Ink of Blood

The Fast and Furious franchise is definitely one that doesn’t need to be thought too hard about while watching…and Fast X definitely fits that bill.

Some of the events that occurred had been spoiled in the trailer. For instance, Cipher’s reappearance – but then again, she was always going to come back, being one of the few villains who was shown to still be alive at the end of the movie she appeared in.

There were some nice nods to the characters in the previous movies. For instance, it was good to see Elena’s younger sister…how she was affected by her older sister’s death and her interactions with Dom.

Dom is quite an intriguing character, since he started off as one of the bad guys in the first Fast and Furious…only to have an almost complete turnaround, from antihero to full hero. One of the other characters mentioned that he’s forever running back into the burning building to save others, heedless of the danger of the building collapsing onto him…and if that doesn’t describe Dom so completely, I don’t know what does.

So. Jason Momoa plays a psychopath so incredibly well in this movie. And he was even described as such by my nine-year-old nephew, Freddie, who saw the movie literally a day after I did. It is a little predictable to have yet another enemy crawl out of the woodwork to come after Dom and his family…but Dante is an unhinged enemy and the danger does feel pretty real; at least to innocent bystanders, given that the main family seem to be protected by plot armour, something that’s even mentioned by one of the characters in the ninth movie!

There was obviously going to be a confrontation between Han and Shaw in this movie. I didn’t realise that the extra scene in Hobbs and Shaw was actually from Fast X, but as the conflict wouldn’t have felt resolved if the interaction had happened offscreen, it was good to see them…even if Shaw’s immediate reaction of violence wasn’t perhaps the best decision. Still, it was good to see him make an appearance again; and given that he’s been shown to be a more nuanced character, I would have liked to see a bit more of him working with Dom’s team.

All told, I did enjoy this movie. It didn’t require too much thought, and it was nice to see more of the other characters, like Little Brian and Jakob. Unfortunately, the movie did end on a bit of a cliffhanger…and while it seemed very much like Dom and the rest of the family were in dire straits, it was a bit hard to assume that any of them had been fatally taken out, given the franchise’s penchant for bringing the dead back to life.

This was the movie I watched the evening after Beau Is Afraid. It wasn’t purely by choice; in two weeks, there are four unlimited showings at Cineworld. If you go to all four, you get entered into a prize draw. Hypnotic was first; then Beau Is Afraid; and now Sisu.

After the movie I watched the previous night that I didn’t enjoy, this movie was very much a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t an overly complicated, deeply meaningful film. At its heart, it was simply an action movie: a one man kill squad taking out Nazis.

In the initial opening scene, the main character, Jorma, really doesn’t come across as much of a threat. He’s panning for gold with his dog and his horse, and is obviously really happy when he finds some. As is revealed later on in the movie, he really has nothing left to live for, as his whole family is dead. As Aino puts it, ‘He’s not immortal. He simply refuses to die.’

An interesting thing about Jorma’s character was that he was clearly prepared to ignore the Nazis as long as they left him alone. In some ways, that attitude was understandable…and it wasn’t clear that he was immediately aware of the women who’d been taken captive; although they were used to navigate the minefield later, and I’m pretty sure he was aware that they were prisoners.

The Nazis definitely weren’t sympathetic in this movie, but there was one scene where they think they’ve killed Jorma and one of them removes his cap in what seems to be a way of respecting the dead. I thought that was an interesting touch to the movie.

I was really glad to see that the women who were captives were developed and shown to be pretty strong. The only one who really had any speaking parts was Aino, but I had a lot of respect for them by the time they were given the tools to fight back against their captors. There’s a really good scene of them just walking along, which feels very powerful.

I mentioned that Jorma is a one man kill squad and doesn’t seem to die, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to injury. There were a lot of scenes where I cringed at the wounds he received and, to be honest, I did question just how he was able to carry on walking, let alone fighting, after some of what he went through…cauterising the wounds or not.

Despite the difficulty in suspension of disbelief I noted above, this movie was an easy watch. I probably won’t watch it again, but it was entertaining to watch the first time.

To be honest…I did not enjoy this movie. At all. I watched the trailer and it made very little sense; and then I watched the film itself and the confusion I felt after watching the trailer was only heightened. It was disappointing, because of the previous two movies directed by the same person, I’d enjoyed Midsommar…and while I didn’t really enjoy Hereditary to the same extent, it still wasn’t like this movie.

There were some interesting parts of this movie. For instance, there was a tiny hint of mystery in the dreams that Beau kept having, where he was watching his mother and another boy arguing. The boy looked identical to Beau at that age, but Beau was watching the two of them from where he was sitting in the bath…at least, that’s what it seemed like from the camera angles. And that element of mystery could have been explored much further…but at the end of the movie, I was left wondering what in the world had happened; and was that dream actually a memory, or was it just included to raise confusion even more?

Another thing I found quite interesting, although I did feel the scene went on far too long, was when Beau is watching a play in the forest and fantasises that he’s the main character in the play. He obviously feels an affinity to the person in the play who cuts off his own chains, but although that could have been a truly symbolic moment, any possibility of that is lost with the over-long scene of the man separated from his family and trying to find his way back to them. And that could probably have had a better effect of drawing both Beau and me as a viewer in if there wasn’t the narrator constantly saying, ‘You will….’

The movie was, on the whole, very confusing. I definitely felt that it could have been condensed down a lot – it really didn’t need to be three hours long and I was fairly bored watching it; enough that I kept getting my phone out to check what the time was. I wasn’t even really sure what genre the movie was supposed to be; and even though Beau was meant to be the main character, I didn’t really care about him…or indeed any of the characters in this movie.

I really can’t recommend watching this movie. It wasn’t engaging enough to keep my attention throughout and it was far too long when it could have been so much shorter…and potentially better, without all of the extra filler.

This isn’t a movie I have any interest in watching again.

I was very intrigued by the plot of this movie, although the idea of people with the ability to hypnotise others with just their words isn’t a truly original one.

The movie definitely had Inception vibes to it. I found the overarching storyline to be really good, but I did feel that Ben Affleck’s acting was kind of wooden. That did make a lot of sense with what was revealed later on, but I spent a lot of the movie confused about why a good actor was suddenly not as good.

There was an awful lot that was going on in this movie, even though things seemed fairly straightforward at first. I mentioned above that this movie had a feel very similar to Inception. There’s even one scene where the whole world seems to turn upside down, although it seems to indicate that Danny’s perception of reality was changed, rather than reality itself.

I did find Diana’s explanation of how someone acting under hypnosis to be really interesting. She comments that those who use hypnosis make their victims see whatever reality will make them act in the way the person hypnotising them wants them to…and that seems to hold true throughout the whole movie, even when everything changes so drastically.

The movie was mainly focused on Danny and the journey he was taking throughout. The secondary characters weren’t really developed in the same way, especially because there was a real sense of not knowing what, or even who, was truly real and what existed only in Danny’s head.

The strongest relationship in the movie, apart from the one between Danny and Diana, was the one between Danny and his partner, Nicks. I would have liked some more background and detail about Nicks. Even with what was revealed later on, I felt there was more of a relationship between Danny and Nicks and it would have been good to see more of an exploration…especially because so many of the secondary characters just weren’t developed enough to care about.

All in all, this movie was one that I really liked watching. It wasn’t what I was expecting when I first stepped into the cinema and when the movie originally started, but I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing. There were some clever moments of foreshadowing in this movie and a couple of things happened that I didn’t expect. Yes, there were some things that could have been done better…but on the whole, the movie was a really intriguing watch. It held my attention throughout and I’d be interested in watching a sequel to this movie, perhaps one where the wider world is explored.

Obviously, I was very excited about this movie, given I love superhero movies and Marvel in particular. And Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 was such an emotional rollercoaster, I was really looking forward to something similar with this third movie.

I did really enjoy this movie. I didn’t think it was quite as good as the second one. I did think it stretched my suspension of disbelief a little far, even considering the sort of fantastical themes so prevalent in superhero movies. For instance, Nebula just able to pop broken limbs into place as if she was fixing a dent. Those scenes were very hard to take seriously.

I also have to be honest and say I really wasn’t keen on Gamora in this movie. And don’t get me wrong; it’s not because I ship her and Peter together. I would have much preferred romance not to be shoehorned into the movie…but I liked the version of Gamora who didn’t hesitate to hug her sister and who gave up the location of the soul stone just to save Nebula from further suffering. Past Gamora had more morals than the one in this movie and it’s a real shame that development wasn’t in the version of Gamora in this movie.

I really liked learning more about Rocket and a huge amount of this movie really tugged at my heartstrings. The first time I saw this, one of the scenes made me tear up and a second one made me bawl outright…and then the second time I watched the movie, I full on cried at both scenes (because I knew what was coming!)

I would have liked to see more character development of both Mantis and Drax. Their personalities are different to the rest of the Guardians, but I felt that those differences were only played for comedy, instead of letting them grow in their own right. I was especially disappointed not to see more of Mantis and Quill’s relationship, after learning Mantis is Quill’s sister.

I did like seeing Kraglin and it was really good to see his character go through something of an arc. Honestly, it was refreshing to see someone trying and failing to do something right. I also found Adam Warlock to be an interesting character…although his accent did make it hard to take him seriously.

All in all, I did enjoy this movie. It was a lot of fun and worth watching, even if only to learn more about Rocket’s history…although it didn’t show anything of Rocket’s first meeting with Groot, which would have been nice to see. I can’t say this movie is perfect, but in my humble opinion, it’s a worthy addition to the MCU and definitely worth watching if you’re a fan.

I did actually watch (and really enjoy) Searching, when it originally came out at the cinema. I don’t remember a whole lot about it, but I remember it was really cleverly done with how the story was told entirely through the use of social media. When I saw this movie advertised, I was immediately intrigued…but didn’t know if it would be done as well as the first movie.

This film did a really good job of drawing me in right from the beginning. The scene of June and her father playing together was incredibly sweet…and then there was a huge amount of tension when her father’s nose started bleeding and it became very clear that June’s father had passed away.

I didn’t really like June’s mother at the beginning of the movie, to be honest. Despite the fact that June was 18, her mother seemed to be treating her like a child. I could completely understand June’s frustration at having what amounted to a babysitter sent to check on her.

Much like its predecessor Searching, Missing was entirely told through the use of social media/video cameras/etc. I felt that was one of the strongest parts of this movie. It helped to keep the tension ramped up quite a bit, since as the viewer, the only information I had came from what June herself could see.

Speaking of June, she was probably the best character in this movie. She was resourceful and intelligent, but I felt the movie definitely did a good job of keeping her actions within the scope of what she could realistically do. I did question what she eventually ended up doing for food, though, since the money her mother obviously would have run out eventually.

There was a lot of good tension throughout this movie and I definitely liked some of the secondary characters, especially Veena and Javi. I also thought it was good to see some hints of conflict come through as June’s desperation to find her mother grew.

All in all, I really did enjoy this movie. It didn’t really feel like a direct sequel to Searching, although I did appreciate the easter egg to the first movie in the scene showing the ending of Searching.

I’ve seen other movies use a similar way of telling the story by making use of modern day technology, but I think Missing (and Searching) does it particularly well. June’s search for her mother drew me in as a viewer and I really cared about her character and what she was going through. There were some areas that moved a bit slowly, but on the whole, it was enjoyable to watch…and I’d probably see it again, in case there were any elements of foreshadowing, or clues, that I missed the first time through.