I have to agree. I was not impressed with Toy Story 4, and it seemed completely unnecessary after TS3 wrapped things up pretty nicely.

 

Those Who Wish Me Dead - 8/10

 

The 1986 The Transformers: The Movie a 10 out 10.

 

Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms:
After Scorpion's Revenge I wasn't sure how would this would come out, but I think this is my favorite MK film right after the 1995 version. It's an ensemble film giving everyone their proper spotlight unlike the Scorpion-focused one, Johnny Cage is much better written here and closer to what his game character, Scorpion is not a Gary-Stu, it didn't overuse the x-ray damage shots as much as last time, and despite being 3 games merged into one it didn't feel overstuffed and it was well-paced.

The animation though... it feels weaker than Scorpion's Revenge. Character models gets off outside action scenes, sometimes they get awkwardly motionless and some odd cuts between frames.

8.5/10

 

Animalympics (1980) - 7/10

It's probably been about 25 years since I watched this, but Amazon Prime had it on streaming and still had the Tokyo games fresh on my mind. It's fun, cheeky, and I liked most of the designs. The history behind it I read about later was interesting too, originally a couple of specials intended to be aired alongside the 1980 games, but of course those ended up being the Moscow Games, which America boycotted due to the Soviet-Afghan War, and history wrote the rest. Anyway, some of the humor might be a little non-pc for today's children audience, but nothing really bad, so I'd say I'd still recommend it for kids, though maybe with parental guidance. Cute idea overall.

 

Basically same here.

 

Boss level 7/10

watched after reading reviews. was better than i was expecting.

 

Yeah I really enjoyed it...laughed many times....

 

I'm one of those rare people who just simply didn't care for the Toy Story saga, at all. I went to theaters to see the first one when it came out and walked out feeling a bunch of "meh". (Yes, it was visually stunning for the time, no knocking that.) Didn't care to see 2 because 1 was so "meh" for me. Got roped into seeing 3 and it was, admittedly, incredible. If one doesn't cry at the end of that film, they don't have a heart. It was beautiful and it was a nice ending to a trilogy that probably didn't deserve it all that much. The effort and love put into 3 were nothing short of amazing and made it joyous.

4 came along and I haven't been that angry at a film in a long time. It completely ruined everything the 3rd film set out to do. It was clear it was a simple cash grab of a creatively bankrupt (at that moment in time) Pixar. It was offensive to the fans and a big FU to anyone who enjoyed 3. I'm not picking on you, I'm sorry, but I can't even figure out how you gave it a 6, really. The only good thing about the film was Keanu. He was great in his brief moments in the film. (He couldn't carry it, though. No one can. It was garbage.) And yes, you hit the nail on the head about the mixed messages. I'm sure my son will want to watch it again when he's a little older and can understand it more and I'm going to have to sit down and explain to him why it's all so awful.

And Forky basically wanted to die, more or less. It became a sort of "right to die" message at times and like WTF?!

I hate that movie.

Vacation Friends - 7.5-8.0/10:

Let me start off by saying that this is an incredibly stupid and predictable movie. I'm not so far gone out of my mind to try and say otherwise. Yes, it's predictable and stupid. With that out of the way, the wife and I had a good time watching this one. John Cena is getting a lot better at his comedic timing and he was absolutely hilarious in this one. Lil Rel Howery was annoying at first, but you get where he's coming from and he wears you down and you find yourself liking him after a while. Yes, it's a retread of pretty much any buddy comedy that came before it, but it's the performances that help make the film work and they picked a great cast for this one. I will say, had it been anyone else, this would've easily fallen flat on its face. (I was surprised it received a positive score at Rotten Tomatoes. The audience didn't seem to like it, but the critics gave it a passing grade. Crazy.)

It's just the right pacing, just the right runtime, just the right amount of comedy/jokes. It's no Dumb & Dumber, but it's no Gigli either. I'm not saying it'll win awards or is something you have to drop everything to watch, but if you're looking for stupid comedy and just want to lugh a bit, then it's just right for that. I'd certainly watch it again in the right moment.

 

I too hate Toy Story 4 and in my mind the series ended with 3. 4 is just some shitty fan story.

 

I definitely don't blame you for giving it lower than a 6. When I rate a movie, I tend to think of it like I'm grading a paper...6/10 being a D and 10/10 being an A. I tend to give movies with decent production value and some watchability at least a 6/10. For me Toy Story 4 gets a 6/10 because it has pretty animation and solid voice acting, and I can make it through without being bored or getting a headache. It's like a really well-written essay about...flat Earth or something. I might disagree with the thesis, but I have to acknowledge good vocabulary and paragraph structure.

For me an F (a 5 or 4 or lower) is something like...Transformers: Combiner Wars, where relatively basic stuff like the audio mixing is lacking. Or something I find headache-inducing and boring like Rise of Skywalker. If I consider turning it off halfway though or wouldn't watch it again, it probably gets a 5 or under. I stopped watching one of the Combiner Wars sequels because I was legitimately having trouble understanding the dialog to bad audio mixing. A 1/10 or 0/10 would be something downright amateur and incompetent, like a blurry YouTube fan film where the camera is facing the wrong direction.

I don't really know why I rate movies this way, I've never been a teacher. It's just a system that makes sense in my head. I feel like it's important to recognize strong technical aspects, even when the movie overall doesn't click with me. I see too many people giving movies they don't like a 0/10. Which is fine if that's someone's value system, but I like to challenge myself to find some good stuff. Usually I talk about good and bad stuff in my reviews, but I kind of skipped over the good stuff in Toy tory 4 this time because I've talked about it here before, and I just wanted to vent this time.

 

Jason vs. Freddy I finally had a chance to sit down and watch the damn thing in its entirety. It's not nearly as bad as I've heard. It's a pretty decent entry. 7/10

 

I liked this movie for its lack of wasting time nonsense. Usually in a Freddy movie, one kid sees him and gets attacked, and then almost a third of the movie is that person's friends not believing them until the attacks ramp up and a couple of them are dead. Not in this movie. The main character's group of friends got on board pretty much immediately, and I appreciated that break of the formula.

Plus, compared to Jason X, this movie was Godfather 2.

 

Jason X is like the sit-com version of Friday the 13th. Probably not intentionally, which makes it all the more hilarious. Much like The Room, I love it for it's complete lack of self-awareness. They really thought they'd done something special and it just makes the stupidity funnier than hell.

 

Shang Chi: 8.5/10

another great entry to the MCU

 

The Lost Boys 8/10 This movie never gets old. (And it never dies.) Always an awesome film.

 

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:
Saw it and while I did have fun with it, I was also disappointed on some directions they took. The climax is certainly my top let downs.

Spoiler

I knew dragons were gonna be present, but for a Shang-Chi film I wanted it to keep the "giant monster/alien battle" climax out of it and make it exclusively martial arts. Well, guess what happened. Giant monsters distracting us from Shang and Wenwu's battle and dynamics. The Qi Kung Fu magic I could let it pass but the dragon fight is where it fell apart.

6.5/10

 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍/卧虎藏龙)

Still great as it was when it first came out, two decades later. This isn't just the best of Asian or Chinese cinema, but it's just a damn good film. For Western audiences, I think this movie does a good job of capturing China's natural landscape and ancient architecture which lends to its credibility on the set production the movie has. Not to mention of course, the crazy amount of superb hard to beat martial arts choreography combined with good camerawork and wirework. I mean it is a wuxia movie after all, so the amount of jumps the characters may do is not out of the norm.

Finally of course, we can't forget the star talent this movie employs going from Chow Yun-fat; Michelle Yeoh or Zhang Ziyi who have become bigger over the past few years in their career respectively. The title which is borrowed from a Chinese idiom makes sense considering how it centers on Yu Jiaolong and her inner desire for a fulfilling life and I can also see where movies like Kung Fu Panda are inspired with themes of vengeance or wanting to be the best. A small nitpick I do have with the film are how certain actors would deliver their Mandarin due to their own respective background but considering there is a mystical element to this movie and an intention to appeal to Western audiences, this isn't going to be much of a hassle to really bring down the otherwise great performances. If you haven't seen it, find the chance.

9.5/10

 

Candyman (21) - 7.5/10

This was pretty good. Didn’t blow me away but it still has some real nice cinematography and camera work plus a good score that elicited great emotion. Also I am not familiar with this franchise so this was my first exposure. It was real close to being fantastic but for a newer director this was a solid film. I’ll be keeping an eye on her. The thing is with more recent horror films being powerful and extremely moving like The VVitch, Annihilation and Alien Covenant other films will be looked at through a heightened lens.

 

I’ve been an active member in the past, but lurking for years here and had to post a reply on this. I can’t believe someone else remembers the Animalympics. Back in the day my Dad dubbed all the music on cassette and to this day that soundtrack lives in my head. Unreal.