Of course all us Sci-Fi idiots like anything as long as it's Sci-Fi. And taking that into account, I would think "Alien Covenant" still delivers though for everyone. Great visuals, great music and graced with an airtight and surprising plot. The plot innovation part is really something to say as Sci-Fi in many ways has been rehashed over and over. That said, the film not only introduces new ideas, but also reintroduces the Alien trademark ideas known and loved by old fans of the franchise. Is it my favorite Alien of them all? Maybe second, with the original still not topped after all these years. Listening to the soundtrack, we hear many of the standard old Alien musical themes reintroduced back into the film once more. They may not be the music note for note but the ending mood is dead on. Same as the visuals, though fully graphic and technically perfect, once again reintroduce much of the visual look from the past only in a new and dramatically rewarding way.
I would recommend seeing this at a widescreen theater, as maybe much of the superior effects and resulting emotion may not be quite the same on disk. Much of the audio also seems so accurate that the loudness goes one step further, adding to this masterpiece.
Ugh. Hollywood canon fodder. Admittedly, I felt like watching something as dumbed-down/uninspired as this when I put it on, so it mostly scratched that itch. But man, even at that, I couldn't help but groan more than a few times. If the Kong CG fight scenes weren't as decent as they were, this would have easily gone below 5/10 for me (anything below 5 for me falls into "poor" territory...so this one was close).
This is one of those movies where its nothing really new, but takes everything that's been done and executes just really well. It has something for everyone, zombie mob, gore that is cleanly done (this is gore that is as classy as it gets), motley crew (big dude and his wife were fun to watch) that goes from eight to eighty, rich to poor, big to small, man vs "beast" creativity and problem solving, and smart pacing (but not without a few hiccups at the start) and set changes that keep things fresh, its even fun in the not too horrific sense that people who don't normally like horror movies can probably enjoy this one. Heck, and even some heart, but not too much, which feels right.
Thanks for this rec. Thoroughly enjoyed it and pretty much agree with your rating + assessment. Some of those zombie set-pieces really had me impressed, especially that piggy-back-on-the-train one at the end. The little girl showed equally impressive acting skills in her role; my heart strings were tugged. Zombie flick done right. Good stuff.
Pretty solid story, a good amount of conflict and drama, at times it felt a little slow but the ending was so anticlmatic imo
Leon the Professional: 10/10
Deserving off its classic status, solid performances all around, even the fake Jamaican kid was cool. Gary Oldman slaughters this with iconic moments and creepiness.
There are a few things they added that didn't really happen, but not a big deal to me.
For example, the final charge at the end with Mel Gibson didn't really happen.
I actually found this war film to be very sad. Almost painful to watch at times after what happens to some of the soldiers.
I didn't find it to be like your typical John Wayne type war movie.
There's a lot I would have changed. Some of the ways they did scenes early on felt like Oscar bait and the choice of music was pretty terrible at times.
This is based off a book and I should probably read it!
It really made me mad that wives would get a telegram by taxi cab that their husbands had died in the war!!
There are a few things they added that didn't really happen, but not a big deal to me.
For example, the final charge at the end with Mel Gibson didn't really happen.
I actually found this war film to be very sad. Almost painful to watch at times after what happens to some of the soldiers.
I didn't find it to be like your typical John Wayne type war movie.
There's a lot I would have changed. Some of the ways they did scenes early on felt like Oscar bait and the choice of music was pretty terrible at times.
This is based off a book and I should probably read it!
It really made me mad that wives would get a telegram by taxi cab that their husbands had died in the war!!
Memories of Murder meets The Exorcist, with a splash of Gu! Complex and sprawling, it's a weird and wild ride. It moves from quirky police procedural and murder mystery through to occult horror, going from comedy at the start to full blown darkness by the end, taking in questions of faith - both personal and institutional - along the way. It's not a straight transition though; even in Jong-Goo's darkest hour, some humour is allowed to seep through. I particularly liked 'rake-head' and the way the shaman, Il-Gwang, appears on Jong-Goo's mobile phone with caller ID "Shaman".
The significant tonal shifts in this movie might threaten to destabilize the whole thing if it wasn't so deftly handled. Great performances all round and the cinematography is excellent throughout - some spectacular scenes, particularly the parallel ceremonies of Il-Gwang and The Stranger (which is also an exercise in the fine art of misdirection). As the film picks up pace towards the end, the twists pile up and you're never sure which way it's going to go, keeping you on the edge of your seat right to the end. For such a long film, it fairly flies by!
I had thought Train To Busan might be the crowning achievement of Korean genre cinema this year but this one probably tops it. It's the second film I've seen from Hong-jin Na, following his impressively brutal debut feature The Chaser, and I think he's set a personal high water mark with The Wailing. I really want to check out his other film, The Yellow Sea, now as well.
I just caught up with this film and I would have to go about 2 points lower on the score here. Differing opinions I suspect. I found the film eons too long and I seem to have that opinion of a lot of Asian cinema. Whether it is a cultural thing or not I do not know but they really seem to pump out gratuitously long films.
The second issue that did me in was it just takes on far too much subject matter where it needs not. The result for me was a bunch of scenes that I could hardly wait to be over. Rakehead being one of those, I thing attempting to include that genre in this film was a huge error. This one screams for a fanedit with the superfluous stuff chopped and I bet it would be amazing.
More than likely well get a "Directors Cut" with the missing 300 hours of footage.
The Chaser is still the high water mark for this Director and I would rate the Yellow Sea second, even though it is, incredibly, even longer than The Wailing.
They must get extra film allowance, when they make a hit in Asia.
I just caught up with this film and I would have to go about 2 points lower on the score here. Differing opinions I suspect. I found the film eons too long and I seem to have that opinion of a lot of Asian cinema. Whether it is a cultural thing or not I do not know but they really seem to pump out gratuitously long films.
The second issue that did me in was it just takes on far too much subject matter where it needs not. The result for me was a bunch of scenes that I could hardly wait to be over. Rakehead being one of those, I thing attempting to include that genre in this film was a huge error. This one screams for a fanedit with the superfluous stuff chopped and I bet it would be amazing.
More than likely well get a "Directors Cut" with the missing 300 hours of footage.
The Chaser is still the high water mark for this Director and I would rate the Yellow Sea second, even though it is, incredibly, even longer than The Wailing.
They must get extra film allowance, when they make a hit in Asia.
Of course! And I stand by mine. The difference of opinion could also be down to genre preference; generally speaking, revenge thrillers don't do a lot for me while horror is king, so this one was always likely to appeal more to me than The Chaser, given the subject matter. As good as I thought The Chaser was, I believe I said at the time of reviewing it, it's also a very frustrating and difficult watch - and possibly not one I'll return to any time soon. I have to disagree with you that The Wailing was too long and in need of an edit - I personally felt the director managed to pull everything together into a sprawling cross-genre epic that didn't leave me drifting off at all. I disagreed with you in part on The Eyes of My Mother too; I liked that one a fair bit. I will generally go a bit easier on horror films than most other genres - as you do with sci-fi at times I think.
Of course! And I stand by mine. The difference of opinion could also be down to genre preference; generally speaking, revenge thrillers don't do a lot for me while horror is king, so this one was always likely to appeal more to me than The Chaser, given the subject matter. As good as I thought The Chaser was, I believe I said at the time of reviewing it, it's also a very frustrating and difficult watch - and possibly not one I'll return to any time soon. I have to disagree with you that The Wailing was too long and in need of an edit - I personally felt the director managed to pull everything together into a sprawling cross-genre epic that didn't leave me drifting off at all. I disagreed with you in part on The Eyes of My Mother too; I liked that one a fair bit. I will generally go a bit easier on horror films than most other genres - as you do with sci-fi at times I think.
Ha. Until recently you were right on. I used to have a high tolerance for bad scifi up until it became really bad scifi, now I have become brutal.
I think a large part of my lukewarm reception for Wailing is due to my distaste not so much for horror as well done horror works for me, moreso the irk here is the Z factor where I believe none was needed. It seemed gratuitous and pandering to current trends.
Alien Covenant 7/10. Like Prometheus feel a bit disjointed at times. But I did enjoy Prometheus more. Still good though and ending is a good idea but I saw the twist instantly so it was kind of spoiled. Lifes ending was better
I did miss any kind of info how that alien got onboard on the ship. David likely had something to do with it and they didn´t want to spoil it for the select few that didn´t see the twist coming but still feel cheap to just throw one in there
An extraordinarily entertaining incoherent mess of a film. Basically Ritchie here returns to his roots by making a Brit Gangster film while attempting to fit the Arthurian legend into it. While he gets going on that he throws just about everything but (thankfully) Zomibies into the mix. So you have a Crouching Arthur, Hidden Excalibur vibe going on as well. He falls a little too far into aping himself and the dialogue here suffers horrendously. It is just painful to see some of the actors trying to work with the drivel written and blatantly stolen from other films. Plotting here has descended into the Marvel realm in this film and that is a shame from what was once a very clever writer/director.
At least this film gave some work to some lesser known actors. I suspect Jude Law was the only A lister who read this script and did not give it a pass. For an actor coming up it is an opportunity, for someone in their prime it would be career suicide. There is just so little to work with as far as performance goes. It is far too ensemble, reminiscent of That other once bright directors endless Oceans string of films. Too much cast trying to compete with frenetic camera work, over the top CGI, and mediocre lines. Confusion abounds here.
Turn you brain off and just look at the pretty pictures and things going bang for a couple of hours .
@Hutnicks You seem to have a real bee in your bonnet when it comes to zombies! I reckon the mere mention of them can send you into a tailspin... they are maybe in danger of becoming ubiquitous these days (on another forum I'm on, instead of ranks like Headphoneus Supremus, we have Twitching Corpse, Walking Dead, Zombie Horde etc!), but I think I'd miss them if they were gone.
Big Time. Simply stated I am all Zombied out. The world really needs to move on to something different fairly quickly. Zombies have become the NASCAR of film
I will spare you all my rating of Empire of Corpses.
People think of mostly "Two and a Half Men" sitcom when they think of Melanie Lynskey but I find her performing a lot better in some of the indie films she did. This one above and the one below are my favourites. She has a very warm screen presence and a praiseworthy fighting spirit at her core that demands us to look past the apparent sweetness her looks and voice seem to convey. It's actors like these that add value to the otherwise low-budget and therefore less-heard-of independent films in drama/romance genre.
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