I wanted to like it for basically everything going for it - premise, Pattinson, Bong, sci-fi, ā€œoriginalā€ film - but came out pretty much as bitter as I have ever after a film. Iā€™m not one to do it, but I was close to walking out on it.

There are some touches of what the film could have been, some moments maybe. But on the whole it felt like a train wreck where Iā€™d bet that people knew on set that it just wasnā€™t going to work.

At some point I noticed there was a good amount of yelling from the actors (Iā€™m wondering if thatā€™s just me) and canā€™t help but suspect it was the director or actors trying to find energy in scenes that were struggling. Or maybe that happened in the edit. Then thereā€™s Ruffulo and Colletteā€™s satirical characters that just didnā€™t land and felt dumb and amateur (along with Poor Things, Iā€™m thinking Ruffulo is just not good and ā€œoriginalā€ film makers would do well to stay away)

All up, I think itā€™s embarrassingly bad, or ā€œobjectivelyā€ bad. No real depth, no coherence or pacing or well directed momentum, much of the comedy doesnā€™t land, characters and plot often feel like afterthoughts, and it got boring too.

I think this movie review (from a pleasantly non-hype yt channel) says it better than I can.

Whatā€™s funny is I think a lot of people want this to be good. For the sake of original, fun, quirky, satirical films (and honestly, me too). But are stuck confronting a film thatā€™s only making that situation worse not better and which represents the risks that studios need to accept not the successes they donā€™t understand).

Am I off here? I was pleased to find the review I linked as it seemed to match my thoughts.

EDIT - epilogue

And on the point about the fate of films ā€¦ I saw this in the cinema (somewhat in support of original films) and dragged a friend too.

It was expensive. There was bad behaviour in the cinema (people taking photos with flash of each other!). And the film was bad, IMO, in a way that I feel people should have been more honest about (like I said, I think people wanted this to be good). Plus my friend doesnā€™t trust my choice in movies any more.

Itā€™s really put me off going to the cinemas TBH. Iā€™ll see how I end up feeling over time, but I think this might have been the straw that broke my back on the whole cinema thing. In part, sadly, because I donā€™t get how the film was that bad.

  • xyzzy@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    No. ā€œObjectively bad,ā€ lol. At least make an attempt to distinguish your opinion from objective reality about a subjective medium.

    I think it was pretty OK, not bad, a few odd pacing choices. The biggest flaw was how underdeveloped Kai was. She was set up in act 1, had a lot of screen time in act 2, then completely disappeared from existence for the entire last act except for one brief ā€œoh yeah, hereā€™s Kaiā€ shot at the end.

    Some of the on-screen violence against the baby bugs was repugnant, but it was supposed to be, so Iā€™ll forgive it.

    Otherwise I thought Pattinson did a great job realizing his characters and the overall plot worked pretty well as a movie, without being too simple or too complex.

    • Ilandar@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      The biggest flaw was how underdeveloped Kai was. She was set up in act 1, had a lot of screen time in act 2, then completely disappeared from existence for the entire last act except for one brief ā€œoh yeah, hereā€™s Kaiā€ shot at the end.

      I totally forgot about this! I completely agree, it was so bizarre how much screen time and development her character received in the middle of the film for it to ultimately lead nowhere. I thought for sure she was going to be setup as either a new love interest (with a twist where his previous lover turns on him) or setup as a new villain but they did neither. She didnā€™t even influence the plot in a sidekick role, she was just totally absent following the riot scene. I wonder if something was cut because it seemed like big inconsistency.

      • xyzzy@lemm.ee
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        22 hours ago

        Yeah, I had the same thoughts about where her character was going, and that either her character arc was cut for time or got lost in a rewrite.

        But the really weird thing was how Bong portrayed her as a little unhinged when she was shooting the baby bug: no restraint and no expression. They made sure to show her face at the end of that scene after the baby had been turned into hamburger, and it seemed a little intentionally unsettling based on the context.

        When they depicted Nasha as a little unhinged as well, I was wondering if they were saying something about future soldiers. No, I guess, based on the ending. Nasha just gets homicidal about Mickey, and who knows whatā€™s up with Kai because her character failed the Bechdel Test and then disappeared.

        • Ilandar@lemm.ee
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          16 hours ago

          Yes, I 100% agree about that bug execution scene. That was the ā€œriotā€ scene I referred to, where her little character arc seemed to peak like there was about to be this big mask-off Starship Troopers moment. And then they just did nothing with it. So weird.