Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Snaggletiger]

Star Wars: Rogue One

Well....

I don't like it.  I've tried three or four times and I can't make it through the thing. 

Forrest Whitaker -- aka Jefferson from Fast Times -- is terrible here.  The story is muddled.

I just don't like it. 

I'm not going to even finish.

I finished it because I saw it in the theater and I still had more popcorn with that delicious, golden liquid on it left.

It was a whole of of MEH to me.  Good Jedi Fighter action fight scenes.  That's about the sum total of it.  They never developed or let you identify with or get attached to the main characters, and with good reason.  But that made for a boring assed plot.  Plus, the comedy sidekick robot, just plain wasn't funny.

I get what they were doing in giving you the back story, but it looked like just an excuse to make another Star Wars movie. 

[AUJarhead]

Kaos, fast forward to the last 10 minutes. The Vader scene is worth it.

[The Six]

I get what they were doing in giving you the back story, but it looked like just an excuse to make another Star Wars movie print money.

FTFY

[Godfather]

I finished it because I saw it in the theater and I still had more popcorn with that delicious, golden liquid on it left.

It was a whole of of MEH to me.  Good Jedi Fighter action fight scenes.  That's about the sum total of it.  They never developed or let you identify with or get attached to the main characters, and with good reason.  But that made for a boring assed plot.  Plus, the comedy sidekick robot, just plain wasn't funny.

I get what they were doing in giving you the back story, but it looked like just an excuse to make another Star Wars movie.

I thought it was a fine action space movie. Here's the thing did we really need a story about how the death star plans were captured? Do we care?  ($2 to Nook)

[Kaos]

I thought it was a fine action space movie. Here's the thing did we really need a story about how the death star plans were captured? Do we care?  ($2 to Nook)

I tried again.  Didn't make it to the end.  Again.  I quit after the father died this time.  Just a terrible scene. 

The girl wasn't compelling.  Forrest Whitaker was horrible.  The worst.  I didn't care about Machete-light. Didn't care about Blind Lemon Jello or whatever his name was.  The lame robot got off a few interesting lines.

[Godfather]

I tried again.  Didn't make it to the end.  Again.  I quit after the father died this time.  Just a terrible scene. 

The girl wasn't compelling.  Forrest Whitaker was horrible.  The worst.  I didn't care about Machete-light. Didn't care about Blind Lemon Jello or whatever his name was.  The lame robot got off a few interesting lines.

[Kaos]

Star Wars: Rogue One

Ok. I made it to the end. 

Yes, Vader striding down the hall with the red light saber was pretty good but it wasn't worth the hours-long slog through semi-British accents and a fatuous storyline.

I had a number of problems with the movie, some of which were continuations of issues I had with the first three (actually second three) films and all of which could also be applied to The Force Awakens.

I'll give you a few. 

1) The dialogue is terribly stilted and hokey. 
2) I didn't develop any emotional bond with any of the characters.  Whoever is directing these last two films seems to think that having their lead actor make a grimace-face into the camera is the height of artistic achievement.
3) Good lord Forrest Whitaker was terrible.
4) The decisions to die.  Stupid storytelling.  Oh, let's hide out for a while and then rush into the melee so we can die heroically.  The movie was more than two hours long.  It could have come in at 90 minutes or less if it had just cut out stupid death scenes.  Maybe it was supposed to show how worthwhile the fight was since people were willing to make sacrifices.  Whatever.
5) About 90% of the things in the cartoon Godfather posted.  My very first thought the first time I tried to watch it was "why in the hell park that ship way the fuck out there?" 
6) Why send a damned hologram instead of the plans?  That was senseless.

I saw several say it was only a setup to another movie.  But we already HAVE that movie and have had it for nearly 40 years.  Well THAT makes me feel old. 

It was a story that could have been told over half an hour as part of a bigger story.  Not deserving of a full length movie treatment. 

[Kaos]

Kong: Skull Island
Fresh off watching Brie Larson perform convincingly in Room I figured I'd give her a big budget chance in the Kong: Skull Island retooling of the King Kong legend. The movie was okay, but she barely registered meh. She was dull.

The story bears a lot of similarity to the broadly panned 2005 version of King Kong that starred Jack Black, Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Kyle Chandler and a few others.  A mismatched crew heads to an Island where a giant gorilla lives along with some other giant creatures.  Some make it back, others don't.  This one had Easy-E, Dr. Dre, Loki, Jules Winnfield, Brie and Fred Flintstone.  But the concept was the same.  Go to the island, encounter creatures, some come back. 

Where the two diverged is that in the 2005 version, Kong is captured and brought to the US.  Here, he gets to stay at home. 

It's based in the Vietnam era.  Samuel L. leads a chopper crew supporting an expedition to an island just discovered via the magic of satellites.  Easy E is one of the pilots.  John Goodman and Dr. Dre are the scientists who back some hollow earth theory or something and go on the expedition to do some archeological whatever.  Larson tags along as a defiant anti-war photographer.  Loki Huddleston rounds out the cast as the decommissioned british bad ass jungle tracker.  Dewey Cox pops up as a Gilligan, marooned on the uncharted island for years. 

It's big loud and dumb. Larson adds zippo to the film, she's a waste of flesh.  Loki is pretty ridiculous too. As for Samuel L, I kept waiting for him to say "I've had enough of these motherfucking apes on this motherfucking plain.."  But he didn't.

The big ape fight scenes are decent.  This is really a summer scenery chewer and I don't get the rationale for releasing it in April.  I think it's going to hurt it at the box office. 

It's worth watching probably but I think if I had it to do over I'd either do 3D or just wait until it comes out on DVD. 

[chityeah]

I tried again.  Didn't make it to the end.  Again.  I quit after the father died this time.  Just a terrible scene. 

The girl wasn't compelling.  Forrest Whitaker was horrible.  The worst.  I didn't care about Machete-light. Didn't care about Blind Lemon Jello or whatever his name was.  The lame robot got off a few interesting lines.

[wesfau2]

Split

First the good. 

James McAvoy does a fairly amazing job.  He plays a mentally disturbed man who has 20-something personalities. Only about five of those were ever fully realized for the audience, but McAvoy managed to inhabit each completely differently.  You could usually tell just by the facial expression whether he was Hedwig, Barry, Patricia or Dennis. 

You've seen the trailers.  One of the personalities kidnaps three teenage girls and then the others interact with them as they try to figure out how to escape. 

The girls are pretty standard horror movie fare, completely forgettable.  The girl who was in The Witch is a little better, but she's still not McAvoy's equal -- and this movie needed that balance.

Now the bad. 

The mom from Eight is Enough (and the prison therapist from Oz) plays a stereotypically unaware psychiatrist with some lunatic theory about people with DID (disassociative identity disorder?).  Her clumsy handling of McAvoy's character(s) is weak. 

M. Night Shamalemaladabingbong wrote and directed and he left a lot -- a LOT -- of potentially fantastic story possibilities unturned.  The girls were given too little to do.  He kept McAvoy reined in more than he should have, there needed to be a much harder edge to some of the characters. 

The movie dragged and dragged, never truly delivering any suspense or sense of terror.  Too much was left unexplained. 

There was a backstory on the main chick that kept breaking up the drudge in some flashbacks, but it was not really relevant and could have been done so much better.  In fact, there was in my mind a major opportunity for that backstory to pay off in a decidedly shocking manner and yet he just left the string flapping in the breeze. Just didn't deliver. 

There was also a "big reveal" at the very end, but for those of us who aren't versed in M. Night Shaboolamamadingdong's catalog, it really was pointless and, in fact, added a sense of complete confusion.    As the black fellow behind me observed after the reveal "I think that was the same dude, but growed up some or maybe it was the cat what played in that Wolverines movie.." 

For some I'm sure it was cool.  For most of the people in the (theater full to the point that management held the movie and asked people move into empty seats so they could get the crowd in the lobby settled in) audience it appeared to be primarily a "what was that" moment.  Therefore?  F.A.I.L.

The movie wasn't bad and McAvoy was worth watching, but it was lacking in so many areas I just can't recommend it except when it comes out on some streaming service.

Disagree on almost all points...except the brilliance of McAvoy.

SPOILER-ISH INFO>>>>>




I was confused about the David Dunn tie-in at the end...seemed clumsy and pointless.  Then I read that the next MNS movie will connect Unbreakable and Split (presumably Dunn will be called upon to rein in the Beast).  It had been over a decade since I watched Unbreakable, so I went back and revisited it.  Better than I remember (perhaps aided by the new knowledge that it's not a stand alone film) and caught a bit of an easter egg, perhaps:

When Dunn is brushing past people on the concourse at the stadium, he touches a woman dragging a wailing child.  The "flash" of her misdeeds seems to be her berating/beating the kid...and she seems to call him "Kevin."  The timelines work out so that this could be the Kevin who begs to be shot in Split.

[wesfau2]

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Hit or miss horror entry.  Featured a fine cast including a barely used Roose Bolton, Emile Hirsch and the underrated Brian Cox.  Film also introduces Olwen Catherine Kelly as Jane Doe.  More on her later.

Nude girl  is found partially buried in a house where a couple of brutal murders are discovered. No ID, no obvious trauma, just dead in a hole.  Sheriff transports her to the small town morgue where Cox and Hirsch are a father/son team running the funeral home/crematory. 

Unraveling the mystery of what killed Jane Doe piece by autopsied piece leads to a morass of psychological terror that engulfs the pair.  The major "terror" points come in figuring out what's actually happening and what's only occurring in their minds.  The movie had a languid pace that was intended to slowly build tension and confusion until it reached the final act. 

The mumbo jumbo is strong.  There are some logical leaps that no sane person would make.  "It's her, she's making us do this.."  The final denouement is sort of idiotic -- as in what in the world did he think doing THAT would solve?

As was said to me when the movie was over... "I hate watching a movie that has some good ideas, and builds it up well but ends up not making any sense..."  When you sit there after it's over and list ten or fifteen things that lacked sense or purpose?  When you can't figure out the whys and wherefores? The movie clearly lost its way.  Like why were the other bodies supposedly up and moving around?  Did they move actually or are we supposed to assume that was all a mirage planted in the minds of the two.  How did the murders where the body was discovered tie in?  And how did those tattoos get there?

It did a good job of creating a puzzle as each discovery inside and outside the body was revealed.  Neither of us had any idea what direction it would take as the pieces of the puzzle were laid out.  Sort of disappointed in the way they figured it out (too convenient) -- and also disappointed in what/who Jane Doe supposedly turned out to be (sort of ridiculous, actually). 

The one thing that was (unfortunately?) intriguing?  Olwen C. Kelly.  She played the dead girl and her entire performance in the movie involved lying completely still.  With one last second minor exception, she never once moved.  Never blinked. Never twitched.  She just laid there on the table completely nude.  For the entire movie. In every scene she was in. 

Her stillness was such a part of the film that we actually looked it up after the fact. 
http://www.clattoverata.com/2016/12/19/playing-dead-olwen-catherine-kelly-talks-autopsy-of-jane-doe/

Six week shoot and she just lay there sometimes for eight hours or more a day.   There was something impressive about it.

The ending didn't really pay off, but I enjoyed this one.  Fun little thriller.

[GH2001]

The ending didn't really pay off, but I enjoyed this one.  Fun little thriller.

I'm like k in regards to plot holes. They irk me. And a funeral home becoming a forensic pathologist/medical examiners office loses me. When did funeral homes become places for autopsies?

I haven't seen this yet, just going by K's review. I did see it on vudu this weekend and almost pulled the trigger to give it a try. Is it on Netflix ?

[wesfau2]

Get Out

Went to see this primarily because a) it was written and directed by someone I have seen in person and b) it was filmed in Fairhope so I was interested to see if I recognized anything.

First Fairhope.  99.74% of the movie takes place at one house. It could have been anywhere. So zero Fairhope flavor.  That was a disappointment.

The rest of the movie was well done.

The dynamic between the black boyfriend and the white bread daughter wasn't entirely convincing but that may have been purposeful. There was less humor than I expected given that jordan peele wrote and directed.

The movie can't really be classified as horror given that any horror aspects didn't really begin until the last 15 minutes or so.  Instead it was a slow burn of "what's wrong with this picture" until Peele put all the pieces together in the short (in comparison) final act. 


 A little slow in places. And some small things that bothered me which I can't discuss without revealing too much. 

Still a quality effort for a first time writer/director known primarily for dumb football names. 

Worth a look.  Don't know if it's theater worthy though.

Watched this last night and really enjoyed it.

Only real gap in the story for me was.....SPOILER>>>>>>







What was the feature/attribute that the old bag wanted from Andre?  Root wanted eyes and the daughter starts to shop athletes when she thinks Chris is under the knife.  So...what was the "selling point" for the Andre-body?  Huge wang?

[Snaggletiger]

You love the huge wang.

[Godfather]

What was the feature/attribute that the old bag wanted from Andre?  Root wanted eyes and the daughter starts to shop athletes when she thinks Chris is under the knife.  So...what was the "selling point" for the Andre-body?  Huge wang?

My guess was that the old man was dying quickly and black was in.

[wesfau2]

Guardians of the Galaxy 2:

Predictably fun ride.  Go see it, don't overthink it.

Lots of cameos and Baby Groot overload, but still the most fun you'll have this year in a theater.

[Godfather]

Baby Groot

[wesfau2]

No doubt.  They are going to make sick money off that little sprout.

[Saniflush]

the most fun you'll have this year in a theater.

You are doing shit wrong in the dark

[Godfather]

You are doing shit wrong in the dark

It's $10 for a BJ, $12 for an HJ, $15 for a ZJ...