Indivisible Mon

Gaslighting the movie? Well, at least Abusive Husband The Movie.

Cecilia wants to get away from her abusive husband... who then dies... and leaves Cecilia a lot of money... and then proceeds to stalk her. Why he needed to leave her the money? Who knows. But she isn't stupid. While people turn against her on the slimmest of excuses, she does some rather intelligent things to deal with him, as best she can. And the gormless guards don't help. But does she finally over come him?

There is a LOT wrong with this movie from a science perspective. Somehow he doesn't make any noise while moving about. And can get through doors etc without disturbing them. And is a master of combat. And can also somehow see (which is a perennial issue with invisible men). However, and I kept reminding myself of this, from a movie/story perspective it doesn't matter. He can do that, for the story to work, so he does do that.

Elizabeth Moss goes through a lot of acting chops, but hey, Aldis Hodge! I kept being distracting by trying to remember where I saw him from (Leverage) that I didn't quite pay full attention to his acting abilities. The effects are pretty good, the main stage being when Elizabeth has to fling herself (or however they did it) around the kitchen. I guess keying out is getting better?

But that ending... I like how they went for more ambiguity, but... it does undermine certain characters. Although the movie could be setting up for how the sequel will go? I'm not sure.

As a horror movie, not terrible. It had a good pace. Is this going to spark a new Dark Universe, or are they going to just revive the monsters one at a time for now? We'll see.

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Washmister 4

This is it, this is the end. How could it go like this?

Young love has trouble after an accident, he breaks his legs, she is still attractive. The lawyer gives her a box that contains a red gem, but she doesn't want it. However, she has unleashed a djinn, and he takes over the lawyer. The lawyer gets her to make some wishes, and so three wishes are wished. Which means at long last the Djinn are released! One small problem...

Yes! Finally! All this time, I've been saying go 'softly softly' with the wishes, and this djinn does. But then she makes the third wish, which only she can grant? What? The djinn can't force it? Like he does every other wish, twisting them into weird things? Wha? That is extremely convenient. But hey, so is the idea that another creature turns up to stop the Waker, somehow after the third wish has been made but not granted? That doesn't really work. But hey, at least there's now a weapon that can conveniently end the issue.

So this movie is far better than the third one, but the unnecessary boobs and rather lackluster deaths mean it only rates third overall. John Novak does better as the djinn than in the third movie, but the sudden turn towards romance does not work well and he doesn't sell it well either.

Which means that fortunately this series ends on a better note than the previous movie, and I'll take that considering how Direct-To-Video it is.

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Samic the Hofeheg

It's that movie they patched following pre-audience feedback... (as opposed to the one that patch post release).

A creature from another world comes to this one, and after a moment of existential crisis brings danger to the world. He tries to run away, fails immediately, and has to get help from the humans to retrieve his 'get away' mcguffin. Meanwhile, Evil Human(tm) is after him because ... mainly because he's Evil(tm), but something about power? But not really. There's lots of running at various speeds, but it's all in aid of... Sega making money, I think.

Okay, so I have never played the games. I am barely aware of the range of games, have seen snippits at best, and whenever I've watched Let's Plays, it just looks severely annoying. Which is to say, I'm not a Sonic fan, and so am only really aware of all the references because various people have been "Hey, look at this reference!" such as Sanic or his shoes.

Ignoring the video game background, this is otherwise a fine low grade buddy comedy movie. One person is super fast but hasn't lived, the other is more worldly but feels stuck in place. Together they can find the power of friendship to... I can't even really say complete their arcs. James Marsden gets an arc, but Sonic? He has to leave, but then decides not too because... he doesn't want to. Despite the fact that he is the direct reason for all the trouble in his movie, and the sequel bait doesn't indicate that's going to change.

We also get Jim Carrey tapping into his "let's act bizarre" self, but considering he sides with Jenny McCarthy, fuck 'im.

So a fine movie, but I was never really the target for it.

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Washmister 3

Oh.. oh buddy... oh no...

While looking at an Ancient Artifact, a student pulls out a gem and, yep, awakens a Djinn, who then possesses the professor. The rest of the movie is the student trying to find out how to deal with the Djinn while the Djinn tries to find her. And also brings in an Archangel, 'cos why not?

This... this is bad. Like, there's Direct-To-Video, and I don't know even if this is good enough for that. Aside from not casting Andrew Divoff as the Djinn, the Djinn has no class, and there aren't any interesting wishes. The Djinn (and this is just a Djinn, not the previous Djinn) just grants a few wishes that kills people straight away, and goes for the girl.

And because they are not going for class here, be prepared for boobies. Like front and center, not even trying to not to have them, just "here, have some boobies to enjoy". This series was better than this previously.

I really hope the fourth one picks up, 'cos this one is rubbish.

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Gams Akambo

So this is what Daniel Radcliffe is up to these days, is it? Still, Rhys Darby!

I mean, the basic plot is given in the trailer. Daniel Radcliffe is a nobody that is caught up in an underground fighting situation and has to survive. At a tight 97 minute, this movie doesn't waste a lot of time and get around to showing you what you want.

Although that is largely the point. Not that the movie is pretending to be subtle about this, but this movie exists because this is the sort of thing people want to watch. Lots of violence and mayhem. Not the first movie to do so, and I doubt it would be the last.
(That said, it might be refreshing, if you could only get away with it once, for people to actually switch off.)

Daniel Radcliffe is clearly having fun. This isn't reaching deep for acting talent, but getting into the role has its own charms. And although a minor role, Rhys Darby does a great bit too. Oh, and Samara Weaving, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, and Ned Dennehy are also in this, and also clearly having a ball.

Yes, this is a silly movie in all the ways you expect... and in all the ways you want.

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Washmister 2

Let's once again Master those Wishes!

Due to some museum thieves, the Djinn is once again set free... d'oh! However, the Djinn is happy to take the blame and get sent to prison, where there's just a big buffet of people with wishes. Meanwhile, the one surviving thief, Morgana, is getting visions of him, and turns to her previous boyfriend, now priest for help and support. However, and this is a neat bit, the Djinn doesn't have much truck with Christianity, "wrong team", so how is Morgana going to defeat him?

I really like that "wrong team" moment. I would like to see more 'fighting demons' movies where the religion base of the demon is completely different to the religion of the fighters. There are tons of various demons and monsters in other cultures, why should people be lucky to only face ones of their own faith?

One odd thing this movie does is increase the number of souls the Djinn needs. The basic premise of these movies (so far?) is that the Djinn needs to get a number of souls to charge up his stone, then the person who released him makes three wishes and he's free to rampage. For some reason, in the first movie, this was just six to charge, now in this movie it's 1,001?? With lesser number of wishes, the movie can go in depth into the wishes and the practical effects, but with 1,001, a lot happens off screen. And the Djinn always goes heavy handed when it comes to the three wishes. Something about fly and honey there Djinn.

Andrew Divoff does come back as the demon, and plays an a-hole well. There are also good practical effects again, and the minor CG effects are still dodgy, but at least minor.

I'm waiting for the movie that brings it crashing down, but maybe we'll stay flying high?

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Modsimmer

I've heard a few people talk about this, and it was on my list, so finally got around to it.

A group of PhD students decide to take a break and do some research, which involves going out to Sweden and hooking up with Local Strange Swedish Cult. Although strange things happen, this written off as Local Customs for Local People, and then they all get caught up in it all.

Okay, I'm gonna be honest here, and I've seen Wicker Man, and this is no Wicker Man. From the very start, you know what's going on, and that people are gonna die and... you know what, they do die. There was nothing here that surprised me, aside from this movie needing to take three hours to get there.

Apparently we are supposed to praise Florence Pugh for whatever she's in, but I was more distracted by Will Poulter. The acting is fine, and the effects are present, but again I wasn't surprised by anything, and that includes the state of the people. (There is one amusing moment where they are very clearly placing a dummy instead of an actual person.)

Despite getting good ratings from many people, this movie just didn't do much for me.

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