Tag Archives: John Goodman

Movie Review – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Valérian et la Cité des mille planètes)

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7

TL;DR – Truly beautiful visuals, and fascinating worlds, and … well not a whole lot else unfortunately

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Valérian et la Cité des mille planètes). Image Credit: STX Entertainment.

Review –

I’ve really been impressed by Luc Besson previous work, indeed, I would probably put The Fifth Element on my top 10 Films of All-time List if I ever got around to making one, which I should, come to think of it. So given everything I have seen of Luc Besson’s filmography, I’m going to be honest, I came into Valerian with really high expectations, indeed maybe that was the problem. So in today’s review, we are going to first look at the production side of things, and the world building, before taking a stab at the story.

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Movie Review – Atomic Blonde

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9

TL;DR – Atomic Blonde is a technically brilliant film, but unfortunately the story does not quite live up to the rest of it

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Atomic Blonde. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

So I have a pitch for you: we have an MI6 agent who romps through Berlin in the closing days before the Wall falls, they take down Soviet goons, drink vodka, seduce foreign intelligence agents, whilst acting condescendingly toward their superiors. Oh and no this is not a missed Bond entry during its Dalton-Brosnan hiatus, oh and the MI6 agent is played by Charlize Theron, it’s an interesting pitch, you have to at least give it that. However, while this pitch is interesting, Atomic Blonde is a very peculiar film, because it has a lot of things that really work for it, but it also has some other issues that really hold it back. So let’s jump in and discover the underworld of Berlin in the late 1980s, but beware there is at least one David Hasselhoff reference in your near future.

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Movie Review – Transformers: The Last Knight

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8

TL;DR – There is a good movie in here somewhere, it’s just not the one we ended up with

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Transformers The Last Knight. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

Well here we go again another Transformers film and another disappointment, though a slightly different disappointment this time round. What is interesting with Transformers is more so than say the Star Wars Prequels or other bad films, I can actually pinpoint where it was that this series fell apart for me. I was really enjoying the first two-thirds of the first film and then outside the Hoover Dam wanting to hide the AllSpark from the Decpticons the one person who had shown any military understanding up to that point goes ‘Let’s take it to Mission City to evacuate it’ and that was it in one moment my entire suspension of disbelief crashed down around me. It made no sense, sure it led to a visually spectacular action sequence, but given you were surrounded by desert the best option was to take it as far away from civilisation to protect people, and of course, a lot of people died because of that stupid decision. Since then I gave the second film a go because the first film was affected by the writer’s strike, so maybe they would learn from where they went wrong, well no, not at all. From there we had Dark of the Moon which was as bad as its title and Extinction was well more or less a bit meh. I tell you this because I came into this advanced screening with very low expectations but against my better judgement about half way through I found myself actually going along for the ride only to be let down once again.

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Movie Review – Kong: Skull Island

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10

TL;DR – Fantastic action, amazing visuals, interesting characters, and the best rendition of King Kong in a long while, this is a must watch film

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

P.S. There is a post-credits scene

Kong: Skull Island. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

The more and more we heard about Kong: Skull Island, the more I had a feeling that Kong was either going to be a masterpiece or a heaping pile of trash, I just could not see a middle ground happening. Well, I was right, Kong: Skull Island is not a mediocre film at all, and thankfully it is not a pile of trash either, instead it is an epic film that makes the most of the characters whilst setting it away from the traditional narrative. The effects alone make it a film you have to see, but it is so much more than just a technically brilliant film, it has a strong narrative, characters you relate to, and one of the more interesting island set ups I have seen since I read Dinotopia, quick aside, can we actually get that Dinotopia film now please and thank-you. Ok so let’s go break down why I think you should go see Kong: Skull Island.

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Movie Review – 10 Cloverfield Lane

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9

TL;DR – Wow, just wow, this film has just 3 actors, is basically filmed in the one set, and yet it is one of the most tense films I have ever seen.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

10 Cloverfield Lane. Image Credit. Paramount.

Review –

Tension in films is a very difficult thing to pull off, if you keep things tense for too long the audience gets exhausted, but if you try to apply the brakes you can shatter the suspension of disbelief and you can’t get that back. I bring this up because 10 Cloverfield Lane is a masterpiece in managing tension, and is a testament to what you can do with such a small budget.

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