HDN Ninja Reviews-Post an extended review of the last movie you watched

digitalbabe

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Apr 12, 2009
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Hey Ninjas!

Just want to add your 2c about a movie you just saw? Be as brief or detailed as you like.

We'd love to have you all here. Just jump in anytime after watching a film and share your thoughts.

As a courtesy, please use spoilers for major plot points.

Enjoy ninjas!






@apsmith21 @Wreck
 
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Last watched Ghost in the Shell. I liked it but didn't love it. Some of the special effects were fantastic. The city looked amazing but I didn't feel there was enough action. There wasn't as much back story on the characters as I would have liked either.
Overall worth a watch just to see the special effects. I will give it another watch at some point to see if it grows on me.
 
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Black Panther (2017-03-24)

For all the hype surrounding the movie, it was just an OK movie for me. Decent action sequences and CGI, but the story fell flat for me. The humour that Marvel movies are known for was there, but wasn't on par with previous movies. Thor: Ragnarok takes 1st place for that! Also, the 3D in certain instances, just caused me to get disoriented. I don't know if it was a problem with the conversion or what, but my eyes did not like it one bit.

Where I needed to take a leap of faith with the movie is when an "outsider" could take over the throne so easily. T'Challa was, afterall, the supreme leader/king at that point.

Overall, I'd give it a 7/10.
 
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Last watched Ghost in the Shell. I liked it but didn't love it. Some of the special effects were fantastic. The city looked amazing but I didn't feel there was enough action. There wasn't as much back story on the characters as I would have liked either.
Overall worth a watch just to see the special effects. I will give it another watch at some point to see if it grows on me.
That review basically applies to ALL movies of the last 10 years!
 
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Just finished with Mother! And well dont know what the hell i just watched! As per great performance by Jennifer Lawrence but my god was Michelle Pfeiffers character was such a cow! Just wished she would have fell of a cliff!! But still a strong film none the less.
 
Just finished with Mother! And well dont know what the hell i just watched! As per great performance by Jennifer Lawrence but my god was Michelle Pfeiffers character was such a cow! Just wished she would have fell of a cliff!! But still a strong film none the less.
Def different. Aranofsky recently stating some pretty interesting things about what he was trying to do with the film in case you want to check that out and haven't.
 
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That review basically applies to ALL movies of the last 10 years!
That’s a fair point mate! It’s pretty much all about the visuals these days. I would prefer it if more time was spent on the story rather than the special effects!
 
That’s a fair point mate! It’s pretty much all about the visuals these days. I would prefer it if more time was spent on the story rather than the special effects!
Well - it can be done! Look at THE MATRIX. Sci-Fi spectacle, but literally bursting at the seams with ideas and a pretty deep story with great characters.
We have been in a rut with story and character development. In many ways, things like the MCU are aping TV shows of the past (serials) - the characters will basically remain the same, it's only the situations and things around them that change.
 
Well - it can be done! Look at THE MATRIX. Sci-Fi spectacle, but literally bursting at the seams with ideas and a pretty deep story with great characters.
We have been in a rut with story and character development. In many ways, things like the MCU are aping TV shows of the past (serials) - the characters will basically remain the same, it's only the situations and things around them that change.
The Matrix is spectacular, you can tell how good it is by the way it still holds up today. There are some good films out there but you can count them on one hand unfortunately. As you said it seems to be the same template used over and over. The constant sequels don’t help. The studios would much rather bank on a known franchise than branch out and risk something new.
I did think Arrival was very good though, anything Denis Villeneuve does is usually original and fresh. It wasn’t a special effects feast but it’s still one of the better Sci-Fi films of the last few years IMO.:)
 
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Alien: Covenant

I pride myself as a fan of the Alien Franchise- Well....a fan of most Alien films- Well.... as someone who likes 2 of the Alien Films. Both Ridley Scott's original Alien and James Cameron's subsequent Aliens are prime examples of how a franchise can transcend the confines of the genre that it is placed within. Alien (1979) is a fairly by-the-numbers horror film, the caveat of the film being lumped in to the horror genre (while not subverted) provided distinctive attributes of the world crafted around its premise that served to create not only a feeling of authenticity- but a feeling of realism that translated to genuine suspense and horror. Aliens (1986), while retaining some of the same ideas and H.R. Geiger designs of its precursor- provided the same premise of Alien while having the approach and execution revamped by James Cameron... and while this film, like the previous, did not subvert the tropes associated with the action/ horror genre- the flawless directing and concise direction of every scene still proves to create a dramatic and intense experience.

Which brings us to Alien: Covenant. Alien: Covenant, I feel, can best be described as a hesitant step backwards. While the debate as to the succession of Covenant in terms of being either a prequel to Alien or a sequel to the spinoff Prometheus is academic- the resulting film appears to be a haphazard slap together of the superficial elements retained from the previous Prometheus guised in nostalgic attempt to distract the audience from the shallowness of the film. Prometheus, while having many (MANY) issues, was still a film with a defined protagonist- thematic elements consistent throughout the film, and posed prominent questions that previous Alien films had not asked, creating a unique experience. Now, despite Prometheus not working as film- it is hard to deny that Prometheus tried harder to stand on it's own in comparison to Covenant, of which the latter seems to merely perpetuate the existence of the franchise as opposed to providing a compelling experience or anything resembling what I would call entertainment.

The entire existence of this film seems to serve as a nostalgia fueled 'thrill-ride' aimed at reminding the audience of the highest points of the previous entries of the Alien franchise- this compilation of greatest hits feels entirely undeserving in that the payoff of this film completely misses the set-up that made previous films memorable.Covenant feels like a BlumHouse film lacking any form of (dare I say) wit or intrigue: characters are irrelevant, performances are compelling only to the extent that they're required to be, the premise of the film seems to be lacking any sense of motivation; the 2 hour runtime of the film seems completely unnecessary when the entire third act of the film tells same Alien-on-a-spaceship story that we've all already seen. I find it hard to give the film any minuscule amount of my attention, as the premise seems so contrived that I could have mistaken this film for a mishandled remake of the 1979 Alien before considering it to tell its own "story". Mind you, even James Cameron's Aliens could be considered to be contrived (as it does fundamentally retread some of the same narrative plot points outlined in the original Alien film) however, even admitting that the narrative arc of the film is repetitious in nature- Aliens offered many dynamic characters and set pieces that distinguish it from it's predecessor in many ways. Covenant just seems to struggle with finding it's own identity- it recycles the aesthetic of Prometheus, the plot of Alien, the character deaths of that one horror movie no one bothered to see- until the film ultimately hits its proverbial high point in being a mediocre remake of the original Alien film.

Bafflingly enough, Covenant seems to have a complete misunderstanding of the point of the Alien franchise: Covenant does not understand the purpose of the use of the word "Alien".

In 1979- audiences were introduced to so many things that were Alien- the Derelict, the Space-Jockey, the Face-Huggers... these things were frightening because they were unknown, and the title of the film reflected not only the monster stalking the halls of the Nostromo- but the monster itself was merely a microcosm of the culmination of how the audience is fearful of that which is unknown to them. Covenant gives a rather in-depth backstory and even retrofits it's own explanation to encompass the events of Prometheus- but in doing so- it provides a tangible history to what was previously maliciously foreign... and such explanation only leaves me to wonder to whose benefit was this explanation for? To so explicitly define the undefinable reduces the horrors of the unknown to something far more sterile and scientific which is, in of itself- not scary. Disappointingly, Covenant entertains the notion that people want to know the why instead of just delivering a memorable experience- and creates the same befuddling mistakes that I can only harken to what removed the magic from Halloween by turning the "Scary Murderer" in to an "devil-infused, cursed individual who passes on this evilness via cursing other people and has their own cult following" in Halloween 6 or what turned the idea of a "killer shark" in Jaws to the "brother of the killer shark psychically connected to it's victims and out to avenge it's kin from the previous film" of Jaws: The Revenge.


On a positive note, Michael Fassbender's performance is enjoyable- I just wish that his character arc and actions had not happened off-screen.


No- it's not an inherently terrible film- it's just a waste of time. At this point, hearing about another Alien movie is just as exciting to me as hearing about another Shrek film.

3/10
 
Pacific Rim: Uprising is a perfect example of when bad trailers happen to good movies. I love, love, love the first film. Uprising made me a skeptic before the trailers even arrived due to its horrific pre-production (GDT left the project, it was delayed, canned, rebooted, etc.), but then those trailers showed up with the bright colours, awful music, and Power Rangers/Transformers-esque scenery and I was officially worried that Pacific Rim had changed for the worse.

So, after a week of it being in theatres, I finally watched it and, well... it was good. Quite good, actually. Definitely not the trainwreck I was expecting. Steven S. DeKnight did a fine job taking over for GDT -- something that I wasn't sure he'd be able to do considering this was his first time directing a film.

John Boyega was good as the new lead. He was believable as Stacker's son and had good chemistry with the rest of the cast. Scott Eastwood was the usual Scott Eastwood -- a half-decent, half-wooden performance. Cailee Spaeny was surprisingly really good! I hated the fact that Uprising was going to have kids, but she was actually a great addition to the cast.

From here, I'm going to put the rest in spoilers just in case...

I still don't really like that there's kids. In the film, there's mention that there's always been these teens around because it's easier to drift together when you're younger, yet not once did we see anyone under the age of 20 in the first Pacific Rim. Apparently Jake Pentecost was a recruit once before and his dad booted him out... yet not once during the first film does Stacker or Mako mention Jake.

And while the new cast members are anywhere from decent to great, the original characters were essentially b**tardized in Uprising.

It's nice that Raleigh receive a shout-out, but MAKO MORI DIED IN A FREAKIN' HELICOPTER! As soon as I saw her in the helicopter, I knew she was going to die... and I was not happy about it. So yeah, one of the heroes of the first film dies in a helicopter. Directly after that, Jake is standing in front of a hologram of her in this weird "hall of dead Jaeger pilots" shrine. I would like to think that if she were to die, Raleigh would want to pay his respects or something. *shrug*

And then we have Newt. I'm on the fence with what they did with him. I mean, it makes sense that his mind would become infected by the precursors during his Kaiju drift in the first film, but I missed the fun, off-the-walls Newt. He seemed off right from the start, so when they revealed 'Alice', I wasn't surprised at all. Also, wouldn't Hannibal Chau become infected after drifting with the Kaiju? You know, since he did it before Newt. I don't know... it made sense to the story, but at the same time I didn't really like it. (Especially how the film keeps him a villain at the very end)

Gottlieb was awesome in this, though! He was his same wacky self and that butt-kicking scene in the elevator was great! I'm glad they kept one character their same ol' self.

I know Raleigh wasn't back because Charlie Hunnam left the project when GDT left, but where was Max Martini's Herc Hansen? I have no idea why they had this Marshal Quan instead of Herc. Also, Liwen Shao saves the day with Scrapper at the end? Hmm...

That should've been Mako at the end with Scrapper. 100%.

I also spent the entire film missing the Pacific Rim theme music, so I was SO relieved when it kicked in 3/4 through the film. It's too bad that Ramin Djawadi didn't return. I missed his music throughout the film.

It may seem like I'm complaining a lot, it's just that... I love Pacific Rim so much and while this was a hell of a lot better than Transformers or Power Rangers, it still wasn't on the same level as the first Pacific Rim. I can't help but wonder how much better this sequel would've been if GDT had stayed on. Overall, though, I really do like this film and I'll definitely buy it and rewatch it. I hope a third, final film happens. Either that or a Godzilla/Kong crossover.

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