Rate the last movie you've seen

[bassman]

MZ...in Creed, what’re your thoughts on their adaptation of the training montage?

[MinionZombie]

MZ...in Creed, what’re your thoughts on their adaptation of the training montage? You mean the training/treatment montage? It more pulled at the heart strings than revved you up. It's weighty material to take an on-screen champion and see them chucking up after a round of chemo ... but then again Adonis doing some impromptu training in the treatment room with Rocky was kind of inspiring and kept the montage vibe going. He may be a fictional character, but you wanna see Rocky pull through. Do we really want to see the on-screen death of Rocky? Again, that'd be weighty material and have a lot of impact, but who'd be the big guy in Adonis' corner? When Mickey died they had Apollo step in, and when Apollo died they had Apollo's trainer step in (in #4), but we don't really have anyone left to take over from Rocky if they ever decide to kill him off. Considering that Adrian died of cancer, it'd be a bit harsh to have Rocky go out that way as well. He's a survivor of a character, so it'd be more fitting to see him beat it.

[bassman]

Maybe I was just having a weird day when I watched Creed, but I found the montage a bit ridiculous and funny. Particularly the bits with the motorcycles and such. I was howling with laughter. Coogler got so much right with Creed and I really enjoyed the movie but that montage felt so out of place to me...

[MinionZombie]

Maybe I was just having a weird day when I watched Creed, but I found the montage a bit ridiculous and funny. Particularly the bits with the motorcycles and such. I was howling with laughter. Coogler got so much right with Creed and I really enjoyed the movie but that montage felt so out of place to me... Hmmm ... I kinda liked the motorbike bit, not really for the bikes, but for Adonis' determination. I did like the sense of community that the biker kids brought to the area, though. Was the montage as good as in previous movies in the Rocky 'universe'? No. But there were some good moments. In my mind, though, nothing can beat that double-montage in Rocky IV ... Hearts On Fire, mofos!

[beat_truck]

Ghosts of Hanley House (1968) 4.5/10 Obscure, no budget B&W haunted house movie. It had a passable story, but the effects weren't too great. Especially the sound effects. The movie would have been better if they had just omitted most of them all together. Some of them actually sounded like they were added years later because they didn't match the overall low-fi sound of the rest of the film.

[MinionZombie]

Justice League - 5/10 Yeah, I know, kinda late to this one. Anyway ... yep, a bit of a mess, unfortunately. You can clearly see the Joss Whedon additions because of their totally different tone (some of it works, some of it doesn't) as well as Superman's super-dodgy CGI top lip (yeesh it's even in the first scene of the friggin' movie!). They struggle to do the 'team up' aspect, bringing all these disparate characters together, and it feels like there's a shedload of footage on the cutting room floor as the pieces don't really fit together too well. The villain is also shite, from being generally rather generic, to the most egregious aspect of all - the CGI is painfully obvious and weird-looking. Indeed, there's too much damn CGI in the whole movie. This all said, there are various scenes, sequences, and parts that I quite enjoyed, and you can tell there's a much better movie in there waiting to get out. The troubled production absolutely made a significant impact on this movie, as well as the kneejerk tonal shift, and whatever the hell they were smoking in the edit suite. I'd really like to see an alternative cut of this film, but will we ever see it? Sadly, I doubt it...

[bassman]

^ yeah, I doubt Warner Brothers will ever release that Snyder Cut. Or that it’d even be worth it, anyway. Deadpool 2: The Super Duper Cut This extended cut is included with the digital home release, and also screened at Comic Con last month. It makes the film about fifteen minutes longer, but for the most part it’s usually just alternate or extended takes on jokes. There ARE a few noticeable chunks of new material, but for the most part, it’s just throwing some different laughs while keeping the same core of the film. As for the film itself, I actually enjoyed it more on further home viewings than I did in theater. Somehow the story felt even stronger and the theme of family seemed to shine through even more than before. Perhaps that just had more to do with it being my second viewing, though. In all, I recommend the film and it’s home release. On my initial viewing I only found this sequel to be okay, but with further viewings I seem to be finding more to admire and it’s easily caught up with the original. Who knows if I’ll ever consider it the best of the series, but with some of the new additions, I feel like it has that potential.

[shootemindehead]

'The Meg' Bleedin rubbish. 3/10

[bassman]

'The Meg' Bleedin rubbish. 3/10 Yikes, I was hoping for a bit more of a “so bad it’s good” from this one...

[shootemindehead]

Nope. Afraid not. It's all taken too seriously and the (murky) CGI is little better than the average Sharknado flick. It's 1:40 mins of Jason Statham jumping into the sea to help people. In the end it's just sort of boring and you end up waiting for it to be over. I knew it was going to be shite, but I didn't expect it to be tedious as well. I'd wait and catch it on the tele.

[beat_truck]

Land of the Dead 6.5/10 I had seen it several times before, but remembered very little of it, so it was time to revisit it. It was decent IMO. Better than Diary or Survival (blech), but the magic of the first three just wasn't there. The problems it had have been discussed repeatedly, so there isn't much point repeating them. Too smart/roaring Big Daddy, crappy CGI effects..... I thought that it was kind of neat that the town that they raided was supposed to be Uniontown. Uniontown is only a few minutes from where I live.

[EvilNed]

Land of the Dead 6.5/10 I had seen it several times before, but remembered very little of it, so it was time to revisit it. It was decent IMO. Better than Diary or Survival (blech), but the magic of the first three just wasn't there. The problems it had have been discussed repeatedly, so there isn't much point repeating them. Too smart/roaring Big Daddy, crappy CGI effects..... I thought that it was kind of neat that the town that they raided was supposed to be Uniontown. Uniontown is only a few minutes from where I live. To me it just feels too modern. The music doesn't contribute anything positive, unlike in Dawn and Day. The acting is subdued and almost TV-like, exception for Hopper and Leguizamo of course. Simon Baker is a poor leading man, at least in that film.

[beat_truck]

To me it just feels too modern. The music doesn't contribute anything positive, unlike in Dawn and Day. The acting is subdued and almost TV-like, exception for Hopper and Leguizamo of course. Simon Baker is a poor leading man, at least in that film. I agree on pretty much all those points. It definitely does feel too modern for me. The filming also seemed way too dark and was hard to make out what was going on at times. I actually thought that even Hopper's acting was wooden, too. I barely noticed that it had any music at all. That's how little it did for the movie. Some of the effects were cringe worthy, mainly the CGI. About half way through the movie, the priest zombie that had his head attached only to his spinal cord was TERRIBLE. In the extras, they made it sound like the most wonderful effect going. It still wasn't too bad overall, though. I just expected more out of Romero, especially the first time I saw it.

[EvilNed]

I agree on pretty much all those points. It definitely does feel too modern for me. The filming also seemed way too dark and was hard to make out what was going on at times. I actually thought that even Hopper's acting was wooden, too. I barely noticed that it had any music at all. That's how little it did for the movie. Some of the effects were cringe worthy, mainly the CGI. About half way through the movie, the priest zombie that had his head attached only to his spinal cord was TERRIBLE. In the extras, they made it sound like the most wonderful effect going. It still wasn't too bad overall, though. I just expected more out of Romero, especially the first time I saw it. The way music is composed for low budget projects these days is just hire a composer who will churn out a series of musical drones and slap them on the scene. I might be cynical in my analysis, but this is what it feels like in Land. The music doesn't add to any single scene in the film. It's just there because it's customary, but there's no plan behind it.

[MinionZombie]

I'd disagree on the music. While it doesn't have the same vibe as Dawn of Day, where both scores really stand out (in a good way), I wouldn't go so far as to say that Land's score is just filler. There's a few cues that really stand out for me, like the end credits theme (which is also used in the film), or when they're on top of Dead Reckoning as it's barreling along. Yes, the score does do a lot of 'background work' at times, more about setting a tone than a theme, but there are various stand-out cues. It's not like a Marvel movie where you can't recall a single damn bit of music that was scored for the movie (but they do good needle drops). The CGI - it's a mixed bag. Some of the worst on-show (e.g. the Priest zombie - but the practical version of that gag didn't work either as glimpsed in the extras), but it also has various scenes of CGI that go totally unnoticed. When they climb the stairs out of the subway that was just the two actors on green steps surrounded by green screen. Too modern? This is an odd thing to criticise it for being that Night is blatantly from the 1960s and Dawn is obviously from the 1970s. Day, on the other hand, does age quite well but is still evidently from the past. So to complain that Land looks like it's from 2005 is a bit daft IMHO. Romero's dead films (well, the first four specifically) were always about reflecting the time in which they were made, Night/Dawn/Day and Land all do this.