What film did you watch last night?

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: You can't fault Luc Besson for his imagination and the sheer visual impact of the film (which is hugely impressive), but he again falls over on poorly written characters, clichéd story, and clunky, juvenile dialogue. Cara Devil-eyebrows puts in a decent performance, where Dane DeHaan is just bland and has little charisma. The likes of Clive Owen and Rhianna are simply miscast. The love story/interest is just pointless and adolescent, and only there so Delevingne can make one of Besson's usual "love conquers all" speeches. In fact, both main leads are probably too young looking to be taken seriously, and once again makes it seem the film is aimed at children rather than adults.

This is maybe the sort of film that only Luc Besson could make, but its failings as well as its successes are down to Besson's limitations, and it really needed a second, more adept writer to pass over Besson's script and polish it where it so badly needs to be lifted above clunky and clichéd.
 
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Black Butterfly 7/10 Antonio Banderas, clever psychological thriller good investment of 90mins.

Re: Luc Besson - would like to see his original 1998 taxi again - but on infrequently.
not sure what has gone wrong with him, insufficient editorial/directing control over his recent high budget films
 
drunkenmaster said:
Well, it's not realistic and is very bad cinema where as most of the best films I can think of have people who react more normally. There are so many points where they aren't directly under any pressure and yet do the worst thing possible without a moments discussion or thought. One of the only things they thought about for more than 5 seconds, they ended up making the obviously wrong choice on. It's just unbelievably stupid.

Either way, when humans are put under pressure, they react on more base instincts, unknown planet with crazy storm and exactly no need to rush at all...... humans shy away from danger, they are fearful and the scared stupid human option would be to hang around and see what happens. Pretty much every base human scared and stupid instinct is to pretty much do the opposite of everything I've seen in the film so far.
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On Prometheus my nephew's argued that it's a clever film about Darwinism. Which may well have been the intent with the giant spaceship rolling towards two highly intelligent individuals, one eventually running to the side the other running pointless in it's path to their death.

For me I suspect Prometheus (not bothered with covenant yet) wont actually "survive" the deserved mauling for awful and unbelievable characterisation, it's not likely to be seen as seminal, will effectively fail selection as inspiration from future artists so evolution may yet be useful here. :)
 
jpaul said:
Black Butterfly 7/10 Antonio Banderas, clever psychological thriller good investment of 90mins.

Re: Luc Besson - would like to see his original 1998 taxi again - but on infrequently.
not sure what has gone wrong with him, insufficient editorial/directing control over his recent high budget films
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Damn, I really didn't know he was involved in Taxi, the original is a genuinely fantastic little film. Everyone is good in it, it's written well and directed so well(not Besson). Taxi 2-4, Taxi Brooklyn and the American remake of the first Taxi film are all dire. I mean there are moments in Taxi 2-4 that are good but it's far more slapstick and stupid. The funny silly moments in the original are quirky but the latter films are all 'quirk' and no substance which also makes the quirky bits less stand out, unique and funny.

Besson is down as writing the 'scenario' for most of them except Taxi 2. So I'm unclear on if he wrote the screenplay or just came up with a rough idea and someone else wrote it.

I think with most things, film, tv, games, people kinda get stuck trying to one up themselves and usually go down that path till their films/tv/games are just plain bad. I haven't seen Valerian but if Besson is like most things, he doubled down on the weird and wacky and real story went to the way side. 5th Element is borderline, it's got a half decent main story and everything else is built on that. But I could see that as he tries to add more wacky/quirky stuff he loses the story and overall it comes out like crap.

For the most part Besson seems to be on this path, he started off making films with effectively no wackiness and pure story, Big Blue and Leon are just phenomenal films, truly phenomenal, but along the way he crazier. Taxi and 5th element were the midpoints, more wacky, but still good story and acting in there, then he went Taxi 2 onwards, Transporter, less serious, less focused on acting, less focused on story and more focused on getting from one crazy fight/chase/whatever scene to the next. Then Lucy, just awful, a list of scenes with some crap writing to link from one scene he wanted to do to the next.

I know literally nothing about Valerian, I don't read up on films as I find almost all advertising generally ruins films now, but I hear the odd thing like who is in it. A film with Rhianna and Cara de la Cantact, immediately terrible signs. Everything Besson has made since what 98, has been getting worse and worse, a shame but, Besson either lost his mojo trying to do it bigger and better every time(in his case, more wacky, bigger action scenes), or he went full hollywood and just sold out, lets his name be attached to things for the pay day and doesn't do much any more, probably a bit of both.
 
Steampunk said:
People get trained for that, or else you wouldn't send them, because otherwise they would all die stupidly. If you would act more intelligently than the film's characters, then you know they've just been made stupid for effect and because the film makers have been lazy to make the story roll along the way they want it.
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Trained soldiers freeze under fire, do not shoot to kill and forget protocol. Young doctors can attest to smart-stupid after considerable training. Explorers got lost and died horribly. Professionals panicking over presentations and people forgetting their name at interviews are good examples too. Adrenalin, lack of sleep and distance from formal control structures also play a part. How people handle unfamiliar situations is also partially hardwired, with training moulding and building on top of that framework. Just because I can think of a clever way around a problem watching a film or common sense, does not authentically represent my ability, or that of the character, to solve it in the film's conditions, even after similar training. Whilst of course the recent trend to this sort of authenticity and killing people off in rapid succession may not actually amount to good stories or dramatic tension. Once you've seen it done a couple of times, it loses its charm.

Where the recent Alien material falls through to a greater extent than writing is scale and grit, really. Going from claustrophobic horror to space opera dimensions was never going to be easy, as you need to pad the gaps out with something. The grit kind of went out of the window with scale and CGI injection. The symbolism of life, motherhood and survival is perfunctory in the plan to sell this under the franchise. Hence people running around, screaming and dying - the film. It's almost meta.
 
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) - 6/10

An ambitious and visually spectacular sci-fi adventure let down by a weak plot and miscast leads.

The CGI is fantastic with a wide range of colourful species and locales and always something interesting to look at.

However, the plot isn’t great as is ultimately unoriginal, and the family-friendly setting and tone makes it feel immature.

The lead actors aren’t strong enough to carry their scenes, there is a complete lack of chemistry between them, and apart from a great performance by Rhianna, none of the supporting cast leave a lasting impression.

It's an entertaining journey with enough action and visuals going on, but very rarely does it become exciting or involving.
 
StevieP said:
Watched The Circle the other night - what a pointless and poorly thought out film!!!

I usually like Tom Hanks but his character was horribly written and I think you'll struggle to find a worse piece of casting than Emma Watson for the main character (except maybe John Boyega's that is!)

On to definitely avoid in my humble opinion - 3/10 (being generous!)
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Agreed, what an awful film. I liked the idea in the book, but the film executed it awfully.
 
@stewski @Vonhelmet

So I thought I'd invite you in to the finale of my Godfather criticisms having just finished part 3 :p

Perhaps it's because it's by far the most forgettable of the three but I actually enjoyed the first half far more than part 2 this time around, because I didn't have a scooby where it was going! As soon as we get to Sicily though it's boring as ass and, in respect of what will happen at the Opera, predictable. The 'Pope' plot line isn't very engaging.

A 5/10 from me. In retrospect, part 2 is far more of merit but I've seen it so many times I wasn't intrigued as to where it was going.

It also hasn't helped that I watched Goodfellas yesterday. Oh my word, what a film!!! I love the editing and the way it feels like a big montage. Great characters and scenes. A particularly strong soundtrack. The only minor criticism being Henry's weird forced laugh! Outstanding.

9.5/10
 
Nitefly said:
@stewski @Vonhelmet

So I thought I'd invite you in to the finale of my Godfather criticisms having just finished part 3 :p

Perhaps it's because it's by far the most forgettable of the three but I actually enjoyed the first half far more than part 2 this time around, because I didn't have a scooby where it was going! As soon as we get to Sicily though it's boring as ass and, in respect of what will happen at the Opera, predictable. The 'Pope' plot line isn't very engaging.

A 5/10 from me. In retrospect, part 2 is far more of merit but I've seen it so many times I wasn't intrigued as to where it was going.

It also hasn't helped that I watched Goodfellas yesterday. Oh my word, what a film!!! I love the editing and the way it feels like a big montage. Great characters and scenes. A particularly strong soundtrack. The only minor criticism being Henry's weird forced laugh! Outstanding.

9.5/10
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At least you're not 4 points out of whack with your goodfellas rating!

As I already said, I hate pride and prejudice, but I wont rate it the same as fifty shades of grey, mostly because despite disliking both I can imagine why the majority would find such equivalence absurd and I'm not seeking attention :)
 
stewski said:
At least you're not 4 points out of whack with your goodfellas rating!

As I already said, I hate pride and prejudice, but I wont rate it the same as fifty shades of grey, mostly because despite disliking both I can imagine why the majority would find such equivalence absurd and I'm not seeking attention :)
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Stand by your own experience! Your rating is your own!
 
I watched Philomena. Written by, starring and produced by Steve Coogan. Very affecting story about a woman - Philomena - who fell pregnant out of wedlock 50 years ago and had to fall on the mercy of the nuns who subsequently sold her baby into adoption. Former spin doctor Martin Sixsmith helps her go looking for her son in pursuit of writing a story for a paper which ultimately became a book. Featuring one laugh out loud line from Judi Dench and a serious mic drop from Coogan.

Good stuff.
 
I've heard a lot of good things over the last couple of years about the films coming out of Iran, so finally got round to watching one, choosing Under the Shadow

Set in Tehran in the 1980s at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, a mother is trying to cope with life after the revolution and during the war, when her husband gets conscripted and then her house and daughter are haunted by an evil djinn

Back to basics old school techniques used in this quite odd mix of horror suspense set against a real war torn setting and it works really well, enjoyed this a lot

7.8 / 10
 
Vonhelmet said:
Stand by your own experience! Your rating is your own!
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Indeed it is, if you genuinely believe fifty shades of grey to be a better written book than pride and prejudice or the happening to be a film on a par with the godfather part 2, feel free to say so.
Still If you are attention seeking by posting a fringe position in an internet forum, expect people to point out that that is what is going on.
 
stewski said:
Indeed it is, if you genuinely believe fifty shades of grey to be a better written book than pride and prejudice or the happening to be a film on a par with the godfather part 2, feel free to say so.
Still If you are attention seeking by posting a fringe position in an internet forum, expect people to point out that that is what is going on.
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I don't think it's necessarily attention seeking to say you think the godfather films are boring.
 
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