I may see one or two more before the year ends, but thus far here's my listing of the 10 films I saw this year. When I've already written a blog entry for it, a link will be provided in the title of the movie:
10. Terminator: Genisys
A big let-down, and the only film I saw in the theatre this year that had me checking my watch. Couldn't wait for it to end. And making John Connor the antagonist was the biggest bonehead decision of 2015. Well, before Slater elected to kick away in overtime in yesterday's Patriots game.
9. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I: I 90% liked it; 10% didn't. Read about that here.
8. Bridge of Spies
Not a bad film, exactly, as my blog entry said. But I couldn't recommend it with excitement, either. A professionally made, professionally acted, professionally delivered movie, and all over the year end's Top-10 lists in many places (and #8 for me, though I only saw 10 total movies as of 12.28.15.), but still not a film that will generate awe or excitement. Spielberg's genius works against him here. My expectations for his films are sky-high, and this isn't. Even more low-key than Lincoln was, but without Day-Lewis's awe-inspiring performance. A good film for a Sunday afternoon on cable.
7. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Middle East is a land mass unlike any other in the world. Without
traveling it, if you want to get to Africa, you'd have to take a ship or
plane. Those who control the Middle East control all trade (today,
much or most of the trade) coming and going from all of Africa. Control
that, and you will have riches and power, then and now. Combine that
with the extreme religious significance of those lands (three of the
world's major religions spring from it) and combine that with the concentration of oil there, and you've got land that everyone wants. And they'll all fight for it. Forever.
Now think of this movie, and that mountain. It's got gold and not oil, but it's all otherwise the same. A better movie than it's being given credit for, especially when compared to Jackson's LOTR films. And a very political movie, too. It's got something very relevant to say.
6. Spectre
A very good Bond film, Daniel Craig's 3rd-best, IMO, after Skyfall and Casino Royale. Expecting it to be as good as Skyfall was indeed too much to ask, and that's okay. The planets aligned for Skyfall, which was a better movie than it had a right to be, and perhaps was the best in all of Bond. And a great movie in of itself, by itself, that transcended the genre. Spectre doesn't do that, but it's a great ride nonetheless, and Christoph Waltz's performance is as good as you figured it would be. Though it's not as good as Javier Bardem's in Skyfall, Waltz doesn't have as much to work with, either. There are a couple of head-scratches here, in terms of what Blofeld does, and you wonder why he's treated as well as he is at the end (to better set him up in the sequel?), but overall this was a good ride.
Honorable Mention: Jaws (re-release). This would have been rated if it had been released this year.
Top Five Next Blog Entry--to be continued
Showing posts with label Terminator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terminator. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2015
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Terminator: Genisys
If you like action movies with great visuals and a reminder of your movie-going past, this is the summer action movie for you. But if you're looking for a really good sequel that moves the story of the Connor family, with Reese and a cyborg and a liquid-metal thing duking it out in present-day, in 1984, and in future L.A.--well, you'll be a bit disappointed here.
Maybe it's unfair to compare, as James Cameron's first two films were almost perfect movies of their type. Plus, this latest is more of a reboot than a sequel, and the ending practically shows you how the next one will start. Some movie needed to veer the series off its finished course, and this was it.
But there's still a lot wrong. Some of them include (and, yes, there may be SPOILERS here):
* Ah-nuld's Terminator (and perhaps Ah-nuld himself) should never be called "Pops." By anyone. Even his own kids.
* Exposition and info-dump are sometimes necessary in films like this, but such info. needs to be delivered by someone who speaks English better than Ah-nuld does. It's not that he doesn't speak the language well; it's that he doesn't enunciate it well, and it's grating in a movie if you have to listen to him and figure it out.
* This movie tries way too hard to be as "funny" as the second one. I never found that one as amusing as many did, either, mostly because Edward Furlong's voice sounded like someone had just stepped on a cat's tail.
* James Cameron understood that story trumps special effects. Genisys doesn't.
* Ah-nuld's smile is more creepy than funny. It's even creepier since it's creepy-trying-to-be-funny.
* Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor was as jacked as a movie heroine is likely to ever get, surpassing even Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. Emilia Clarke, playing a Sarah Connor who has known since she was nine that she would grow up to be kick-ass Sarah Connor, needed to be just as buff here. She wasn't. Part of the problem is that Emilia Clarke couldn't get jacked because she has to be in Game of Thrones, too. (Daenarys as a buff dragon queen simply wouldn't work at this point.) Another problem is that she's simply too pretty in a soft-looking kind of way. And maybe she always will be. (Linda Hamilton was just as pretty, jacked or not.) But she's soft, and she stays that way.
* Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, in this movie, have zero chemistry. When they kiss and declare their love for each other (they have to, or John Connor doesn't get born), you won't believe it. To be fair to the actors, the script gives them zero chance to actually fall in love, anyway.
* Jai Courtney was also in the last Die Hard movie, which worked as an awesome action movie, but failed miserably in its attempt to be a Die Hard movie. This movie works the same. A good action / special effects movie. A bad Terminator movie.
* And Michael Biehn needs to get more credit for his role. Jai Courtney does not measure up here.
* Emilia Clarke tries her best, but she doesn't exactly catch Linda Hamilton's grasp of the character.
* The original, 1984 Terminator and the sequel's liquid metal monster are done away in quick fashion here, to mostly good effect. The biggest problem of the movie, though, is that the real villain is (SPOILER) John Connor, and that absolutely does not work. Sarah doesn't seem to care that it's her son killing everyone (though, of course, he kind of isn't, yet) and Reese doesn't, either. It's a mess.
* The script also mandates that John Connor was fooling everyone all the time, including in his rare scenes from 1984. Though he could be considered a victim of SkyNet when Reese was sent back, he just doesn't hold up in any way as a good villain. And it's 3 (often, 4 or 5) against 1, which seems unfair.
* This is a concept movie that never unveils itself. SkyNet is the internet, of course. And this movie, much like the second, is a warning about letting computers run everything. (WarGames and every other flick of this type were, too.) This one goes the extra step and posits the dangers of being too connected, via phone, laptop, iPad, iPhone, or whatever the hell your electronic addiction is. But it loses its own point amidst the failed attempts at humor and significance. This movie would've been much better had it just played it straight.
* And it doesn't cover any new ground at all, since it tries to follow the first two, yet break off from them, at the same time. (It pretends the 3rd and 4th ones never happened, which perhaps we should as well.) Maybe you can't do both simultaneously. (And there was a nice tip of the cap to Cameron and his famous True Lies scene, too.)
Well, you get the idea. It's a good action flick, and I didn't feel like I'd wasted my money or time, but beware that it is what it is, and it's not what it tries to be. Do not expect a Cameron Terminator.
Maybe it's unfair to compare, as James Cameron's first two films were almost perfect movies of their type. Plus, this latest is more of a reboot than a sequel, and the ending practically shows you how the next one will start. Some movie needed to veer the series off its finished course, and this was it.
But there's still a lot wrong. Some of them include (and, yes, there may be SPOILERS here):
* Ah-nuld's Terminator (and perhaps Ah-nuld himself) should never be called "Pops." By anyone. Even his own kids.
* Exposition and info-dump are sometimes necessary in films like this, but such info. needs to be delivered by someone who speaks English better than Ah-nuld does. It's not that he doesn't speak the language well; it's that he doesn't enunciate it well, and it's grating in a movie if you have to listen to him and figure it out.
* This movie tries way too hard to be as "funny" as the second one. I never found that one as amusing as many did, either, mostly because Edward Furlong's voice sounded like someone had just stepped on a cat's tail.
* James Cameron understood that story trumps special effects. Genisys doesn't.
* Ah-nuld's smile is more creepy than funny. It's even creepier since it's creepy-trying-to-be-funny.
* Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor was as jacked as a movie heroine is likely to ever get, surpassing even Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. Emilia Clarke, playing a Sarah Connor who has known since she was nine that she would grow up to be kick-ass Sarah Connor, needed to be just as buff here. She wasn't. Part of the problem is that Emilia Clarke couldn't get jacked because she has to be in Game of Thrones, too. (Daenarys as a buff dragon queen simply wouldn't work at this point.) Another problem is that she's simply too pretty in a soft-looking kind of way. And maybe she always will be. (Linda Hamilton was just as pretty, jacked or not.) But she's soft, and she stays that way.
* Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, in this movie, have zero chemistry. When they kiss and declare their love for each other (they have to, or John Connor doesn't get born), you won't believe it. To be fair to the actors, the script gives them zero chance to actually fall in love, anyway.
* Jai Courtney was also in the last Die Hard movie, which worked as an awesome action movie, but failed miserably in its attempt to be a Die Hard movie. This movie works the same. A good action / special effects movie. A bad Terminator movie.
* And Michael Biehn needs to get more credit for his role. Jai Courtney does not measure up here.
* Emilia Clarke tries her best, but she doesn't exactly catch Linda Hamilton's grasp of the character.
* The original, 1984 Terminator and the sequel's liquid metal monster are done away in quick fashion here, to mostly good effect. The biggest problem of the movie, though, is that the real villain is (SPOILER) John Connor, and that absolutely does not work. Sarah doesn't seem to care that it's her son killing everyone (though, of course, he kind of isn't, yet) and Reese doesn't, either. It's a mess.
* The script also mandates that John Connor was fooling everyone all the time, including in his rare scenes from 1984. Though he could be considered a victim of SkyNet when Reese was sent back, he just doesn't hold up in any way as a good villain. And it's 3 (often, 4 or 5) against 1, which seems unfair.
* This is a concept movie that never unveils itself. SkyNet is the internet, of course. And this movie, much like the second, is a warning about letting computers run everything. (WarGames and every other flick of this type were, too.) This one goes the extra step and posits the dangers of being too connected, via phone, laptop, iPad, iPhone, or whatever the hell your electronic addiction is. But it loses its own point amidst the failed attempts at humor and significance. This movie would've been much better had it just played it straight.
* And it doesn't cover any new ground at all, since it tries to follow the first two, yet break off from them, at the same time. (It pretends the 3rd and 4th ones never happened, which perhaps we should as well.) Maybe you can't do both simultaneously. (And there was a nice tip of the cap to Cameron and his famous True Lies scene, too.)
Well, you get the idea. It's a good action flick, and I didn't feel like I'd wasted my money or time, but beware that it is what it is, and it's not what it tries to be. Do not expect a Cameron Terminator.
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