D.Moore

A riveting spectacle. Action-packed, but also sensitive, unexpectedly impressive and moving in the end. And always entertaining. The kind of film that almost makes you forget it's "just" animation.

The balance of the previous film, which playfully combined nostalgia with new characters and followed up naturally, is sadly gone. For some unknown reason, they didn't want to give us what they promised last time, and so the original team certainly didn't return to action; on the contrary, it seems to me that they did even less (with the possible exception of Dan Aykroyd). Thus, the most interesting character remained Phoebe, played by Mckenna Grace. It's not a bad movie at all, but I saw it a week ago and I almost don't know what it was about anymore. And that's never a good thing.

Adam Wingard picks up where he left off, and what he did so well last time, he does again. The point is that Kong, Godzilla and the other monsters are once again regular characters, well acted and much more interesting than the human ones, and they carry the film comfortably for almost two hours, with the humans there mainly for scale. I was really hoping to see those who played the monsters among the cast in the end credits, because they would have deserved it just as much as Andy Serkis did once. Kong in particular is great, because he acts like Arnold Schwarzenegger at his best and his facial expressions and whole body language is SO funny! The action scenes are also fun and imaginative, and I liked the music... That the movie is better than the last few Transformers didn't surprise me so much, but that I enjoyed it more than the last two Jurassic Worlds did, that yes.

If Drive-Away Dolls had been made by someone else and I could have criticized them for imitating the Coens, it would have been better. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke do their best, but I still felt like I'd seen most of the movie before and not much surprised me except the contents of the briefcase. Plus, Margaret Qualley pushed the envelope a little too hard in my opinion.

While not particularly exceptional, still a fine fantasy adventure that has a climax, a likeable heroine, and a totally, totally, totally great dragon by Patrick Tatopoulos. Among other monsters, he once designed, for example, Emmerich's Godzilla, and it's clear he still knows his craft, this dragon is no B-movie monster, but a real character with a very scary face.

Many a live-action series can envy Blue Eye Samurai its... Well, everything. The characters, the story, the aesthetic, the entertainment value, the inventiveness, the obvious love that went into making it all, which Amber Noizumi and Michael Green rightfully get back.

I liked the book, but not wholeheartedly, but what bothered me about it is not in the film. It just focuses on the essentials, and that benefited Spaceman tremendously. A melancholy meditation on solitude, silence and separation that is definitely not for everyone, but it will reward those viewers who get the message all the more. Adam Sandler is once again perfect, and so is Hanus voiced by Paul Dano. It's a pity we can't make a film like this ourselves.

What The Empire Strikes Back is to A New Hope, Dune: Part Two is to the previous film. In short, it's a perfectly natural sequel that doesn't suffer from the infamous ills of second parts, but continues to develop the story, stretching it out to unexpected breadth and depth, and from the opening scene gives the impression that last time it was just a set-up of pieces on a chessboard and a few tentative but thoughtful moves, but the real game only begins now. Stunning is probably the word that describes Dune: Part Two in every possible way. The elaborate script, the breathtaking desert scenery in particular, the believability, the palpability, the actors and actresses who just really are those characters. Even those unfamiliar with the source material will easily understand what makes Herbert's work special when they see all the unexpected turns the plot takes. Special mention must again go to Hans Zimmer, who probably hasn't composed anything decent since the last Dune because he was working on the second part. As was the case with the last film, I now have no choice but to believe that I will see the next installment(s), because all those ajar doors and gates are just so very tempting.

I like films to reflect the time in which they are set by the way they are made. For example, Madam Web is set in 2003, which is also the year of the infamous Daredevil, which was very similarly bad, but better in that it at least had a coherent plot and not many people remember it anymore. Madame Web, on the other hand, is a fresh comic book flick. It makes no sense, it's boring, at best bizarre, at best unintentionally funny, but that's up to the audience's benevolence. I was initially entertained harmlessly, the film promising me in the first half hour or so that it would focus on Cassandra as well as the Parker family, that it would tell us something about Spider-Man's parents, uncle and aunt that we didn't know or hadn't seen, and that Madame Web would play some significant role in their fates. But alas. I'm not sure why, but the writers decided to flick the proverbial switch to another, ultimately literally dead-end track full of clichés and dullness.

The title doesn't lie. But I was more stunned than dazzled by everything that was happening everywhere and all at once, and I didn't buy on it, even at the end, when it turned out that it made sense and they obviously knew what they were doing and why. If they had only done it for maybe an hour and a half, it would have been more digestible for me. I enjoyed it, Michelle Yeoh is amazing, and the film  straddles genres in a beautiful way, as if was directed and written by Bong Joon-ho... But it's far from him.