Downsizing is about saving yourself.

Downsizing (2017)

5.8/10 on IMDb
50% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Low-energy entertainment;
Proceed at your own risk

Watch it if you: Just want something to put on in the background when you do something else;
Just want a simple comedy that isn't as philosophical as it advertises itself to be
Attempting to cure the world of overpopulation and its resulting climate change effects, scientists discover how to permanently shrink people down to about 5 inches tall, literally reducing people's carbon footprints.

I was so excited for this movie when I saw the first trailer. It looked like a Black Mirror episode, except fun. It looked interesting, they didn't give away much of the plot, and I was really keen. Then I saw the second trailer for it (not deliberately, but it was shown in front of a movie I was watching), and I was like, oh... that's what it's about?! The second trailer kind of spoiled it for me, and I might not have watched this movie so soon if it weren't for a friend wanting to watch it with me.

Because of my low expectations though, I thought the film was not... terrible. But it was still... not very good. There are moments that are entertaining but there is definitely a lot more potential that the film could have reached, particularly because the premise is so interesting. In the end, it's a big disappointment.

Firstly, there will be mild spoilers in this blog. Nothing too spoilery, but I will be discussing the same things that the second trailer reveals. In fairness though, I think that if you want to see this movie, you need to know what you're getting yourself into.

So for the rest of this blog, be warned.

Sigh... so the first trailer shows us Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as a married couple thinking of downsizing to relieve a lot of the financial pressure they are facing. Their money in the normal 'big' world can be translated to roughly 12 million dollars in the small world, meaning they can live a work-free life of luxury in a huge mansion for the rest of their lives.

Except, in the second trailer we find out that Kristen Wiig gets cold feet and decides to no longer undergo the downsizing procedure, leaving Matt Damon permanently small and without a wife. This is when the movie starts to go downhill, as it becomes a movie of self discovery.

And you know what? Movies of self discovery are fine. Heck, there are a lot of good self-discovery movies out there.

But this movie is so long because it's trying to handle the issue of downsizing, with the issue of climate change, with a whole lot of other social issues, all while going through Matt Damon's mid-life crisis. It's too much, it drags out, the movie seems unfocused and lacks a serious sense of direction. And the story line they choose to go with is the one least relevant to downsizing: it's Matt Damon's self discovery.

So they took this great premise of humanity killing the planet and people opting to downsize, and yet went nowhere with it. There are complications in this movie that fuel the plot that have nothing to do with downsizing, and sometimes you just forget that they're even small to begin with. It just seems like a normal movie about normal-sized people! Especially when there are things like small TVs and small mobile phones all built to scale so it doesn't even seem like they're not living in the real world. This whole film could have happened without them actually downsizing, honestly.

It would have been great if they brought in some large scale issue that actually affected small people because they were small. Something bigger than Matt Damon's self esteem blow needed to happen for this movie to be good.

And they actually tried to do this... they tried to show human nature not really changing even when small, they tried to show the effects of climate change on the human race, they tried to show the effects of corrupt politicians in developing countries, the struggles that refugees face, and they even tried to show us the effects of poverty. There's a lot of social issues happening but these don't really go anywhere. It's weird that I feel like these things were both 1) very preachy, and 2) not expanded on enough. I think it's because it felt like they had too many wild ideas floating around their minds, that they couldn't decide which idea to go with, so they all sort of crammed everything in to this movie. Which is what makes it long and lacking direction and focus.

As to the acting. Matt Damon is fine but he doesn't really stand out in this film. It's actually interesting all his movies in the last two years have been flops, I really hope his next few movies are a lot better.

However, Christoph Waltz is amazing in this. He is a fantastic actor, and I think he mentioned his character was actually written for a young actor, but he convinced the director to cast him, and he does a really great job. He is so funny and really steals the scene a lot of the time.

However, the person who steals the entire show has to go to Hong Chau. It was so nice seeing an Asian woman have so much screen time, and Hong Chau did a really good job at being both really funny, with great comedic timing, as well as being a really good dramatic actor. The only thing is that it was really unfortunate that her character and her actions were really a big caricature of a Vietnamese immigrant. Her accent was insane and very stereotypical, although I am guilty of laughing at the way she said things (and I now want to rewatch Anjelah Johnson's nail salon stand up).

Overall, this movie was disappointing because it has a really great premise but they didn't make full use of it. There is too much social commentary happening, and the main plotline doesn't even need to happen to someone who downsized. It seemed interesting at the start but then it becomes a movie where they forget downsizing even really exists in that world. The acting is decent but it's not enough to make up for the film's flaws.

A few side notes:

• As if they were the first couple to have gotten cold feet? As if there isn't a thing where if one half of a couple gets cold feet, then they wouldn't continue doing the procedure with the other person?
  
• Also why are children getting downsized? They should be at least 21 years old before they get to choose to downsize. You can't just force your already 10 year old kid... what if they never wanted it and they're stuck small forever???

Our two children are dying in the other room, but yes, I can make you mashed potatoes tomorrow.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

7.4/10 on IMDb
79% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright;
Proceed at your own risk

Watch it if you: Want to watch a weird, artsy, and philosophical movie;
Are a fan of psychological thrillers and suspension of belief

Cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Steven Murphy becomes a father figure to a young teenage boy, Martin, hoping to take him under his wing. However, Martin's presence brings out a deep tension in the Murphy household, which climaxes in an intense family tragedy.

I knew absolutely nothing about this film going in, except that it had very divisive reactions and it starred Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. The start of this film was pretty weird, but in a very interesting way, and by the time I walked out of the theatre, my heart was racing. It's an intriguing film, but definitely not for everyone.

It's really hard to review this film without going into spoilers, so my spoiler-free section is going to be pretty short.

My overall impression of this movie is that it has a really weird tone to it, and that's not something that everyone would like. I quite enjoyed the tone because it was mesmerising and really captivated me, but to others I think it could be seen as really strange, and boring.

This can be because of all the characters speaking in a really monotone and flat way, which may make it seem like the actors (even Nicole Kidman) aren't really trying, but to me it just added to the bizareness of this world, a world that seems like our real world but has enough peculiarity in it to make it very different from our own world. In this world, people talk very robotically and very formally, and so relationships between friends, colleagues, and even family, do not seem natural or loving in the way they should be.

There's also a lot of silence in this movie, and a lot of... space (for lack of a better word). There's awkward silences between characters, there's long nothingness shots of characters not really doing anything, and there's lots of scenes where there isn't much happening, but there's an eerie sort of emptiness to the film that somehow unsettles you. The soundtrack is also extremely creepy and really made me shiver at times, it did a great job at setting this tone that made you keep fearfully anticipating what was going to go wrong. This, coupled with those slow, nothingness panning shots, really brings out the underlying sinister tone of the film.

Another thing is that it's actually really easy to laugh in this film. Like it was really bizarre, but at the same time there was humour within the bizareness. Particularly at the beginning of the film, where you're not quite used to the unnatural way the characters talk to each other.

I haven't seen any of the director's (Yorgos Lanthimos) films, although I've heard that The Lobster (2015) is amazing. After having seen this film, I am really really keen to see The Lobster because I do think he has a really unique way of directing that can't be ignored.

Spoiler time.

Click to show/hide spoilers:

So apparently this film is a modern retelling of the Greek tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis, written by Euripides. In this tragic play, Agamemnon has to make a decision to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to please the goddess Artemis.

Likewise, here Dr. Murphy needs to decide on which of his family members he needs to sacrifice in order to please the very supernaturally powerful Martin. His son comes close to dying when he decides that fate would be the ultimate decider. And fate chooses to kill his son anyway.

Firstly, I think the biggest thing everyone was thinking was just, "Why can't he just shoot himself?!" It would have been a cleaner and easier resolution if he just shot himself. However, we don't know if this would actually resolve anything. His two children might die anyway, followed by his wife.

But besides that, I think the point of this movie was to try and show human selfishness. Here, Dr. Murphy is seen to be extremely selfish, not wanting to reveal his previous fatal mistake of drinking while on the job, wanting to hold Martin hostage until he reversed his curse upon the family, and also choosing to murder one of his own family over himself.

However, he's not the only one that's selfish here. Martin is selfish for putting this curse on the doctor because he wants to seek out his own vengeance, and he also wants his mother to get with Dr. Murphy despite his very evident unwillingness to (and I love how this scene just shows that Alicia Silverstone is still being as clueless as ever when it comes to reading men; I also loved the actor for Martin, the same boy from Dunkirk).

Then we see the rest of the Murphy family. Anna, Dr. Murphy's wife played by Nicole Kidman, is also extremely selfish, saying that the only logical thing is to kill one of the children because they could always have another child together. Then she lays down in bed naked trying to seduce him to remind him what he will miss if he kills her.

The children, too, try to bargain for their lives, with the son cutting his hair like his father wanted him to, and saying how he wants to be a cardiovascular surgeon to rub his father's ego. His daughter tried to tell him how much she loves the family, and tells him to kill her off in an attempt at reverse psychology. Heck, the father even goes to their school to see which of his children are better and, terribly, which one deserves to live more.

And yet none of this matters because he ties them up and shoots them at random. How many rounds was he willing to do before he finally shot someone? We will never know, because on the third shot, he kills his own son. It's a sad scene, but it's also kind of a relief, for both Dr. Murphy and the audience. We as the audience are put in this terrible fly-on-the-wall position with an intense roller coaster ride of emotions, and when it's over, it's a big sigh of relief.

But I would have liked to have seen him spinning around a third time, and then hear the sound of a gunshot just as the screen goes black, and the credits start to roll. I would have liked that idea of not knowing who was actually murdered, and whether a murder actually did appease Martin. But as the movie did, it continued, and we saw the long stare off between the family and Martin in the diner.

I think I left a bit unsatisfied not at the way the movie was directed, but more at the premise of it. We've seen movies before where our protagonists had to make tough choices related to their families. One example that I can think of (and probably not the best one) is The Box (2009), where a married couple is given the choice to receive a million dollars if they press a button that kills someone they don't know. The couple make a decision, and have to live with the consequences of their decision.

Moral dilemmas are not new to cinema. In fact they are pretty much just 2 hour long elaborations on the classic "Would You Rather" schoolyard games that we played. But it's interesting to have a moral dilemma because there are pros and cons to each option. Here, there's not really any option. We are not made to believe that anything can be done about the situation. It's a shitty situation, but it's one that the protagonist has to ride. There is no stopping Martin and his curse of the Murphys. The only option you're left with is who to kill.

And that can be a bit boring in retrospect. It definitely wasn't boring watching the movie, but after leaving and thinking about the movie, I was like, "Oh. That wasn't actually anything too special." And to me, it wasn't special because there wasn't much hope left in the audience for how things would end. Also, the ending itself is a bit mediocre, because even though they have to live with Dr. Murphy killing his own son, you almost feel like none of the characters have really developed or changed after the events of the movie.

Why? Because we've already seen how selfish they are. And how accepting they are of their situation. Sure, they try to fight back a little, but in the end they're all pretty accepting of the fact that someone has to die. So accepting, in fact, that they try to bargain for their lives instead of sacrificing their own. And so, because of that, having one of them die doesn't really seem like enough of a punishment for them. They seem to have accepted this as their fate, and if anything it seems like they're all a little bit relieved at the end of that cafe scene. Almost like how relieved Agamemnon was, because the sacrifice of his daughter meant he could lead his troops to Troy to fight in the Trojan War. The Murphy family is upset, of course, but they're relieved that they can keep on living.

In saying all that, I did enjoy this movie. It's not a film I would recommend to many people, though, because it is very weird and I don't think I know many who would actually take well to it. There are a lot of questions leaving this film, particularly because there seemed to be a lot of small storylines happening that didn't lead anywhere. But this all added to the confusion and creepiness of the film. It was a very tense movie, and that is props to the directing, acting, camerawork, and music of the film.

Nothing like this ever happens here. This is a safe place.

Suburbicon (2017)

4.7/10 on IMDb
27% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright;
Proceed at your own risk

Watch it if you: Are a fan of the cast;
Have nothing better to do;
Are bored at home

In Suburbicon, nothing ever happens. It is a safe, peaceful, and idyllic suburb for you to raise your family. But events start occurring that start to shake the tranquility of Suburbicon.

I had seen the trailer for this sooo many times when I went to watch other movies, and I was pretty excited for it. Seeing that it was written by the Coen brothers, directed by George Clooney, and starred Matt Damon, I was down. And while I don't regret seeing this movie, the film's interesting plot had a lot more potential than what this film did with it.

So as I said, the trailer for this seemed super interesting, and I thought it was going to be a pretty good dark comedy. And the movie starts off like this. The opening scene is pretty funny, however over the course of the movie it starts to get a bit boring.

Unfortunately it ended up not being as funny as the trailers made it out to be, and another thing is that the movie seemed to lack direction

Don't get me wrong, the plot was actually interesting, but there are still quite a few issues with it.

Firstly, there are two plots happening in this movie. There's the main one with Matt Damon's family, and then there's a subplot that serves as a social commentary on racism in the neighbourhood.

The main plot is the interesting one. It's a bit bizarre, but in an interesting way. It's not really what the trailers tell you, but if you've seen the trailers enough times (I think I saw it like 3 or 4 times because it would play whenever I saw a movie in the cinemas), then there are scenes in the trailer that spoil this movie. Because things happen in the film that make you recall scenes in the trailer, and that makes the film lose its element of surprise.

However this might be a reason why I thought this film was a little predictable. I'm not usually clever enough to guess the ending of movies, but from near the start of the film you have a rough idea of where they're going with this. I suppose there's nothing too wrong with that, I mean predictability could make it more intriguing and funny, but this was not executed well and the film became quite boring later on. Some scenes went by slowly and it felt like a drag even though it was a short movie (with a run time of 1 hour and 45 minutes).

The subplot on racism was pretty funny and interesting at the start, and in fact I actually thought that was going to be the main plot, but it ends up going nowhere. It serves as pretty good social commentary, but it's so oddly sprinkled throughout this whacky Matt Damon plot that it's just out of place and feels like they're just forcing a racism lesson down our throats the entire movie. Towards the end of the movie I kept thinking, "If this film manages to tie in this racism thing to the main plot, that would be GENIUS!" But it didn't. It just went nowhere.

I will say, though, that none of the faults are with the acting. Matt Damon and Julianne Moore did excellent jobs here, and you even have a small appearance by Oscar Isaac that's fantastic.

The kid actor in this, Noah Jupe, did a fantastic job as well. He's pretty much the only character that you root for and have compassion for, and he did a really convincing job for his age.

But overall, this film just had a lot more potential. I think if the Coen brothers were the ones that were directing it, it would have been much better. It has an average rating of 4.8/10 on Rotten Tomatoes and that sounds about right. It's nothing special and I wouldn't tell anyone to watch it in theatres, but it's interesting if you're a fan of the cast or that sort of feel of the movie, where they live in an idyllic society that ends up not being so idyllic after all. The cast are great, but the pacing and tone is weird. It's not really a dark comedy satire, but it tries to be, and the two different subplots means the film loses its direction. It could have done with being maybe 15 minutes shorter, and focusing on the comedy a bit more. It's still interesting, though, but probably for something you would watch at home when you're bored and curious. I wouldn't watch it again though.

You give and you give and you give. It's just never enough.

mother! (2017)

7.0/10 on IMDb
68% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe, BUT
Proceed at your own risk

Watch it if you: Are intrigued by the trailer;
Are a fan of the director;
Aren't expecting a horror home invasion movie;
Instead, are keen for an arthouse film with ~deeper meaning~
I decided against using my usual format for movie reviews for this movie, because it's a difficult one to place.

If you watch the trailer, it looks like a creepy home invasion psychological thriller, but the actual movie is really different.

It's more of an arthouse type of movie where there's a huge metaphor and every scene has a deeper meaning to it, but if you don't know the metaphor then the entire movie is extremely confusing, and possibly also a little terrible to watch. So, basically, if you can appreciate arthouse movies, then you might like it, but for the more mainstream viewer, it's potentially the worst film ever.

The film is chaotic, violent, and mind-boggling. One article said, "Co-star Ed Harris joked, “I’m still not quite sure what to think of it all.” Deadpanned Javier Bardem: “Basically I did not know what I was doing . . . I don’t even really speak English.”

For myself, watching the movie was really weird. I knew one piece of the allegory because of an interview Jennifer Lawrence did, but I didn't realise other bits of symbolism until towards the end of the movie. The movie was so fast paced and confusing, though, that I didn't really have time to think about the bigger picture until I walked out of the movie. Then suddenly, it clicked, and I think the movie makes a fantastic metaphor for it all. I think it's a movie that would be really fun to analyse in English class, and yes, I am aware of how nerdy that makes me sound.

I kinda want to watch it again, to fully understand the metaphor, so I think it would be good to know the metaphor going in, but since I didn't do that I don't know whether it ruins the fun by taking away your realisation of what it all means.

Anyhoo, the rest of this review is going to be spoilers breaking down the film, so if you think you want to know the metaphor going in, then proceed. If not, I do recommend this film, followed by some reading up of what it all meant, but I would warn you to proceed at your own risk, because this film is... bizarre.

Click to show/hide spoilers:

So there are two main themes of this film:

1. The film is a biblical metaphor for humanity's sinful nature
   
2. The film is a message warning us of the dangers of neglecting our planet Earth
   

The movie starts off with an image of a lady being burnt, a previous apocalypse. Followed by God (Javier Bardem's character) restoring life through the heart of mother nature (or mother earth, I can't decide, played by Jennifer Lawrence). This restores the planet earth (the house) back to an Eden-like paradise ("I want to make this a paradise for him," paraphrased). Mother earth is clothed in white; she is clean, fresh, and pure. She never leaves the house.

God struggles to write; he struggles to create. He manages to write something down and suddenly a man (Adam, the first man, played by Ed Harris) appears.

Later on, his wife, Eve (played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who still looks amazingly gorgeous despite being nearly 60 years old) appears. I also read somewhere that the thing that gets flushed down the toilet is part of Adam's rib, because it occurs after Adam first meets God, they seem to do some sort of trade, he has a bruise on his back, he vomits in the toilet, then the next day Eve appears. If someone can explain to me why exactly it had to be a creature in the toilet, that'd be great.

Where Adam is considerate and slightly hesitant to intrude on the couple, Eve is entitled, arrogant, and sinful. She is constantly drawn towards the study room containing the previous mother nature's heart, despite God not wanting anyone to touch it, and not wanting anyone to be in that room without him.

Her sinful curiosity ends up in her breaking the stone (eating the Forbidden Fruit), which results in the wrath of God. God banishes them from Eden (boarding up the doors to the study), but still loves them enough to allow them to live in the other parts of Earth.

Cain and Abel appear, with Cain murdering his brother, spilling blood on Earth. God appears to abandon mother earth (when he takes the son to the hospital and leaves mother earth vulnerable to Cain and therefore vulnerable to more sin) and she has to clean up the mess in distraught, but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot clear the sin from Earth.

The funeral scene is resemblant of Noah and his friends (or just other humans in general) being invited to closeness with God, yet these humans are disobedient and neglectful of mother earth (Jennifer Lawrence here speaks with a really sweet voice which I haven't heard her use before; she sounds super innocent and even youthful, yet everyone treats her with disgust). They feel insulted and laugh when mother nature tells them that the room is 'her' room, because they feel entitled to a share of mother earth despite not doing anything to contribute to it. Mother earth did all the work in the house, making it perfect and 'a paradise', these humans do nothing and barge in as if they own it already.

Mother tells the humans not to sit on the sink yet the humans, ever sinful, constantly disobey her, even jumping on the sink to spite her. The sinful actions of the humans starts to cause damage to the Earth, and a great flood occurs and humans are (nearly) eradicated (Noah's flood).

During this, Eve gives a lot of side eye to mother nature, because Eve suffered a lot after being abandoned from Eden (in the Bible, Eve eating the Forbidden Fruit results in all women having pregnancy and labour pain while giving birth; thanks Eve). Eve is resentful towards Mother Nature. 

Soon, Mother Nature is pregnant with baby Jesus in her, and this inspires God to write the Bible. Mother Nature throws away the yellow powder she has been taking every time she received pains. What is that yellow powder? I don't know, but I read somewhere it could be ambrosia, the nectar or food only for the gods. I'm not sure about this though because she does chuck it away once she's pregnant as if it is harmful to baby Jesus.

Anyway, as soon as God finishes the Bible, his publisher, the Herald, spreads the word of God to the masses and they love him. What ensues is a whole lot of focus and attention on God. Mother Nature celebrates for God, but it's not enough for him. God doesn't want the love or attention that Mother Nature provides, he wants the love, reverence, and blind adoration that Humans can give to him. God abandons Mother Nature again, not thinking of her when he tells the Humans that the house (Earth) is all for them to share. God is made out to be the bad guy, wanting attention and religious devotion and worship at the expense of Mother Nature and Earth ("They've come to see me!").

The Humans listen to this and feel entitled to everything in the house, not taking a second's moment to claim pieces of Earth for themselves, fighting, shedding blood, and even destroying Earth in the process. They take for granted all the hard work that Mother Nature has put into this planet, and they rip the earth apart. More and more people start coming to the house as more people start following the Faith, although they don't respect it at all and they neglect and even despise or look down upon Mother Nature (seriously, everyone in this movie was such a dick to Jennifer Lawrence!).

What happens in the fever dream... I can't even remember. I read somewhere that all ten of the plagues that Moses brings down on Pharoah make a brief appearance but I honestly can't think of a single one of them except the frog that jumps out of the basement cellar.

Anyway the fever dream happens and from what I remember there seems to be symbols of overpopulation, the beginnings of religious behaviour and cults, humans fighting against humans, police storming in (are these the Roman soldiers?), war and terrorism occur. Kristen Wiig is the Herald, she makes a confusing cameo just to add to the chaos of the fever dream (kind of like how Domnhall Gleeson's appearance was such a shock in such a shocking scene). She then starts executing people which might be a reflection of the behaviours of religious followers/leaders against non-believers. She also orders people to kill Mother Earth.

There's also a brief glimpse in hope for humanity, with one of the police officers looking at pregnant Mother Earth and worrying for her. He attempts to lead her to safety, protects her from a bomb, but ends up getting shot in the head when he tries to care for her.

Jesus is born, and Mother Nature protects him from God, but eventually God steals Jesus and shows him to the world. The people love Jesus and worship him, but in their haste and irresponsibility they SNAP HIS NECK (which was so traumatic by the way!), killing him like how Jesus was crucified on the cross.

They rip his body apart and eat his body and drink his blood (which is reflecting the practice of communion where you drink wine, which symbolises the blood of Christ, and you eat bread, which symbolises the body of Christ).

Mother Nature loses her shit and starts killing humans. The humans retaliate and beat up and destroy Mother Nature. At this stage she can feel the Earth losing its life, and the house starts to collapse. God implores Mother Earth to forgive the humans, but she refuses. He tries to protect her from the Humans but she in turn abandons him. She realises that God never loved Mother Nature or Planet Earth as much as they loved him. He only loved how much the Earth was willing to provide for him, but he never provided back.

Mother Nature decides to destroy Planet Earth. She is badly hurt during this process. God implies that he is trapped in this destiny of needing to create things, and so he will keep creating, because that is what he does. Mother Nature, ever loving, still has life and love inside of her. God takes this love she has and recreates the earth again, starting it all over again in a show of reincarnation.

Ultimately, humanity never learns (and apparently God never learns too), and history repeats itself.

I feel like I just wrote a HSC worthy essay in that spoiler section. Once you know the metaphor, I think the film feels pretty straightforward, but the film is still pretty insane, and definitely not an easy watch.

Apes. Together. Strong.

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

8.0/10 on IMDb
93% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright;
Proceed at your own risk

Watch it if you: Just want to see how the Apes trilogy ends;
Aren't expecting a war/action movie but are looking for a dramatic film focusing on Caesar


War for the Planet of the Apes is the third installment of the prequel story leading up to how our beloved planet became a planet of apes. Following the events of the previous movie, the apes, led by Caesar, are forced into a brutal war with the humans, a war that will determine the future of humans, and Earth.

I was so excited for this film, as I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). These two films were amazingly done and I just couldn't wait for the final epic showdown.

But (and I seem to be the only one that thinks so) I thought this film was a massive let down.

Firstly, at 2 hours and 20 minutes, this movie is really long. And it feels long. Quite a few scenes feel very dragged out and repetitive, making the film as a whole quite boring.

A war film that's boring?! How can it be?!

Well, the opening scene was a great war scene, and I thought the rest of the movie was going to be like that. But the film isn't actually a war film.

Nope, there's hardly any actual 'war' in this film despite the first word of the movie literally being 'War'. So it was very different to my expectations of it being full of action. There is, of course, a war going on, but (without saying any spoilers) it plays out very differently to how you expect, and want, it to go.

Perhaps these expectations just made me like the film a lot less, and if I saw the film again it might actually be better because I would know that it's not actually a huge war movie.

So those were my main gripes with the film, but of course there were some aspects of the movie that I really liked.

I loved how the focus was more on Caesar and there weren't really many main human characters in this. It was very different to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes where you kind of had half-half humans vs apes, and you weren't sure who to root for. Here you very distinctly root for the apes. It's kind of a weird feeling to root for these animals to destroy your own species.

But here you get to see more of what Caesar is feeling and thinking, and what his own internal conflicts are. He appears a lot more aggressive in this film, and you see how Koba and the events in Dawn have really affected him.

I also loved the very biblical themes in this movie. Here, Caesar was like the Moses of the apes, the mass of apes was like an Exodus, and there's a whole lot more, including some imagery akin to crucifixion.

This focus on the apes meant that the CGI was SPECTACULAR. Firstly, Andy Serkis is fantastic as usual, but all the animals were done so well. Maurice looked amazing, and also the mass of apes moving all together was breathtaking. They also included the imagery of apes riding horses down beaches and sandy terrain, which was a great allusion to the original Planet of the Apes (1968).

Going back to things I didn't like though...

I really don't like the addition of a 'comedic' character in this movie. I found the character sooooo annoying! Some parts were funny but every time he opened his mouth I was seirously just cringing so much.

Also, whenever I watched the trailers or promotional clips of the film, I became really unsure about Woody Harrelson. And sure enough, I just didn't like him in here. I think his actual character was very interesting, and I even did agree with his reasoning, but either his acting or the actual writing of the dialogue was not convincing.

Another thing was I found it so funny how at the beginning they needed to show you why they went with the ordering of Rise/Dawn/War, since for the past 3 years I've been questioning why it wasn't the "dawn" before the "rise" of the planet of the apes.

So all in all, I seriously don't know why all the critics loved this film. They are saying that it is the best of the trilogy but I think Dawn is the best and Rise still overshadows it by a mile. Others might think that it's poignant, and very deep, but I couldn't get past how long and drawn out the scenes were. It was boring to me, and the stunning CGI and beautiful mo-cap done by Andy Serkis could not make up for that.


A few side notes:

• Bad Ape looked so much like Dobby I really could not take him seriously
  

I pray but I am lost. Am I just praying to silence?

Silence (2016)

7.5/10 on IMDb
84% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Please, for the love of all things good and true, do not watch this;
Proceed at your own risk
Watch it if you: Want to see a really deep film about religion and spirituality;
Want to be bored halfway into the movie
The environment of 17th century Japan is one of hostility, as Christianity has been outlawed and Japanese officials terrorise small villages as they attempt to torture and execute the Christians out of them. Due to this, two Jesuit missionaries hear word that their mentor has renounced his faith after being tortured, and they decide to travel to Nagasaki in the hopes of finding out the truth about him.

I chose to watch this over Fences because the trailer looked fantastic in terms of cinematography, score, and storyline. It has also been getting some solid reviews from critics, so I thought it would be great.

Unfortunately, I didn't realise how long the movie was until I bought a ticket for it. 2 hours and 41 minutes! Nevermind, I thought. I've seen longer.

Turns out, I have also seen much, much, better.

The premise itself is pretty interesting. The film is a complex philosophical discussion about spirituality, faith, and human nature. Some of the themes that the film looks at are really interesting to delve into, such as "How far would you be tortured for your what you believe in?", "Are all religions the same?", "Can you keep your faith even if you publicly renounce it?"

But, as I said, the major downside of this film is the terribly long runtime.

I really liked the first half of the film, because of the fantastic cinematography, the opening and introduction into this anti-Christian Japan, and the solid acting by Andrew Garfield.

Then, I checked my watch.

And from then on I kept checking my watch every 15 minutes and internally sighing.

"Hang in there, just another 1 hour and 40 minutes to go."
So yeah, this is a short review, but basically, I wouldn't recommend this film. It is a pretty boring film, and the interesting premise does not make up for it. The cinematography and score are great, and Andrew Garfield does a great job here, but the film has too long of a run time for me to recommend it to anyone. All the interesting parts of the trailer are mainly from the first half of the film, and if you manage to bear through it all, it does become a nice philosophical discussion and religion and faith.

Also, Adam Driver's face is just so weird to look at on the big screen.

There won't be another Camelot

Jackie (2016)

7.7/10 on IMDb
88% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright; Proceed at your own risk
Watch it if you: Want to see a movie related to JFK; Want to see Natalie Portman perfectly portraying Jackie Kennedy; Don't mind a slow-moving biopic
I am quite fascinated by the whole JFK assassination, from seeing video footage of Jackie Kennedy scrambling over the car boot immediately after the shot rang out, to the image of Jackie in her iconic blood-stained pink suit while Lyndon B. Johnson is being sworn in, and even to the event being one of the most climactic lines of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire.

So I was quite excited for this film, even nearly crying at the trailer.

I wanted to love it, but unfortunately I just have to disagree with the critics on this one... it wasn't that good...

The saving grace here is really Natalie Portman, and if you want to see her doing possibly her best piece of acting, go watch this film because that alone makes the film deserving of a watch.

She looks beautiful here, like royalty. Her outfits are amazing, she has so much grace, and I think she must have studied Jackie Kennedy so much since she seems to have nailed her accent and even small mannerisms and body language. I seriously think Natalie Portman should be Belle, because for some reason I don't think Emma Watson looks her best in Beauty and the Beast, but I digress.

Natalie Portman does a fantastic job bringing Jackie to life and fleshing out her character; she balances fragility, vulnerability, and heartbreak so well with strength, poise, and dignity.

In particular, the scene where she is wiping JFK's blood from her face in front of the mirror while sobbing, the scenes in the car, and LBJ's swearing in were so emotional, I think I teared up in all of those scenes.

Unfortunately though, even with Natalie Portman's fantastic acting, the film in general is quite a bit boring and leaves you wanting more.

The film lacks clear direction, with it showing snippets of scenes from different time events making it seem a bit all over the place, and also with long stretches of sequences that seem very irrelevant (e.g. the televised tour of The White House restoration project, plus many others). It feels quite slow-paced, and almost like an indie/arthouse type of film.

An interesting thing is that they had handheld cameras in some scenes, which made it look like a documentary, so it looked almost realistic. They also seemlessly blended in old actual footage they got relating to Jackie's appearances, the car ride, the tour, and other stuff, and I thought that was pretty cool.

The score I think sounds good on its own, but I'm not sure if it actually fit in with some of the scenes; it felt a bit jarring and out of place. I get that they wanted us to feel a bit unnerved by the ominous score, but I just don't think it worked out 100%.

I haven't seen other films about the JFK assassination, so I'm not sure how this fares comparatively. I have heard that this is the best film to portray Jackie Kennedy, but it's still quite boring. It looks stunning, with great costumes and a great looking White House that takes you back to the 60s, but despite how perfect Natalie Portman was, it was still a bit of a dull.

A few side notes:

That actor looks exactly like JFK!

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl... Three for a girl.

The Girl on the Train

6.7/10 on IMDb
44% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Proceed at your own risk
Watch it if you: Really want to see how they adapted the novel; Want to see steamy (literally) sex scenes with Hayley Bennett
Rachel catches the same train every day, sitting in the exact same seat in the exact same carriage. Her dull life of routine monotony is made bearable by her vivid imagination, as she creates fictional stories for the people living behind the houses that she passes by every day. Yet one day, something so out of the ordinary occurs to her favourite couple that it shocks her to her core. Later, she discovers that Megan, the wife in her idealised couple, has gone missing. As she alerts the police of what she saw on the train, the situation spirals out of control and Rachel starts to wonder if she herself can be trusted.

I saw this trailer earlier this year and was so excited for it to be the next Gone Girl that I went and read the book. It was a pretty decent read, since I read it in about 4 days, so I wanted to watch the movie. I knew the reviews were terrible, but I felt like I still needed to watch the movie anyway (even though I always end up hating book adaptations).

This is definitely not one of those films where the critics were wrong. This was a pretty bad movie, and I would not recommend it.

The movie felt really long, even though it was 1 hour and 52 minutes total. But honestly, I was sighing and shifting in my seat uncomfortably even 15 minutes into the film; it was just SO BORING. I started worrying about the rest of the film.

The interesting part starts about 30 minutes into the film, but it feels like an hour into the movie. So when you look at your watch you have to give an even greater sigh at the thought of still being here for the next 1.5 hours, even though the scene you just saw was pretty interesting.

The main issue with the film is that they were just trying to overdo it. And by 'it', I mean everything.

Firstly with the acting. The acting was great, don't get me wrong; Emily Blunt was really good. But sometimes... she just went too far. It's a testament to her acting ability, with the camera trained on her for really dramatic long takes, however I just don't think the director gave them good direction, because some of these long long long monologues felt repetitive, slow, and way too long.

All of the other actors were good actors too. I don't think performance was ever the issue, but directing and writing. The script was quite bad at times, but at least the actors did what they could with it. I was happy to see Anna being portrayed by Rebecca Ferguson (the badass woman in yellow in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation), although sometimes I really did not like the performance by Hayley Benett (from the Magnificent Seven; sometimes referred to by others as Poor Man's Jennifer Lawrence). I'm not sure if it was deliberately meant to be so unemotional, but I wanted to sleep or just hit fast forward every time she was talking. I seriously did not care for her character at all, even though I did care for her when reading the novel.

Secondly with the transitioning. I really did not like the way they handled this. The novel jumps from the present to the past (from 6 months ago and then leading up to present day) and it also jumps between characters (Rachel, Megan and Anna), and the movie tried to emulate this but it was not executed well enough. The novel is done in a diary format, so I guess the filmmakers thought it would be necessary to tell the audiences what time period we were in with each scene, but the fact that the film jumped A LOT and that they didn't transition it well enough meant that it was STILL confusing. Which just means they were being lazy at not integrating the time jumps that well.

Another thing is that at each transition, they would also put a title card with the character's name on it.

Do you know how stupid that is?!?!? This is not a book where the narrator is talking in first person and so won't reveal their name; this is a movie where we can clearly SEE who the scene is focusing on. So they would have TWO title cards, one with the character name and then one with the time period, and then a scene that was not really well integrated into the film. Why not just have one title card with just the time period?

In the end, this is NOT the Gone Girl I was expecting it to be; I am seriously disappointed. Emily Blunt is amazing, but her performance gets lost in super long scenes and a poorly directed movie that had some serious potential to be great.

~SPOILER~ about the characters and ending:

The movie makes Rachel out to be a batshit crazy woman, when, if you think about it, everyone is actually insane:
-Rachel: alcoholic, depressed, victim of domestic abuse (both physical and mental) without realising it
-Tom: murderer, physical and emotional abuser and manipulator, serial cheater, sex addict, has anger-management issues
-Anna: cheater (indirectly), insecure, dependent and submissive
-Megan: sex addict, serial cheater, depressed, struggling with previous trauma
-Scott: emotional abuser, has anger-management issues