The Imagineering Movie Discussion Thread

[PerGron]

I hate to say it, but I was pretty "meh" on Mickey 17 and thought it was kind of all over the place. I think it's pretty obvious that Bong Joon Ho works best in his native language. Holy God I was intrigued by Mark Ruffalo's performance choice the first time I saw what voice he was doing but by the end it became freaking insufferable. I don't think nearly enough time was spent on the high concept fun to be had with the multiple versions of the same person premise. The creature designs on the ice planet were really cool, but man the movie shoved them down your face and much like whatever the hell accent Ruffalo was going for by the end I was sick of them.

Steven Yeunn's character had the potential to be a really interesting foil but ultimately just felt under-cooked. The third act goes on ENTIRELY too long. I'll give it one thing, when the movie is focused on the concept of the titular Mickey fearing death because a duplicate already exists now the movie had some really interesting philosophy to unpack, but that's kind of buried under the "orange man bad" optics of Ruffalo's character who just dominates the screen time. I wasn't crazy about the first two episodes of Daredevil Born Again but that show did a way better, less in your face "bad guy = Trump" parallel just in the way the crowd was reacting to Kingpin without making Fisk himself a stand-in for Trump. This sadly feels more like the tired 2017 "Orange Man Bad" humor that doesn't do much at all besides call attention to the fact that it's supposed to be an allegory for Trump. Definitely a massive step down from Parasite. I'm genuinely excited for whatever his next Korean movie will be, but I don't think I'll ever be very hyped for an English Bong Joon Ho movie again.

Uh oh… I think 2025’s Longlegs is upon us

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Uh oh… I think 2025’s Longlegs is upon us

I loved it in the first half, I just thought it dropped off HARD as it went on, with the peak probably being the dinner scene. Idk, the entire third act where they try to squeeze in a colonization/animal abuse (I guess?) theme on top of all the other anti-capitalist themes the movie had been running with up until that point just felt super messy. It kind of reminds me of the random left field turn into being a jazz history lesson that happens in the third act of Be Kind Rewind. Movies trying to introduce too many concepts in the second half of the run time are by and large a pretty major pet peeve on my end. By the time we get to the climax I don't even think there being multiple Mickeys really matters that much.

I'll definitely be willing to rewatch this on Max in like a month though. Seeing that this was produced by WB was one of the biggest surprises I've had in a while. I'm sure Zaslav had a damn heart attack when he saw the finished product.