A super hero is anyone that has a characteristic/characteristics that makes him/her super in the minds of his/her audience; and uses such a characteristics for benevolent purposes.
A super hero movie is a movie about the person described above.
But that is my opinion so, I might be wrong.
Sadly, there is no Drift Tango in this movie
That said, I will recommend Pacific Rim: Uprising. It is a Hot mess of a movie, and falls into the bathos issue that a lot of marvel movies had, but it was still a super fun ride.
Unfortunately, the plot makes absolutely no sense, so if that bothers you a lot, you probably arenāt going to be able to watch this movie.
Spoilers
However, I really loved the mythos vibe that Newt had with his face turn. Honestly it was one of the only good plot beats in the trainwreck of a script. It was a really solid pillar to build the movie around, but they had about 5 different plots in that movie so it didnāt really get the time to shine.
Ready Player One is cinematic cotton candy and thatās a big improvement cause the book as we all know is total dogshit. They change a really good amount from the source material so the plot feels condensed in the best way possible (But itās still too long) Characters are still very flat, but the performances help such as Ben Mendelson is really fun as Sorrento and Mark Rylance gives Halliday a more tragic deposition. Thereās still reference heavy dialogue and it can get rather cringey at times. Spielberg atleast made the connection between the OASIS and the real world and the bonds you form from the two a lot more believable. Iād see it as a matinee if you atleast thought the idea of the OASIS was interesting.
Well, frankly, a large part of the problem with the book was that it was 95% tell, donāt show. Just by making it into a movie that isnāt just the lead character doing monologue after monologue into the camera about how many old video games heās played and about his masturbatory habits(I 100% wish that was a joke, but itās not), it would be a vast improvement.
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Iām amused that my friends who really really like Ready Player One are hating the movie, As someone whoās not a hater and not a lover of the book Iām thinking the movie will be up my alley :-p
A lot of this also comes down to reading comprehension, literary experience, etc.
Most of the experience of reading a book resides in the readerās imagination. A nerd that is reading something that has all their favorite words in it, like RP1, is likely to imagine things that make them feel really good. What they picture in their mind could be great, even if the book itself is awful.
This is the same thing we see when talking about tabletop RPGs. People have a good time playing an RPG as a result of their imaginations and creativity. They often falsely attribute this great experience to the game itself. As Iāve said many times before, we can have a great old time role playing a game of Monopoly, but that doesnāt mean monopoly is a role playing game, or a good one.
Movies leave significantly less up to the viewerās imagination. Instead you are seeing what was in the imagination of the director, producer, screenwriter, etc. That is a lot less likely to line up with what some nerd was imagining when they read the book, and will therefore is probably going to be given a worse review by people who enjoyed reading the book.
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I didnāt expect to, but I legitimately enjoyed watching RPO. Thank you, Spielberg and Silvestri.
Saw RPO over the weekend. Definitely a tear-down-rebuild of the book, but then it had to be. Thankfully they shortened the time between the distracted globe and the rest of the story. (in the book, the main character wallows in misery for a month.)
I saw Wonāt You Be My Neighbor? today. Itās good and worth a watch if you grew up watching Mr. Rogers. Most of the info in it youād probably already know if youāve read or watched anything about him outside of his shows but the interviews with people he worked with and behind the scenes clips are really good.
I saw Cloud Atlas for the second time over the weekend. This is a long movie, nearly three hours, but I loved it. I hadnāt seen it since it was originally in theaters, so it was almost like watching it again for the first time, except that I knew the basic structure and what they were going for.
I donāt understand why this movie doesnāt get more love. Itās amazing and incredible.
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So on Saturday while I was walking around downtown Austin, needing to kill some time before my flight back to Seattle, I walked past the Alamo Drafthouse there and saw that Ready Player One was starting in like 10 minutes. I didnāt have any interest in seeing it having disliked the book, but I figured it was a better way of killing a few hours than walking around in the cold. I wouldnāt say that I like the movie version, but it isnāt that bad either. I like a lot of the changes they made, especially having the group of kids meeting up much earlier in the story than they do in the book. That being said, the characters are still boring, and literally everything that happens in the OASIS was not enjoyable for me. The real world shit ended up being more interesting and compelling, which says a lot about the quality of the setting you are trying to build.
Aside, this was my first experience with a full service theater, which the Drafthouse is well known for. I didnāt really take that much advantage of it since Iād already eaten, but it didnāt really bother me either, so itās okay.
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Isle of Dogs is pretty frustrating and might be my least favorite of the Wes Anderson films Iāve seen. This film is the key example you could show to someone of cultural appropriation because it really wants to be a homage to Japanese cinema (especially Kurosawa) but every joke is at expense of Japanese culture. Not just the strange, pointless language barrier they insert but thereās jokes on wasabi being poison and haikus used as plot points. Itās riddled with story and narrative flaws as well.
The animation really bothered me too. Even though the set design/character design is very pretty, they constantly cut corners. You rarely see characters feet, characters move in shadow or do an awkward side-shuffle, characters barely emote other than having tears appear around their eyes. It was a noticeable step down from Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Yeah its pretty good. Very similar to the origanal but very good. Watanabe is really good so is Shiori Kutsuna. Also cool because it shows the Ainu people in Hokkaido a bit as well. Well worth a watch Iād say.
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Jumanji 2: Welcome to the Jungle turned out to be way more entertaining and funny than I was expecting, and Iād been told it was more entertaining and funny than it had any right to be. The cast (both casts) all had loads to work with. Dwayne TheRock Johnson smouldered perfectly. Also Jack Black was somehow bearable to watch, and itās rare I can see him acting and not feel like punching myself and him in the face.
Also spotted: the creepy guy from Too Many Cooks.
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Ready Player 1. It was fine. Definitely better than the book. The sexism inherent in the novelās narrative was still present here. Otherwise Iād call it better in every way. I may write a more complex opinion later.
Got everything ready for āInfinity Warā at the Air and Space IMAX screen in Northern Virginia for this Thursday.
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Wonder Woman was mostly very goodā¦ until the last 30 minutes or so, when it turned pants.
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That was the blandest final boss in a genre full of bland final bosses.
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Rampage is entertaining, but pretty dumb. Itās definitely aiming more towards schlocky, B-film territory and it mostly succeeds there thanks to the action being filmed pretty well and The Rock being charming as usual. Thereās lots of gleeful destruction that happens from the radioactive monsters throwing things. The problem is when it isnāt those things, it really drags down. Especially the evil corporate subplot which Iām honestly tired of seeing in media. Unless your property is about corporate culture or white collar business, donāt include corporate people especially when the two CEOs felt like Team Rocket.
That video game film bar still hasnāt been beaten yet. Phoenix Wright and Mortal Kombat are still the kings.
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The Room followed by The Disaster Artist. As a MST3K veteran, handling The Room wasnāt a problem. Itās so baffling that it is funny in parts, but itās mostly just bad. If youāre bothering to watch it, following up with The Disaster Artist is fantastic. James Franco nails the accent and speech of the titular character, and the movie overall provides (ābased on a true storyā levels of) context for the madness around how The Room happened.
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