Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

[StarLord123]

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 8/10
This was pretty damn good overall, easily the 2nd best 2024 release I've seen so far just behind Dune. The highlight for me is definitely Chris Hemsworth, he's delightfully evil as Dr. Dementus and gives quite possibly my favorite performance of his to date. Anya Taylor Joy does a nice job as Furiosa, as does the young actress who plays her for a decent portion of the movie. The action sequences are expectedly stellar and exhilarating, as is the sound design that'll surely receive nominations (for someone his age, George Miller directs the fuck out of this). It also does a nice job with expanding this world and making it feel larger.

These are more mixed aspects rather than outright negative, and these didn't detract too much from the overall experience. The middle section when Hemsworth is not on screen I don't think is quite as engaging as the rest of the movie (but a terrific action scene prevents the pacing from coming to a complete halt). It's definitely not the same movie as Fury Road, but it does get a little heavy-handed with the callbacks to it. Also, I think it's a bit of a step down from Fury Road visually, there are still plenty of superb visuals and the cinematography is great, but there's also some occasional jarring CGI and green screen usage that doesn't quite blend. All in all, it's not quite as good as Fury Road but that was always going to be tough to beat, this is a worthy addition to the franchise.

[StarLord123]

The Garfield Movie 5/10
This was pretty much what I expected going in, a mildly entertaining diversion, but not a particularly good movie by any means. It feels a lot like this was an original script (I use the term original loosely) that was hastily converted into a Garfield script by throwing in some superficial references relating to the character (and some SUPER on-the-nose product placement). It's basically just a generic slapstick kids/family comedy that's Garfield in name only. Unfortunately, Chris Pratt is a total miscast here, he's completely on autopilot and gives a largely static vocal performance, Garfield is portrayed as energetic, and Pratt just doesn't sell it that well. Samuel L. Jackson as the long-lost father and Hannah Waddingham as the generic baddie fare a little better, they seemed to have at least a bit of fun. The plot is little more than a mix of tropes and clichés from other animated films, every beat is as standard and predictable as humanly possible.

Is this some abomination against animation or film as a whole? No. The visuals are adequately serviceable, there's also the occasional joke that lands. While generic on the whole, the father/son dynamic works well enough at times, and there's a brief but genuinely touching flashback scene in the middle. Plus it's not an unpleasant experience at all, it's fully watchable, but a few recent examples have shown that the animation medium is capable of so much more than this type of uninspired fluff. I think that this character is better off sticking to TV ultimately.

[Ron Burgundy]

Furiosa

I had sky high expectations after seeing Fury Road in cinema twice, so I was pretty excited for this one. And while some of the action was still impressive, alot didn't hit the mark in terms of audicity (unlike Fury Road) and there wasn't enough of it to fill my gas tank.

Yes Hemsworth was good, but his character wasn't nasty enough to be hated or evil enough to be feared. Taylor-Joy was good but her American accent (like Charlize Theron) in a world with Aussie accents started to piss me off and I didn't believe her credibility as a tough as nails heroin (unlike Theron).
Most of the small parts were very well played by character actors.

All in all, while it didn't quite satisfy the eyes completely, it didnt drag or anything. Still I wanted more action and therefore it's only a 7/10 for me

[Buscemi2]

Evil Does Not Exist 3/10

I don't think Hamaguchi is for me. This boring movie that feels like it was made by an emotionless robot focuses on a village in Japan fighting against the development of a resort and the representatives of the company wanting the resort wanting to get away from their work and start over. Hamaguchi's story seems to be limited to the discovery of the word "glamping" and building a half-assed concept around the idea of stealing someone's land for a trend. There's something about deer in the story but it's never really explored, as instead we get long passages where nothing really happens. And even though it's over 70 minutes shorter than Drive My Car, another painfully slow movie, it feels like it's three hours.

I think I've spend enough time on this one, as no one else here will probably ever see it, so that's my opinion.

[Chienfantome]

I've seen EVIL DOES NOT EXIST last month when it was released here. The ending honestly left me very, very skeptical, but beyond that, I loved it. I know it's slow paced, and often doesn't seem to say much, but Hamaguchi's ability to observe human interaction in their most common aspects is fascinating. And there is beauty I think in his way of setting à scene.
But I completely understand that it's a film that can leave someone cold.

[numbersix]

I also saw it a few weeks ago. I actually liked it a lot more than Drive My Car, which definitely did outstay its welcome and was too bogged down by its Ibsen connections. Evil was a bit more visual, and much more mysterious. The themes are a little on the nose, but I liked how the team presenting the glamping site had no interest in it, yet their conception of nature as an ideal is just as naive. That's what i took from the film, how we misinterpret nature. I even liked the ending, it had a Murakami vibe to it. Not brilliant, and like Boosch I wouldn't call myself a fan, but not bad either.

In terms of other films I did like recently, Challengers was a fun, sexy character study that was tremendously well cast. Love Lies Bleeding thankfully wasn;t interested in the tired plot and instead took some really surprising risks.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was a big disappointment, and i've no idea why films like Are You There God it's Me Margaret and The Idea of You received positive reviews. Both were familiar and quite stale.

[Chienfantome]

I just came back from the Cannes Film Festival, where I spent 3 days and discovered 6 films :

Savanna and the Mountain 3/10
A very boring Portuguese fake documentary about villagers trying to stop a project that would ruin the environment of their small town. Real villagers reenact what they went through, and boy are they not actors. (Director's Fortnight)

Veteran 2 (I, The Executioner) 7/10
A Korean action crime comedy (yeah that's a lot of genres in one, but Koreans know how to handle it. It's the sequel to one of the biggest films in Korean boxoffice history, about a police squad tracking a serial killer. It's fun and it's action-packed, very entertaining film. (Midnight Screening)

Santosh 6/10
An Indian social drama / crime mystery about a woman who's the widow of a policeman, and by the virtue of an Indian law, is able to get her late husband's job, in this case cop. She discovers the job while investigating a murder. A bit too long, but an interesting film that manages to be suspenseful and observe what it's like to be an Indian woman working in the police, and more generally today's India. (Un certain regard)

Flow 8/10
An animated film, coproduction between France and Latvia I think, that was really surprising. I really didn't expect such a film in Cannes' official selection. Dialogueless, it follows a cat in the nature while a flood threatens all the animals living in the wild. Very thin in terms of narration, it's exhilarating as you follow the cat in the dangers it faces, and it's got an interesting look on the importance of the group versus loneliness. The character design is a bit rudimentary, but the overall animation is breathtaking. (Un certain regard)

Parthenope 6/10
Paolo Sorrentino's latest visually stunning picture is the portrait of a woman from her birth in 1950's Napoli to her old days in present day. But the film mostly focuses on her 20's, in the 1970's. As usual with Sorrentino, it's one of the most beautiful film you'll get to watch this year. But the Italian director sometimes loses himself in his obsession with esthetism, and at 136 minutes (or so), the film is too long. (Competition)

L'Amour Ouf (Heartbeats) 5/10
Another film that was way too long (2h45). But Gilles Lellouche's film main problem is that the French director wanted his feature to be exclusively made of money shots. You can never rest your eyes, he always goes for complicated camerawork to tell this story of a girl and a guy meeting in their teens and starting a love story that comes to a halt because of a tragedy. And years later, they meet again. There is a great film in there somewhere, because it's still very ambitious, and sometimes really impressive. But the director wants to do too much and make too many films at the same time.
(Competition)

[Buscemi2]

So Heartbeats is like that four-hour twerking movie from a few years back?

[Buscemi2]

It's Such a Beautiful Day was recently reissued with a new short film before the movie and you have to wonder what Don Hertzfeldt was thinking with it. Now, Hertzfeldt is known for having a out-there sense of storytelling but with Me, it feels like he is gunning solely for an Oscar. This humorless short is essentially doomer fetishism, with a general "society is doomed/technology is evil" tone and outside of a few minutes, largely feels less Rejected/It's Such a Beautiful Day/World of Tomorrow and more like a better animated Steve Cutts short. And when you're emulating Steve Cutts, it might be time to re-evaluate your career and look back at what worked in the past.

Me gets a 2/10 from me.

[StarLord123]

Unfrosted 1/10
I really, really fucking HATED this movie. It's truly insane how Jerry Seinfeld was able to pull in this many big name actors to make this painfully unfunny, horrendous film that flushes a concept that sounded amusing on paper down the fucking toilet. It's 90 minutes (but feels at least twice as long) of insufferable characters, dreadful performances, an incoherent plot structure that's just a bunch of loosely connected horribly unfunny skits, and jokes that range from lazy to heinous. It hurts to watch so many of these actors get dragged through the mud, joylessly spewing out some of the worst comedic dialogue imaginable, that Seinfeld clearly thinks is fucking hilarious! It feels like it was written by someone who doesn't have any understanding of comedic timing, not by someone who's partly responsible for one of the most successful sitcoms in history. The movie seemingly has no clue whether it wants to be a family comedy or an edgy comedy, it constantly swings back and forth between the two and utterly fails at both. It doesn't produce a single laugh, rather it produces a fuckton of groaning. This is one of the most pathetic excuses for a "comedy" I've seen in my life, a truly staggering creative failure without a single shred of heart, soul, or inventiveness. Surely, nothing else that I see this year can possibly be worse than this utter filth, I have truly stared down rock bottom watching this bullshit.

Also saw Night Swim (4/10) and The First Omen (6.5/10).

[Buscemi2]

Driving Madeleine 8/10

Pleasant drama about a cab driver tasked to take a 92-year old woman in her last day of freedom to a retirement home to live her final moments. But soon, the cab driver and his passenger get to know each other and end up spending the day together as she tells him her life story. Somewhat like a French version of A Man Called Ove, the leads play off each other very well and it mixes the dark flashbacks with the more lighthearted present day moments well. It also have a lot more humanity than other films that get praised for having humanity but are really just an excuse to show off action scenes.

A trip well worth taking.

[Buscemi2]

Bad Boys: Ride or Die 5/10

The latest fourth installment to disappoint. While the first three entries mixed action with high energy, this one feels like the cast and directors are going through the motions to get a handsome payday. Sure, the action set-pieces are well-done and try to make this more than just routine, the script is often lacking and doesn't really do much with the characters or their development. Also, the premise (cops on the run to clear their old boss) isn't very original and often reminds you of superior films such as The Fugitive.

Let's hope next month's Axel F is a better return to a popular action comedy franchise.

[Screen203]

The Watchers

I actually didn't think this was that bad. While it is very predictable and the script/some of the acting is spotty, it has a nice sense of atmosphere and Dakota Fanning does solid work considering what she has to work with. The biggest issue, IMO, is how derivative it is of other horror films, including some of Ishana Night Shyamalan's father's work. The first two acts are where The Watchers is at it's best; the third act once they escape, while compelling in theory, is very predicable and leads to a monologue by Dakota Fanning's character - the whole shapeshifting scene/confrontation with Madeline is very poorly done, IMO, and overall the third act needed a lot of work - that doesn't work. I will say I am glad they stayed away from the cliche of having the scenes after they escape being a hallucination, which could have easily been the ending in many other films. The sound design and cinematography is the highlight, IMO. If Ishana Night Shyamalan can get a better script, I believe that she has potential to reach the heights of her father's work.

5 out of 10

[StarLord123]

Bad Boys: Ride or Die 8/10
One of the most consistent action franchises out there has delivered another hit, everyone involved continues to bring their A-game. The dynamic between Smith and Lawrence is as hilarious as ever, Lawrence especially is given a large portion of the movie's humor, and he nails it down to a tee. Directing duo Adil and Bilall continue to flex their directing muscles and have staged some tremendous, dynamic, and high-energy action scenes that left me giddy. The story is maybe the deepest and and most complex of the series, but it's engaging throughout and it (mostly) works to deliver some really satisfying payoffs. The character development for our duo works nicely in these 2 recent films, as it acknowledges that they're aging heroes in a different phase of life. Eric Dane makes for a serviceable (if a bit unremarkable) antagonist, but the buddy dynamic has always been more essential to this series than the villains regardless.

The only things that really prevent this from being the most entertaining movie I've seen for several months, are that it's a little too overstuffed with different characters, I don't think it really needed a secondary antagonist. I also didn't care much for them retconning Captain Howard's death and making the main baddie in this the one responsible, I feel like that undermines the previous film a bit.

[Buscemi2]

Kidnapped 7/10

Ambitious, if a bit on the safe side, drama about about a kidnapping of a Jewish boy who was kidnapped from his family six years after a secret baptism and forced into a life in the seminary. In the year of cinematic doomerism that was 2023, this is another downbeat story of evil triumphing over good by convincing others they are doing the right thing with how unchecked power can corrupt those around them, in case the Catholic church and their stranglehold on Italy. The film's strengths lay in the depiction of these events and how having a theocracy is a horrible, horrible idea. However, I do feel it could have been even more vicious in its depiction of religion and how even then, people of faith are often not ones with good intentions.

The film is also very nice to look at but in the end, it could have been even better than just merely being good.