As weird as this might seem, I’ve loved Rambo ever since I saw the first movie when I was about 11/12 years old (you know those uncles, that show you what they grow up on…? Exactly.) and that is why I was looking forward to the latest, and from the looks of it, the last Rambo movie (at least with Sylvester, somebody will probably do some sort of “son of Rambo” or “third cousin twice removed, whose dad kind of knew a guy, who once looked at Rambo from a distance) they will make. And the results is… a pretty mixed bag.

Rambo: Last Blood doesn’t feel personal. Let me explain what I mean by that. Plenty of people have this franchise associated with Rambo being this undestroyable killing machine, who’s taking out fools by hundreds, has muscles on top of muscles and doesn’t really talk that much. But they seem to forget that the very first movie (who’s often miscalled Rambo, but its actual title is simply First Blood (1982)) was actually a really good drama/reflection on Vietnam war, focused mainly on treating the Americans, who fought there by the general public right when they came back. I dare you to re-watch it, and you will discover, that it’s more a drama than anything else. The sequels made Rambo into the “punchline” we all know and parody now, but even those sequels still felt “personal”, where it was about him and dealing with the trauma (in a very bad way, don’t get me wrong) and the darkness in his soul.

This movie tries very hard to play with that, and if done correctly, this could’ve been so great. But instead of centring the story on Rambo in his later years and how he deals with everything, we get a story about him living on a farm (ok) with some maid (ok…?) whose granddaughter just needs to find her real father in Mexico (… I mean what?), even though she’s warned by every single character in the movie (meaning her grandma and Rambo) not to do it, yet she goes and of course get kidnapped and sold (?) into a sex slavery, so Rambo needs to find her… If you are thinking “well, that seems random”, you are not alone. And this is where this movie fails the most – why should we care, as an audience, about these random people in a RAMBO movie…? Even the sequels, no matter how ridiculous they’ve gotten, were always centred around Rambo and his Vietnam war experience. This didn’t feel like that at all. You could take this script, take the name “Rambo” out of it, and make it with anybody, and it would probably work slightly better, as it has no tie or relation to Rambo whatsoever. It’s interchangeable. Instead of being more like the very first movie, this ended being much more like the sequels. And as much as I can enjoy them in their own way, that’s not a way to say a goodbye to this legend.

The last 30 minutes or so, when Rambo actually kicks ass and defeats pretty much every single bad Mexican there is (I swear, if this movie was a reality, Americans wouldn’t need any walls or anything, as Rambo just cleaned up Mexico once and for all) were actually entertaining, but it was a bit too late at that point. And the ending with the “Rambo over the years” montage felt so undeserved. Don’t even get me started on the scene right after that montage…

What could’ve been a proper “back to the roots” ending of a franchise, that would honour the previous movies, just kind of fallen flat, with the last 30 minutes or so being the clear highlight of this otherwise average, not personal movie. For a screen icon such a as Rambo, it feels underwhelming. This also points out one clear fact – we could only be grateful that Creed (2015) and Creed II (2018) were as great as they were, as they had somebody behind them who actually understood what that franchise was about. And, with all all due respect to the creators of this movie, they didn’t seem to understand what made Rambo (mainly the first film) into such an icon. Shame.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Before getting into this review properly, I need to start with a bit of a story from my life, that should shed some light on why this movie (despite all its flaws) is one of my favourite action movies of the late 2000’s.

When I was in high school, I was pretty decent student, but math wasn’t my favourite subject in the world, to put it mildly. And there was a real chance that I’d fail my math class in my first half of the school year (in the Czech Republic, high school works in a way that you’d get 2 result cards, one at the end of January and one at the end of June, and if you fail one subject both times, you need to repeat the entire year) so you can imagine it was fairly stressful time for me. So I’ve stayed up and studied for this really important test, and the night before, couldn’t even sleep for the most of the night, that’s how nervous/terrified I was. After the test was done, we’ve had a decently “off” day, as Xmas was approaching, so we didn’t really do much rest of the day, as the other subjects were already finished for that half a year, so we’d watch movies in school. And somebody brought this one.

I remember thinking, even though I have loved movies even back then, then I’ll just try to take a nap, as after the test, the nervousness finally disappeared and the restless night caught up with me. But the moment this movie started, it pulled me in and pumped my veins full of adrenaline, that lasted to the very end of it. I’ve felt like I’ve just had 6 coffees poured straight into my veins and the rest of the day I’ve actually felt amazing. Because that’s what this movie is.

Death Race should be judged by what it is trying to be – an adrenaline ride, that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, with some pretty great actions sequences, where the destruction of a particular large vehicle is just breathtaking, especially the first time I’ve watched it. That was my very first experience with this movie and even though it might sound weird, in relation to this movie, this is why I love movies. They have the power to take you and transport you some place else, give you the spark you might need. I don’t think I had a similar situation happen to me prior, or since that time, definitely not to that extent.

Couple of days ago, I’ve decided to re-watch this, as I haven’t seen it in about 10 years, and I still had a blast. It wasn’t anywhere near as “meaningful” of an experience as it was to me that one December day, but I still had fun with this movie, as I really respect when film don’t pretend to be something they are not. Death Race knows this movie is not an Oscar winning drama, or some sort of high art. It knows this movie is just a pure, simple “dumb” (in the best possible sense of that word) fun, that if you let it, it will entertain you too. Plus, where else you’ll see 3-times Oscar nominee Joan Allen go up against Jason Statham? Exactly, that’s what I thought 😉

Realistically, I could see this movie is not that great, but honestly…? I can’t judge this film harshly, if only because of that one day, it helped me get through something that wasn’t easy and sometimes that’s all it takes.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Terminal is a strange movie. On one hand, I really liked the aesthetics, some of camera work is great and the movie has a perfect length, where it doesn’t drag on for too long, but… everything else is so heavy handed, or predictable, that it knocks the movie down.

The main crux of this movie is – bunch of assassins going after each other, in unspecified part of the world, all situated at train terminal. Very roughly, without going into any spoilers yet, that’s it. This modern film-noir then takes the route of being really stylised, dialogue heavy movie, where nothing is as it seems, and there are a few twists coming your way. Some you will see from the very beginning, some will only surprise you because movie wants you to be surprised (doesn’t give you plenty of clues, so you know there is something else coming, but don’t know what).

It’s difficult to go into why it didn’t work for me without going into the spoiler territory, so…

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

This movie has several twists. And as I’ve mentioned, plenty you will see coming a mile away (identity of Mr. Franklyn, the fact Margot Robbie‘s character might have a twin sister) and others you won’t really see as you had no way (who Simon Pegg‘s character really is, or the “main” twist of Mr. Franklyn being related to Margot’s characters). And where the movie was meant to be great because of these, it just felt… meh. I don’t know why, because I need to repeat myself, stylistically, I did enjoy this movie. But I don’t think it’s as clever as the movie thinks it is. Some parts of the screenplay reminded me of Quentin Tarantino, but without any of his “magic”. And some visuals, and editing reminded me of Edgar Wright, but without any of the genius, that would give the movie anything extra.

Most of this movie almost felt like it knew, it might not be that strong or clever story, so it tried to “hide” it using these visual crutches that would work for the filmmakers mentioned above, but they didn’t and here’s why. Both Quentin and Edgar, use these in a way that elevates something they already thought of, not as a distraction. Or it never feels like that in their movies. Especially the visual gags and editing style of Wright’s movies often add an extra layer of enjoyment for some jokes, or even story points, so when you re-visit his movies second, third time, you’d notice something new each time. With Terminal, you notice everything almost immediately, and if you didn’t, the movie makes sure it hits you over the head with it, so even if you only paid attention half the time, you’d get it. It’s almost like the movie doesn’t trust its viewers to be able to handle this story. And for a movie, where several times different characters mention “Who says mystery is a lost art?”, that feels slightly disappointing.

I did like the cast, mainly Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Dexter Fletcher who were all great. Even though, towards the end, Margot’s performance felt little too over the line, where I understand her characters called for her being off the chain, balls to the walls crazy, but last 20 minutes or so, it felt like overacting from her, just a tiny bit. And I’m a huge Margot fan.

I can honestly say that if this movie came out in mid 2000’s and if I were to see it when I was around 15 or so, I’d have probably loved it. And there will be people who will see it at the right time in their life, where it will be their version of how great a mystery noir film can be. But not for me, unfortunately, as pleasant aesthetic is not everything and the story feels like something I’ve seen before a few times with 2 extra twists, just to mask the fact everything else is re-hashed. And with IMDb rating being 5.4/10, it looks like I am not the only one thinking that.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Unlike plenty of people of my generation (let me put it this way, in the year 2021 I’ll be as old as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), so I’ll let you do the math) I didn’t grow up watching The Lion King (1994), I’ve only seen it when I was around 18 or so, as it was (and still is) considered one of the best animated movies of all times. And it was definitely great, I did like it a lot.

That’s why I’ve actually went into this movie full of hope, as I wasn’t as attached to the original film, I really liked what Jon Favreau managed to do with The Jungle Book (2016) (which I would still consider alongside Cinderella (2015), my review here, to be the best two live action Disney remakes so far) and the voice casting alone… I really was trying my best to like this movie and it didn’t happen.

Which is a shame, as visually, the movie is stunning. At least in the beginning – was I alone in thinking the longer the movie played, the worse the CGI has gotten? I mean, we’ve started with almost photo realistic looking animals and nature, but the ending looked kind of animated…? Maybe it was just me, but something about those night fight scenes didn’t sit well with me.

The main issue wasn’t retelling the same exact story, basically scene for scene, well at least not for me. For me, it was the fact that by making the animals so super-duper-extra-4K-great looking, they can’t really emote and the movie looses its magic. Don’t get me wrong, the animals (mainly the cubs in the beginning) did look cute, but mainly later on, you can’t really connect with them, as their faces aren’t usually as expressive as animation. You could probably make them expressive, but then it’d look really creepy, as we know (subconsciously), that animals don’t do that. And this is where The Lion King fell into its own trap – by trying to be The Jungle Book, but not realising why that worked and was (mostly) celebrated.

From my point of view, it made sense to remake The Jungle Book, as even though it was fairly beloved animated movie, plenty of time has passed, so the technology moved so much, when people had seen that, they were shocked, and they liked it. But the film still had a main character that wasn’t CGI. Whereas with The Lion King, there is “only” 25 years in between the original and the remake, and there are no human characters, so we are too focused on our beloved characters we knew from the original, where they were beloved because they animated them in that way, for us to fall in love with them. Unfortunately, you can’t CGI your way around that, as hyper realistic animals can’t emote and be as relatable as their animated counter parts. So anything these characters do, feels off, and you as a viewer, find yourself bored as you can’t really connect to anything on the screen, as everything just looks so perfect, you know it must be fake. It’s a bizarre trap to fall into, I am not going to lie, but the fact this movie looks as stunning as it does (at least for the most of it) is also its biggest downfall.

I thought the voice actors did a solid job, mainly John Oliver, Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner and Donald Glover were outstanding. The rest of the cast was fine, and I know it seems like it’s not a compliment, but it is, the issue with this movie isn’t its voice casting. You couldn’t really cast a better group of talented people.

Disney already announced another bunch of animated movies getting their live action remakes (the full list is here) – basically, within 10 years or so, we will get to the point that if an animated movie ever existed and was made by Disney, there will be a live action remake of it. We’ve gotten a bunch of the most beloved ones, and honestly…? As I’ve mentioned at the beginning, only 2 of them come to mind I would describe as pretty good movies in their own right. The rest of them do kind of blend into a mediocrity, where I honestly wonder what the breaking point will be – more precisely, which movie will be the Solo of live action Disney remakes, where they’ll loose so much money, they will be forced to re-evaluate their strategy, and make sure they bring their A++ game to every single live action remake. Something, that unfortunately is getting rarer to see with these, which is the most puzzling thing – they literally have money to burn, they can afford to hire the best in the game, and somehow, even the best people under the Disney “umbrella” are not performing well. Something needs to change.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke