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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#2669437 7-Mar-2021 13:11

FineWine:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) - Netflix - 7/10. Ignore IMDb rating 5/10

Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.

This is a surprising entertaining spoof on Jane Austin's novel and I thought; "here we go, I'll only watch 10 minutes" but no. Good script, if just a tiny bit predictable, well acted, great period costumes and settings with good cgi. It is; drama, romance, high camp, comedy & lots of fun without being silly.

PS: there is violence and gore - it is a zombie movie after all 😀

Double feature with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

😄

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SJB

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#2669448 7-Mar-2021 13:47

ilovemusic:

FineWine:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) - Netflix - 7/10. Ignore IMDb rating 5/10

Five sisters in 19th century England must cope with the pressures to marry while protecting themselves from a growing population of zombies.

This is a surprising entertaining spoof on Jane Austin's novel and I thought; "here we go, I'll only watch 10 minutes" but no. Good script, if just a tiny bit predictable, well acted, great period costumes and settings with good cgi. It is; drama, romance, high camp, comedy & lots of fun without being silly.

PS: there is violence and gore - it is a zombie movie after all 😀

Double feature with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

😄

I thought the Abraham Lincoln one was better.

Lizard1977

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#2670110 8-Mar-2021 13:56

Ava - 5/10 (Netflix)

Bored on Saturday night and not wanting to flick through endless options on Netflix, I made the uncharacteristically quick decision to watch this 2020 film starring Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Colin Farrell and Geena Davis.

Ava (Jessica Chastain) is an alcoholic/drug addict Army veteran who disappeared 8 years ago only to resurface as an assassin. That's pretty much the synopsis that Netflix offers. Except that, it's not really. The movie adopts one of those "stuff already happened which we'll get to as the film progresses", but it comes out very disjointed and clumsily. It's also mostly unremarkable - no great revelations or insights into the human condition here. The action is decidedly average - fast edits to hide the cuts in the action sequences - and the bits in between aren't particularly capitvating.

I gave it 5/10 which is probably generous. I guess it's because I did actually watch to the end, so it must have been entertaining enough to see it through, but then I am a completist - films have to be pretty dire before I give up. Malkovich is always watchable, but he looks like he's just cashing a cheque here and drifting along. Haven't seen Geena Davis in anything for a while, so it was fun to see her pop up in this (though I do wonder what made her get out of bed for it).

The way it ends hints at a possible sequel, but I can't see that happening honestly. And I'm okay with that.

Geektastic

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#2670155 8-Mar-2021 15:32

The Little Things

8/10

Pretty good actually - also very well shot, for a change. It has been ages since I watched a film where the cinematography was that good. You could tell it was shot by pros with good cameras and not semi-pros mucking about with mirrorless cameras in movie mode like a lot of Netflix stuff is.

Well directed, well acted, great cast and quite gripping. Recommended.

Paul1977

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#2671605 11-Mar-2021 11:25

Coming 2 America. I have fond memories of the original, but this entirely unnecessary cash-grab of a sequel was just utter garbage. 2/10

ilovemusic

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#2671620 11-Mar-2021 12:01

SJB:

I thought the Abraham Lincoln one was better.

Both written by Seth Graham-Smith, I rate them equal guilty pleasures.

😄

Lizard1977

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#2674757 15-Mar-2021 10:37

Watched two movies this weekend...

The Long Kiss Goodnight - 7/10 (Netflix)

From 1996, starring Geena Davis and Samuel L Jackson. I was flicking through the options last weekend and must have got the synopsis of this film and Ava (see review above) mixed up. Turns out Ava is not about a woman who wakes up 8 years later to discover she was an assassin - that's the synopsis for The Long Kiss Goodnight. And it's much better than Ava.

Geena Davis does well as Samantha Caine, suffering from retrograde focal amnesia, meaning she can't remember her life before eight years ago. She has a new life as a suburban mother of her eight year old daughter, but is still trying to piece her past together. Samuel L Jackson is a low-rent private detective she has resorted to hiring to help find out who she used to be. Turns out, she was a government assassin, adn after a car accident involving a deer she starts to remember her past skills.

It was much more enjoyable than Ava, but has a very 90s feel to it. I realised that another 90s era show I have been watching (Spy Game) trades on similar riffs - the end of the Cold War has all but eliminated the need for spies, leading to their retirement or "downsizing." It could be interesting to do a history of the impact of the ending of the Cold War on popular media, and how portrayals of spies and assassins changed over that time. Or maybe that's just the history/spy geek in me coming out...

Chaos Walking - 2/10 (Event Cinemas)

I read the Patrick Ness series ages ago - a trilogy of YA books starting with The Knife of Never Letting Go. It was a fantastic book/series, and when I heard that the film adaptation was in development I was wary but hopeful. Despite many people referring to it as unfilmable, I tried to be optimistic - after all, there are some very clever screenwriters out there these days... Even when I heard about re-shoots following test screenings, I remained hopeful - maybe it's just unwatchable to people who haven't read the book?

No - it's a great big steaming turd. And not in a good way, either. I've watched and enjoyed plenty of films that other's have hated (it's my "thing") but this was just completely awful. It was clearly a script written by someone who never read the book. [Checks IMDB for screenwriting credit - What? Patrick Ness?]

For those who know neither the book nor the film, here's a quick summary of the main plot. Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) is the last "boy" in a colony of men on a planet called New Earth. They arrived on the planet some unspecified time ago as colonists from Earth. Every male creature is afflicted by a disease called "Noise" which makes their every thought visible and audible to anyone else around them. There are no women either. They were killed, apparently, during a war with the indigenous creatures called the Spackle. Todd's life is upended when he hears a "gap" in the Noise, which turns out to be a girl called Viola (Daisy Ridley). Viola is part of the second wave of colonists, and was the only survivor of the scout party that crashed on the planet. When the rest of their village - Prentisstown, named for their Mayor Prentiss - learns about Viola, Todd is forced to go on the run with Viola to keep her safe, sparking a chase as they try to reach Haven where she hopes to use a radio transmitter to warn her ship about the situation on the planet. The book is excellent, with a great arc for Todd and Viola, supported by great secondary characters.

The film is one of the worst adaptations of a book I've ever seen. The film takes extraordinary liberties with the storyline - changing relationships and characters for no discernable reason, ditching entire plot points and locations, and downsizing other characters significantly. The key messages of the book are completely overturned and ignored, which is the most baffling thing of all - I could understand if the screenwriters weren't involved with the book, but I'm flabbergasted that Patrick Ness still has a screenwriting credit here. I can only imagine that he was the original screenwriter, and that the studio replaced him during filming with someone else to make it simpler for audiences. But the stupid thing is that while the film may make marginally more sense for an uninitiated audience, it is so far removed from the source material, it's pointless to try and even associate the two.

As a fan of the books, I'm actually quite angry about this adaptation. It is an admittedly complex story to try and adapt for the screen - how do you get across the fact that the noisy thoughts of many individuals are intruding on the events being portrayed on screen, without making it impossible to follow? They give it a good try, but it feels like they focussed on that and completely forgot to tell Todd's story aside from the fact that he's on the run, or make Viola into a character beyond a macguffin, or build any kind of suspense or intensity to the chase. They also didn't have the guts to keep the original book's cliffhanger ending - meaning they know it isn't going to justify a sequel. Why bother, if that's the case?

So disappointing.

davidcole

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#2674863 15-Mar-2021 13:55

Been making my way through the Fast and Furious francise....it's good to see they never actually gained any sense of reality in 8 or 90 movies. Who else could drive a car off a cliff intentially and just hang on the to rollbars and expect to survive but Vin Diesel. Or just a car between 3 buildings in Abu Dabai dropping a number of floors easy time without actually wearing a seatbelt.

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#2682206 28-Mar-2021 22:07

Godzilla vs Kong

Pretty decent action movie. The scale and fight scenes are very good. I just wish they had spent some of the $160M it took to make this, on getting someone to write a better story for it. It wasn't totally terrible, but it wouldn't have taken much to have made it considerably better. I am not talking Shankshank levels of story, but, well, something. Next to no character development, massive previously unindicated plot spikes.. Just annoys me a bit.

Overall 7/10 Turn your brain off prior to entry.

TLD

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#2682214 28-Mar-2021 22:29

We avoided Line of Duty for years thinking it was a cop soap opera like Z Cars (hmmm I wonder how many Geekzone peeps even remember Z Cars). It turns out it is sensationally good. Real edge of the seat stuff and likely to get you into binge watching. We are up to series three, and there is an ongoing back story linking it all together. Totally recommend it.

We also watched the Ozzi series Mystery Road, and found that surprisingly good. It has a half decent twist in the tale ending that I didn't see coming.

Note: When I found the Wikipedia link to Mystery Road I see there are actually two series, and I have only seen the first one.

Trevor Dennis
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#2682218 28-Mar-2021 22:51

@TLD I think you might have the wrong thread. This is the movie thread, not TV series.

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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#2685101 31-Mar-2021 22:37

Dredd 2012 (Karl Urban) 6.9/10 - I did not like this at the movies at all. On the small screen I really enjoyed it, almost like a different movie.

-> Neon, still without subtitles. Getting a lot less use from Neon because of this.

MadEngineer

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#2685117 1-Apr-2021 00:32

Jack Reacher. Wasn’t expecting much, exceeded expectations.

Seaspiracy. Not sure if I can eat fish again. Definite watch if you’re still bitter about losing plastic supermarket bags. (You might be right)

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Fred99

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#2685664 2-Apr-2021 09:34

MadEngineer:

Seaspiracy. Not sure if I can eat fish again. Definite watch if you’re still bitter about losing plastic supermarket bags. (You might be right)

I thought Seaspiracy was an incredibly depressing indictment on humanity.
IMO there were definitely sensationalised aspects to it / claims made that weren't factual, but even if only half of it is true and of that it's only half as bad as exposed, we're still in deep sh*t.

So I read an article in NYT that I thought might make me feel better:

Pescatarians take note: Farmed fish are eating more veggies and less wild fish, according to new research. That’s good news for nature.

But then this footnote:

Editors’ Note: March 25, 2021

After this article was published, The New York Times learned that the lead author of the paper, Rosamond Naylor, serves as a member of the Forest Protection Advisory panel at Cargill Corp., which sells salmon feed. Her role was not disclosed in the ethics declaration that accompanied the paper in Nature, the scientific journal in which it was published. Dr. Naylor has since confirmed her role on the Cargill panel and said she has not taken any monetary compensation from the company. She said she had donated an honorarium that was offered to the Cargill Foundation.

Stupid careless omission - or confirmation that deliberate industry "bluewashing" exposed by Seaspiracy invalidates the "research" being presented?