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While I understand why there was a transition to faceless mooks this movie, I didn't really like what it did to the action. Between that and some of the either goofier or more computer-editing-intense scenes, a lot of the action felt very aesthetically different than previous movies. I also felt that Keanu kinda showed his age in the fight against Cecep Rahman and Yayan Ruhian. It looked nice and it was pretty decent on the whole, but I felt there was quite a bit that I didn't really like.
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May 15, 2019 23:08
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 21:52 |
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High Warlord Zog posted:The Casablanca section was a bit ordinary. I liked the combat doggies, but otherwise the whole thing was a generic middle-eastern adventure story iconography showcase. It ends strong though, and the first 40 minutes might be best stretch of action filmmaking since Fury Road. Yeah, the action movie combat dog tricks were probably the one 'innovative' part I liked the best. Thinking on it some more now, I'm warming to it a bit. Sofia, and the relationship between Sofia and Burrada, shows one of the possible ways forward for John. Sofia represents the most of what he could be: she had to give up her loved one, and while she has achieved power and created a valuable pseudo-family around her, Burrada can take that away just because he feels like it. She was power within the system, but the High Table is still an omnipresent threat. The location also makes a nice parallel with the movie Casablanca, with John traveling the reverse path, away from sanctuary. Also, flipping through IMDB, the actor who played The Elder is one of the guys who wrote La Haine. So that's cool.
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May 16, 2019 12:24
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DeimosRising posted:So does Boban steal the whole film, or does he generously allow other actors to have moments in the sun? Boban is conspicuously good.
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May 16, 2019 15:56
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Doc Walrus posted:The book kill itself was nice but the whole fight scene before it was essentially John punching a tall, confused idiot over and over while dragging him around a library. It was a bad fight with a good ending. Also the "They just keep kicking him through display cases" gag was pretty good, but it took FOREVER to get through and then John has to go through the chore of murdering these two nobodies so he can move on to fight The Raid Duo. Both the library and display case fights were bad fights that also had a good part to them. [Library fight] I think this scene gives us three things (other than the fight itself, of course): (1) We get our introductory fight for the movie. A sort of "yeah, he's still really good at fighting." (2) It shows that every drat idiot is out to get him. We've had a bunch of people looking at him, but since he's such a legendary assassin, people could still be willing to give him a clear path. Boban lets us know that no, it really is everyone after him. (3) I think this is the important one: it shows people cheating the rules. Over the first two movies, the rules have been sacrosanct. The only two times they've been broken have been a big deal: Perkins is immediately executed, and Keanu is excommunicated. Boban cheating the rules here shows that the rules aren't so ironclad, which opens the space for a lot of what happens in the movie.
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May 20, 2019 08:59
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Olympic Mathlete posted:I may be forgetting something here but remind me why it was supposed to be an 'execution' as opposed to just a punishment. Anjelica Huston's character had all her men killed but was only punished for her helping of Wick, not executed. I certainly took it as implied that it was an execution. He was told he had a week to get his affairs in order and find a successor as King, which sounded to my ear like they were euphemistically telling him they were planning execution. Then as they arrive he tells the pigeon, "long live the King, the King is dead." Lastly, after he receives his "seven cuts" he falls over and isn't seen again (until the very end).
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May 20, 2019 13:27
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Xealot posted:I find it interesting that John is Roma. It lends something to the outsider and underclass implications of his conflict with the High Table. And provides some context for the othering behind his reputation as Baba Yaga...like he’s some inscrutable mystery who came from nowhere. It just kind of fits as an ethnic stereotype for Roma. I don't know that this is necessarily the case. It could as much be the case that he was taken in as an orphan. I seem to remember that the ballerinas we see in training are multi-ethnic.
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May 25, 2019 00:23
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weekly font posted:Dredd passing Anderson at the end despite failing on paper is a pretty big moment of growth for dang Judge Dredd’s first shootmans action movie. It's a great punchline, because Dredd's 'growth' is recognizing that Anderson was still perfectly efficient at torturing and killing people even without a gun. In that, it captures the first Obama term exceedingly well.
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Jun 1, 2019 16:15
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weekly font posted:Anderson is the living avatar of enhanced interrogation techniques. I don't understand how people watch Dredd and just see Raid + guns. I mean, it's pretty easy to understand. The plots are pretty similar. I'm not gonna begrudge anyone for not going with "well obviously one is a satire about how enforcement-centred legalism undermines legal authority whereas the other is about finding positive reasons to live (as opposed to merely survive) in the face of omnipresent death."
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Jun 1, 2019 17:23
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 21:52 |
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Bust Rodd posted:The scene could have easily been “Halle Berry runs her own Hotel and has access to the high table and the elder because she’s whatever and then Elder is just the dude in the Moroccan castle. You cut 20 minutes of “John Wick: Assassin’s Creed” but the movie just keeps accelerating from dog fights to motorcycles to climactic hotel sequence, is a tighter movie, and leaves far fewer unanswered questions. I don't think I agree with this. Halle Berry's character shows us a possible path for John, and a crucial part of that is her relationship with Burratta. He could be like her, be a good soldier, and work his way up. He could even run the Continental. But Berry has had to give up so much, including a familial connection. (As I write this I realize that this sets up John cutting off his ring finger for the Elder.) As Burratta is important, it shows that even though Berry runs her own hotel, she's still in a subordinate position. And as good as Burratta has apparently been, he can still turn on her in an instant, and do so for no reason other than to cruelly assert his power. This is John and Winston (and the table more generally). No matter how far he succeeds by their rules, he will always be dominated.
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Jun 9, 2019 23:30
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