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Doom Eternal (2020)
Brutal fun
If this had a competitive Deathmatch game mode for online it would be an easy 10/10. While i appreciate what it's doing and I applaud the developers for trying something new I feel like a Deathmatch mode would be perfect for this game. The competitiveness between top players would be insane and it's a game mode every FPS player loves. That said, it's great to see the creativity when it comes to the game modes it actually does have for online.
The Colours, the sound design, the soundtrack, the animations and in game mechanics are beautiful. The plot is engaging enough to carry us along nicely enough but we're here for the action, its DOOM. The plot is definitely secondary with a DOOM game and i'm so glad they decided to focus on the entertainment value of the gameplay. From an outside perspective it seems like the gameplay is quite manic and it will definitely seem that way for a while at first, but as you progress you'll find that if you want to succeed you're going to need to strategise. Lots of upgrades and add ons and abilities allow you to customise your character to your play style and enemies that used to feel like mini bosses are now just guys in the way. Some stages will overwhelm you for a while but once you figure the strategy out things become a lot more tolerable and you feel as if you've done more than just gone in there and mashed the shoot button. Very rewarding and great for re-play value.
Interesting ideas that work very well. If you've never played a DOOM game before I think you'll still love this and if you're already familiar with the franchise you know what to expect and this is definitely going meet those expectations. It's Brutal, it's super fun, and its also self aware. It knows it's a goofy over the top gory shooter. Theres loads of secret items that give a nod to some of the earlier games. Theres a platforming element to it as well. Some people think it drains the momentum of the gameplay sometimes. I can see their point but I think it works well. If you find yourself at one of those sections of the game there's a good chance there are some collectables or an extra life to acquire and its fun figuring out how to get to secret areas of the map.
Definitely recommend and be careful it's addictive!
John Wick (2014)
Man shoots baddies
This film was clearly written for 13-15 year old boys that watch wrestling and follow a bunch of gun pages on Instagram. Im actually surprised it wasn't written by those very same people to be honest, judging by the script.
Script - awful.
Acting - awful.
Character development - non existent (and not the good kind like in The Raid whereby that aspect actually helps us get to the action sooner and lets us understand the world its set in as we go along, keeping us on our toes).
Score - something from an edgy 15 year old boys iPod.
Plot - something that same edgy 15 year old wrote on the bus ride home from school that took him 7 minutes.
I know this film is set up to be an action film. I know that the lack of character development and world building is intentional and I know that the tone is supposed to represent some sort of fun video game.....it doesn't work. If you are over the age of 15, that is.
Im amazed at how low peoples standards are for films. it seems that most people just don't care about good film making. Most people just want to pop a film on, watch some stuff happen, not think too much about it and move on. Thats fine (if not slightly immature and insulting to the art form) but there is a very clear difference between you enjoying a film and that film being a 10/10. Of course this sort of stuff is subjective but the fact that you liked a film doesn't mean it is objectively a good film. Just because Keanu Reeves does some spinny stuff and drives a cool car, doesn't actually mean that there is any substance to what's going on. They might as well have named this film Evil Russian Shooty Man or something, it really wouldn't have made any difference and people would still have give it a ridiculous rating. 7.4....really?
Firstly there are other films that do exactly what this film does, only better and more entertaining. The Raid is a good example, as previously mentioned. I heard a lot of hype surrounding this film for a while and one of the things people liked most was that the fight choreography included legitimate martial arts techniques....Nope. Sorry, not the case. I heard that jiu jitsu was featured in this film, which is actually the only reason I watched it to begin with. I saw one Kimura...and a bad one at that, and I saw an arm bar...again, a bad one. That was it. Would the film be any different without those two things? nope.
Shooty gun man is invincible. Thats the video game vibe thing they were going for I guess. Completely saps any tension from any scene and takes away from the severity of the plot. They also over exposed a lot of scenes which I guess is again, another attempt to create the video game vibe thingy. There are seriously better examples of that kind of thing done on Youtube. Even Kung Fury managed to get the tone right for what it was. This just made me question if that was intentional or just bad editing.
Terrible comic relief which they just throw in there every now and again. Doesn't add to anything and only makes you question the writing choices. Like, does every cop know who John Wick is? or was it just coincidentally that one cop that showed up at his door that one time? am I supposed to think about that? I guess not because it is never mentioned again or explained ever so move on. Why do the police not arrest this guy? is he just so much of a badass that they don't even bother? does he work for them sometimes? do laws not exist in this world but for some reason cops still exist? was that just a friend of his that isn't really a cop and just likes to wear that uniform? who knows, its never explained. Oh well it really doesn't matter and affects nothing in any way whatsoever...move on.
Evil Russians are clearly not Russian at all. And judging by how blatant they conduct their business I guess cops really don't exist in this world because no one is arrested or confronted by them at all. They just walk around with guns and stuff and no one seems to care. Fair enough I don't care at this point just show me some cool shooty gun man stuff.
No time for that because we now have to go to "the continental". A hotel for criminals to hang out and party....how, why....what!? its the most ridiculous thing ever honestly. No criminal business is to be conducted in this hotel by the way, unless of course you're bribed into it, just because...I dunno, its never explained.
Shooty gun man doesn't care for this rule and goes mental with his spinny shooty gun stuff and then we're greeted to more comic relief from the hotel receptionist. Hilarious stuff 10/10 comedy, this stuff is better than monty python. I mean seriously the guy just acts like everything is normal when clearly things are not normal. You just cant write this stuff absolute comedy gold 10/10 mate.
Girl is bribed to kill shooty gun man and decides that its a good time as shoots gun man is just laying on the bed fully clothed in a suit like a mannequin someone knocked over, stiff as a board. They wrestle, he has a hard time beating her even though he's supposed to be the killer of all killers or something like that. She puts a poor kimura grip on him which he gets out of immediately and throws her through a random pane of glass thats just in the middle of the room for no reason. He had no problem shooting 35 people directly in the face just 7 minutes ago but for some reason allows her to live. Because she's a girl? who knows its never explained.
Willem Defoe is also in this film. I honestly don't know his characters name or his relationship with Shooty gun man but at some point he's hired to kill shooty gun man but its later revealed that he's actually a good guy and was just helping him all along?...I think. He kills a couple guys around shooty gun man, sure. Ok. But what about the scene where the girl tried to kill him? You could've killed her without even waking him up. why shoot an inch away from his head? to wake him up to warn him?....just shoot the girl. Oh well it doesn't matter and its never explained or brought up ever again so don't think about it I guess.
Theres also the over exaggeration of shooty gun mans skills. He's spoken about as if he's the grim reaper or something and often referred to as "the boogeyman" or "the guy you send to kill the bogeyman" this line in particular is loved by fans of this average at best film and I honestly couldn't think of a more cringe way to describe someone. He shoots guns...thats his skill. He's good at it, don't get me wrong I appreciate a bit of spinny shooty stuff as much as anyone else but thats his skill. He's not a ghost and he's not the bogeyman and you don't need to add cheesy flash cards to the screen every time this is said. Especially when at multiple points during the film he was in a position to be killed by the bad guys but they just chose not to...even though the whole point of the film is to kill him...?
Even the Son of Evil Russian boss man doesn't know who he is and him and three of his idiot friends manage to break into his house undetected and beat the crap out of him. Easily could have killed him there and we're only 5 minutes into the film at this point. Why does every one know who shooty gun man is except from son of evil Russian boss man? don't know its never explained, don't think about it. Even Mr evil Russian Boss man himself has an opportunity to kill him at one point but instead decides to tie him to a chair, talk to him and walk away. Why? there is literally no motive whatsoever for keeping him alive. Its never explained so don't think about it. And people are really bigging this film up for having villains that aren't just dumb cliches...really?
Even im thinking "its just a dog" at this point. Why did it take you a couple days to get angry about the dog? you were there when it happened....you're the guy you send to kill the bogeyman....they didn't even have any weapons....what even is this film? An anecdote about killing 3 guys with a pencil is just not enough to hang the entire plot on, its just not.
This film is the definition of style over substance. Some people are going to love it and others will likely not if they care about good film making or story telling in any way. Ultimately I applaud the director duo on making a film they were clearly passionate about. Say what you what about this film (and trust me there is a lot to say) but you can't knock their ambition. 2 retired stunt men making a film about stunts actually does add to the charm of it and its clearly not just some soul-less product pumped out by Hollywood's plot regurgitating ass like we're used to 99% of the time. So well done there. Clearly some effort was made, especially in the fight choreography and editing. Im very glad they actually allowed us to see the action instead of cutting every 0.4 seconds to make the action seem even more intense. All of the best action films have long, one cut fight scenes that actually showcase the actors abilities. Keanu Reeves was a good choice for shooty gun man and played his part well considering the script gave him almost nothing to work with. You can see that it was actually him doing those scenes and you have to admire that on some level even if you're like me and didn't parictually enjoy the film as a whole.
I'd love to give this a higher rating. Maybe I'll revisit one day and appreciate it a little more now that I know what to expect...and what not to expect.
If spinny shooty gun man ghost killer bogeyman guy sounds appealing then give it a go you'll probably enjoy it. Beer and friends will help I'd imagine.
Alternatively you could just watch The Raid and save yourself 101 minutes of your life.
5/10 and thats generous.
Black Mirror: Smithereens (2019)
Meh
Im struggling to give this anything higher than a 5 and to be honest I think that's a generous score to begin with. This episode does enough to keep your attention for the most part but doesn't really have any deeper level to it. What you see is what you get here and some of what you get is just nonsense unfortunately.
There seems to be a growing trend amongst fans of the show to just denounce people that don't like the new season as "haters". As if the only reason people don't like the newer episodes as much is because they just wanted to dislike it before they even watched it. Im sure I'll be looked upon in the same light for giving this an average score. The whole notion that you're supposed to like this series simply because its Black Mirror and if you didn't like it you just "didn't get it" is as
hypocritical and moronic as it gets. Giving something a 10/10 simply because you enjoyed the plot is very far removed from the episode/film being a 10/10. People debate whether films like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now are worthy of such a high rating and in comparison this episode lacks any amount of depth that would warrant such a score.
It would be unfair to compare this episode to films of that calibre however so lets take a look at some of the fundamental elements of this episode and figure out just how good it is by its own merit.
General plot : guy loses fiancé in car crash due to his irresponsible driving (using his phone and not paying attention to the road) and then blames the phone for this...
Kidnaps someone who works at the company of the app he was looking at and demands to speak to the head of the company so he can give a touching monologue before killing himself.
It doesn't get any deeper than that, thats it. Thats what happens and you're just expected to go along with it. They try to tie it to the idea that society has been ruined by social media (never seen that idea explored before.....) and its real life that's really important. Wow such a strong concept how am I ever going to get my head around this concept wow. Maybe I'll just be like 99% of the population and understand that social media can be as addictive as literally any other activity designed for public consumption. Thats how products work, thats how corporations market things, it's up to us to be responsible and treat these things in a way that they don't negatively impact our lives. I mean if his fiancé got really fat and died due to obesity would he kidnap a staff member at KFC and demand to speak to the Colonel?
Ridiculous premise to hang the entire episode on. I can believe that someone would make the connection and blame the social media instead of facing up to the reality of the situation given the main characters circumstances. People do make irrational decisions, especially in highly stressful situations. But it tries to convince you that he actually has a point!, like the social media really was to blame for his fiancé's death and we as an audience are supposed to sit back and reevaluate what's important in our lives....really?
The ineffectiveness of the the police is just hilarious, they literally accomplish nothing. Sure, they ramp up the tension a bit but as far as actually doing something that could prevent the situation...nothing. The sniper constantly reminding us that he "can't get a clean shot" despite the fact that he chose to stand in a position that wouldn't give him a clean shot was also hilarious. He's in a wide open field....maybe go around? Nope can't do that because that would be logical and then this episode would be over in about 10 minutes.
There is literally 0% chance ever that the FBI would get involved in a situation like this taking place in England and 0% chance of the guy actually talking to the head of this social media company. 0% chance.
The head of this company being a down to earth good guy who hates social media just as much as our "protagonist" by the way. Wow they have stuff in common what a contrast of our expectations this is genius....
Damson Idris did a good job playing the hostage...until the end which is mainly down to bad writing more than anything. And Andrew Scott did play his character very well for the most part and you do get a good sense of the desperation he feels however over acted some of his scenes were. Some of the scenes where he was freaking out and becoming overwhelmed by the severity of everything were some of the funniest parts of this episode and in don't think that was intentional...
Theres not a lot more to say really, plot was dumb, cinematography was...there...I guess, score was average, editing was average, dialogue was average at best and the acting was okay. I could go into every plot point and break down why this just didn't work quite as well as expected but I fear I'd be here all day.
If this is the highlight of this new series of episodes, as I've heard a lot of people say then I feel as if I'm going to be disappointed. The subject matter just feels forced at this point which is why I think people are saying that Black Mirror has lost its spark. Which is a fair point to make I'd say. This started off as something special with real meaning behind each episode, each with a different message surrounding a common theme, technology. Now it just seems like a series thats being made for the sake of it due to its popularity.
It won't be long before it starts to become a parody of itself and with that in mind don't even get me started on episode 1 of this season....don't even get me started.
Bird Box (2018)
Vague
What is "it"?
Why has "it" come to Earth?
How did "it" get to Earth?
Why do crazy people not try to kill themselves?
Why is "it" unable to enter buildings?
Is "it" even a metaphor for anything?
Why does "it" want people to die?
Why is there a school for the blind in the middle of a forest next to a raging river?
Why do the children act the complete opposite to how actual children would act in that situation?
How did the children know how to swim?
How did the birds not die during the rapids scene?
.....is that Machine Gun Kelly?...
Just some of the questions that you'll ask yourself while watching this film.
Sandra Bullock must journey down a river blindfolded with two children named Boy and Girl in hope of finding refuge at the end of the trail. This is integrated with flashbacks to let us know how we got to this position in the first place, which is a actually not done too badly in terms of pace for at least the first half of the film. Its only when you realise that none of these people are going to make it on this journey with her that it becomes less of a question of whether they'll make it or not and more of a question of "I wonder how this one's gunna die?"
It saps a lot of the tension from any scene these side characters are in, which is a shame as the cinematography and sound design was for the most part pretty solid. There are tense scenes and it does keep you guessing as to whats going to happen next but as the film goes on it begins to drag and the repetitive soundtrack gets a little irritating.
Also at certain points its hard to take an entity like "it" seriously when closing your eyes is an effective way of avoiding it completely. Yes it would suck to have to close your eyes every time you went outside but is it really Horror movie Material?
The first act in which everyone is realising this phenomenon and begin committing suicide on a mass level is fun.Cinematography is good and it does make you want to learn about whats going on. Overall effective.
Second act in which people are having to hide together from the outside world in some random house wasn't too bad...or good really. We learn a bit about the characters but not enough for me to actually care that much when they were in danger and not even enough to remember any of their names. It's set up right from the start that none of these people are going to make it so its hard to connect to people not even the script cares about. Also hard to take a character seriously when all you can see is Machine Gun Kelly. I don't think he's a bad actor I just think he sticks out like a sore thumb. Luckily he's not in this film too much and his character has no impact on anything or anyone around him what so ever except that cop woman he bangs just...coz...and then he steals a car, leaving the remaining survivors stranded with limited supplies.
Does he get away and seek refuge at the supermarket? Does he die? Does he feel bad about what he did? We'll never know because the film never goes into it.
I guess he cost a lot for the production company to put him in the film so they gave him like 6 lines and then just had him..drive away. Brilliant.
Evil crazy English guy enters the group and John Malcovich doesn't trust him. Which is completely predictable given his character is just "the grumpy old man" however we as an audience are somewhat understanding of his position this time as it has been several hours since this whole thing kicked off and it comes across as fishy when some random starts knocking on the door.
Old man gets locked in garage for being a d**k.
New guy is actually crazy and exposes some of the survivors to "it"
most of the team dies and now Sandra Bullock and her new love interest must conveiniently escape together.
How, where, why?...you'll never know the film just cuts to 5 years later.
Third act and Sandra Bullock is clearly standing out as having the best acting in this film. If it was not for how good she was in this role it'd be a 3-4 rating. Tom the boyfriend was alright I guess but nothing special. The kids actually are good actors its just the script has not incorporated them into the film whatsoever. They're almost props for Sandra Bullock to struggle with more as she journeys down the river.
They've somehow been surviving for 5 years in the same house, doing "runs". Essentially going out and scavenging for supplies, mainly in other houses. Don't know how the water supply has been consistent for 5 years with everyone on the planet dead but never mind the film never explains it. Move on.
The couple have an argument because its the third act and thats what happens in films. There needs to be conflict between at least two of the protagonists.
Tom sacrifices himself because thats what happens in the third act of films usually, leaving Sandra Bullock to look after the children all alone.
Im calling her Sandra Bullock because at this point (waaaay over an hour in) I still have no idea what her characters name is.
She decides to take the ultimate risk and seek out a compound she was previously told about by a mysterious man on the radio. Blindfolded, with two 5 year old children who are also blindfolded. Luckily the script has them act like robots so not too much of an issue.
They have a brief encounter with "it" which is prevented completely by keeping their eyes shut and the they escape to the compound which is again...conveniently cut off from the rest of the world. Its completely covered in thick green plants. This is enough to shield them from "it". Will they have to be concerned for when the plants die, leaving them exposed? who knows...the film doesn't care.
Sandra Bullock...I mean Mallorie names the kids after 2 dead characters, she talks to that girl from bend it like Beckham and we're supposed to think that this has some sort of subtext surrounding motherhood or something...I don't know the film never explains it.
Cut, thats a wrap, thanks for coming everyone...aaaaaaand credits.
Ultimately, this film is not bad. Thats about as much praise as I can give it though unfortunately. Good Acting for the most part, good cinematography and an incredibly vague antagonist.
The rules of this world are bizarre. Sometimes taking you out of the film to have to ask yourself questions about why things are happening the way they are, but at least this film does stick to the rules it sets up for itself.
Honestly don't understand the hype surrounding this film although films like Aquaman make hundreds of millions on their opening week so I guess people really aren't that demanding of films to be good or make sense. I feel like there was a lot of potential with this film and some good ideas that could have been expanded on but it just didn't quite hit the mark for me. I think anything under a 5 is a discredit to Susanne Bier and anything over a 6 is just...wrong.
Wouldn't say I'd really recommend this film although if the premise is appealing check it out, you'll probably have a good time with this one.
If this was a short film it would've made more sense and could have been genuinely masterful.
Sadly......it was not.