April 15, 2018
Return of the Son of Even More Too Late Movie Reviews
MBW is away on a business trip. You know what that means: a chance to watch mindless action movies. After I put the HA to bed, that is.
A week won’t be time to catch up on about a year’s worth of releases. But I’ve had a chance to watch three so far. What did I think? Well, let me tell you.
First up, Thor: Ragnarok. Another of the Marvel releases that puts the ‘comic’ in comic book movie. I enjoyed the Hel out of this. It made me laugh, which is generally a good indicator that I’m being entertained. No, it wasn’t great cinema. The plot made no pretense toward complexity. But neither did the Hope and Crosby road films and they didn’t suffer for it. This could almost be considered a Thor road film, with Loki and Hulk taking turns as the buddy.
I liked it much better than the second Thor film. I think taking Thor from the fantasy milieu and dropping him into the gonzo Marvel sci-fi universe made the difference.
So, recommended. Bodes well for the next film up, another comic book movie. To wit —
Justice League. Well, at least I started off well. Justice League was turgid, plodding, and largely humorless. Jason Mamoa provided some needed charisma as Aquaman. But Ezra Miller’s schtick as The Flash grew a bit tired. I’m not going to write much more about this. Not recommended.
Now I’ve just finished grousing about a plodding, largely humorless movie. So why did I generally enjoy the next film? That is Blade Runner 2049. Well, Blade Runner is a dystopian science fiction film. It is supposed to be dour. Now, I don’t recommend this unequivocally. The philosophical questions it raised added little to those tackled in the original. What it grafts on wasn’t really dense enough to support the sheer length of the movie. But it looked good. The performances were uniformly excellent. The music carried on the style of the original. I don’t believe the film did itself any favors by (and this isn’t a spoiler — it is established within the first ten minutes) having its lead be a replicant instead of a human. I think that undercuts the emotional stakes. But overall this worked for me.
I’ll what tonight’s Red Box offering provides. Stay tuned.
