Movies in 2022
This is one of the classics of the 80s. Never watched it before but I heard about its cult status. Apparently a favorite among women. Not surprising given that it features a bunch of male hotties, as well as Kiefer Sutherland and Alex Winter.
Also, the aforementioned boys are a gang of bad boys who are also murderous vampires. On the female character side we basically get Jami Gertz, of Solarbabies fame.
Billed as a sort of horror comedy, it doesn't hit either the horror nor the comedy part. Maybe it was scarier in the 80s, but I would find it hard to believe that it was funnier.
I don't want to be too harsh on the movie because it's undeniable that it has some pretty cool visuals and production design. The premise strains credibility (a happy beach town that simultaneously features an impressively high number of homicides) but it's fun, and well directed. Joel Schumacher ain't a bad craftsman after all.
Two sequels were made, which look hilariously bad. And Corey Haim, somewhat pathetically features in all of them. And, apparently, a remake and a TV pilot also exist? Could be an interesting watch for bad movie night.
Well, here we are. The sequel nobody expected and no one asked for.
In all honestly, considering the current cultural climate, and especially how the anti-authoritarian culture that the original Matrix represented has been subsumed into the authoritarian apparatus of the Successor Ideology, I was expecting much, much worse from this movie.
Instead, all we got is a shoddy script that banks on the nostalgia of 1999, a few shoehorned action setpieces, some limp wristed maybe-criticism of pro-intellectual Gen Xers and a tiny bit of the veneer of thought-provoking SF themes and philosophies that showed up in the original movies.
Ultimately, this fourth Matrix has to be taken as a franchise movie —not really that different from Reloaded and Revolutions—. Good for "the lore", if you are into that sort of thing. A decent villain, some half-assed commentary, and maybe a couple of cool concepts here and there.
OK, so this is cheating a bit since World on a Wire is not a feature film, but a 2-part miniseries, but it's closer to a movie than it is to a TV show, so it's still worth including here.
I think I first learned of its notoriety for being one inspiration for the Matrix movies, more than two decades before it. Of course, it's nothing new that a lot of the ideas in Matrix are reinterpretations and remixes of ideas from earlier works.
World however, features great unconventional cinematography and awesome retro-futuristic aesthetics.
Unfortunately, saying that it's a inspiration to Matrix sort of spoils the entire first part of the plot, which revolves around a scientific laboratory creating a fully simulated virtual world, complete with simulated human consciousness.
It can be a bit slow at times, but ultimately has some pretty inspiring visuals, and cool SF ideas around identity and personhood.
The infamous unfinished animated movie, with a production that stretched across almost 30 years.
After such a long development hell, it ended up as two official releases, The Princess and the Cobbler, and Arabian Knight, which were botched and meddled with just to get them out the door. I have seen neither of these, instead opting for The Recobbled Cut, available on archive.org.
While Richard Williams' vision never fully materialized, this is perhaps the closest version we have for it. A fan restoration project that uses production storyboards, unfinished drafts and workprints to fill in the missing scenes.
The animation is gorgeous. The expense of animating "on ones", that is, at a full smooth 24 frames per second was part of its undoing but boy does it produce some spectacle. The art direction is incredibly inspired, especially for its time. This movie is credited as the precursor to Disney's Aladdin and it just takes one look at the design of the vizier to realize why. But one has to keep in mind that this film started preproduction in the 1960s!
However, despite the visual splendor, it fails as a movie. It's barely more than a fairy tale, and the storytelling choices are questionable. It's hard to even call the thief a character, as his behaviour for most of the film is exclusively "steal shiny", making him seem less like a person than a mindless automaton (thus, the only time his maxim of stealing valuables at any cost is broken, it comes across as baffling and inconsistent). The plot drags in the middle. The characters represented as good aren't particularly likable. The somewhat likable thief is represented as a stinky weirdo, while the cobbler is an old school lucky bumbling hero. Its outdated sensibilities put me off a little bit.
Still, absolutely worth watching if you are into animation and artistic design.
Before the Internet was a thing, we used to see a lot of reruns on TV of these old timey Disney comedies. Movies like The Parent Trap that they aired time and time again.
This is another one of these in the same vein. With Kurt Russell in the role of the main character Dexter. It's a rather conventional "dumb guy becomes smart" story. This time due to a lightning storm fusing the capabilities of a state of the art computer with Dexter's brain.
Soon, his private school starts exploiting Dexter's new ability in various ways. Hilarity ensues, and so on.
It's a fairly inoffensive, wholesome comedy for the entire family. Nothing particularly remarkable. Although it must have been popular enough, as this was just the first of a trilogy of adventures with Dexter and friends.
As I get into situations where I watch more and more traditional horror movies, I'm developing this working theory that the horror genre is just fantasy without heroics. Or without a happy ending, or hope. Fairy tales with more blood.
The pattern seems to match with The Mangler, too. A Stephen King story about a laundry folding machine that's possessed by a demon, and gets a taste for human blood.
Now, an industrial laundry machine doesn't sound like a particularly menacing villain, sure, but I goshdarn love its absurdity at face value. The demon trapped in the machine does more than just… mangle and kill. It also brings business success to the owner of the laundry, putting it firmly into sessile god territory. A theme that doesn't get much central exposition in movies.
Anyway, researching this entry I found out that it has a Metascore of 8, which seems crazy to me. I enjoyed it for what it was, but apparently critics in 1995 blasted it into oblivion.
The direction is really inspired, too. It has these otherworldly coloured lights around the town and in the different interior locations, giving it a characteristic look and atmosphere.
The acting is good, the production values are decent, the pacing has no problems… I'm a bit surprised it was so hated. I don't know if it's just a circumstance of its time or it is a "for fans of horror" thing. As you may know I'm not a horror guy and yet I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
They also made two sequels, but from what I could see, The Mangler 3 takes the awful decision of turning the demon machine back into a dude, essentially reverting it back into a serial killer story which makes it immediately 1000% less interesting.
I got fairly late into the output from Red Letter Media. I wrote them off because the start of their videos and skits are grating and cringe-worthy, and always made them look like yet another idiot humour show. Turns out, if you get can past the first minute it's revealed they can talk like normal people!
Since then, I've been a fan. I particularly like their Best of the Worst series which I must have watched nearly in its entirety by now. After watching and analyzing dozens of "bad movies", they decided to film a bad movie themselves. That's Space Cop.
And it works! They put their money where their mouth is. Their encyclopedic knowledge of what separates a fun and enjoyable bad movie from a simply dull one is put to the test here, and they pass with flying colors. Of course, the plot is shallow nonsense, the production values are abysmal and the acting is atrocious, but that's what you sign up for, isn't it? Plus, there are lots of references to their shows and even cameos, if you care to spot them. Fun stuff.
I didn't see this when it came out. I actually played, and beat the game years ago before starting this movie.
Technically, the two stories start more or less in parallel. There is a weird gap of exposition in the game where you are never exactly told what happens after a major event. This movie covers that.
The story itself isn't particularly great or interesting, but the CG is spectacular and really well made. I'm not exactly a fan of the swish-swish floaty style of fighting depicted in the movie and the game, but despite that I found it entertaining. Visual Works (now called Square Enix Image Studio Division) have really come a long way since Pac-Man —I mean, FF7—. Recommended especially if you like to see the state of the art in fully CGI animated movies, and what that may mean for the future of videogames.
Weird one to watch nowadays. It's some sort of erotic fantasy story following a young lawyer in Rio (Otis) who starts a sort of affair with a successful businessman (Rourke).
I have no idea how it was received at the time of its premiere, but for today's standards it is fairly tame.
The character of James Wheeler, played by Mickey Rourke is extremely weird, too. Not sure what the male ideals of beauty were in the 80s. It was a strange time. Wheeler here is simultaneously a bad biker boy and a successful businessman. He simultaneously has a reputation for being a womanizing playboy and yet he behaves in the most sexually nonthreatening way it's humanly possible to be while still having that haircut.
Damn odd movie. Feels like the hacky, early "literally me" erotic fantasy of a self-important author (that would be writer/director Zalman King) and it doesn't generate any sort of cohesive atmosphere or believably grounded characters. It's just a group of scenes with some people in them, that we hope go somewhere at some point. Looking at its measly metascore of 19, I don't think it went too well with audiences at the time, though.
When they said this would be the last Daniel Craig Bond film, I didn't expect that they meant it so definitely. Self-contained indeed.
In any case, the latest installment of the Bond franchise continues to offer the same gorgeous locales, great photography and production design, pretty cool action setpieces and all of that stuff we've come to expect.
It also touches on some philosophical themes although they are very much in the background, drowned by the waves of melodrama.
Oh, and they gave the audience a black 007. That was a funny detail.
Ultimately, it's a good thing that the Craig sub-series ended here because it was starting to get too heavy with lore. 007 isn't suited to long term continuity, and works better as episodic pulp adventures, like originally envisioned. I don't think the writers know how to handle the accumulating cruft of piling up lore in the continuity.
Fun trash movie that rips off the classic Terminator. It actually starts in a fairly original way, with a cute anthropologist arriving at a library in search of the artifacts of the South Seas Queen. A ruthless evil queen from Indonesian folklore.
And, well, she finds and is possessed by the Queen's spirit. Despite her insistence that she's not a lady, but an anthropologist, our antagonist becomes… Lady Terminator!
Also, let's take a moment to give shout outs to whoever came up with the amazing tagline: "She Mates… Then She Terminates"
Because, yeah, from this point on this becomes a weird mix of a modern day South Seas Queen story (who killed her "husbands" after having sex with them) and James Cameron's Terminator, going as far as swiping entire shots and performance cues from the popular 80's flick.
It's not a good movie, but it's very entertaining. Watch with friends for a good laugh. Enjoy the kills, and the inconsistent damage model of this world's reality.
One of the representatives of the recent-ish "dadcore" phenomenon in action movies where a middle aged, mild-mannered guy gets to kick all sorts of ass.
It starts pretty well. Nice ideas, and —power fantasy elements aside— pretty grounded in its internal coherence. Casting Bob Odenkirk as the protagonist, Hutch Mansell is a pretty inspired choice.
As the movie gets going, the stakes get progressively higher, and the action more and more over the top and ridiculous —this is by choice, by the way, as one of the most absurd action moments gets lampshaded in the epilogue—.
That escalation kinda broke my suspension of disbelief a bit (just a bit) and, while I would probably have enjoyed a movie that didn't give up on its own stability in the third act, I admit this is more interesting and I respect it as a commentary on the action genre.
It remains a fun watch the whole way through.
Before, I only had a passing knowledge of The Pagemaster from its connection to the SNES game (also available on Mega Drive, Game Boy and… Windows!). One of those platformers back from that era when it was trendy to hire Disney-level animators to create sprites for your game. In fact, coming out only a year after Disney's Aladdin and the same year as The Lion King.
The movie, though. I never watched before. The plot is pretty classic isekai fashion. A hypochondriac, over-protected child played by Macaulay Culkin has to find shelter from the storm in a library, where he meets the quirky head librarian (Christopher Lloyd). Later, he gets hit in the head and gets transported to the wonderful cartoon world of books.
And there, the movie turns into animation, with Culkin's character going on adventures with some talking books, through some genre-themed worlds. Fantasy, Adventure and Horror, and learns the importance of losing your fear and taking on risks. Therefore he goes from overly cautious kid, to doing sick jumps with his bike in the span of 80 minutes.
Yes, 80 minutes is the run-time for this movie. Despite taking 3 years to make, there isn't enough to fill an hour and a half of animation. Even taking into account that the movie is bookended by the live-action story too.
As far as the movie goes, it's pretty alright. Rather bland even for children's movie standards. I'm not really surprised it never got quite popular. The voice talents of Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Stewart are nice, and they try to elevate the script but, ultimately this is pretty forgettable as anything else than a historical curiosity.
The only reason I watched this is because I was intrigued by the production design. I don't recall where I saw a clip or still shot of the movie, and when identified, I put it on my list.
I don't really regret watching it but there isn't much more than nice sets and costumes here. Presented as a sort of sequel to The Nutcracker ballet, we follow Clara, the daughter of the original Nutcracker's girl, who gets isekai'd to the Four Realms and has to face the crisis befalling the lands.
I didn't realize this beforehand, but the director is the same one responsible for What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Chocolat. This, however, is just an alimentary movie that isn't anywhere near his previous works.
So, I've been told by my Swedish colleagues that there is a series of comedy movies that's a mainstay in the memetic tapestry of Swedish culture, particularly for boomers and gen x-ers. That's the Sällskapsresan series.
I can confirm it's a typical theme for office parties, at least, and after having attended one summer conference, and now one Christmas party themed after these movies, I felt I had to sit down and watch at least the movie that started it all.
And I was pleasantly surprised! I watched it in the original Swedish, with subtitles, which was also a good exercise to practice the language. I was met with an inoffensive, wholesome comedy of manners about a disparate group of Swedes vacationing in the Canary Islands in Spain.
I admit I was a bit apprehensive at first about how I'd receive the movie. The output of Spanish comedy around this era had me primed for something a lot more vulgar and raunchy. I'm grateful that 1980s swedes don't seem to share that same taste.
Claims to be the first CGI animated movie entirely produced by a Chinese studio.
It's a bizarre mishmash of digital puppet animation, plasticky renders and a lot of what seems like clip art assets.
The story is some reinterpretation of a Tibetan fable about the evils of technology, which becomes an epic war and adventure movie. At least that's the intention. Among its influences, they cite The Lord of the Rings, Avengers and World War Z. One of these is not like the others, I know.
It's a pretty crappy tale, but the weird factor is off the charts, especially in the beginning. As the plot develops, it sadly peters out and gets boring quickly.
I was prepared to relax my expectations for this one since it at least tried something a bit different than the typical commercial MCU fare. I was still disappointed.
From the typical, insulting "ancient humans are dumb" trope to some deeply unlikable characters, failure to explore some of its most pertinent themes, and a veneer of what I call "high concept bullshit" —You know, tends to happen with every writer who thinks he's writing a bad ass universe and cosmogony, while in fact just going with by-the-numbers juvenile nonsense— the whole package ends up being uninteresting at best, actively offensive at worst.
No idea yet why they felt the need to hire Academy award winning director Chloé Zhao for this one. There isn't any auteur style that comes through. This movie could have been shot and edited by an MTV intern.
I get that this film is sort of a common joke around film buff circles, probably second only to Citizen Kane. It even featured in The Simpsons.
And, to be fair, besides pop-cultural osmosis I didn't know much about this movie before going into it. Basically, you have only two characters and one location. Andre Gregory and my boy Wallace Shawn meet at a restaurant for dinner and a conversation. That's it.
If I was a corny magazine I could say that this movie is "Storytelling in its purest sense". Because in many ways it's an anti-movie. I don't want to reveal too much. I think ultimately whether you find its writing fascinating and gripping or pointless and boring will depend solely on you and your own wisdom.
Personally, I loved it, but that doesn't mean that the movie exploits the strengths of its medium. I don't think it needs to. It's essentially a conversation between friends, between perspectives and philosophies, and states in life, presented in the form of a film.
I'm torn between making comments that date these impressions or just letting the film speak for itself but I'll mention that the fact that the big events that transpired during 2019-2021 make My Dinner with Andre feel still relevant speaks to its depth.
This feels exactly like a classic US film adaptation of a Japanese videogame. And I mean that in a bad way since, you know, no good videogame film blockbuster exists yet.
Paul W.S. is still doing the same shit as with the first Resident Evil, which is the same formula as Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros. and so on —OK, Mario was a bit more interesting, but still not quite there in terms of adaptation—
You have your fantasy world, but also your group of soldiers from the real world who get transported to said fantasy world, in order to anchor the plot somewhat for normies.
Then come the terrible pacing and obvious attempts at concealing how the movie doesn't really have the budget to truly realize the vision in Capcom's videogame. Discounting the initial setup and premise, Monster Hunter dedicates the entire first hour to a single encounter with a monster. An encounter that takes place in a featureless desert. And with just two characters that barely have any dialogue (they don't speak the same language).
Then, the remaining 40 minutes rush through the following: Travel and survival after getting rid of the monster, an ambush, 4 or 5 barely-introduced new characters (of which only Ron Perlman's gets a decent amount of screen time), setting a goal for the final confrontation, the final confrontation itself, the climax, the epilogue, and the post-epilogue.
Saying it's not exactly well balanced is an understatement. It obviously had production problems. We don't even get to know the new characters of the Monhun world, so we are barely given a reason to care when they perish against the final boss, and yet the movie still acts as if those moments had emotional stakes built in. Not even fun to watch, visually or through the characters. They don't have time to shine or any characterization beyond the bare minimum. Pretty terrible.
New Bobby Eggers movie dropped. I was pretty hype about it. I saw it described as an epic, and maybe that made me expect more horses… Fell victim to my own expectations and ended up a bit disappointed when I got out of the cinema.
Only a bit, though, and entirely my fault for internally hyping myself too much. What we got, more than a capital E Epic, is a chronicle. A story of vengeance and violence following a Norse prince. A fugitive and warrior.
The structure ends up being quite traditional. And the Nordic mysticism themes and visuals add a bit of spice, but they're nothing genre-shattering. Nor they need to be. The Northman is a perfectly good pulp/adventure movie with a more serious veneer. Pretty great setpieces and its heart in the right place.
Another bad videogame movie, except this one is bad in an unusual way. It barely registers as a videogame movie. Most of the characters don't look at all like their videogame counterparts.
I had to keep reminding myself: "Oh, that's right. This is supposed to be an Uncharted movie!" because it essentially looks like a generic adventure film with the thinnest, slimmest coat of Uncharted varnish.
However, while there are far better adventure movies out there, this one is at least passable as one. Never mind the ridiculous premises, absurd and unnecessary subterfuge, and baffling location design, it still touches on the basics of an entertaining movie.
What's with the incredibly aggressive bokeh blur on the exterior scenes in Barcelona, though? Why did they feel the need to hide the background so much? One would think a production of this budget would have the right film permits and set crew to make it look nice...
I didn't see this one back when it premiered. I think almost every SF fan has at least a passing familiarity with klaatu barada nikto, even if your entry point is Star Wars, so you probably roughly know what The Day the Earth Stood Still has to offer.
This is, of course, a remake of the 1951 original SF story. There are some modernizations and surface level changes (the aliens land in Manhattan, as opposed to Washington D.C.) but the idea is more or less the same, down to keeping the same design cues for Gort, the iconic alien on the cover.
What you get is a fairly entertaining "cozy catastrophe" apocalyptic film, where all the suffering, riots and famine occur off-screen, only glimpsed at through TV news reports. Meanwhile, our main characters still have time to enjoy safe trips to the remote forest villa of a Nobel Prize physicist in the middle of Earth-shattering turmoil.
But you know what? Sometimes I'm OK with that. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a story where the world crumbles around you, and rather than inconveniencing you, it becomes the starting point for an exciting adventure.
The framework for the plot is a sort of hamfisted environmentalist message. Humans are so bad, yadda yadda. They destroyed the planet. It's too late to save, so the best thing to do is obviously to obliterate everything built on it, etc. But wait! Humans can be good and worth saving!
You know the drill. The movie has its problems, but it is well made. Didn't make any unforgivable mistakes, has a bit of interesting SF thematics, and is entertaining. Decent watch.
The famous documentary. That word does have a different connotation nowadays that perhaps doesn't evoke expectations that match what this movie is.
A collection of shots with no narration or dialogue, set to an original score by Philip Glass comprises the entirety of the film.
There are some incredible shots here (the moon time lapse used for one of the covers is a great example).
By and large they depict the incredible progress and ingenuity of the human species. All our achievements. High speed communication, readily available, convenient, tasty and calorie-dense food, fast international transportation, previously unthinkable artforms and entertainment…
Except, of course that's not the tone the film wants to adopt. Koyaanisqatsi means "life out of balance" in the Hopi language of northeastern Arizona, and these frenetic time lapses are meant to illustrate how sick and degenerate our lives have become.
There is, of course, some truth in that. It's not my place to question the intent of the film. Ultimately, the images speak for themselves, and from that perspective the film is a success. Even if it may cause fatigue in the viewer at some points (or, perhaps, I was too tired when I watched it).
I would say that it lives up to its status, and has made me curious to watch the two follow ups that were produced in later years: Powaqatsi and Naqoyqatsi.
Strange concept horror film that banks on imagery like "The Backrooms" and other memes in the category of so-called "liminal spaces". In this case, a young couple looking to buy their first home get taken to a stereotypical suburb, which turns out to be an infinite suburb of identical houses of which there is no escape.
Soon after, unseen forces deliver a baby to their door and they're told that they will be let free if they take care of the child.
This is where the movie sorta loses its edge. It's like they don't know what to do with the plot from then on. And I don't get if there's supposed to be another message under the fantasy premise.
Is it a poorly-thought out anti-natalist allegory? Is it a cautionary tale about how parenthood removes your agency and leaves you no personal time? Hard to tell. All those interpretations make the movie come off as too inept if we assume the intention was there.
I think I'm not the only one baffled by it because, despite having a fairly high profile cast, the movie flopped financially.
Cult road movie that was on my list and, unbeknownst to me at the time, is part of the Criterion collection.
Rather than having a traditional plot, Two-Lane Blacktop feels more like a slice of life film following two laconic hot-rodders —the driver and the mechanic— who travel across the US, paying their way through by winning drag races.
In the course of their travels, they attract the attention of an older drifter who goes by G.T.O. —named after the flashy car he drives— who challenges them to a race. But even this pretext is dropped soon as nobody seems that interested in actually winning. This gives way to scenes of camaraderie on the road, and the interaction between these groups of characters, adding a hitchhiker girl to the mix who just goes where her heart tells her.
Paraphrasing the words of Soulja Boy: "There ain't no point to the film", but it's still a beautiful slice of life piece. It's just from a life that's far away from static work-family milieus.
The director died last year at 91 years of age and while Blacktop is his cult film, his movie career mostly consists of making westerns. I think it shows here too, although it's somewhat subverted by the counter cultural undertones of the time and place the movie is set in.
The impression I got from this movie is that it's furiously millennial. Which is good because it turns out the writer/director is an older dude so, you know, yay for cross-generational art. The problem is that, ultimately, the movie isn't good.
I've seen this film classified as horror, which is crazy to me. Sure, it has some horror-adjacent ingredients, but the genre elements are just not there.
Instead, it touches on some pretty spot-on generational pillars of European middle class millennials: alienation, YouTube videos, asynchronous communication, traveling the world, long distance relationships, job dissatisfaction…
It is interesting enough in ideas, exploring themes of grief from a new angle, but the execution is kind of poor. It has oddly incompetent editing. The middle part is almost entirely conveyed through text messages which, although could be taken as ballsy and as building an intimate, isolating atmosphere, is considered "movie poison" for a reason. It really breaks "show, don't tell" and doesn't take long to cause fatigue.
In any case, although I don't tend to pay much attention to these things, it seems the movie wasn't that well received, getting scores in the 50-60% range from audience and 80% from critics.
I would recommend a watch if you are up for something a bit out of the mainstream and in the mood for a slower, more intimate movie.
From the moment I saw the trailer I knew this was going to be a bit of dumb fun. Nicolas Cage, plays his alter ego, actor/movie star "Nick Cage" who is falling on hard times and must accept a 1 million dollar offer to show up at a wealthy fan's birthday party in Spain.
Soon after landing, he's recruited by the CIA, who are looking to apprehend said fan for drug trafficking.
It's pretty ridiculous and it knows it. The movie doesn't take itself seriously but at the same time doesn't leave good craftsmanship by the wayside (I would say that's a given with stars of the caliber of Nicolas Cage but, have you seen the kind of crap Cage has been doing lately?)
The movie's uniqueness banks mostly on a bunch of self referential nods to Cage's career and personal life, and that's where a lot of the humour comes from.
I should give it shoutouts for hiring actual Spanish actors for some of the Spanish roles, although the birthday boy himself is played by Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, who acts a bit out of place as a Spaniard (there is a scene where he's speaking Spanish with his cousin and he uses Latin American expressions that we don't say in the Peninsula). That said, it's just a minor detail that surely most of the audience won't even notice.
This was the year's "indie" darling it seems, but I didn't like it much at all.
It always seems that A24 films are hit or miss and, while this is thankfully not a Swiss Army Man situation (see the page of 2018 movies) it's still pretty daft and dull.
Throughout the film I got the impression it was trying too hard: "Oh! It's a bagel! lol, those wacky Asians, am I right?"
Just like satire doesn't really work if you still end up doing the thing you satirize, showing things like a low-budget sci-fi world doesn't work if you don't do anything to contextualize that it's low-budget on purpose. It will just look low-budget. I get what they were going for, but the joke didn't land.
It's a shame, because the premise is great. The multiverse idea could have been explored in such a fun way, and there are even some nice touches here and there, I liked the universe that looks like a Wong Kar-wai film.
Not sure. Maybe it's just culture clash, and I'm not in tune with Asian-American post-millennial culture, but I just found most of the movie grating and boring.
No sir, I didn't like it.
When I started watching this, I though this was going to be essentially Red Dwarf: The Movie and, in a sense, it is. But this also doubles as Season 13 of the show (also called Series XIII).
Apparently, a full multi-episode series was planned in the beginning, however, during production it was publicly announced that a 90-minute TV movie would be produced instead.
And, well, it kinda shows. Instead of a traditional feature film, The Promised Land feels like an overly long episode, something I've never been a huge fan of.
As an episode, it's unfortunately pretty underwhelming, with some questionable plot and lore developments, and the jokes aren't anything to write home about.
Watch it for completion's sake or to get it out of the way, but be warned it's the weakest Red Dwarf in a long while.
The term "gray man" refers to a tactical/survival mentality that prioritizes going unnoticed in an environment, blending into the crowd, while simultaneously being prepared to deal with all sorts of emergency situations.
The gray man in the movie, as in the book it's adapting, is a CIA assassin that doesn't have many gray man characteristics at all. Sure, he is highly capable of dealing with armed threats and whatnot, but the part about going unnoticed has completely been thrown off the window for this movie, as Ryan Gosling's character is as flashy as it gets.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, we have with us another Bond clone. Like most, if not all, Bond clones, The Gray Man trades the timeless appeal of the films with the MI6 spy for a more "trendy" tone in content and pacing. While it fulfills its function of entertainment, it's nothing that we hadn't seen in other Bond clone films such as the Bourne series, xXx, and the like. Heck, they even cast Ana de Armas too, who played an actual Bond girl. They know.
Still, while it's hard to take seriously as Sigma Cinema, it's a pretty fun watch and decently made.
A just alright post-apocalyptic SF that sort of meanders between a young scientist's life in a contaminated, empty Earth and a survivor looking to escape in the last colony ship off-planet to join the rest of the population.
It never really hits any solid emotional base, nor specially interesting ideas. It's just ok visually, and the cast doesn't have much going for it regarding performance or character development.
It sounds overly harsh, but this truly is a pretty mediocre movie. Nothing stands out to hate, but nothing really shines either.
A ridiculous, over the top, gritty-juvenile blockbustery action/adventure film from the early 00s with Kate Beckinsale and Hugh Jackman.
It's alright for what it is, but nothing more. Enjoyable if you're in the mood for some over the top camp (the Dracula here provides a particularly chewy performance), but they go so far with relentless spectacle that it can become fatiguing.
Still, I'd rather watch a movie like this than something like Monster Hunter where it feels like nothing happens for an hour, and you're waiting for the real movie to begin.
Feels like a sanitized, but still relevant high school romantic comedy. Written and directed by a woman, so it supposedly cannot be accused of not reflecting the lived experience of the aforementioned gender. Other diversity metrics can also easily be applied to this 1995 tour de force.
Seriously speaking, though: it's an OK, fun, romantic comedy with some message about maturing and specifically, for teenagers to not give for granted that they know everything already when in truth they've barely begun to move around in the world. An issue that my generation never had, but that's coming back in full force again, for some reason.
Do you know that old wisdom that says that a sequel is sold on its immediate predecessor? Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater wasn't as successful as Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty despite being universally more beloved, because MGS2 was a controversial entry in the series. Its own success was, in turn because it came after the first MGS. One of the greatest games of all time. A similar effect befalls Afterlife.
Coming after the lousy Ghostbusters (2016), expectations for the franchise were at the lowest possible point, so perhaps that worked a bit in its favor for its reception. That said, I don't want to undersell this movie, because it's fantastic.
Right from the get-go, the intro's presentation feels almost like a movie from the times when even blockbusters were in the hands of individual innovators with a strong vision, rather than big media, metrics-driven committees.
And it only gets better from there. I was skeptical at first, but shifting the focus onto the kids rediscovering the now almost legendary ghost busting past of their relatives is a really inspired choice, and an effective and fresh way to move forward with the franchise.
Shout outs in particular to McKenna Grace in the role of Phoebe, Egon Spengler's granddaughter. Not only is it a great character, but it's pretty much the ideal protagonist for a movie like this. I'm glad they resisted the temptation to focus more on the Stranger Things kid just to piggyback on his popularity.
The only negative I could pin on the movie is perhaps its over-reliance on nostalgia, reusing the same foes as the original movie, down to the marshmallow men.
However, as someone told me, the original Ghostbusters is Jason Reitman's childhood more than anyone's, so it makes sense that the tone would be reverent and appreciative of its roots (a complete 180 turn from the 2016 movie), and I can't fault it too much for that.
Possibly the best popcorn flick of its year.
Big flop that premiered in an era of flops, this adaptation of Stephen King's fantasy series looks drab and boring. Takes way too long to get interesting, and never really builds compelling or sympathetic characters.
Idris Elba's gunslinger is cool, and has some cool shooting choreography (easily the best part of the movie), but since the gunslinger is the prototypical stoic hero with a turbulent past, he's out of the lineup for an endearing, charismatic character, and the rest of the cast unfortunately don't pick up the slack, either.
While watching this movie admittedly made me curious about how the books would actually be, I don't feel like it did a great job as an adaptation. Apparently The Dark Tower series is considered "unfilmable", and as much as I appreciate the efforts of ambitious producers and filmmakers. Unfilmable adaptations don't have a great track record for high quality or success.
Extremely by-the-numbers star vehicle for Gal Gadot, The Rock and Ryan Reynolds. Almost reminds one of those "made by assignment" sequels of the 90s and early 00s that nobody asked for.
Feels purely commercial. The twists land as if the writers believe themselves to be way more clever than they are, and the plot seems to be written around the "cool" quips, rather than the quips being added to plot scenes.
Pretty gosh darn bad in nearly every respect. It's still competent as spectacle, and would work fine as entertainment if we didn't live in a world where there are literally thousands of better options available.
If you've been reading my movie impressions for a while, you know that I love me some good trash, too. I'm no stranger to watching low budget garbage. But this was just too much, man.
It's just bad. Never mind that the production is… well, decent, I guess? Never mind the flimsy, cardboard-like cars and the Styrofoam rocks. Ron Perlman is in it. Then again, Ron Perlman is in Monster Hunter, as well.
No. I know this movie is older than I am, but it feels specially dated. The humour is puerile and not really clever at all. It's not just the off-color racial jokes (including the classic fried chicken cliché), presenting outright racial insensitivity in a "ha-ha, just kidding" tone that's not even funny. It's all the jokes too, including the eunuch ones, and the ones about robots defecating slippery oil, which seem ridiculously out of place.
I will give it marks for stretching that budget as far as it could go, though. They did a good job compressing that runtime. The final battle is literally shown in sped-up footage, although at least they had the decency to prepare a plot explanation for showing stuff like that.
Army of the Dead is, at the time of this writing, the last film by Zack Snyder, and his second zombie movie since Dawn of the Dead in 2004 (which I haven't seen).
It's a pretty crappy and cliché film, with all the trappings of the genre. Even the somewhat novel scenario of mixing it with a Las Vegas casino heist falls flat since it doesn't add much to either heist movies or zombie infestation movies. It's just a reskin of the same tropes.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the whole thing, aside from the admittedly competent cinematography, is Snyder's penchant for the most basic bitch soundtrack choices ever. The absolute bone-headedness of playing The Cranberries' Zombie for a zombie movie is just delightful. It was one of the things that I joked about at the start of the film, so I was howling with laughter when it actually happened. That's enough to earn it that one star.
Bertolucci's epic biopic drama about the last man in the Imperial throne of China still feels like an impressive production. Being made in the 80s, it has some marks of the time, like how everyone in China speaks in accented English. They're easy to forgive, however, as the movie truly is gorgeous and epic.
It won Best Picture alongside eight more Academy awards, including Best Director, winning all of its nominations. It was the first feature film to be filmed in the Forbidden City, and first Western film to get China's cooperation in 30 years. It made Siskel & Ebert's top 10 of 1987.
The historical context it explores, the last days of the Imperial dynasty before Mao's communists took over the country, is also a really fascinating time. Focusing on emperor Pu-Yi's life since his coronation at 3 years old.
Critically, I don't know enough about the period to comment on its historical rigor, but considering it's based on Pu-Yi's autobiography, and that the Chinese government didn't put any restrictions on content, I'd bet some details were embellished. Still, for a film it works perfectly well.
Kenneth Branagh stars and directs this first entry in a series of films based around the cases of expert detective Hercule Poirot.
As a first entry, it's pretty good. Great visuals, well chosen cast, and the backing of a classic murder mystery plot to string everything together. If you're not familiar with the original stories, the twists will hit better, of course. Personally, I don't know if any details were changed from the written version to keep it fresh, but I don't think it matters much.
It's a pretty enjoyable historical thriller and there is a new part coming soon, which I will probably check out.
Even though it's one of the late Satoshi Kon's least popular works, I've known about Tokyo Godfathers for a good while. I just only got around to watching it this year.
And boy, does it deliver. Even though it's entirely animated, the narrative structure could be translated almost as-is to live action. However, being anime gives the characters an expressiveness that can only be achieved via traditional cel animation, while the gorgeously crafted, almost photorealistic backgrounds still firmly root the story in the real world.
It's also just a wholesome, heartwarming story. Not too thick on melodrama to be cloying. Pretty much an ideal Christmas movie that deserves to be seen more.
A film by Kieślowski, famous for his Three Colors trilogy, that's in the Criterion collection.
I haven't seen Three Colors or any other Kieślowski film as of this writing, so I don't have a basis for comparison, but I was quite underwhelmed by this movie after hearing about its cult status.
Without a doubt, the cinematography is gorgeous. Really beautiful shots and ambiance depicting a heightened 90s Europe, focusing on France and Poland. Although I have to admit I got fatigued of its moody lighting about 60% into the movie.
Aside from that, I found it rather bland. Not really inspiring or engaging at a plot level. All the time I got the vibe that this movie was an "Actress first" production, meaning the director built the movie around working with this actress, Irène Jacob, who also worked with the director three years later in Three Colors: Red. In that sense, it's a bit like how Terrence Malick built his weightless trilogy, but here the "symbolism" that the movie tries to pull comes off as too on the nose. I wasn't able to fully enjoy it.
By all means, check it out for yourself though. It's possible that my state of mind at the time caused me to miss a deeper point of the movie.
Neat action/SF flick about an artificially intelligent cyborg used by the USA armed forces, and the human drone pilot going on a mission with him, deep behind enemy lines (or, "outside the wire", as they explain in the opening scenario)
I wasn't expecting much more than a high concept, straightforward action movie with cyborgs and other hi-tech doodads, but it turns out that the script touches on some intriguing SF themes too, revolving around AGIs, the danger they may pose even if nominally aligned with positive human values, with some decently satisfying subterfuge for the plot.
Nevermind that it is still fairly high concept, and its background premise is not that well developed. Most of all, why is a super-secret american cyborg deployed in that particular part of the world, and why is he given so much agency and little oversight?
In any case, these background details are easy to overlook if you don't have particularly lofty expectations and just want an entertaining film with slightly more depth than the usual fare.
Found this one on Netflix after poring over the movies that are licensed in multiple regions. Doing so leaves one with a bunch of B-grade Euro films, the occasional Bollywood and other low budget, "narrow" release stuff.
Sometimes, you get to find some hidden productions like this one. The story, Not to be confused with Hans and the Silver Skates. Follows Matvey, a 19th Century Deliveroo courier who loses his job in an accident. His ability to blaze through the frozen rivers of St. Petersburg in his artisanal skates get the attention of a local gang of communist pickpockets.
After getting inducted into the gang, Matvey meets the daughter of a local noble, and they start a Romeo & Juliet-esque romance, as he continues pickpocketing unsuspecting folks in the St. Petersburg market to finance the treatment for his dad's illness.
While nothing out of the ordinary regarding plot, the 19th Century Russia aesthetic is recreated gorgeously with great production values. There are entertaining twists and spectacular set pieces. Not a bad watch.
Like many others, I used to watch and enjoy the Doraemon cartoons/anime on TV as a kid. And while it's always been there in the cultural precipitate of the mind, I haven't been paying any attention to the Doraemon franchise in a long time. So, when I watched this movie, I was surprised at how mean-spirited I found the treatment of Nobita here.
I experienced a bit of a Mandela effect where I was doubting my own memories. Did the world of Doraemon always had this mean streak? This utter contempt for the Nobita archetype? It is something from the source material that wasn't present in the anime but made it to this CG adaptation? I wasn't sure at the time, and it somewhat soured my enjoyment of what is otherwise a nice throwback to the adventures of the Cosmic Cat.
Shortly after watching Stand by Me, Doraemon we went for the sequel. Which takes off after the events of the first movie.
And boy, what a pleasant change of tone. Gone is the dehumanizing, mean streak of the original movie, replaced entirely by wholesomeness and warm feelings. The production team is similar to the staff that worked on the first movie, I wonder if the change was due to criticisms, or simply the passing of six years between this and the previous movie have crystallized into more artistic maturity.
Either way, this was a much more enjoyable watch. The plot is more wholesome, the premise more interesting, the gadgets and situations are fun. It's just a big improvement in every aspect, including visuals.
Absolute banger of a movie that had the unfortunate fate of premiering when the lock down measures of the 2020 pandemic were in full effect. I believe this caused a great deal of people to let this film pass them by, including myself. I am extremely glad to have corrected this oversight this year.
Truly, this is one of the best works in the SF action thriller space. I don't know if there ever was a plan to make sequels, and they were dashed by the reduced pandemic revenue, but this is the kind of movie that deserves a cinematic universe.
No, not really. Few movies deserve a cinematic universe, but Tenet definitely deserves a franchise trilogy or perhaps a sequel. The richness of ideas and concepts on display here, the panache with how the spy fiction and action parts are executed, the sharp, witty dialogue (when you can listen to it or have subs on) could easily provide another solid 150 minutes of Cinema like this film, at least.
The Oscar-winning movie about the hard-ass music teacher and one of the students he abuses. It was pretty good as a film. It manages to convey the excesses of professionals who become abusive once they land in a position of authority and prestige, centered specifically on the scenario of a teacher, and his interplay with a motivated student who doesn't know better and thinks that sacrifice is the road to achieve his dreams of excellence.
The movie doesn't really spell this out for you, of course, and never truly takes Fletcher to task, opting to present a more neutral depiction and leaving the responsibility of drawing conclusions to the audience. We know how well that works considering all the Gordon Gecko and Jordan Belfort admirers out there. However there's another good reason for the deliberate neutrality in depicting the events of the story, and that is the setup for the ending.
It's definitely a "Wow them in the end" move, but so well executed it deserves applause. The Oscars for sound mixing and best supporting actor are well-deserved, too.
Continuing my honored tradition of watching the Alien movies late, and out of sequence, this time it was the turn for Aliens.
I liked it, I don't want to give the impression that I didn't, but the experience was dampened by a couple of decades of cultural osmosis spoiling me of the big moments on screen before I had the chance to watch this. I also couldn't pay full attention to the first minutes of the movie. We were watching this in a dine-in theater, you see, and the pizza just arrived.
However, it's an action classic for a reason. I can't really give a whole series perspective yet, but I would be willing to bet that this is the sweet spot for the franchise. And, if you come to the movie without prior knowledge, you will enjoy it fully.
Not a movie that will make my top 10, or even top 50 any time soon, and yet I can't help but respect what it's trying to do.
More than a typical storytelling movie, it feels as if this entry in the soon-to-be Avatar pentalogy was conceived as an immersive experience, where the point is to place the viewer in this fully realized world, and things happening to characters is more or less secondary to that.
I really respect the willingness to go with that format. It's just a shame that the world That The Way of Water immerses you in is this dull, hyper-lush, impossibly paradisiacal nature planet and their equally dull blue inhabitants.
Fortunately, there are some cool scenes with the mecha the humans use that break the monotony of the nature scenes, but as sincerely awesome as the designs and animations of these vehicles are, the moments they are on screen are too few and far between which makes the spikes of excitement too scarce. In a sense, it's the opposite of the "awesome-fatigue"-inducing MCU movies, but they over corrected in the other direction.
In this one, the avatar family go to "the water zone", like a level in a videogame. And the change of setting doesn't make it any more compelling. It's pretty. It's novel for 10 minutes, but it's not interesting. That's its greatest flaw.
After hearing about how good Top Gun: Maverick was, I was curious to watch it. I have mixed impressions about it. I think a movie like this is just good in contrast with its contemporaries. I enjoyed it, but only because cinema has been so dull and repetitive for the last 8 years that a 36 years late sequel is exactly what film audiences needed.
The sequel does a good job of continuing from the original premise, after such a large time skip. Most of the characters return with the obvious exception of Kellie McGillis's character, Charlie Blackwood, who was Maverick's love interest in the first movie. Her role has been replaced by a background character played by Jennifer Connelly, which feels a bit awkward. However, the original romantic pairing had nearly no chemistry, and this retcon is at least somewhat more believable.
I'm also glad that the vibe of "high school movie with a Navy pilots skin on top" is gone. The new batch of top guns are still cocky bastards, but they feel more in line with how a professionally trained pilot may sound like. In that sense, the writing is superior it this one.
The aesthetics are also pretty good. Nothing can really replicate the 80s-ness of the original, and I don't think they intended that, but this movie looks pretty good at times.
My only gripe was with the third act. After spending more than half the movie selling us on this mission so impossible that even the top US Navy pilots only have a minuscule chance of pulling it off, it devolves into more and more absurdly over the top shenanigans behind enemy lines, as we see even more insurmountable odds get overcome by the main characters without much of a sweat.
While overall, it's a better movie than the original, it has enough of its own identity and tone that it doesn't make the first film completely obsolete.
A small movie tickets mix-up got us attending this one, which is not something I'd normally seek out on my own.
Film-wise, it's incredibly plain, even for biopic standards, but on the positive side I can say that it gave me a greater appreciation for the career and achievements of Whitney Houston, who I never followed too closely before. Of course, one has to take the depiction of events in any biopic with a grain of salt. Not sure how fictionalized the movie is vs reality, but the main drive is still valuable.
The main actress, Naomi Ackie doesn't have a strong likeness to Whitney. I presume she was cast for her voice talent instead. I haven't really done much background research on this one, to be honest.
Finally I watched this in full, and I have to say it's a pretty neat dystopic action SF flick. It's sort of refreshing to watch an unassuming aughts style action film where the runtime is reasonable, and the Mona Lisa-torching goons are unquestionably the bad guys from the evil fascistic regime, and not the heroes (looking at you, that other movie that premiered on December 2022).
As a movie from 02 the comparisons to The Matrix are inevitable, but I'd say there's enough of an unique identity here to avoid putting it into the bucket of mere ripoffs.
The story is high concept, and a bit silly. The gimmick of gun-kata action is cool, and a bit silly. It hits the sweet spot. The story never gets as silly as something like The Hunger Games, and the action never gets as silly as something like, I don't know, Ecks vs Sever.
Christian Bale was in the middle of his action role phase, and does an adequate job. The sets are a bit bland and uninspiring, which aids the budget and sort of fits with the whole oppressive regime aesthetic, but causes a bit of visual fatigue. Despite this it remains an enjoyable watch.
My first Makoto Shinkai movie. And one of his most popular. It's taken me so long to watch the work of this man.
Shinkai is notorious for making entire feature films nearly by himself, taking the role of director, producer, writer, animator and even voice actor.
As his work became more acclaimed and well-known, his staff has expanded, of course, but I still admire those early days when I head about him creating all this high quality work by himself. Now it turns out that Your Name became the third highest-grossing anime film in history as of this writing.
The story is a magical-realist, SF romance drama like the ones he seems fond of writing, and the craftsmanship is excellent. You may like the Shinkai style of hyperglossy, digital backgrounds with heavy use of vibrant colors and shading, or you may be sick of it. It was certainly a lot more striking in the early 00s, before if became so ubiquitous, but there's no denying that he has a real flair for the particular thematic and aesthetic niche he's carved.
An alright post-apoc, action-SF tape, with Vin Diesel in the lead role and Michelle Yeoh on support.
The movie follows Diesel's character, a veteran mercenary, during an escort mission of an important young woman that several factions are looking for in this dystopic setting.
According to the credits, it's based on the novel "Babylon Babies" by Maurice Dantec. I can understand the name change for the big screen, but I also suspect that the plot and subject matter have been pared down and modified considerably to fit the action movie formula (this is just a hunch, I haven't read the source material).
I assume Diesel was cast based on his work in the Riddick tetralogy (only two movies came out at the time of Babylon A.D.'s premiere). In any case, it's just alright. Not awful, but also nothing that will make you glad to have seen this over better or more entertaining options.
Easily one of the top movies of the year. While DC Films/Warner Bros haven't had much luck with building long running franchise movies, they're nailing it with standalone films. First Joker in 2019 and now this.
It seems that neither of these titles will remain standalone for long, with sequels being announced for both films, such is the nature of Hollywood.
More to the point, is how well made The Batman is. One of the most gorgeously realized Gothams ever put to the screen. The audiovisual facet is remarkable. I also appreciate that the villain is appropriately Batman-esque without being, yet again, The Joker. Having The Riddler as the main antagonist emphasizes the detective-ness aspect of Batman over mere Hollywood action stuff. They smartly focus most of the plot on the case Batman is solving. Not a lot is shown of Bruce Banner's double life because it's not the important part.
The script is also, you know, just solid writing. I was almost tempted to call it an anti-woke superhero film but that would have been a mistake. I think that, unlike something more directly anti-woke like Moon Knight, The Batman only feels like that in this historical context. In any other era, the message of the story would be instead described as "heroic". Hopeful. About becoming a decent human being. There's no need to tarnish it with pseudo-ideological terminology.
I feel like I've been had. Maybe there's something I'm missing. Maybe this movie feels more meaningful if you've watched Paddington 1. Hideo Kojima calls it "a masterpiece". It was referenced in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Sure, the movie is nice, but it's nothing special that you haven't likely seen before on a number of other feel-good movies. It's no Babe: Pig in the City, that's for sure.
Other than my particular personal disappointment, the movie is alright. It's perfectly fine. It features quite a few big name actors, including Hugh Grant and Brendan Gleeson, with what seems like a returning appearance of Peter Capaldi from the previous film, and Ben Whishaw as the voice of Paddington.
I don't know. Perhaps I should revisit this in the future, after watching the first movie, perhaps I will feel ashamed of my words & deeds after recognizing the secret brilliance of Paddington 2.
Such a severe downgrade from Knives Out. It was pretty disappointing.
While Knives Out was predictable but fair, Glass Onion relies on some of the lamest writing tricks in the book to pull off its apologue. See my comment on why satire can't really work if you still end up doing the thing you're trying to satirize.
I was honestly looking forward to the movie but between the inexplicable shortcuts in the writing, and the most bizarre virtue signaling I've seen in a long time outside of throwaway social media posts, this ended up being a dud.
I don't really want to just give it 1 star though. The movie looks good and has some entertaining, well paced moments. Also, I want to give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who wrote Brick and the best Star Wars movie to date. Perhaps a second viewing is in order. I am just not compelled to do so any time soon.
I've been trying to watch this movie for ages. More specifically, I tried ages ago to watch it in some unfavorable circumstances, and decided to save it for another day. It has been waiting on my list for years, until I finally got around to it.
I was originally drawn to it by the pretty imagery that Singh is able to conjure, which is put in service of a children's tale being told in a framing device by a convalescent man in a hospital in the 1920s.
The kid in question, adorably played by one Catinca Untaru in what's, I believe, her only film role, befriends the injured stunt double and the plot moves on from there, alternating the fantasy world of the story with the events and people of the hospital.
Watching it in 2022, the impact wasn't as big as I expected. The visuals are indeed great, but being the dressing of a (deliberately) inconsistent children's story diminishes their majesty somewhat. It was an expensive flop, making back little more than 1/10th of its budget. On the flip side, you can really feel the money spent. Particularly in one specific fast montage that must have cost millions alone.
Endearing performances by the child actress Untaru and Lee Pace before he got more famous, plus the visual spectacle make it worthwhile, though.
First time watching this tape, which seems to have been retroactively elevated to cult status, unless my historical memory is failing me.
Anyway, with the release of its well-received sequel 36 years later I decided to check it out to see what all the fuss is about, and I have to say I was surprised and underwhelmed.
The impression I got is that this is essentially a high school movie with a US Navy aviation school skin applied on top. Everyone behaves like an immature child, for what are supposedly elite military pilots. They have petty dramas that don't matter and standoffish attitudes that really make no sense in the context or setting. For all I know, this could be all by design, of course. You could say I'm missing the point, but it made the characters unlikable, and the dramatic beats feel hollow.
One interesting thing is how you can tell the difference (both acting and presence-wise) between Tom Cruise's early career and his later work, since going back so far really puts it in stark contrast.
One thing I can say in its favour is that the soundtrack deserves every bit of praise for its iconic status as people say, that's for sure.