#2018 movie reviews

[bridoesotherjunk]

Okay, so it's been a handful of days since I've seen Venom 3.. and I think I've finally got my thoughts together.

This review will have spoilers, so it will go under the cut.

these are all my opinions, so don't take my word as gospel or anything...

Anyone who knows me and my blog knows how much I've loved these movies since 2018, so to see me not ranting about the third Venom movie should be evidence enough how I feel.

I... don't feel like this was a satisfying conclusion to the Venom franchise. I really feel like there was so much more that could have been done, and should have been, instead of what we got.

I truly feel that introducing Knull into the story was a mistake. The first 2 films were so much smaller scale. Expanding all the way to the fucking symbiote god after only having done Carnage just felt like such a massive leap. And they really didn't do much with him anyway.

It felt like they included Knull because they were obligated to. Like Sony made them in order to have a weird spin off involving Knull trying to kill stuff. I don't know. He didn't do much besides tease future movies where he's the villain again. And that's kind of boring...

I will sound so narcissistic saying this, but I truly feel that the story I came up with, where the villains of Venom 3 are former Life Foundation employees angry at Eddie for ruining their lives, made way more sense. In terms of scale, you know? Much less "huge universal threat" and more of the small scale "threat to Eddie and Venom specifically" type story. Even Riot, being a threat to the Earth, was smaller scale than Knull. Knull is just too much. Too big. Too unfocused. It felt like too wide of a net. It felt generic, i hate to say it. It just felt like every other dumb ass gritty movie where the bad guy wants to destroy all life as we know it. (And quite frankly, he could have been taken out of the movie and not much would have changed. Venom and Eddie could have been hunted by the xenophages for any number of reasons.)

The part of the movie that I enjoyed most was the beginning. The part that felt like Venom. Where we saw Eddie and Venom working in sync to free those dogs. I loved that. I loved seeing how far the two of them have come and how well they work together. .. seeing their journey in a montage later? That felt... lackluster. After seeing them literally working together just an hour earlier in the movie, it felt kind of cheap. The way the story ended for these two didn't feel like a victory. It felt like the Avengers Endgame "well we gotta get rid of this character because their contract is up" situation.

The movie was definitely a fun time. I enjoyed myself watching it. But I was left feeling a sense of "That's it?" That I haven't felt since Avengers Endgame.

I'm happy that Tom Hardy got to do these movies. I absolutely will forever adore the first 2. They're fun, they're goofy, they're gay, and I love them. .. but this third one just... yeah. I'm disappointed.

I will always love Venom. That much is not going to change. I love these two gay losers and I'm so happy I got to have them in my life. They brought me so much joy, and so much brainrot, and I will miss the fuck out of them.

[sbblake]

Apostle (2018)

Aka, one of my very favorite horror movies <3

[hyena-woodie]

Christopher Robin is the greatest movie of all time. Fucking love that movie. Makes me tear up and laugh and omg so many feels. But it also just bears such an important message towards the audience, nowadays everyone is so consumed by work and seemingly important things. But we sometimes forget what is really important and we should also fill up our 'case of important things' with memories of the ones that we love <3

If you haven't seen that movie yet, go see it. It's amazing

[leresq]

Every movie/show I finished in March 2025 and their ranking out of 100, this may include rewatches

Twilight, 2008: 70/100 Blade Runner, 1982: 100/100 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, 2023: 95/100 Jojo Rabbit, 2019: 90/100 The Care Bears Movie, 1985: 80/100 Starship Troopers, 1997: 65/100 Flow, 2024: 100/100 Godzilla, 1954: 90/100 Godzilla, 2014: 70/100 Blade Runner 2049, 2017: 95/100 Doom, 2005: 75/100 Braven, 2018: 80/100 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2007: 75/100 Fight Club, 1999: 75/100 Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, 1997: 80/100 Parasite, 2019: 95/100 Severance, Season 2, 2025: 95/100 The Menu, 2022: 90/100 Ant-Man, 2015: 85/100 Captain America: Civil War, 2016: 90/100 Ant-Man and The Wasp, 2018: 90/100 Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, 2023: 80/100 Come to Daddy, 2019: 80/100 Five Nights at Freddy's, 2023: 85/100

[theflixdiaryproject]

"no. no, I actually broke up with you because you don't look like a guy." - Simon

Love, Simon tells the story of Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), a high school student who has yet to come out as gay. living in the suburbs, Simon leads a seemingly normal life, with supportive friends and a loving family. he’s been communicating with a fellow student named Blue online, but their secret relationship is now complicated when Simon’s private messages are exposed.

read my review below (may contain spoilers):

watched July 28th, 2024 on netflix

I expected a cute, fun teen rom-com from Love, Simon but what I got is something much deeper. this movie is full of emotions that really catch me off guard. I grin.. I laugh.. I cry.. and sometimes it can feels like a punch to the gut. even though I don’t see myself as part of the LGBTQ+ community, I still feel connected to Simon’s journey. this movie is not just about being gay; it’s also brings a subtle message to everyone who feels trapped and wants to break free to show the world their true selves. I really really love how this movie handles the coming-out theme. Simon’s struggle feels so relatable. it’s like something everyone can understand, even if the details of the story are different for us. the way Simon balances his secret online relationship with his real life is both thrilling and heartbreaking. it makes me think of my own online friends, the ones who truly get me, unlike some people around me. sometimes, people you’ve never met can know you better than your own family.

Simon’s secret online relationship is a big part of the story, and it’s beautifully done. his anonymous friendship with Blue feels authentic and sweet. it’s the kind of connection that probably will make you believe in people again, if you've lost it. watching Simon figure out these emotions while hiding such a big part of himself feels so raw and honest. the family dynamic in this movie is also really nice. Simon’s parents (played by Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel) are great, and they stay in the background. this is important because it lets the story focus on Simon. they don’t steal the spotlight, and I appreciate that. they’re there to support Simon, not to take over the movie. it feels very balanced. by the time the movie ends, I’m filled with so many feelings. Love, Simon hits me the right way. it’s authentic and refreshing, especially in the teen romance genre. it doesn’t try too hard, but it’s powerful in its simplicity. it shows that coming out, love, and figuring out who you are doesn’t have to be over-the-top to feel real. whether you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community or not, this movie is worth watching.

final verdict: I think it was okay/watchable

maturity rating: 13+ genre: comedy, drama, romance duration: 1h 50m (110 mins) country of origin: USA language: English screenplay: Greg Berlanti, Isaac Aptaker, Elizabeth Berger based on: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda novel by Becky Albertalli major cast: Nick Robinson, Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Logan Miller, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel, Keiynan Lonsdale

[thehannibalextendeduniverse]

Arctic

spoilers for the ending ahead!

This is the kind of movie I would normally watch anyway, it's the stuff I'm interested in. It seems interesting and I have high hopes for it.

??? That scene was unecessarily terrifying wtf was going on, now I'm hella intrigued.

smt abt Mads eating raw noodles is endlessly funny to me.

But god, the desperation in Overgård's face, the hope, the panic, the realisation, the crushing defeat — absolutely beautiful acting.

polar bears look so fluffy. if so dangerous, why friend shaped?

Mads is so good at conveying Overgård's distress and pain. For a film with very little dialogue, there's so much he manages to say.

The landscape was absolutely gorgeous. That clean expanse of white untouched snow forces you to focus on the one speck of colour and movement. It's a simple but effective mechanism that just adds so much.

Arctic has a chilling story (pun intended) about survival. It isn't action packed or full of danger, it's just a stranded guy trying to save himself — and that just makes it more real and more emotionally touching.

I really, really enjoyed this. It's powerful narratively and god, that final scene made me tear up. I choose to believe in a happy ending because hypothermia doesn't kill that fast and Overgård was probably just unconscious... right? Either way, the sort-of ambiguous ending was absolutely perfect for this film.

Plus I like Mads and his beard.

[the-masked-reviewer]

Bumblebee (2018) Review

potential spoilers ahead...

This movie feels like it took the fan-favorite character and decided to make a cash-grab with him. Which would be less frustrating if it made sense in the Transformers universe or with his characterization(Yes, I am arguing they characterized a robot wrong). But it doesn't.

This movie's story is like you gave someone the worst vague description of who Bumblebee is and the Transformers as a whole (specifically the cinematic timeline) and had them write a movie, without ever going in and making the continuity make sense in terms of timeline, story, and characterization. On top of all that the teenage romance is boring, unnecessary, and out of place.

The music is great, because it's set in the 80's so duh. But even knowing it's a reboot, and that it's about my favorite character, and that many seem to love it, this is easily my least favorite transformers movie by a landslide.

Before I actually cover those changes, it's important to know that months after the film came out, it was confirmed as a reboot (comicbook.com) information that at least to my knowledge was never mentioned. Meaning if you don't know this is an attempt to reboot the franchise before watching, like me, it's pretty fucking confusing and infuriating. It does also mean, you can basically ignore the next two paragraphs of me being annoyed if you want.

Starting with the changes to the overall timeline, the biggest, and most confusing, change is the time period and reason various Autobots come to Earth. I was meant to be paying attention to the teenage romance and the two Decepticons chasing Bee, but instead this change left me wondering who else was supposed to be on Earth in all the wrong ways, distracting me from the story.  Obviously the change of who's present and when, changes just about everything we previously knew about the universe. You'd think that would make it clear its a reboot or alternate universe, wouldn't you? If fucking only.

The characterization makes Bee out to be constantly scared and reserved. And while the reasoning of prequel and how supposedly you watch him grow confident is used to explain it, I hate it. By the end of the movie Bee is still this cowardly robot who shrunk into a ball because a human teenaged girl SORT OF yelled at him. Bumblebee is supposed to be a confident, cocky, fun protector, not a nervous wreck.

[rye-views]

Bumblebee (2018) dir. Travis Knight. 7.5/10

I wouldn't recommend this movie to my friends. I wouldn't rewatch this movie.

Off the bat, this movie feels more like catered to children. Idk how else to describe it. Like, it feels less serious, more cliche, and younger. Like we look like toys here instead of cool machines.

Charlie's electric bike is cool. Bumblebee interacting with Charlie for the first time is so cute. Memo's cute. Cute dog.

Mom saying she's a nurse was funny.

Bee and Charlie are giving me Kong and that girl.

[saturnitepumpkinhead]

I've watched 270+ horror films. Here are my favorites of all time.

Hell video, proudly served, posted late. There are more than 30 films on this video, and if you count the Saw Franchise as 9 movies in one entry, there's actually 44. I couldn't tag all the movies though :(

[toomuchlovereviews]

Game Night (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yeah, I just watched this for Jason Bateman. But it was really fucking funny. Also, Lamorne Morris is hilarious in this.

Watch this if:

You also want to fuck Jason Bateman

Quirky thrillers are more your speed

Similar titles:

Escape Room (2019) (Like a more serious and complex version of this one)

Killer Weekend (2020) (bachelor party turned zombie apocalypse)

[klawkingzz]

Shakedown (2018), directed by Leilah Weinraub is a wonderful representation of community & solidarity, sexuality, entertainment and the freeing moments of the duality of being black and lesbian. All of the girls in this documentary are filled with accomplishment toward who they are. They’re sexually liberated women within a community that not only shares the taste but appreciates every moment that are shared with them. These entertainers aren’t forced, they aren’t vulnerable, they’re having fun. what we know is that this is an underground black queer erotic entertainment club - and we’re told of the girls’ experience being there, which is primarily exhilarating and empowering at shakedown. The ending footage shows how shakedown is under threat by the LAPD, there’s this specific moment where a dancer; Jazmyne is arrested mid-dance for what I can assume is the sexual nature of her entertainment, and this is set in stone by her lack of clothing. she’s put in handcuffs without any underwear, all she has is herself and the eyes upon her, and it’s safe to say these eyes are mourning the moment. Girls are giving her clothing, gathering her dignity as they make sure she walks out of that club decent to the eye of an outsider looking in, they all have each-other and I think it’s really great. Shakedown is a “Exuberant Portrait of radical hedonism and a moving, vital time capsule.” And I couldn’t agree more. Some places are hard to find.

[autolabrum]

Watched Mission Impossible - Fallout

Extremely fun while watching it and then falls off a cliff as soon as the credits roll. Certainly a step up from Rogue Nation in the cinematography, editing, and density of action pieces that distract from the nonsense plot, characters, and morality. Has at least shown me what it takes to distract me from what is so clearly a narcissistic indulgence in the physicality of a single, awful man. It is delightful in the literal sense, and so I'm willing to give it a 'like' but its failures are so much more interesting than anything else. The misogyny is, I think, less frequent but more cutting than in the last entry (Stickell's awful speech to Ilsa a particularly egregious example) and there is an increasing sense that the characters have fallen into the same rapture as the audience; Cruise's 'impossibility' overriding their sense of individuality and personhood, sending an icepick into their brain of just the right endorphins to distract from the insipid nonsense of the whole endeavor. This is much better elaborated here, here, and here. A movie like this can never be a truly great action movie, in that all of the various arts of the form are totally subordinated to the creation of a stunt show with barely even a frame narrative.

[hannahwatcheshorror]

MALEVOLENT (2018)

A dark but overall boring film about scary ghosts in a ladies house (oh my!). But really there was very little new in this story that would make it worth viewing or adding to your lists.

⭐⭐⭐

Angela and her brother Jackson play medium for people to fake rid their homes of spirits so they can move on. It is a pretty messed up gig to be honest but Jackson owes some bad people a lot of money and they might kill his girlfriend so he has to be careful! They take a job that Angela thinks is too big for them but again, Jackson needs the money. When they arrive at the simply massive house they pretend that it isn’t too much for the team of the four (4) of them. 

As soon as they start to survey the house Angela is seeing the spirits of the little girls that died there, she tries to pass it off as something else, but is deeply rocked by having actual psychic visions. The girls have their mouths sewn shut which is another deeply disturbing detail. The woman who called them to the home admits her son killed the girls and was a troubled boy but there appears to be something darker, more Malevolent underneath. Quite literally in fact as our cameraman, Elliot, falls through the floor and into a dark and spooky room with all these words (like HELP) scratched into the walls. Jackson leaves his girlfriend at base with the mother who is now admitting that it was the girls who were so out of line with the constant talking and her boy was a “good egg” and we are realizing she is the baddie here. By the time the three (3) make it back to the base the girlfriend is gone, they have to find her and she has had her mouth sewn shut. They get into the car but don’t make it out as they get into an accident and since the girlfriend wasn’t belted in (she was unconscious) she was thrown from the car and died. Awfully tragic. 

Now the bad son appears and he takes Jackson. Angela has to walk all the way back to the house to save her brother (poor Elliot will have to crawl). By the time Angela gets there she is put in a chair and begins to have her mouth sewn shut, it isn’t until Elliot shows up and kills the son that there is a shift in power but the mom is still very dangerous. That is when the ghost children scream and scream giving Angela a moment to end things. As she leaves the house to go get help she sees her brother, sans injury. She knows pretty much immediately that he is a ghost. She is wrecked by this, she couldn’t save him, but by the end, in the hospital, she is glad for the company of her brother's spirit. This is based on a book called Hush which makes a lot more sense what with the sewing of the mouths shut. Also there is already a scary movie called Hush and it is appropriately named and it is incredibly well done.

----------------------HANNAH WATCHES HORROR---------------------

[yesterdanereviews]

Replicas (2018)

Film review #632

Director: Jeffrey Nachmanoff

SYNOPSIS: William Foster is a scientist working on a project to transfer the consciousness of a person into an android body. When he is involved in a car crash with his family and he emerges as the only survivor, he decides to bring them back using his research of transferring consciousness, combined with cloning research being undertaken by his colleague. With the experiment a success, Will's attempts to keep the secret from his family becomes ever more difficult, and when his employers find out about them, they see them as nothing more than experiments and test subjects, and Will must fight to save his family...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Replicas is a 2018 sci-fi film. Starring Keanu Reeves as Will Foster, a scientist who is working on a project to transfer human consciousness into an android body. Unable to figure out the final part of the problem, he is on the verge of losing his funding. During a drive, Will and his family are involved in a car crash, which kills his wife and three children. This leads him to come to the decision to copy their consciousness and to enlist the help of his colleague Ed Whittle, who works in cloning, to create new bodies for him to upload their consciousness too. If you think that's an absolute mess of a premise, and a a bit of a stretch that the one guy who is working in uploading consciousness just so happens to have his own family killed in the most cliché car-crash-over-a-cliff-on-a-rainy-night. That his next step after dragging them out of the water is to think about cloning them new bodies is a bit of a stretch, and just makes him seen deeply unhinged, and not really the kind of guy you should be rooting for. I get that after such an event he is probably not thinking rationally, but the way he immediately comes to this decision without him ever having any success really just doesn't flow narratively. Thematically, the way the film just jumps from androids to cloning is a bit disjointed too: you could easily just pick one or the other, but here they're just put in a blender and thrown about all over the film, never approaching either subject with consideration or depth. You could certainly make a film that deals with the concepts of mind (consciousness) and body (cloning), which I think is maybe what the film is trying to do, but it nowhere near makes any kind of point on it.

Will erases the parts of his family's memories of the crash, so they don't remember, and because he only has three cloning pods and can't clone their youngest daughter, has to erase their memories of her as well. This is where the plot-holes start to really pile up, as Will has to wipe out all trace's of his Daughter's existence. He can perhaps erase the memory of his family members by deleting parts of their memory, but what about everyone else that knew her? Her school? There is no way he could have thought this was going to work, and the film barely addresses it. Again, we have to accept he is not exactly thinking rationally, but the fact that he does attempt to account for his family's absence by contacting their schools, employers etc. shows that he is aware of the problem. It just seems that the film ignores the huge task it opens up to itself with this.

Keanu Reeves is not the ideal lead for this sort of film: if you're not going to adequately dive into the philosophical issues surrounding cloning, consciousness, evading death and the like, then you need to be able to deliver an emotional impact and show the grief that the lead is going through having lost his family. Unfortunately, Reeves just cannot deliver that level of an emotional performance. Combined with his wholly illogical and unhinged behaviour, and it makes it difficult to root for him or understand what is going on in his head. The finale of the film has Will and his family on the run as the company Will works for wants his family eliminated, as they are experiments that have fulfilled their usefulness. This whole action sequence just feels unnecessary too; there's no build up to this, or any similar sequence earlier in the film, so it just comes out of nowhere. It tries to build up to something, then just...stops, as Will and the villain reach a deal, and everyone just lives happily ever after. After the absolute mess of the film and Will's absurd decisions, the fact that everything' ends well is perhaps the biggest leap of all. The CG is all really bad too: as the android moves about in such an awkward way there's no way you'll believe the actors are actually interacting with it.

[tazienimp]

Just watched Venom Last Dance, and, yeah no i refuse to believe that Vee's dead. If the guy in the fucking base was able to survive and crawl his way back out, Vee def got out. He had a remnant kept safe in that lil tube, which probs got busted open during the skirmish. He's with the bartender. It's the whole dog situation all over again. He ain't dead XDDDDD

I mean, look i know they aren't gonna continue this iteration of Vee and Eddie, but, yeah no they ain't dead. Especially if they were setting shit up with the lightning symbiote and that woman? Yeah he didn't die.

I thought the movie was good, btw, lots of enjoyable moments, Vee was super cute the entire movie, and i really liked the symbiote showdown with the hunters, though, the ending was extrememly rushed, they coulda put 20 minutes more on that bad bitch at least. But, yeah no in my head this ain't the end for them, this is just the end that we'll see of them, but he's alive. And it wasn't a bad movie. In my mind, it's def better than Let There Be Carnage, by a longshot, let's be fucking real, that one was garbage, i hated it. Last Dance wasn't near as bad as i heard it was, the ending was just rushed and clearly not many people saw the end credits scene, cause i don't know how many people told me Vee was gone gone. You cannot seriously think that, if you watched the end credits scene, and paid attention to when they collected Vee's sample off the table. If the fucking bartender is still standing after Area 51 got obliterated, Vee's alive. He's just gotta find his way to New York.

That's my take on it, if you disagree, whatever, I'm glad i went into it with an optimistic outlook and i didn't listen to people telling me bullshit about it, that was a good movie. Not as good as the first one, but really good, and i was fuckin right, they can't just kill Venom. Maybe like, in the 2000's they could get away with that shit, but they wanted to continue the story here, otherwise that end credits scene wouldn't exist in the form that it does. Vee's alive, i was right, and everyone who told me otherwise can SUCK IT.

Also, pinning this post to my blog. Cause i can.

[leresq]

I've decided to record every single movie and TV show I finish during the month and list their rankings with just a simple score out of 100. Every time I rewatch a movie, I'll record it and a new score, so that way it's always updated.

December 2024

Wicked, 2024: 95/100 Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981: 85/100 Blade Runner 2049, 2017: 85/100 Transformers Age of Extinction, 2014: 50/100 Transformers The Last Knight, 2017: 55/100 Bumblebee, 2018: 85/100 Knuckles, 2023: 70/100 Mission: Impossible, 1996: 75/100 Sonic the Hedgehog 3, 2024: 95/100 Cuckoo, 2024: 85/100 Tetris, 2023: 90/100 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 2003: 75/100 Killers of the Flower Moon, 2023: 80/100 Napoleon, Director's Cut, 2023: 70/100 Paranorman, 2012: 75/100 Zoolander, 2001: 60/100 Catch Me If You Can, 2002: 85/100

I know this is an insane amount of content but I had to watch more than usual because I got two different streaming services' week long free trials accidentally at two different times this month so I had to watch what I wanted fast.