What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

[kamikazekeeg]

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Change up with the characters, which is a good thing for sure, they'd all ran their course and I was so done with that family.  Can't say I'm a big Mark Wahlberg fan, but he's fine, the father/daughter dynamic is better I'd say than the boyfriend/girlfriend stuff from before.  Optimus is obnoxious with his personality here, like he's fighting Grimlock going "I'm doing this for your freedom" as he fights, and then he's standing over him going "Fight with me, or die", it's so bad how much they don't give a crap about Optimus and getting his character right.  I was willing to let it slide abit before, but it's frustrating here.

This was the last movie I watched of the series, but I forgot how little the Dinobots are in this, only showing up in like the last half hour or so and they are kinda only there for the heck of it, they have no importance to the story or particularly great explanation on them and why they are dinosaurs.  Also this movie is way too long, most of them seem to be over 2 hours, but these aren't Lord of the Rings, this stuff needs to be chopped down, there's plenty they could cut.

I'd probably say overall this movie is like a 7/10, it has less of the obnoxious dialogue and characters from before, but I don't know if it's doing anything super great, there's still some decent big robot action and such going on, but it's just okay in general.

Transformers: The Last Knight - This one was abit better than I was expecting, I feel like I heard some pretty negative stuff about it, but it's not much worse than most of the rest of the movies were.  I'm kinda torn on if I like the Transformers through history bit, it's kinda fun, kinda clunky, but there is ALOT to this one and I think it does hurt things. 

They kinda make a big deal about releasing a bunch of Decepticons, showing them off with character names, but two die right afterwards, and then they do nothing the rest of the movie aside from doing something at the end.  There's an orphan girl who lives with Transformers, one is like a full Autobot who is introduced and then killed, along with there being this little random trash can R2D2 sorta bot, and then there are random baby dinobots, who I love with all my heart, but are a completely random addition, then there's centuries of history with the Autobots participating in major wars, then you have all the Knights, and everything to do with Cybertron, and Unicron, and Wahlberg being "The Last Knight" and then there's everything with the secret society and anthony hopkins and his random human sized transformer robot guy, and it's like Roland Emmerich levels of world destruction with hundreds of thousands, if not millions dead by the end and an evil Optimus, but he's only evil for like 10 minutes...It's just SO MUCH and then you make it a two and a half hour movie and something just needs to be cut out.

Still, I think it's fine, some of the action is good, Optimus doesn't get a chance to be the bloodthirsty robot killer as much being that he's gone for most of the movie, so I guess that is something lol

I don't particularly love this movie, but I still like it more than at least the second movie which is probably my least favorite (Though though some of the dialogue felt like it was trying to return with some characters lol).  Honestly, with my rewatch (And my first watch of Last Knight), I was expecting to dislike the movies a lot more, but they are all fine, like 6's and 7's, nothing amazing, nothing I'll ever rewatch, but this was so much more fun and entertaining to watch than my Resident Evill marathon was lol

My last movie is Bumblebee, but I know I like that one and that it's a reboot of the series, so it's kinda separating itself abit from this marathon.  If I had to rank this run of the movies, it would be like...3, 4, 5, 1, and 2.

Bumblebee - Great movie, definitely the best they've done.  For one, the designs are great, for everyone.  It shows in the fights the most how much better it is to have clear designs and colors so that it's not just a bunch of indistinct metal rolling around together.  The general story and setting is a classic trope of "Kid finds alien, helps alien, they deal with something together", all done in the 80's aesthetic, but you know, it works, I like everyone, no one is annoying, the dialogue doesn't destroy my soul like it does in the previous movies.  It also does a great mixture of transformers and human interaction.  It felt alot of the time that the Transformers were kinda always on the backburner of their own story, but Bumblebee is involved in everything and his characterization is great.

No contest, like a 9/10 movie, I'm really hopeful they can continue with this quality of movie in the upcoming one.

The Meg - Kept seeing this movie promoted when I was on Amazon and realized that I hadn't seen since it came out and figured why not.  It's still dumb fun, it's one of the better shark movies they've done in a long while I think at this point, like I haven't watched too many since Deep Blue Sea really, but in terms of like a Jaws or Deep Blue Sea, I think this is up there.  It helps that it's a giant budget visual effects feast lol I was gonna nitpick the writing and stuff abit more, but this is a big goofy b-movie, it does what it needs to and its entertaining.  I'm kinda expecting the upcoming sequel to flop because I feel that's what happens to movies like this, but who knows, maybe it won't just be a half-assed sequel.

[Cartagia]

M3gan - This was kinda great. Funny, creepy, good digs at corpo culture, interesting examination of grief linked relationships, cool VFX, good kills. Like the second best Child's Play movie.

[kamikazekeeg]

One Piece Film: Red - Didn't realize this had been released for streaming as it's apparently only on a few certain platforms I don't use for it. 

Overall it was a pretty chill film, like it has some dark aspects and ends up having a big danger, but it's mostly just a big music video with some fun music, I had only heard a little bit here and there before, but the singer is really incredible.  I looked her up and she's some crazy new young singer who went from cover artist online to putting out hitting singles and then being the lead singer in a major anime movie in only a couple years.  Her voice really stands out among the J-pop crowd I feel, she's got some real nice range and isn't afraid to really belt and get a little aggressive and raw.  Almost gives me a little bit of like a lighter Lizzy Hale.

The movie itself I would say isn't crazy amazing, it's more about the visual flair than than anything, it brings in a bunch of characters we haven't seen in a little bit, some villains and heroes have to work together, and it culminates in a big flashy ending.  Nothing I'd really complain about, but not something I'm looking to rewatch as mostly I'll just pop on a song or two from the film if I want that more.

[Cartagia]

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons - Guess they can't all be winners.  This one is kinda boring.  Feels sloppier, too.  More editing mistakes, obviously fake weapons, etc.

Evil Dead Rise - Probably the best and most consistent  horror franchise of all time.  A total blast.

Bros - Some of the bits go on too long and it tends to overdo it with a tad with the long exposition dumps which wreaks havoc with the pacing. Otherwise it is an incredibly sharp romcom that has one of the best takes on the modern dating I've ever seen while also delivering a fascinating insight into gay dating culture.

[kamikazekeeg]

Bridge on the River Kwai - Got in a WW2 movie mood, so decided to look for some older flicks I haven't watched or might enjoy a rewatch since it's been many years and started with this.  Never seen it before that I remember, but overall was a decent enough watch, always great seeing films like this before the digital era and seeing just all the impressive stuff they do with such a big cast and actual things being built. 

I wasn't in love with some of the writing and decisions made though, with Alec Guinesses character basically becoming a collaborator in ways that never made sense to me.  I guess the idea is his quest for order, discipline, and the rules in this hellhole pushed him into this mindset of accomplishing his task with all the fervor the British army can muster, but there's no real moment of him being hassled about it or him struggling with this ideal, it's just "We can do this job right, lets do it because it'll keep the soldiers busy and maybe help with conditions", which can make sense, but other than the doctor lightly pushing back, no other officer or soldier tries to harass him over this decision and to why they are not going to sabotage the bridge.  It just feels like there's a deeper aspect to this that is sorta missing to really sell the ending and the realization of what he's done.

It also doesn't help that it never feels like it's too much of a POW work camp.  I swear there's never more than like a half dozen to a dozen Japanese soldiers around, and with there being 100's of prisoners, and no real fencing and restrictions that I saw, it doesn't feel like the prisoners are ever really in danger outside of the officers getting locked up in the beginning because they wouldn't work based on Geneva Convention warfare rules.  Two die in an escape at the beginning, but that is mostly it.

I personally wouldn't recommend the film.  Reading up on it, it's considered one of the "all time greats" and I'm not gonna be the modern cinema snob that goes "Is Bridge on the River Kwai actually overrated?", but at 2 and a half hours long and some annoyances with the story, I sorta feel like it's not something I'd say is a must watch unless you are just a serious war film buff and you've probably already watched it otherwise.  I still enjoyed my watch, but it was more out of nostalgia for this type of film, rather than the actual film itself as I grew up watching older movies like this with my dad.

[Cartagia]

Point Break - What was more of a generic and big studio blockbuster chum in 1991 feels like a top tier hyper-specific relic of a bygone era, a'la classic 70s hard-edged potboilers like Dirty Harry or Pelham 123.

[kamikazekeeg]

Heartbreak Ridge - Not really sure why I wanted to watch this in particular.  I don't feel like I've seen so much overblown, military grunt, "Only steers and queers come from Texas..." level of trash talk outside of Full Metal Jacket which funny enough released the year after this one.  I know there are people who are into that sorta over the top machismo stuff, but it's rough and being the 80's, the talk gets real "rough" if I had to put it nicely.  Sorta feel like it's hard to enjoy any of the characters being that they are all assholes, Eastwood especially, though I will say they don't really try to portray him as a "good guy" I guess.  He's an old soldier at the end of his run, a drunk, only good for the military life, but I guess the one good thing he's trying to do is make sure his squad is militarily ready to handle an event, such as the one at the end where they go in, do all the work, and save the day.

The fight at the end also comes across abit hokey to me, though I guess some elements were actually abit legit after I looked it up.  Eh, I wouldn't really recommend it.  It's mostly there to appeal to old vets and "tough guy" types who just want to see Clint Eastwood squint and talk all grizzled.  The story and characters just aren't interesting enough to keep it entertaining I feel.

Platoon - Don't remember if I saw this before or not, I feel this is one of those movies I've just seen bits of on TV or brought up in movie reviews and other forms of pop culture osmosis, etc, but god dang, the cast of this movie.  Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Keith David, Johnny Depp, and a few others too.  Definitely just jumps right into it which I appreciate, no build up to Sheen and joining the military, and all that, you get to know him as the movie progresses through the narration, keeping the story going as it's just all about the hell these guys go through.  It's just about blood, terror, and misery.

It's pretty intense, but it is what it is, a dark vietnam war flick showing the horrors of war.  It's not something I'll ever watch again as it's a pretty sad and depressing flick.  Well done, but dark.

The Thin Red Line (1998) - It was hard for me to get into this one, it tries to be a lot more philosophical, lots of narration that isn't really about what is happening, that I'm assuming is stuff from the book itself as a way to involve it more directly, connecting it with light flashbacks for the soldiers.  Because of this, it feels rather long winded, dragging scenes on, though to be fair, I'm very much not someone interested in the philosophical side of things, I'm not knowledgeable enough to get anything from it unless it's on the lighter side.

This is another movie like Platoon where it's packed with recognizable actors, almost absurdly so and I'm curious if it's like Platoon, where there were a lot of actors who were actually fairly early on in their career and looking at it now, it just happens to have so many great actors, though there's more than a few actors that do seem out of place, like John Travolta is just John Travolta at the beginning, a higher up admiral or general or something and there's a few others that just feel like they wanted star power for the sake of it.  Like there doesn't need to be cameos in a big war movie.

As a war story, it's fine, it does what it needs, but because it is lingering on stuff, especially with the narration, its very slow and not sure if it has what I would say is strong characterization, like Platoon has very strong characters that stand out, which is maybe unfair due to the timeframe differences (Platoon is over months I think, whereas Thin Red Line is a shorter timeframe), but unless it's a currently well known actor, I don't recognize who they are or know too much about them and don't really connect very well with them.

It's not bad or anything, but as a story, it wasn't engaging me as much as other war flicks have that also have notable big casts like Platoon, or Saving Private Ryan, etc...

[Cartagia]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Maybe it's just the fact that the MCU has been so stale lately, but this just totally worked for me. Or maybe it's because it is easily the most classic Gunn of the franchise with lots of weird gross monsters and some imagery I am astonished is in a PG-13 movie.

It is a little overstuffed, even at 2.5 hours, and you could excise pretty much all of the Adam Warlock stuff and still have mostly the same picture.

Everybody Wants Some!! - The Jay Niles character feels a bit antithetical to everything else in the film, and I wish there were a tiny bit more plot, but man this is just such a chill watch.

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - Better than the immensely forgettable fourth film, which isn't saying much.

Minari - Very sweet and quite lovely.  Not really what I was expecting going in, but it's just an absolute delight.

Jumanji: The Next Level - More of the same.  Totally fine.

[kamikazekeeg]

Windtalkers - I feel like I remember enjoying this one more back in the day, but on re-watch, it's just okay.  I think after watching war flicks that were trying to be abit more realistic feeling I guess, this one comes off with some stuff that is abit more "actiony" with how they portray some of the action, lots of people just running straight into gunfire and spraying bullets or doing cool rolls, and it sorta feels like it undercuts the story.  Very "Hollywood".  Even though the story is about the Navajo, they do really feel like supporting characters.  Not terrible, the big battle scenes are well done, tons of extras, but otherwise kinda middling.

[Cartagia]

Tango & Cash - This is a ton of fun, but it's also extremely stupid.  Monumentally so.  Amazing bench of character actors as well.

The Devil Wears Prada - We as a society have to stop letting movies try and convince us that pre-makeover Anne Hathaway is a troglodyte.

"I'm not skinny or glamorous." Get the hell out of here.

Free Willy - There is the problem of the hypocrisy of the nature of the film, but it's incredibly well-crafted for this type of family fare. Terrific cinematography, great score by Basil Poseldouris, good performances from the whole cast, including a solid child's performance from Richter. It's a good time!

Hustlers - Excellent crime caper. Very stylish, great energy, terrific performance from J Lo.

[kamikazekeeg]

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - This was going to be an odd one going into with all the negativity surrounding it, it's hard to avoid talk and some spoilers when active online, but I still wanted to see it.  The Ant-Man movies were never my favorites, just okay in general, but I thought it could still be an alright watch, I don't always take the reviews or other opinions 100% wholeheartedely.  That being said, I've been more gun shy about Marvel flicks for abit now as many also are.  Some are good, some are kinda boring or basic, it's been a mixed bag.

This one is still pretty in line with Ant-Man as the movies has been, very jokey, a lot of humor, which is fun.  It does have a serious aspect to its story involving Kang and such, but it never feels out of place like Thor: Love and Thunder did.  I hate one of the characters in this though, I won't spoil just in case others haven't seen it yet, but its bad.  Like sure, the character is kinda dumb and goofy on its own, but it wasn't handled right here.  It could've been anything other than who it was.

I'd say I like this movie more than the second one.  It's really over the top with the quantum realm world, sometimes working, sometimes not, but it is a really fantastical setting, it can be tough to make these things not just seem like cg, green screen, nonsense.  This movie was fine, I've watched worse movies with this phase for sure.  I'm not 100% sure what all the backlash was on this one, the ending was abit "eh", but oh well, it was entertaining enough.

[Cartagia]

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - [...]This movie was fine, I've watched worse movies with this phase for sure.  I'm not 100% sure what all the backlash was on this one, the ending was abit "eh", but oh well, it was entertaining enough.

Pretty much where I landed on it.  It's definitely a lower tier MCU film (better than last year's Thor, at least), but did not deserve that absolute trouncing it received from people.

The Remains of the Day - Utterly spectacular as a dramatic period piece, but not completely sold by the romance between Stevens and Kenton. Not the performances, those are great, but it doesn't really find its footing until too late in the film.

Jack Reacher - McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible audition reel. A bit too long, slightly clunky in spots, but it individual sequences are terrific, Tom nails the idea of Reacher (I don't care that he's a behemoth in the books, I've read two of them and outside of the overall intriguing plots they kinda suck), good supporting cast.

[kamikazekeeg]

Morbius - Got into that mood of "I got new stuff I should watch...I don't want to watch them, so I'm gonna watch movies that I know are probably not good out of morbid curiosity, which lead me to Morbius lol

It's not as bad as I was expecting, but it's such a half-baked movie.  For one, I hate the visuals of it, it's all this entirely dreary and washed out tone, generally blue, and it looks awful.  On top of that is the middling CG.  I hate the vampire look and how it instantly transitions between human and vampire.  I only know of Morbius from the 90's Spider-Man cartoon, but I thought a big part of Morbius is that he's this monster all the time, but having it be that he can transform in and out and there's no metamorphosis, it's just a visual effect transition is so lame.  And once it's the two fighting  together, they just look a videogame cutscene fighting each other and it gets incredibly messy, especially with the "smoke" effects to them, which I think is meant to represent sound.  It's just an ugly movie.

Matt Smith is okay, he's hamming it up enough, Jared Leto is kinda boring through most of it.  The rest are okay I guess, but so much of the writing and plot just feels kinda clunky.  There are some decent moments visually I feel, but those are very rare.  I think the greatest problem is the writing, like I'm not someone that is usually overly critical about that sort of stuff, but how they reach situations, how it happens, some of the interactions, it feels like they need to hit these beats, but there's no flavor to it.  Like I feel in a regular movie, the FBI agents wouldn't just immediately be on board with the idea of a vampire being real, but it feels incredibly

In the end, it's definitely not good, though I've seen much worse comic/superhero films, but it definitely sucks that Sony is pushing these anti-hero/superhero flicks that no one really wants.  Like Venom barely works, but I think that is ENTIRELY on the dynamic of Venom and Tom Hardy who make things very fun, and not because they are particularly good movies, especially disconnected from their most important component...Spider-Man.  I wouldn't recommend this at all, even for the mem's, it's just a c-tier comic flick that feels out of place among current comic book movies.

I'm about to do another mistake and thinking about watching Shazam 2, another movie that didn't do well and doesn't look good, but who knows, I might have something I actually want to watch instead.  Man I can't wait for that Kong: Skull Island cartoon to release next month lol

[kamikazekeeg]

Super Mario Bros Movie - This is likely my favorite video game movie, kinda no contest.  Before this, it was Detective Pikachu, which is just a great time and below that would be sorta the Sonic movies, but those are like well below the first two.  It just has so much fun to it, I loved everyone in it, anyone I was unsure of voice wise didn't bother me at all, it has so many wonderful references that don't feel weird or out of place, the music is...mixed, but most of the time great lol THat's my only complaint, was the unnecessary licensed music for most of it.  I was okay with the No Sleep Till Brooklyn at the beginning, they are still in the "real world", so it's fine.  "Holding Out For A Hero" was okay for a montage, but other than that, I kinda hated the rest like Take on Me is so bad and Thunderstruck is way too cliche at this point.  Less of that in the sequel please.

Otherwise I adored this movie, I just want to watch it all again, which is honestly a little rare for me, but it's such a quick and entertaining watch. 

Honestly, if they keep up this quality for future Nintendo properties, I'm on board with it as they are absolutely going to do more Super Mario Bros movies and there's talk of other properties, like if they can do Zelda and it's kept as a classic fantasy adventure thing, I'm on board with that.  This could be some fun stuff.

[Cartagia]

The Night House - Desperately trying not the let the fact that twist wasn't what I thought it was going pull the score down. Rebecca Hall is incredible here, and the direction is striking, it just whiffs the ending a tad.