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Feb. 27th, 2023 11:21 amWeather and life nonsense meant I didn't make as much use of my unlimited moviepass in January as i wanted, but I've seen some in February and still have a few more coming up.
M3GAN
A movie that knew its brief. Scary, but not too scary, funny but not too silly, with your sympathy caught at times halfway between the terrible humans and the homicidal AI Robot before the movie snaps clearly enough that you can end up clearly on Team Terrible Humans for the satisfying final fight scene.
Ant-Man 3: Quantumania
A little disappointing, but not thoroughly so. Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp were delightful in their relatively low stakes storytelling, humor, and visual imagination- especially highlighted in the miniaturization scenes where ant-sized Paul Rudd swims through a toilet or dances on a record player. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania tried to substitute for that playful imagery with the weird and wild world of the Quantum Realm, but it didn't quite work for most of the movie because of lazy cinematography. Most of the Quantum Realm consisted of the protagonists standing in front of green screens with a CGI background behind them with very little depth. I wanted something in the foreground, I wanted our heroes manipulating their surroundings, maybe I just wanted muppets?! I wanted visual depth, I wanted a new world to sink my teeth into, and instead I got lots of CGI that somehow didn't quite add up to satisfying world-building. I'm finally watching Andor and they have nowhere near as flashy a visual language to communicate, but the filmmakers are so, so much better at creating visual depth in the relationship of CGI to characters and props that I keep watching scenes in Andor and saying "See, this is what you should've done, Ant-Man director whose name I forgot!"
The only scene where the CGI worked well was the final battle against Kang's forces, so... I don't want to complain that much. The final battle was quite good, both in terms of storytelling and emotional beats, and visually, and I had a good enough time watching this silly movie.
Cocaine Bear
Does what it says on the tin. The characters are not particularly exciting, but they're drawn well enough. The cocaine bear is a cocaine bear, she's alternately terrifying and adorable. I've seen some people complain that the movie has too much gore to be as silly as they were hoping it would be, but I dunno, I think it had about as much gore as I'd expect from a movie about a rampaging bear mauling people, and the movie still made me laugh. I had a good time.
Regal does a periodic Mystery Movie where it's some about-to-be-released movie and you buy tickets sight unseen, and I'm going to see it tonight. It's Purim season, as I often say during Purim Season, what I want more than anything is to be surprised. And then Sunday I'm going to see The Fabelmans.
M3GAN
A movie that knew its brief. Scary, but not too scary, funny but not too silly, with your sympathy caught at times halfway between the terrible humans and the homicidal AI Robot before the movie snaps clearly enough that you can end up clearly on Team Terrible Humans for the satisfying final fight scene.
Ant-Man 3: Quantumania
A little disappointing, but not thoroughly so. Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp were delightful in their relatively low stakes storytelling, humor, and visual imagination- especially highlighted in the miniaturization scenes where ant-sized Paul Rudd swims through a toilet or dances on a record player. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania tried to substitute for that playful imagery with the weird and wild world of the Quantum Realm, but it didn't quite work for most of the movie because of lazy cinematography. Most of the Quantum Realm consisted of the protagonists standing in front of green screens with a CGI background behind them with very little depth. I wanted something in the foreground, I wanted our heroes manipulating their surroundings, maybe I just wanted muppets?! I wanted visual depth, I wanted a new world to sink my teeth into, and instead I got lots of CGI that somehow didn't quite add up to satisfying world-building. I'm finally watching Andor and they have nowhere near as flashy a visual language to communicate, but the filmmakers are so, so much better at creating visual depth in the relationship of CGI to characters and props that I keep watching scenes in Andor and saying "See, this is what you should've done, Ant-Man director whose name I forgot!"
The only scene where the CGI worked well was the final battle against Kang's forces, so... I don't want to complain that much. The final battle was quite good, both in terms of storytelling and emotional beats, and visually, and I had a good enough time watching this silly movie.
Cocaine Bear
Does what it says on the tin. The characters are not particularly exciting, but they're drawn well enough. The cocaine bear is a cocaine bear, she's alternately terrifying and adorable. I've seen some people complain that the movie has too much gore to be as silly as they were hoping it would be, but I dunno, I think it had about as much gore as I'd expect from a movie about a rampaging bear mauling people, and the movie still made me laugh. I had a good time.
Regal does a periodic Mystery Movie where it's some about-to-be-released movie and you buy tickets sight unseen, and I'm going to see it tonight. It's Purim season, as I often say during Purim Season, what I want more than anything is to be surprised. And then Sunday I'm going to see The Fabelmans.