Hmmmm... Seen one or two films recently I guess.
The Martian
Enjoyed the film, it was a solid "good". Matt Damon played a fine part (he generally does) and the film was really nicely made. It lost a bit of the humour as they got all sciency in the middle, but it was good - just never "great". It kind of sits with Ridley Scott's other work like Matchstick Men where it's perfunctory, but never really excels. 4/5
Bridge of Spies
Speaking of perfunctory - Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks in "didn't make a bad film" shocker! It goes through all the wonderful SS/TH motions. It's an interesting story told well enough. It feels wrong to accuse a film of living up to expectations as a criticism, but it did. It never excelled, except in the exact way you would expect. Brilliant direction, lovely acting - just spot on film making. It wasn't even lazy, it just never quite grabbed me. To be fair, I thought Private Ryan was similar. 4/5
Steve Jobs
Such a compelling film. Fassbender commanded the screen incredibly. Every time he was on it, it was captivating. Everyone was to be fair and the way his life story was revealed over essentially three scenes was really clever. Incredible to watch.
It never really got anywhere though or had much of a point. Steve Jobs was a ****. Steve Jobs realised this about ten years before he died. We don't know if he changed his ways or not, but he hinted at inventing the iPod!!! What a climax!
A film to watch to see how acting should be done. Another 4/5
The Revenant
Speaking of how acting should be done... If it involves grunting and moaning.
It's a gorgeous film. So big and huge and lovely. The scale is ridiculous.
It's also complete and utter bollocks.
Leo plays the 19th Century frontier Terminator. He'll be back from another deus ex machina that leaves him in a position that would have killed off anyone other than Arnie in any film with any modicum of placement in reality (T2 I think is probably more realistic). So much time and effort spent creating a believable wild America and then to put on top a complete and utter fantasy.
Then at one point it so blatantly copied Empire Strikes Back, I thought that maybe I'd been transported into the future to see Star Wars Episode VIII
The story was telegraphed all the way through, held no surprises (other than Leo once again surviving by grunting through death somehow) and it was slow. Okay, it was gorgeous while it was slow and really nice to absorb, but yeah, bollocks story. 3/5
Whiplash
Going back a bit though was fab. It wasn't what I expected at all. I thought that maybe it was going to be a drumming version of "Fame", but it wasn't. The characters and dialogue were superb. It was funny, depressing and overall couldn't even be ruined by the presence of Paul Reiser. I wasn't convinced by the ending, but it's kind of stuck with me, so I think it ate deep into my conciousness. Yeah, really enjoyed it 5/5
Deadpool
Load of stupid arse. It was just a stream of lame arse slapstick, lame arse in-jokes, lame arse one liners, lame arse bad guy and lame arse bollocksy story. I loved it
It was pointless entertainment from start to finish. It never tried to be anything great, just doing what was expected of it. It was stupid arse and sometimes the world of entertainment does it well. It wasn't stupid arse in the way Transformers was. That was crap stupid arse. It had just enough substance to make it good and enjoyable crap entertainment. I liked and will watch it again to see how bad diminishing returns on it are 4/5
Creed
I love Rocky films. I think the original is one of the most popular, yet underrated films ever. It's a superbly told feel-good tale that laid out the formula on how to do a rags to riches story perfectly.
Creed was just a complete repeat of the original without any of whatever magic Stallone managed to capture in the original. I was expecting the anthem to blare out, but it never did like that would take it too far into Star Wars VII repeat territory - but it missed out by failing to actually acknowledge it was just a remake and by going the extra mile and actually just accepting it completely and copying it. It seems odd to criticise it for not copying it completely, but they did, but without the heart and soul of the original.
Meh - 3/5