What'd ya last watch? (Movies)

[Quantum Surge]

Saw Wonder Woman yesterday, and I'm very impressed with how it turned out! The other installments to the DCEU aren't bad IMO (especially Man of Steel), but what I felt was that they were either overdue (MOS), needed some more action (BVSDOJ), or went overboard with character appearances (Suicide Squad), but Wonder Woman did everything that I wanted it to do, and even above and beyond! Gal Gadot was awesome, the action was great, the plot was well done, and the character development is the best that I have seen since Star-Lord's from GOTG!

A friend of mine asked me if it's the best female-led superhero movie yet. I told him that before Wonder Woman was released, I thought Supergirl was the best female-led superhero movie (and being the best movie of the 1978 Superman film series in my eyes), and how it's better than Catwoman (the one with Halle Berry who portrayed Storm from the far superior X-Men movies) and Elektra (the spin-off to the 2003 Daredevil movie with Ben Affleck who's better off as Batman), but with Wonder Woman taking the cake, Supergirl is now in second place.

Wonder Woman gets a 10 out of 10, as it does female heroes justice and recreates the character perfectly! Now I'm gonna watch the Lynda Carter series while I wait for Justice League!

[Space Cowboy]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

[4EverGreen]

I saw "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" last night; BEST "Pirates" movie EVER!!!!

Of course, having Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly, AND Sir Paul McCartney in brief cameo appearances certainly helps OUT matters, a LOT!!!!

I won't give away anything else, you'll just HAVE to see it for yourself!

[Katniss]

The LEGO Batman Movie

[Old Man Jenkins]

It Comes At Night

this honestly felt like I was watching The Walking Dead

minus the zombies

[Nosferatu!]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Spoiler

UM??? I WASN'T READY  

 

[Clappy]

The Mummy

Giving Dead Men Tell No Tales a run for its money in terms of worst movie I've seen this year.  Good lord a lot of the summer blockbusters this year are fucking terrible.

[WhoBibbles]

2 minutes ago, The Ding of Dings said:

The Mummy

Giving Dead Men Tell No Tales a run for its money in terms of worst movie I've seen this year.  Good lord a lot of the summer blockbusters this year are fucking terrible.

have you seen Wonder Woman?

[Old Man Jenkins]

The Mummy

the whole making the mummy a female thing felt so counter productive in this

[Clappy]

On 6/12/2017 at 6:18 PM, The Who said:

have you seen Wonder Woman?

That was one of the two good movies I've seen in the past two months.

[4EverGreen]

Last night, I saw "Wonder Woman." Awesome, AWESOME "Wonder Woman!" Gal Gadot was totally kick BUTT in her role! It had the perfect balance of action (and sometimes, unintentional) comedy! Chris Pine was pretty good (and likable) in his role as Steven, to! I won't give away anything to anyone who hasn't seen this movie yet, but the big bad of this movie is NOT who you would THINK it is! You WILL love this movie! Enough said, true believers!

[Old Man Jenkins]

Rough Night

[Rebel the Wolfgirl]

Saw

Oh my god, this was sooo fucked up.

I love it.

[Old Man Jenkins]

Cars 3

huge up from 2

[Clappy]

All Eyez on Me

Is it a terrible biopic?  Yes.  But it's pretty fascinating in terms of how bad this is written.  I've heard better dialogue from Lifetime biopics and that's saying something.

[Quantum Surge]

In preparation for The Last Knight, I watched both Transformers: Dark of The Moon and Age of Extinction. While both films aren't 100% perfect, they're still very well made and don't feel like huge afterthoughts, yet DOTM is the better movie than AOE.

The action in DOTM feels a bit grounded, I liked seeing how it was almost a finale of sorts, some scenes were pretty dire; it's quite an improvement to the lacking ROTF. Sentinel Prime is a pretty good antagonist, though I think people give him too much flack just because he killed Ironhide; he had to do so since he could stand in his way as the second strongest Autobot. All Sentinel wanted was to have the survival of his race, yet he did that in a less noble way by using the Decepticons as his slaves and by nearly killing Earth, something Optimus brought up to him.

AOE, on the other hand, felt a little bloated in comparison to the previous movie trilogy. Some events happens too quickly like the battles, most characters (not all) feel shoehorned into the movie and as a result have incomplete development, and the constant pandering of product placement is pretty obnoxious in comparison to the previous films (car brands, Burger King, and electronics are fine, but Bud Light, Skype, and an Oreo machine is a little out of hand), though I will admit these movies are depicted in real settings, so it'd make sense to have brands involved, and at least they're subtle in comparison to Mac & Me's use of Coca-Cola and McDonalds (now THAT'S a movie everyone should avoid). Plus, the Dinobots are wasted potential; I didn't expect them to speak, but they should have done more than be steeds for the Autobots (I say this not as a Geewunner (since I'm not a big fan of G1), but as someone that believes if you're going to hype up a character, fulfill the hype).

These two movies are where we can see a contrast regarding how the character designs look. I'm honestly torn on the post-AOE designs; I like that they convey a bit of personality for each character, especially the Autobots where Hound and Crosshairs stand out with their own quirks, yet these designs look less like they can't transform. How does Western Star Optimus's truck cab transform (Peterbilt Prime has a more traditional transformation and robot mode details like the chest windows and wheels on his hips)? How does Bumblebee's chest become the hood of the Camaro (DOTM has more recognizable car parts)? How can Crosshairs make his trenchcoat out of his alt mode? Why do Galvatron, Stinger, and all those Decepticons have to split apart into Lego pieces when they change their modes? Plus, I always preferred the more alien designs of the original trilogy as it makes them look more like they're out of this world than look more like toyish or man made designs of the previous Transformers cartoons. The more human designs are kind of like Hawkeye from The Avengers movies, in that they both were less apparent the first time we see them both, and the next time we see them in both Age of Extinction and Age of Ultron make us feel the studios think we want more human TF designs and Hawkeye screentime when we really don't.

Overall, I give DOTM an 8/10 and AOE a 5/10. Dark of the Moon feels more like a committed movie that signals the end of an era, especially at the end of the movie when Optimus and the rest of the heroes he fought with stand triumphantly in front of a damaged but now saved Chicago. Age of Extinction shows how bad fourth movies can be, and while it's better than other fourth installments such as Superman IV, Batman & Robin, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it's still inferior compared to the original Transformers trilogy. Not saying that AOE is in any way the worst thing ever as many people exaggeratedly made it out to be (I'm referring to cynical critics that think these movies are bad no matter what, hypocrites that think these are bad for being full of explosions yet praise ANY action movie for the same reason, and Geewhiners that cry about how Michael Bay """ruined""" their childhood just because the movies aren't based on a cartoon that's pedestrian at best and mediocre at worst), and as much as I enjoy looking back at the nostalgic excitement of waiting for a new Transformers movie in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the franchise, I have to admit that Age of Extinction lacks a lot of the charm, excitement, and creativity of the original Transformers trilogy (plus, I think AOE kind of copied Man of Steel way more than I thought it did). Onto watching The Last Knight.

[Clappy]

Transformers: The Last Knight

I know I've said this before, but so far this shaping up to be one of the worst summer blockbuster years of all time.  And it's absolutely pointless sequels like this right here that exemplify that remark.  Nothing will ever top Revenge of the Fallen in terms of the worst film this series has produced, but this was the one that has next to no reason to exist.  At least this one makes me question what the hell is this franchise's timeline.  Because apparently we are suppose to believe Transformers go way back to King Arthur days, the Civil War, the moon landing, etc.  And at least that history lesson of the movie is stupidly amusing because the rest of it is just an absolute rehash of pretty much everything this movie series has done before with zero to no new or interesting ideas.  Incoherent mess of a movie.

[Quantum Surge]

Got back from a Chicago premiere of Transformers: The Last Knight, and it felt interesting to see a circle of sorts become complete. When I first saw Transformers in 2007, I got hooked into the franchise and got a lot of toys, played the game and read the books; my friends and cousins always enjoyed playing with the action figures too. Now in 2017, I'm pretty pumped to watch the film that celebrates the 10th anniversary of the live action film series. Most of my friends asked me if it was good, and I'm gonna say it's a fun theater experience. It's not the best movie of the franchise and it's not a condender for best movie of 2017 I will admit, but I've had more fun with this movie than I had with Lego Batman and Guardians 2, and I'll say it's better than Age of Extinction!

The cast got me worried when I heard that it'll be a mix of new characters, characters from the previous movie, and characters from the original trilogy. I felt happy to see Lennox and even Simmons, but felt kind of empty when Topspin was without his Wrecker buddies and there was no sign of Sideswipe or Dino. The Dinibots didn't add anymore development in all honesty; in fact, they added less to the movie. The Decepticons were pretty cool to have all talk and not be like Lego/Kre-O models, but they weren't as iconic as the original Decepticon line up, and bar Megatron, Barricade, Onslaught, and Berserker, some felt pretty goofy like Mohawk. Plus, most of them got taken down easily. The Knights of Iacon were pretty cool to see kick some tailpipe, and so were the Infernocons, but I doubt I'll ever buy their toys and have them be on my shelves next to more iconic characters like Jazz, Ironhide, or Starscream. Quintessa was pretty cool to see, and it's neat to see her as a nod to the Quintessons without having her be a direct copy of them (FYI, I don't like references to G1 because it takes any creativity from an new universe of Transformers mythos away). The humans tend to get a lot of slack for being on screen more than the titular robots or how they act annoying, but in their defense, it's a live action movie (if there were no human actors, it'd negate the purpose of it being live action), and they sometimes act a bit nuts because the world they live in doesn't give them enough time to sit down and breath in the action; plus, I feel it'd make more sense for Cade to develop a need to give care to Transformers when they're in danger than say Tony Stark recruiting Peter Parker in a battle that could get him killed.(*cough* *cough* child soldiers *cough*)

The action was pretty sweet, some scenes tend to happen a little too quickly but it wasn't like a "okay done move on" scenario. While some action didn't make sense in AOE (a car punching a man is kind of odd), but this was a bit more grounded like the original trilogy, and it made sense for the final battle to escalate much more as the Autobots got more damage from the several battles they got in. Some stuff didn't make much sense in the trailers, but if you pay attention in the movie, then some details would align a bit more than you'd think they would.

When I first saw reviews of the movie, I was a bit worried about how the movie would play, so I had to go blind until I sat down with my popcorn and soda, and I was pleasantly surprised! Sure, it's not the best this franchise offers, but it's still a pretty fun action flick; the audience actually laughed at the jokes, even the kids were pretty entertained (some were wanting both Optimus and Bumblebee to "not win" in their battle)! I'll give this movie a 6 out of 10, and I'll be the first to say this: those that bash the Transformers movies gotta open their eyes and see their hypocrisy, whether they're basement dwelling Geewuners that don't accept change, Michael Bay haters that herd together like sheep and make themselves think forming bandwagons against the man are fun, cynical adults that think occassionally watching action movies would kill your brain cells, or those that say these films are bad for having too much action or humor yet praise any other superhero movie for the same reason.

[Quantum Surge]

Additionally, I also watched Cars 3 with one of my younger cousins. I won't go into much detail, but I will say that this movie made up for the mistakes of Cars 2. It's got a bit of a Rocky IV influence, with McQueen being side swiped by modern cars and his need to train more often. It's also neat to have the cast of Cars return after not seeing them theatrically since 2011.

The first teaser trailer might make it seem really dark, but it's more of a warning towards what part of the film would be like while the other trailers were more optimistic and motivating in comparison.

This movie isn't the next Toy Story 3 (just like the Cars trilogy won't be as good as the Toy Story trilogy), but this movie felt like a nice sequel to help round out the Cars franchise. In fact, I actually like this movie a bit more than Finding Dory! Not that Finding Dory was bad, it's just belated for a sequel to a then 13 year old movie in comparison to Cars 3 being made 6 years after Cars 2 (Toy Story 3 and Monsters University felt more like they were made to coincide with the days where the fans of the previous movies went to college). There's nothing wrong with making sequels years after the original movie, but I prefer to have a sequel that's made over a decade later to not have its events take place just a year later. I felt Finding Dory should have been made around 2005, and it has me worried for Incredibles 2. Still, Cars 3 felt more like a triumph than I thought it was going to be, and I give it a 6.5 out of 10!

[Clappy]

2 hours ago, Quantum Surge said:

I'll give this movie a 6 out of 10, and I'll be the first to say this: those that bash the Transformers movies gotta open their eyes and see their hypocrisy, whether they're basement dwelling Geewuners that don't accept change, Michael Bay haters that herd together like sheep and make themselves think forming bandwagons against the man are fun, cynical adults that think occassionally watching action movies would kill your brain cells, or those that say these films are bad for having too much action or humor yet praise any other superhero movie for the same reason.

Hi, I would like to defend my stance above here for all of the so called "cynical adults" here.  I respect your stance on the Transformers movies as I unapologetically like the first one and think the third one is pretty alright.

My problem with the franchise is that it is lazily written and creatively empty.  They keep putting out the same movie plot-wise every time with little variety.  Hell I'll even give Michael Bay credit.  He is aware that is the same damn movie every time but it's still making him money...and I respect that aspect for him at least.  But to me, I can only rewatch the same movie structure so many times before wanting something more and that's coming from someone in myself who absolutely loves dumb action popcorn flicks.  And five movies in, there is literally nothing new this franchise can bring to the table.  

You can call it hypocrisy, but I just want them to do something new with these movies instead of replicating the same formula time and time again.