Guaporense's live action thread

The Death of Stalin (2017)



Now this was an interesting one. It's a worthy portrayal of the elite members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union because it satirizes them. This is a really black comedy being a satire of some of the world's biggest mass murderers. As pretty much everybody who was in Stalin's circle of power is a power hungry psychopath and here we see their struggle for power upon Stalin's death being depicted as a workplace comedy.

So overall great acting and great sense of humor that requires a little bit of historical knowledge to be fully appreciated.

Pacific Rim 2 (2018)



That's what a fun blockbuster should be. I don't understand what critics are criticizing the movie about: this is obviously a popcorn movie and is made to be enjoyed through it's explosions and cool robot/monster fights. In those aspects it delivers. I liked the robot and monster designs and I think this kind of sci fi movie is much more fun than the super hero crap that is flooding the movie theaters. At least giant monsters and robots are BIG and they look like really powerful and awe inspiring entities with real military/strategic significance while super heroes just look like normal people dressed in ludicrous Helloween costumes.

Of course, it has nothing else to offer and those looking for a deep movie will obviously be disappointed but that is a problem with the audience having the wrong expectations.

Anyway, the movie has a little bit of a plot hole. While giant robots are cool and stuff the first movie has a believable reason why they are actually useful: it's easier to just drop nukes at the monsters but just using nuclear weapons to kill the monsters creates fallout and the monster's toxic composition are spread over a large area which created massive environmental damage. So giant robots were devised as a way to kill the monsters without creating this environmental fallout.

In this second movie no mention is made of nukes and even though in the end of the movie it is stated that 3 monsters need to be killed or they will cause a massive volcanic eruption which will destroy mankind, clearly using nukes in the case of the failure of the robots to kill the monsters before they arrived in Mt Fugi would be an obvious choice that is never mentioned, instead the world is saved by the robot self destroying itself being used if it were a nuclear missile, although in this case the robot's mass was used to destroy the monster rather than the nuclear power of a nuke.

Love, Simon (2018)



A teen movie but this time about a gay guy coming out of the closet. Myself being a member of a minority group I identified with the struggles of the character. It's main theme is that showing the world part of our identity is a scary thing because we don't know whether the world is going to respond positively or negatively to it.

Although the movie was well executed, in fact I found it superior to pretty much all teen movies since Superbad. Although I had some issues with the way the plot unfolded, this movie followed the structure common to all mainstream Hollywood movies with a set-up, a climax and a conclusion. My issue was that this plot structure felt a bit artificial as if it where build up into the story instead of being a natural part of it.

Despite this issue the movie in itself was very good and certainly miles above pretty much any other teen movie.

oooooh! live action, STAGED live action!! Count me in!

The Last Jedi (2017)



While it's true that Disney purchased the franchise to make tons of money out of it. And they are doing it: milking it hard and through since they are making a Star Wars movie every year now! But, so what? Franchises are cool if done right since it's a fictional universe under constant construction and evolution.

But anyway, I though it was the best blockbuster movie Hollywood made in several years (considering that Blade Runner 2049 is not a blockbuster despite having the budget of one). Better than Force Awakens, this one is much more creative and more audacious. It's true, it feels like a Star Wars fan-fiction but that's because it is fan fiction: the director is a fan of the franchise and not the original creator. Yes, it's quite different from previous star wars movies, (with Luke Skywalker behaving obnoxiously for most of the movie) but that's called innovation and it's something that apparently Star Wars fans cannot swallow.

The special effects were also very good most of the time, except the scene of the rocks being lifted that looked pretty bad to my eyes:



Also, I didn't like that they made the imperial mechs behave like animals.

Anyway, it's a very fine blockbuster movie with believable relations between the characters and an interesting plot with also a good pacing.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)



I really liked this movie but I understand why movie critics hated it. Thing is that this movie is not a "movie" but a documentary that uses actors to depict the history of Queen from a very positive light, that is, it is basically a Queen propaganda movie. Movie critics hate that and also the fact that the movie did not portray Freddie Mercury as a political advocate of the gay movement (that is, movie critics today are really brainwashed by identity politics). But from my point of view this movie succeeds almost everywhere: it is great propaganda, after watching the movie I listened to half of Queen's discography on Spotify over the following days.

The only issues I had with the movie was first with the stupid record producer who was saying that Bohemian Rhapsody was too long for radio. In other words, they portrayed him as if he was too stupid to understand that anything could deviate from the norm. I find that hard to believe: a person so stupid could hardly become a successful music producer. The second issue was that the pacing was a bit too fast (a problem given the size of Queen's career) and that they did not cover Freddie's last years (which were also very dramatic given that he was trying to record as much of his singing as possible before he died).

Overall it was a movie that managed to portray convincingly perhaps the greatest front-man in the history of rock.

Alita Battle Angel (2019)



I have not been in a theater in ages but I am a huge fan of the original manga, being one of the best manga of all time, so after reading about positive impressions regarding this movie I decided to go to the theater. So, how was this movie? It was the best Hollywood adaptation of a Japanese fictional property that I have watched so far. Of course, it does not compare to the original manga, lacking the grit and gravitas that made the original such a classic, however, it does work on its own terms. The rule for enjoying a movie like this is to first, forget it was adapted from a classic and think of it as a movie own its own.

How does it fare from this perspective? Very well for a Hollywood blockbuster, in my mind this is the best Hollywood sci-fi movie since Interstellar and it is far superior to superhero movies that populate the industry these days, because this movie has a main character that the audience can truly root for. Of course, being co-written by James Cameron means that it does feature some very bad writing as characteristic of him over the last 20 years (I am still wondering how on earth the exact same person managed to make Terminator 1 and 2 and Aliens and then made Titanic and Avatar ).

The best part of the movie is the CGI action and it does indeed delivers a lot of it, but you have to be a fan of CGI action to enjoy this movie. The weakest part of the movie is on its attempt to jam into 2 hours a lot of characters and plot points present in the original manga without the proper room for the characters to develop, instead it feels quite rushed. Still, this movie has better writing than Avatar, which ranks among the dumbest movies of all time, as well as most Hollywood blockbuster movies these days but it is indeed inferior to James Cameron's classics.

Avengers 3 (2018)



Watching Alita has awakened my appetite for CGI blockbuster movies. So, what about this movie? Well, its a very well made entertainment product and it went in some directions that are not so common in the mainstream superhero movie segment. For that this movie deserves some praise. Also, the special effects were very good although a bit excessively CGI, despite being made with a much smaller budget, Alita's special effects felt a bit superior.

But overall, it still operates under the mediocre level of mainstream blockbuster film writing so I rate it 7/10.

I've heard good reviews about Death of Stalin, so I'm planning to watch it sometime.

Last Star Wars movie I'm sure will be the last one for me. I had to get completely drunk to watch that.