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. 

Infinite

Before I start, I must admit that the only reason I wanted to see this movie was because it is called infinite. But I had seen the trailer too and it seemed more or less interesting, so here we are. Let's start. 

"Who wants to live forever?" I reside with Queen on this subject, I wouldn't want to live forever. I guess everyone comes across with this idea in life at least once. I remember when was in primary school, there was a discussion about how you can be immortal---you will die for sure, so you could create an art piece or something to make your name immortal. Being immortal, or having eternal life, has a lot of implications. I came across with this subject in other shows before, like Doctor Who and Lucifer. 

In Doctor Who, there is a character who has immortality. What happens after some time is that the person becomes more and more sad because all the loved ones are passing but also the person becomes a bad person over time, loses the sense of morality. When I observed what happens to this character in this show, I really agreed with the screenwriters. Their point was that even though the person is immortal, it's still the same body over many life times, in particular, it is the same brain. So eventually, after certain number of lifetimes, the person doesn't even remember what kind of person he/she used to be to start with. I think this is an accurate depiction of what would happen if a human had immortality. 

Similarly in Lucifer, the show takes on the case of Cain (from the Bible)---he is cursed to walk the earth and so he was on Earth ever since, living many many life times. What happens is, he gets sick of being immortal, he just wants to die. So, being immortal is actually a curse contrary to common sense where people envy being immortal. 

In this movie, Infinite, they take on the same subject. According to the movie's story there are certain individuals on earth who are immortal in the following sense: when they die they are born again in another body. So it is pretty much reincarnation, but in the movie, not everybody has this. And the people with this "gift" are smart enough (or train themselves) to remember their previous lives to establish a collective knowledge. Basically, they have eternal lives, but I guess they couldn't call the movie that (because of Marvel implications), but called it infinite because they have infinitely many life times? It is extra sad for me when certain math related terminology is inaptly used. 

There are two groups of people within this kind of gifted individuals. Some of them wants to use their knowledge to help humankind, some of them wants to eradicate all life on earth sometimes. The first group has the vibes of Eternals from Marvel comics, the second group is exactly like Thanos in Endgame---let me eradicate all life. In fact, almost every idea in this movie was just like imitating other successful movies. The main character somehow did not remember his previous lives and most of the movie he did not know who he was---very much like what happens in Bourne movies. 

The main character was played by Mark Wahlberg. In the trailer, they made it look like Mark Wahlberg is such a big guy, very well-known and famous. I actually did not recognize the name at all. When I looked it up, the only movie he was in that was familiar to me was The Shooter, which again wasn't an extremely famous movie. Later, I learned Chris Evans was going to play the main character but he had to drop out because he was filming another show at the time, and so they have found Mark Wahlberg instead of him. It was probably one of the best things that happened to Chris Evans---definitely a good thing he didn't do this movie. Okay, maybe if he was in it, the movie would become a bit better but the story of the movie is the same, so I don't think it would catch a huge success.

In conclusion, this movie is more like a wanna-be movie than being its own movie. Let me combine ingredients from movies that have been already successful and make a soup movie (!). I can't think of a single original thing in this movie. I am usually in for action-packed stuff, so I watched it, but it is really an unsuccessful movie. It is extra sad when a movie named with a math term is unsuccessful. And, they have the infinity sign, which looks like a Mobius strip, on the movie poster too---such a shame. 

I give this movie 5/10 and that's only because I have a soft heart when it comes to action movies.

Peter Rabbit and Peter Rabbit 2

You might be thinking that these movies are for children and hence further might be wondering why I have watched them and/or writing a review about them. What I think is that these movies aren't only for children and, independent of this, I think that adults (or parents) should also watch kids movies. I can assure you that I am old enough---it is a fact that I grew up with the original Looney Tunes series (which I will probably come back to in a later post). So I indeed watched the Peter Rabbit movies as an adult, not as a kid. 

Some can even argue that these two movies aren't for children. More specifically, they aren't good for children, so children shouldn't watch them. Apparently, there were some parents who boycotted the first Peter Rabbit movie because of something said in the movie regarding allergies, which brings me to my second point about why parents should watch kids movies. I am not a parent yet but I'd like to watch kids stuff to evaluate them. Although I must admit if the age level decreases enough it becomes unbearably boring, I find some of them fun too. After all, everybody still has a kid version of themselves inside them somewhere, right? (hopefully). And we have got to feed this kid so that they don't die.

Anyhow, I am a person with a lot of allergies and I wasn't offended by the allergy "joke" in the movie. Perhaps the other parents are right about boycotting it but I wouldn't have a problem with my children watching this movie. It teaches lots of good things. e.g. how the land was the animals' before we came. Although I agree with this, it doesn't stop me from being upset if I find a bug in my apartment---technically it was their land first and we came and built a building, oh well.

My favourite part of the movie was the rooster scenes. Such a good depiction of the excitement of roosters for the morning: "The sun came up again!?!? I can't believe it! I thought I closed my eyes last night that that was it! But we have another day of this? Wahaaa". All these years...we have wondered what roosters were talking about at the dawn like that or what was there to be so excited about. Apparently, it was this. I mean, it makes perfect sense. It also made me think that maybe it is a non-dangerous idea to be happy if the sun comes up. Although, in this case, the rooster thinks it came up because he cock-a-doodle-dood, but it's fine.  

Another rooster scene: "No way! The sun came up again!? If I knew this was going to keep happening, certainly wouldn't have fertilized all those eggs. Now, I have to stick around till they hatch and be present and involved." Okay, so I think this is a more serious point that parents should be concerned about (if they really wanted to boycott the movie for a reason). I thought this was funny because I am an adult. I don't think it is a nice thing to say though, certainly wouldn't want any child to hear this from their parents. In any case, I like that they included these things for adults to enjoy. 

Another nice thing in the movie was the rabbits apologizing by touching foreheads. It just looks like a genuine apology when you do it that way. Touching foreheads inevitably makes you physically close to the person you are apologizing to, it establishes a connection. I am sure some release of hormones is involved when you do that. When I was younger, my aunt told me that hugging enhances your relationship with a person, or maybe she said something similar to that. She also mentioned that it releases certain hormones so that you become a happier person in general (this is actually supported by science). But her point was that I should hug her. On the other hand, the 12th doctor on Doctor Who says "Never trust a hug, it's just a way to hide your face." So, yeah, I am all confused now. Thankfully, we are in the midst of a pandemic so there isn't much opportunity to hug anyone so I don't have to make a decision about this right now. 

Domhnall Gleeson plays one of the live action characters in the movie. I know him from the contemporary Star Wars movies (episodes 7-9). I had liked his performance as General Hux very much. His facial expressions were full of angst as Hux and in fact he makes the same faces a bit in this movie too. Since I remembered him from the Star Wars movies and his scenes in those movies are mostly on their battleship, I was delighted by it when there was a mention of his eye colour, in the Peter Rabbit movie, being green with a touch of battleship grey. Interesting fact, he was also in Harry Potter series as Bill Weasley. I definitely did not remember him from the Harry Potter movies.

When it comes to voice actors who voiced the rabbits, I will start by someone from Star Wars again: Daisy Ridley. She voiced one of the rabbits in the first movie but did not do it in the second movie---how rude. The main character rabbit (Peter) was voiced by James Corden. I know James Corden from Doctor who series. He had adventures with the 11th and the 12th doctors. Even though he was only in a couple of episodes somehow it felt like he was there all along. As it turns out, he also has his own talk show, which I didn't know about until very very recently. He has this voice tone which makes you think he is familiar to you, I think that's what made me feel comfortable having him in the Doctor Who episodes. Consequently, it was nice to have him voice Peter Rabbit, too. Margot Robbie voiced one of Peter's sisters who also happens to be the narrator of the movie. I think it was a great voice performance. 

About Peter Rabbit: The Runaway, the second Peter Rabbit movie: The voice actors were mostly the same. As I mentioned above, Daisy Ridley did not reprise her role which caused a lot of confusion for me because I had assumed it was her and when I heard some of the weird noises her character did in this movie I was wondering how Daisy Ridley were making those noises. Thankfully, it turned out it was someone else. 

In the second movie, the most striking point of the movie (to me) was: if you tell your child that they are bad, they will become bad. I am familiar with the idea that if the parents tell the child that they are behaving bad, they will start behaving bad even if they weren't in the first place. If you keep saying something like this repeatedly, they will just own it. That's what happened to Peter Rabbit in this movie. So I think there is a really good warning for the parents, in this movie. 

Along with Peter's runaway in this movie due to being labeled as scapegoat all the time, there was another main story going on with one of the live action characters, namely Bae. We see Bae writing a storybook about these rabbits in the first movie. In the second movie, the book is published and the sales are going very well. So then a big company makes an offer to her to write more books. But they want to have a say in what she is going to write. She doesn't understand how much she was being played at first but at the end of the movie, she realizes it and quits. Yet again, a lesson for adults given in this movie. I mean, being an author or having academic freedom, belongs to adult world problems. 

Finally, I think one has to consider that these movies are based on a real children's story book from early 1900s, while watching/reviewing/criticizing these movies. I think it is understandable if ideas like big companies kill the genuineness (or any other topic/idea that we would call "classical" in our era) are being treated. Well, to be honest, some things haven't changes since then either, so maybe it is important to bring them up again in movies. However, I do find it boring when such classical ideas being called up again. So I wasn't interested in what's going on with Bae's book---I guess I also somehow knew that she was going to 'learn her lesson' because that's always what happens in movies.

I give 7/10 for Peter Rabbit. 

I give 6/10 for Peter Rabbit 2.

Reminiscence

If you have read my previous posts, you know that I didn't watch the Chaos Walking movie because of Tom Holland and I didn't see the movie Free Guy because of Ryan Reynolds. Now, I did see this movie because of Hugh Jackman. I saw the trailer, it looked partially interesting and partially non-sense. So I thought to myself "if it turns out to be non-sense, what do I lose? At the least, I get to see Hugh Jackman." I had free time and I had movie points to see this movie for free. So I did. 

When I went to the theatre, something was still eating me inside. What if the movie is really bad and then I start not liking Hugh Jackman anymore? That would be obviously a huge inconvenience in life. So while waiting for the movie to start, I went on Wikipedia to check the movie plot and made sure it wasn't non-sense. 

You know, when you go to a movie with the lowest expectations, small things feel like a bonus. In this movie, Hugh Jackman's character was actually an investigator. It is a well-known fact that I like detective/spy-like stories. Well, if you didn't know it before, now you know, and hopefully you know it well. So not long after the start of the movie, there was some detective work involved and I was just happy that the movie turned out to be this way. 

My disappointments about the movie: two things. Hugh Jackman's not-enough beard and the existence of Rebecca Ferguson. The first one is only a small disappointment, but I think Hugh Jackman looks better with a little bit more beard than what was in the movie. When it comes to Rebecca Ferguson, maybe I just didn't like her character because she was close to Hugh Jackman. Even the way she spoke, I did not like. Oh well. 

While I liked the detective work in the movie, the reason for why the detective work was being done wasn't that awesome, so I try not to focus on that. There was a setup in the movie which involved consequences of global warming. I don't think they did this because they are so sensitive about global warming, maybe a little sensitive. Not sure why they chose this setup as it doesn't affect the rest of the story that much---I mean, they could have had something else. Bottomline is it is a future dystopian world. The idea was that after this catastrophic event of the waters rising, people were traumatized and crimes increased. Somehow, people started to use a machine for leisure, a machine that you can go in and re-live your memories. 

Going into a tank with electrodes on your head to access your memories and instead of remembering them re-living them, sounds really good. Sounds a bit dangerous too. There are already a lot of people whose minds are stuck in the past. Giving them such opportunity, they will dwell on the past even more. When I first saw this, I immediately thought of moments that I would want to re-visit. Shortly after though, I thought it doesn't matter. So I wouldn't do it. Of course, it is like a session you go to, and they charge you per hour. So I don't think I would spend money on this. Not to mention, your memories are seen by the people operating the machine.

Like I mentioned, there is a tank half-filled with water. You can see Hugh Jackman's character going into it in the trailer, which makes you think of Wolverine, of course. In addition to this, there is rage and furiousness of the character in the trailer again that you can see because of losing the woman he loved. All of this reminds one of Hugh Jackman's character in X-men series. However, I have decided that this was just the move of the advertisement team of the movie, they did it to attract Wolverine-fans. I do think that it was a bad move. If you put your prejudices away and watch the movie, it is already a good movie. Making it look like Wolverine was actually only intimidating. Although it seems like this tactic worked on me, I actually saw the movie for Hugh Jackman despite the trailer (not because of the trailer).

I give the movie 7/10 and it is not because of Hugh Jackman. Okay, maybe a little bit because of him, but not entirely.

The Suicide Squad

The second suicide squad movie. The first one was just called Suicide Squad, without the "the"---I know, how clever and how different (!). It is almost like having the name Shang and changing it into Shaun for disguise. Oops, what's that? Oh, that might have been a spoiler for another movie. 

There was a point in time where I didn't know about the DC "universe". Well, I heard about them, of course, but I didn't really watch the movies. I always heard this debate going on: Are DC movies better or the MCU? Somehow, there were DC fans and MCU fans, and, they were separate.

First DC movie I watched was Batman vs. Superman. So if you know your DC movies, you can tell how many I had missed. First MCU movie I watched was probably Iron Man 2, but did I watch any other after that? No. In fact, the first Star Wars movie I watched was Rogue One, which isn't even one of the main ones. So I confirm here that I am not a geek or nerd for any of these series, or for any movies at all actually. Of course, this doesn't mean I didn't know about Darth Vader or lightsabers, it is pretty much common knowledge to know these things.

Coming back to present day, I think the first Suicide Squad movie was better than the second Suicide Squad movie. Going back to the debate, I think Marvel movies are much better than DC movies. Though, that won't stop me from watching DC movies. As you can see, I am still following the new DC movies. 

In The Suicide Squad, there was a lot of disgusting images. Just because there is killing doesn't mean you have to make it disgusting. I think somehow it also has something to do with the colour choices they've made for the blood. What I look for in a movie is meaning, not pure disgusting images. If there wasn't any built-up to a character why would you spend time on showing its death for so long? I don't mind the killing and fighting scenes that much, I actually like the action. 

This is the new squad, so the members differ from the previous one. They introduced some animal-like creatures, which can be harshly criticized as "trying to be like Marvel" but I won't do that. I will say that I like Harley Quinn. I'd definitely have liked the movie more if her character took more parts in it. She was in it quite a bit though, so it wasn't so bad. I also liked the small touch about how she was trying to get away from toxic men (after Joker, yeah, that makes sense). There was a girl whose ability was to control rats. Nothing wrong with that, but apparently the movie makers thought she was "the heart of the movie". When I read this, I did not like what I read. I disagree with it but also I don't like the way they put it in words. They must mean she is the emotional piece of the movie, because she is definitely not the most important part of it. 

There was one character which was really interesting, the Polka-dot man. I wish there were more about him in the movie. He dies in the movie, too, so he won't be in any other movies probably. I think the producers also noticed this character was special and tried to draw his story alongside the movie's plot line. However, the movie can only be so long and it wasn't possible to go into much detail. 

What I think of the movie: If it was a 2008 movie, I would think of it as a great movie. Alas, we are in 2021. The movie has a theme like "let's save earth from this alien invasion" with small touches of "oh but aliens are still life forms too so we must be respectful". The story coverage, the messages they want to give, it is all like David Tennant's Doctor Who (which is nice by the way) but since it has been done already, it is not nice for these people to do it again. For me, this is in the past. This isn't what I expect to see in contemporary movies and I don't need those messages to be given to me, I already had them. 

I give 4/10. I wouldn't recommend spending any money to see this movie. I also wouldn't recommend spending any time seeing this movie. But if you really have time and you'd like to complete your seen DC movies and be up-to-date, it might be okay to watch it. But again, if you are nothing like me when it comes to movies, maybe you will love this movie. I must also confess that the disgusting images actually get better later in the movie, so I was okay with it too after a while.

Free Guy

I am definitely not a Ryan Reynolds fan, but I did go to see this movie in theatres twice. In my defence, it was worth it, not because the movie was so great but I just had so many Scene points that I could use at cinemas. So I actually saw it without spending money both times, except the popcorn. But just because I have some scene points to spend doesn't mean I will go see random movies (or random movies twice). So what is it about this movie that made me do this? Not Ryan Reynolds. 

The movie is about a video game. Okay, this is still not the reason because I am not a video game player at all. Last thing I played was GTA:Vice City and perhaps you can guess how much time ago that was. However, I still have some history with video games and so I was able to pick up some hints and appreciate the depictions in the movie although some stuff were attributing to newer video games. 

One can also see this movie as an uprising of an ordinary bank worker but let's just not do that---that sounds really boring. 

In our world, video games are all about us: the players. In this movie, it is about the background characters in the video game. The background characters are just written codes and they don't have free will, which makes the name of the movie Free Guy ironic enough. Now I don't want to give any spoilers because I would recommend that you watch it. So as a person who has seen the movie (twice), I will lay out some reasons why you might like this movie. 

If you are a video game player, you might like this movie (and appreciate it more than I did. Of course, it is also possible that the more you know about video games, the more you will be critical of the movie and hence, the less you will appreciate the movie, who knows?). In the trailer, there is a person entering Free City with a parachute. I have never played any pubg but I do know that your character enters the game from the sky just like in this movie. So, nice tribute there. My favourite was the good-looking women in the game who accompany the players. In GTA Vice City, there would be a girl waiting for you in the car when you finish a mission. It does look very stupid from a real-life point of view when a person gets in the car after burning some buildings and the only thing the girl in the car says is "you are so handsome" as if it was the girl's only purpose in life (and they didn't even know each other before). 

If you are into AI (artificial intelligence) stuff, you might like this movie (even more than I did, because I am not into AI stuff really). We think of the background characters of a video game, or the NPCs (non-player characters), as just some code. Well, an AI is just a code in the beginning, too. I have never thought of ethics of AI, I am sure it is being studied by some people (I hope) so I am not yet sensitive enough to think of an AI as a life form. I don't think I would feel bad if I "killed" my Siri. But when I look back at the times I used to play GTA, I do feel a little bit bad for the people whom I stole the cars.

If you like Ryan Reynolds, you will like the movie and even more than I did (because I have no feelings for Ryan Reynolds, as mentioned above). Although, I must admit that he does choose nice movies to take part in, so it is still a good idea to follow his movies. Also, Joe Keery (he was in Stranger Things) is in this movie, so if you'd like to see him, this is your chance. 

Taika Waititi. He is Korg from Thor: Ragnarok. Actually, my favourite line from that movie is from Korg, "Hey, man. We're about to jump on that ginormous spaceship, you wanna come?". I liked his performance as Korg and his performance in this movie is also pretty good. Yes, Taika Waititi gets his own paragraph out of nowhere. It looks like he is a rising star out of nowhere, too. I had thought he was only a director who agreed to do Korg's voice while directing Ragnarok, apparently this wasn't the case. He even was in the new Suicide Squad movie (which I will write a review about later). So, nowadays, Taika Waititi pops up in almost every movie I watch---I don't know how I feel about this. 

What I think of Free Guy: Little details are well-thought and implemented in the movie. I like that they didn't forget to include glitches in the game because if you know video games, there is always this one NPC who does a pointless thing in the background, like banging to a wall repeatedly, for example. The story is already good but the movie excels in the last part. This is where you get some easter eggs. Of course, jokes and bonuses like these are expected in a Ryan Reynolds movie---yes, he is one of the producers actually. Going back to the reason why I went to see the movie twice: it is about something in the last part of the movie. There is also a cameo in it. Overall, the movie is pretty funny, too. Lastly, the artificial intelligence ends up being really intelligent, and with emotional intelligence too, which I found quite interesting.

Closing remark: the main character, Guy, has a line where he goes "don't have a good day, have a great day!". Okay, this is such a lame thing to say which is probably the point because it's an NPC. However, now it's stuck in my head like a horrible song I can't stop singing. Now I find myself saying "don't have a good x, have a great x" where x is a variable. I am worried this might be a permanent damage to my nerves, but oh well. 

I give the movie 8.5/10. If I were a gamer, I'd probably give 10/10. 

Chaos Walking

This movie got into my watchlist mostly because Tom Holland is in it. Not that I am a huge fan of him, I just like to continue following the work of actors who I already liked some work of. Obviously, I only knew Tom Holland in his spider-man character in the Marvel movies. That wasn't a huge impact on me, hence the "mostly" in my first sentence. I had seen the trailer to this movie way back before the pandemic. It looked dark and interesting, plus I recognized an actor in it, so why not add it to my list? 

A few of the people who know me knows that I have a movie list for the whole year every year. Some people make new year resolutions for the upcoming year, I make a movie list of the upcoming year in which I write all the movies that interest me and that will come out in the new year. Normally, the list works pretty well, most release dates are already planned, etc. But when the pandemic happened, my movie list lost its meaning. It was very hard to keep track of the movies: some got moved to platforms like Netflix, some got postponed (and then postponed again, and again), some movies were bought from other parties and were given new names...It was chaos.

Last time I updated my movie list, I noticed some movies neither got released in theatres nor got moved on to a platform, they just ended up being movies that you can rent or buy. I feel bad for these movies, they got unlucky. Now, I am catching up with the movies that I wasn't able to see in theatres during the pandemic, like Chaos Walking. Before I rented the movie on the internet, I decided to watch the trailer again so that I know the money won't be a waste. 

At one point while searching the movie I had already came across with the information that Daisy Ridley is in it. Yes, Rey from Star Wars. I like both Marvel movies and Star Wars movies, so I thought, "hmm nice this movie has stars from both series, nice combination, cool". But then, when I watched the trailer, I noticed another familiar face. So I went on to Wikipedia to read about the movie. That's when I learned not only the movie has one actor from each of Marvel and Star Wars series but also an actor who had a role in both Marvel and Star Wars series. He was Kaecilius in the first Doctor Strange movie but also Galen Erso in the Star Wars: Rogue One movie. So the intersection is non-empty. The name is Mads Mikkelsen, by the way, and when I first saw the name I, of course, first thought of the Netflix Original series Dark (spoilers?). I even thought maybe he is Ulrich from Dark---I am very bad with faces. Now all my faults aside, let's get back to the movie.

When the movie was starting, I was thinking, does the name mean something like walking in chaos or does it imply some sort of walking in chaotic way? Then appeared some writing on the screen answering my questions: "The Noise is a man's thoughts unfiltered, and without a filter a man is just chaos walking". This pretty much clears up where the name of the movie comes from. In the setting of the movie everyone can hear everyone's thoughts, and they call it the Noise. I believe this was in the trailer or bio of the movie, so it's not really a spoiler. 

Hearing everyone's thoughts...it is not an original idea, but, there is perhaps one thing to notice here. It is not the classical "reading your mind". Instead everyone's thoughts are just loud. The thoughts are projected out in voice or in image form. And then of course there is a thought-control issue. When I say 'everyone', that is all men. Because in the town in the movie, there are only men for some reason. What I would expect in this situation is actually not much noise. I thought men wouldn't have that many thoughts---they tend to think simpler than women, but apparently it is still loud. Now before you call me sexist or anything, I want to point out how the brains of men and women are different. Anyhow, yes, the men in the movie were mostly like cavemen and their thoughts were violent and hence leading to fights. I thought in this situation there would be fights in the town more frequently, but I guess it wasn't too bad. 

When all of your thoughts are projected just like that, it makes you vulnerable. You have to be just the person you are, no hiding. Obviously, this can make many people uncomfortable. In everyday life, this would be horrible, but the setting in the movie is not like how we live right now, so it doesn't involve the usual conflicts that were probably covered in other shows with mind reading in it. The movie takes place in the future and on another planet. One might call it a dystopia and if you like dystopias maybe you should watch this movie. 

What did I think of "the Noise", the projected thoughts? I think the movie did a good job on this. When you are thinking, there is some repetition, not all your sentences are complete, and often you don't make sentences because it is not talking, it is thinking. I really liked how they illustrated this in the movie. They also didn't forget to include images. Sometimes when you think, your brain projects images in your mind. So in the movie, the voice of your thoughts are not picture-like, but what you imagine are like pictures. Also when you dream, someone can literally watch your dream---I thought that was cool. 

This whole thought-image thing being on requires some thought control for some threatening situations. I think controlling your thoughts is much harder than what you see in the movies, that is the movies you have seen by now. We usually see some heroes/superheroes being able to hide their thoughts from other superheroes/supervillains more or less easily. I never thought that would be so easy. In this movie, this is also reflected in a realistic manner. 

Even though it is supposed to be a sad/dystopian movie, there were several moments that made me laugh out loud (not very long laughs though, just a couple of 'ha's). Not that I laugh at people who are suffering, but if you think about it, this whole situation with all one's thoughts being manifested, there can definitely be some silly things (spoilers). 

What did I think of the acting. Daisy Ridley's performance was similar to Star Wars. It was like she was still playing Rey. It's not a completely bad thing, but didn't impress me. Tom Holland's character was well-played, in my opinion.

I won't be criticizing the movie makers on how the story might have been sexist or anything, the movie is based on a book anyways.

It was a good movie, glad I watched it. It actually felt like a gift I received. 

I give the movie 8/10. Well-done (special effects), well-played (by actors).