Lima

If I had to compare Adam Wingard's previous Godzilla vs. Kong and this one, I would compare it to a concert of Def Leppard vs a concert of the grindcore band Cannibal Corpse. I mean, sleek, a bit predictable, safe rock vs. totally unhinged wildness in the front row of the audience to the point of being health hazard. I've seen almost all Japanese Godzilla movies from the SHOWA and HENSEI era, and I can say with certainty that none of those 25 or so movies had the kind of insanity I saw here. Not even in Ishiro Honda or Jun Fukuda's films, which were made with a kind of judiciousness, a kind of safe kaiju mainstream, even if Godzilla and Kong were putting on wrestling holds, or in other works there that mixed in aliens, octopuses, monsters spawned from toxic waste, etc.. This movie was bonkers. The script looked like it was written by an 11 year old with an overactive imagination, with one absurdity after another, but it was all topped off with amazing fan-service. Human characters reduced to useless goons? Checked. Protector Mothra? Checked. A plot that gives no trace of elementary logic? Checked. The only thing missing was a baby godzilla with a little Japanese boy. I laughed in disbelief at what I was seeing the entire movie, but my similarly kaiju-fan buddy and I had a terrific time. At the same time, I felt sorry for the elderly couple in front of me who had to suffer terribly at this – the gentleman got up halfway through and went to sip beer in the cinema bar instead. I absolutely do not understand (and at the same time appreciate) that a Hollywood studio, which routinely makes financial calculations, predictions and audience surveys, gave such a budget for such a basically non-mainstream and also fan service for the insiders and knocked this insanity off Wingard. I’ll probably never want to see it again, but the unexpected feeling in the theater was priceless. KAIJU is still alive, dude!

When you consider that Netflix canceled Season 3 of Mindhunter because it was too expensive and then put a lot more money this shit that looks like it was written by retarded A.I., it makes me really sad. The only reason I won't give it a Boo! rating is the fact that the VFX guys really worked their asses off and it shows, but otherwise I'd ask Zack Snyder to take a few years away from movies and Netflix to channel their funding into something meaningful. It almost seems like Snyder has some kompromat on the boss Netflix, otherwise I can't explain their marketing strategy. PS: I really like Djimon Hounsou and I'm sorry he has to be involved in something like this.

Recall the three year old event when the Trump mob stormed the Capitol. Alex Garland sensitively and thoughtfully directs this theme, this societal schism, into disconnected mini-stories, with just these aforementioned protagonists (and they don't need a buffalo head to do it) killing because "real fucking America", all of which the protagonists, journalists, follow on their way to Washington. As long it stays in the road movie waters, with lots of iconic scenes, it's great. Unfortunately, Garland flips the switch at the end, and with the arrival in D.C., it becomes a regular war movie that felt like a mannerism in its denouement and showdown. Not only did it leave me cold at the end, but I actually thought "and that's it, Alex?". Too bad, we had the build-up to the movie event of the year, and well, it's not. But still an honest 4 stars (no stripes) for the impressive heaviness and disillusionment with humanity in the first two thirds.

Michael Bay's last movies were at least entertainingly stupid, including the over-the-top 5th one, which was definitely already in guilty-pleasure mode. But this is just pure borefest for kids. Yes, it looks nice, it's all manufactured for maximum effect, a proper big-studio job. But if you're past your childhood, there's no point in watching it at all. At least with Bay's last film you could laugh at its ridiculousness, but here there's nothing to laugh at, just boredom floating in the safe waters of unpretentious children's entertainment :o) My friend's eight year old twins were delighted, so I guess it served its purpose.

If I accept the strange idea of putting insomniacs in an abandoned mansion as part of research and turn a blind eye to it, this film still can't be considered either a good ghost story or a horror movie. It does have a nice soundtrack and EXTRAORDINARY sets, similar in impact and size to those you see in old Universal horror films, and the film is appropriately bathed in them for the first hour, but that's where the positives end. What happens in the last 40 minutes or so is something I've perhaps never seen in a high-budget studio film, which are usually thought over in dramaturgical detail. That sequence of bad creative decisions where everything that could go wrong did. The logic and common sense of all the characters went to hell, there's confused running hither and yon and screaming like little kids, and despite the already advanced CGI capabilities at the time, it has far worse visual effects than films a few decades older. Sure, the fault is already in the script, the central (poorly acted) character played by Lili Taylor and her backstory, but de Jan de Bont's shoddy craftsmanship doesn't add anything to it.

It is missing some visual highlight, some memorable scene that would make you want to watch it again. But otherwise it is a pretty solid film, and I could easily see Guy Ritchie as the new Bond director, though he probably doesn't even aspire to that, he's comfortable in the company of those weird underworld folks. Hugh Grant is an excellent sleazeball, Jason Statham is just Jason Statham, the same kind of actor that makes us love him so much, and Aubrey Plaza is a sweetheart when she's not all made up and trying to look sexy (she's really bad at that), but the one that was pleasantly surprised me was Josh Hartnett. I don't understand what messed up the career of this fun and charismatic guy, but hopefully after this and Oppenheimer it will get better.

The premise with the mysterious and dangerous swimming pool is quite original, but unfortunately it doesn't provide enough material to fill the entire running time in any interesting way. It's an hour and a half long, and it's still too long. After half an hour, the escalating situations start to get repetitive and just boil over (sic!!), and by the last tense twenty minutes it starts to get ridiculous too, there's a lot of black liquid spitting and tearing, and the bland and young Wyatt Russell tries in vain to convey any emotion. Most of the time it didn't offend me with its stupidity, but I still don't understand the cinema release, this only belongs on stream. In the case of Kurt Russell, as well as, say, Clint Eastwood, it's true that their sons don't have much charisma or acting talent.

The omission of Penélope Cruz in the Oscar nominations is completely incomprehensible to me. Adam Driver is fine here, he doesn't try to overact with "Italian-style" expressionism, even in tense scenes his acting is nicely decent, and I even believed that grey hairpiece on his head, but the main star for me is Penélope. Not the cars, about which I know nothing, not the races, but this woman, tormented by emotions and doubts, fights an internal battle throughout the film, only to capitulate at the end, because the family business is above all. And related to this is Michael Mann's intention, he doesn’t try to approach Enzo Ferrari's life with some boring biographical description and ticking off the years, but to bring the marital discord of a prominent family to life in a short period of time. And the races are just a nice addition, though the production is nicely polished and the cinematography nicely dramatic. I'd have perhaps only two criticisms, I don’t think it’s necessary in a non-English speaking setting to adapt the English of the actors into some sort of accented pidgin, as happens here, and I would have preferred not to see those CGI cars flying through the air in such a nicely old-fashioned film.

A schizophrenic straddle between properly gory horror and something of a comedy, and I have no idea where the mistake was, coming from the maker of a very critically acclaimed debut, that neither the horror nor the comedy works. Yes, I was amused by the clumsy movement of the space scumbag, with the movement varying depending on what kind of "borrowed" (read cut off) head he was wearing at the time, the ridiculous rat in the soup scene made me laugh, and the homeless scenes were as decadent as in the cult classic Street Trash, but otherwise it's a waste, an unfunny and chaotic waste. How the scenes are composed (for example the utterly woeful final deal with the alien), plus the dull dialogue, it's not worthy of John McNaughton's reputation.

The trajectory of the quality of Liam Neeson's films in recent years has begun to dangerously replicate something that Nicolas Cage experienced some 10 to 15 years ago. Fortunately, here Liam remembers his better days. The genius loci of the Irish coast is unique, the film has a nice and catchy score, and even though the premise with the retired killer is a very stale, the presence of the IRA gives it all an interesting edge. And thanks to the dialogue, which isn't trite, you'll soon realise that this isn't your ordinary disposable consumer product. It's a serious drama of the old-school variety, just the way I like it. I'm not at all surprised at its inclusion in the Venice Film Festival. PS: Jack Gleeson, Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones was excellent here!