Dominionionion

I can barely remember any of the previous movies, so that's the best state to go into this one which wraps them all up!

There are dinosaurs all over the world, and Biosyn volunteers to gather them all up. And yet, for some reason, EVERYONE is shocked by the fact that they turn out to be evil. The cast of the first three movies get involved to find evidence, the cast of the second lot of movies get involved to get the girl back, and when they meet... that is a moment in the movie.

I'll be honest... this was just a bunch of scenes that happened on screen. Especially when there are action sequences involving Claire and Owen. You know how great scenes have people moving about and the camera establishes the geography so you know where everyone is in relation to everywhere else, and where they are going etc... I had no idea at all how one bit connected with the others. I assume people got from one place to another in a way that made sense, but... I am just assuming that.

It is good to see Sam Neill and Laura Dern again, and the others are decent too.

But I just wasn't that into it. It didn't help that people were constantly popping out and in of the theatre, so possibly others were also not into it (let alone a few people left partway through and I never saw them again). So, only really see this if you are really invested in what's going on.

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Rememory

This is not a family feel good movie. Shocking, considering this features Liam Neeson.

Liam is playing an assassin, but he doesn't want to do his job. And so becomes a target. Which sounds fairly generic, and that is, but there is another aspect in that that is just one of the plots, the other is a group of three FBI peoples who end up after the same people that want Liam dead. And this all involves child sex-trafficking, so yeah, not actually fun.

Decent enough. There's the gimmick that Liam is having the Alzheimer's, but this just leads to a small side point that doesn't really matter. (This really comes about because this movie is based on De zaak Alzheimer, or The Memory of a Killer.)

Guy Pierce is the other main lead here and.. he is quite good. I can't recall all his other roles, but right now I'm thinking I like most of his roles... We also got not much more than a cameo from Monica Belluci, but also decent performances from Taj Atwal and Harold Torres.

Not going to blow you away with how wonderful this is, but a solid enough film.

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Decrets of Sumblesore

I've finally bothered to watch the latest movie and... I can't say that I hated it.

There is definitely some problems with it. From the hamfisted attempt at a political story to some rather pointless plots about brothers being captured, but... It was fine. There's some stuff that doesn't work well, but that isn't to say this is actively bad.

Although I will question the entire point of Clarence.

But the performances are all right. The effects are fine. While I don't think you need some of the story points, I could follow what was going on (which is more than many people could say for the second movie).

Overall it's a Meh. But the Wizarding World was never something I was actively involved in. And certainly I won't be bothered if there are no more movies (which I know is a preferred treatment, or at least take it away from that problematic author). The movie in and of itself is fine.

The circumstances around some of the actors and the producer are the real problems.

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La panthère des neiges

Despite the original name, this is called The Velvet Queen, which is not a translation of the title. This movie was put on with the Wellington Zoo as they are building a new Snow Leopard enclosure.

This movie is about a couple of French men who go hunting in the mountains of Tibet. Where "hunting" means with cameras and binoculars. While they do see many animals, don't go expecting a lot of snow leopard footage. But do except long monologues about the silence...

Yes, I do acknowledge that there is some irony in a documentary about going and see animals in the wild which is fundraising for keeping animals in captivity. But I'm not going to get into the politics of zoos, but I will say... I love leopards, and if the snow leopards have a Close Encounter opportunity, I will be there!

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Man Sandwich!

This was a big mod that Logan made and ran a lot of people on. The Blue Mage was a bad guy in this game that we completely didn't interact with at all. So Logan took the step for us to do something about it. A lot of people ran on it... and had no idea what was going on for a lot of it.

Whereas, twenty minutes into the second episode, I grok what is going on. It helped that Legends of Tomorrow did an arc with them, so I completely dialed in on what the essence was. It also helped that I was in "don't care about the decoration, just get on with it" mode which made me ignore a lot of rubbish that others got caught up with. (And us three missed a lot of references.)

Fortunately although we were quick, we were the last group (Logan says we were the quickest group, but I think Matt's group was also quick, they just did stuff afterwards to pad the time out). If they had all been this quick he probably would have had to change it.

Normally these games are five parts, but we were quick and had no abilities to go other stuff, so three episodes it is.

The title is obvious once you listen to the first part. It was just one of those silly moments that you go with 'cos why the hell not?

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RrrrRrrrR

Oh hell yes! You want big epic movie? This is it. Outrageous events that just does for it? This is it. A great example of Indian movies? This. Is. It.

But I'm not going to be able to do this justice. All I can say is that this is on Netflix (although it is the Hindi version, but with subtitles it's not like most of us English speakers are going to be able to tell the difference).

Instead, I'll hand it over to Patrick Willems:

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Duale

So, I'm guessing the point of this movie is "you are your own worse enemy"?

The basics of the movie is simple enough: girl becomes sick, girl gets clone, girl stops being sick, girl and clone have to fight to the death to earn the right to be the one left alive. Classic story.

The girl in this case is played by Karen Gillan, and when it comes to the eventual combat section, you know she already has a leg up on action poses. She and herself are easily differentiated as she gives the two characters different mannerisms and (more obviously) different hairstyles.

The other characters are largely just bit players in her story, although Aaron Paul gets some decent screen time. The production is mostly decent, with only a few times Karen didn't quite eyeline herself.

As to the essence of the story, there are a few considerations: own enemy as mentioned above, which aspect of yourself would survive, can you face yourself, etc...

But what confused me was not the ending itself (and what happened was obvious), but... were we supposed to be surprised by that? Because it was obvious, so what is revealed is just what we know. I'm not sure I get it beyond that. (And what happened to the car? Was there a deleted scene there?)

Watchable? Sure, but I was kinda hoping for something a little more nuanced.

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