Movie Reviews Like Woah
Jun. 18th, 2023 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroI really fell behind on posting these; I watched the first couple months ago.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - A parody of biopic movies much more than anything realistic about Weird Al, though I’ll give them credit for nodding to people who knew the actual history. This was cleverly plotted in that each scene was funny, but the dialogue wasn’t snappy enough and the jokes-per-minute was too low. The celebrity cameos (both who was playing them and who they were playing) were great, though my personal favorite cameo I spotted was Weird Al’s real-life wife sitting with him in the final scene.
Wedding Season - I’m reasonably certain we saw this plot before; it’s about two people who agree to fake-date their way through a series of weddings so their parents don’t try to matchmaker them to other people and end up falling in love for real. The gimmick here is that they’re Indian-American, so we get lots of good—as in actually funny—cultural baggage jokes a la My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Is this doing or saying anything new or inventive? Absolutely not. Is it fun? Certainly.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – The first movie I saw in a theater in about four years, and they really did both nail the feel of a D&D campaign and also clearly love what they were doing. The use of D&D monsters, spells and references didn’t feel forced, it felt like a genuine part of the world. Even if you aren’t familiar with the material, they give you everything you need to know and boy is Chris Pine enjoying himself. Oh, and I loved the cameo by the cartoon cast.
Home Again - Reese Witherspoon in her second Netflix romcom in six months, this one the tale of a mother of two separating from her husband, turning 40, and accidentally adopting three 20-something aspiring filmmakers. It’s nothing brilliant; it actually feels like it was a different movie that got hacked together as a found-family rom-com (there are just too many details and pieces that felt like they should have gone somewhere or connected to something but didn’t). But it’s also Reese Witherspoon and honestly it’s hard not to adore her.
Legally Blonde - Speaking of adoring Reese Witherspoon, this holds up shockingly well for a 2001 comedy. There are a couple of small bits that didn’t age perfectly and it’s definitely dated, but I can see how they could turn this into a musical without having to change much about it.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Like most Marvel movies at this point, this was too long and was trying to cram in too many heroes and cameos but was fun. Like, Bill Murray was delightful but his scenes could have been cut with no real impact to the plot. And honestly, the same for William Jackson Harper, who I also think is great, but his character wasn’t necessary. They could have tightened the focus on the incredibly entertaining Ant-Family even more and it would have made the movie stronger. (I really have to be in these for the individual movie at this point. Do I care about Kang? No. At this point the buildup for Kang just feels like a retread of the Thanos buildup and the entire franchise is starting to wear on me.)
Miss Congeniality - This doesn't hold up as well as Legally Blond; not least because the feminist themes it used were a jumbled mess even back when it was originally made. Also, it relies on the idea that Sandra Bullock could ever not be unmistakably gorgeous. Still a bunch of solid lines and probably my favorite non-Trek Shatner performance.
Tenet - I had meant to watch this for a while and lost track of it; it has a similar feel to Inception of mashing a sci-fi premise into a heist movie with a twist; and I found the deconstruction of the sci-fi ideas much more engrossing than any of the characters. It's using a similar base rule to Primer, in that you can only move 1 second/second through time, but you can switch directions with the magic box. The difference is that Primer let them change what they did and "overwrite" history. This runs on the premise that nothing can be changed because everything you did already happened. I’m looking forward to finally reading all the fan theories. (Especially for things that don’t actually make sense, like how inverse bullets could actually be useful if somebody sends a box of them back in time—how do they end up embedded in walls where you could use them?)
Legion of Super-Heroes (2023) - A remix of Supergirl joining the Legion, by joining "Legion Academy" and needing to stop the Dark Circle from stealing the Miracle Machine. It was formulaic and unsurprising, rearranging setpieces into standard teen movie format. Also, they did the whole "characters with useless powers save the day" thing but didn't use Matter-Eater Lad (who, in the original story with the Miracle Machine, destroys it by eating it). I appreciate that Harry Shum Jr. is getting work?
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - A parody of biopic movies much more than anything realistic about Weird Al, though I’ll give them credit for nodding to people who knew the actual history. This was cleverly plotted in that each scene was funny, but the dialogue wasn’t snappy enough and the jokes-per-minute was too low. The celebrity cameos (both who was playing them and who they were playing) were great, though my personal favorite cameo I spotted was Weird Al’s real-life wife sitting with him in the final scene.
Wedding Season - I’m reasonably certain we saw this plot before; it’s about two people who agree to fake-date their way through a series of weddings so their parents don’t try to matchmaker them to other people and end up falling in love for real. The gimmick here is that they’re Indian-American, so we get lots of good—as in actually funny—cultural baggage jokes a la My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Is this doing or saying anything new or inventive? Absolutely not. Is it fun? Certainly.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves – The first movie I saw in a theater in about four years, and they really did both nail the feel of a D&D campaign and also clearly love what they were doing. The use of D&D monsters, spells and references didn’t feel forced, it felt like a genuine part of the world. Even if you aren’t familiar with the material, they give you everything you need to know and boy is Chris Pine enjoying himself. Oh, and I loved the cameo by the cartoon cast.
Home Again - Reese Witherspoon in her second Netflix romcom in six months, this one the tale of a mother of two separating from her husband, turning 40, and accidentally adopting three 20-something aspiring filmmakers. It’s nothing brilliant; it actually feels like it was a different movie that got hacked together as a found-family rom-com (there are just too many details and pieces that felt like they should have gone somewhere or connected to something but didn’t). But it’s also Reese Witherspoon and honestly it’s hard not to adore her.
Legally Blonde - Speaking of adoring Reese Witherspoon, this holds up shockingly well for a 2001 comedy. There are a couple of small bits that didn’t age perfectly and it’s definitely dated, but I can see how they could turn this into a musical without having to change much about it.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Like most Marvel movies at this point, this was too long and was trying to cram in too many heroes and cameos but was fun. Like, Bill Murray was delightful but his scenes could have been cut with no real impact to the plot. And honestly, the same for William Jackson Harper, who I also think is great, but his character wasn’t necessary. They could have tightened the focus on the incredibly entertaining Ant-Family even more and it would have made the movie stronger. (I really have to be in these for the individual movie at this point. Do I care about Kang? No. At this point the buildup for Kang just feels like a retread of the Thanos buildup and the entire franchise is starting to wear on me.)
Miss Congeniality - This doesn't hold up as well as Legally Blond; not least because the feminist themes it used were a jumbled mess even back when it was originally made. Also, it relies on the idea that Sandra Bullock could ever not be unmistakably gorgeous. Still a bunch of solid lines and probably my favorite non-Trek Shatner performance.
Tenet - I had meant to watch this for a while and lost track of it; it has a similar feel to Inception of mashing a sci-fi premise into a heist movie with a twist; and I found the deconstruction of the sci-fi ideas much more engrossing than any of the characters. It's using a similar base rule to Primer, in that you can only move 1 second/second through time, but you can switch directions with the magic box. The difference is that Primer let them change what they did and "overwrite" history. This runs on the premise that nothing can be changed because everything you did already happened. I’m looking forward to finally reading all the fan theories. (Especially for things that don’t actually make sense, like how inverse bullets could actually be useful if somebody sends a box of them back in time—how do they end up embedded in walls where you could use them?)
Legion of Super-Heroes (2023) - A remix of Supergirl joining the Legion, by joining "Legion Academy" and needing to stop the Dark Circle from stealing the Miracle Machine. It was formulaic and unsurprising, rearranging setpieces into standard teen movie format. Also, they did the whole "characters with useless powers save the day" thing but didn't use Matter-Eater Lad (who, in the original story with the Miracle Machine, destroys it by eating it). I appreciate that Harry Shum Jr. is getting work?
