watsonroberts-94512 Reviews

The Marvels (2023)

Truly terrible

[2/10 · 15 May 2024]

Marvel is known for putting out safe, bland, formulaic popcorn flicks that kids love and adults can at least enjoy. They're never anything special, but they're rarely terrible.

The Marvels, unfortunately, is truly awful. I don't think we can lay much blame at the feet of the director or stars as the problems are so fundamental to the project itself as to probably make a good version of this impossible.

As an example, in a previous MCU film, Captain Marvel (played by Brie Larson) flies through and destroys a giant enemy spaceship. Here, for "plot reasons", she just stands back and watches enemy spaceships (that seem smaller by comparison) do their thing.

That gets at the truly fundamental problem with this movie: nothing makes sense except as an excuse to have the plot be a paint-by-numbers MCU film.

There's tension between Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeau because someone at the studio thought it would make things more interesting-but good lord, why? It's about Marvel leaving when Rambeau was a child something like thirty years ago. Who cares? What kind of person holds a grudge from when they were twelve?

There's about a thousand opportunities and ways they could've defeated the villain well before the ending. Why didn't they? Or why didn't the creators at least come up with something to better explain their impotence?

A poorly-conceived animated sequence that goes on way too long. Marvel-style humor that got old about thirty movies ago. People constantly making stupid decisions. Costumes and sets that look straight out of an '80s B-movie. A subplot about the alien cat species that... well, honestly, that part's better than everything else, so maybe I should cut it some slack.

This film isn't the failure of the first MCU black director or an all-female lead cast. This film is the failure of Marvel to do anything other than build itself toward more future projects and ignore any kind of storytelling prowess that the people it hires might have. Marvel has backed itself into a corner of milquetoast nothingness, and now it can't even manage to do that right.

Hundreds of Beavers (2022)

Disappointing, Boring, and Nearly Unwatchable

[3/10 · 17 April 2024]

Perhaps my expectations were too high. Perhaps it's been overhyped. Yet this movie was highly disappointing and, in the worst crime of cinema, uninteresting. The humor is like if Charlie Chaplin at his worst was working while dealing with a brain aneurysm. It's cheesy and campy, but not in a good way. And given that's the focus, it's pretty worthless overall.

The story is nonexistent, or at least unimportant. It's about a survivalist sometime between 1500 and 1900, maybe. It only exists to serve the creation of a series of gags that aren't funny, clever, creative, or witty. Many of these revolve around beavers; or, more accurately, humans dressed in beaver costumes. Is that hilarious in itself? No. Does it lead to anything hilarious? Also no.

If you saw any of the post-Naked Gun movies Leslie Nielsen did, where the gags were incredibly forced and painful to watch, you'll have a good idea of this movie's sense of humor. It's like those but with the aesthetics of The Saddest Music in the World/Guy Maddin.

The only redeeming features of this feature are the ambition and the creativity in production. Three stars for that, I guess.

Manhattan (1979)

Low-Rent Allen

[4/10 · 21 February 2024]

How can this film be objectively rated on its own merits? Perhaps not at all.

The good - it's visually brilliant; some of Gordon Willis's best work shines throughout. Diane Keaton is fantastic as always. There are a handful of great, witty lines.

Can this make up for the creepiness of the plot, which involves a 42 year old man sleeping with a 17 year old girl? For some, yes. It was quite simply a different time.

But even then, it's still overrated and not one of Allen's best. The characters tend toward flatness; the dialogue isn't as sparkling as Allen's best. It's not as funny as a Broadway Danny Rose or a Manhattan Murder Mystery. It's not as deep as a Crimes and Misdemeanors or a Zelig. It's not as poignant as a Radio Days or The Purple Rose of Cairo. It's a weak misfire from one of the greats. For those who hate Allen for his personal life, this won't change that. For those who simply don't like his films, this won't change anything for them. For those who haven't seen any Allen, this is a poor place to start.

There are some (minor) things to appreciate in the film. But it's really for Allen completists only.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Good, but disappointing

[6/10 · 14 July 2023]

How can anyone rate this? Do we judge it simply by the other Mission: Impossible movies? Then it's bottom-of-the-barrel, in a close contest with M:I-2 for last place. Do we judge it by the high-budget movies studios are typically releasing? Then it's one of the best in years.

One of the problems the film has to deal with is that it's following three movies in the series that have absolutely crushed. The fourth, fifth, and sixth M:I movies are probably the best action films ever made (unless we're including more adventure-style films like Indiana Jones, though that line is finicky). How do you follow these and still reach greatness?

Apparently, you don't. The action itself isn't nearly as good or interesting as the previous films; there's nothing even close to the Burj Khalifa set piece in #4 or the skydiving sequence in #6. The very last set piece got grating and annoying (something not even M:I-2 did) as the same action beats repeated over and over again. I barely remember any of the action, to be honest. There's a car chase that's fine, there's a fight in an alley, there's some stuff at the end... what else happened? It was forgettable to say the least.

The story itself is pretty dumb. Only the first M:I had any real story or character depth to speak of, but this one really drives home the complete pointlessness of everything outside the action scenes. There are multiple "twists"/reveals that are extremely obvious a mile away and keep getting treated as if they're something major (think the Henry Cavill stuff from 6, but happening 4-5 times throughout the movie). The dialogue is terrible and pointless. Characters have zero integrity or... well, character (Ethan Hunt tells a woman who has left him to die multiple times that he'd risk his life for her... what?). The AI story has been done before, been done better, and doesn't fit the world of the M:I movies. Henry Czerny and Cary Elwes are used in the most uncreative ways possible and have almost nothing to do. And don't get me started on how they did Rebecca Ferguson dirty.

And yet... it's still somewhat good. Not great; a low point in the series; but good. Certainly better than most superhero movies or Maverick or Avatar or pretty much anything getting a wide release recently. It's at least enjoyable, and until the very last action sequence, it never once felt like it dragged.

It's good; it's just also... disappointing.

Radio Days (1987)

A phenomenal film that gets better with each viewing

[10/10 · 2 June 2023]

How can anyone describe this experience? It's a series of vignettes? Yes. The vignettes are framed as the remembrances of someone who grew up in the "Golden Age" of radio? Yes again. The lead is played by a very young Seth Green, and the supporting cast is absolutely stacked? Once more: yes.

But that only gives you a sliver of the picture. The real treat and delight of this movie is its ability to transport you to another place and time. Is the view of that period tainted by nostalgia? Of course. But it's magical. We understand what it was like to be a child at the time, to be without screens and yet have live-broadcast entertainment in every home. We get to marvel at Radio City Music Hall, laugh at great anecdotes, and have our hearts broken by the story of a family experiencing tragedy, even though we've never seen them and we never will.

The ending lines are bittersweet. I've never seen a film that has moved me in this particular way; and it becomes better and better every time I watch it. One of Allen's best; one of the best ever.

Shadows and Fog (1991)

One of Allen's most underrated

[8/10 · 31 May 2023]

This take on German Expressionism (very loosely adapted from a previous one-act, sort of) is truly fantastic. Probably Allen's best-looking film (though that doesn't say much - his films usually look fairly ugly to my eye; he usually opts for realism over beauty, but this one is intentionally anti-realistic and benefits from that), this serves as a metaphor for society and the individual confronting death and evil in their midst. Some deny, some ignore, some seek to study, some try to fight, some find a scapegoat.

Kleinman, played by Woody Allen, is a fairly typical role for the actor whose range is, even by his own admission, very limited. He gets woken in the middle of the night by a mob of locals who are trying to find and kill a mad strangler in their midst. They want him to join them; but they don't clearly explain what they want him to do, and he quickly gets lost in the night, clueless as to his purpose and what's going on within the shadows and fog.

There are a lot of stellar cameos/small roles throughout: Kathy Bates, John Malkovich, John Cusack, Lily Tomlin, Julie Kavner, etc. Etc. Etc. Jodie Foster gets the best line of the movie (her response to Allen regarding paying for sex), but I'm not sure she has any other lines off the top of my head. Everyone brings their A-game.

Why not 10 stars? Honestly, writing this out, I wonder if I should rate it higher. But I don't think it quite goes as deep as the greatest films do; it's not quite on the level of Ikiru or Crimes and Misdemeanors or Winter Light. Farrow is a bit theatrical for my taste, and Allen, again, is merely playing a variation on the exact same character he's played dozens of times.

If you're looking for something that's funny, beautifully shot, and contains metaphors for the human condition, it would be difficult to find something better than this. If you're looking for one of the greatest films of all time, you'll come up short here, but not by leaps and bounds.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

As Good As Marvel Gets

[7/10 · 6 May 2023]

Does it have a few cheesy moments? Yes. Are there logical issues? Absolutely. Is it predictable? Of course. Does it star a generic white guy named Chris? You got it. And yet-for the most part-this is actually very good; and I don't know if Marvel's made a better movie.

It's always best to know as little as possible about something before you watch it; at this point, there have been enough Marvel movies for you to probably know what you're getting yourself into. Compared to the others, although this one has many of the same faults (the worst being fake-out deaths with zero consequences, which seems like a requirement for Marvel at this point), it has some character and emotional depth that not a single previous Marvel flick has reached. This is almost entirely due to the way the character of Rocket is handled. If you think a CGI cartoon voiced by Bradley Cooper doing a very bad Joe Pesci impersonation can't bring you to tears, think again.

The only truly bad parts of the movie are 1) the mediocre acting and poor attempts at being funny from Chris Pratt, 2) the fake-out death elements, and 3) the predictability and paint-by-numbers approach that still inhibits and inhabits Marvel properties. Meanwhile, you have 1) emotional depth, 2) character depth, 3) new characters knocking it out of the park, 4) a truly impressive performance by Zoe Saldana of a much different version of the same character she's played for years, 5) Dave Bautista consistently out-acting everyone around him, 6) Karen Gillan doing fantastic with a mostly thankless job, 7) action set pieces that aren't amazing but are better than most of Marvel's blandness, and 8) a dog with telekinesis played by the girl from Borat 2.

The math leans in the Guardians' favor.

The Impostors (1998)

One of the best comedies of the last thirty years

[8/10 · 12 February 2023]

This is an extremely funny movie that doesn't quite reach the level of a masterpiece-but comes dang close.

Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt are at their absolute best as two down-on-their-luck actors in a screwball comedy throwback that's like a top-tier Hope and Crosby road movie. When they get into an altercation with a popular alcoholic performer, they accidentally wind up on a boat populated with characters played by some of the best actors working today. These include a scheming couple (Richard Jenkins and Allison Janney), a depressed lounge singer (Steve Buscemi), a gay tennis pro (Billy Connolly), a first mate with a deadly secret (Tony Shalhoub), and a host of other equally fantastic and fun characters.

There are only two pieces that don't quite work that well. First, the length - this could've lost about twenty minutes and been near-perfect. Second is the prince character, whose "joke" elements fall flat and who is given basically nothing to do (a little disappointing given he's the only non-white character).

Those are minor compared to how brilliant the rest of the film is. Hilarious and perfectly directed. It's rare to find anything this good anymore.

Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

Fantastic

[8/10 · 12 February 2023]

A great comedy that maybe isn't as deep as Allen's best work and isn't as funny as, say, The Marx brothers, but nevertheless succeeds tremendously at being a fun and humanist romp through the worst day of a D-list talent manager's life.

The most fun aspect is how great the film is at conveying the sense of simply having a fun conversation. The movie is, in some ways, simply about show business; the setup is that a group of comedians are sitting around at the Carnegie deli, telling old stories about their mutual acquaintances. These stories start to revolve around Danny Rose, a manager who will take almost anyone as a client and whose few successful clients leave him once they get even a hint of success. One of the comedians brings up the absolute best Danny Rose story, which involves a washed-up Sinatra wannabe played by Nick Apollo Forte along with his lover, played by Mia Farrow.

If you're looking for some laughs and fun with something that isn't particularly deep but also isn't reveling in stupidity, this is a great choice.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Bad, but fun

[4/10 · 1 February 2023]

This is a so-bad-it's-good kind of movie. Think Troll 2 or Tommy Wisseau's The Room.

The story doesn't matter, but here goes. If you've been living under a rock the past seventy years, Batman (played by a somewhat miscast George Clooney) is a guy who dresses like a bat and fights crime with his sidekick Robin (played by the always-okay Chris O'Donnell). In this movie, he goes up against two main villains: Mr. Freeze, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is trying to save his wife's life while making dad jokes; and Poison Ivy, played by Uma Thurman, who... just wants to destroy things, I guess?

It's amazing that not one of these people (at least some of whom are talented) stood up and said, "Hey, this script is terrible."

It's not a good movie. But it's a good watch-it-with-your-friends-and-make-fun-of-it movie.

Glass (2019)

Why

[3/10 · 31 January 2023]

First - don't watch this and don't read anything about it until you've seen Unbreakable, which is one of the best superhero films ever.

Seriously. Go watch it knowing as little as possible.

Assuming that you've seen it, and assuming that you've seen Split, you're probably thinking there's no way Glass could be bad. If so, you're wrong.

It's difficult to explain how truly bad this is without spoilers, especially for Unbreakable, which needs to be seen with fresh eyes. Let me put it this way: nothing anyone does makes any sense whatsoever. To keep it vague, the worst choices involve the "Mr. Glass" character played by Sam Jackson, who is supposed to be brilliant and then makes incredibly dumb decisions. There are a few twists and turns; none really make sense with what's come before, and one of them involves someone pretending to do something when it would've made much more sense to just do that thing.

It's bad. It's very, very bad. Jackson and McAvoy are both fantastic, however; they are really the only reason to watch the film.

Drowning Mona (2000)

Not great, but darn good

[7/10 · 31 January 2023]

Mona Dearly, played by a brilliant Bette Midler, has an unexpected tragedy befall her. The local sheriff, played with an easy charm by Danny DeVito, soon finds out that everyone has a motive for hurting-or even killing-Mona... including his daughter, brought to life with fun and vigor by Neve Campbell. Not to mention her fiancée, Billy (one of Casey Affleck's better roles), who has been stuck in a business he hates with Mona's son.

Rounding out the main cast are William Fichtner as Mona's husband (in a performance that will make you wonder why he hasn't done more comedy), Jamie Lee Curtis as a local waitress, and Will Ferrell as a funeral home director.

It's hard to find something stylistically comparable to this. It's funny, but it's not a laugh-a-minute zany farce such as the Marx brothers, Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, or Mel Brooks. It's much lighter than Woody Allen. Perhaps the best comparison would be a '70s Hal Ashby film (although Being There is leagues above this). It's a light comedy murder mystery that manages to be fun and funny, but never really goes above and beyond in any way. You could do better, but you could do a lot worse.

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

GOAT

[10/10 · 27 January 2023]

I'm not saying this is the greatest film of all time; but I am saying if there's a better one, I haven't seen it.

To really get into why this is great would require major spoilers; instead, I'll just give the set-up. There are two stories that are seemingly unrelated; one is a drama (sort of) led by Martin Landau, one is a comedy (sort of) led by Woody Allen.

Landau plays Judah Rosenthal, an optometrist who has been having an affair with a stewardess. The stewardess - brilliantly played by Anjelica Huston - is getting more and more drastic in her attempts to get Rosenthal to leave his wife.

Allen plays Cliff, a documentary filmmaker whose career has been languishing for some time and whose marriage is slowly disintegrating. Given the chance to make some money by profiling an absolute jackass (hilariously brought to life by Alan Alda in probably his best role), Cliff finds himself frustrated by the work when he meets and starts to fall for a producer on the project.

Sam Waterston also shows up as a rabbi losing his vision; he's barely in the movie and yet gives a strangely heartbreaking performance. Jerry Orbach and Joanna Gleeson give solid performances as well.

This tells you so much and yet nothing at all. The existence of God, the silence of God, justice, ethics, and so, so much more are contained in this expertly crafted and absolutely perfect movie. This is phenomenal. This is something you should seek out. This is perfection.

AUM: The Cult at the End of the World (2023)

Interesting story told poorly

[3/10 · 27 January 2023]

This is the story of a cult and its leader, and their descent into madness and violence. There's a lot of potentially very interesting content here. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't really handle the content well.

To some degree, it feels like a slow-motion pinball - it touches on various elements and then jumps away before it can go into any depth, but it's so slow in its telling that it feels like molasses. The film brings up the media's role in normalizing the cult; but it moves on before that can be really examined in depth. The film briefly seems interested in what attracts people to cults; but it doesn't take time to explore this. The film occasionally focuses on a former cult member who may have been more involved in everything than what he was punished for; but we don't really get a sense of the evidence. The film brings up the failure of police to stop the eventual tragedy; but we don't get much of an examination of what went into that.

It's like there are parts of four or five better documentaries that are shoved together haphazardly, and the information presented is minimal. This is one where you're better off reading the Wikipedia article than watching the movie. There are worse documentaries, but they're few and far between.

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Great, but sad

[10/10 · 26 January 2023]

A truly great film - and yet, I'm not sure I can recommend it.

The setup is simple: a man's friend tells him that they aren't going to be friends anymore. But it's so much more than that. Martin McDonagh is one of the best writers of his generation (or any generation); he's able to take what could've been just a silly throwaway story and turn it into something truly magical. His ability to craft language that can be both hilarious and heartbreaking is unparalleled.

Combining McDonagh's brilliant writing with two great actors - Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell - is a winning combination, which we've seen before with In Bruges. In Bruges may be slightly funnier, but this is a rich film with depth and character. This movie should win every award.

But - I'm not sure I can recommend it. It's brilliant, yes; but it's also truly sad and depressing in a way that very few films are (and for good reason). Someone else put it something like this: McDonagh's previous film had cancer, rape, murder, suicide, police brutality, and racism, and that was a Hallmark movie compared to Banshees.

I'd only suggest watching it if you're up for a good laugh and a good cry. It's brilliant, but so, so sad.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

The intersection of dad jokes and things a teenager thinks up while high

[4/10 · 26 January 2023]

Is this a bad movie? No. Is it a good movie? Not really.

At its roots, the story is fairly simple: a woman finds out that she's the only one who can stop an evil(-ish) force. And she learns how to be a better person along the way. There aren't really any surprises as far as the story goes; it's a series of cliches that don't add up to much.

The action is basic. Nothing special, nothing particularly interesting. The humor is uncreative and lame: there's a Ratatouille spoof called Racacoonie (it's a raccoon); in an alternate universe, people have hot dog fingers; there's a bagel with literally everything on it... it feels like there's not a single idea that wouldn't fit on a Venn diagram crossover between dad jokes and things a teenager would think up while high.

The ending is the worst part. We know what's going to happen. We've seen it a thousand times before. But it just drags on and on and on. It could've easily shaved ten minutes off in the last half hour. Hell, maybe the whole last half hour could've been skipped.

I'd most recommend this for the "film bro" type and people who are shallow but think they're deep.

Bad Behaviour (2023)

How?

[1/10 · 26 January 2023]

How can a movie be this bad? Especially with Jennifer Connelly and Ben Whishaw as two of its leads.

The movie starts off with a woman, played by JCon, calling her daughter as she's about to go to a retreat with limited ability to contact the outside world. The leader of the retreat is played by Whishaw, who - as far as I can tell - has never given a bad performance in his life, and isn't about to start now.

Visually, it's a decent enough film. Some of the color grading (like in a hotel scene) can get a bit rough, but it's mostly at least competent, and some shots are very well done.

Where the film fails is in literally everything else. The characters are shallow nonsense; Connelly's character just kind of does things to move the plot forward, Whishaw's character is basically a big bag of nothingness, etc. The story veers off in a strange way that doesn't add to or advance anything that came before. The film has nothing going on upstairs and nothing to say beyond, "Influencers bad".

Add to that the complete lack of anything interesting going on... it's not just a bad movie; it's a painfully bad movie. Something like The Room or Birdemic can at least provide some entertainment while being bad; this doesn't even have that. It drags and drags and drags. It feels like it should end wayyy before it does. It's truly a terrible movie. Easily one of the worst I've seen.

Theater Camp (2023)

Rough

[3/10 · 26 January 2023]

The story is weak, which would be fine if the comedy was good. The comedy is weak, which could work if the story were good. As is, it's a painfully unfunny sit that's slightly elevated by a couple good performances.

The story - if you can say it has one - is about a theater camp's staff struggling after the owner goes into a coma, leaving her inept son in charge as a competing camp tries to take it over (with a representative played by the always-wonderful Patti Harrison). You can pretty much guess where the story goes from there.

Easily the worst mockumentary I've ever seen. It can't hold a candle to the movies Christopher Guest has made, or ones he's been involved in, or even more obscure ones like Take the Money and Run. The humor lacks any wit, creativity, depth, cleverness, insight, or anything beyond what any given seventh grade theater kid could come up with. Definitely one to skip.

Glass Onion (2022)

PLEASE don't watch this without...

[3/10 · 2 January 2023]

... first reading (or watching an adaptation of) Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd From Side To Side. Not that it's her greatest work, but without going into spoilers, this outright plagiarizes from that book.

This is part of why it's so bad, but Knives Out, though predictable, was still fun and had some sense of internal logic. Glass Onion loses the fun and its humor consistently fizzles flat; in the last twenty minutes or so, every character (still alive, anyway) makes at least one very dumb decision.

Craig still brings some fun to the role, but Benoit Blanc is consistently portrayed as the absolute stupidest "world's greatest detective" that has ever been. In this one, he's sort of like Indiana Jones in Raiders; he really has no effect on the plot and isn't smart enough to figure very obvious things out.

If you want to watch a great murder mystery film, check out the 1965 Ten Little Indians adaptation, the 1974 Murder On the Orient Express adaptation, or the 1957 Witness for the Prosecution. If you want to watch a good murder mystery film, check out The Last of Sheila, Evil Under the Sun, or the 1940s And Then There Were None. If you want to watch a truly terrible murder mystery, it's Glass Onion or the Frank Stallone And Then There Were None.