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Suicide Squad (2016)
Appeals to a certain demographic but is a JOY for those people in question
Do I think this saves DCEU after the disaster known as BvS? No. Will I be sad if Warner Bros decides to reboot DCEU due to poor reviews and box office results? Heck no. But I am glad this movie is made, for properly depicting the members of Suicide Squad and being what it is: A comic book movie for people who like and/or are interested in the characters it depicts. This movie is a solid 7/10 for me and I acknowledge that this score will change for someone else with different expectations from movies as a whole.
I am in love with this movie. I am in full acknowledgment that this movie was purely made as a knee-jerk reaction and as a shameless rebellious mindset with little base to support itself, and it should be obvious to anyone that this movie has a myriad of flaws. I am not ashamed of excusing these flaws to enjoy a proper depiction of really, REALLY underrated comic book characters like Deadshot, Katana and El Diablo. This movie makes me care about characters I don't think I would ever care about, and that's a definitive plus if you ask me.
I don't know what the critics were expecting from this movie but I have somewhat of a theory. I did also like Warcraft: The Beginning (despite me having absolutely no knowledge on Warcraft lore) when it was absolutely destroyed by the critics. Warcraft and Squad both have supernatural elements in their story lines that were not properly explained in their origins and they expect you to believe these elements just happen to exist. I think MCU and The Dark Knight trilogy spoiled everybody in that regard: They try to ground their superheroes in a believable setting that could exist within our own reality. This is a movie where we are expected to believe ancient artifacts can encase supernatural beings, a human being can born with pyrokinesis, and a katana sword can entrap souls of its victims.
The story was simplistic alright, but it works on the story's benefit. You don't need to know much about the story other than these are bad people with criminal record and due to their unique specialties they were chosen to assume roles in a governmental response team to possible supernatural attacks. This is a lovely premise and I cannot think of a better team to embody this idea. Sure, half of the team is vastly over-powered compared to the rest like, say, Captain Boomerang, it becomes downright comical: but movie downright acknowledges it and SUBTLY addresses to it when other characters find it socially awkward to point that out.
The main squad members were on point. Killer Croc sadly pales in comparison, but efforts were made to involve him in the story. Slipknot does not live for long, but he serves his purpose. Margot Robbie is wonderful and her depiction of Harley Quinn brings more than just a sex toy for the Joker: She shows duality, she shows ingenuity. This Harley is a character worthy of her lore. Characters like Will Smith's Deadshot, El Diablo and Katana, certainly surpass their lores and bring intense amounts of humanity to their characters. The rest aren't as well developed but they share a comic relief spot altogether and it definitely works. Viola Davis' Amanda Waller and Joel Kinnaman's Rick Flag also bring more to the table than expected. The villains are okay, the depiction of Enchantress and his brother Incubus was lovely, although the latter was fragged a bit easily IMHO. They were depicted as vastly powerful beings but Incubus was taken out a bit easily comparatively.
And to be honest, this leads to another theory of mine: This movie reminds me of a perfectly good session of a game of FRP, like Dungeons and Dragons but ofc in a modern superhero setting. I love when movies do that. We start with established characters telling their backstories, banding together with their own specialties to bear through minion encounters with memorable details, and then they take down the big bad for some loot. Just like that, not always every character's dice rolls like it should, and sometimes a poorly thought move deals devastating blow as if their character rolled a 20.
Jared Leto's Joker is completely underwhelming. He is miscast and his method acting is nil. Due to the fact that he's extremely cut from the movie benefits the movie tenfold. He serves some bit of purpose in the story to elevate Harley's character and then he storms off (kinda). I don't think his persisting presence would in any way help the movie from that point onwards. And I don't really care
Despite how this movie's advertised, this is not a Joker movie, this movie has more to do with Harley than him, and Harley was done so well I don't care about Joker. I believe they designed him to be a modernized version of Jack Nicholson's Joker, and I absolutely despise Jack's Joker (and Tim Burton's vision of the Batman lore as a whole) and I believe everyone who show a baseless respect to Jack Nicholson's Joker while simultaneously hating on Jared Leto's Joker to be completely contradictive, if not selective and biased. The only difference between Nicholson and Leto except the gangsta motifs of their characters is that Nicholson is naturally charismatic when Leto is a black hole of charisma. While charisma is a big part of Joker's character, Tim Burton's Batman ruins Joker's character in so many other ways it doesn't matter anyway. Everyone got their best Joker out of The Dark Knight. Move on.
I like this movie a lot and I think this was a movie made for people like me and it's a hard thing to find when comic book movies are so marginalized and marketed towards a wide audience. I am glad and will definitely take this movie as a perfectly beautiful standalone movie when DCEU is discontinued.
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)
Review from a longtime fan - Underwhelmed
I just saw Angry Video Game Movie and as a long time fan, I have to say that it was underwhelming. It had its moments, however its flaws really drag it down. The movie is basically the offspring of two people with completely different ideas trying to piece up a script together.
Spoilers:
I understand it's hard to come up with a script for a movie rendition of AVGN. It's just about a guy yelling at his TV with occasional guest appearances of fictitious characters (relevant to whatever game he's playing); but this lack of intricacy in original material, to my belief, should also mean that it's open for interpretation and building on what's already established. Well, all characters are new, all environments are new, and some stuff feel a little too unfamiliar. I don't get the character traits given to Nerd. He's very sympathetic with people, understanding, open to argue with, and such. He's "the protagonist", basically a blank slate for the audience to relate to. This is problematic for three reasons:
1. AVGN has gained popularity over the years by the sheer factor of his personality aspects. His reactions to things going on should have been one of the major selling points. People like the Nerd because he overreacts. It doesn't mean he should be closed for any character development, but he doesn't even get any; throughout the movie he acts as an innocent puppy thrown in a circus, trying to understand the plot.
2. This COMPLETELY throws away what the web series has established about his personality! In many episodes, he is shown to be dismissive and mean to people upfront; which makes other characters cut their act and turn out to be equally mean. Here, Nerd is less angry and more of a self-insert of James Rolfe's own mannerisms.
3. This characteristic doesn't makes sense WITHIN the movie, because Nerd is also a bit childish. He's only arrogant and angry when confronted with EeeTee, or if he's presented the idea of girl gamers. For the first half of the movie he's conflicted that Mandi is both a girl and a gamer and he expresses discomfort for being around her, which is a form of anonymity that wasn't established in the web series before. He's the straight man except these traits, which makes them even more confusing.
The two supporting characters are gleaming reasons to why this movie couldn't become something groundbreaking. Cooper and Mandi, created solely for this movie, are supposedly included to satirize old 80s and 90s movies of the same adventure vein, and both characters were made to be simple tokens much like those movies; guy sidekick being weak and coward -and he does bring in heavily clichéd, bad black guy jokes here and there- and the girl being the GIRL; having sexual tension with both male characters, and also acting both as the Daphne and Velma of the group; in glee and smarts department. This entire joke falls flat by virtue of there being no punchline other than one or two "look we are self-aware" moments. The movie didn't attempt to break the mold, and became the same thing it tried to satirize. The character of Mandi, despite all that, was acted well and had a good synergy with Nerd. Cooper however was an annoying, whiny, unfunny lackey who had no reason to be there other than to spout exposition and make Nerd seem more like the straight man.
The other characters, however, were shockingly amazing! Time Winters had a great role in which he gave his all. The cameo appearances were well made, and it was usually anyone but the main trio who brought in the real laughs or interesting bits in this movie. Even the EeeTee alien was a really nice touch despite his cheesy lines.
The script is decent. The main plot was actually great. Many do complain about the movie turning into a different one halfway; however the choppy and exaggerated elevation of events makes the Nerd humor shine. It feels like they tried their best to have their petty video game-related problem to elevate into a giant robot threatening the entire universe
and that's fantastic! It's supposed to be escapist fantasy, in terms of doing stuff that big blockbuster movies would never attempt to do because of the sheer silliness. What script fails to deliver however, is to find things for the sidekicks to do once they are separated from Nerd. Mandi gets captured early up and spends 12 hours in movie's time being tied up by a lesser villain, and this situation does not alter even after plot resolves enough that there is no longer a reason for her to be there! And Cooper just mops around and drives around in the van whining. By the end of the movie the three reunites, only for them to be completely useless. Then Cooper awkwardly kisses Mandi despite there being no hint of them being interested in each other and Mandi just goes with it. Mandi is a company representative and Cooper is a Youtuber that lives with an overprotective mom, and the movie did nothing to make this thing any means of believable.
The movie packs two plot twists, one being really predictable because of bad foreshadowing (alien foil being used for game cartridges), and other being really coming out of nowhere. The latter I actually very enjoyed. The actual E.T review is in the credits sequence and it was also low key, sadly. The references to web series were made to be understandable in a subtle manner, for those who hasn't seen the episodes before, and that is a plus.
Give it a watch if you're a longtime AVGN fan, yet still proceed with caution, and maybe go for the Vimeo renting option instead of download -because I personally don't see this as worthy of watching a second time.
Man of Steel (2013)
Man of Steel, finally a Superman movie that tries something new
Man of Steel can be broken down to 2 well-toned segments, basically post-Superman Clark Kent and Clark Kent as Superman, pretty much like the first movie ever in that regard. After a deliciously prolonged epilogue taking place in the planet Krypton, the movie focuses on Clark Kent's difficulty in adjusting to both his unusual powers (even to his own kin) and the society, at a really young age. What we see in terms of the portrayal of young Clark's difficulties in life aren't really all that surprising or even new, such as Clark as a kid being constantly bullied but not being able to respond the bullies, Clark having problems with his powers that he cannot yet control to fullest extent, him constantly requiring to save people without being caught into doing it, and so forth. Rinse and repeat, all the stuff we've constantly seen in many, MANY mediums; other movies, animated features, comics
And I think Zack Snyder knew that we would expect it, so the exposure on Clark's life as a kid is told only in brief flashbacks, when it's actually required to be told, without making it seem like they're only purpose is to spew exposition. Aside from that, the first half of the movie tells the story of a 33 year old Clark Kent, being a citizen, while trying to learn his heritage and becoming the iconic hero.
And that's where Hollywood finally, totally nailed how to do it. See, I don't like Superman I and II (and, well, goes without saying, I don't like III and IV either
or Returns
No Superman movie so far I've deemed "good"). Say what you say about CG becoming more and more important in modern cinema than fully-fleshed story lines and characters, but it's what Superman I did at its own time, with reducing that whole notion to a tag line, nonetheless.
"You'll believe a man can fly." The first Superman movie had the visual aspects of the movie on its top shelf, for everyone to see. Sure I mean, when you watch it now it does not look all that impressive, but you have to remember that the movie was shot when the whole "green screen" and, well, "string" technology was invented, so they made a lot of use of such to make it seem like Christopher Reeve was actually flying around in set and/or they added some stuff in post production. The classic movie did prioritize the special effects, and this became the signature of all the other movies that came after (except for IV because I don't even know what they were trying to accomplish with that). But, you know
Characters were caricatures and had no depth whatsoever. Superman's Clark Kent persona was only played for goofs and comedic relief and Superman himself, apart from his flying, wasn't really done all that well either. Superman does not even punch anyone in these movies, I mean, how do you even accomplish that? Anyway, in Man of Steel, Clark Kent was done well, we have a better empathy with his morals and decisions. His human side is played a lot better, for instance we see how he acts around his mother on Earth (after saving lots of people in Metropolis and everything) and that scene was actually very cute and unexpected. The scenes where the point of the scene is not Clark Kent not resorting to his powers despite dire circumstance in order not to reveal his identity, honestly, ain't all that much, but the other scenes are not set out to make fun of the character, which adds a tremendous human quality to the character, something the previous movies could not ever accomplish. You'd think perhaps "this is because we take cinema more seriously now, as this is the modern age". Well, Superman Returns was made in 2006, it had a similar line of advertising with Man of Steel, what with the "kinda different looking suit/colors wow we're starting new and fresh", but ended up being the very same movie with the first one, with all the jokes, all the stupid cartoon-y characters, with new but unworkable ideas thrown around. With all the new advancements in cinema, Superman Returns did not even DARE to go out of boundaries, the same boundaries that a movie made in 1978 built.
Anyway, THIS movie. This movie's great. Go see it. I love how it's not weighed down by the other movie installments, it is a fairly lovely representation of the lore, and I love the score MUCH better than the classic Superman theme. It is actually fairly difficult to make a SUPERMAN movie altogether, because the character story does not offer much elements and when they do, they're blatant (character back story: HE'S AN ALIEN. powers: HE'S A GOD. weakness: THAT ONE GREEN ROCK AND NOTHING ELSE) but this movie offers good plot points that makes it feel more organic. Movie does change the Superman lore a little, but they are mostly acceptable. I like how the Kryptonian technology looks in this movie rather than their previous crystal design, which didn't make much sense to me.
None of it is to say Man of Steel offers the same depth that The Dark Knight offers, as it is more of a great popcorn movie if nothing else, and certainly not a borderline offensive one like Transformers 3. Speaking of Transformers 3, Man of Steel does share one commonality with it, the commonality being having a really long climax with very complicated scenes botched together. This decade surely isn't for people who are extremely susceptible to seizure inducing visuals. I mean, in some parts it does look like anime, but hey. I liked the climax, although long, because it went somewhere with new interesting stuff thrown here and there.
Go see it. One suggestion however, watch the movie in 2D if available, or I don't know, find a good 3D cinema.