels I'm sure it's gonna get.

Deadpool II

Not bad. The cameos were good. The film carried the weight of a non-origin-story quite well. The usual time-travel bullshit problems. I’m still not convinced that this movie had to be made, though.

Netflix Re View -- Minions

I stand by my "solidly ok" view from last time. It was actually easier to watch for a second time than I thought it would be.

(Previously.)

Planes 2: Fire & Rescue

Disney's Cars was so successful at spinning out a line at toys that they thought "why not try to duplicate that with a slightly different premise so we can sell different toys?" Well sure, why not. The story is perfunctory and functional, the internal world-building only inconsistent if you make the mistake of thinking about it, and the characterizations bland and stereotypical. Frankly I knew who was going to rebuild what just as soon as something was declared as being "better than new!" So a solid whynot out of ten, but nothing unmissable.

(Note: in researching this movie for this article, I learned that it was actually Planes 2, and I'd not seen the original. Which sort of made sense since as an "origin story" it was very weak. It makes more sense as  "a flabby sequel that doesn't really have any plans for where the franchise is going" though.)

Avengers: Infinity War

Frankly I didn't like it.

There's a way to build tension, to make it seem like things are going someplace, while still leaving your characters behind the metaphorical 8-ball. And then there's kicking your characters in the teeth, over and over and over. And I don't like that. And Infinity War doesn't even do it particularly well.

This was always going to be a part one of two -- when the movies were originally announced, Avengers 4 was called Infinity War Part 2.

Multipart movies are always judged by the whole, and we have not seen the whole yet. Tune in this time next year for the (undoubtedly) thrilling conclusion.

Pacific Rim Uprising

Spoiler-free summary: BIG ROBOT SMASH BIG ROBOT! BIG LIZARD SMASH BIG CITY! SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! WHEEAAALAAALAAAAGH!

Seriously though, those who liked the first one can probably find things to like about this one; the movie barrels along at a frenetic pace, not letting itself be too troubled with things like "plot" or "plausibility". There are worse ways to spend two hours.

Bright

So Netflix has suckered Will Smith into making a sci-fi movie for them. Bright is exclusive content that shows the modern world -- if magic, elves, orcs, et al were actually real. Smith is a cop who's been saddled with LAPD's diversity hire of the first orc to qualify as a police officer, and hijinks ensue. The movie is very much an action/adventure without having to be restrained in what it actually shows on the screen. So the gunplay is excessive, the blood spatters gratuitous, the language salty, and the dancers topless. Overall it's a reasonable movie, one I don't regret seeing; however on its own it isn't something that I'd watch again and again -- or even, frankly, again. One thing I will say for Netflix is that it's easy to stop in the middle of something and pick it up again later, a viewing rhythm that fits my current activity level pretty well.

Blade Runner 2049

Visually and aurally stunning. I liked the story arc the first time through. Doesn't stand up to consideration, though I continue to watch it for the images. I don't know if it will become the "cult hit" it needs to be to generate future examples.

The problem for me is that "building replicants as a slave class" is fine on its own justification, however it doesn't explain why said slave class has to be indistinguishable -- even by experts -- from the real thing. A slave class only makes sense if you can get more work per unit cost out of it than a real person, or if additional costs are acceptable because a real person wouldn't cooperate. Giving replicants the ability to reproduce, as Tyrell did as his last gift before the blackout, makes even less sense. The whole thing just isn't reasonable to me.