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ryano2099
Reviews
Civil War (2024)
A movie pretending to be deep.
I went into this film with some pretty massive expectations. But, I was not even 15 minutes into this film and I already knew something was wrong. This film is trying to be a lot of things. It's attempting to be a thriller. A timely political film. An action film. A war film and a character driven drama. Unfortunately, it just feels like a slog. Go from Point A to B and make it there alive. That's the plot. Unfortunately, the film does an extraordinarily poor job at making you care for anyone. I don't remember a single person's name or motivation for the film, outside of them being journalists. That's what I remember. The dialogue is some of the most dry and forgettable I've seen in quite awhile. The film is also paced extremely poorly. You'll have a good scene and it's never given any time to breath and you're off to the next scene that feels very much like the same thing you just saw. The story is intentionally left somewhat vague to allow the audience to fill in the blanks of what is happening. Unfortunately, this makes the film a very hallow experience. You don't care when someone dies as you didn't even know their name. I get that Alex Garland was attempting to have the film shown from a "journalist perspective" as they are watching death and chaos from a safe and neutral perspective. That being said, the end result of that is a film that just does not emotionally resonate. It's a film that reminds the viewer that: It is better to be simple and deep....rather than shallow and complex.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Who is this made for?
So, admitted when I watched this film, my expectations were already somewhat low. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was already setting somewhat of a low bar, but I remained objectives as the film begin. Now, in the first 10 minutes of this film, I thought we may actually see another well crafted Indiana Jones adventure. However, as the first act continued, that sinking feeling in my stomach just continued to increase. Indiana is now portrayed as a cranky, depressed old man who spends his time yelling at his neighbors in his apartment and falling asleep in his rocking chair to bad tv. Already, I had mentally checked out of this film. However, it is when Phoebe Waller Bridge's character, Helena arrives where I checked back into the film, but for all of the wrong reasons. This film is basically a massive spit to the face to Indiana Jones and its fans, through the presence of Helena's character. She is constantly presented as the female James Bond of this universe but is CONSTANTLY putting down Indiana Jones at every turn. You can tell that the film makers, most likely in the form of the producer, Kathleen Kennedy, was attempting to shift the narrative from Indy to her character and it falls flat on its face. Every joke at Indy's expense felt like a post modern hollow critique. The action in the movie is sub par. The story is sub par. The conclusion of the film also made my eyes roll into the back of my sockets. Say what you want about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it's all true. That being said, there were disappointing moments in that film that did not cause the film to be an outright travesty to the character of Indy. This film felt like it was embarrassed to be one. This movie is nothing more than fan fiction.
Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)
Perhaps the biggest let down ever...
I have never looked forward to a game more then Arkham Knight. Everything was in place for this game to meet every expectation... And I hate to say, but this game is only slightly above average. The story of this game is just not that interesting.It just feels like an average Btman story at best. The game spoils the main villains identity half way through. The side quests are boring and uninspired. The use of the Batmobile is so overblown and overused. There is barely anything in this game that could be considered a boss fight. The DLC for this game is laughable. Take away the excellent graphics and your left with a game that just feels like a very generic ending. This may be the biggest missed opportunity I've seen in a long time. Story driven games live and die on their ability to tell a compelling narrative and had Rocksteady really taken the time to craft a compelling narrative with the characters then this game would rock. As is, its a painfully, pretty looking, lackluster action game. If it weren't for this being a Batman game I think a lot more people would be more honest about it's quality....
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Just.....Disappointed
I really was anticipating this to be a knockout sequel. But sadly it just wasen't. The effects are still amazingly good, it just feels like the plot of this movie was all over the place. A lot of it seems to take a large leap of faith just to accept or is given absolutely no explanation of who or what it is. As well intentioned as the humor was for the movie, I think they tried to make it to funny and some of the characters both human and transformer just seem to be there for gags and serve no REAL purpose which drag the film down a bit. There were several really cool ideas in this movie and used to just a mere fraction of what they could have been. Overall, its a fun time at the movies and its pretty good in spots, but it just seems like a rushed together sequel with huge missed opportunities in the end..
Iron Man (2008)
A Huge Surprise...!!
I have to admit that when I sat down to watch this film, I was a little skeptical. Marvel had come out with some really crappy movies and a few major letdowns, so there was no reason to expect anything else from Iron Man...O how wrong I was. This movie has so many things going for it. Not only is the script solid, but they had a fantastic cast. Robert Downey jr IS Tony Stark. He makes the character to be exactly what he should be and made it beleaveable and the other actors were fantasticaly cast in their roles. Whats cool about the film is that if you read the comics, you will pick up little nod's here and there to the fans of the comic which is a nice touch that the filmmakers not only were faithful to the source, but updated for todays audience. The special FX are very well done and only enhance the film experience. I think the film added humor in just the right way. Unlike the Fantastic 4 films where I felt like they were more gags meant to be funny that to me, felt really out of place and took any seriousness out of the film, Iron Man has Humor placed just right while stll maintaining a fairly serious tone. My only little nag is I wish there were more fights between Iron Man and opponits/villains but seeing as how this is the first film, what we got was perfect. All in all, this is a smart, well written comic book film that will appeal to the fans of the character and movie goers as a whole.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
A hugely wasted opportunity...
I have just watched the Indy series not too long ago and became a huge fan of them and what they stood for..Good ol fashioned movie making. I thought by the trailers for this film, that the same would be true... Not so. This movie, although not HORRIBLE, is yet another huge let down. You can tell by the story of the film that so many ideas were stolen from various scripts are poorly pasted togeather by David Kepp. I loved Harrison and he is the only reason this movie got a 7. The characters in this movie, haven given time to grow, could have been sooo much better. The villain in this film never really felt like much of a threat to Jones. Just a pain in his ass, nothing more/less. I love how the updated to the 50's so the natural things going on are fresh and help with Harrisons age, but I felt like that opened the door for all this sci-fi crap that is used far to much in the film. There are so many moments in the film (even for an Indy movie) that make u just roll your eyes and shake your head wondering what in God's name they were thinking (the fridge/shia and the monkeys/the whole ending). All in all, I think it was just OK, nothing more/less. It was good to see Indy back, but I think too much special FX, coupled with a mesh mash script and a weak villain and really unused characters make it a letdown. I pray a 5th one comes out and gets things back on track so the series doesen't end with this one. And I pray George Lucas doesn't make that one a letdown and or make it take 20 years for it to be made.
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Good, but could have been amazing..
This movie made the same mistake that X-Men 3 and Fantastic Four made is have a lot of crap in first 2/3 of the film and save everything for the big finish that isen't so big and is over before you know it. I think the pace was just wrong in this film. A lot of this film just felt like left over ideas that wern't used in the first 2 films. I found a lot of this movie to be WAYYYYY to cheezy. There is even a point in the film that I couldn't believe that it ended up in the final cut as it did. Eddy Brock has just become Venom and is swinging through looking for sandman to aid in him killing spiderman..sandman stops him as hes swinging, thinking its spiderman and venom looks up and screams at him, sandman obviously shocked, throws venom away from him at a wall which venom naturally lands on his feet.. so what does sandman do after seeing that horrible monster scream at him?? Starts walking away like nothing happened?? Does that happen often to this guy or what? Or was is just not THAT black suit spiderman guy he was looking for??? That scene alone says volumes about what went wrong in this film. Best part about this film? VENOM! period.