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).