Ralsie Reviews

Knives Out (2019)

Didn't quite live up to the hype

[7/10 · 18 August 2020]

A movie written in the vein of an Agatha Christie novel that never quite manages to fill those big shoes. Benoit Blanc may fancy himself the next great detective of the murder mystery genre, but sadly he's more Arthur Hastings than Hercule Poirot.

The solution to this mystery consists of twists you can both see coming and be surprised by, but my main issue with this movie is that not all characters are given equal focus and importance. The movie stars out by establishing that almost everyone had a motive for wanting Harlan dead and benefiting from his death, but somewhere along the way it drops this 'everyone is a suspect' mentality, to the slight detriment of the plot.

The Aeronauts (2019)

Gorgeous, incredible shots - but sadly not much beyond this

[6/10 · 18 August 2020]

I'm not entirely convinced the (admittedly) gorgeous shots of James and Amelia among the clouds in their balloon are not the best part of the entire film. Amelia's motivations for risking everything once again seem a bit shaky, and I also think the movie could have done a better job of explaining exactly how Glashier's measurements led to the science of meteorology as we know it today; it was, after all, the whole reason why he wanted to undertake the journey in the first place. Maybe I was somewhat misled by the trailer, but I seem to remember expecting the advancement (or rather creation) of meteorology as a science to play a larger than it actually did.

Ultimately, even though the two eponymous aeronauts accomplished an incredible feat and broke the then-record for highest altitude ever reached by a human being, I can't help being left with the feeling that not much has actually happened during the course of this film.

A nice, occasionally heartfelt, incredibly cinematic film that should, perhaps, have spent less time with its head in the clouds and reaching for the stars, and more time grounding its plot and characters down to earth.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Enjoyable enough, but not as good as Infinity War

[8/10 · 4 August 2019]

Some thoughts I had whole watching this:

1. Given the importance of their mission, and considering they only had one shot to get it right, wouldn't it have been better to wait a bit for Thor to get back in shape after 5 years of total inactivity? You know, just on the off chance would need the God of Thunder in all his glory? (Speaking of, I find it interesting that they didn't include Fat Thor on the poster)

2. Wouldn't it have been smarter to tell Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel about their plan to go back in time, and then wait for her to maybe tag along too? Just in case her help would prove valuable in defeating Thanos?

3. Tony being such a genius and all, who pretty much solved the time travel equation in one night, couldn't he have made some more Pym Particles so they'd have more than one chance to make the future right again?

4. Am I the only one who thought that Tony's sacrifice, while heroic and noble, was also somewhat preventable? He had the gauntlet with the stones, why didn't he just fly away with and let someone else snap their fingers, someone who was not just a regular human with no superpowers? Like Hulk, who had done it once already. Or Thor, who absorbed the energy of a star in the previous Avengers movie and lived to tell the tale. Or Captain Marvel, who also absorbed copious amounts of alien energy and was pretty fine afterwards. He had the stones and he could make his suit fly, what would Thanos have done, who was now probably afraid of him because of the potential power afforded him by the infinity stones?

5. Speaking of sacrifices, Natasha's was foreseeable from the moment it was decided she and Clint/Hawkeye would go after the Soul Stone. They all knew, or should have known from Nebula at the very least, that the Soul Stone requires a sacrifice, so shouldn't they have discussed it before? The way she and Clint fought over who gets to sacrifice themselves, they risked both of them dying and no one actually getting the stone.

6. How did past!Nebula manage to bring Thanos and Gamora from the past to the future? How did they all have enough Pym Particles? I thought they only had one particle for each of them, so where did Nebula manage to find a spare to give to Thanos and Gamora?

7. What was Pepper Potts even doing in the fight? Aside from the plot needing her there so she could witness Tony's final moments? Oh, wait.

8. How do the stones even work, anyway? You snap your fingers, you can kill half of a whole planet's population. You snap your fingers, you can also bring back all the people who had been vanished previously? How did they even know they COULD bring everyone back? How did they know they wouldn't just cut the population in half once again?

9. I'm curious, what does everyone who's been snapped think about the whole experience? Did they feel anything in those 5 years?

And many more, but for now this is it. Personally I think I liked Infinity War better, but oh well.