Dune: Part Two (2024) review

While I didn't have the best time with the first movie, I quite enjoyed this one. Some of that might be attributed to the cinema experience, but to me this one felt like a payoff that the original had set up.

I found it more satisfying; I felt the story was more engaging, the protagonists had stronger motivations and more agency. Maybe it was just my experience, but it felt faster and more action-packed. I thought it was more visually interesting, even though it mostly still took place in the desert.

This all makes sense of course when you remember this is the adaptation of the second half of the same book. It's quite normal for earlier parts of a story to establish the situation, the world and the characters, then for the drama to ramp up in the later parts.

One issue I mentioned in my review of the first film was that I remembered most of what happened from the book, so the movie didn't really have very much new for me. That was not the case here; I'm not sure if it's because I didn't remember the later parts of the book as well or if they deviated a lot more from the original text. As is often the case in life, it's probably a bit of both.

While I don't like that they changed more of the story, I have to reluctantly admit that it may have contributed to my enjoyment of the film, as it felt more like experiencing a new story rather than revisiting an old one. I kinda hate that I felt that way as I've always taken issue with writers not respecting the work that they're adapting. But that's a whole topic that I don't want to get into right now.

All I'll say about Dune is that Chiani did not feel like I remembered her from the books, and I think I prefer the original character over this one. Not just because that was the original, but also because I can't help but feel she was changed partly as a result of modern trends. Without giving away too much of the story, in the book she believed in Paul, she was loyal to him and supported him and his goals, but that's not exactly how she was written in the movie; likely the writers thought a woman like that was too "old fashioned" and they had to write her as a more "independent" character.


I'm going to give this one an 8/10. If you watched the first you should probably watch this one, even if - like me - you didn't really enjoy the original all that much. In fact it might be best to view them as a single long movie.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
I mentioned that Chiani felt different. I remember her being very devoted to Paul; I recall a scene where she took duels in his place, because of how it would improve his image to the Fremen, increasing his influence. Here she helped him and fought alongside him, but I didn't get the same feeling of companionship and support. Certainly not devotion; she didn't like the way the Fremen believed he was the Lisan Al Ghaib, in the end she opposes what he's doing and even walks away from him.

I believe I read something about the director saying in an interview that she was changed in order to serve as a sort of a moral compass, to show how Paul had become the villain by the end. And while I understand that, in order to be clear about where the a story stands, morally speaking, on the actual events portrayed you need a character like that, in this case I just don't see how Paul is a villain.

I understand the idea that he deceived the Fremen and lead them on a holy crusade that will plunge the galaxy into flames in order to exact his own revenge. But that really doesn't feel like it's borne out by the actual events in the film? Apart from the fact that he never wanted any of it and was constantly pushed into it by events and the Fremen themselves, the fact remains that he fought to free an enslaved people and overthrow a corrupt regime, an emperor who would kill his own most loyal servants out of petty fear. And he tried to find peaceful resolutions every step of the way, but no-one else was interested; Jamis forced a challenge and refused to yield, his own friends and family pushed him to war. The Emperor goaded him, the Great Houses refused him, The Fremen were ecstatic about the opportunity to fulfill the prophecy, to fight for their freedom and for a green Arakis. Even Chiani pushed him to go south, despite his obvious reluctance. Which is why it's quite annoying when she walks away at the end.

And of course we must remember that he could see the future. He chose a path, not because he wanted it, but because it was the best future he could see. What's more, it was a path that had been prophesized. Now supposedly the prophecy was false, a modified version of a standard template planted by the Bene Gesserit to manipulate civilisations. But here's the thing: every part of the prophecy came true. The foreigner who knows their ways, would ride the largest sandworm ever seen (OK, we can be say that part was just people exaggerating, even in their own minds, but from people's reactions there's no doubt that it was an extremely big worm), would be brought back to life by the tears of the desert spring, and so on. While the film tells us the prophecy is fake, it shows us the prophecy coming true, not through manipulation and falsehood, but organically, honestly; a propecy truly being fulfilled.

What's more Paul himself is involved in a prophecy the Bene Gesserit have been trying to bring to fruition for generations. And we know that the ability to see the future exists. What I'm saying is, the film really does seem to be saying that Paul's path was laid out and he was unable to deviate from it, though he tried, as he could find no better alternative despite his prescience. So no, I don't see that he's the villain, not according to the way the film played out. Consequently, the change they made to Chiani doesn't really make sense to me. How is she still going to act like Paul is not the Lisan when she's seen all she's seen? When even her OWN part in the prophecy proved true?


There was a big shift in that all of a sudden there were a whole lot more guns being used. Yeah, it made sense because the Fremen don't have shields, and knife fights were still happening, but it just kinda felt different.


I feel like I was expecting more details about Paul's ability to see the future. I didn't feel like it was really shown visually, which feels like a missed opportunity, and the verbal explanation was very minimal. How far can he see? To what degree can he see the consquences of different actions? It just felt glossed over to me.

Taking down the Harkonnen's and the Emperor kinda felt too quick and easy? I know that it was a fairly small part of the book, so I'm not blaming the filmmakers or anything, but I think it's still worth mentioning how almost jarringly quick that part played out.


In the first movie the Reverend Mother seems to try to protect Paul and Lady Jessica, ordering the Harkonnens not to kill them. But then it turns out they were behind the whole thing, arranging for the Harkonens to be replaced in order to destroy the Atreides. Which doesn't really make very much sense; the Reverend Mother says they gave up on that branch of selective breeding, but they could have just killed Paul and stopped breading with the house; she had held a poisoned needle to his throat after all. I don't see how it makes sense that she ordered the Harkonnens not to kill Paul when he was specifically the one she wanted dead. Plus, the plan had been put into motion (at least partly put into motion) before she tested Paul. So yeah, that part didn't make too much sense to me.


I find it hard to believe that all the Fremen would leave all that water untouched, even in the North where they don't believe the prophecy as much.

Dune (2021) review

I read some of the Dune novels - the first four I think - back in the nineties. I was very young at the time, I'm pretty sure most of the books went over my head, at least as far as subtext or parrallels with history or anything like that. At any rate, I remember very little of the books, and other than perhaps the first book, I don't remember being particularly fond of them. When the movie was announced, I wasn't really interested.

That was partly because I have so little faith in Hollywood adaptations, and in big budget movies in general right now, but also because I don't really consider myself a fan of the books. So I didn't bother watching this when it came out in the cinema. But with my friends excited to see the sequel in the cinema, I finally borrowed the bluray and sat down to watch.

The movie is good. But I didn't enjoy it.

Watching on my PC with the sound cranked all the way up, I still couldn't make out most of the dialogue. So I had to turn on subtitles, and the only English subtitles were "for the hearing impaired". Which meant text kept popping up on screen to inform me that the movie was playing sad music or whatever, which did take me out of it a touch. I didn't get the cinematic experience that this movie deserves, is what I'm saying.

But that wasn't really the issue. Ironically, the fact that the movie was quite faithful to the book was a big part of the problem. One of my favourite things about sci-fi movies is seeing new and fantastical things, exploring strange new worlds. But it turns out I do remember quite a lot of the important events in the first half of the first book, so the movie ended up just being a fairly straight retread of events that I already knew, with very little new added. It was... kind of boring.

I basically spent the whole movie going "Yup, that's the way I remember it. Yup, that's pretty much right. Are they going to explain that little technical detail? Guess not, oh well.". It didn't help that it's a bit of a slow movie. Nothing wrong with that, I'm just saying that I personally didn't find very much to keep me interested. The story and characters were familiar and there wasn't exactly all that much action, at least not until quite late in the film's fairly long runtime.

To be honest I didn't find all that much to look at either. The costumes, locations, vehicles, weapons; they mostly quite very... normal. Grounded and believable perhaps, but not terribly interesting. Yeah, some of the costumes were a bit fancy, but most of the time people wore clothes that wouldn't look out of place on Earth right now. People mostly just fought with knives, for reasons that the movie doesn't really explain very well. Some of the vehicles were interesting, so that's something.

Surprisingly most of the locations were rather boring. Most of the movie takes place on the planet Arrakis; Dune itself. Which is a desert. Now, I'm not exactly a stranger to deserts myself, so I can tell you that deserts can be interesting to look at. Arrakis was not. It was just sand and a few rocks, and EVERYTHING was the same colour. The sand, the stone, the buildings, the vehicles; everything was, well, sand-coloured. We get these panoramic views of a city, that's all just a bunch of basic shapes in pretty much the exact same colour as the surrounding sand and rock.

They could have at least made the city look a little interesting! I enjoyed the shots of Knowhere - even the interiors - in the last Guardians of the Galaxy, and just the views of the city in the Total Recall remake felt worth the price of admission to me. But the city here was just boring; it looked abandoned, with no signs of life. Like a ruin, except without the visual interest of actually being ruined.

It was strange, but there were events that I found harder to accept in the movie than in the book. For example, everyone uses knives; this is weird when guns exist and are shown to work, at least to some degree, and seeing entire armies armed only with knives just felt wrong.

Obviously most of these criticisims are extremely subjective. For the most part I thought the film was objectively very good; it was atmospheric, the acting was great, VFX were perfect, the cinematography was effective, and there were a couple of good action sequences; I liked that the knife fights were cleanly shot, well choreographed and not overly-edited, for example. I also really liked the visual implementation of the shields, and the ornithopters looked great.

Some of the editing did feel a bit weird to me at times however. Scenes would end at what felt like awkward moments, without reaching what I felt was a natural point to stop. Shots would cut back and forth between two scenes that weren't related and didn't need to be shown simultaneously, which I found a touch confusing. None of this was a big deal, it just felt a little strange to me at times.


Objectively I think Dune earns an 8/10. It's a well-executed and faithful adaptation of a very highly regarded novel, if you love the book or you've never read it you will probably like the movie. At least if you have a big screen and a good sound system...




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
I was surprised they never explained how the shields work. That's kind of central to a lot of events; for example in the book Baron Harkonnen's shield is credited with being partially responsible for him surviving the poison gas. They kind of respected it, but never actually explained it.

I wonder how most people interpreted the shields, the blue and the red, the way they sometimes stopped knives and sometimes didn't? I'm pretty sure in the books, when Paul is in the duel and the Fremen ask if he's toying with his opponent, the book explained that he was used to slowing his blade to try to get past the shields his usual opponents had, and that was giving his opponent just enough time to slip away. In the movie, they instead say "he's never killed before". So the makers assumed the audience might not understand about the shields not stopping slow movements.


It might sound weird, but I felt like the movies didn't really capture how valuable water was made out to be in the books. At least I didn't feel it to the same extent that I did in the books.


The scene where the Atreides were betrayed felt rather hard to believe. Like, they all jumped up, grabbed their knives, and ran to their ships? There was no-one on the ships, but the shields were on? The doctor was able to defeat their entire security himself? Again, I never questioned it in the book, but the way it was portrayed on-screen made it seem quite contrived.


I was a bit confused that we never saw Lady Jessica with Duke Leto until quite late in the film. It just felt weird, Paul's parents never being together. I was starting to wonder if they didn't get along or something.


I don't remember if Paul had visions of Chiani in the book, or at least as many as in the movie, but it felt weird that they showed so much of her in visions when she actually ended up doing so little in the movie itself. Also I really don't understand why Jamis was acting as Paul's... "spirit guide" I guess, nothing about him or his relationship to Paul while he was alive would seem to justify it. I mean, he never came across as particularly wise or nuturing - quite the opposite I would say.


I didn't understand why Kynes said the Shai-Hulud, the sandworms, were her master. I don't recall the movie ever saying that the Fremen looked at the sandworms as their masters, or that they serve them, or anything like that. If anything, the fact that they ride the worms, use them as transport, would imply that they don't view them in that way. It felt like a lame attempt at a one-liner to deliver as she died.


Some of the dialogue that was delivered in other languages had subtitles. Some didn't. I assumed the subtitles meant that Paul understood what was being said, but I'm not really sure. Was some of the dialogue translated for our benefit, and he didn't actually understand what was being said?


So Paul's not-yet-born sister is able to have intelligent conversations about current events? Really? Was... was Lady Jessica just talking to herself and saying it was the baby? Because that makes far more sense to me than the idea that the still-developing unborn child suddenly developed an adult-level intelligence and understanding of the world, poison or no poison.


OK, I have to ask: if the spice is so important for space travel, and it only comes from Arrakis, how did they discover Arrakis, and space travel itself, if they couldn't travel through space without it? I assume the spice is necessary for safe space travel, and before it was discovered space travel was extremely dangerous, but that assumption not based on information I picked up from the movie.


I... REALLY hated the expression "Desert Power". And I hated that they kept using it.

Freelance review

Another review, another John Cena movie. He's been busy lately hasn't he? I wasn't expecting too much from Freelance, but the trailer looked OK and there wasn't much else at the cinema, and of course I've enjoyed John Cena in most of what I've seen him in, so here we are.

The movie was not exactly all I'd hoped for. I guess I was expecting more of an action-heavy flick, while Freelance seems more focused on it's characters, story, and comedy. Which is certainly not a bad thing, generally speaking, but in this case it did leave the action feeling a bit lackluster. Action scenes were more about the little jokes they could squeeze in, than the actual, you know, action. It's fine, it just could have been better.

But that's OK, because the comedy worked, I did like the characters (mostly), and I even enjoyed the story. Some people might feel the movie is a bit preachy or something like that, but personally I thought what the movie was saying about politics and foreign intervention was mostly fair - if a bit exaggerated (I hope). Regardless, I found the story engaging, and I enjoyed the movie overall.

John Cena was entertaining as Mason Pettits. I appreciate that they tried to flesh out the character and give him an interesting story arc, but to be honest I felt it didn't quite come together. I wasn't really sure how he felt about his wife, for example, which was a bit of a problem because it was kind of important as far as the resolution of his story arc. Partly as a result of that, I didn't really feel like the resolution of his arc really worked all that well; it didn't quite make sense to me anyway. Still, he was likeable, somewhat relateable, and pretty funny.

Alison Brie's performance as Claire Wellington fit the tone of the movie, but I didn't think the character was very well written. When she's first introduced she's very unlikeable, being quite rude and antagonistic towards Mason for no reason. Yes, she was portrayed in a better light later, but her initial behaviour was never justified; she genuinely just treated him poorly for no reason, while he was nothing but polite and respectful towards her. It didn't help that she never really did very much in the movie other than, you know, demand that other people risk their lives for her story. She didn't really help to solve any of the problems they faced, she never really contributed very much.

Juan Pablo Raba was a lot of fun as President Venegas, who turned out to be a rather surprising character. Something of a free-spirited agent of chaos, my feelings towards him changed a lot as the story progressed and I was quite fond of him by the end.

Christian Slater's role as Sebastian Earle was rather small, but he was great in it. Marton Csokas had his moments as Jan Koehorst, the dangerous mercenary chasing the heroes, but I felt like the movie wanted to give him some more depth but didn't quite commit to it, making the character feel a bit underdeveloped. He was still better off than Alice Eve's Jenny Pettits though; I really didn't get a sense for her character at all.


I'd say the movie is a 6/10, perhaps bordering on a 7. It's entertaining enough, and I at least enjoyed it, even if it could have been better.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
The movie does sell Mason as pretty competent without making him too hyper-competent, but it kinda felt inconsistent. There were moments where he used a compact handgun to shoot down armed solders who were firing fully automatic weapons at him, and moments when he made incredibly careless mistakes that I wouldn't expect from someone with a decent level of training and experience.

Like after Mason shoots down the helicopter, takes out one of the two soldiers who were chasing them, and then just relaxes and lets down his guard. I think it was pretty clear he knew there were at least two of them, after taking one out he should absolutely have been on his guard for the second. And even if he didn't know, he's still in hostile territory and should probably be constantly checking his surroundings just on general principle.

Or when they snuck into Venegas' office, and Mason was pointing his gun at the nephew, but then the general walked in, stood there for a few seconds, then drew his gun and shot two people without Mason (who already had his gun in hand) doing anything about it. Like, surely the moment someone opens the door any soldier would have their gun trained at them, and the moment they go for a weapon said soldier would immediately gun them down?


On a similar note it was a bit weird the way they kinda hit the big bad evil mercenary guy one time then just forgot about him and walked away, leaving him clearly still alive (he was rocking back and forth in pain) on the floor. This is right after finding out he was the guy who killed all Mason's friends. That's just stupid to begin with, but then nothing happens. We don't see him again. It's really bizzare.


Why did Mason grab the Barett and not any of the other firearms lying around? It's a bit of a specialised tool, and it's a lot heavier than the assault rifles that were lying around.


There was a weird scene that I think was meant to humanize Koehorst, where his daughter is showing off her balet skills and I guess he's supporting her like a devoted father. This is his introduction; I'm not sure why they felt the need to humanize him before we even know who he is, and then try to make him look scary and dangerous (and occasionally pretty much evil) the rest of the time? I just didn't really get what that was all about, I wonder if they intended to make him a more nuanced character and then scrapped the idea but didn't have an alternate introduction ready or something.

Argylle review

These days I like to wait for the reviews to come out before watching a movie in the cinema. But the trailer looked like it had potential, so when Argylle came out in the local cinemas before the reviews really started to come in, I decided to give it a chance.

The movie was very silly, even more so than the trailer had implied to me. Which is clearly not for everyone. Personally I appreciate a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, so I was happy to embrace that sillyness and I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

That's not to say I didn't think the movie made mistakes; it did, and the ending especially I felt didn't quite work. Despite this, I was having enough fun with the movie as a whole that I could forgive the rough patches. They were definitely having fun with the action scenes, mixing in a lot of humor. I certainly wouldn't say the action was amazing, but it was fun, with some stylish scenes that were creative and original.

The plot is a mish-mash of spy-movie tropes, a constant procession of twists and turns that kept things entertaining. Despite no specific plot point being particularly original, they were combined in a way that felt relatively new to me. I found myself predicting a lot of the plot twists just before they happened, but that didn't stop them from being enjoyable; I think some movies make a big deal out of their twists, but if you see them coming a mile away you end up feeling disappointed and unimpressed. But since this movie was fairly light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek, seeing the plot twists coming just felt like part of the fun.

The cast was great. I'm not a fan of Bryce Dallas Howard, but she was pretty good here - at least in the first half, towards the end I was starting to feel she might have been slightly miscast, but it wasn't too bad. Sam Rockwell has basically played this role before, so it's no surprise he was in his element. Bryan Cranston was great, and he got a chance to show more range in a single role than I've seen from him before. I could say the same for Catherine O'Hara actually, she nailed her role. Henry Cavill was fun as the exagerratedly cartoonish super-spy, though the role ended up being mostly a physical one. Samuel L. Jackson's role was quite small, but he did a good job with it. John Cena was really done dirty though: we know he can be very funny, but with almost no screen time and about three lines of dialogue, he was honestly wasted here.

Overall I'd rate it a 7/10, at least in terms of entertainment value. I wouldn't say it's an objectively good movie, but I had a lot of fun with it.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
I didn't get this from the trailer, but while watching the movie I was struck with the sense that the story was written to appeal more to women, yet the storytelling and action felt more like the kind of film typically targetted at men. I guess that makes it a good film for couples?


The cat was a bit of a red herring? It featured heavily in the trailer yet never really did that much in the movie. I'm... not sure what the idea was there tbh.


I did rather appreciate the whole "spies can look like average people, they're not all supermodels" thing with Aiden. Contrasting Argylle acting calm and collected while getting thrown around, with Aidan's more human reactions in the same situations was a bit of fun. Although ultimately it might have been a bit out of place considering how insane everything got towards the end.

Actually, I wonder if that might be related to what some people might have found disappointing about the film. I think the whole "here's a very silly fantasy about spies, but that's not what the movie actually is" thing that the film - and the trailer - present at first, is expected to be contrasted with a more grounded approach to espionage and action. But instead the "real world" in the movie is practically as over-the-top as Elly's "unbelievable fiction" spy novel. It's not what I was expecting personally, but I wouldn't say I was disappointed; I quite enjoyed the over-the-top nonsense.


There's a lot of forced contrivances in the movie, I don't mind that and I'm not going to try to list them or anything. But one that's a little bit interesting to me is the scene in London. When Elly tried to "write the next part of the story", which the movie tells us is basically her recalling actual events, she sees Wyatt - who we learn is Aidan - getting the hacker's address for "Argylle".

So does that mean Aidan already knew where the hacker's place was, and was just pretending not to, to try to help Elly recover her memories? If so, did he not manage to find the journal himself in the last five years - despite being the one who found it this time? If he had found it before Alfie wouldn't have had to break the encryption as they would have done it ages ago. Let's not worry about the fact that there was an explosion in the appartment, and it got renovated with wallpaper later, yet the floors were fine and no-one ever found the journal under the floorboards.

Was Aidan actually not there, as her writing/memories implied? The bad guys clearly didn't know about the place, and the movie strongly suggests that Elly couldn't have found the address herself and needed Aidan for that. Did he not have a chance to check the appartment after the explosion, or did he just assume that nothing useful would have survived? For some reason the more I wonder about this particular plot point, the more questions I have about the plot of the whole movie.

Like why did Aidan decide to make his move just then, despite having been watching Elly for five years? My theory is that Ruth panicked when she found out Elly was on her way to their "house", because Ruth wouldn't be able to make it there in time to meet her, so she ordered the agents watching Elly to kidnap her. I'm not sure what the plan would have been after that, but regardless: Aidan realised the plan, and knew that if they got what they needed out of her they wouldn't need her alive anymore, so he decided to grab her before it was too late as he might not get another chance.

Well, more realistically it was probably another forced contrivance and the writers didn't really think about whether it made actual sense or not. But it's kinda interesting to think about how it might make sense.


When Ritter showed up and started talking about the retinal scan, I assumed they Elly and Aidan had set a trap for him so they could use him for the retinal scan. It made more sense than the idea that these two super-spies were just standing there with their guard down like a pair of morons. But no, they were just standing there with their guard down like a pair of morons. To me that was the point where the movie kind of stopped working.

That scene was followed by the last fight, where a brainwashed Elly was ordered to kill Aidan. I didn't think this scene was well done at all. Aidan just kind of stood there, he never tried to get creative, or, well, try at all really. When he fought back he didn't do too badly (depite having been shot in the heart a few minutes ago), but he never took advantage of the openings he had, never tried to come up with a better solution than "let myself get beat up because I don't want to hurt Elly".

He wasn't exactly hemmed in; he could have easily jumped the railings and tried to outmanouver Elly to get to Ruth - and Ruth would have been forced to send Elly after him, so he wouldn't have needed to worry about Elly destroying the computer console or anything. Or - having seen the brainwashing stop when the music stopped - he could have tried to block her from hearing the music, by yelling or clapping his hands on her ears or clanging pieces of metal together or something. But he didn't, he didn't even try to do anything, he just just put up a brief token resistance then stopped even doing that.

I didn't really understand what what going on with him at the end of the fight. He was acting like everything was OK, telling Elly not to worry, as if she could hear him. But it really wasn't alright, they were pretty much both about to die. He was literally encouraging her to kill him! How about trying to get her to snap out of it? How about trying to bluff Ruth into making a mistake? How about not talking and instead trying to think of a way out of this? How about trying ANYTHING? I dunno, it was just weird.

Another thing, Elly completely failed to fight the brainwashing? That's... I dunno, you like to believe that the protagonist who can take down anyone and everyone can at least try to fight back against some sort of mental manipulation? I mean, it's not like we're talking supernatural powers here. I get that they wanted this big reveal where Keira turns out to still be alive, but there had to be a better way of doing it; the whole scene was just irritating. Also I don't really care that Keira is still alive? Like, she wasn't a character that I had any reason to care about or anything. If they wanted us to actually care about her, they needed to spend more time giving us a reason to care about her.


When Henry Cavill showed up at the end playing some American dude, I didn't really get what the movie was saying when he asked Elly if she had any questions for him. What kind of questions did he expect her to ask? It's not like he knew that Argylle looked exactly like him in Elly's head; we'd only ever seen Argylle represented as a simplistic cartoon outside of her imagination.


The movie did get me thinking about something. There's been a lot of action movies in the last few years with female protagonists. Without getting too deep into the topic of "girlbosses" and "Mary Sues", I will say that I didn't think Argylle suffered from too many of the issues that can plague these movies.

Hidden Strike review

When I first read the name, I casually dismissed this as a mediocre straight-to-DVD action movie. Then I realised it starred Jackie Chan and John Cena. Still, the trailer did not look particularly interesting. The poster's kinda crap too.

But John Cena can be funny and Jackie Chan is the greatest action star of all time, so I made the effort to catch this in the cinema. I think locally it was on it's third week, so I was expecting the theater to be mostly empty, but to my surprise there was a fair number of people there.

I was also a little surprised by how good it was. Not like "Citizen Kane" good: this isn't a movie that wants to explore the human condition or inspire thought-provoking debate. It only wants to entertain. And I was entertained, pretty much from start to finish.

Jackie and John play well off each other, with Chan playing something of a straight man to Cena's more comedic character. Perhaps because of this I felt Cena stole the show a bit, outside of the action scenes at least.

Speaking of the action scenes, they're pretty good... for an American movie. Which is weird because I didn't think this was an American movie. Yes, there's a fair bit of martial arts on display, but it's not really the main focus and to me it felt like American Jackie Chan martial arts, rather than Hong Kong Jackie Chan martial arts.

Nevertheless, the martial arts scenes are stylish and creative, with clear differences between the agility and skill Chan's character displays and the brute power Cena's character specialises in, with the two complementing each other well when the fists start flying.

The creativity and humour we've come to expect from Jackie is present in the action, and works well enough with John Cena's own style of comedy. Worthy of special mention is one of the strangest fights I've ever seen, perhaps one of the craziest in Jackie Chan's career; if you're a fan of his work you'll probably find the film worth watching for this fight alone!

I didn't personally feel too invested in the story, but it does a good enough job of establishing a sense of danger, and more importantly perhaps of giving both characters a bit of backstory; enough to care about them anyway. And of course provides an excuse for some interesting locations and action sequences. The acting is fine, though most of the supporting characters don't get much development. I did think the villain's performance was entertainingly evil, but he wasn't really very threatening - and the plot-twist concerning his true identity was a little pointless.


I'd say it's a solid 7/10. It's a pretty good action flick, and overall an easy and enjoyable watch.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One review

Jeez, that's a long title. I liked the last few Mission: Impossible movies, but was a little concerned when I discovered this film was getting towards three hours long yet was only a "part one". I feel like a lot of shows and even some movies these days are just made to string you along, all promise and very little payoff. Would this film really justify its runtime?

To me the answer was "not really". While nothing in the film felt like "filler", it did feel a touch bloated to me. And, as I feared, the end didn't really leave me feeling satisfied. Of course a cliffhanger ending is always going to lack a sense of finality and closure, so perhaps that's not a fair criticism. But a good cliffhanger ending can leave you eager to see the next part, and I didn't really feel that either.

That might be because I just wasn't really enjoying the movie all that much, so I wasn't feeling invested enough to care about a sequel a year or more from now. Don't get me wrong, the movie was pretty good, but I felt it was weaker than the previous few M:I films. Or most of Tom Cruise's movies of the last few years for that matter.

I'll save most of the discussion of why not for the spoilers section. As far as general criticism goes, I felt the film lacked some signature Mission Impossible elements. I wasn't impressed with the writing; the plot felt lazy at times, some events just felt too contrived. And I didn't really think the story was complex enough to justify the long runtime and cliffhanger ending.

Of course the film had it's moments. The action was pretty good, though not as impactful as the action in several movies I've seen in the last year or so. I was engaged and entertained for most of the run-time, though I started to get frustrated towards the end. I did enjoy seeing the cast back and slipping into their old roles, though some of them didn't really get all that much time in the limelight as a lot of the focus was on newer cast members.


Overall I'm giving it a 6/10. It was fun, but flawed. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but at the end of the day I just felt a little disappointed.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
The movie was missing some of the expected MI touches. Overly-complicated infiltration plans are an iconic element of the series, but that didn't happen here. The closest we got was Ethan trying to get onto a train, which the movie seemed to think was something very difficult, yet never actually tried to explain WHY it was difficult - trains are not known for having extremely tight security. In the typical M:I infiltration scene they descibe the security sytem, explaining why breaking in is practically impossible, This time they... didn't.

For example, there's a scene in the previous entry, Fallout, where Ethan and August infiltrate a club by parachuting in from extremely high altitude. In this movie, Ethan and Ilsa just walk in through the front door. No disguises, no plan, no backup, no weapons or tools or gadgets, they just walk up and see what happens. Hell, one of the villians had several knives, another smuggled in a SWORD, yet our heroes don't bother to even try to bring anything at all. That's... that's NOT how Mission Impossible is supposed to work.


I didn't really like "The Entity" as a villain: apart from being arguably too "sci-fi", it was faceless, almost voiceless, and far too "hands-off". It was described as being very powerful and implied to be very dangerous, but it actually does very little and we never understood what it actually wanted. In practice it was pretty much a non-entity (I swear I didn't do that on purpose).

Gabriel then served as the actual main antagonist for the film and he was... not very impressive. He had no agency of his own, I never felt as if he was built up as a convincing threat: there was no suggestion of him being particularly intelligent or physically capable, all we know is that he likes to make people suffer. Which makes him detestable, but not inherently threatening. He was just... more annoying than scary.


The movie spent a LOT of time centered around Grace. Which was fine at first but soon got old, or at least I got tired of it because after a while I realised I didn't really like her. Hayley Atwell was great, but all we know about the character is that she's a thief who keeps backstabbing Ethan when he's going out of his way to try to help her. There is no redeeming backstory or anything.

OK, sure, she makes the right decision in the end, but it was a LONG time getting there. A long time in which I mostly just found her irritating. And what makes it worse is the way that Ethan keeps, well, letting her get away with it. He keeps acting like she's on his side, putting his trust in her, even though she repeatedly betrays him. She just keeps making things worse; for Ethan, for the rest of the team, and even for herself. It's just annoying.

Hell, at one point she handcuffs him to the steering wheel of a car when he's not looking, trapping him in a car that's sitting on train tracks. He barely manages to survive. That's right, she almost KILLED him, yet he doesn't say anything and just keeps risking THE ENTIRE WORLD to try to be nice to her. What the hell is that?

This is a big problem because it turns Ethan into a moron, rather than the brilliant intelligence agent that we're told he is supposed to be. And that kinda breaks the movie. The way he behaves makes no sense, it lacks internal logic. And when a story lacks internal logic, I get turned off.

I just don't think the movie does enough to justify why it's all so centered around her. Is this one of those "introducing a new character to replace the old one" situations? Is Tom Cruise planning to retire from the MI series, and they're trying to set up a replacement protagonist? Because if that's what's happening, it's not being handled that well.

BTW, Ethan trying to protect Grace reminded me of Knight And Day. Which was a movie that I loved. But June was a far more likeable and relateable character than Grace, seeing as she didn't keep trying to betray the person who kept saving her life.


So Ilsa shows up and attacks Gabriel with a sword. On a narrow bridge, where she has enough arm-room to swing the sword around freely but his ability to dodge is restricted by the lack of leg-room. And he only has a pair of small knives. And yet she still loses? The odds were stacked in her favour, yet she loses. Later an unarmed Ethan managed to defeat an armed Gabriel, yet Ilsa lost when she was at an advantage. I... am not impressed.

By the way, Ilsa faking her death, then just showing up halfway through the movie only to not do anything all that useful (except die to save Grace I guess) was a bit of a wasted opportunity? The Entity dealt with information, that's its strength, so trying to keep the fact that Ilsa was still alive a secret in order to catch it by surprise, to throw off its predictions, could have been a useful strategy -or at least a dramatic moment. It didn't even have to succeed, just having them attempt it would have worked well with the theme of the movie. But as-is, her faking her death at the start of the film just didn't amount to anything.


The two agents chasing Ethan didn't really have much impact on the story, despite having a fair amount of screentime. I understand the archetype of that relationship, but the movie was already long enough that their role could have been cut down a bit or removed entirely without actually losing very much.


At one point Paris asks Ethan why he spared her. He did not answer. Which annoyed me because I also wanted an explanation; she was a dangerous enemy who had tried to kill him and Grace, and was stopping him from saving Ilsa and/or Grace. I mean, he's fighting to protect his friends and the world, and it's not like he's ever shown a reluctance to kill before. He didn't hesitate to gun down the mercenaries in the desert at the start of the movie, for example. Again, I am familiar with the whole "the hero helps someone even though it cost them, then gets saved by them later" story arc, but it really just didn't make sense in this situation. And the movie actually drawing attention to it without actually trying to explain it didn't make it any better. Am I just missing something?

Speaking of things I don't understand, why did Ethan try to get Grace to help him to begin with? He already showed he can pick a pocket - or place something into one, why not find a chance to slip up to the target and return the key himself? Possibly using one of those fake faces that he loves so much if he's worried about being recognised. Why involve an unpredictable wild-card? Someone in his position should know the importance of eliminating variables, he shouldn't be going out of his way to add more of them!


Cary Elwes was a little bit wasted. He shows up in two scenes: one where he's effectively clueless and just there for the movie to deliver exposition (which is a bit lazy: show don't tell guys!), and then another when it turns out he's the only one who DOES know what's happening, only for him to act like an idiot and die.


The team took far too long to start to think "we probably need an anti-hacking strategy since the Entity can mess with us". It somehow hacked ethan's GLASSES and interfered with his sight, that's probably a good point to start worrying about that sort of thing.


Can we just take a moment to talk about how unlikely it is that so many people would just casually carry around THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM IN THE WORLD in their pockets where it can be so easily snatched by a pick-pocket? Apart from being stupid and unbelievable, it's very... not the way M:I movies usually do things? Important items having tons of security is a cornerstone of the series!


How the hell did Paris just APPEAR in a vertical train-cart, when she was literally minutes away from dying from a stab wound? Why was she there anyway, why did she think "Let me go see what's happening inside the train cars THAT ARE HANGING ABOVE A CLIFF AND ABOUT TO FALL"?

Speaking of which, I hate to say it, but I think that scene was just a little too drawn out. How many train cars are going to very slowly be dragged off the cliff, always giving the heroes JUST ENOUGH time to climb their way up. It was just... a little bit too contrived, too convenient, even for me. Especially since the payoff wasn't really all that great; two people slowly climbing up a vertical train car is just not as impressive or exciting as the kind of action sequences that, say, the John Wick movies find contrived ways to justify including.


Ethan acts like it will be impossible to infiltrate the train without a magic face mask machine, so he comes up with a plan to jump a motorcycle onto the roof. And yet the two agents (who have been in the movie the whole time yet never managed to actually do anything useful) just casually walk onto the train, and just walk around without anyone stopping them. Never mind a whole bunch of passengers who just casually climb on. Tell me again why it was so hard for Ethan?


How did Grace end up at the bridge with Gabriel? There was no-one directing her and it was a whole damned CITY, why would she end up THERE? Ethan and Ilsa were being directed by the Entity, but Grace was just running for her life. I can't accept that there was no other way she could have gone, and I refuse to believe "the Entity predicted it".

Also why did Grace see Gabriel and decide to try to kill him? She's spent the ENTIRE movie running away from Ethan - the guy very clearly trying to PROTECT her - up to and including what she's doing RIGHT NOW, why not just run away from the guy who has already said he's going to KILL her? Maybe I missed something, but I don't recall seeing anyone else around to stop her from running. She was running away from people (but there was no-one actually behind her at the time so she wasn't cut-off and could have turned and gone back), then she saw him and just decided to stop running and act COMPLETELY out of character!

D&D: Honor Among Thieves review

I didn't expect much from another Dungeons And Dragons movie, not after the 2000 film, and especially not with the state that cinema and streaming has been in recently. I figured we would run into the usual problems that happen when Hollywood decides to adapt a geeky franchise to the big screen for mass audiences. Sure, they would adopt some of the surface trappings, use some familiar names and so on, but ultimately the writers tend to lack respect and affection for the source material when it comes to this sort of thing.

The trailers did little to get my hopes up. It looked like, on top of the usual adaptation issues, it would be full of the kind of storytelling problems we've been seeing in big budget movies and shows in the last few years. Comments from the directors seemed to confirm it. Coupled with the backlash against D&D's owner, Wizards Of The Coast, for the OGL nonsense, and I fully intended to give this one a pass.

Then I started hearing good things from sources that I respected. So when the chance came to watch the movie on streaming, I went ahead and did so. And I enjoyed it.

Now my fears were not completely unfounded; some of the issues I had been expecting were indeed present, though not to the degree I had feared (more in the spoiler section). But where I had been expecting a generic fantasy story with some D&D window dressing - a couple of familiar spell names and monsters, a Beholder perhaps - what I got was a movie that really seemed to me to understand Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm not just talking about the official fiction of D&D, although that was here too; iconic places, spells, and mosters were all there for the knowing fans to enjoy. No, more importantly, and much more impressively, was how the movie understood the way the game actually feels to play. I'm not all that knowledgeable about Dungeons and Dragons, but I know a little. I've played some pen-and-paper RPGs in the distant past (though not D&D specifically) and more recently I've watched a lot of youtube videos about D&D: groups of friends playing together, animated retellings of players' craziest adventures, comedic videos riffing on various elements and tropes, and I've even read some webcomics centered around the game. So I think I have a bit of a feel for it.

And so much of what I've seen was reflected in this film. The unlikely collection of unrelated individuals, each with their own Tragic Backstory, the crazy improvised plans that use bizarre abilities in novel ways, the random macguffins the party picks up in weird places, the swingy dice as characters fail at easy tasks and succeed at impossible ones, the way the Dungeon Master sets up a path for the players but they refuse to take it and end up making things much harder for themselves, that one Non Playable Character the Dungeon Master controls directly who is way cooler and more capable than anyone in the party and solves a bunch of their problems for them, and of course the under-developed Big Bad Evil Guy who it turns out was behind everything the whole time. This really felt like a story you would actually see played out on the tabletop, making it feel like an authentic Dungeons And Dragons experience. And that's pretty impressive.

The movie was funny, the effects were good, and the action was very creative and enjoyable. The story focused on its characters first and foremost, and so felt engaging and mostly succeeded in connecting on an emotional level - though I suppose the larger stakes felt a bit tacked on at the end. The characters themselves were likeable so you could root for them and enjoy watching them, though they didn't all have as much personality or get the same degree of character development. The actors were suitably cast and did a good job. There was some creative camera work, especially in scenes where large spells were being cast; some might feel the big swooping camera moves were a bit overdone, but that I found it all novel and entertaining.


Overall I would give it a 7/10: it's an entertaining and well-made film. If you're a big Dungeons And Dragons fan you could probably add a point or even two to that score. If you're not, well, it's a fun movie, but you probably won't find it particularly special, and it still does have it's flaws.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
Even though the film follows a party of four, the true primary antagonist is of course Chris Pine's Edgin. His character is the most fleshed out, as is his story - the main plot of the movie centers around it in fact. His desires are the main motivation for most of what happens, giving him the most agency as it's his decisions that push the story forwards. He makes mistakes, but is a very sympathetic character as those mistakes are understandable. He is flawed, but his character arc as he faces those flaws and improves himself is engaging.

He is also almost completely useless in a fight. I get that he pulls everyone together, he makes all the plans - and a few of them even work, but I really don't see a reason why he couldn't have had some combat ability as well, especially when he's introduced as being a former member of an order that fights for justice. In D&D combat is typically almost inevitable, most players are going to have a character who can at least fight a little bit - and Bards are a class with decent combat ability. So yeah, watching him fail to make himself useful when the chips were down was a little frustrating.

Michelle Rodriguez's Holga, in contrast, is a powerful fighter who, on several occasions, takes out multiple opponents practically single-handedly. While there are a couple of instances when she says things that on the surface sound stupid, in context they almost feel like trolling: she never actually comes across as stupid herself.

She's never really scared, never really makes mistakes; she has no real flaws. She doesn't grow or change over the course of the movie. We do get a glimpse of her personal life outside of her relationship to Edgin, but it's only a glimpse, it really doesn't tie into anything or affect the character or the movie in any real way, and it's surprisingly drama-free considering how difficult a situation it was. Overall she was likeable, but not particularly interesting.

Justice Smith's Simon joins the two later, and is presented as a bit of a comedic sidekick. He lacks confidence and courage, tending to mess things up. The movie spends very little time on his backstory; we arguably know even less about him than Holga.

But it tells us just enough for us to root for him, to cheer for him as his character grows and changes. Despite the way he is initially presented, he is not a burden; rather he is a valuable and, by the end, reliable member of the party. He is entertaining, but also likeable and relateable. I actually think he was my favourite of the four.

Finally we have Sophia Lillis' Doric. She is introduced through an action scene where she single-handedly defeats multiple armed and armoured soldiers, and throughout the film her shapeshifting is shown to be a powerful asset. She also has the least personality and development of the four.

Don't get me wrong I still liked her, but... after the film was over I tried to think about what I know about her, and drew a blank. Her backstory is delivered through a couple of lines of exposition that I have completely forgotten, her character development is that she went from not trusting humans (because the only ones she met were trying to destroy her home) to accepting that actually not all humans are bad. Which didn't feel very impactful seeing as she didn't act particularly antagonistic towards our human protagonists when they first met, agreeing to fight alongside them without very much resistance, and she didn't really seem to overtly change the way she treated them over the course of the movie.

So what we have are two women who are basically perfect, and who are kind of boring, with rather little personality or character development. And two men with flaws and weaknesses, who are interesting and have engaging characters arcs. It really illustrates the problems with a lot of the writing we've been getting from Hollywood for the last few years. Fortunately the film managed to avoid the trap of making the women actually unlikeable; it's surprising how many movies make that mistake.

Edgin's wife Zia was unrealistically perfect as well. You can chalk that up to him being an unreliable narrator I suppose, but Robin Williams talking about his character's wife's imperfections in Good Will Hunting was far more moving to me than watching clips of Georgia Landers' Zia being this inhuman angel.

Speaking of Edgin's family, it was annoying watching Edgin get berated by his daughter Kira, when she's never done anything or faced any difficulty or opposition in her life. Especially when she doesn't treat Holga the same way even though Holga was right there with Edgin every step of the way. Somehow it's Edgin's fault but not Holga's? Do you see what I'm getting at here? And of course part of Edgin's character arc involved apologising to his daughter and admitting that he was wrong. Of course.

Overall I didn't actually care about Edwin's family. I did care about him and feel for how much he loved his family, I was invested in his desire to save/re-unite them, but I actually didn't care about them. It's kinda weird actually.


Once again I enjoyed Hugh Laurie as a villain. He's not very menacing, but is enjoyably charismatic. You almost don't want anything bad to happen to him even though he was complicit in attempting to kill thousands; I think him surviving but ending up in jail was a fair compromise and a satisfying conclusion.


The whole "only one thing can bring one person back to life" macguffin felt a touch contrived, especially when it's first brought up, but I will admit it was fairly well woven into the plot - Red Wizards were established as being dangerous and tied into the plot in a major way, it was shown that the dead could be brought back to life under certain conditions, and in the end the tablet was made to be a part of an important character moment. So overall it wasn't just a lazy writing convenience, they did put the work in.


I'll admit I did enjoy the cameo of the kids from the old cartoon a great deal (even if it did take me a moment to recognise why that party looked so familiar). I'm not sure that it's "canon" that it was actually them, but it's kinda fun to think that they are still out there, having adventures. I tend to be quite jaded these days about what often feels like cynical nostalgia-mining, but for some reason this one worked for me. Perhaps it's because the whole movie felt authentic, or maybe it's because it wasn't thrown into our faces but rather just a subtle little nod in the background. In a way I think that made it feel more genuine and less manupilative. At least to me.