Film The Redcafe Movie review thread

The Long Kiss Goodnight. A 1996 Hollywood action film by Renny Harlin featuring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. Davis plays a former spy/assassin who lost her memory and has been a school teacher with a family for years - but finds back her memory and gets back into the action when people from her past find her back.

It's fun piece of popcorn fluff. There are some inconsistencies and loose ends in the story (especially the final scenes are a little weak), but the action is good, and there is lots of fun & jokes. 3/5
 
dumbo said:
Titane

Put Crash, Eraserhead, Pulp Fiction, Tetsuo, Maya Derren and the rest in a blender and you get an aimless mix of broken stuff in paste form.

Easy hot-take Memes, cheap garish titillation, cynical, generation-Netflix rorschaching. OK fine, this is the META formula to game the sales metrics In the age of multimedia dilittantism, but why does it have to be so tediously boring.

Less high octane auto, more Fred Flintstone's car.

Cronenbergo/10
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Harsh but fair. Got around to watching this yesterday and while the performances are good, it really did seem to bit a mash of other films(Even has the god awful blue and pink lighten that has been everywhere in the last few years). It really wanted to be a body horror flick from the 80’s, the sex and nudity was desperately trying to shock(It was very dull and conservative)and Tarantino sections were sub par. We are so far gone from the era this film is referencing that in 2021 it felt out dated and dull.

Knife + Heart from 2018 is a somewhat similar film but more enjoyable.
 
Morbius

Just really boring. I couldn’t bring myself to really care about anybody in the film, or what was happening to them. The final fight scene was anti-climatic as well.
 
Fantastic Beast: The secrets of Dumbledor.

Yeah this was just crap. Didn’t really care about anything happening. Story was pretty weak. And the final scenes were even more weak. What was Dumbledors secret? Feck knows man. Mads Mikkelsen was the saving grace as always.

3/10
 
Salt Bailly said:
With a fine tooth comb ;)

Such a random flick to go for, what spurred you on?
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It appeared recently on my Netflix, and in general, I like this kind of 90s action films. They make those differently now, and I prefer what they were like. (It helps that I was a teenager in the 90s I guess.)
 
Uncharted

Not a bad film really if you like that sort of thing, but at no point did I ever feel like I was watching a movie of the videogame, which makes the whole thing kinda pointless and annoying.
 
Bilbo said:
Uncharted

Not a bad film really if you like that sort of thing, but at no point did I ever feel like I was watching a movie of the videogame, which makes the whole thing kinda pointless and annoying.
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I refuse to see it for that reason, just out of principle for not being respectful of the game series.
 
Organic Potatoes said:
I refuse to see it for that reason, just out of principle for not being respectful of the game series.
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Honestly I don't understand what goes through the minds of the producers with these things. It could have been called anything else at all and people would still want to watch an adventure movie with Tom Holland in it.

Instead you end up with a load of people who've played the games not liking it much because the casting is so far removed from the characters it's supposed to be portraying.
 
Her(2013)

One of the best horror films I’ve seen in years. Great performances all around and up there with Jones best work(being john malkovich). Also nice to see a film set in a future which isn’t underwater and full of death.

And yes it feels weird to reviewing this in on a forum!
 
Sweet Square said:
Her(2013)

One of the best horror films I’ve seen in years. Great performances all around and up there with Jones best work(being john malkovich). Also nice to see a film set in a future which isn’t underwater and full of death.

And yes it feels weird to reviewing this in on a forum!
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Can't believe it's 9 years old. Excellent movie.
 
RedPed said:
Ambulance (2022)

Excuse the pun, but what a ride! High octane thriller that grabs you by the short and curlies from the get go and refuses to let go. It sometimes amazes me how modern day films get made with the amount of planning and execution involved because the scale of this movie is just off the charts. I sat through this movie just in awe of the cinematography, the sweeping vista shots, the intricate camera work just thinking to myself, wow this is some serious shit that Michael Bay would be proud of. It wasn't until the credits rolled at the end that yeah, sure enough his name popped up under 'Directed by'. I honestly didn't know but it made perfect sense. It was as if every single scene had been meticulously planned and crafted in detail within an inch of its life. I don't know why Bay gets the hate because if this is the style he is looking to make his own, I'm all in.

Ambulance is a remarkable film with some great performances from pretty much everyone that had a speaking part apart from the one irritating guy, Castro, the type of character that Bay always insists on including in his movies. Gyllenhaal, Abdul-Mateen II and Gonzalez produce some stellar performances as the three central characters in a bank heist gone wrong movie. Bay's smart direction, fast cut to scenes and excellent visuals really draws you into the story. The pacing is excellent and apart from 5 or 10 minutes dedicated to the back story is all about the two bank robbing brothers and their efforts to evade what appeared like the whole of LA law enforcement. As I mentioned before the cinematography and film editing were some of the best that I have seen in a movie. Say what you like about Michael Bay, but he really has an eye for filmmaking. I would pay to watch a Masterclass on how he sets up his shots. Many of them in this film were just stunning.

And if you're thinking of waiting until this gets released on streaming platforms...don't! The scoring and sound editing were just excellent, really adding to the overall experience. I'm not sure what the budget was but this must have cost a fortune to produce. It's like in terms of the production for this project, every aspect has been done just right with no cut corners or cheap substitutes. What pisses me right off is that when you look at the usual pretentious crap that gets nominated year in and year out for those hollow annual awards, films like this which honestly wipes the floor with some of that competition will most likely get overlooked, probably coming third in 'Best Sound Mixing' category, if there was a third spot.

Anyway, I loved this film. I was invested in the characters. I was gripped by the fast-paced action genuinely not knowing where I was being taken next, going through a whole raft of emotions, particularly in the final act and smugly satisfied that I was able to recognise a Michael Bay film. Nobody will complain about the 2+ hours running time as it's all killer and no filler. Don't get it confused with the original Danish version though from which it was adapted.

I'm giving this a 9/10.
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You were satisfied you could identify it was a Bay movie? It SCREAMS his name in ever single scene.

Passable movie though. Enjoyable for what it is. His movies are maximalist incoherent nonsense but this was actually held together by a solid enough plot and decent performances. I think it helped that he made it for relative peanuts, sub $50m I think, the Transformers disasters were three or four times that.

Good movie. 7/10.
 
Gods of Egypt

Saw it had bad reviews, had time on my hands and thought hey how bad could it be. I was wrong, it was complete rubbish.

2/10
 
TheReligion said:
You’d love him at United still!

Thought you were over it
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If this Ten Hag fella doesn't work out then I'll fully back the plan of buying players according to my IMDb page. Although it also might mean starting a 39 year old Kevin Nolan up front along with resigning Fellaini.
 
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Another good movie from Taika Waititi the director of Boy and JoJo Rabbit. I've actually only seen these three movies but I really liked all of them.

It's fresh and original movie that's funny and heartwarming. Even though I've never been a huge fan of Sam Neill I think he is excellent in this movie together with Julian Dennison.

8/10
 
Morbius (2022)

Got round to watching this today and was not very impressed, let me tell you. When you're trying to keep track of all of your MCU movies, you have to make sure that you don't get sloppy and drop the ball with your storylines and continuity. I'm referring specifically to the two post-credit scenes that did not make any sense whatsoever and left me scratching my head. I won't spoiler them here and will probably have to go to the Morbius thread, if there is one for some kind of explanation.

Anyway, back to the movie, which has been such a long time in coming but hardly worth the wait in my opinion. Even though I got the 1520 showing, I still found myself beginning to doze, that is until the kick-ass stuff began. Not much in the way of character development and most of the major plot elements just introduced without any fanfare simply resulted in a jumbled, incoherent mess that seemed rushed and slapped together purely for the sake of creating a Morbius movie. How true the character is to the comic books, I don't know and how he will be integrated into the MCU remains to be seen. The effects weren't even that great with some ropey and over-processed CGI work and you would have thought that with all the time this movie had before release, they could have done a better job. Considering it's a vampire movie, there wasn't much blood and graphic violence on show here. Whether that was a deliberate thing, I don't know but the film would certainly have benefited from taking a more darker tone. I hope they don't make the same mistake and ruin the upcoming Blade movie. I was expecting original Blade and Underworld levels of gore and violence here.

I can't even say that any of the performances were anything special either. The dynamic between the two 'brothers' could have been handled better to give the story more substance and there was zero chemistry between Michael and Martine. Fight scenes were just a blur so thank goodness for the frequent use of slo-mo just to keep us informed as to what the hell was going on. I haven't seen the Venom 2 film yet which I guess I will have to at some point in order to keep up with the MCU storyline but that looked just as unappealing as this film is from the trailers. Guess I'll just have to suck it up.

I'm giving this a 5/10.
 
RedPed said:
Morbius (2022)

Got round to watching this today and was not very impressed, let me tell you. When you're trying to keep track of all of your MCU movies, you have to make sure that you don't get sloppy and drop the ball with your storylines and continuity. I'm referring specifically to the two post-credit scenes that did not make any sense whatsoever and left me scratching my head. I won't spoiler them here and will probably have to go to the Morbius thread, if there is one for some kind of explanation.

Anyway, back to the movie, which has been such a long time in coming but hardly worth the wait in my opinion. Even though I got the 1520 showing, I still found myself beginning to doze, that is until the kick-ass stuff began. Not much in the way of character development and most of the major plot elements just introduced without any fanfare simply resulted in a jumbled, incoherent mess that seemed rushed and slapped together purely for the sake of creating a Morbius movie. How true the character is to the comic books, I don't know and how he will be integrated into the MCU remains to be seen. The effects weren't even that great with some ropey and over-processed CGI work and you would have thought that with all the time this movie had before release, they could have done a better job. Considering it's a vampire movie, there wasn't much blood and graphic violence on show here. Whether that was a deliberate thing, I don't know but the film would certainly have benefited from taking a more darker tone. I hope they don't make the same mistake and ruin the upcoming Blade movie. I was expecting original Blade and Underworld levels of gore and violence here.

I can't even say that any of the performances were anything special either. The dynamic between the two 'brothers' could have been handled better to give the story more substance and there was zero chemistry between Michael and Martine. Fight scenes were just a blur so thank goodness for the frequent use of slo-mo just to keep us informed as to what the hell was going on. I haven't seen the Venom 2 film yet which I guess I will have to at some point in order to keep up with the MCU storyline but that looked just as unappealing as this film is from the trailers. Guess I'll just have to suck it up.

I'm giving this a 5/10.
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Morbius and Venom aren't MCU films despite the end credit scenes, they are part of the spiderman villains universe sony are trying to get up and running.
 
Meet Joe Black

I have tried to watch this many times, but only really sat up and watched it the other night, 3 hours long starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt.

Basically Hopkins the head of a major media company has a massive heart attack and death decides to give him an extended vacation to use him as a guide as he is curious to experience what is life.

Sold as a love story but has many different aspects to it, some fabulous acting in it. The only thing I couldn’t get my head around was Pitt’s Caribbean accent, totally unnecessary and not in keeping with the film. Otherwise a slow burner but very captivating in a strange way.
 
Sleepy Eyes of Death - Full Circle Killing. Third in the series and a film where Nemuri Kyoshiro's dark side begins to emerge. The psychotic bastard son of the Shogun by one of his concubines, Lord Takayuki, whiles away the idle hours by acquiring new and expensive swords. Accompanied by his retainers, he then goes out and tests his new purchase by decapitating one of the peasants who live in a homeless camp under a bridge. Kyoshiro wanders into the aftermath of this and, being a samurai, he bears the brunt of the crowds' anger until he shows them that he is only carrying a bamboo sword; his peerless Masamune is in the polisher's shop for a sharpening.

The psycho's mother has great ambitions for her son. She intends to push him up the social ladder all the way to the hallowed precincts of Edo Castle itself, something that Kyoshiro doesn't like the sound of, and neither do others in government who scheme to let Kyoshiro do their dirty work for them. Kyoshiro is taken by a mysterious woman to a meeting with the psycho son who, when he sees the famous sword, wants to own it. He offers Kyoshiro employment which he refuses at which one of the son's retainers takes umbrage and offers a duel in the quick draw style (Iaido). Kyoshiro obliges and chops the man's arm off.

We see the misogynistic Kyoshiro who undresses women by slicing off layers of their kimonos, and the sympathetic side when he returns a child kidnapped by one of the peasants, thus saving the man from crucifixion. The climax takes place on a wooden bridge as Nemuri takes on the son's vassals, killing them one-by-one until only psycho is left. Kyoshiro saves his famous full moon cut for last. When all is done, Shogunate agents, who had been observing, appear to clean up, much to Kyoshiro's disgust.

This film sets up the rest of the series well. Great sword play, plenty of plot twists, and a glimpse into the events in the past that have made Kyoshiro what he is. Well worth a watch.
 
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The Northman

Really intense, gripping stuff. There’s some incredible cinematography, and I love the whole Norse thing, so this was right up my alley.

I remain absolutely terrified of Willem Dafoe.

8/10
 
Minkaro said:
The Northman

Really intense, gripping stuff. There’s some incredible cinematography, and I love the whole Norse thing, so this was right up my alley.

I remain absolutely terrified of Willem Dafoe.

8/10
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Just saw this earlier. I hated it. Bored me to tears and I’m sick of the spiritual Viking crap they keep putting in. Probably About an hour total, of just dancing and singing. The acting was decent. Why the hell was Defoe even in this. Has about 2, 5 second scenes and that’s it. Anna I think was the highlight along with Skarsgaard.

Trailers lied to me! In future I’m avoiding this director like the plague. Hated every movie he made. Didn’t look him up till after this, now I know the reason. I thought it was gonna be like a Viking Braveheart. Boy was I wrong. Why is that so hard to ask. I miss good epics so much :lol:.
 
Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)

Available on Prime Video is this excellent martial arts drama starring Donnie Yen. I didn't realise just how shit hot this guy is as I tended to pass up on his movies but I've put myself down for a Donnie Yen day as his work merits further exploration. Set just after the first World War has ended, Yen or Chen Zhen who he portrays in this movie returns from the front lines to his province in China who at this time is under threat from invasion by the Japanese. Not wanting to see his beloved country going under, Chen Zhen joins an underground resistance movement determined to unite the whole of China and force out the Japanese.

The movie is subtitled but you really do need to pay attention to keep up with the story as there are so many subplots going on. The film is beautifully shot against the colourful backdrop of 20s China and we get an insight into the simmering tensions between Japan and China. Add to that the shady and corrupt actions of the rich and powerful, the police, military officials etc., it all contributes to a glorious melee of intrigue. As the friction begins to ramp up, so the actions from both sides become more extreme. During his fight against the Japanese, Chen Zhen assumes a secret identity as the Masked Warrior, not too dissimilar to Kato from the Green Hornet, wreaking vengeance against the enemies where he can. There's a lot of espionage and counter-espionage stuff going on so like I said you have to keep up with all of these different variables and dynamics in play all the time. You're never really sure who is gaining the upper hand at any point

That is until the final third when the intensity ramps up leading to the inevitable showdown. There's nothing like seeing someone take a pounding martial arts style. Fight scenes are fast, frenetic and brutal at times, if perhaps a little on the sparse side. The boss fight was also a bit of a let down but overall great performances all round. There really is some great acting in this genre. There's just something about Asian cinema that transcends everything else and Yen has a certain charisma that makes him box office. Not your full-on martial arts actioner but more of a cerebral offering.

I'm giving this an 8/10.
 
The Duke Seems to get terrific reviews but I think that significantly oversells this film. A great cast and good performances somehow don't come together to make a truly interesting whole. Inoffensive, occasionally charming but not actually very funny for a supposed comedy. You would expect better from the director of Notting Hill. Not a terrible way to fill an evening if you have nothing better to watch I suppose. 6/10
 
Fantastic Beasts and Stuff About Dumbledore

I didn't want to watch this but my missus did and she has boobs so that was that. It could have been two pretty decent separate movies but instead it was one movie that had no idea what it wanted to do.

The Fantastic Beasts crew are set up within the first fifteen minutes as a rag-tag bunch of spies for some Germany based espionage and at that point you're kind of excited at the promise of seeing how wizards and witches do sneaky spy stuff. But the entire thing is quickly ended by the Dumbledore and Grimdlewald story arc which, in a standalone film, would've been great. Their relationship is interesting and rather brilliant. Jude Law is great as Dumbledore again and Mads Mikkelsen is, as you'd expect from Mads Mikkelsen, fantastic beasts as Grimmy.

And then we get shifted back to some Fantastic Beasts stuff again, with Redmayne acting hilariously, and it's great fun. We also get a great set piece between the platypus thief and twig which is probably the best part of the film and begs the question why it's taken three movies for someone to actually do something with them as a comedy duo.

But after that little Segway into some fantastic beasts in a Fantastic Beasts film we quickly get sent back to Dumbo and Grimmy territory again, and the movie does this back and forth until the rushed ending with a shitty maguffin resolution. The super powerful Credence and his entire story are shoehorned into five minutes of screen time and a crap fight. And this brings me to the problem with the movie that I alluded to at the start.

This should be a Fantastic Beasts movie or a Dumbledore/Credence/Grimdlewald movie. It can't be both because otherwise you have too many threads and you can't give them the time they deserve. What we do get is pretty solid for the most part but it's just not enough.

Oh, there's also the romance between the bakery guy and the woman who can read minds but the story didn't give much of a feck about it so why should I?

6/10
 
Deery said:
Meet Joe Black

I have tried to watch this many times, but only really sat up and watched it the other night, 3 hours long starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt.

Basically Hopkins the head of a major media company has a massive heart attack and death decides to give him an extended vacation to use him as a guide as he is curious to experience what is life.

Sold as a love story but has many different aspects to it, some fabulous acting in it. The only thing I couldn’t get my head around was Pitt’s Caribbean accent, totally unnecessary and not in keeping with the film. Otherwise a slow burner but very captivating in a strange way.
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Wasn't he just communicating with the old lady who was afraid?
He's death, it stands to reason he'd use a person's dialect.
 
big rons sovereign said:
Wasn't he just communicating with the old lady who was afraid?
He's death, it stands to reason he'd use a person's dialect.
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I get that but he doesn’t change at any other time of the movie and then to just throw in a Caribbean accent was just strange.
 
Deery said:
I get that but he doesn’t change at any other time of the movie and then to just throw in a Caribbean accent was just strange.
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He speaks Patois to give her some peace about her inevitable passing. He is the personification of death after all. He won’t be limited to speaking with an American accent. We don’t see him ‘taking’ anyone else in the movie other than Anthony Hopkins’ character so why would it change?
 
Deery said:
I get that but he doesn’t change at any other time of the movie and then to just throw in a Caribbean accent was just strange.
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The Corinthian said:
He speaks Patois to give her some peace about her inevitable passing. He is the personification of death after all. He won’t be limited to speaking with an American accent. We don’t see him ‘taking’ anyone else in the movie other than Anthony Hopkins’ character so why would it change?
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