#2,066: Into the Storm
Yeah there's another version of a GOT Galaxy review in here. I'd been trying a lot of ways to write about it that didn't make me feel like a troll, but my experience of it contrasted so sharply with that of most of my friends or internet acquaintances that I find it really jarring.
In the Loop - ★★★½☆
I liked this more on a second viewing. I feel like I got more of what was going on, but probably I'd just forgotten those details over the past 5 years. This isn't a very good review.
Side Effects - ★★½☆☆
Interesting, but not great. (Like a lot of Soderbergh b-sides.) I think that some of the disconnect for me was how long it took me to notice we'd switched protagonists. I was expecting more of a Manchurian Candidate type plot, so it was fun to be completely wrong about what I was getting into. Some of the third act seems too easy, but I guess seeing all the events in great detail would be a separate, slightly boring movie.
Guardians of the Galaxy - ★★☆☆☆
I was there on opening weekend because of the Marvel Studios logo, but then, I also saw Cars in the theater. Guardians is a bunch of lousy writing slathered in an Attack of the Clones-quantity of nonsensical CG. We're constantly told things instead of shown. Characters announce their development instead of exhibiting it. Gamorra actually shows us the opposite. There's no sense of actual danger or urgency, the references "jokes" are flat, every character has the same story arc, we had as much or more laying track for future movies as the parts of Iron Man 2 everyone supposedly hated...
I left the theater thinking the movie was okay but kind of boring, but the more I consider it (and in the week since, I've been thinking of it a lot, trying to figure out where it is I seem to have gone astray of the (almost suspiciously) overwhelming online opinion) the more its "hey, everyone, this is fun, right? Remember Star Wars guys? What if every character was Han Solo, that's fun, right?" shine is wearing off.
Maybe I'm just not as big a fan of the cosmic Marvel stuff. Or maybe it's comedy. Maybe that's what I don't like. Certainly I don't like the ironic detachment that this thing is soaking in.
Into the Storm - ★★★☆☆
I went to a screening of this with no advance information except the dialogue-free teaser from a few months ago. I was surprised to find out a) it was a found-footage movie, b) it's kind of a comedy, c) it stars Matt Walsh! The audience was more into it and on board than for probably anything else I've seen in a theater this year, which is the best way to see a movie. It's not a great film, but I think it did a great job of hitting its mark. Plus, the b-movie trappings do a great job of hiding the constant VFX. Sure, you know the big tornados are CG, but you look right past the constant sky replacements and foreground additions and debris and everything because you're busy laughing at a silly line or something. From a mock-doc perspective, they didn't cheat too much, and it was generally better motivated that some other recent entries, like End of Watch.