Oppenheimer

 I don't qualify as a movie critique but I do identify as a (sort of) huge movie fan. I am not a movie nerd but it is not questionable that watching movies is a serious hobby of mine. Yes, it is pretty stereotypical, but it's true. My hobbies are really those classic ones: reading a book, watching a movie, listening to music. Before I proceed, I will clarify that I do not (yet?) have a book blog. However, I am a member of a book club. 

Speaking of books, I don't know if you know, but this movie is based on the 2005 book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer". Unfortunately, I did not read this book. I am not sure if I plan to, either. I don't think this is one of those movies where the comments would be about if the movie was better than the book or the other way around. However, the book has a significance because apparently Christopher Nolan said (somewhere) that he wouldn't have taken on the project without the book. Since Oppenheimer is a real person, technically, one does not need the book to make such a movie. In fact, there are already other (media) projects about the same person/topic. There is a tv series and a documentary about Oppenheimer, both released in 1980. There were two movies about him in 1989. There is a 2015 play called Oppenheimer, too. Okay, now that we have established this is not the first movie about Oppenheimer, we can proceed.

Perhaps it is worth to note that this is also not the first nor the only movie about atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. I don't know which is more sorrowful: a nuclear accident or actually setting off a nuclear bomb on purpose. I believe at least one of the following words would be familiar to any reader: Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima. There is a very successful 2019 mini TV series called Chernobyl. Unfortunately, I didn't watch it because I didn't feel like I could take it. Now, why did I watch Oppenheimer, then? Well, I guess I have a soft spot for Christopher Nolan and technically it is shorter than the whole of the mini series (which is about 5h30m). Why am I mentioning Chernobyl or the fact that there are other movies/shows about nuclear bombs? Well, if I had watched any other, perhaps it would equip me with the ability of making certain comparisons. I won't be able to add such comments. If you have some, please feel free to add. I am sure that movie critiques are able to make such comparisons and perhaps Nolan's explosion scenes would be rated as the best among those because he used real bombs and not CGI. Among all visual media projects about Oppenheimer (the man) or nuclear weapons in general, I am sure Nolan's will be the one that's the most spoken about of all time.

Now, where did I first hear about this movie or when did I see its trailer for the first time? Interestingly, I do not remember how I came to know about this movie. If you are a loyal reader to my blog (I am not saying you should be), you are probably familiar with the openings of my posts where I start by describing how I came to know about the existence of that movie. My guess is that however means I encountered this movie's mention or trailer, I got too excited and completely forgot about that first moment itself. Okay, maybe that doesn't really make sense but it's not important.

There is a period of time between the point I learned this movie will be released and the point I went to see this movie. During that period of time, I looked things up about the movie because I was curious. What I found although I was not looking for it is how the movie was shot. Apparently, because Christopher Nolan is Christopher Nolan, he had to do things differently and so he used techniques that hadn't been used before. Upon coming across a reels on Instagram, I learned that they filmed in two different aspect ratios (1.9:1 which is the full aspect ratio and native IMAX 65mm aspect ratio of 1.43:1) for magnitude and nostalgia reasons. Apparently, if you go see it at a theatre which doesn't support the full imax experience then you actually see less of what was shot---the image gets cropped. So they actually released a list of theatres which support the true viewing of the movie. Of course, I went to see it in one of those theatres which offers the full imax experience. I was lucky that such theatre exists in the city I currently live. Otherwise, I don't think I would have traveled for it.

Perhaps the best part about this movie was the fact that there were no ads before the movie started. I am not sure if this would be everyone's experience. My guess is that because I saw it in a "special" salon and they didn't have ads given to them compatible with that screen, they had no advertisements to show. This is a good thing. The movie was at 2:00 pm and it started at 2:01 pm. Unfortunately, there were lots and lots, and I mean, lots of people who came in late. This was probably because everybody thought the movie will probably start around 2:20 pm but that's not enough for me to forgive these people. They really interrupted the movie. Moreover, this salon was full, so whoever came late had real difficulty getting to their seats. 

There is a lot to go through about this movie. Let's start with the scenes. If you saw the movie (or its trailer), you should be aware that some scenes are black&white whereas some scenes are coloured. Some say the coloured scenes' scenario was written in first person (Oppenheimer's) and the black&white scenes were written in the third person in the scenario, and that the take away from this is the the coloured parts are subjective (through the eyes of the celebrated guy) and the other parts showed the events through an objective lens. I can see the subjectivity part but I can't quite sharply see the objectivity part. I should also add that Matt Damon mentioned in an interview that the scenario (as a whole) was in first person but I think he might just be referring to the coloured shot parts (or only the parts he was in)---I don't know. Now, how I see is that it's not an objective/subjective differentiation, it has a different nuance. Basically, the star of the movie is Oppenheimer. Nolan even insisted on not having "American Prometheus" as the movie's name, he really wanted to make it personal, about Oppenheimer. What does this mean? Well, first of all, which name reached us through the years? It's Oppenheimer. I didn't even know about Lewis until the movie. What happened is Oppenheimer's name is engraved whereas Strauss has long been forgotten. Oppenheimer still speaks to us, influences us in the present day, whereas Strauss is stuck in the past, hence the black&whiteness. So I don't quite buy that subjective vs. objective perspective idea. When I think of it the way I do though, I think having Strauss' scenes black and white adds a nice nuance to the movie.

Continuing with the scenes, next is of course the bomb scene. I completely find it unnecessary to use real bombs for a "real" effect. I strongly believe that Nolan had no right to be harming the environment like this for a movie. I mean, what did it really add? Do we really care if they were real explosions? You can't even achieve as big an effect as an atomic bomb just by using multiple non-atomic, regular-but-big bombs. I mean, what's the carbon footprint of this movie? If there was a ranking (wrt carbon footprint) among all the movies that have been made until today, I believe this movie would be ranked as the 1st. This is not nice at all. I am saying all this, and I am not even a big environmentalist. Interestingly, I haven't heard of any environmentalist bodies boycott this movie. Maybe there are some and maybe they made it to the news, but the PR and marketing of this movie was immense and hence covering the media so much, so that might be why I haven't heard of any protests. In fact, the immense amount of marketing content of this movie has increased my expectations a lot and I ended up not liking the movie as much, so it backfired on me. 

When I say "I didn't like the movie as much", don't get me wrong. I think it is a great movie, but it is not the best movie by C. Nolan, in my opinion. Cillian Murphy says in an interview that this is Nolan's "Magnum Opus". I disagree. I have seen a lot of interview clips done with the people in the main roles, and I think they were all just too excited and since they are in the work, they saw it better than it is (or, they are simply obliged to say good and great things about it).

I don't want to get side-tracked here. So, back to the scenes. Continuing with the bomb scene, what I liked the most was the sound coming SO LATE. It only makes sense that it arrives so late. The suspension was very long, when the audience waited for the "boom" sound. In fact---I heard this from others too---this long wait was probably the most respectfully performed one in the sense that nobody made any noise while waiting. I also liked that they showed everybody one by one while we were waiting for the boom. It was also hilarious when Teller put on sunscreen (and even better, I paid attention later and he still got burned). Okay, so that's all good, but I still think he should have used CGI, it could even be better (and bigger) explosion with CGI. I don't see what's wrong with using CGI a little. CGI nowadays is very good to the point you can't even tell the difference if you hired a good company/person to do the CGI of your movie. 

Continuing with another scene: the sex scene, Florence Pugh and the claim that Oppenheimer is a womanizer. First of all, I think the sex scenes were completely unnecessary. They didn't really add anything important to the story. Up to this movie, I liked Florence Pugh's acting in general. Her character was underrepresented in this movie. I will in fact go on to say that Nolan is incapable of writing female characters. Both women's characters in this film were extremely shallow. The only point of Florence Pugh's character was almost the only small tie Oppenheimer had to the communists and it was exploited too much. I mean, if they didn't have this character in the movie they could still go with the same story. I don't think what the movie portrays is really enough to call this movie's Oppenheimer as a womanizer. I don't know about the real-life Oppenheimer, maybe there were rumours, or maybe it was certain, and so that's why Nolan wanted to include this "detail". Just because he cheated on her wife doesn't imply he is a womanizer. I mean, a lot of people do this kind of stuff. It was also only a little bit implied that he had some kind of a relationship with another woman, but okay, let's say he had relationships with three women in total in his life, not exactly all of them happening regularly and at the same time either. What's womanizer about this? When I think of a womanizer, I think of a man who tries to meet as many women as possible and who seduces every single woman he meets and somehow will have sex with each of them. So, for example, a womanizer wouldn't stop at his brother's wife, he would try to seduce her too, and even older women. We saw other women in a party Oppenheimer went in the film, and he didn't necessarily try to hit on every single one of them, nor tried to impress them. This is also a good paragraph to mention the following. I can see from this movie that Nolan has no good knowledge at all about romantic relationships. After this movie, I noticed that his previous movies were also white male dominated. Now, you may say, it was 1940s, that's why women are like that in the movie. Well, that's not a good excuse at all. Okay, let's say both Jean and Kitty are hysterical women (why did they have to be portrayed this way?), why is there no background on this? They just come as weird characters in the movie. What's behind Jean's behaviours, or Kitty's drinking while her baby is crying? Even a small hint, some small scene could suffice to fill these gaps---instead of having some other unnecessary scenes. Overall, very bad character development on the women characters of the movie. 

Why did Nolan have the sex scenes or the hysterical-women-acting-out scenes? I should add here the scene where Cillian Murphy was naked during the "interrogation". Nakedness, I understand, but it's too cliché. Yeah, yeah, because it was such an intimate/private issue to him, he felt naked while saying those things and that's why the camera went behind the neck of the other guy to reveal R.O. naked. Next, Jean appearing, and that was completely unnecessary. I don't think that Jean appeared like that in the eyes of R.O., it was from the perspective of his wife, but that wasn't made clear. It is mixing Robert's emotions and how he sees himself at the moment with what his wife is seeing in her own mind. With this, and having the women act out out of nowhere (like Jean going "don't buy me flowers"), I guess Nolan is trying to achieve what some artistic movies would contain compared to blockbuster ones. It seems to me like Nolan is stuck between wanting to make an art movie and a blockbuster movie. Anyways, all this is horrible. I don't like it. In fact, I think I liked Nolan more before seeing this movie. In fact, this movie made me realize that the only thing I liked in his movies was the mind-bending aspect of the stories. I didn't care much about how some things were shot. What interest me are story and meaning. 

When I ask myself: what difference did it make that the movie was shot in that huge aspect ratio? I don't think it made any difference. At least, not on the positive side. It actually made me resent because if it was just shot like a normal IMAX, then I would see the movie, and criticize about more or less the same things but I'd be overall happy with the movie. Knowing they tried to make it look somehow "special" which added nothing substantial to the movie (in my opinion) is a big minus.

I try to understand why Nolan did such things. The first answer is because he is Nolan. But also, I guess when you are telling a historical event, the only ways you can make the movie interesting is by doing something interesting with the shooting and including sex scenes. Since when is this person so stereotypical? Wasn't the whole point of him being different? It seems to me that he is, at this point, doing things only for being spoken about. I don't like this.

Movie makers claimed that people wouldn't be able to recover from it after seeing this movie. I did not feel that way at all. I was totally fine after I left the salon. 

The only part/scene of the movie that struck me was when people were cheering in a room while R.O. gave a speech. This was wild because so many people were just killed. And they were so ignorantly cheering. In their perspective, they celebrated their success but they killed innocent people. Perhaps it is the most barbaric thing. I don't even talk about the part R.O. stepped into a burned corpse. I am talking about people only cheering and clapping and laughing. 

Done with the scenes I want to touch, I will move on to acting and the actors/actresses. First of all, I did not notice the president was Gary Oldman---my bad. I did like his line, though, about relieving R.O. saying that he is the one who killed, not R.O.---he has a good point. It was also unbelievable the president calling R.O. a cry baby, which is apparently a real thing that happened. I won't go into Florence Pugh again too much---her role was pretty small (short screen time), it looks like movie makers now see her as an object (to use for sex scenes), and somehow she is one of the main cast (along with Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and RDJ). The five always posed together at the premiers. I really think it should have been only the 4 of them. If there was really going to be a fifth person, it should have been someone else. Emily Blunt's acting was really good but her character wasn't written well. RDJ is RDJ, I have nothing to say---it was great. Apparently, some people thought he couldn't act (because he had been Iron Man for a long time) but I never thought that, so nothing new for me. Casting Matt Damon was probably one of the best things the movie makers did. I didn't watch Peaky Blinders and I know Cillian Murphy only from other Nolan movies. I thought he was very good at being Scarecrow. I think he has a really interesting face which makes it easy for him to portray a psychopath, if needed. I think his acting was good, but the script wasn't written well. Let's go into this in the next paragraph.

Apparently, this movie had a physicist consultant for the science stuff and this consultant is a Nobel Prize winner. This is somehow hard to believe. Or, maybe he advised them right but they didn't listen to him 100%. I have a Bachelor's degree in Physics myself, and worse, a BSC + a master's + a PhD in Mathematics. So I have a really good grasp of how this kind of people act in their private and/or academic lives. Some mathematicians/physicist can really be egotistical and rude. Somehow they try to show Oppenheimer as such a person but only sometimes. This doesn't make sense. I know that for the scenes with Lewis Strauss it was kind of Strauss' perspective, but the words R.O. said were facts, so they were indeed pretentious acts. Moreover, R.O. acted like a smug when Matt Damon's character came to offer him the job as well. Anyways, I don't think this movie did a good job representing scientists in an accurate way. When it comes to science itself, again, not good enough for me. They did better in equations than what most other movies include as equations. But still, I can see that science is somehow romanticized in the eyes of movie makers. Why? First of all, things are never that simple in physics or mathematics. I heard that they purposefully didn't go into the physics part of it much, which is okay, but you can't just degrade it either. 

Overall, what's the take away of this movie? I don't know. Did I need to see the real Oppenheimer's indecisiveness or whatever they are trying to portray? Did this movie teach me anything interesting or important? I don't think so. I think if this movie wasn't made, I wouldn't feel its absence at all. I mean, what happened? We saw the "struggles" of this physicist about "his" invention? Well, it was mostly other people who did real physics work on the project after they opened that site. He was the manager. So I am not sure if it's really accurate to call it his invention. He did accept the offer to conduct this project. Does it make him "the father"? It could be someone else. One might say, "oh he was the only person who could do this". I don't think so. If something is bound to happen, someone will emerge to make it happen. From what the movie portrayed, it seems to me that he was just taken away by the idea of bringing together his job and his favourite place (that's close to his brother). Then, he really like being the head/manager of something. Then, he really liked the fame. If the whole point of this movie was to show his struggles about feeling guilty etc, I am not satisfied. Throughout the whole project, he never hesitated to continue the project. He did try to have a say in the usage of the bomb, but he didn't really do that much to claim it, and he had already agreed to work for the military so he should have known that. I am not blaming the guy here, it's already in the past---this is a historical event, I am talking about the portrayals in the movie. 

The centre of the story was not the making of the bomb, the story was told around the "interrogations" R.O. had. At the end, to see that all that was only because of someone's low self-esteem, was not so much of a satisfying ending either (you might claim here that that wasn't the ending, but that's where the story wrapped up, that's my point---the end was "oh I think we might have indeed started that chain reaction", ye ye too cliché because what he means is the repercussions of the bombing event and the soon coming ever-lasting hostility between US and Russia, etc, which might include the speeding up of global warming too). It wasn't even clear to me for the whole movie why Lewis was in a hearing but I guess it was because he had wanted to be appointed to a new position. His hearing couldn't be related to R.O.'s security clearance thing, because they didn't even know it was Lewis who started it at that time. I could go on with so many other unclear things but I will stop here. Maybe I will watch this movie again at home when the time comes, but I doubt that I will write about it again.

Anyways, perhaps if they really had a John Krasinski cameo, I could have given the movie a bit of a higher score. 

I give 7/10.

P.S. I don't know if anybody noticed this but there were literally flies who landed on the cameras when they were shooting, they would come land stay a bit and then fly away. They didn't even care about this even though they cared about the visual quality of the scenes "so much".

Fun fact: Apparently, this movie's actual film length is about 11 miles and the movie is about 3 hours. So you could, if you want, go on a treadmill, and walk about 11 miles while watching the movie on your phone/ipad, because on average it takes about 3 hours to walk 11 miles.

Nobody

The one and only reason I decided to watch this movie (and did watch it) is Bob Odenkirk---well, I also checked out the trailer before watching. You may remember Bob Odenkirk from the series Breaking Bad (or Better Call Saul). He was Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. If you haven't seen Breaking Bad, it's not the end of the world, but it is a good show so you might want to watch it at some point. I guess its popular era has long ended and perhaps it wouldn't struck an audience as strongly as it did 10 years ago (because times are a bit different now) but I'd still say it's worth a shot. Now, after seeing (and liking) Breaking Bad, it's hard not to watch Better Call Saul. Interestingly enough, Bob Odenkirk is not necessarily Saul Goodman in that show but I quite like his character in that show too. 

There aren't many shows/movies I've seen Bob Odenkirk. Another movie I know he was in is Little Women. You can tell the movie is mostly about the women and not the men, so his scenes weren't very long in that movie. Still, his acting was very good. Another tv series I've seen him in is The Office (US). He was a guest in one of the episodes where Pam went to interview at another office and Bob Odenkirk's character was just like Michael Scott---it was really funny. 

Continuing with Bob Odenkirk (as I don't really know any of the other cast members in this movie), I would like to mention that he is also one of the producers of this movie. I think of this as a good thing. Usually, if the main star(s) of the movie are also among the producers team, I think it affects the production in a positive way. I am not in the film industry but I believe that if the main actor is also one of the producers they can also have some say on the script and, also, it means they are actually where they want to be and they are taking this role more excitedly, which in turn, produces a better quality movie.

When I was watching the movie, I was actually surprised as I discovered the character of Bob Odenkirk. Somehow, I am used to seeing him not as the "cool guy" in a given show/movie. He was, in this movie, a cool one. The beginning of this movie reminded me of the beginning of the first John Wick movie. If you watch the movie, maybe you'll see it too. Basically, the motive/reason for all the action to start is similar, although Bob Odenkirk's character still has his wife (alive). Anyone who knows me well knows that I really like action thrillers. But there has to be a meaningful story lying underneath all that action, otherwise I don't like it. So, for example, I like the first John Wick movie but not really the third one (as I couldn't see what was the important meaning for all that fighting). Maybe I will write a review about the latest John Wick movie (the 4th one) later and elaborate on it then.

Speaking of John Wick, as it turns out, Nobody and John Wick were produced by the same production company (although distributed by different companies). They even talked about a cross-over, but it'll probably be something small. We'll see what happens. I guess it might be really exciting for Bob Odenkirk to have a possibility of having a scene with Keanu Reeves. 

If someone is a nobody, this implies that this person is somehow not important and not very well known. This movie is called Nobody and confirming its name, it didn't get wide reception---unfortunately. It was scheduled to be released in 2020 but then because of the pandemic it got delayed....and then people weren't really going to the theatre still back then. Plus, a lot of people had already lost their habit of going to the theatres and most probably still didn't start the habit again to this day (e.g. I personally had rented it and watched it at home). So I think this movie didn't get as much credit/likes as it deserved because of the pandemic. Even though I think the movie didn't get as much as it deserved, its reviews were good enough that they are making a sequel. This is good news! I will be waiting for its release, which will probably be in 2024 at the earliest. 

I grew to like Bob Odenkirk more and more recently. He is a good actor and continues to do good work. I guess I started liking him more after I heard he had a heart attack on set of Better Call Saul (he already got better and went back to set too---this was in 2022). I know it doesn't exactly make sense to like an actor (or his works) for this reason, but obviously this is not the only reason. I think it's only human if you become more sensitive towards someone who recently had a near-death experience. All that is to say, I will probably be following his future works as well. Well, I didn't actually finish watching Better Call Saul. I think I am putting it off because I know it's good and I don't want it to end, and I want to watch it when I am mentally prepared to watch it.

Coming back to this movie, if you appreciate action movies where the action doesn't happen for the sake of only killing and seeing blood but actually there is a meaningful story behind that sets the action sequence, then I believe you will also like this movie. 

I give 7/10.

Dune

As you may know, this movie came out in 2021. If you have been reading my blog, you may also know that I don't only review movies that came out recently. I asked some of my "followers" last week to choose from a certain list of movies to see which one they'd like me to write about for this week. Dune was one of the movies on this list and it got 100% of the votes. So here we are. Don't get me wrong; it's not like I didn't want to write about this movie---it was already on my list (for a long time actually). Now, this was a very long movie, so I must warn you that my review post might also be a bit longer than usual.

When the release date of this movie was approaching, I started hearing about the series of books Dune. All of a sudden, fans of this book series appeared. I had not heard about Dune at all until then. Does that make me really ignorant? I don't know. I wonder where all those Dune fans were before they heard about the movie...None of them had ever mentioned to me reading Dune and liking it. Since I didn't know about the Dune (book) series, I was astonished to see how many people were excited about the movie. To me, it was just another movie (at that point). 

When it first came out, I saw this movie in the theatres. I can't say I liked the movie a lot at that point. I think some parts were hard to understand, especially if you didn't know anything about the story before. In some scenes, there was this women who was doing some prayer and it was not clear to me at all what she was saying most of the time. Oh well. After the movie, I was still a bit astonished---this time I was thinking "what was all the fuss about?". It is good that it wasn't my final decision about the movie.

What happened is I re-watched the movie, this time at home, with subtitles to actually understand the mumbling parts. After that, I started appreciating the movie. In the meantime, I had collected some information about the Dune universe which also helped me appreciate the events in the movie. So, maybe you like the movie already, but let me share with you some of the knowledge.

First of all, a person who has seen the Star Wars series and did not hear about Dune before (like me) might think that the author of the books, Frank Herbert, might have copied quite a few things from the Star Wars series. That would be a cruel criticism. In fact, the truth is that it was George Lucas who took ideas from Frank Herbert's books. Now, I don't know if that changes your opinions about George Lucas (or Star Wars) but hopefully it reduced the resistance you might have had towards Dune. I don't think Lucas ever denied getting ideas from the Dune books so I guess we wouldn't call this stealing, and all is good.

As I mentioned above, there were some words I didn't understand. For example, I would have never thought Bene Gesserit is written like that. Maybe it's just me but I should know the spelling of a word if I were to understand it. So since there was a lot going on that I didn't quite understand the details of, I paid more attention to the visuals. You may remember the desert suit they had to wear. During all those scenes, my mirror neurons were apparently working at peak capacity, and I really felt uncomfortable and sometimes as if I wasn't able to breathe. That mechanism the suit had---I definitely wouldn't want to be in that suit. On the other hand, if I didn't have any other choice to stay alive, I probably would've gotten in the suit but I am not sure how that would go for me.  

Now that we started talking about the desert, let's talk about the desert people and the spice. For a westerner (like a person from North America), maybe these ideas used in the film would look eccentric or authentic. To me, they really weren't. If you are familiar with certain eastern culture and/or studied history of certain civilizations in the east, you can easily detect some of the ideas in this movie/book are taken from eastern cultures. Indeed, it turns out that Frank Herbert spent some time in Vietnam and Pakistan. I believe he learned a lot there. 

If you look at the desert people, their skin, eyes and choice of clothing, doesn't that remind you some society who fit this description already? They are the ones being invaded and they are the ones being enslaved---I don't know, this sounds very familiar to me. Now, the spice. Well, so many nations went to war just because of "spice" in the past, too. That's basically in the world history. Of course, that spice and the spice in the movie are not exactly the same. However, if you think about it they are in the same position according to their context. In the old times, people fought for food, or spice trades. That was the most important thing, to live---food. Now, in the movie, what they call "the spice" is as essential as food was to people who lived in, say, 1450 or 1780. You may not know every country's history, but as an example, the British definitely fought wars over spices (and their traditional food is still pretty plain considering this---also see this). I hope you didn't think I gave legitimate links about wars---they are just memes. You can, however, find the information about Frank Herbert's life I mentioned in the previous paragraph on Wikipedia.

The story of Dune is really taken from past events (history) and just set in the future. Obviously, this is not the only movie or book which had done this. But, maybe because I am so familiar with these ideas, they were so obvious to me and a bit boring. On the other hand, it was also a bit enjoying to see someone is bringing these topics up. Another example is, in the movie, the desert people kind of have their own ways to be able to live in the desert. Basically, others invented suits, etc, but they (the desert people) devised their own ways to navigate in the desert. And the point they made was, you have to learn the ways of the desert if you are to survive. If you look at it, it looks like the desert people don't have much technology and probably considered "behind" but they have their own mystic ways. Well, first of all, this reminds me the fact that until some point in the history the east was definitely the one that was ahead (of the west). East was where philosophical thinking happened, inventions took place, science/technology developed. Not sure what the exact point is but after some point, the west was better than the east somehow. If you think of some ancient civilizations, perhaps you can observe this in some contexts. I mean, the USA came to existence only recently and before that there were no "the best/most prestigious universities" there where the most prominent science/research took place. 

There is no doubt that there are terms and ideas used in the movie with islamic references. I can't say this was interesting to me. What bothers me is that while some areas on earth are full of people with islamophobia, they think it's cool when some ideas from that culture are used in such a movie---because they have no idea that the idea of a mahdi in the movie actually exists in real life stories and that's also where the term comes from. Well, this was just an example but hopefully you get the point. The mystic elements in the movie are just a melange of items from different Middle Eastern cultures and maybe this is a good thing---people with prejudices against Middle East might actually start understanding and liking these cultures. 

The events of the movie take place in a distant future but most things are the same---just masked to look different. I do think the movie touches important subjects. It shows the dynamics in religion and how it plays its role in politics and the power required in politics. I guess the movie is also trying to draw attention to ecological crisis we are facing nowadays but I am not sure if what the audience takes away from this movie. Like, after seeing the movie, do they think "hmm if I don't do anything about global warming now, maybe this will be our future and so I must become an activist now!"? I don't think so. I think people are mostly taken away from the interesting set up in the future (even though some of which was already familiar from Star Wars). 

Now, the movie takes place in a distant future but other than the interstellar travel and big ships, you don't really see that much technology in the daily lives of people. In fact, they might be even using less technology for everyday things than we do now, and that's a bit strange to see in a movie which takes place twenty thousand years into our future. This is strange and makes you think the story is not well established. However, there is actually a reason why things are the way they are in the movie, and you'd know that things make sense if you knew more about Dune universe. So, apparently, before the events of the movie, there was a war and all robots and computers were destroyed. These are not really spoilers. They are just background info to be able to appreciate the movie more.

From my review so far, maybe you think I didn't like this movie, but I actually did. I am definitely waiting for the sequel and I will watch it too. Before I finish, I will try to briefly go over the performances of the actors. 

Casting Javier Bardem is probably the best decision the cast directors did. He is a highly respected actor. His performance was, of course, pretty good in this movie. I must say though there were some disgusting looking scenes that involved him and if you like disgusting images, maybe you'll enjoy (or enjoyed) those scenes. I don't really like Jason Momoa very much (and I don't see how and why people like him) but his character added depth to the story so I won't complain. Timothée Chalamet is a very good actor, in my opinion, and he did a very good job in this movie. I knew Oscar Isaac from the Star Wars movies first but his character in this movie was quite different and he showed what a good actor he is. I knew Zendaya from the latest Spider-man series. I liked her previously but I am not so sure about now. I am not sure why they cast her for that role, maybe because of the characteristics of her face? 

I seemed to have complained a lot about the oriental elements in the movie but I should admit that it's not like the movie didn't include European elements. So, to be fair, I think Frank Herbert did the best job (compared to any other movie) in the sense that he was able to include features from cultures all around the world. So, in terms of representation, it's hard to find another movie like this where anyone could find something from their own culture or religion, even it might just be one thing. Plus, if you think about it, it is only realistic if both the west and the east are represented in such a universe. 

About seeing and understanding this movie, I think that if you haven't read the books (and/or don't want to read them), it might be worth to befriend someone who did so that you can ask them the questions you have about the movie. I already have such a friend, thankfully, and I asked her a lot of questions, and hearing the answers was definitely helpful. I am not an expert on the Dune books still, but hopefully you learned a thing or two about the Dune universe from this post.

I give 7/10.

The Prestige

This movie was (also) brought to my attention by a 'reel' on Instagram---it is true, I have come to spend more time on Instagram than I used to do in the past. What can you say? It has come fruitful! I guess one can think of it as seeing a trailer. This movie originally came out in 2006 and I had not been informed of its existence until recently. 

The short scene I saw involved an inmate in jail who was being treated harshly and the inmate ended up fooling a guard for which all the other inmates started cheering. I liked this. Sort of a small rebellion. Some jerk being humiliated in front of everyone---a small payment for his bad behaviour. So the movie interested me and I searched for the name of the movie again---you know the deal. 

If you look up this movie and see the director's name and the actor list, you do not need any further convincing to decide to watch the movie. The inmate I mentioned above is played by Christian Bale. Interestingly enough, I have not yet reviewed a movie on this blog starring him yet. It is interesting because I like the actor. Well, I didn't like him as much until 2022, so maybe it's normal.

I did not know that this was a Christopher Nolan movie until the very end of the movie when his name appeared on the screen. This is odd since I had looked up the list of all C. Nolan movies recently and I don't remember seeing this on the list. I guess it happens---I can't remember every single word I read. I must admit, though, when I saw his name on the screen, it all made sense because it was a really good movie. If you think over it a few seconds more you can actually recognize the Nolan style in the movie, although I hadn't noticed it during the movie. Well, now you know it's a Nolan movie, so you might have a different experience with the movie than I did. Or, maybe you have seen the movie and still didn't know the director! Then, maybe you'll share the same thought processes with me. In any case, gentle reader, I hope you are a person who likes Nolan movies.

What did I mean when I said "the Nolan style"? I won't coin this phrase but it's something I just made up. What I try to say with it is the mind-bending aspect of his movies. Nolan is also a director who likes to work with some of the people he already worked with before again---this is another part of his style. Maybe you can guess who I mean here: Christian Bale and Michael Caine. He really keeps casting them! It's as if I am complaining but I really can't because I also like these men. After Nolan worked with M. Caine in Batman Begins, he re-hired Caine in The Prestige, and The Dark Knight (okay, this was the same character), and then Inception, then The Dark Knight Rises, then Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet! Here you go, count these and then if you ever go to a trivia night where the question is "How many Christopher Nolan movies did Michael Caine appeared in?", you know the answer! You know, one side of me wants to say, are you just casting your friends? But that's obviously not true, and I highly enjoy Caine's performances in Nolan movies. Similar things happened with Bale but I won't go into much detail here. Maybe another good trivia question would be "how many movies featured both Christian Bale and Michael Caine?". That's a good question. Before I go back to our movie, I'll just mention here Nolan's upcoming movie Oppenheimer. If you check its cast, you can see that it's really promising to be an incredible movie---we'll just have to wait a few more months until it comes out, though.

Back to our movie. If you like psychological thrillers and/or mind-bending movies, you'll like this movie. I should definitely let you know that this movie is not one of those "sit back and relax" movies, it's more like a "sit back and pay attention" movie. You should pay attention to the movie while watching, if you really want to enjoy it. Here's my experience with the movie in terms of the timeline: First half an hour, I found the movie to be boring. Don't stop reading yet though. The next 45 minutes, I started thinking "hmm, maybe this movie is interesting". Then it was really interesting (and I thought "hmm this is a good movie") for the rest until the very end. At the very end, my opinion changed. My verdict was that it was a really good movie. So my advice is that if you watch this movie, don't give up in the first 30 minutes. 

Why was I bored in the first 30 minutes? There might be many factors which determined my mood at that time. However, I think it might be because I didn't find the rivalry of two magicians interesting. This is really about one's own likes. Maybe you do like magicians and maybe you won't find any minute of the movie boring. I think that this movie is one of the examples where the synopsis is very misleading. If you read it, it would say "oh there are two stage magicians and they are in rivalry" which is true in terms of the story. However, there are really a lot more interesting things happening...although I won't give you spoilers. These interesting/weird things don't start right at the beginning, hence my boredom at the beginning.

When you see "psychological thriller" and "mind-bending" in the description of a movie, maybe you already know to expect a plot twist. If you like movies with plot twists, I strongly believe that you will like this movie. Was this a spoiler? I don't think so. You'll see what I mean when you watch the movie. I do enjoy successful plot twists. 

Speaking of a plot twist, I want to talk about Christian Bale's performance/character in this movie. I don't know if you've seen him in American Psycho but I think his character in this movie might have been even more psycho than his character in the movie American Psycho. After the movie ends, you kind of think back and realize some things which are things that left me speechless. I recently saw a part of one of Christian Bale's interviews. He is being asked "how long do the characters stay in your head?" and he answers "Do they ever leave?". I must say, this is really concerning to me after seeing American Psycho. Also, The Prestige even if somehow you don't count American Psycho. So, now, after seeing this interview bit, I think I like Christian Bale a bit less but it is a crystal-clear fact that he is a talented and successful actor.

The movie also features Nikola Tesla which is one of the interesting aspects of the movie. You may wonder: how did Tesla come into this story/movie? Well, I guess you'll have to watch the movie for this or read the plot online (which I don't recommend because it would ruin the movie) but I can tell you this much: in the "olden" times, science was also magic. So here is your connection to Tesla.

Lastly (about actors), and briefly, I will mention Hugh Jackman. If you have been reading my posts, there is a good chance that you already know I like to see Hugh Jackman in movies. It was nice to see him in this movie too. His character was nice and his performance was good (although maybe not spectacular, but that's okay). 

Perhaps it is apt to finish this post by explaining the name of the movie. The association I'd make with the word prestige is definitely not the one the movie meant. Apparently, a magic act has three parts: the pledge, the turn and the prestige---they give this information in the movie, I had no idea before. It says that this last part is crucial to a magic act (or illusion/performance) and without it there is no point of the magic act. In a sense, if this whole movie were an illusion (and it technically is), the last part (or the end of the movie) is The Prestige part and it all makes sense because that's when the audience claps. In fact, I am not making this up, the film makers really tried to structure the screenplay according to this and knowing this actually explains my perception of the movie in three parts as mentioned above. By the way, this movie is actually based on a book, so we shouldn't pass without giving the credit. It is true that the film makers did an excellent job but the story was pretty good to begin with.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, I strongly suggest you see it at your earliest convenience (given that you satisfy at least one of the conditions mentioned above about liking the movie, e.g. if you like Nolan movies).

I give 8/10.

The Father

This was a good movie. However, I must admit that I didn't understand it all and was very confused several times during the movie. But, I think, this was supposed to happen. 

The movie is about a father, as you can probably guess from the name of the movie. The father has dementia and a daughter (as it seems). If you know what dementia is about, then you can guess that the father keeps forgetting things and often lives in a past reality (or perhaps unreality). This part was what was particularly confusing to me, and I believe, to the audience in general. You see certain things happening, there is what the father is saying, and what his daughter is saying. Since you know the father (Anthony Hopkins) has dementia, you first think that the daughter is right (and telling things that are true) and the father should be the one who speaks nonsense sometimes. 

Surprise! After a while, you start questioning---at least I did. You question the reality of the daughter. At times, the father confuses the caregiver for his daughter. At least, that's first what you think. Then, the father makes such statements that you start thinking "well, maybe he was right and the daughter was gaslighting him". Who knows? I still don't know. Nevertheless, I highly enjoyed the movie because I think this confusion was intentional. I think, the film makers wanted to leave the audience with such a complicated state of mind to make them get close to feeling what dementia is like. It was a success. I feel that I did get one step closer to understanding the mind of dementia. At the end of the movie, I still was not certain what was real and what was unreal. So, if you watch the movie and understand everything, please enlighten me! 

The director's cut was important to presenting the layers of a mind with dementia and I think the director of this movie did a very good job on that. 

When it comes to the actors and actresses, the performances were again spectacular. 

Anthony Hopkins, well, he is Anthony Hopkins, so that needs no comment. We knew his performance was going to be great and it is. 

Olivia Colman. I first knew her from the series Broadchurch (which is a really good show by the way, you should watch---it stars David Tennant and it is a detective story and a psychological drama, it is quite intense). After her role in Broadchurch, I started liking her. Then I saw her in a movie called The Lost Daughter which is again a really good movie. I know that she is also in The Crown but I haven't seen The Crown yet---it is way too popular these days, maybe I will get to it in a few years. It is always a pleasant experience to watch her performance and, good news, she will be in the Marvel television series The Secret Invasion (that is, good news, if you like MCU productions and Olivia Colman). I do follow Marvel productions and knowing that she will be in this series makes me more expectant of the series. Also, if you don't know, David Tennant was the 10th doctor in the British series Doctor Who. He is a great actor whom I follow the works of (mostly). If you like podcasts, he does a podcast called David Tennant Does A Podcast for which he took Olivia Colman as his guest for the first episode. It was a quite enjoyable (very British accent-heavy) conversation they had. 

Mark Gatiss. Well, I know him from his roles in both Sherlock and Doctor Who. He was also involved with the writing of some of the episodes of Doctor Who's latest seasons---I don't think he did such a great job but of course it is hard to be better than Steven Moffat. Mark Gatiss is a good actor (and also British) but he is not as great as David Tennant or Olivia Colman in my eyes (or heart). Still, it was nice to see him in this movie.

Watching this movie, even as a (relatively) young person, made me think of the upcoming old age times I have ahead of me. As I said, the movie is quite thought provoking. Perhaps, if I watched this movie in an older age, I would be watching it mostly with horror, who knows?

I must say, there is a ton of movies/series or books on dementia or Alzheimer's, but I think this one sticks out as one of the best so far (among the movie ones). I don't know you, but I enjoy watching movies about people with dementia as they can be mind-bending which is something I often look for in a movie.

In the end, I am quite glad I have seen this movie. They are actually making a prequel to this movie, called The Son, starring Hugh Jackman. I definitely plan to watch this prequel. Will I write a review about it, too? Only time will tell.

I give 9/10.

P.S. This is the 2020 film The Father, not any other, but you could probably make that up by yourself from the list of actors.

A Man Called Ove

This movie was brought to my attention on Instagram while I was scrolling through 'reels'. (Yes, apparently, that's something I do now). Although, I shouldn't have said 'was brought to my attention' because I really had to search for the name of the movie. Basically, someone posted a video of a scene from the movie, I saw that, and I was impressed by the scene. This person did not hashtag the movie! Well, then you go on to comments and try to find someone who is not simply lying (because they do that too), and get the correct name of the movie from there. It must have been quite a scene to have moved me that much and go through all that effort, right? I won't tell you the details of the scene but I can tell you this much: it was at a train station and it involved life-saving. You'll understand which scene this was once you watch the movie.

Okay, then, I searched the movie with that name on the internet, confirmed it existed. Put it on my list, i.e. just kept it in mind---there is no written list. Later, I decided to find this movie so that I can watch it. It wasn't on any platform that I had subscription to. In the end, I found it on a streaming platform (completely legal) and watched it with ads.

That was quite the introduction to my journey leading to this movie. Let's start talking about the movie itself now. The movie is not in English and I think the people in the movie were speaking a bit fast, or the English subtitles in that platform just appeared late and disappeared early, who knows? I was able to read them 99% of the time but still, if you are tired, maybe you don't want to read that fast (and I was tired). I must say, if you are fluent in Swedish you won't need the English subtitles. 

Before going any further, I must also state here that this movie, A Man Called Ove, has won many awards. I won't list them here as you can check that on Wikipedia. It's based on a book of the same name by a Swedish author named Fredrick Backman. I liked the movie a lot but I am not sure if I would read the book. The movie was quite good and I am afraid that if I read the book it might ruin the movie for me (due to all that 'books are always better than the movie adaptation' thing).

Who is Ove? Obviously, he is the main character in the movie. The movie takes place when Ove is an old man but also provides some flashbacks from when he was younger (played by a different actor) to give a better understanding of Ove's personality and, hence, the story. Ove is a lonely person who has nobody. He makes it up to the age of 59 but doesn't want to go anymore after some point. I can see how an old person in Sweden can feel so lonely and would consider suicide for the following reasons. I know that Sweden is a country which historically has had a high suicide rate, the main reason being dark, long winters. But also, their culture has a great effect on it too. I don't know Swedish culture very well but suicide may not be perceived the same as in other cultures. Additionally, I personally believe that the fact that they have an individualistic society also has a huge impact on getting lonelier as you get old.

Back to the movie. The reason why Ove wanted to commit suicide was not the weather. As I mentioned above, it is loneliness. And, there is a reason why I wrote the previous paragraph. As the movie progresses, there are certain factors that come into play and help Ove overcome his loneliness (and ruin his suicide attempts). For example, there is a new neighbour. This neighbour is Persian. I strongly believe that the author chose the nationality of this neighbour on purpose. In the end, I believe this movie depicts the outcomes of individualism/collectivism in the context of loneliness with regards to suicide. It is due to the collectivist nature of the Persian neighbour's culture that Ove starts getting a sense of belonging and feeling connected to others.

Now, enough about suicide. The movie is actually not that dark. It is categorized as a comedy-drama. I would say, though, the comedy part is a bit like a dark comedy, at least to me. There were many moments I laughed and some of them were maybe for things that are actually sad.

I highly enjoyed the personality of Ove. He is an old person and from a completely different culture than mine, but I found many common traits between him and me. He is a grumpy man (giving others a hard time) but there were moments I was still on his side because I thought he was right (although it seemed like nonsense). By the way, I didn't mean the grumpiness when I said 'common traits', but who knows, maybe it is among them---I can definitely be grumpy sometimes. I believe anyone who watches this movie will find something in Ove from themselves (either from their lives or personalities, or both).

Okay, I can't finish this review without mentioning the remake of this movie. It's a movie called "A Man Called Otto". Now, there is a good movie and of course the US had to make it again because they know it will bring money. They see a good movie and they feel the urge to Hollywoodize it. Maybe you can tell from the tone that I am not exactly happy they remade this movie. What they did is they changed the name of the characters (it's still based on the book I mentioned above) for English ones and chose Tom Hanks as the lead actor. I haven't seen this movie yet---and I am not sure if I ever will. I am sure they also changed the brand of one of the cars in the movie (spoilers). I hope they didn't change the nationality of the neighbour because there is a reason why it was chosen that way. From what I can tell without watching the movie, I think they changed it to a Mexican person, which might still work, i.e. make sense, because Mexico also has a collectivist culture. Nevertheless, I still think it should have stayed as someone with the Middle Eastern culture. The movie is probably still pretty good because it's still based on the same successful story and Tom Hanks is a good actor but I'd recommend sticking to the original one---A Man Called Ove (2015). 

I just mentioned Tom Hanks being a good actor, I shouldn't conclude without saying that the performance of the actor who played Ove (Rolf Lassgård) was also outstanding---he actually won a best actor award for it too. Among the awards this movie has received, there is one that's for makeup and hairstyling, which I don't quite get why.

I give 9/10. 

The Last Duel

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was at the theatre waiting to see another movie. The trailer didn't catch my attention until I noticed Adam Driver. I have known him after his Ben Skywalker performance in the contemporary Star Wars series. Not that I like him very much, it was just about recognizing a face, hence getting my attention to the rest of the trailer. At that point, I thought this movie was going to be about King Arthur. 

Second time I saw the trailer for this movie, I was at the theatre waiting to see another movie. This time I remembered that I had seen this trailer before and this time I watched it more carefully. Then understood the story more correctly this time---it had nothing to do with King Arthur, my bad. From the trailer, one can deduce at least two things, it is a period movie and there is a woman to whom nobody believes she's telling the truth about something. This is something I can empathize with. 

Finally, the movie came out and this time I went to the theatre to see the movie itself, not its trailer. Along the way, I had learned that the movie is based on a book and the book is based on a real story. Knowing this made the movie much more intense---it was already going to be an intense movie. 

I have already mentioned Adam Driver. His performance was not bad. He played a bad guy. If he keeps playing bad guys in movies, I am afraid it might stick to him. Oh well, not my problem. Matt Damon looks very different in this movie. Not only he is older now but also the beard style and the hair they gave him makes him hard to recognize. His acting performance in this movie was definitely fantastic. Jodie Comer, you might remember her from Free Guy. Who knew she is gradually becoming a big actress. Her role, specifically, was a role that is tough to undertake. Ben Affleck looks very different in this movie, too. I had a hard time recognizing him even though I knew he was going to be in the movie (I know I am bad with faces but, I mean, they made him blond). I definitely wouldn't want to be friends with Ben Affleck's character---he is a horrible person.

The story of the movie takes place in 1300s. Right, you get to see how daily life was in those days. How their houses were, how their clothes were, etc. All that is good. But you also see how their understanding of science was in those days and how their understanding of justice was. This struck me the most. Of course, we all know science developed over the years so it was expected that they didn't know much in those days. Still, seeing them talk that way, was sad (and funny---because we know the right explanations now). It was extra painful to see the place of the women in that society. How hard they attacked the woman in the trial with such personal questions stupefied me. 

You may wonder, well, this movie is called The Last Duel, but is it really the last duel? Yes, in fact, it is. The duel that takes place in this movie is the last judicial duel in France. Normally, it wasn't going to be the last duel, because the last duel had already happened---trial by combat was discontinued in the country. But there was an exception in this case and they were allowed to do trial by combat when the court hearing was inconclusive. So, here you go, you can watch the last officially recognized judicial duel at cinemas now. Of course, the person who allowed this duel to happen was King Charles. Speaking of which, maybe not earlier in the movie but later in the movie, the actor who plays Charles (Alex Lawther) performs spectacularly. Especially, you should pay attention to him when he is watching the duel.

The movie starts with the set up of the last duel, then takes us back to show the events that led to this duel, then concludes with how the duel went and who won. I must say the director is showing off with this movie. Ridley Scott is really a talented director. You may perhaps remember him---he was the director of the movie Alien. Let's look at "then takes us back to show the events that led to this duel" closer. It shows us the events in three chapters. No, not by breaking the timeline into three, but by breaking the perspectives into three. In all three chapters, the timeline and events are the same. Same scenes shot again and again. Each chapter is how the events took place in a main character's eyes. Things happen very differently in some instances and they are only slightly different in other instances. The last chapter is how events happened through the eyes of the woman. And they show it to you the last because only she knows the truth (and so you wait very anxiously till the end to see the truth---at least I did). 

Now, you may wonder, wasn't it boring to watch the same events over and over again? The answer is no. It is true that the events were essentially the same but seen or interpreted by someone else each time so there were some differences. The first chapter is how Jean de Carrouges perceived the events and the second chapter is how Jacques Le Gris perceived the events. Since they were at war and at other places together, the first two chapters had many repeated events. But in the third chapter, when we are seeing the events from the eyes of Marguerite de Carrouges, things change up a bit since technically she was at home while the men were at war and she wasn't in the story until she married Jean. If the third chapter had repeated all the same as the first two chapters, I think it would probably have been boring but this wasn't the case so boredom was successfully avoided.

This method of showing the events was a nice touch on this movie. I had thought, since they were called 'chapters' on the movie screen too, that this was how the book was written. But, no. I checked the book and so this must really be the director's idea. Or, perhaps it's the writers of the movie which, I must add here, includes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. In any case, the praise goes to the movie.  

I give 8/10.

Venom 2

I don't want to say all but I think it is safe to say most of the psychopaths are created by their traumatizing childhoods. In the case of movies, these are the main villains. In this movie, the main villain was locked up in a place for 'special' children when he was just a child. The traumatic events of that place drove him insane over time. As he did pretty bad things as an adult too, he was then locked up in prison. 

The main villain somehow gets tissue from Venom and becomes a host for a variant of Venom (or, should I say descendent of?). It is not clear how reproduction of lives in Venom's planet happens. However, somehow this villain becomes what he calls himself Carnage. He is much more disgusting than Venom, or the other symbiotes from the first Venom movie. In fact, I don't even think Venom looks disgusting. 

As I have been mentioning ever since the beginning of my posts on this blog, I am a fan of action but not a fan of disgusting images. To reflect how much of a psycho serial killer the main villain is and also to fulfill the name Carnage, I guess the film makers found it imperative to make this Carnage guy look disgusting enough. But the question is...what did this add to the movie? I don't think it was necessary to go so far. 

The movie spends a lot of time on the back story of this villain and it is a good story too but it is not very well-established. They also spent lots of time on his lost lover, but it didn't have a big role in the story ending so I don't think it was that much necessary---unless the character will come back in a later movie. Since they spent so much time on all of these other things, there wasn't much of (or enough of) Venom-Eddie interaction. 

Apparently, from the comments on the first movie, the film makers understood that the audience enjoyed Venom-Eddie interactions very much and wanted more of it in the future Venom movies. Even though they thought they understood what we meant, that's not what they did. What they did was to make them fight each other---so not that much talking either. I don't know about others but what I was looking for was having them converse with each other in contexts of day-to-day activities. Tom Hardy does a great job in being Eddie Brock and in being Venom. So I wish there were more of him in the movie. (Note: it is possible that there was enough of him in the movie but I am the one who can't get enough of him.) 

What I think of this movie: I guess the best part of this movie was the after-credit scene. This is like how the best part of my 6-month stay in Paris was that I went to visit Belgium. I guess it is a bit of a spoiler but I will try to keep it brief. In the after-credit scene you see some connections to Marvel Cinematic Universe. It a known fact that this movie was made by Sony pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment, so it's not like I gave away something that wasn't known. 

The message I get from this movie is "Don't abuse children as it may turn them into psycho serial killers." It is possible that it wasn't their intent to give this message in the movie, but this is what the movie comes down to in my mind.

Before I close, I would like to compare this movie with the first Venom movie. I think the first one was better because the story was better established. I wonder if the main reason for this is the shorter length of the second movie---it is only 15 minutes shorter but I guess you could say a lot in images in 15 minutes. Also, I like the soundtrack of the first Venom movie more. Perhaps the third Venom movie will be better than the first two. I guess we'll have to wait a couple of years to see that.

I give 6/10.