Just saw Red Dawn. The idea of WW3 just happening so quick you don’t realize is so real: no one expects war to break out in their back yard, it’s something that happens elsewhere that you’re conscripted into… until it isn’t, and suddenly you’re doing your best to just survive as everyone you know and love dies around you. You weren’t trained for this. Since the 1950s, America has been constantly on the brink of WW3, picking as many fights as they can; it’s incredibly prescient, as much so now as it was then.
But the movie instead relies too much on “BOOO HISSS EVIL, LYING, JOYLESS COMMIES,” only occasionally coming close to getting it: actually, they’re just like us. Like every other American war movie, it’s basically defanged of an accurate portrayal of war so that instead it can be a “YAY Patriotism!” story. Even the ending wraps, after watching all but 2 of the main characters get killed while fighting for their freedom and survival, with the conclusion that they “died so that this nation shall not perish from the Earth.”
And yes, I get the reference… It’s still nationalist propaganda no matter how famous the speech was.
War movies piss me off so much in general. War is an incredibly interesting topic, and we have so much to learn from it… And yet the majority of stories told about it seem to center around superhuman feats of combat and how great We™ are and how evil They™ are, and so few actually seem to really portray it for what it is:
a bunch of pretentious apes brainwashed into thinking the others are soulless monsters, while they have more in common with each other than with the pack leaders who pretend to be on their side (so that they can stay safe and comfortable while the grunts do all the dying for their greed).
hear hear. Ive always wondered about Red Dawn, whether it was worth watching. Any cinematically good parts? Or is it all just rambo with extra commie bashing
Nothing that I found particularly cinematic. It’s an entertaining story, and moving at times, but it doesn’t really stand out from any generic war/action movie. Would I watch it again? Probably not, but would I recommend watching it at least once? Also no. But do I regret watching it and wish I could have 2 hours of my life back because I resent listening to my friend who recommended it and now think much less of their taste in media for thinking so highly of such a mediocre formulaic slop that could have been shat out by chatGPT? Not me!
So a “maybe if you’re stuck on a short flight” then
The Cube.
Most people saw it as an average horror movie where a bunch of people try to get out of a giant torture box. But there was a pivotal scene that stuck with me where one of the prisoners realizes he helped build part of it. The whole thing wasn’t some intentional torture device but just a bunch of people doing their day jobs that were lost in a bureaucracy not ever questioning what their work was creating.
A stark reflection of society and the systems we create and the dangers of not ever looking at the bigger picture.Of course they proceeded to shit all over this idea in Cube2 where it ended up being just another evil government experiment.
I think the execution was amazingly well done. It’s one of the best character driven horror-thrillers I’ve ever seen, all the characters are memorable and well-rounded, the premise is explored as much as it needs to be, and it doesn’t really leave any loose ends. 9/10 movie for sure
Yeah it’s not a bad film at all really, but even just within the horror/scifi genre it can’t compete with higher budget films for popularity.
I actually liked Cube Zero for the backstory and set styles. I don’t remember much else so I’m assuming it was shit, but you can give it a try if you want.
I think OP pretty much summed up Cube Zero. The first installment is really just a horror fiction also depicting the structure of human society.
Yeah, Cube 2 is shit. It’s a scientific concept show.
Yeah, I even think Cube² was better.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Amazing world building and visuals that was destroyed by terrible casting and wooden acting.
It’s based on a comic series so we can read that at least
The box art put me off thisnone, but skimming the plot and it reads like an amazing visual spectacle. Might watch this one
The film opening is the best part, and honestly one of the best openings to a movie ever. It’s such a shame the rest of the movie is hindered by the awful writing and casting.
This was the movie I immediately thought of.
It’s a terrific LOOKING movie, but the two leads had absolutely no chemistry. At first I couldn’t figure out if they were partners, spouses, dating, brother & sister, etc.
The production design was spectacular, though.
Jurassic World. Just give me 90 minutes of dino mutants fighting, I don’t give a shit about Chris Pratt nor some random kids.
+1 for I do not give a shit about Chris Pratt
Gotta feeling the upcoming movie with SJ is going to be right on that list too. Just bad ideas getting recycled over and over.
Reign of fire. Don’t know if that’s what you were referencing in the picture but it’s immediately what came to mind when I saw the drawing.
Wait, but Reign of Fire is the best dragon vs. helicopter movie ever made!
Lucy
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
it gets hate because it’s all based on a long ago debunked urban legend about brain % usage… and made the legend grow….
Since when do we hold action movies to that kind of standard?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film)
The audience for Lucy was split evenly between men and women, with 65 percent being over age 25.[54] Nikki Rocco, president for domestic distribution at Universal Studios, said, “To have a female lead in an original property absolutely made a difference. Scarlett is a star, and her presence [in the film] made it a lot more appealing for women.”[55] Michael Bodey of The Australian commented that women having comprised half the audience is “a seemingly new precedent for an action film” and that, because of its box office performance, Lucy is the film out of all of Besson’s film work “likely to have the greatest cultural impact.”[18]
It seems like it definitely resonated with a lot of people, will check it out. Luc Besson can be hit and miss, but his films are always memorable
I think in Scarlett’s Hot Ones episode, she mentioned that Meryl Streep told her she loved Lucy. Which makes me think Meryl might be a big stoner. Hilarious.
and it’s only 89 minutes, it doesn’t get stale or repetitive!
The ideas behind They Live are fascinating and deserved better treatment than a 20-minute alley fight about sunglasses.
I love that movie, and that fight scene, but damn you’re right.
Thank you! I was being as tactful as possible, since negative statements about any aspect of that movie whatsoever, or the acting skills of Roddy Piper, usually receive nothing but douchevotes and insults lol. It’s a very entertaining movie.
I absolutely love Rody’s acting in that movie. If You think his acting is bad in this movies watch Hell Comes To Frogtown, you’ll appreciate They Live more.
Terminator Genisys
First creative use of the time travel the series ever had… And totally botched about every other aspect of the movie that wasn’t an action sequence.
That whole 30 second idea of a Terminator in the 70s with a young Sarah Connor was far more interesting than what the movie did with Kyle Reese.
Oof yeah, what were they thinking with doing that to Kyle? He was the one pure aspect of the entire franchise (a friend, a lover, a father, a sacrificial pawn) and they cheapened his sacrifice with that nonsense
The original Purge. I thought all the background stuff and setting were super interesting, but the film itself was a generic home invasion movie. The sequel expanded on all the stuff I was interested in, though.
The sequels really explored the idea with impressive worldbuilding. I admit the first one was more a horror flick, but the others were definitely digging deep into social commentary
Yeah, it wasn’t even that the first one was bad, it’s just that all the things they mentioned in passing, like the New Founding Fathers and the exemptions for Level 10 Government Officials, were building a world that sounded super interesting. Then we got saddle with some boring rich family for 90 minutes. I only got around to seeing the first sequel, but it delivered on all the stuff I wanted to see after I heard that first announcement.
NostalgiaCritic did a pretty decent analysis on the Purge series a few years ago, and it touches on a lot of this:
I’ll be honest, I find that guy super annoying, but I appreciate you sharing it with me. It definitely makes me feel validated that someone else felt the same way
Oh I hate him too, and his needlessly pipsqueak voice and the stark unenthusiasm when reading out charity donations.
But his analyses can be pretty decent
I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning ‘In Time’. It had such a great premise, and I didn’t even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said “fuck it, that’s good enough”. The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point… A movie just isn’t the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.
I also want to mention another movie that I’m not sure belongs here. It’s not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why it didn’t do better. That movie is called ‘Push’, with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn’t that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn’t a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It’s just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don’t seem to get those anymore.
Will check out both, thanks for this
Cabin in the woods
Hot take.
I loved cabin in the woods!
everyone and their mother did
Cabin in the Woods is fine art.
10/10 Premise 10/10 Execution
I’m helping my teenager get through all the horror tropes so we can watch Cabin in the Woods together.
I’m asking you politely but firmly to leave
you shut your bastard mouth!
Yeah, so much more there, they set up a very good universe to explore a tiny sand grain of it.
100% agree. It’s a fine twist on the subgenre, but the twist introduces an idea that begs to be expanded upon as part of a larger, cross-subgenre arc. And yet we only get a sliver and then it’s done.
My hot take is that Joss Whedon’s writing is like JJ Abrams’: perfect premises with bad sense of follow-thru, so all their work gets the Netflix “over before it’s satisfyingly concluded” treatment
I feel like everything was explained. I’m not left with any lingering questions about why or how any of it happened
CATS
Cats is not a complicated musical. All they had to do was animate it and get actual voice actors/singers. I’ve seen sketches for what I think was a Tim Burton sketch, and that would have been a million times better. I don’t know who looked at Cat’s and was like, “Yup, we need CGI.” It looks horrendous and sounds bad more often than not. The musical is already pretty out there, how much more fun would that movie had been if we had animators working on it. The creative visuals, colors, motifs. Not to mention a cat is a wonderfully complex animal to animate just because of how they move. That movie could have been a visual delight in part with the Spiderman movies if they let it, but noooooo. Let’s make a nightmare.
I still feel obliged to post it, so that the memories don’t fade.
Beautiful.
There was this movie I saw once called Time Trap. I definitely would not call it good, but the premise was interesting.
Archaeology professor goes missing while exploring a cave which was once thought to be the location of the fountain of youth. His grad students go looking for him, find the cave, weird things start happening when they enter.
Spoilers below:
The cave is revealed to cause some sort of time distortion which grows in intensity the further in you go. The professor who had been missing for days was only in the cave for a few hours. By the time everyone realizes what is happening, months go by, then years. They exit the cave at one point only to find an apocalypse has occurred, with the cave becoming the only safe haven for them to exist in at this point. Without spoiling the rest of the movie, the story plays in to the fountain of youth legend by including a group of Spanish Conquistadors and a tribe of paleolithic cavemen living in a deeper part of the cave, all living as if only days have passed, but in reality centuries/millennia had gone by outside.
I’m surprised how many people in the comments have (A) seen this movie, and (B) liked it. I didn’t care for it, although I do like the basic premise.
The timing of your comment is a kind of a funny coincidence for me, because over the past few days I’ve been editing the next episode of my podcast, which will come out on Tuesday, and in it I mention Time Trap a couple times. Maybe the film is having a moment?
Time trap was awesome. The scene when they realize the flickering lights are time passing and then they poke their heads out of the cave to see a complete departure of the old world.
The end got a lil weird tho.
Nonetheless it’s a movie that will stick with you for a few days of conceptualizing.
*Time Trap was directed by Ben Foster, which I just discovered. It’s also streaming for free (w ads of course) on YouTube.
So I just watched it on YouTube. What the hell was that ending?
Spoilers if someone is gonna watch it (I don’t really know an effective way to do spoiler tags so bear with me):
They’re in the cave until the sun just kinda “goes out” and is replaced by a bright green light. Some giant future human comes down and does battles with the cavemen and knocks them out with some weird shock collar thing. He takes a vial of super water before being jumped by some more cavemen and getting his mask taken off and bonked on the head a few times, which somehow kills him. Before he dies, he plays some holographic recording of a newscast about the five characters who went missing. In the final battle, they take his ladder and use it to try to escape the cave only to find some weird machine with water covering the hole where they try to climb out of. What I assume is another evolved human grabs them and outfits one girl in a weirdly sexy diving suit? To then rescue the rest of them. They all wake up in a spaceship and get reunited with their friends and the professor with his family, and presumably fly off to Mars.
My question(s) is A) what the hell is going on with future humanity B) why isn’t anyone upset that the world is dead and their families are gone forever and they passed into history as another unsolved disappearance, but it’s cool cause we’re in space in the future C) how did they not experience the heat death of the universe in the time dilation cave? Especially when the sun went out
Hey, I’m upvoting you and all but I gotta ask how do you do the spoiler thing? I’m using Apollo and it made me click to expand your comment so I could see the spoiler part. How did you format it?
It took me a few tries, but the format that was recommended to me by SoleInvictus in this comment appeared to work.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14390647
Ironically it doesn’t work as well in my own app because the app keeps trying to change the formatting to its own syntax, but it seems to work for the most people of all spoiler options.
This was the first thing I thought of when seeing the prompt. I actually love this movie and have seen it several times, but the acting is abysmal.
might give this one a watch!
Imo it is way better than what OP made it sound to be, held my attention whole way through.
The kind of spoiler tag you used is the kind that doesn’t work on every Lemmy app. Fortunately, that’s not a problem, as I’ve already seen Time Trap, and despite forgetting its name, do sometimes think about it.
Thanks, I actually went out of my way to look up the native Lemmy markdown format for spoilers because I was worried the one I was used to using wasn’t universal, but I guess the opposite ended up being the case. I’ll try to fix it.
I had a series of 3 stomach surgeries and I delved into some shows I wouldn’t watch. I stumbled on this one. I really loved the premise. It is one of those late night SyFy feeling movies. The end did get weird, but I like where they were going with it.
Madam Web. The premise of your perception being un-stuck in time and the ramifications that has for your psyche is really cool. What’s not cool is hiring bad writers and nepo baby actresses to portray that story
nepo baby actresses
which ones
Slaughterhouse Five (the book) did this fairly well, though the movie isn’t much better than Madame Web.
Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology
Just joking. I really liked the movie for its style and the frightening bad guys in all sizes. Also Kiefer Sutherland with a mad scientist touch.The city itself was interesting as hell
I just watched this! It felt like the director wanted to go real big with it but technology just wasn’t there with effects. It also tried very hard to be a mindfuck movie but also kept spoiling the twists somehow lol. Overall solid 7+ movie.
I don’t want a remake, I want a sequel. I’m glad I’m not the only one who disliked the visuals of the movie, tho.
