Spider-Man: Brand New Day - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I waited a bit to write this review for a couple of reasons, one of which is I always underestimate how much time it takes to write them. The other is that I wanted to see it a second time for Reasons not related to the movie content itself.

I'm going to steal someone else's core phrase for the movie - it feels like a comic book movie, not a movie made from comic books. That seems a bit like a tautology but nope, it isn't. This movie does what comic books do - introduces a bunch of characters to give them an origin story without giving them a dedicated origin story and shows how they relate to the larger universe. Funny enough that's a big complaint from people but they're also very used to movies with partial plots ripped from comic books so they're upset about one done the other way.

I think this is the year of Platonic Friendship Wins the Day. Honestly. First with "Project Hail Mary" and now with this one. I'll get to that later.

They almost got the timeline matched up between movie releases and time progressing in the movie. There's a five year gap between movie releases and a four year gap in the movie. It's close enough and it gives the characters the age-up to match the actors. It's still a good bit of writing.

Peter has a hollow life for the post-spell years. He's Spider-Man. When he's not out doing crime fighting he's in his grotto apartment doing work to make Spider-Man better. His main human contact is the chief of police and that's all by phone. She even points out he doesn't interact with her on a personal level - it's all about the work.

This is the core of what makes the movie a comic book movie. The comics refuse to let Peter be happy. They prefer him alone and miserable. It goes in phases but it's always both. We get an "alone and miserable" Peter who won't acknowledge that he's alone and miserable. In this case it's something he asked for.

He watches Ned and MJ's progress through those years through Ned's Instagram posts (he has 326 followers by the time they graduate). It's a nice bit of filmmaking to progress their stories without having to cut to them specifically. We see them through Peter's lens, which is narrow. See above about alone and miserable Peter.

The newest threat is one they can't see. Cutting the origin story short it's teenage Jean Grey, who's looking for her kidnapped sister. She was kidnapped by the Department of Defense Control (this is the first we're hearing of this in the movies so don't think you missed out. It's also relatively recent in the comics.) so Jean is going to the suspiciously large number of locations they have in the New York City area, She's looking for the last telepathic communication she got from her sister - VMAX. Jean's power is that she can "jump" into people's minds and chain off them to go further distances.

At the same time Peter is having issues with his spider side in that he's changing. The two things we know are that his already enhanced senses get even more enhanced and that he's grown organic web shooters. The movie nicely foreshadows those with him having constant headaches and wrist pain. When these manifest his eyes go completely black, which is a nice touch and since I don't read the comics (bad me) I don't know if this is a movie affectation or canon. Either way it shows when things have gone bonkers.

Let's toss a few other things into the movie mix. Oddly enough they don't make the movie lose focus. They're handled well into the story and with just enough screen time.

The New Avengers tie in with Peter contacting Yelena for help. Amusingly she's made a bathhouse her office. One very good reason for that is so that she's pretty darn sure no one is carrying weapons because she won't do business unless they're in the pool with her. She's not very interested in Peter's little problems but gets more so when they become actual larger problems. Her inclusion starts the integration of that Avengers team into the larger (ha ha) cinematic environment and I think it was the perfect choice.

The Punisher shows up and has an already established history with Spider-Man that's not shown in flashbacks. It's all in their interactions. I know Punisher has shown up in TV series but this is his first MCU inclusion. Without knowing a lot about the character I want to say they did well with giving him depth while keeping to his rather unique personality. It would have been too easy to make him a cardboard cutout but instead they, well, I'll get to that.

The Hand show up twice - once as being shut down by Spider-Man, once as being used by the Department now. That second one is waved away by the director saying they're just a bunch of kids in need of guidance, which the Department is now providing.

The last one I'll put here is the Department itself. That and the head of it are characters to watch for in future movies.

Back to the story!

Spider-Man brings Bruce Banner into the situation by wanting to know more about the inhibitor he wears to keep The Hulk tucked away. I think that was done in the She-Hulk TV series, which I meant to watch before seeing the movie but didn't. Peter brings up science talk about making a universal one, since he wants to be able to shut Jean down so they can handle her. He also wants to keep whatever is happening to him from happening. Bruce asks the morality question of who decides who needs to be shut down. Good question, Bruce, and one that leads directly into the core of the X-Men themselves.

Peter makes an inhibitor that (mostly) works on him and also makes a universal one. His keeps him at the levels he's used to, after a few tries. His goal is now to find Jean and slap the other one on her. Jean knows that Spider-Man is the only person she's found who can keep her out and is going for MJ as a lever, or just to mess with him. How does she know this if she can't get in Peter's mind and everyone has forgotten him? Those darn enhancements have also made it so he can't keep her out, or at least she can get in.

There's some fun in here about Peter coming to terms with organic web shooters. He remembers that Peter 2 had them and at the time everyone thought they were cool. When the goo is coming from his own wrists (I had to word that so, so carefully) it's an entirely different story. He has to learn how to control it and it takes some time. Note - he can't use his mechanical web shooters when the organic ones are online for hand-wavy reasons.

Time to summarize more.

They play with the True Love's Kiss trope by having Jean already in MJ's mind by the time Peter gets to her. She really messes with Peter by letting him think that she does remember him then pulls the rug out after the kiss, telling him there's no memory of him at all in her mind. Peter wants to keep MJ safe so he brings her to Frank's (Punisher) place. Not surprisingly he and MJ get along pretty well.

There's an important scene here. MJ finds the letter he wrote at the end of the last movie and reads it. She's upset. She's upset because he made decisions for her. She demands to see who did that and when he takes off the mask she doesn't recognize him. He apologizes and says he loves her. She accepts the apology and says she doesn't love him. Oof. Then it's the awkward need for him to take her back to her apartment.

She invites him in and he hangs out with her and Ned. He'd already bumped into them by crashing their housewarming party and knows Ned created the SpideyTracker phone app. He sits and assembles Lego with Ned and she's on the couch making a drawing of the two of them. When he leaves MJ uses his name, so now Ned knows Spider-Man's first name is Peter.

Peter figures out where Jean is going next and Frank tags along, kinda. Things get messy there with her continuing to ask about VMAX and no one admitting what it is. She also covered her bases by jumping into Bruce's mind to get him to remove the inhibitor, which is a great distraction to what she's doing. We get small Hulk doing damage, Frank trying to shoot him while Spider-Man pulls him out of the fight, then we get Big Hulk and Frank realizing that he's FIGHTING THE HULK so he's more than willing to take the search option of the situation. Whereupon he promptly ignores Peter telling him how far he needs to stay from Jean and gets jumped into.

Funny note. Jean does her rummage around in his mind and says "he's got issues".

Peter gets the inhibitor on her, the Department tranq darts her, and they take her away. Turns out they're experimenting on her to try to figure out how her powers work and they're building on the research they did on her sister before they killed her/she died. After some experimentation she looks up to see a worn label on the ventilation vent - V(ent)MAX. Kind of a lazy trope to use to get her to put the pieces together about what they did to her sister but hey, not my movie. The experimentation and her own anger cause her powers to spike and she more or less locks down everything within a kilometer of where she's being held and can now do telekinesis.

Peter realizes he's made a terrible mistake and goes to the facility to try to rescue her. Frank decides to do things his own way. Jean controls the Hand and sends them after Spider-Man. During this fight he finds out the Department made weapons specifically to fight him (Jean provides narration through various Hand members). Jean also does a little monologue to him how he has to choose between being Peter Parker and being Spider-Man. Another trope. That makes at least three. He finishes it by saying he's both.

Organic webs to the rescue!

Frank decides to take care of the problem via sniper rifle. Peter gets to Jean and lets her into his mind to show the loving talk memory of Aunt May telling him things are rough, could get rougher, but he doesn't have to be alone. As they're talking in his mind his spider senses tingle and he moves Jean out of the way just in time to take the bullet Frank sent after her. I'm actually proud of Marvel for letting them show the pool of blood grow under Peter. It's something that I don't think they would have done in the earlier movies.

Jean uses her powers to keep Peter alive (somehow) while she's on a bus in the middle of a lot of trees, Frank gets him to the hospital. he recovers and sees the whole city pulling for him. The end has him taking a step back from fighting All The Crime and approaching Ned instead of watching from a distance.

Let's talk about Ned before I wind this up. Ned spent years invested in Spider-Man to the point of making the what seems to be popular SpideyTracker app. Frank even used it to follow Peter to where they were keeping Jean. Ned wants to know who Spider-Man is. They get along wonderfully when they meet. At the actual introduction Peter holds out his hand for a handshake after Ned recognizes him from the housewarming party. Peter goes into the moves of their special handshake and tells him his name. Ned seems to realize this is HIS Peter, and cut.

Whew.

Out of all this we get:

Jean Gray, possibly heading up to be found by Charles.

Frank becoming a big brother to Peter.

The Hand being the force for the bad guys.

The Department being shown as not the good guys they portray themselves to be.

And Peter realizing he doesn't have to be alone.

The Odyssey - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I had to put the spoiler tag even though this isn't something that can really be spoiled. Let's face it.

I'm also going to state I'm not a Nolan fanboi. In fact this is the first Nolan film I've ever seen.

I'm also also going to state that I think every "real critic" of this movie pulls out their Christoper Nolan(tm) kneepads when he puts out a film. If his name is on it, they're putting on those kneepads before they even see the thing.

I was lucky enough to see it on 70mm film IMAX. It's print 15 of 41. So I'm one of the tiny minority of people who got to see it "as the director intended it to be seen". I have a feeling you won't be surprised by the rest of my review.

Let's start with the whole IMAX thing. I get it. It's Nolan's signature move to film for IMAX. He uses the IMAX cameras. He's all about the aspect ratio. The projectors had to be physically modified to play his last movie. He needed a 200 pound metal surround (the blimp?) to reduce camera noise so the dialog could be heard. Woo IMAX man.

This film did not make good use of that sweet, sweet aspect ratio. There's so few scenes that truly lend themselves to it that there was no reason to film the whole thing on IMAX cameras, except that it's Nolan. Even the scenes that were not too bad in IMAX are getting chopped down for general release.

Let's talk about general release. All this effort and money to make a full-on IMAX movie will have everything that he put into it lost for general release. The cropping is going to be ass when it goes from a more square aspect to the rectangle. There's really no way to fix it when the image is too tall for the screen. Something's getting cut. Generally the sides aren't as important but there's a hella lot of face time on this movie and by framing it for the square it's going to be weird in the rectangle.

So yeah. This movie didn't need to be IMAX. It was because it's Nolan and he loves IMAX. That's a failure on him as a director. It's a big failure. Because this movie wasn't going to be big enough to warrant what he insisted on doing.

But let's get into the story itself. Luckily I don't have to go into much detail because, well, it's the Odyssey.

How many times does this make rescuing Matt Damon? Three? Four? Does this one count because he kind of rescued himself? He's getting typecast as the guy who gets lost, maybe?

There's been talk about the more modern language in the film and I think it works for the tone that was being set. Changing "dad" to "father" would have made it faux highbrow stilted for no good reason. Keeping the dialogue more loose kept things accessible.

I didn't like Tom Holland as the son. The only way I can describe it is that he's too clean and soft, kind of like a puppy. Yeah, yeah. I get the story. But when he's supposed to act like the prince he is he's still too soft. It's not something he can help. It's how he looks. I couldn't take him seriously when he was trying to be serious.

The time stretch of twenty years away didn't work well with Anne Hathaway. She's not looking bad in the part but they didn't let her age enough. She didn't have a single grey hair. That sounds like a small gripe but it's consistent with style over substance. She's been on her own and in a time when life was hard. That woman would have had grey hair. Or maybe they just let you assume she dyed it. It might seem a small thing but those add up.

I can't remember how many time "Zeus's Law" of hospitality was brought up. Seriously. It was explained exactly once that you treat your guests well because any of them could be a god in disguise. It's a variant of the tradition of guestrights, where they weren't supposed to be worried for their safety. It's used as a plot device as to why they couldn't shiv and dump all the suitors and why Odysseus walked into various places without concern. Of course not everyone abided by it but that also became part of the point.

Robert Patterson was a slimy suitor and played it well without playing it up too much. He brought up good points to Penelope as to why she should marry him, even though he is slimy. For the time he was actually doing the right things. They were the slimy right things, tho.

Anyway. Lots of people talking. Lots of swordfights. Lots of boats going up and down on the water. Lots of incorrect armor. An ending that would fit nicely in any generic action movie. And pretty much a movie you'll forget when you walk out the door.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, memorable about this movie for me. It wasn't too much of a hardship to sit and watch for three hours because the story was epic that way. Epic in scope, not in quality. I couldn't get invested in any of the characters because we all know what's going to happen so what's the point? The actors did their part but no one was exceptional in any way. It's like the color scheme of the movie - a smear of blah.

There's my review. It goes against the grain of all the movie critic reviews. It's lining up with the "real person" reviews, when those people didn't buy their own sets of Christopher Nolan(tm) kneepads. Even my Nolan loving movie buddy wasn't impressed by this. There was sporadic applause at the end from a sold-out show that had about half of the people from freaking out of state in attendance.

Mayhaps Mr. Nolan is wearing out his welcome when it comes to trying to make grand sweeping epics on IMAX and should take a step back from it for a decade or so. Maybe try his hand at making a movie meant for general release instead of ego stroking.

Was that last bit too much? Maybe. But this movie feels kind of like Spielberg and "Disclosure Day". Something that shouldn't have been given so much money by the studio just because of who wanted to make it.

The Invite - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I was looking forward to seeing this based on the trailers. I knew it was going to be more than what they hinted at, or it was going to be something different, and I was intrigued.

I was also (mostly) right.

For clarity and ease of writing this thing I'll refer to the Downstairs Neighbors (DN) who are Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde, and the Upstairs Neighbors (UN) who are Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton. I won't be using their character names because quite frankly I don't remember those things most of the time.

The trailers show the DN inviting the UN to dinner, and heavily imply that swinging shenanigans will be part of the narrative. It looks like there's fun misunderstandings and such, as typically occur. Great. I like that kind of thing. The story. Not the swinging shenanigans. Just to be clear.

The DN are an early middle age couple who are not exactly in accord. He's a snarky, miserable, wet blanket. She's concerned more about appearance than substance. She invited their upstairs neighbors for dinner as an apology of sorts for the noise that they made while renovating their apartment. While they're getting ready he vents his frustration at their upstairs neighbors having very loud sex pretty much every night. She's in agreement but doesn't like confrontation.

They're bickering when the upstairs neighbors arrive at the door and they immediately ask if it's a good time because they heard the arguing before they knocked. DN husband is more than willing to reschedule, wife won't.

The couple dynamics are a study in contrasts. The DN, as noted, are uptight and a bit awkward. The UN are relaxed and more solidly a couple. The difference between them is done well with the DN wife showing off the nibbles spread she spent the entire day assembling and the UN girlfriend not being able to eat any of it. Panic ensues. She's also caught out on lying to her husband about him forgetting about the invitation when in fact she didn't tell him. She kinda did by sending him a text on his way home from work. Not the same when she accused him of not listening when she told him the night before. Anyway. That kind of shows dynamic.

DN husband keeps trying to tell the UN that their sex is too loud. DN wife keeps taking steps to stop him. The UN solve it by apologizing themselves, and that's where things take the turn implied by the trailers.

Yes. They showed up to extend an invite for the DN to join them in sex games. When explaining the noise they bring up that there's the said parties and other guests. This intrigues the DN couple and the conversation quickly turns to that.

The UN are open and honest about what they're doing. They're responsible about it and not at all ashamed. The DN are fascinated and the wife especially asks questions. Explicit questions. They get answers. The DN say they're interested, after running off to talk about it in private.

The DN jump on the idea that it could happen that same night. There's discussion about who and how, then they separate into mixed pairs. Turns out the DN wife has been doing some things her husband doesn't know about when it comes to the pair of windows that look into each other's apartments.

Both the DN are nervous, as one would hope, but the UN work at making them comfortable. Or at least as comfortable as they can be. Then the DN husband trips and hurts his back.

This is the moment when the narrative shifts.

He's now in pain and has no filter. He's loudly miserable and lets his unhappiness flow freely. UN wife/girlfriend is a therapist and sex therapist so she takes the lead in asking questions. She gets the DN to talk about their relationship and what's happening in it. For the first time the cracks in the UN's relationship show too.

After several very good gut punches to the audience the DN couple is left realizing that there's nothing left to their marriage. They go into the kitchen to get a container the UN's brought, come back, and they're gone. The movie ends with the DN husband doing something he hasn't done in years and the DN wife sitting and assimilating the whole evening.

The thing turns on a dime from fun sexy comedy to the harsh reality of what makes or breaks relationships. It doesn't let up once it makes that turn either.

This is a very good movie. It does an excellent job of setting you up before yanking the rug out from under you. Anyone who's been in a long-term relationship that morphed into low-key dislike will see themselves in the DN couple. The UN couple is at the beginning of their relationship so they're still in the phase where things are working.

I really don't know what else to say about it. It's a good character study. The twist doesn't come out of nowhere - it was building the entire time. Then it leaves you there with the DN's pain and no resolution.

It's been a while since I saw a movie like this. It's believable from start to end, has fleshed out characters, and doesn't rely on cheap tricks to pander to the audience. I do like that the trailers were kind of a fake out with where the movie goes. Too many trailers give away the whole thing.

Anyway. If you're in or have been in a relationship I'd say go see this but be prepared to have some wounds reopened.

Supergirl - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I don't know why this movie is catching so much hate. There's far worse ones in the MCU and yes, people hate on them, but this is more. I hate to say it but I do feel that a good chunk of it is having a female lead who doesn't have anime boobs.

This isn't a great movie. It's an okay movie. But that's OK in and of itself because it's an origin story and those tend to be .. not so great. There's an occasional outlier but the weakest movies in franchises tend to be the origin stories.

I like Supergirl being messy. She should be messy. She's had horrible things happen to her and she has to learn how to cope with being the only person they saved. Superman doesn't count in this moment. She had to watch the people she loved die before being hurled into space to where her cousin, who she's never met, was sent. She wanted to die with her family. She was forced to live.

She's also young. She's in her early 20s in this movie. She's spent maybe half her life to this point on another planet. She has to learn the language, the customs, and learn how to deal with powers that only one other person on the planet has. That's a lot and anyone who doesn't think running away from it all is a coping mechanism is lying.

Having said all that they show her living her life. She's not growing up in Superman's shadow. He got the prize. He was sent off before he knew anything, landed with loving parents, and knows everything about his home. Of course she's going to be resentful of him and of course she's going to flame out.

The inclusion of Clark here is good. It's not too much. It's him trying to be a good cousin and being the dweeb he is. And she gets to say what everyone has been saying for too long - asking why Superman runs around in his underwear.

Having the movie set in space isn't a bad thing. It gets a little Star Wars with the sheer number of alien races but I'm not going to ding them for that because it generally swings the other way with too many human-types. We don't know when she decided to head out on her own. We find her there. She's comfortable in space.

The plot of the girl looking to avenge her family may be the plot of a comic book (I dunno) but it's kind of insulting here. Of course the family is Oriental. (If that's no longer a polite term I apologize.) Of course the family makes swords. Of course the bad guys kill the family for no reason because they'd cooperated fully. And we find out later of course the girl can do sick fight moves. Honestly I'd rather they chose any other ethnicity than they did for that part because it doesn't age well.

I adore Lobo. You can tell Jason was having a field day in that role. I love his fangs. I love his glowing red eyes. I love his absolute sheer confidence and joy in life. I'm going to find out the best comic books to read to get to know more about the character. He's honestly the spot of sunshine in this movie. He's not actually integral to the story, they could have done it without him, but I'm glad they didn't.

Here's something. Supergirl kills. Oddly enough she only does that once she's on her way to dealing with her trauma. My guess is that it was something Clark stressed with her when he was teaching her how to live on Earth. When she left she kept that part. When she got past it she chose her own way. It's refreshing to see a superhero that kills on the big screen and who doesn't angst about it. She just does what needs to be done.

OK. Here's something that peeved the ever-loving heck out of me. They're dealing with the BBEG. The girl wants to kill him to avenge her family. Supergirl wants the antidote he carries to save her dog, which he poisoned. Um. She probably could have gotten that antidote from others in his group but we'll skip that, shall we?

Oh. The "ever-loving heck" part. When she's fighting the BBEG there's lots of weapons and punchy-punchy. She's Supergirl. Put the guy in a headlock, head straight up, leave him as orbital debris. Problem solved. I hope I'm not the only person who thought of that solution. It would have been refreshingly different.

There's also something about her being on a planet that has a binary yellow and green sun. A brief internet dip has that as a comic book relevant thing. So she's stuck there and the green sun is killing her. The dark veins under the skin to show it's killing her thing. Of course the yellow sun dawns to save her. It's a metaphorical saving as well.

During the last big battle she finally talks the girl out of killing (she'd been doing that the whole time), then she kills the guy instead after sending the girl away. Like I said, refreshing. Before that she was doing a bunch of killing saving the girl but I guess that's irrelevant. They had her hanging out with the girl after but luckily she's left with what's left of her family.

After she exorcises her demons, mostly, she heads back to Earth to be with Clark.

The thing is I wasn't invested in this movie in the slightest. It's a tough thing to get emotional investment when it's clear that there's no danger to any of the characters. It's even tougher when the story is a redemption arc so you know things will turn out well in the end. I think the movie was necessary to bring her into the DC universe, whatever it's called.

Hopefully they won't chop the idea of having her around for future movies. She may not be able to carry another solo movie but then again she doesn't have to do that. She's fine as an ensemble character. The superheroes work best as ensemble casts, which is why origin stories are so difficult. She contrasts nicely with Superman's wholesome thing because no matter how healed she is this girl is messy.

Anyway. I don't plan on ever watching it again. I did. I'll know why things happen in future movies. I'm good.

The Death of Robin Hood - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I enjoyed the trailers for this and was looking forward to seeing it. Taking the story (yes, it's a flat out story) of Robin Hood and making him more in keeping with what a bandit would be at the time. Make him more real to the time. Make a dark movie. Yes!

And then I sat through this thing.

The first act is what I'd hoped for. Robin Hood is an amoral outlaw and knows it. He's old. He's now dealing with his victims' families out hunting him. And he's amorally killing them as they do. I will admit that I found the level of gore in this part gratuitous but I'm generally against gratuitous gore so it's not unique here. Fighting at the time wasn't heroic at all and it got ugly. I was honestly pleased.

And then the rest of the movie happened.

We go from a tired but still vital Robin Hood to a sad, tired Robin Hood. Unfortunately, we get two full hours of sad, tired Robin Hood.

What we also get is lots of Hugh Jackman close up face shots. Full on and then from the left 3/4 profile so he can do the eyebrow lift-side eye that he's done for decades. I'm serious here. I'd be tempted to see it again (A-List) and use a stopwatch to get how much of the runtime is just him and the camera. We also get a nekkid HJ where he's crouched down so you get the full side view. Is it in his contract that he has to be nekkid? Does the studio put it in there? Does he?

After the bait-and-switch first act what we get is a very slow movie building towards an undeserved redemption arc. I guess the director said they left it ambiguous if Robin Hood gets the arc or not but it's more the difference of a sledgehammer or two-by-four hitting you with the answer. It's there. It's very much there. And it wasn't earned.

The slow bits have him being (slowly) taken to some church on an island to be healed. I don't know what it is with having these remote locations for communities that need more than they have to sustain themselves. Sure, they show that there's gardens, orchards, and game there but honestly the number of people shown vs the size of the island means it ain't gonna fly. But it's there.

The slow part is the insistence on showing the scenery. Yes. It's wild country. Yes. There's fog. It's most likely supposed to be somewhere in northern England/Scotland given the number of people with red hair but it's never stated. Not that it matters. There's so much scenery. Oh. And the water around the island. There's a lot of that too. All this is accompanied by so much Celtic music.

Robin Hood is severely injured as part of the arc of helping Little John recover his farm, wife, and daughter. He got the farm, wife, and daughter by killing the man who was supposed to get the farm and then living there to marry and breed. The murdered man's family comes back, runs him off, and keeps his wife and daughter. He finds Robin Hood to help him get it back.

Robin Hood is far more grounded and reminds Little John that it wasn't his life to begin with but is convinced when Little John rhapsodizes about his wife. At no point does he mention the daughter, by the way. The two of them do get the farm back but the kid that Robin Hood shot through the head (yep) survived having the arrow through his skull and out his eye (gratuitous) ends up walking back to his family's farm muttering and then conveniently dying. The family patriarch suits up and leads the family to finish the job.

In that battle Robin Hood is stabbed multiple times in the upper right back and then pretty well pounded with a mace. He'd be dead if Little John hadn't killed the other guy before he could give the coup de gras. He's the one who knows of the whatever place that has "healing magic" and takes Robin Hood on a (slow) journey there. At some point on the road he cauterizes the stab wounds with his dagger (gratuitous and slow). There's a convenient boat that he rows across the channel to drag Robin Hood to the doorstep and leave there.

Once he's there the top whoever woman does his healing. They place him in a room that quite frankly should be at least five rooms but hey, big open airy room with a single bed by the window. He wakes up perfectly clean wearing and laying on white linen. Um. No? There's no way on freaking earth that he'd be that clean with shining clean hair. Especially if he's supposed to have been unconscious.

They've splinted his broken leg. Good. His stab wounds had been cauterized on the road. Good enough. They're using bloodletting for healing. Accurate. Robin Hood not dying of internal injuries. So bad, but we'll leave that aside for later.

The rest of the movie is him moping around the island and having slow conversations with the whatever woman who runs the place. It's a vaguely religious place and religion is touched on but it isn't a driving factor. Maybe there's supposed to be some subtext about him repenting. In the first act he says he never prays. The whatever woman prays for him as soon as he wakes up. She keeps sprinkling religion pellets into the scenes but it isn't too bad.

Robin Hood (Randolph I guess is his given name) spends his time healing, regaining his strength, and doing things like trapping rabbits. The whoever she is asked what his skills were and when she suggested the orchard he was offended and talked about hunting and trapping. Her parting shot (ha ha) was to tell him he was working in the orchard. Note - he never worked in the orchard but we get to see him making himself an arrow so there's that.

On the island is a man completely wrapped in linen with a metal nosepiece. He's a leper who's taken refuge. Now if you know anything about history lepers were outcasts and anyone who came in contact with them were outcasts too. But this guy is the one who takes the boat out every day, I guess looking for people who wanted to come to the island, so whatever. He kind of befriends Robin Hood by being well spoken and unthreatening.

Next on the agenda is Little John's daughter showing up on the island. Cue the emotional bonding nonsense. She's traumatized and runs away (still on the island). Robin Hood finds her in a cavern alcove that has a raised part in the center and candles. She trusts him, only having seen him once in her life and that's when she watched her mother get murdered, and he's the one she clings to. Robin Hood takes her under his wing.

Another kid shows up after having been attacked on the road. There's much foreshadowing in how he looks at the girl. So much foreshadowing. Robin Hood notices and rather than tell anyone he keeps an eye on the situation. That's kind of a joke because the kid lost an eye, which is why he's there. Although there's nothing special being done to him - stitch it up, cover it, hope it doesn't get infected.

This all takes place slowly, of course. Lots of scenes of kids that are never explained playing and working. Very few other adults. The whoever she is leaves off her headcovering early on to show short cut hair that's kind of a perfect bob with a bit of bangs. I won't get into how her hair should have been chopped off in hunks instead of a perfectly clean and smooth flattering face framing hairstyle.

There's not much else to tell of the time on the island. Lots of scenes showing it's an idyllic world removed from the harshness of the real one. Woo.

Robin Hood takes the boy to the shore, tells him about the logistical problems of killing and how families tend to take that badly, and gives him one chance to leave or Robin Hood will kill him. There's a whole morality lesson here where I guess you're supposed to see how terrible Robin Hood's life is because of the consequences of his actions and how he doesn't really care anymore.

The kid runs off, he rows back to the island, and the finale creaks into motion.

The leper guy is dying and wants to talk to Robin Hood. He's figured out who he is and asks if he remembers one of the stories. He doesn't. Turns out the guy in the story is the leper. Gasp. He makes Robin promise to never tell whoever she is his name because it turns out he killed her "beloved". Then he dies.

Of course the first thing he does when he gets back to the island is tell her who he really is. Even though she's been done with the bloodletting for a long time she shows up in his room with the bowl and nipper. She tells him how terrible it was when she found what was left of her husband in the house where Robin Hood had barred him in before setting it on fire. And that he'd been wrapped around their children. Then she nips one of the (Hugh Jackman Prominent Veinstm) to do the bloodletting, but this time she lets it go longer and when she reaches for the bandages he pushes them away.

OK. Robin Hood is finally going to die. Took them long enough to get there, right?

Earlier on there's a bit where the whoever she is says she didn't do what Robin Hood asked when he arrived. She apologizes for not letting him die. That's in the trailers too. I'm kind of disappointed neither one of them brought it up at this point in the story.

The daughter is there and he gives her the bow he'd promised he'd make for her. He has her nock an arrow and aim out the window. He'll tell her when to loose it. This is so drawn out as he bleeds to death. He tells her, she releases the arrow, done.

Now I get to rant! Well, rant more than I already did.

Slipping into my costumer role for a moment. The fabrics were pretty much period appropriate except for the perfectly even dye jobs. And that the daughter had fancy white embroidery around the neck of her dress even though the family lived in a tiny farm house that had a small stable open to the living area. A lot of the clothing had the seams to the outside and fraying. Not really a way to make them last. The whoever she was always used fresh clean white linen bandages when she wrapped him up after bloodletting. Nope. Selvedge edges and reuse. Those things would have been stained all to heck.

There's no way Robin Hood didn't succumb to internal injuries. The stabs would have gotten his kidney and intestines. The made definitely broke ribs and probably splintered them. He'd have had a collapsed lung. The broken leg was fine. That man was dead, however.

Bloodletting is a nick on a vein. It lets out some blood but then closes up. It closes up faster with a bandage and pressure but it closes up. There's no way he would have bled to death from that little wound. To do that requires a .. um .. probably best not to say the best way to slit someone's wrists.

If they'd tightened up the timeline and had him die of his injuries as they festered it would have given more of a sense of urgency for him to achieve whatever it was he wanted to achieve before dying. Setting a clock always puts in urgency. There was none of it here. He was tired, he imparted a life lesson on a kid who may or may not have taken it, he saved the girl's life if the kid didn't decide to come back, then he chose to die.

There's a nonsensical scene where whoever-she-is was in that same cavern where he found the girl. She's lit the candles, did a sage smudge, and is praying to whatever she sees through the hole in the roof. He spies on her there. I guess that's the island healing magic.

Candles! So many candles! That's not happening. Candles are expensive. If anything there would have been oil and rush lamps with the candles reserved for the religion stuff. They wouldn't have them burning in empty rooms. I so dislike that stuff.

Anyway. If you can't tell I didn't like this movie. I was disappointed in this movie. They started out so well and then literally wasted it after establishing that Robin Hood is A Bad Guy. I'm fine with long movies as long as they're long for a purpose. This one could have dropped probably near an hour and still not lost anything of note.

The non-paid reviews are coming in and they're not good. The things I wrote about are in most of them. The agreement is that it's too long and it's quite frankly boring after that first act. But hey, if you like looking at Hugh Jackman in a long grey wig and beard then you can keep yourself awake with that.

Disclosure Day - My Take (Spoilers)

 

What to say, what to say.

The movie walks, slowly, over ground well-trodden without bringing anything new to the screen. I think that's a pretty darn good summary.

Aliens. Government coverup. "The people can't handle the truth." Long exposition. John Williams bombastic score (he should have stayed retired). And the insulting cherry on the top is YET ANOTHER NON-ENDING.

I'm so tired of movies that don't tie up the story. Ooo. Let's leave it up to the audience's imagination. No. I paid good money to watch someone else's imagination. If I wanted to make up my own ending I'd have stayed home and written something original.

Another peeve is that the aliens are the same very tired little green men with skinny bodies and big heads. Lots of different kinds of ships, all the same aliens. Because, of course, all life in the universe is bilaterally symmetrical, shorter than humans, can breathe in our atmosphere, function in our gravity, and green/silver. Maybe those are the only ones that visit this backwater corner of the galaxy?

What we have here is two people who are two halves of alien intelligence, abducted when they were ten years old. The split is that the guy can understand the language, the woman can do mind reading woo-woo. There's a non-government company that works with the US government to scoop up all the alien goodies and profit off them while hiding the evidence. There's a small group within said non-government company that thinks the world should know.

The guy who can understand the language worked at the non-government company and stole a whole lotta weird looking drives worth of data. He's on the run to hand it off to someone else, only to be told he's the one who has to keep it. His girlfriend, who happens to be an ex-novice nun, brings the religious aspect in when they have to hide out for a night at her old convent. The woman is a weather girl (sorry ladies but that's the only way to say it - she's got a "hail shimmy" ffs) who suddenly starts speaking Russian after a cardinal wanders into her apartment.

Suddenly she's doing the mind reading woo-woo and speaks in that weird clicky language on air, but not after stopping to chat with a South Korean official of some kind who's having trouble with the guy translating so she sits down and speaks, what we can only assume to be, perfect Korean.

She goes on the run. The guy is on the run. There's mind control woo-woo using an alien artifact. There's a hella lot of shiny black cars and SUVs. Chase, chase, hide, hide, get to the people who want to reveal all.

The people who want to reveal all just happen to know how to bring the two people together to do really nothing except work together. The big reveal scene of them being abducted together is a nothing burger. She can use the alien artifact to do stuff. She does stuff with the alien artifact. Another chase scene to her TV station so they can do a big reveal.

The guys with black vehicles and black tactical gear take out the power. She uses the artifact to bring it back. The language guy uploads all the weird drives to the station's servers (fastest uploads I've ever seen in my life btw). She goes live. The guy in charge of the non-government company gives up and watches. The people in black leave. They get on worldwide news showing all the videos that language guy uploaded. Of course they start with Roswell, New Mexico and go from there.

The world picks it up. The pending WWIII is forgotten by everyone. The people who think the world should know literally wheel out a living alien. Said alien is a tall boi, stands up, and whispers to language guy. Language guy whispers to woo-woo lady. She goes in front of the camera. She does the non-ending. Cut to credits.

As you can see, absolutely nothing new to be had. If it weren't Spielberg this script would probably have been laughed out of every studio. It's tired.

A more polite person would call it a slow reveal. I'll call it what it is - too freaking long. They could easily have cut at least 30 minutes, if not more, and it wouldn't have been missed.

I kinda want my two and a half hours back.

Backrooms - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I know this is based off something on YouTube and that's starting to make me leery of anything from there. I'm in the minority on that, it seems, but I'm also pretty sure I'm not the target audience for these. I find them all, well, bad.

Gee. I spoiled the review.

Anyway. I do like the premise and liminal spaces is just creepy. Having someone find a liminal space that doesn't conform to anything hidden through a soft spot in a wall is a good writing prompt. I guess the original concept started as a 4chan post and there's a bunch of short stories about it. Before I saw the movie I saw that it was based on a book, so I figured I'd get around to reading the book afterward. I'm not reading the book.

A divorced frustrated architect who drinks and runs a very low-quality failing furniture store finds a "soft spot" in the basement wall that leads to a liminal space. In the middle of the first room is a pile made up of a bunch of furniture similar to what he sells. He picks up a stacked chair and finds it's fused to the one below. Then he wanders around the place without any rhyme, reason, or clear method to find his way back.

I have to interject. If I found a soft spot in the wall I'd back up, nope out, and start my "going out of business" sale the next day.

The guy is in therapy for his drinking and divorce issues. The therapist is annoying and we get flashes of her past that aren't useful for anything, really. Neither is she. She's used as a plot advancement because he shows her the drawing he's made from his explorations.

He recruits his employees to go with him and film what's there. They go. Stuff happens. There's screaming and things moving in shadows.

The therapist shows up at the store, goes into the basement, and watches a bug go through the wall that has been taped with a doorway. She goes through and does her own wandering around aimlessly.

This is where it really goes off the plot rails. The guy captures the therapist and there's a really wacked out scene in a kitchen. There's three "people" there and I guess one of them is the ex-wife. A version of people since they're very much not alive and not right. This is where the body horror comes in.

The guy's internal demon (or something like that) is out and about, kills the guy, and goes after the therapist for some reason. She does her own running about before she's caught because gas canisters all around the room have gone off.

Now to back up and condense the other thing in the plot. There's cameras in the space and there's a very brief shot of someone watching the feed. They show up again watching TV and seeing the furniture store commercial (that was shot by the employees who are no more) the guy realizes the owner is the person he saw in the liminal space.

M'kay. We're caught up.

People in colorful hazmat suits show up to cart the therapist away. She's put into a room and eventually the watching guy shows up. He says they used to make MRI machines but now they're whatever this is. Then she's shown as her own liminal space and not human.

I really dislike that two of the three YouTube movies have used ambiguous endings and they don't have the chops to write them properly. They seem like a cheap way to end things without having to write an ending. A good one will leave you guessing what's happening (Inception) but a bad one makes you feel like you just wasted a couple of hours of your time and attention.

There's no reason to care for any of these characters. There's no explanation or way to try to sort out what this space is. They shove some people into the situation and let them wander around a set that was so large the crew got lost at times. There's those few set pieces and the rest is really just watching them walk/run/scurry/hobble/crawl through rooms that sometimes have weird stuff in them.

I think I know the premise that this space is a memory of a memory. Kind of like a copy of a copy thing. That's great. Now tell us why the heck we should care.