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I had fun with it, but I generally agree with your criticism. It's unfortunate, because the action is really well shot, and I would say that for about the first 2/3rds of it, the movie just kicks all kinds of ass and has a great energy to it that works.

It's also very well shot and lit, and looks great throughout. It makes how awful most of the Marvel movies look even more inexcusable, when you see how atmospheric even a throwaway Keanu action flick can look on its small budget. The night-club sequence in particular is action magic in my opinion, and the movie never reaches that high again.

The big problem, like you allude to, is there's no real villain. A movie like this really needs a formidable main bad guy, or bad guy henchman, that is going to be the major threat, and it never materializes in this. John Wick basically coasts through, with no escalation of stakes (I love climactic mano-a-mano fights in the rain, but that doesn't work if you don't have a bad-guy worth fighting). In a lot of ways, this reminds me of almost a 21st century spin on a movie like Commando, but Commando has Bennett as a great final villain, and it also at least has the girl tag-along character to change up the pace a bit throughout the first half.

Still, it gets so much of the details right, and has the right spirit to it, that I'm more bummed that they didn't put in the extra effort to make it great, than anything else. It's a fun one-time watch, but totally insubstantial and forgettable.

We saw Battle Beyond the Stars for what it was at the time, but also accepted it as such. I think it had some boobs in it, which helped.*

* Aside from the ones on the ship, which was mind-boggling what-the-fuckery.

Agree about John Wick. I kept waiting for a twist that shook up our understanding of the relationships. I expected the bad guy to crumble: he was the only one who knew what Wick was capable of, so why wasn't he more terrified? I liked the Continental, but it and its characters came a little late and added too little to the pot. As you say, Wick basically shook it off and kept trudging toward his goal.

Just a little bit of pixie dust could have made this a keeper. My friend and I walked out discussing how to improve it and couldn't come to any firm conclusions. We just wanted more.

EDIT: In retrospect, it reminds me a bit of Payback, where the bad guys have nothing against Porter and don't fully understand why he's so angry over a relatively small amount of money. They only try to kill him because he is fucking up their whole operation to settle his small personal grudge.

Last edited by Zarban (2014-10-28 00:39:20)

I don't know if there was a specific reason, but I assume they went for that look to better convey their stiffness. After all,

Last edited by Saniss (2014-10-29 12:05:43)

BLUE RUIN

Believe the hype.  This thing is for fucking real and it doesn't give a shit about your blood pressure.  It is possibly the most efficient thriller I've seen in quite sometime.  Beyond that, it cleverly plays on the realism of a lot of suspense tropes while never being cute about it.  In fact, there's nothing cute about the story or the way it's presented.  It is weirdly beautiful and almost lyrical at times in how the main character glides from scene to scene.  For my money, the Hitchcock comparisons are spot fucking on and I'm so goddamn close to making this my next curated movie.

Is that the same scene where the bad guys turn off the lights so a heroic child has to run up the length of the train with a torch?

The cause of Sorcerer's flop must have been the release date (1977, the year of the Star Wars revolution). The movie just SCREAMS "pre-Star Wars 1970s". It might've been received much better a few years earlier.

I had an opportunity to revisit David Lynch's old shame.

Many people complain that Peter Jackson's Hobbit adaptation stretches out the contents of a fairly short book to three long movies. Dune is the opposite of The Hobbit: too much story was crammed into a 137-minute running time. The movie rushes through all the necessary plot points; there's no room to breathe and no time for proper worldbuilding (the 2000 miniseries, despite a TV-grade budget, does a better job of fleshing out Frank Herbert's universe).

David Lynch famously disowned Dune saying that the studio influenced the movie too much. Not all problems with the film can be blamed on the producers, though - those unnecessary grotesqueries (the Baron's diseased face, milking a hairless cat etc.) were (as far as I know) added by David himself.

To sum it up, it's a mess.

Watch the documentary on the failed attempt to adapt the film in the 70's. Those "unnecessary grotesqueries" were probably more subtle in the Lynch version

One of the problems with the movie was he filmed quite a bit of the book, as can be seen in the expanded TV version Lynch took his name off of. So, when you cut it down to theatrical length the result is more incomplete than if he had just written a shorter script. You can feel the gaps and missing exposition. Also, Paul is supposed to be 15. The guy playing him just doesn't do a good job.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

...I don't know. It's filled with cool references, an amazing cast, and other great things, but the really slow pacing had me almost dozing. The ending felt very weak, too. Probably one of those movies that should have been cult to me, but I watched it years too late. Maybe I'll give it another try someday. I had quite a few good laughs, but I didn't end up really liking it.

Gotta love chronically depressed Alan Rickman robot, though.

What do you mean?

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Do not even get me started.

Finally got around to watching Snowpiecer, and it was pretty damn good.

As long as you don't think too much