fletcherw928 Reviews

The Lego Movie (2014)

"You don't have to be the bad guy"

[10/10 · 24 May 2024]

It's been 10 years now since this amazing movie was released. I still think it's a CGI animated gem which takes inspiration from stop motion animation in a lot of aspects. It had a fun story and was very exciting with never a dull moment. Chris Pratt was still not very well known in 2014 with Guardians of the Galaxy being his first major break only a few months later that year, but he is definitely a very good voice actor who is very charismatic and likeable as the protagonist Emmet in this movie.

The story isn't exactly original since it follows the messiah complex which is eerily similar to The One in the original Matrix or Paul Atreides in which the more recent Dune adaptations. With him being "The Special" and how everything that ever happened to him or what he will become to save the world was already fated from the very beginning can be a bit tiresome because it is an overused way to tell a story.

However this movie does have an existential twist to it at the end of the movie, which I really like. And the best part about the movie is how Emmet redeems the villain instead of simply defeating him, telling Lord Businness that he doesn't have to be the villain if he truly want to, who is actually played very well by Will Farrell. I like this subversion and it's what a true hero would do. The whole point of the movie is the concept of freedom and creativity over rigidity and fate in playing with your LEGO, and letting your kids do whatever they want with it instead of having to follow instructions.

It's is just a very entertaining family film with a very interesting and fresh style of 3D animation which really works well with the LEGO aesthetic. The comedy also lands very well in this movie as well with many great jokes in it with some really awesome timing and pacing. There are a bunch of fun and interesting side characters in this too with wild personalities. Scarlett Johansson is really good as Wildstyle and Will Arnett is great as Batman. Morgan Freeman is in it too and he's great as well.

Overall a classic family animated film that your kids should definitely see, even though the plot isn't exactly original. But it has smart writing, funny jokes, great pacing and very fun looking animation. It's definitely a 2010s classic and has aged pretty well.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

A Triumph for the Australian Film Industry!

[10/10 · 23 May 2024]

I was really impressed with Furiosa. Being someone who missed Fury Road when it was in theatres, I definitely didn't want to miss my chance to see this so I watched it today in Vmax and I was really happy with what I saw.

It much more story driven than Fury Road which was the most common complaint thrown at that movie in particular, though to give Fury Road some merit in that aspect, the story that was in it was still a very emotionally potent one that really nailed the desolation of the hellish location that the film is set in.

This movie though has a lot more of that this time around and is much more character driven with Chris Hemsworth playing an evil character for the first time in his career which is very original for him to do that since audiences are so used to seeing him as Thor in the MCU or just overall a really nice Aussie guy. Not in this movie. He is quite the savage scumbag in Furiosa with an incredibly seedy and scummy voice which probably hurt Chris's poor voice box.

The action scenes are really good in this too, but it strangely and a bit sadly looks less practical than Fury Road's action where in this movie it's more obvious to notice the CGI elements which are mostly explosions. There is nothing like the massive tanker explosion or cars flipping and smashing into each other or a dive bomber war boy blowing up a car which was all real. It does feel more reliant on CGI this time around which is kind of a let down. However the action is still very incredible looking with still some great stunt work including hang gliders and parachutes this time instead of dive bombers and swinging pole-cats from the last movie. The action sequences are very long as well which will definitely satisfy people who liked Fury Road and Mad Max 2

This story at its core though, is a revenge tale. Revenge in film and television has really grown stale to me in the last decade because it has been done to death and it always ends the same way. That wanting revenge is a waste of time and it's better to forgive. You can only show revenge in film so many times before people get tired of it and want to see something more fresh and original, since humans have been wrestling with primal feelings of revenge, vengeance and retribution for eons to the point that where we have almost completely evolved past it at this point to where it's not even necessary anymore. Though it still makes sense in this world and when Furiosa finally lays her wrath on Dementus, no matter what you might imagine what she does to her, it will never be as bad as you imagine until you finally see it. It's a fate worse than Hell.

Anyway, this was a great Australian movie that will work wonders for the country's industry, helping it expand and grow and reach more people, because people love making movies in Australia and the creativity here is magnificent.

Please see this movie and support Australian filmmaking. I hope I don't have to wait too long for the next Mad Max film.

Leviathan Sea World Gold Coast Australia (2022 TV Special)

Incredible Australian Roller Coaster that took way too long to open.

[10/10 · 20 May 2024]

I was very excited for this ride when it was announced in 2019. Construction started on it in September 2020 and I was very happy to see it go up and was looking forward to its planned opening 6 months later in June 2021.

However things quickly started to show that this theme park project was going to require much more effort than expected. Since it is a wooden coaster with tons more support beams holding it up than a steel coaster, as well as being a very complex design for a wooden coaster as well. Anyway, I ended up waiting 2 years for this thing to open. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely!

This is an amazing ride and is the very best Australia has to offer when it comes to theme park experiences. I'm happy that Sea World took their time perfecting this ride and not allowing it to be rushed. Because this ride really is something special and I'll explain why.

This roller coaster is themed incredibly well, right down to the start of the queue line. You will be placed in the centre of the rollercoaster lining up, as trains curve around the main circular queue in several sharply banked turns that surround you. You will then be put into a group of 24 and enter a tunnel themed to an Atlantis cave with glowing ancient markings and water droplet sound effects. After climbing some stairs, you enter the coaster's station which is an absolute reveal.

There are screens on the ceiling and the walls of the station where the Leviathan himself will invite you to his lair, as well as taunting you if you really have what it takes to take on his ride. After boarding the train, you are taken on a 1,000 meter long wooden roller coaster ride with a 30 meter drop, sharp banked turns, forcefull airtime hills, a double down swerving drop, and ruthless pacing. This is advertised as a family ride but it's really not. This is the most intense roller coaster currently in Australia with DC Rivals not being far behind although its larger.

With the ride finished, it will tell you that you have in fact survived and have proven your worth. You can also choose to ride in a backwards facing seat for the price of $30. Yikes.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Southern Raiders (2008) Season 3, Episode 16

This episode has haunted me.

[9/10 · 18 May 2024]

I have never been able to stop thinking about this episode in particular and what had happened in it. It's been a while since i have last saw it but it always comes up in my memory time and time again, and sometimes relentlessly so.

So basically, this is the episode where things come full circle for Katara and Zuko and they track down the man who killed Katara's mother. It is obvious that Katara is completley comsumed by revenge at this point and will stop at nothing to unleash her wrath on the man who is at the root cause of all her pain.

However, the most amazing aspect of this episode is not Katara and Zuko. It is what Aang has to say. Revenge is a most unwise emotion and will not solve or cure Katata's pain and unhappines, but forgivness. So yes, Aang is literally Jesus Christ in this episode, but Katara just cannot see past her own self-centred revenge, that forgivness is the cure to her suffering. Revenge is at the core of human instinct, since it benefited our ancestors that exacting pain and suffering on the ones that caused pain and suffering to us, is the only solution. But it's not. It is not a solution at all, it is destructive.

The wisdom shown in this episode is almost completley unheard of in modern society and the message that forgivness cures all and is stonger than vengance is absolutley something worth spreading. The fact that Katara spares Yon Rha from her wrath and fury is an amazingly refreshing and origional thing to show in a TV Show, since revenge is such an easier emotion to lean into. In a way it's actually kind of lazy. Aswell as being destructive and overall horrible. The fact that the show writers decided that Katara's mother killer was able to live his life is just incredible.

Katara still didn't forgive the man, so nothing's perfect i guess. Maybe she forgave him when she got older. I hope that's in the 2025 movie.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Absolutely phenomenal filmmaking. The talent of Denis Villeneuve and Grieg Fraser are in the cosmos

[10/10 · 6 March 2024]

Wow. Just absolutely wow. This is without a doubt the greatest film so far this decade and might just be the greatest second part of a book to film adaptation since The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It might even be better.

Everything about this movie was achieved perfectly. The quality of the cinematography was cosmic and Grieg Fraser needs to be recognised as the powerhouse of talent he is, especially when he works with Villeneuve because the grandiose of the photography of the wide shots in this film are the most vast and mind blowing I have ever seen in a movie IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!

The musical score from Hans Zimmer was also incredible. It is very different from the first film. There is a lot less chanting and body shaking drums and a lot more focus on more somber sounding woodwind instruments like the Oboe. The main theme/motif of this film is this Oboe melody that is repeated about 4 times in the film and once again for the credits. It has been playing in my head for the past week and I fear that it may never leave. The music was hauntingly beautiful.

The world building is improved to perfection in this movie and the lore is even deeper. There is more going on in the story in Part 2 and is much more deeply rooted in religious themes, symbolism and prophecy much more than science-fiction. That is my only one real gripe with the movie, it's under the Sci-Fi genre but it doesn't really fit it that well since it feels far more like a religious fable, though that's not really an official genre, isn't it.

Without giving much else away, I just want to tell you to go see it in any theatre that you can. Don't wait too late! Do it now! This is a once in a lifetime cinematic experience!

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024)

Really solid follow-up sequel.

[8/10 · 9 February 2024]

I really enjoyed The Dry when it came out a few years back. I thought it was a good adaptation of the book (which I still have not read) and thought it had some solid drama in it aswell. Eric Bana played a decent role as the protagonist of that film, and the film had a diverse Australian cast with good characters of different cultures, genders and age differences.

So when I heard that a sequel was coming out, I went to the nearest local Australian cinema to support the national film industry, in which for this film is Screen Australia and Village Roadshow.

I was surprised that this film held up quite well, despite it being very visually different to the first. While the first film was in a remote, dry, dusty (and frankly quite boring looking) rural town in Inland Australia. This film takes place in a wet subtropical Victorian forest which what looks like was after a period of some very heavy rain. The location is constantly wet, damp looking and the creeks and waterfalls are gushing. I have to applaud the cast and crew to committing to this location in this type of weather because it looked very difficult to shoot.

There are scenes where characters get swept away in a river current, standing on the top of a waterfall and traversing over some very slippery looking terrain which was not the case for the first movie. Also the story was reasonbly interesting and at times took some good mental energy to follow, which I appreciate. I do like how the story did take some good twists and turns and wasn't dumbed down and spoon-fed like in shows like the modern version of Neighbours and Home and Away. Overall, a very solid sequel throughout.

2024 is proving to be a very interesting and hopeful year for the Australian Film and Television industry with the Netflix adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe becoming a hit, Bluey becoming more popular that it has ever been before, this movie and Furiosa releasing only a couple of months from now. It's a pretty exceptional time to be in the Aussie film industry and being a fan of Australian filmmaking.

The Whale (2022)

Very weird and depressing little sob-story

[1/10 · 9 January 2024]

My oh my did I not like this movie. It's a shame really because I did have high hopes for it, it did look like a different style and change of pace for Brendan Fraser. But he just plays a depressed obese man who feels sorry for himself, his past, his sexuality and how he wasted it all away, and that's about it for his character.

His daughter is far worse though. The one thing about her that upset me more than anything is that she claims to be an atheist, only to make a social media threat to his had that he should be damned to hell for all eternity, which is a complete paradox of her character. No atheist on the planet wants anyone to go to hell or makes threat of it on anybody. Seeing people be scared of it or being scared of hell themselves is actually the main driving reason why people become atheists themselves. Her whole character just pissed me off to no end.

There is nothing positive about this film. It's an excruciating journey through sorrow, regret and a fat man shoving food in his gob for 80 horrible minutes. I despised it and I was so relentlessly relieved when it was finally over. It just sucks.

Asteroid City (2023)

I am Jeff Goldblum's complete wasted potential.

[4/10 · 10 September 2023]

I really wanted to like this film, I really did. But there was absolutely nothing in it that I found interesting or entertaining. First of all, it is a nice looking movie for what it is. There is some good cinematography and some quirky 50s production design. I liked that machine that shook the martini and peeled the orange. Unfortunately, I think that was the most interesting thing in the entire movie.

The main sin of this movie is that it is just so intolerably boring. Asteroid City as a location is as empty and soul sucking as a fictional town can possibly get and didn't even come close to holding the title of being a "city". I think even Goron City from Ocarina of Time had a better chance of being put under that label, even though it had fewer inhabitants than in this film. At least that place had a touch of exploration and a personality, even though that place was more like a cavern or small village than any actual city I've ever seen. But anyway I digress.

I guess Wes Anderson wanted to try something very minimalistic and see if it worked as some sort of experiment, and I admire that, but this film just didn't work for me, and I'll explain a bit further why. When it comes to Wes' signature style of directing with making almost every shot in his movie perfectly centered and symmetrical with lots of wide angle lens shots in every film he has ever done, they can all come across as feeling like the same film over and over again with a different filter over the top. It's also a shame that the many characters in this film were not given much to do or material to work with. This film just wasn't fun at all.

However the biggest sin this movie committed was having Jeff Goldblum it and have him do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. When I saw that he was going to be in this movie, I was pretty excited to see what shenanigans he would get up to this time as the alien in this movie. The most disappointing thing however is that when the alien does show up, he doesn't say a word. I was expecting some of that immediately recognizable Goldblum personality and comedy coming from this character, but nope. He is completely silent and is a completely empty piece of cardboard that stares at the audience, goes back into his spaceship and flies away. TWICE.

Later on in the film, you see Jeff Goldblum one last time, but in the flesh. But he only says one line and it is the most uninteresting line in the movie and is not in the least but funny. This is when I realized this movie was a failure and fell flat on its face.

I do think that Wes Anderson needs to rethink his style and approach to filmmaking going forward because his current formula that he has been doing for a decade now I am becoming super thin and honestly a little annoying. He has made some hits in the past, but this aint one of them. This in my opinion is by far his weakest film.

Talk to Me (I) (2022)

I Feel Sick.

[9/10 · 27 July 2023]

Danny and Michael Philippou have truly made something special here and hope it gets the attention it deserves. Known by their YouTube channel "RackaRacka" They were able to pull off a great low budget horror film on the budget of $4.5 million Australian dollars that feels at least 20 million.

The cinematography and direction were all incredible with some expertly crafted scenes and a very dark and foreboding story that does have some originality to it despite being another supernatural, hell-demon, "other side" story. The scenes with the hand were legitimately scary and tense with a very unpredictable nature to it, the rest of the story was surprisingly unpredictable and unconventional, that also captures the modern Australian generation very well.

The acting in this movie was off the charts and really delivered every emotion these characters were feeling at any given time and their reaction to exactly what was happening, internally and externally. The movie does depict Australian Gen Zérs pretty well, me being one of them. They did use it to their advantage in this movie, with RackaRacka being Gen Z as well, they were able to nail their modern Australian characters to perfection.

The movie really did have an impactful effect on me, with me starting to feel a little ill by the end of the movie and me processing what all had just happened that I won't spoil in this review. Overall, the tone didn't just feel like shallow horror, but a legitimate one that actually has a foothold in Australian society that did feel somewhat believable in certain areas. The tension was soaring and ever present, the music was great too, there weren't many jump scares in this but the scary scenes themselves were clever and hard hitting.

The movie didn't just fly by either, it did feel like it did run a bit longer than just 90 minutes and I did appreciate how it held my attention the way it did. I did feel genuine dread from it, that I haven't felt from a horror movie like this in a VERY long time. If not ever. The only problem I had with it is that I wished the story was a bit more revelatory and not so secretive in a lot of areas.

Go see it if you're a fan of Horror and Modern Australian Cinema. I hope this brings nothing but success for The Philippou Brothers and the film has already gotten recognition by several popular horror directors including Jordan Peele.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

An Impossible Masterpiece

[10/10 · 10 July 2023]

I cannon describe with words how happy I was when I left the theater today to see that Tom Cruise has done it again and better than ever before with Dead Reckoning Part 1! This film has everything I crave from a modern action blockbuster and does it better than everything else, yes even Fury Road, this has a better story.

The stunts by Cruise in this movie were absolutley jaw dropping and insane, with an incredible motorbike stunt that is unparalleled by anything else in the industry, with a fight scene on top of a train that I'm still unsure is 100 percent practical but would be utterly mind blown if it was over 95. Every film right from the first one in 1996 has always upped the ante every single time without failing, which is already a challenging task, but after finishing this, I am extremely optimistic that not even the sky is the limit when it comes to making films like this and that the fronter is truly infinite.

So yes, the action is incredible, but so is the story. It is very interesting and complex while not being convoluted enough that it's difficult to follow or will leave you feeling confused like the 1996 film. The MacGuffin in particular used in this movie is actually a very clever one for being an almost unavoidable cliche, but this one is actually designed really well. A two piece key shaped like the Christian Cross that perfectly fit into one another. I thought the story that they spun around this was really clever and the film has many emotionally justified moments throughout where it constantly feels convincing and never breaks realism.

Every actor in this movie had their time to shine and all play great performances off one another. Every character except the villain had a believable motivation, I guess one complaint I had was that the villain was actually pretty simple when you think about it, but I can see why the movie kept him shrouded in mystery on what his true motivations were, which will probably be revealed in the next movie to be nothing more than pure evil and wanting to destroy society.

Overall, I liked the performance from every actor, even the villain who I'm sure will have a much more diabolical part to play in Part 2 which I'm interested to see. This was just a very professional production from top to bottom with exceptional stuntwork and choreography. Tom Cruise is a beast of an actor with ruthless passion to make the best possible action experience for his audience and I couldn't be any happier to consume it in all it's glory!

Tim (1979)

A wonderful little film about the tragedy of Xenophobia.

[10/10 · 9 July 2023]

What a wonderful little film this was. I never knew this film even existed until a week ago when my aunt gave it to me. This was one of Mel Gibson's first roles which came out the same year of the original Mad Max which was a major stepping stone for the modern Australian film industry. This film must be almost completely forgotten about and I felt like I was the only person watching it in the world when I put it on a few nights ago.

Xenophobia is definitely a topic that is brought up many times in this movie when Tim who is a young adult with a mental disability but a huge heart, gets into a relationship with his 50 year old caretaker called Mary. As soon as he starts to fall in love with her, people around him immediately start to judge him and Mary for partaking in something that is ''sick'' and ''weird''. Several characters start to assume that there has to be something wrong and corrupt with this relationship and try to see darkness where there is none. One of the saddest parts of the movie is that the most xenophobic character of all is Tim's sister, Dawnie, who just cant understand why Tim is in this relationship, so she fears it.

Overall, this film had a lot more to say than what i thought it would at first glance, and I'm glad I saw it. I wish more movies today talked about xenophobia, because the issue is much worse and more widespread than ever and it's extremely sad. Definitely see this film if you can.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

I feel dead inside.

[1/10 · 30 June 2023]

Was this movie written by a bunch of brain dead zombies?!!!!! I honestly feel bad for Harrison Ford because he looked like he seriously wanted to kick some ass in this movie but you can see he was obviously shackles by some truly awful scriptwriting.

He was not the Indiana Jones that I know and love. He suffered from some extremley bad "Sorry Old Man Syndrome" where he didn't want to do any real adventuring and was never excited to do so. The villain is as one dimensional as you can possibly get. He was a Nazi who simply wanted to use the dial to go back in time and restart The Third Reich. That was his entire character. No complexity. No layers. Nothing interesting about him. He was just the psychopath placed in Indy's way for him to stop and that was it.

I will admit, the movie did look pretty nice and was shot much better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and did have a pretty good chase sequence with a horse through the New York subway which was pretty entertaining. But there was nothing redeemable about it beyond its technicals. It wasn't funny, it wasn't interesting and it wasn't even the tiniest bit memorable or entertaining. I felt zero human emotion throughout and that is the cardinal sin of all cinema.

Also I had a sneaking suspicion that this movie was copying off the plot of the video game Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception with the Dial of Destiny looking eerily similar to the same contraption Nathan Drake has in that game that operates in a very simply way when it comes to that game's story. Every Uncharted game is a 10/10 in my mind. I forget much about that game, but I remember the story behind that object to be vastly more interesting than whatever lame few sentences were written behind The Dial in this movie. It toys with fate and destiny over free will of choice only the tiniest amount but is so scant that it leaves no lasting impression or anything interesting to think about or mull over. The Dial itself is pretty neatly designed but there is nothing under the surface of it at all when it comes to interesting thought or philosophy.

Also one thing about this movie that was so incredibly strange to me is that THERE. WAS. ZERO. HYPE. LEADING. UP. TO. IT.

I find that to be just insane. No one was excited for this, and that upsets me. Indiana Jones is supposed to be an icon, the first thing you think of when you think of adventure in movies. But Indy in this movie was just written to be tired, bored, sorry and lazy with none of the charisma and wit of the original three and even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which was still entertaining.

This was a waste of time and I am very sad to say that.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

The Curse of the Crystal Skull

[5/10 · 2 April 2023]

This is such a funny movie to review, especially now. With The Dial of Destiny coming out in only a few months, I am anticipating a new Indiana Jones movie for the first time of my life, since I was only 11 when this movie came out and had no anticipation for it or even knew who Indiana Jones was in that point in my life. I didn't watch Raiders until 2009 and didn't watch the rest of the origional trilogy until 2011. Kingdom of The Crystal Skull was my introduction to Indiana Jones and my first impression of the franchise. Funnily enough, I remember enjoying this movie when I first saw it in theaters. I wasn't used to seeing PG-13 rated adventure movies at that point in my life (M rated in Australia) this was really my very first. I remember thinking some of the sets looked pretty great and it having some good action in it. The ants scene was particulary memorable to me, with me literally feeling pins and needles in my skin watching that scene and just how unsettilingly realistic the ants looked and how nasty it was. Overall, my child mind liked it, and that was really that.

Then I started seeing the reviews of this film. I didn't really notice the intense dislike people had for this movie until a couple of years later, where I saw more and more YouTube reviews of many people seemingly trashing it for no real reason. Then I started hearing the reasons, and listening to them, and then I couldn't see this movie the same way again.

It's hard to tell if I actually dislike it now after all these years. I do find certain aspects of the movie to be pretty enjoyable. The best part for me was definitley the scene about just over a third of the way through the movie where Shia LeBouf as Mutt goes on his first temple dive with Indy in search of the treasure of The Crystal Skull. I always liked this scene and thought the production design in this scene was the best in the entire movie. It was definitley the most practical and detailed set, with lots of props, objects and set dressing. Skeletons and cobwebs everywhere and a cool litte tilting floor as the crawl through claustrophobic tunnels. The practical set work is so good in this scene and is such a shame that it is almost completley thrown away in the rest of the movie with oversaturated 2000s CGI that actually looks quite bad.

The biggest thing wrong with this movie visually is just how unnaturally overexposed everything looks. It's as if the DOP and Camera Operator had no idea what ''White Balance'' and ''5200K'' meant from film school. Everything looks so bleached and washed out and it looks pretty uncomfortable to the eyes at certain points. The was the car chase scene through the jungle looks pretty bad too and just feels too slow, clunky and artificial with not enough practical energy. The shorter chase scene through the town earlier in the movie was much better with a pretty good stunt of Indiana bursting through a car window onto the side of a motorbike which looks like it was done by Harrison Ford himself, though I'm not completley sure on that one.

And then there's the Nuketown scene. It is obvious just how shockingly unjustified it is, and is way to stupid and corny, even for Indiana Jones standards. The previous movies still had a sense of camp at times and sometimes did lean into cheesy territory, but the difference with those films is that they still maintained a self-aware sense humor that was taken with a grain of salt. Speilberg always knew what he was doing was corny or far fetched, but the characters always had self-aware remarks about it. Though it's glarlingly obvious that Speilberg had changed a lot since the 1980s, since that self-awarness of existing corny adventure movie tropes that the origional trilogy nailed so well is completley absent from this movie. Anyway, the Nuke Fridge scene is stupid and is infamous for being stupid. It is silly, insanley unrealistic and completley unjustified.

The good thing though is that the character of Indiana Jones remains pretty much unchanged from the previous movies despite his older age. Harrison Ford always puts a great amount of effort into his performances and this is no exception. He still has the same wit, charm, humor and charisma. He in fact so good, that he actually outshines all the other mostly lacklustre performances. Shia LeBouf is decent as Mutt but wasn't exactly memorable to me. However Cate Blanchett puts on a pretty poor performance as Irina Spalko. She was just a dumb and uninteresting villan to me with a poor stereotypical portayal of an evil Soviet leader and a pretty bad Russian accent aswell. She was a dumb forgettable antagonist and that's really it.

I did like the look of The Crystal Skull though and was interested of it's origin in the story. But that pretty much gets flushed down the toilet when the aliens are revealed to be the most sterotypical 1950s B-Movie looking aliens in existence in a movie that is not a B-Movie, but a multi million budget Speilberg-Lucas production, that ironically does feel like a low budget B-Movie at times, and not in a good way. And their spaceship is just a massive CGI 1950s stereotypical flying saucer too... (sigh)

This is definitely not the worst movie ever, but it really makes you think that this production was cursed or something. Certain poor choices that unfortunately tarnish parts of the movie and ruin it's reputation, and just has you scratching your head of just why some of these poor decisions were greenlit and went ahead. The overexposure often looks awful, the story starts out strong and promising and then kindof just fissles out by the end. Oh and also, Tarzan Shia LeBouf. Funnily this scene never really bothered me that much, but it does still stand out as odd.

Anyway an adventure movie that is as equally entertaining at times aswell as being bafflingly stupid at others and just overall disappointing overall. It truly is a cinematic mystery of just why it turned out this way, but that's just The Curse of The Crystal Skull. Hopefully Dial of Destiny won't suffer the same curse, but time will tell. I do have a good feeling they know exactly what they're doing this time and that it's in good hands.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

The best fourth installment to any film franchise. Hell, it's just one of the best action sequels ever!

[10/10 · 26 March 2023]

John Wick is a funny franchise, and its origin is pretty funny too. People underestimated the first John Wick movie when it released in 2014. It just looked like another throwaway action movie with Keanu Reeves in it, but Keanu Reeves has an appeal all on his own. He has been criticized for his level of acting skill for as long he has been in the industry for since the late 80s, but he certainly isn't a terrible actor. Sure, his emotional range might not be the best of the best, but he still manages to give fine performances none the less. I thought he was pretty damn good in Speed as a passionate cop who just wanted to help people, and his anxiety outburst in The Matrix when he learns the truth was memorable as well. Anyway, people underestimated John Wick 1 and because of that, it seemed to exceed everyone's expectations as a well-directed action/revenge flick and also showcased a deeper side of Keanu's acting ability.

Anyway, after the success of the first film, it was obvious that a sequel would follow, and that's exactly what happened, and then a couple of years later there was a third one and suddenly it became a trilogy! The two following movies changed tone a little bit and became more avant-garde than the original, but these two movies improved on the action and took it to new levels.

Now that the fourth chapter is out, it once again brings the quality of action to new heights and now brings it closer to perfection than it ever has before. The action in this film is insanely well shot and directed and is extremely aesthetically pleasing and satisfying. The several action sequences are very lengthy too, with a couple going for over 10 minutes. The last time I saw an action sequence go for this long was in Mad Max: Fury Road almost 8 years ago, and it's pretty obvious that they took a lot of research from that film and how it was crafted. But here's a hot take, I think John Wick 4 is even better! Because unlike Fury Road, it has a story and characters that are on the same level as the action!

Every character in this movie is extremely rootable and has their own weaknesses and limitations, there is a blind character in this movie who is an extremely good fighter... but he's still blind and uses sound emitting sensors that he sticks to the walls, so he knows exactly where his enemies are in space, and I thought that was a very nice touch. John Wick himself is also very skilled at hand-to-hand fighting and shooting, but he also isn't a perfect fighting god and will be outsmarted sometimes. The Yakuza leader who ran the hotel in Osaka was great too, and his character was also built in the same way where he had his own strengths and weaknesses.

The characters are also very compelling and is clearly shown what each one is struggling with and also showing just how broken as a man Wick is at this point. A certain character changes sides but I won't spoil who. Also, the villain was also pretty good as well. He didn't really have that much of an understandable motivation; he was just ruthless and nasty and that's all he really needed to be. You don't need to explain an antagonist all the time, sometimes they can just be evil for the sake of being evil and that's fine and can also work as being entertaining. He was an intimidating presence, unlike Agent Smith in Matrix Resurrections which was a joke compared to Hugo Weaving.

Anyway, I was completely blown away by just how good the action was in this and just how long it went on for without becoming boring. It might just be one of my new all-time Action Favorites and highly recommend that you go see this on the big screen with the best sound. It really was a masterpiece of action with a great story to back it up!

Oxygen (2021)

Hauntingly Nihlistic

[7/10 · 18 March 2023]

Oxygen is a movie that emotionally affected me in a way that few movies can these days. It was a movie that had surprisingly more emotional impact then what it expected it to have. It was almost constantly unsettling to watch and at times upsetting. The constant hopeful attempts of Liz trying to get in contact with someone, if anyone to be able to help her are almost always completely ripped away or interfered with by an emotionless computer who just wants to give her more sedatives.

The whole notion of her not knowing where she is or even who she is plays into a much more sinister story that plays into the ethics of genetics and all the messed up things that people could do with it if we allow it. The production design of the pod was also really unsettling and unpleasant, with occasional crying and screaming when Liz despairs and a weird looking sensor light attached to her neck with a sickly yellow hue coming from it. An ominous looking rectangular light above her feet at the back that also flashes red when something goes wrong. A twisted an fast moving device with a needle at the end of it that tries to stab her.

One the main twist of her whereabouts and origin are revealed, it leaves you thinking ''How could humans possibly do this'' and began to unnerve me of how plausible it might seem in the future and how something like this should never be allowed to happen.

Overall a desolate, nihlistic, isolating and overall depressing film that will probably make you feel sad and possibly even sick by the time it is over. The music was very desolate and depressive too.

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

It's Dull.

[4/10 · 17 March 2023]

The Banshees of Inisherin is a film I found to be so beautifully boring. The cinematography was shot so well, the direction was fine too. I liked how many of the shots were able to show the small details in the beauty of the island off the Irish coast. Too bad the rest of the film is so incredibly uninteresting.

So Inisherin is not actually a real place. Just a fictional town on a small fictional island off the coast of Ireland. Sort of like Isle of Man but smaller and much less on it. It follows the story of Padraic played by Colin Firth who is trying to reconnect with his old friend Colm who is played by Brendan Gleeson. Colm is growing ever so distant from him after it is revealed that "he just doesn't like him no more" and the first half of the movie is Padraic finding out just why he has chose to cut him off like this.

He says that "He's dull" as the main reason and that he wants to live in soltitude without anymore human distractions leading him away from his aspirations, as he is now getting old. "Dull" has to be the perfect word to describe this movie, because there is hardly anything about it that is remotely interesting or entertaining apart from some beautiful looking shots of the desolate landscape. Sure there are a couple of other minor supporting characters and some drama that goes on between Padraic and his wife played by Kerry Condon. Also there is a donkey. He's cute.

Overall it's just a dull movie that won't leave you feeling emotionally replenished or fulfilled. It won't leave you feeling happier or sadder or really with anything much to cling on to or take away from. The fact that this was nominated for a whopping 9 Oscars is just absurd and I can see why it didn't even win one.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

If you were expecting to learn some real Science about Quantum Physics, you will be sorely disappointed

[6/10 · 13 March 2023]

Quantumania is a watchable but ultimately unremarkable MCU movie with stuff in it that we've mostly seen before. What disappointed me most is that the Quantum Realm in this movie is never explained, but just used as an excuse to give Ant-Man another wacky world to explore full of weird and wonderful characters.

Some of the character design was good in this movie with some creativley odd looking creatures, but I was expecting to learn some real science of what we know about this mysterious sub-atomic realm, and you really get none of that.

Kang was a good villain and one of the better MCU villains I've seen since Thanos. He was an intimidating presence with a good backstory and costume design, but then he has his laughably bad side villain known as MODOC. He is Darren from the first film but now he has been awkwardly transformed into some floating CGI Humpty Dumpty. The CGI on him is so bad that people have now joked that he looks like Mr Electric from the movie Sharkboy and Lavagirl from 2005, with CGI that still looked bad for a movie from back then. He was kind of funny, but overall, the design just looked embarrassing more than anything else.

It does feel like the MCU is in jeopardy with the movies of as late. I still have hope that Guardians 3 will be good, but I don't know what else they are going to do after that to keep this multi billion franchise afloat for 15 years now. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but all the kings horses and all the kings men, couldn't put the MCU back together again.

The Last of Us: Part II (2020 Video Game)

Absolutely brutal in almost every conceivable way.

[9/10 · 10 March 2023]

This truly was a great game, the overall design and gameplay was a major step up from the original with improved controls, better weapon interface and aiming controls, the archery interface was greatly improved over the original. The game is also perfect in its presentation. The graphical fidelity is off the charts and is the absolute best that the PS4 has to offer, Ghost of Tsushima and Uncharted 4 are the only two that come close. I liked how the game took a break from its linear design every now and then and let you wander around in larger and more open environments. Overall the combat and enemy placement strategy is very well done in this game and what is even more well done is the boss design. The Rat King might just be the greatest boss ever put in a horror game and even rivals the greatest and most memorable bosses from Dead Space, Resident Evil and even the first Last of Us game.

So yes the gameplay has improved, just as it has improved over every singly Naughty Dog Third Person Shooter all the way from Uncharted 1 in 2007, but all the infamy of this game that is still rather new all lies in the narrative. This will obviously be a spoiler heavy review since I am going to discuss major details right ahead.

The Last of Us: Part II is a revenge story at its core and is very different thematically from the previous. What made the original game so popular and beloved was that it was a perfect mixture of light and darkness shown in extreme polar opposites. Showing the full spectrum of the best and worst of humanity and how genuine glimmers of hope and joy can outweigh the odds of the heaviest forms of darkness and despair. Last of Us 1 is highly regarded as the perfect video game narrative and not just the best in gaming history but even rivals some of the greatest in all of fictional media. Everyone loves a good story of hope and genuine humanity, and is exactly why Part II has become so polarised and hated by a lot of people. Those two elements are almost completley missing from it.

I do have to hand it to Naughty Dog for doing something different, you don't just want a carbon copy of the original and it hard to top that particular hope driven story anyway, so what do you do differently next time around. Well the revenge driven plot is a popular route to take movies with films like John Wick being very popular and raking in a lot of money. There is something very satisfying about revenge and definitely can satisfy your darker primal and more primitive emotions when you see a movie character lay carnage on the ones that made them suffer. So why not do that in a video game, I don't really see many video games that have taken this plot choice this extremley before, and you think it would be a satisfying experience. Well yes and no.

The main shocker of this game is the choice of killing of Joel only about 2 hours into the games story which becomes the inciting incident for the entire story. The cruelty of the scene is so brutally raw, that it's no wonder why so many fans were upset. I don't really get upset when I see a fictional character get killed off, because that's all they really are. A fictional character in a fictional story. I do agree that it was pretty distasteful though to have him thrown away to the side like that so quickly. As the same time though, it is a pretty brave choice to do this and I also have to applaud them. This isn't some happy feel good tale, this is The Last of Us, it's of course going to be a dark story and yes you will probably feel upset by what happens in it.

So the murder of Joel starts Ellie's journey of tracking down the killer, who is Abby. I kind of feel that the second reason why people were upset by this game is what this leads up to. As I said before, revenge is an extremely primal emotion and can be extremely satisfying and addictive. Many people were probably feeling a bit of a high in the games leadup to the encounter with Abby hoping that it would the moment the player gets to kill her and deliver some form of hard hitting and satisfying justice. But this does not happen. The game then subverts your expectations and makes you play Abby herself in her shoes instead. Taking you back a few days to the exact same time when Ellie began her vengeance driven hunt.

I for one was confused at first. But I actually grew to like this part of the game, as it shows the player to not be so quick to judge people you know nothing about. Even if what they've done is evil or horrific. Sure, what Abby did was evil, but you begin to see why the life she led and the type of people she was associated with drove her to make that choice.

I think I should talk about the factions that are in this game. It's focused around 3 different groups. The Boston Outpost where Joel, Ellie and her freinds are from which I will call "Team Ellie". They are mainly presented as the "good guys" and the people that the game defaults you to root for. Then there is the "WLF" which is a military based faction that Abby is assigned with that are against what Joel did in St Mary's Hospital in the finale of the first game. These are presented as the villains at first but then leaves it up to you of just how good or evil they really are after you understand their motivations.

That leaves you to the third and final faction in the game. The Seraphites. These guys are just completely and utterly insane. They are a primal extremist and religious cult who will simply destroy anyone who gets in their way or doesn't believe their views. They are basically nothing more than ruthless animals that are brainwashed beyond any hope of reason by their dogma. The scariest thing about them is that you never learn exactly what it is that they believe in, you are only given hints of just the extent of how intensive and the dogma really is based around.

You will be fighting a lot of these in Abby's portion of the game, and the moral narrative can become very confusing but also very interesting as you start to wonder which faction is more evil. How evil Abby is as a person truly, and whether anyone can find redemption for what they've done.

You also see how Ellie's humanity and goodness becomes slowly destroyed as she just cannot let go of her fixation of exacting vengeance on Abby, and it's hard to watch such a likeable character in the first game start to go so horribly dark and evil aswell.

So basically the underlying message of The Last of Us 2 is that seeking revenge or vengeance is ultimately not worth it, no matter what it may be about, because it will ruin you and you will not feel a sense of satisfaction or reduction if you try and sort things out this way. I think however one way this game could have been improved is that if it was choice driven like Mass Effect, BioShock or Undertale, where the story could have gone in different directions if you attempted to practice mercy or forgiveness on Abby instead of trying to kill her. Instead what you get it a 25 hour long linear one tracked slaughterfest as you watch the most likeable and light driven character of the first game become broken by her own evil and warped sense of justice and how vengeance and revenge destroys all.

I myself enjoyed the ride, but I can see why many will find this a journey that they will loathe start to finish. Maybe Naughty Dog can make Part III a choice driven game, how hard that might be. It would be very interesting if they concluded the story in this way, because from the way this game ended, it looks like there is a bit more to tell.

Babylon (I) (2022)

Super Stardom Sucks.

[10/10 · 1 February 2023]

Fame can do insane things to people. It can distort your personality, warp your sense of reality and make you do things you would never even previously dream of doing. This is the tale of the movie of how the life of super stardom in the film industry can corrupt even the best of us, and how the 1920s Hollywood film industry is portrayed here, how decent and humble people are sucked in and are mentally exhausted and ruined by the ruthless and greed driven process of talent acquiry.

It really is funny seeing A list actors like Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt being put into these roles as people who have become ruined from the inside out by this dramatised depiction of the early film industry. I really hope it was, because I can't imagine it being this brutally callous in reality. I mean really.

But that's why I loved this movie so much. Chazelle has become extremely good at creating tension in his movie to an uncomfortably and sometimes even unbearably good level. His skill already shine through in Whiplash which made me seriously reconsider whether pursuing music classes was the right choice, aswell as turning JK Simmons's into one of the most terrifyingly distasteful movie villains I've ever seen on screen.

The way this movie looks is amazing, the film is incredibly well shot and dressed with beautiful cinematography and some really incredible shots, many coming from the desert shoot scene in the first act of the movie. The intro party scene was also insane.

Talent is a topic that is brought up a lot in this movie, and really shows you why saying "you have no talent" or worse yet "you had talent, but you lost it" really is the worst thing you could possibly say to another human. Showing how Brad Pitt's character was utterly traumatised by hearing this, and how this is a real form of abuse that needs to be talked about more.

The movie also shows why people who consume film eventually want to cross over to the other side to make movies themselves. Why they become inspired and how they make the transition from consumer to creator. It's just a shame that the way the industry was shown in this movie was so cutthroat and psychopathic. There was pretty much no empathy shown on these sets, which I think was the point of the movie.

Bluey: Fairytale (2021) Season 3, Episode 26

Aussiemandias

[10/10 · 20 January 2023]

What can I say about this episode that I haven't said before. Oh wait, you probably haven't seen it anyway because it's super obscure, with this show not being well known outside of Australia... and stuff.

But hey it's about the 80s, has a cute romance story and some killer animation. You can't go wrong with that! How could it be anything less than perfection?!!

But anyway, it's still a really good episode on its own and it definitely one of the biggest standouts of the entire series so far that isn't Sleepytime. I do tend to enjoy episodes of Bluey that are more focused on the adult characters than the children since, well I'm not a child.

I'm also not a parent either.

M3GAN (2022)

Quite brilliant, actually.

[9/10 · 17 January 2023]

I was really surprised by this one. I was avoiding this movie for a few weeks thinking it wasn't really going to be anything special, just another campy horror movie with a robot/android character that wasn't really that inventive nor origional. However this film has a lot more care and thought put into it than you might first realise. I was almost not going to see it, but I friend of mine recommended it to me and we went to the local theaters to go watch it, and I didn't regret paying money for it at all. If you haven't seen it yet then I HIGHLY recommend that you do!

I had a blast with M3GAN and is probably the best AI thriller ive seen since Ex Machina. I'm still not sure if it's still better than that movie, I'll need a bit more time to think about it, but the one thing I'll say is that even though it had a few subtle but neat references to a couple of other popular Sci-Fi and Horror franchises, aswell as feeling like a homage to Child's Play, it wholly felt like it's own thing and was sparking with some real originality.

There were a few good jumpscares in this, including a very effective one that caught me off guard, and it was legitimatley scary in a few parts. Though I wouldn't call it a horror, just like how Ex Machina wasn't exactly a horror either. This definitley had it stronger horror elements for sure, but felt more like a Psychological Thriller with some nifty Sci-Fi themes thrown in aswell with a cautionary tale that actually feels more relevant this time then it ever was previously.

The acting was great to, with Violet McGraw playing a great performance as Cady, overall I just wanted to say I had a great time with this and it vastly exceeded my expectations. It's far from a true masterpeice though, so I'll leave it at that.

I Hate Everything (2013– )

I Like to Criticise Everything.

[8/10 · 13 January 2023]

And he really means everything. He is truly unafraid to add criticism to everything under the sun and especially everything that has cropped up on the internet in the past decade. He is able to form a solid critical opinion on everything on his radar and nothing escapes his grasp.

I've liked and admired his confidence over the years and also how most of his videos is more focussed on positive or ambivalent criticism instead of just pure toxic negativity, except for maybe some of his earliest videos where he seemed to be quite depressed about... something.

He is also not an extremely negative or toxic person either from what I can see. He always seems to be having fun with his mates on his second channel JAR Media where they run a pretty decent podcast which is also heavily focussed on classic British criticism.

That's what really makes IHE different as an internet critic compared to so many other smaller channels they are focussed on nothing more than pure negativity which are often pretty terrible. His well rounded criticism, opinions and overall thoughts is what makes him a much more admired and popular member of the YouTube community and why he has so much more subscribers. Though the tragedy is that not everyone knows this and many misinterpret the channel which has produced some of the most toxic and absurd comments I've ever seen on someone's YouTube channel, which he has funnily enough transformed into another entertaining sub-series called Comment Comeback.

Though more recently in the last few years, he has uploaded less and less to the point where he hasn't uploaded anything since the end of 2020. He has mentioned before that the channel itself and his public image has started to negatively impact his mental health and has had to step down from his YouTube Career and focus on regaining his composure and paradoxically, his positivity.

Either which way, I don't really care about the future of the channel about this point, it pretty evident that something like this can't go on forever and that he has already done so much good for the internet already. I just want to see Alex doing okay... and James.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

The Tale of a Fearless Feline, a Cynical Cat and a Supernice Dog.

[10/10 · 12 January 2023]

Dreamworks really know how to nail their sequels. With Shrek 2 and How To Train Your Dragon 2 being better then the first. They really know how to see the room for improvement that is left behind by previous movies and expanding on them in very interesting and inventive ways. With Puss in Boots making his first apperance in Shrek 2 almost 20 years ago now, he has been a very popular support character in the Shrek franchise with a memorable voice performance by Antonio Banderas, he was bound to get his own standalone movie sooner or later. Eventually in 2011, one year after the supposedly final Shrek movie was released, the self titled Puss in Boots was released to mediocre reception. In my opinion it was a bit to weak and not very memorable when it came to Dreamworks productions at that stage and lost some of the charm that the Shrek movie were known for. It wasn't a terrible or even really that bad of a film. But it felt pretty throwaway that left a lot to be desired.

The thing that makes Puss in Boots: The Last Wish so much better than the first, is that this felt purley like a passion project than a character cash in which is what the first one felt like. It is obvious that an insane amount of passion went into this movies direction, animation, writing and voice acting to make the movie as entertaining as possible aswell as giving us a few things that we haven't seen before.

First off, the animation in this film is gorgeous. This type of cel shaded and traditional 3D hybrid style really fits this film and leaves me wondering if this is the type of style that Dreamworks Animation will stick with from now on, or they will do something different again with their next production. It is also incredibly vibrant and detailed in certain shots. I also like how many of the fighting and action scenes put the characters in this lower frame rate choppy but kinetic style of movement which worked very well when it was used.

Antonio Banderas has never sounded better as Puss and every supporting actor knocked it out of the park aswell. Kitty makes a return aswell and she is utilized much better here than in the previous movie but the biggest surprise of this movie was the new character called Burrito. Whoever voiced him did a fantastic job and is the best new Dreamworks character in a very long time! You would think his infectious niceness would get old really fast, but they use it very well and he is actually pretty multi layered and gets a lot of laughs. I think he is in the realm of superniceness which is a term from reading a Richard Dawkins book a few years back where he said that being overloaded with the perk of niceness and kindness is a perversion of darwinism from a scientific standpoint. Though he also said that these kind of people don't bother him and wishes there were more types of people in this world. Burrito as a character symbolizes this type of person in my opinion.

The humor in this movie is actually really good aswell and a bit edgy with a lot of bleeped swearing which lets your mind fill in the blanks without it breaking it's family rating which I thought was really smart. And there were quite a few good visual gags aswell.

I do have to talk about the villans in this movie because there is more than one, and they all play off eachother basically perfectly and it really shows how smart Dreamworks have become at crafting origional villans. The character of 'Death' is the scariest and most menacing family film villan I have seen in a long time and I was surprised at how hard they pushed him as a character, because he's not really a typical villan but the embodiment of a dark concept, a force of nature.

Overall I thought it was a brilliant animated sequel which took more risks than what I've seen in a very long while in the Western animation industry. Absolutley fantastic!

Vsauce: Is Your Red The Same as My Red? (2013) Season Unknown, Episode Unknown

Very bad episode and is untrue

[1/10 · 17 December 2022]

I don't like this episode because it shows the more disturbing side of philosophy of distrusting what you previously thought was true and real as Michael pursuades the viewer that colour actually doesn't exist and is merely a false illusion created by the mind and says it is scientifically impossible to know how things truly look and really are, let alone know how someone else sees colour.

What bothers me most is that this eludes into his much more horrible and terrifying monstrosity of a video called "Is Anything Real?" Where he now pursuades you that according to Science, you have absolutely no way of knowing if existence exists outside your own brain at all, aswell as teaching you the toxic and messed up idea of solipsism which is the worst thing I've ever heard. Have you ever heard of someone who is a solipsist, me neither.

He then ends the video that Science is at an absolute failure of proving the existence of the "outside world" beyond your own mind and that you can only "believe" it's real.

This is not Science, it's insanity. Don't believe everything this crackpot says.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

A Truly Wonderous Sequel

[10/10 · 16 December 2022]

I was absolutley flabbergasted by the CGI effects in the movie, the water scenes in this is the reason the technology was invented in the first place. James Cameron is the filmmaker who understands what CGI was used for and the way it should properly be used. It something that cant be used to replace the practical but instead a tool for something that goes beyond what would be impossible for a practical effect to acheive.

He has created a world out of Computer Imagery that feels completley alive and breathing with scenes underwater shot so well and clearly, you can see why he waited all these years to get it right. I can't wait to see what future film learn from this to make underwater scenes feel less and less of a daunting task and look more streamlined and realistic.

It also has a great story about the importance of family and overcoming xenophobia and tribalism, aswell as preserving the beauty of the ocean. The water is so nice, you'll forget it's saltwater.