Ever Have a Morning Like This? (pictures I like)

 

Against the Sky (pictures I like)

 

Thor: The Dark World (a movie review post)

 

MCU #8

So it seems that my general feelings about the Thor movies may have changed over the years. You can read my initial reaction to this movie here. Actually, I'm sure any shifting in feelings about the movies has to do with my feelings about the MCU and how it differs from the MU, which is fine and good. It's a much different time and place now than it was in the 60s when these characters where first being born, and the MCU should be reflective of that, not trying to force a forgotten (except by Boomers) culture on us. Back when these movies were being released, I was still reconciling the difference.

Basically, that means I have come to like the Thor movies, overall, more than I did upon their releases, at least these first two. I love Hemsworth in the role and can't think of anyone who could do the job better than him.

That said, I think I still prefer The Dark World to the first Thor movie and the reason is, simply, Loki. Loki is much more... Loki... in this one, which is as it should be. Also, I don't know of anyone who could do Loki better than Tom Hiddleston, though, thinking about it, I wouldn't mind an Owen Wilson interpretation of the character. I guess they provided the next best thing by having Wilson in the Loki TV show.

Anyway... The Dark World.

I think Natalie Portman is better in this one, which, for me, isn't saying a lot. She's the weakest part of the Thor movies for me. I don't know why, but I have a hard time with her as Jane Foster. Or maybe it's the way the character is written. She gives off a very damsel-in-distress vibe that I find off-putting.

On the other hand, I love Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgard, so there's that.

Jaimie Alexander doesn't get enough props for her performance as Sif. Sif, in general, doesn't get enough attention. She's a great character, and Alexander is wonderful in the role. For Dark World, in particular, the looks she shoots at Foster are gold. And, yet, when she's called on to save Jane, she does it without hesitation.

The biggest change for me upon looking back at the Thor movies is that I have changed my position on the Fandral situation. Possibly, it's due to my general feelings about Zachary Levi working in my subconscious over time, but I think he's much better in the role than Josh Dallas. Of course, the part calls for Cary Elwes but, then, they would have had to kill Fandral in much the same way that Shakespeare had to kill Mercutio.

The only real failing of Dark World is the dark elves. I think that the white masks are supposed to be sinister. Or, maybe, creepy. They're too close to the comical line. I don't understand the reason for the masks. Maybe they're part of the source material; I don't know, but there's no reason provided for them. Then there's Eccleston as Malekith... Fortunately, the role doesn't ask for more from him because the level of acting provided there is about all he's got.

Speaking of the dark elves, why do they have eyes? This has nothing to do with the movie: It's just an errant thought that went through my head as I was thinking about the masks. They are a race born in darkness, before light even existed: Why do they have eyes? No, see, if they had been eyeless, that would have been freaky. Nightmarish, even.

Final analysis is that I thoroughly enjoyed The Dark World. You get not only the Loki-est version of Loki, but you get to see Thor really coming into his own. A Thor who will stand up against his own father, which is no small thing when your father is Odin, to do what is right and is willing to take the consequences for those actions. It's a complete reversal of the Thor we see in the first movie, a Thor who is rebelling against his father for his own glory and is pissed off that there are consequences.

The new MCU rankings!
1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The First Avenger
3. Iron Man
4. Thor: The Dark World
5. Thor
6. Iron Man 3
7. Iron Man 2
8. Incredible Hulk (Maybe he's dropping in rank just because he's so much heavier than the other heroes? Norton's ego does weigh a lot.)

Crawling (pictures I like)

 

An Uninvited Guest (pictures I like)

 

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (a movie review post)

 

I suppose I forgot how much I enjoyed the first Venom movie. I know I have because I went back an read my review and it expresses a degree of appreciation greater than what I remember, which means I should probably re-watch it. Part of the problem is that I have no great liking for Tom Hardy, except, I guess, as Venom, because I clearly enjoyed him in the first movie, and I did again in this one. He is quite good as Eddie Brock.

Still, I was going to skip this one until it "came out on DVD" (LOL), because I had no one to go see it with, BUT my son (the younger one) found out that the post-movie clip ties into the MCU and, so, he wanted to go see it (even though he has not seen the first one). I'm glad I didn't skip it. The relationship between Eddie and Venom is, for lack of a better way to express it, fun. My son laughed all through the first half of the movie.

My impression, without going back and re-watching the first one, is that this one is better. Don't take my word for it.

I do have one complaint... Look, it's me; what do you expect?

This is not exactly about the movie...
I mean, it is, but...

It's Woody Harrelson, okay? I like Harrelson. A lot. And he is really good in the role. Seriously, he is. BUT! But...Look, Harrelson is at least a decade older than me, and they have him playing a guy who is supposed to be in his 20s. And, hey, they do a great job with the makeup. Most of the time, it works but, every once in a while, during a closeup, you can just see his age. And, then, it doesn't work. It feels kind of weird, actually. I feel like Sony could have found someone of an appropriate age to play the part. It's not like Harrelson is any extra draw for this movie. They're not fooling some Boomer into going to see a Venom movie just because Harrelson is in it.

I guess it's a small complaint. It's just... weird.

Michelle Williams may be better in this one? I don't know. She's so generic to me, I feel like she could be anyone. Don't get me wrong, she's fine in the movie. There's not a lot for her to do to allow her to show any real acting talent. Reid what's-his-name, who I think of as Dan-from-Veep who also plays Dan in this movie, has more room to show off. And I like him pretty well.

Look, the movie is really about Venom and the relationship between Venom and Brock, and it completely succeeds at that. The conflict with Carnage is mostly secondary. Oh, which brings me to the only other issue I have with the movie: it's presented as a given that Carnage would want to kill his "father." Why? There's no reason given. Carnage is born and immediately wants to do away with "daddy." No one bothers to wonder why, not even, or especially, Venom. So maybe this is how it is on the symbiote planet? That seems like it would make it difficult to have any kind of society. But it's never addressed, and that one thing is kind of nagging at me.

That said, it's a fun movie. If you don't mind the plethora of dead bodies because, yeah, Carnage lives up to his name. It's not gory, though, or anything like that, but it's clear that Carnage is leaving a trail... um... that's not a big enough word... a freeway of bodies behind him as he goes. He kills everyone. So... fun? Look, they don't show the bodies, okay. That would be horrific. As it is, it's fun.

And, yes, the post-movie clip does promise, in a sense, a Venom/Spider-Man meeting. Evidently not in the next Spider-Man movie, though. It will be interesting to see what Marvel does with Venom as an import rather than re-creating him.

Oh, I suppose I failed to mention Shriek. She feels mostly like a MacGuffin. Which is kind of weird, I suppose, to say about a character, but she's really insignificant to the actual plot. I guess she needed to be there because she's in the "Maximum Carnage" storyline in the comics and to give Cletus some direction. -shrug- She's fine; she just feels superfluous.

Look, ignore all the negative stuff I said. It makes it sound worse than it is, because it's not worse at all. I actually wish I could sit down and watch both of them back-to-back, right now, but I guess I will have to wait to do that.

Dune (a movie review post)

 

Generally speaking, I'm going to say that it's a good thing when you finish a movie and continue to ruminate over it. Usually, that means that the movie has given you something to think about or that it was so entertaining that you can't get it out of your head. But, sometimes, it's the opposite. Sometimes the things that bothered you about a movie won't leave you alone and, if it's really bad, start bringing up other things you didn't like about the movie. As you think about it and think about it and, yes, think about it, it gets worse and worse. A movie that you enjoyed, or mostly enjoyed, watching becomes something you actively dislike.
Yes, sometimes, it's Dune.

I had hopes for Dune. I won't call them "high hopes," because I was also wary, despite the cast. Back in 2000 SyFy did a limited Dune series, and it was amazing. They captured the story in its full glory, and it is something I have gone back and watched many times. So my thought process when they announced the new movie went something like this: "huh wow I don't see how they can make something better than the limited series. Surely, though, they wouldn't be making a new movie if they didn't think it was going to be better than the limited series. I mean, they have to be aware of that, right? So they wouldn't do it if it wasn't going to be better? Right?" So I was looking forward to the movie. Surely, they had to be bringing something new to the table...

My wife tells me that I have faulty logic when it comes to this because I forget the part about money. The money part makes it not that important whether or not it will be better; it only needs to be something that people will go see. And there is the part where most people are unaware of the limited series. And wouldn't care about it if they knew. It was before the TV exploded into what it is now. It was pre-GoT.

Needless to say, I have issues with this new iteration of Dune. My wife said that my reaction is very "I'm not angry with you, just disappointed." Which is pretty true. heh

So where are the issues?

The first one that broke me out of the movie, always a bad thing, is the scene where Paul is tested. Put your hand in the box; receive ultimate pain; if you pull your hand from the box, we're gonna kill you. Paul gets through this torture scenario with the use of what becomes his mantra throughout the book (and, appropriately, in the SyFy series): Fear is the mind-killer. It's a whole thing and so fucking famous. It's probably the best known thing about Dune. In the movie? Nah... He doesn't say it. Instead, his mother, who is waiting in the hallway, is the one muttering it. WTF? Which is what I thought while I was watching it. What the actual fuck? We were watching on HBO since we have it, and I actually had to stop the movie. That is a bad, bad sign.

Then there is the absence of the big party. That's the next place that really threw me. This is important for two reasons: The princess is not introduced at all, and the party is where Paul meets her in the book (and, guess where, in the SyFy series). She is not an unimportant side character, so this is kind of egregious. Also, it is through the party that the Sardaukar infiltrate the estate. Palace. Whatever you call it. Sure, Yueh betrays them, but the Sardaukar are already there.

Speaking of Yueh, he's there just enough so that you know who he is when he betrays Leto, but his character is just... wrong. And there's no emotional investment in the fact that Yueh betrays them, because you don't know him at all. And he still gets more screen time than, say, Duncan or Gurney. I'm not sure why Villeneuve didn't just cut out everyone other than Paul and Jessica. He doesn't seem to think any of the other characters are important enough to bother with.

To top it off, the movie is slow as fuck. I like slow movies. I'm not one of those people who needs constant action or anything close to it. I think Arrival is brilliant. Slow and brilliant. But this movie is so slow that my wife got bored while we were watching it and declared at one, "How much longer does this thing have!" You know a movie is good when my wife cries during it, but not when she is crying (not really) from boredom. And she called it "this thing," never a good sign. Not to mention that she has an excellent time sense, unlike me, and I told the family before we started it that it was 2.5 hours long. For her to have lost track of the timing of it because she was just that bored is significant.

I could go on, but, clearly, this is enough to let you know where I am on this movie. All it accomplished was making me want to go re-watch the limited series again... oh, but you can't! Because Warner Bros. squashed it, and it's not available for streaming anywhere. Fuck you, Warner Bros.! That's just rude. Oh, you can stream Children of Dune, sequel series, on Amazon, but you can't stream the actual series. Again, fuck you, Warner Bros.

Do I have anything good to say about the movie? I don't know. The cast is pretty decent. Sort of. Chalamet is adequate. He doesn't seem like he's going to be able to pull off Paul as the story progresses. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I guess we'll find out in two fucking years when the next one comes out. Why am I mad about that kind of delay in a movie I have clearly disenjoyed? Because the movie could have been ready to come out almost immediately. Dune was slated for a 2020 release, but was delayed because of the pandemic and because Villeneuve didn't want it released on streaming. They could have been working on the sequel... By the way, this movie was not advertised in any way as a "part one;" it was advertised as Dune, the whole thing. Which, yeah, I thought was crazy but, also, part of why I thought they were doing it as a movie. Breaking the book into several movies should have resulted in a better product. A much better product. Not this lackluster piece of... well, it's not quite shit. I mean, it's not Lynch's version, after all. Anyway, they could have had the sequel almost ready to go by now but, I guess, Warner Bros. wasn't confident enough to greenlight the sequel until the release of this one.

I was talking about the cast...

So far, I think Alec Newman was a better Paul.
I like Rebecca Ferguson, but I don't know if I like her better than Saskia Reeves.
I like Oscar Isaac, but William Hurt was much much better as Leto. It might be because his role was more significant.
Jason Mamoa is great as Duncan Idaho. He's very much Mamoa, but he's great at it.
I like Julie Cox better as the Princess because... oh, yeah, because there is no Princess in this version.
And, honestly, there is not enough of the other great actors cast in this to tell if they are any good.
The whole thing is... just... disappointing.
And, yeah, maybe I am a bit angry, too.