Not Young

Fine, let's see the latest M. Night twist!

A couple of families go to a resort and get taken out to a lovely beach that has great views, great water and a small side effect of aging people rapidly. ... ... ... skip to 90 minutes and then we wrap up what is actually going on.

Seriously, the main chunk of this movie is nothing happen. We have the gimmick, and then the gimmick goes on.. and that's it! Nothing interesting develops from that, and even the big reveal of what is going on is "meh". Certainly not a surprise twist. Not that I saw it coming, but that I just didn't care that that's what the answer was.

Because it doesn't work. There's the premise, but it doesn't actually work that way! There are some hat tips to actual science, but most of it is ignored because that's not what the story is about. But what the story is about is "people hang around" and that isn't a story that anything exciting happens with.

This might be a movie to catch on tv, but I definitely wouldn't say you need to go to a cinema to see it.

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Shaun Chi

Finally managed to see the latest Marvel movie, with lockdown easing and movies coming out later.

Shang-Chi has daddy issues, understandable when your dad is the leader of the Ten Rings. In fact, the whole movie is about family issues. There is also a lot of martial arts fighting, and Awkwafina, but otherwise it's family. (So this is the Fast and Furious of Marvel movies?)

A lot of people are loving this movie, but I can't say it feels like more than an average Marvel movie to me. So ... uh... I don't feel like I have a lot of say here.

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it. Just that as I think back on it... I'm remembering bits from the trailer more than the actual movie. Considering that I was careful to avoid any spoilers and stuff, maybe I was expecting too much?

In all, it was decent, but... that's about it.

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KondyMon

After some issues, I did manage to see this sequel to the 1992 movie (which I also watched prior).

An artist becomes fascinated by the legend of the Candyman, but his latest project is connecting him with the being in ways he didn't expect. But as he gets in touch with the Candyman, the Candyman reaches out and touches others in rather unpleasant ways.

While I did see the 1992 movie, I haven't seen the others. And guessing how sequels would probably up the horror factor of "man with hook who appears in mirror", I'm not immediately pining to. While this is Clive Barker, look what happened with Hellraiser...

But this version picks up from '92 and references that. As such, it is useful to see that movie, but they do explain a lot of it. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is the artist of the main role, and he gets to experience some personally unsettling thing, which is a key factor of these movies. In that it is what people find out about how other people treat people (in particular, how black people are treated).

Less of a factor is the horror element of hook related fatalities, and some bee themed stuff. Unfortunately, this movie does go into "hey, let's kill some random people," which undermines the personal nature of the movie and could be scenes from any killer movie. The bee thing is a neat touch, but is only really incidental, and easily could have been dropped... or ramped up.

I'm sure I missed some parts of the movie, but this easily could be a different type of horror movie that occasionally treads into the common paths.

Oh, and completely unrelated, but goes through my head all the time...

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The Geen Kinigit!

A LOT of people are excited about this, so I'll check it out.

Gawain is attending King Arthur's court when the Green Knight comes in and says "hit me and I will hit you in return, and everything will be fine" and Gawain hasn't seen the script so kills the Knight. Cut to, his journey later to go to the knight and get the returned blow.

This is based on classical mythology and... I don't get it. I wonder if I knew the story more I would? There are likely lots of references and such that makes people go "hey, that's that thing!" but none of that meant anything to me.

This movie is definitely artistic, with lots of stylish flourishes. But again, while I could appreciate it as a technical production, again the story didn't really resonate with me.

What this comes down to is: it's a nice movie, I guess, but not really meaning much to me.

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Baguette!

Of the various places our characters could go, one of them had everyone speaking French. And my character had spent time in Canada, and so could speak French. And so... however, only been there once, others have only been there a few times, and I doubt the other players really care enough to go back.

The title was obvious, and if you are reading the chat you'll see where I make that point.

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Rememberingensing

Hugh Jackman sci-fi? I'll bite, but I'm wondering if this is an excuse for historical in sci-fi clothes.

Nope, while people have said this is noir, this isn't as bad as I feared from "we live in the past". The past, in this case, is where clues are for the mystery of what happened in the now. Jackman is trying to unravel the question, and the remembering is an analogy for... living in the past? In a better time? In a time of secrets? I don't know analogies, so can't really say, but it isn't about solely dwelling in the past that the trailer hinted at.

Aside from that mystery... this isn't really that interesting a movie. The remembering of things is more of a gimmick than anything else, and yes this could easily be a noir detective story without needing to change much.

So not a bad movie... but not a great movie either.

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Snack Eyes

We've come a long way baby. But in some ways, not very far at all.

In the past, one child suffered a traumatic event. Now, in the present, he will do whatever it takes to deal with that trauma, even at the cost of learning an arc to be a better person.

While I'm not saying this movie is incredibly generic,... I am saying there are a lot of commonalities between this and a lot of other movies, particularly other martial arts movies. Heck, I'm expecting more of the same when Shang-Chi hits.

But one aspect I want to point out is: It takes 23 minutes for the first pair of female characters to come into the movie. And then another 30 minutes before the second pair. ... And that's it! Sure, you can say the yakuza and such are male biased, but godsdammit you could easily have plenty of more women around considering they are also a ninja clan, and there are masters and such. Four female characters?? In 2021? Come on now!

Aside from that... oh yeah, this is a GI Joe movie, but you'll be forgiven for blinking and missing that when that only takes up about 5 minutes of screen time.

You know what... I am going to call this generic. Watch it for Henry Golding, but not much interest otherwise.

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