What movie did you just watch, and how was it? (expect some spoilers but try not to post any!)

Forums › Off topic › What movie did you just watch, and how was it? (expect some spoilers but try not to post any!)

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#3384756 16-Jun-2025 14:51

nzkc:

A Working Man - 5/10

Typical formulaic Jason Statham movie. Exactly what you expect it to be. Has a reasonable cast, though mostly just bit parts (almost cameos) which is a bit of a waste to be honest.

Agreed, not as entertaining as The Beekeeper

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#3384792 16-Jun-2025 16:27

In preparation for 28 Years Later we watched....

28 Days Later: 7/10 - It was still decent 20 years later.

28 Months Later: 1/20 - We didn't even make it to 28 minutes :) The start was ok, but after that it was just impossible. I know it's not real, but at least try to make what would be real, be real, if you know what I mean.

Dead Man's Shoes: 8/10. Old school, English movie, clearly made to a budget. Chilling subject, well acted, but I doubt the video quality and style will be to everyone's taste. It was way too slow for our 17yo but my wife and I loved it.

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#3384988 16-Jun-2025 22:58

Warfare [Prime Video]. Wow im not sure what to say after enduring this film, it is one of the most realistic war film i have seen since Private Ryans opening scene . i was almost glad when it finished and i am pretty sure that some iraq veteran's who watch this are going to have major flashbacks . 8/10

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#3385008 17-Jun-2025 08:37

Deep Cover on Prime Video

Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Nick Mohammed, Sean Bean, Paddy Considine and a cast of cameos and additional supporting cast that did their jobs admirably.

A Dark comedy, set in London.

BDH is playing a struggling improv actress/comedian who does part-time lessons and workshops.
OB is a method actor struggling to get work, who rocks up to the improv classes.
NM is an IT helpdesk employee, who stumbles upon the improv classes while looking to change up his life a bit.

Click to see spoiler(s)

SB plays a cop who hires them to do a sting on a local shop selling bootleg cigarettes for a small amount of cash, using their improv skills.
it all goes downhill from there, when they run afoul of drug runners, mobsters, murderers, crooked cops and everything in between.

Overall, I found it really enjoyable and the cast assembled to make this film certainly helped with that.

8/10 from me.

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#3385179 18-Jun-2025 09:54

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning 2/10

I've seen and enjoyed all of the previous MI films. The first is an under-appreciated classic which hews much more closely to the original TV show than the later films. But I've enjoyed something about every single film that followed. Even when things began to get a bit silly, I could appreciate the whole film.

But this movie feels like a hot steaming turd. I knew it was a long film before I sat down, but I wasn't prepared for how pointless the whole thing was. A long runtime is excusable when you have a decent story to tell. But this fails on two counts - firstly this film (standing alone) is a massively bloated waste of time, and secondly (taken as the second part of a two-parter) this film extends the entire story to a mind-numbing 5.5 HOURS! It's putting itself in Lord of the Rings category, but only has enough material for a B-grade direct to DVD special. Having now watched the conclusion to this cut-rate Odyssey, it makes me wonder what was the whole point of the previous film's nearly three hour runtime - it seems to be little more than an excrutiatingly-long setup for a massive disappointment.

I'll get to the action soon, but let's talk characters first. As others have noted, Mr Cruise now seems to have completely petrified his face so his ability to emote (which was once passable) is now virtually extinct. His star power as an actor has all-but faded - he's now just a vehicle for stunts. But that's okay, because there's a decent cast surrounding him - Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Angela Bassett, not to mention another return for Henry Czerny - reminding us of where this all began. But then they are all wasted. You'd think in almost 180 mins they could spend some time with those characters and develop the story they inhabit. But they don't. It's all tokenistic scenes with nothing of value added. Outside of long-standing characters like Benji, Luther and Kitteridge I can't easily recall any of the other character names. Oh wait, yes I can. But I have to put that in the spoiler section for the dumbest of dumb reasons...

Click to see spoiler(s)

One of the faceless characters that I couldn't be bothered paying attention to (he may have been in the previous film, or maybe he just popped up in this film like an elevated extra) reveals that his name is not actually "Bragg" but "Phelps. Jim Phelps." Cue shock! Amazement! Jim Phelps isn't actually dead, he's been reincarnated in a younger body! Maybe he's actually the Doctor! Nope, he's Jim Phelps' son. Sigh. Very. Long. Sigh. It was such a pointlessly clumsy way of shoehorning in yet another callback to the original film. Not content with the original retcon in 1996 where Jim Phelps - that stalwart of the TV show - was turned into the villain because he was grumpy with the government for not needing spies so much in the new world order - they decided to add another retcon where it's implied that Phelps Jr believed that his father was framed by Ethan and consequently he was on some kind of mission to avenge his besmirched father. It's such an awkward sideplot that doesn't really go anywhere - until the end of the film when Ethan and the younger Phelps share an uncomfortable reconciliation. My eye-rolls at this point could have fuelled a space rocket.

Okay, let's talk action. There are a couple of very ambitious set pieces. I'm old enough to appreciate action done "the old fashioned way" with practical effects. And from a technical perspective - not to mention the training required to pull off these stunts - they are good. But they are not worth the $12 that Event cinemas charged me for this misery of a film. Moreover, the stunts feel completely hollow. I need to duck under the spolier curtain once more...

Click to see spoiler(s)

The underwater scene where Ethan has to retrieve the computer module from the submarine commits the sin of setting up all the things that make this mission "impossible" (roll credits), only to then show that none of it matters because Ethan is apparently a superhuman god who can override the laws of physics. The divers are explaining about the risks of deep sea diving - pressure, nitrogen, the bends, etc etc. I'm no expert in any of this, of course, but I understand as well as anyone that ascending from the kind of depths we're talking about here - without a suit, oxygen/gas or some kind of controlled ascent - isn't something you can overcome with a positive mental attitude or "the right stuff." If you don't do it right - you die. But not Ethan. He gets a bit shaky, he gets pulled from the water (miraculously!) and then has a nice nap in a cosy inflatable bubble with a warm woman to snuggle up against. And apparently that is all you need to recover from what is likely to be a fatally-traumatic experience. For my money, it's up there with the Fast and Furious franchise shooting a car into space and then fixing cracks in the windscreen with duct tape...

Then there's the airplane dogfight scene at the end. I'm going to just skip over the cartoon villain laughing maniacally throughout the chase (what even is his motivation at this point?) and focus on the absence of stakes here. If Ethan fails, and the Entity somehow gets a hold of all the nukes and starts obliterating the planet, we're all dead. Sure, okay. But by this point I don't even care. Everything has felt so soulless and bereft of any humour or excitement. It really just feels like an anxiety trip, but not in any kind of good way. Alright, I'll suspend disbelief once again that Ethan can hold onto a plane wing speeding through the air by the tips of his incredibly strong fingers (I coped when he did the same off a mountain in MI:2), but after a while you just check out and wonder why you even care.

Finally, for the spoilers - no-one dies. I'm not trying to be callous here, but Benji was shot in the gut, had a collapsing lung and was at death's door for quite a while as he guided the others through all the things they needed to do to stop the Entity from getting into the Doomsday vault. And then at the end he's there, smiling wryly at Ethan across the courtyard. Okay, so we don't even care about emotional stakes anymore? At least in Top Gun: Maverick there was a genuine payoff when it seemed like Maverick (and then Rooster) might bite the dust - and then didn't. Here, we're basically just moving on quickly to the next pointless nod to the wasted cast of characters.

There is so much bloat here I can't even see if there is a decent film buried beneath it. I was already annoyed by the apparently topical "AI goes rogue!" plotline, but to make it as long and as pointless as this just makes it all the worse. And to do this to a franchise that did so much so well, it feels like a betrayal. I might write an angry letter to Mr Cruise.

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#3385195 18-Jun-2025 10:19

I can't agree about your characterisation of Cruise an an Actor, he certainly doesn't have the variety of expression of say a John Lithgow, but I have absolutely no problem with understanding the emotion he is trying to convey. I think he's not an overly smiley guy at the best of times, and his roles do tend to be formulaic.

I agree the story was too long, but I enjoyed some of the cameos even if I thought some sections were quite protracted.

I struggled with the 'solution' as someone reasonably technical, and it kinda ruined the end for me, but overall I kinda mostly enjoyed it.

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#3385211 18-Jun-2025 11:34

Clown in a Cornfield - for it being so corny and predictable, 7/10 :)

Story is nothing new as such, acting is what you'd expect, but it was just a good atypical teenage slasher :) So sit down with a bucket of popcorn and drop the brain out :)

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#3385273 18-Jun-2025 13:00

Lizard1977:

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning 2/10

How do you see a movie for $12 these days ?!?

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#3385284 18-Jun-2025 13:48

elpenguino:

Lizard1977:

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning 2/10

How do you see a movie for $12 these days ?!?

Simple:

Sign up for Cinebuzz rewards with Event Cinemas.
Go to an Event Cinema in a city with two other much better cinema complexes, and take advantage of low-ball pricing that disguises how shabby the cinema has become now that they have to compete with newer and better equipped cinemas.
Profit!

In all seriousness, we went to Silky Otter first - tickets would only have been $17.25ea - but they had sold out for that session so instead of comfortable reclining seats we slummed it at Event Cinemas.

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#3385294 18-Jun-2025 14:25

elpenguino:

Lizard1977:

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning 2/10

How do you see a movie for $12 these days ?!?

Hoyts card. Quite often get $1 tickets via promos etc.

XPD / Gavin

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#3385550 19-Jun-2025 15:03

vexxxboy:

Warfare [Prime Video]. Wow im not sure what to say after enduring this film, it is one of the most realistic war film i have seen since Private Ryans opening scene . i was almost glad when it finished and i am pretty sure that some iraq veteran's who watch this are going to have major flashbacks . 8/10

Endure is most apt !

Like Blackhawk Down without the flash.

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#3385551 19-Jun-2025 15:06

Lizard1977:

elpenguino:

Lizard1977:

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning 2/10

How do you see a movie for $12 these days ?!?

Simple:

Sign up for Cinebuzz rewards with Event Cinemas.
Go to an Event Cinema in a city with two other much better cinema complexes, and take advantage of low-ball pricing that disguises how shabby the cinema has become now that they have to compete with newer and better equipped cinemas.
Profit!

In all seriousness, we went to Silky Otter first - tickets would only have been $17.25ea - but they had sold out for that session so instead of comfortable reclining seats we slummed it at Event Cinemas.

Alas in Wellington Event is the best theatre and prices accordingly. My wife and I enjoyed the movie and the time passed quickly.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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#3386257 23-Jun-2025 08:48

Lizard1977:

In all seriousness, we went to Silky Otter first - tickets would only have been $17.25ea - but they had sold out for that session so instead of comfortable reclining seats we slummed it at Event Cinemas.

We do love our local Slippery Beaver cinema. It's hard going to a normal cinema once you've had the Slippery Beaver experience.

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#3386284 23-Jun-2025 10:13

Had a few days off and have seen a few movies as a result:

Civil War (Neon)

Gripping. Realistic. Harrowing.
I really wasn't sure what to expect from this movie but I really enjoyed it.
I loved that we never found out why they were at war, who "they" were exactly, or what the ultimate outcome was, other than an ending befitting the tone of the movie.

It had sad, shocking and poignant moments, but overall, the focus being on the press photographers and war correspondents and their dedication to the craft made this what it was.

Not for the faint-hearted, but a great movie nonetheless. 10/10 from me.

Greedy People (Prime video)

Starring Himesh Patel, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Lily James, Tim Blake Nelson and Uzo Aduba

Set in a small wealthy South Carolina resort community, Will (Patel) starts his first day with the local police force by being buddied-up with a local cop - Terry (Levitt).
Will's wife (James) is heavily pregnant and setting up their new home.
A wee bit of mayhem ensues and this dark comedy/dramedy gets going.

It's a little slow, but has an amusing and somewhat surprising film at times, which has a "film festival" vibe...perhaps a low budget, with quite big names attached is what gives that impression?

I really enjoyed it and it had a couple of minor twists and turns that were somewhat predictable, but still not too obvious.

8/10

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#3386363 23-Jun-2025 11:09

elpenguino:

Lizard1977:

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning 2/10

How do you see a movie for $12 these days ?!?

Can also get $12.50 tickets at Hoyts via Uber One

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