#Movie Critique

[dhoom-dhaam-diaries]

What should I do?

[ki11tr4p]

Like c’mon what were they expecting?

[legendary-lunatic]

Okay, So I just finished binge watching all four Despicable Mes in one day, and I gotta say that I did not care for the fourth movie.

It was disappointing… which is a shame, because Maxime Le Mal is awesome.

The concept of a cockroach villain, is epic. He had a great character design, a fun personality, and he had past conflict with Gru.

The problem with the fourth movie is that it is not plot driven enough and instead keeps splicing screen time for family fluff moments and side characters like Poppy.

Poppy, as much as I thought she was a fun presence, was NOT needed in the movie, and neither was all of that Safe House Country Club shit. Why would they go out of their way to say ‘Hey Gru? Let’s stop acting like the grumpy protagonist we love and instead behave completely out of character so you can pretend you like playing tennis.’ It was unnecessary and not what we needed from a character we have grown to find charming because of the way he can be both kind and a grumpy asshole. (Like Shrek.) Shrek does not belong at a country club, and neither does Gru.

We introduce a villain school that Gru went to only to not only completely avoid talking about him or the school in that context, but bring it up again solely for an irrelevant character who overall contributes nothing the the story at hand.

All of the other films in some way had a proactivity to them that kept the main antagonist in mind, and this film does not work because they keep shoving Maxime to the side. They should have completely scrapped all the minion fantastic four hero parody crap and stayed focused on the overall narrative and developing the new central antagonist.

It would have been fantastic if we had gotten more background on the conflict between Gru and Maxime. Apparently they had a little rivalry or just generally were jerks to each other in school as we find out that not only did Gru steal his song, Maxime pantsd him in front of the school, not to mention how they interacted in the beginning of the film, so clearly there is bad blood. This is the first villain that had conflict with Gru specifically, and it would have been an excellent central plot point to focus on his early life, or a great way to develop a villain that’s built out of personal grudge rather than inherently destructive ambition like the others.

And instead that was SQUANDERED by this absolutely directionless travesty. Maxime’s girlfriend, first of all, was useless and distracting. All the little cutaway moments and side stories were unnecessary, and overall it was incredibly disappointing to have a guy that can CONTROL COCKROACHES do absolutely nothing with them. He could be strong and invulnerable, He could have been mutating more people, controlling swarms, he could have been going after Gru more intensely and talking about how they bullied each other and that could have been very interesting.

But no. This is the only film in which the main antagonist takes such a back seat that he can effectively be cut from the film and it would hardly impact a thing. Maxime had potential and stage presence, and they did nothing with it in favor of fluff.

And Listen, LISTEN, fluff isn’t bad, I love their family- but it should not comprise 98% of the film!!! It should be wedged into little moments between plot points. Even Despicable Me 3, which had a bizarre out of left field twin plot, handled their villain with more respect and managed to tie in the two narratives in a way that culminated in a final act that was satisfying to all the characters.

Brat had charisma and was a genuine threat and was present enough in the story that he was still necessary to the story overall because he and his diamond were the reason Gru lost his job and he and his brother did the heist to retrieve it. By the end of the first half of the film we knew that Brat was a washed up star that peaked in his childhood and was trapped in his nostalgia, and he had a fully fleshed out motivation and draw to him despite being rather simple that allowed us to indulge in his quirks. His pathetic nostalgic personality CARRIES that film because it’s funny and endearing and believable because we’ve all met someone like that.

But Maxime is not such a simple character by design because his motivations are relationship focused- and in this film they spend most of the time running away from Maxime, which is counter intuitive and lets us understand absolutely nothing about the guy. Because they didn’t delve deeper, Le Mal’s motivations were weak, and thus the overall STORY was weak. We don’t even know why he has such an intense hyper fixation on cockroaches that he would literally roachify himself and make that his central theme!!!

Why didn’t Lucy and the kids go to the safe house and Gru could stay to deal with his rival? It doesn’t make sense!!! And the AVL was doing nothing about the threat at all and instead was being ridiculous by giving the minions super powers? Ineptitude to the point of absurdity. What is the point of going to a safe house if they aren’t trying to resolve the issue and then Gru does it anyway?!!!!

Brain dead. Disappointing. On every level.

They didn’t even resolve the personal conflicts the girls were having, what with Margo having trouble at school and Agnes not liking telling lies! What was the point?!

The animation may have been pretty, but the plot was weak. The character motivations were weak because they didn’t expand on them. There were thousands of directions they could have gone with this film and they chose to go NOWHERE.

The best part of the film is the end, and only because we got to see Maxime be relevant for three minutes and it implies that they’ve managed to wrap up their implied but borderline nonexistent rivalry. And we got two seconds of Brat dancing way too over sensually to ‘Rule the World’ because it’s an 80s song (the power of character consistency)

I don’t like hearing ‘ItS JuSt a KiDs FiLm’- NO. Pandering to children is not an excuse for bad writing in family media, and this franchise has been out long enough that it has an audience larger than just kids. Kids media and family media deserve better and should still have good narrative standards. Do not insult our intelligence by giving us content without purpose. It costs millions of dollars and months upon years to make a film nowadays, there is no excuse for not sitting down and coming up with a decent story direction and cohesive plan. A family film can be enjoyable for little ones and still have depth to it-

Family movies have been getting insanely messy lately with their story content because they think seeing characters we like regurgitated at us with good animation is enough to keep the company afloat and appease everyone, and it’s irritating. Dig deeper, have some respect for your craft. Keep our expectations high to keep us coming back!

I love the Despicable Me world and characters, but honestly this was such a disjointed film that it was almost hard to enjoy because I just kept waiting for something, anything to happen, and was utterly let down.

Maxime Le Mal deserved better as a villain, and this film deserved better. This franchise deserved better. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[hildegardladyofbones]

I think the reason why I almost cried over the boy and the heron's animation is because it's hand drawn in a world full of 3d animation that tries to impress you at every stage.

(Minor spoilers for the boy and the heron, no plot points tho)

Encanto's animation was impressive for the first few minutes, then it looked every other animates movie from the 2020s. The boy and the heron does a lot less than western (and 3d) animated movies for most of the movie (excluding the backgrounds because those were paintings. Like, actual paintings.) But when it needs to, it can do more than you thought possible. They clearly spent more time on making the movements human than making it colourful and flashy.

This subtlety is also extended into the character designs. In anime especially, but to some extent pixar as well, they make regular people look like humans have sexual dimorphism, but I couldn’t tell what gender Kiriko was supposed to be until she started to speak and until my suspicions were confirmed that the clothes she wore were in fact the same ones she wore in the other world. I am also a big fan of old wrinkly people so I'm glad they were once again present in a ghibli film. I think they have a knack for portraying people from different stages of life realistically. Also a big fan of how Mahito had so much personality, especially for a 12 yo protagonist of an adventure movie. Those tweens are usually given the cookie cutter hero personality, but robbed of actual humanity.

[zebracorn-chan]

If you're upset the FNaF Movie got low ratings by critics I would like to remind you what they think about "Cuties".

[virginia-the-opossum]

Im not seeing alot of posts on here about this, but i have on youtube sooo...

Doctor Skipper, Nerdstagic, Cinema Sins, Rotten tomato critics, other movie critics and youtube movie reveiwers have ruined media literacy by their need for money.

All they do is sit around and hypercritic movies that they know jack shit about while pretending they do, some of them havent even watched the movie, they just want attention and to ruin the movie for its fandom and its chance in the box office.

Doctor Skipper and Nerdstagic have both made videos shitting on the Monsterverse and American Godzilla in general because Godzilla Minus One was "better". Yeah, the movie was awesome! And it deserves all the attention and The Oscar it got. But GxK: The New Empire isnt even out yet, stop bullying it, telling people something is going to be trash before they see it, means theyre going to view it as trash through the lense of your opinion.

Godzilla Minus One and GxK: The New Empire dont compare, they are two separate genres. Godzilla is allowed to be goofy or serious. There is no right or wrong Godzilla. If you like goofy, good for you! If you like serious, good for you! People are allowed to enjoy the two genres separately or together. I love both! But critics dont look at the fact that in the og showa era made by ToHo, it was goofy as hell, he was doing dances and flying using his breath.

The directors of both movies support each other and love each other's work.

Yes, all the shitty sequel cash grabs we've been getting are awful. But Godzilla isn't that,.... yet. If we keep getting divided on these issues and only viewing them to trash and meme, that spreads negative interest, but more profits. More profits means theyre gonna do it again. Boycott movies you know you wont like, but leave other people alone about it, and especially don't make videos without researching the subject or even watching the movies. Just like some of the recent Marvel movies and shows, if we let it turn into a cash grab, our fandom will inevitably die. Like the posters and trailers for GxK- "Rise together or fall alone".

Sidenote: theres nothing funny about the Lucky Dragon Incident.

Sidenote 2: Please stop spoiling GxK

Edit Sidenote 3: stop using ai for your clickbait thumbnails for your edits of GxK trailers

[late-nights-in-chaos]

Nosferatu (2024)

Alright, so I have seen a fair amount of discourse surrounding Nosferatu (2024) on my feed, and concerning my background (a degree in film studies and a ravenous appetite for heated debate) I thought I'd weigh in. This is a long post. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS POST I WILL NOT SPEAK ON WERNER HERZOG'S REMAKE OF THE FILM-- ITS JUST NOT AS RELEVANT TO MY POINTS.

I'd like to preface this by saying that this is MY OPINION. I accept that your opinion might differ and you might disagree with me. That's fine. But, because all of these are opinions, you cannot tell me I am incorrect, because that makes no sense. SO!

My first point of contention with the film is that it is mistakenly evaluated as an adaptation of Dracula. So, I must rigorously explain. The original Nosferatu film from 1922 was indeed heavily inspired and technically PLAGIARIZING Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. In fact, after it was done so, Florence Balcombe (Stoker's wife) had a furious legal battle with the production company and had almost every copy of the film burned. The only reason we are able to watch and study the film today is due to illegal, pirated copies and the meticulous piecing together of the film and its inter-titles by enthusiasts, historians and rigorous preservation.

Now, there are notable differences between Nosferatu (1922) and the Dracula novel, including the names of both the vampire and his primary female victim, and the inclusion of a NUMBER of other characters including Dr. Seward, Lucy, etc. We could argue foils or connections to many characters between the book and the film but most of them are fairly obvious so I will gloss over it. Renfield=Knock, Harker=Hutter, Mina=Ellen, etc. There are additionally a large number of thematic similarities. However, the primary distinction I would like to highlight is the differentiation between Count Orlok as a MONSTER type character, and Count Dracula as a suave nobleman who happens to also be a vampire. I'm not saying our boy Drac hasn't done some seriously horrible things, but even if you compare the first Dracula film (1931), Dracula's character is MUCH more of a ladies man, so much so that Bela Lugosi became something of a sex icon.

The 2024 remake (though I don't like this word, as the new film adds a lot that the 1922 film does not have) is incredibly distinct from this concept. That does not change the fact that this film is a re-done Nosferatu and NOT Dracula! Nosferatu is distinct from Dracula in that Count Orlok is intentionally framed as a monster. Orlok is framed as having had this vampiric affliction at the end of his living life and has since died and descended into this depraved state of undead wherein the only real human aspects he maintained is his body and the ability to speak and articulate thought. He is a monster. Despite what anyone with a monster-related kink or preference might say, Count Orlok in the 2024 Nosferatu is not supposed to be attractive, nor is he supposed to be a love interest. That brings me to my next point.

I am fully aware that both Lily-Rose Depp and Robert Eggers have explained the film contains a "love triangle." But I'm here to tell you something and I'll hold both sides of your face while I say it loudly. This is an oversimplification stated as an explanation to the audiences for them to understand that there is sexual tension between Ellen and Orlok, Ellen and Thomas, and Orlok and Thomas. All three of them. This. Does. Not. Mean. They. Are. In. Love. This movie is not a romance. It's not a love story. And when myself and others describe it as romantic, because it is, this is not referring to the concept of romance wherein two people love each other. We are referring to the Romantic Period of art and intellectualism that heavily inspired the Gothic Period and emphasizes the concepts of subjectivity, passion and individualism. I cannot stress this enough. The only romance happening is between Ellen and Thomas. And even then it's a capital-T Tragedy.

Ok now let's get into some plot. There is a hefty amount of discourse about Ellen and her relationship to Orlok and the themes surrounding her. This is the biggest point where (I believe) people get things wrong. Firstly, there is ZERO point in the movie where we are led to believe that Ellen was a child when she first encountered (and was raped by) Orlok. Lily-Rose is still playing Ellen at that point and it only says "many" years, which is subjective, so I draw the conclusion that we are not dealing with a theme of child sexual assault. The film doesn't carry that tone, in my opinion, and there are specifics surrounding children that I'll get into later.

I am of the opinion that Ellen's character goes through incredible trauma in this circumstance, having only been searching for companionship and pleasure and existence and receiving a manifestation of your worst nightmare. She is traumatized by this circumstance, yes, but she is also then conflicted with her own lust and desire. I don't believe its for Orlok, I think it's more about the idea that women, especially in this time period, were made to feel ashamed and horrified at the very notion of initiating sex or showing qualities that one might deem "whorish." Her character then uses this situation with Orlok as an opportunity to banish these imposed social conceptions and instead allow herself this sense of pleasure and companionship, even if it comes from a monster. These themes are about reclaiming her own sexual agency with Orlok because she'd be seen as a crazy bitch either way. "Do you ever feel at times that you are not a person?" Yeah, girl, you're a woman in 19th century Germany. You're not a person. And thus sprouts your trauma.

ORLOK. Is not a manifestation of her shame and horror. Orlok is his own thing, thereby emphasized by the amount of actual Romanian folklore and cultural reference woven into the film. He is established as a being and his own character. He can act as a stand in for the purpose of carrying that theme, but it is SO much more layered than him simply being a manifestation of her disgust. Besides, if this is a remake, you have to honour at least some of the original. You can't just turn Orlok into a metaphor and completely disregard the vampire storyline. He is an appetite and nothing more. He is death. He's a fucking monster. He doesn't have sexual preference because he's above such trivial human bullshit. He feels pleasure in satiating his appetite thus the sexual nature of his attacks. He's a guy that got fucked/is getting fucked by his own immortal curse (pun intended.)

Ok so his relationship with Ellen is born of this one time where he, as an immortal being who's not really a person anymore, heard this hot young lady call out for someone and he jumped on it. We're not entirely sure why he left her alive... perhaps I've discovered a plot hole. If you can give me something other than "he liked her" then I'll give it to you, but I'm not convinced that's why. Either way, he has a thing for maidens, that's pretty straightforward for vampire folklore. And once Thomas shows him the token she gave him, Orlok gets a taste of his hot woman again and is like yeah, I gotta hit it again. His obsession grows, though I'm gonna say it's because it's more along the lines of fate and the story of the nosferatu and the woman who needs to sacrifice herself by giving herself up to him than because she has some kind of magic pussy. Her role in his demise is sort of pre-set on a cosmic sort of level (this sounds weird but hear me out) she's not entirely with it when she puts her hair in the locket. She's moving on autopilot because she has this kind of gut feeling that if she follows these weird instincts she can feel the pleasure and liberation she's craving and that she got a glimpse of in her weird murder wedding dream. She's not actually an enchantress, and Orlok basically calls her this as an insult because his logical/rational side is pissed that all he can think about is her and her blood.

None of this means that Ellen does not love Thomas. Of course she does. He loves her, is good to her, basically gives her everything she ever wanted EXCEPT this one taste of kinky pleasure that she will never stop dreaming about because it's SUPERNATURAL.

Side note I ADORE the three days motif. It's simple and thick.

Ok so about children. Orlok kills two (and a half, idk) children in this movie. The Harding kids and Ruth's unborn fetus. This murder is POINTEDLY UNSEXUAL. You know why? Because they're kids. That's an on-purpose thing, everyone. Vampires are sexual creatures, it's inherent, that's literally a huge point. This is not an opinion, it's a fact. It's all rooted in sexual themes and eroticism and homosexuality. Vampires should not be kids. That movie Abigail? Garbage. I hated it. Didn't even enjoy the camp, it was poorly done. And vampirism is not a kid-friendly venture. Eggers made that known in that scene and I ADORE him for it.

AAAND FINALLY. Orlok does not disappear because the sun came up. Holy shit. They literally outlined the exact specifications of his destruction and it being just right at dawn is a symbolic choice and made to be a COINCIDENCE. In the OG, yes, he is disintegrated in sunlight. We are introducing a new storyline here with Ellen being the key to his demise, and no previous sunlight-destroying was mentioned.

At this moment, I can't think of any more points I had but I'm sure they'll come up. If you want to counter anything I said feel free! Send me an ask or reblog or whatever you want, but let's keep it respectful. This is all MY interpretation and yours is just as valid as mine is. I love true debates, so if we can shoot ideas back and forth, I'd love it!

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Me: God I hate romance movies. They're so boring and all the same, the characters are never likeable, and romance isn't even a compelling concept for a movie! I don't give a shit about people falling in love, show me a story about friendship, about the senseless cost of war, about the evil and the good of humanity. There are more interesting and important things in this world than romance!

Also me: *literally only writes romance*

[woodswalker96]

Don’t take the wrong way. This franchise (specifically the rebooted version) is up there with my favorite franchises.

But I have one critique that has been eating me up lately since I saw the newest one: I want the apes to be, in a way, more ape-like.

Let me explain: I simply want them to incorporate more of the species-specific behaviors we recognize in the apes to shine through in conjunction with their heightened intelligence.

For example, if modern gorillas have a social structure dominated by a dominant male (the silverback), with a harem of females and associated lesser males (known as blackbacks), then I’d like to see that translated into a higher intelligence gorilla society. Perhaps you could have them be a largely agrarian species with a focus on agriculture (since they’d still be vegetarian) and a strength based culture where a wanderer male could ritualistically challenge a silverback for the harem.

Another example could be how in some species, it’s the females who leave to find new troops, so perhaps there could be ceremonies where different ape tribes (of appropriate species) come together and exchange females.

Another thing related to this statement is that I want the main ape characters to look more ape-like. Like you can literally see it in Caesar and Noa how the creative team made them more appealing to the human audience (I get why they did this, I’m not stupid, but I just want them to appear just a little more like actual chimpanzees). Such traits I focus on are the eyes. If you look at a chimpanzee, they have instead of whites in their eyes, they have “darks”. I wish this would’ve been more incorporated into the designs. The other apes also have whites but in some species this may be present versus with chimps. And if it isn’t then it’s done less obviously than with the main ape characters.

Anyways, those are my only two real critiques, which aren’t even really critiques as in nitpicks or “this is how I would’ve done it”. I was a little sparse about the details about ape eyes and social structure but that’s because I primarily know only bare basics of those subjects and did not have time to research them properly (this was written on the fly). I may rewrite this and add more details later if this is received well.

Thank you.

[themidnightsequence]

⭒ new post: nosferatu review ⭒

Robert Eggers' refreshing approach to the 1922 classic and the re-establishment of the vampire myth.

lmk your thoughts <3

[katmajik]

[...] I feel like I’m watching especially long ads for probiotic yogurts or luxury salon shampoos or hot people vacations, not immersing myself in how people fall in love and how that kind of Hollywood fairytale is, in fact, attainable in real life.

[mer-acle]

There are shows that are good, there are shows that are bad, there a shows that are so bad they're good and then there's shows I wish would get a second season for the sole reason that every single review of it is fucking hilarious bc the reviewers are so done with their lives.

[whatiwishfanfiction]

Movie Rant

One thing that bothered me about the 2012 Lorax is what a psychotic jerk the Lorax was. He literally tried to kill the Once-ler ("I was just trying to calmly float you away." Yeah sure!) and only bopped in occasionally to insult and bicker with him.

This is one of the main reasons I chose to rewrite the story and make him a better character. I imagine the Lorax as more of a mysterious fae-like creature who can be mischievous but capable of more compelling arguments, rather than just being a bumbling smart aleck.

(Illustration by Tony DiTerlizzi)

What other movies do you think they made the good guy seem like a villain or vice versa? I'm hoping this will be the first in a series of rewrites in the form of full novelizations on Ao3. (I'm looking at you Wish movie).

[jmrabinez1712]

I saw the 2025 Dog Man animated movie today (NO SPOILERS).

Anyway, I saw the movie today, January 30, 2025, and, well, I WON'T SPOIL ANYTHING FOR YOU, don't worry, I SWEAR. I will tell you, though, that the movie is: simple, entertaining, sometimes very funny, sometimes somewhat absurd, and sometimes... moving, not gonna lie. That's it. So yes: I highly recommend it to all of you.👍.

[ellephantseals]

Anybody notice how nothing really happens in Disney movies anymore? I haven’t watched the second inside out yet so i’m not including that here, but for the past few years disney movies just suck. The only good ones in my opinion have been Encanto, Luca, and Turning red, something happened in those movies, there was a message in them, and even if they only took place in this one very specific spot, you really got the world.

But then every other animated movie just doesn’t have anything. Onward (2020) is i think what started this, interesting concepts, could be because chris pratt was one of the main characters, but it just didn’t feel engaging, i wasn’t engaged. They present us with an entire fantasy world and then they’re like “oh yeah look at that character! Look at that character! Look at this thing!” And then its just a regular world but every single person looks different. And by the end literally nothing happened, nothing has changed.

And then there was Raya and the last dragon (2021), who has the exact same problem except chris pratt is replaced with awkwafina, and i agree that that would have been better as a series, because they’re just throwing stuff at you going “look how cool this worldbuilding is!” And then its just that there happens to be dragons that dont influence the world whatsoever.

Then Soul (2022), i don’t remember most of this movie, but it was the “by the end nothing changed” kinda thing. It also has the same problem as princess and the frog where they have a black main character and then go “yeah but what if they werent human for like the entire movie”, it was a cute movie, but other than that i don’t have anything to say

And for a while that had a pretty good run, then strange world came out, lightyear was also there but i never watched it. Strange world (2022) had this amazing concept, and it had a meaning, multiple, but everything once again felt so empty, instead of showing you stuff they explain it to you like you’re a child that just doesn’t get it. “Oh yeah the energy berries” “oh yeah he has a crush on that guy” “oh yeah he hates his dad” “oh yeah generational truama” “okay the world is dying”. Despite being an entire massive “island”, Encanto somehow did it so much better within a small town.

And Elemental (2023), same exact problem, but add on “what if straight people couldn’t be in love 😧” and i agknowledge there was probably a racial aspect to that, but DISNEY! YOUR RACIAL ALLEGORIES ARE REALLY BAD! STOP MAKING PEOPLE OF COLOUR LITERAL DIFFERENT SPECIES TO EVERYBODY ELSE?! And then at the end nothing changed except the main character like? Got a job? And nobody agknowledges anything changed, also eyy generational truama disney’s latest favourite trope.

I can’t even talk about Wish, i think it’s been talked about enough and i haven’t even watched it, but just the way people talk about it i can tell it’s bad and soulless, and it being a disney anniversary present?!

Why are Disney movies so soulless these days?

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

I’ve watched the 2004 Van Helsing movie multiple times, and it’s only occurred to me now that Dracula and his wives were being really stupid in not wiping out the Valerious bloodline as soon as possible. Because at the start of the movie, it’s clear that Velkan and Anna can’t do shit without Van Helsing and Carl. Velkan got wrecked by the werewolf and there were so many moments where Anna was about to get killed by the wives. The only reason the wives stopped short of killing Anna was that Van Helsing and Carl showed up. In fact, there’s a moment in the village square fight where Anna was about to fall to her death and the only reason why she survived was that one of the wives caught her.

All of this just tells me that Dracula and his wives could’ve just invaded the village and ended the Valerious bloodline for good. In fact, the alien-bat-vampire babies could’ve wiped the village out on their own! Instead, Dracula and his wives just…let the Valerious siblings roam freely? And even when they’re actively trying to kill her, they act so stupid that Anna survives by sheer luck (which the movie does point out).

Still a fun movie, but as soon as I realized this, it changed how I saw the plot.