Conan De Moe

This movie is very engaging and fun to watch. I was all in until the very end when Charlotte delivers a line that comes straight out of left field and completely ruins the ending. Who ever shoved that line in at the end should be fired.

So much of the politics of our time has been channeled into this film. Besides being a thinly veiled provocation for conflict instead of an entertaining film, there is such obvious hatred born of envy that it is impossible to even sympathize with the underdog point of view. There is also a noticeable lack of chemistry between the actors and non at all between Paul and Chani. The costumes and behavior of the Gesserit bring such a strong sense of ick that seeing them on the screen draws attention away from the plot, a telltale symptom of the victimhood culture and narcissism so alive in the ism that shall not be named. I never understood how there could be spaceships but only swords for fighting. I nodded off twice while watching the scenes in the desert. Those having such a love for the desert should consider going back to it. The only drifts that belong here are made of snow.

Avatar 2 lacks a target audience. It should have been a scifi flick but was too lacking to be anything more than a drama/fantasy. The plot was predictable and the blue people all looked the same. Watching characters hold their breath is unpleasant at best for even a few minutes and we are forced to endure it through most of the movie. Ultimately it’s just not possible to care about non-human characters.

The new cast of kids are working hard to recreate the magic of that 70’s show but their lines just aren’t funny. The lack of comedy puts undo pressure on Red and Kitty to keep the plot moving. The chemistry between Eric and Donna has vanished and they appear on screen like two actors that have never worked together. It’s vividly clear that the absence of Steven has rendered the returning cast members adrift without an anchor. The current trend of casting remakes with diversity doesn’t work well in That 90’s show. The population of rural Wisconsin communities has always been predominantly white. A leopard can’t change its spots.

The initial pace is slow due to Morpheus looking for his stolen items. Yet when the crown is recovered it isn't made clear how it functions and Morpheus dosn't even bother to wear it. Why doesn't Death wear a crown? How could the ruby be altered by a mortal? Too many of these details are glossed over and the result is a sort of abstract drama between characters that come across as ultimatley unrelatable. As an example the character Constantine is so elusive and unknowable that it's impossible to feel any real emotion when her lover dies. I felt more emotion when the raven was shot. Graphic novels can get away with a lot because the main focus is typically on the artwork. You can't do that in film with real actors because they come across as boring. Morpheus especially is in dire need of better dialogue. He's so deadpan that his part could have been played by a mannequin.

Little Joe is a film that resembles Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Alice is a scientist that manipulates plant DNA to produce a flower with a pleasing scent that instills happiness. The pace of the movie is slow throughout, which I didn't mind because of the intense feeling that if Alice could just regain control of her experiment a pandemic could be avoided. However Alice's character doesn't evolve and indeed there wasn't even a hint of a character arc. That wouldn't have bothered me either except for the fact that Alice is completely unlikeable. Also her character doesn't display any of the typical stereotypes associated with scientists. Alice is incapable of making any decisions to such a degree that she walks through life like a deer staring into headlights. The way Alice is portrayed effectively suspends the viewers belief that Alice could run a lab and spearhead a major genetics program. It also is not logical to portray a scientist as being vulnerable enough to regularly visit a traditional shrink and to be so superstitious that she needs to knock on wood for her project to be a success. In the end Alice became so unlikable and unrealistic in her occupation that I felt she deserved her fate and I wouldn't have cared if she had been thrown off a stairway like her coworker. There was a healthy dose of wokeness in the details which involved the writing of extremely weak and shifty male characters prone to violence. Male bashing no matter how subtle has become a film industry norm but in the future will be remembered as a black eye on the history of humanity, ultimately a hate crime through and through. The film should receive high marks for the use of colors. Visually the colors are stimulating and thoughtfully arranged, everything from the whiteness of the science labs to casting an actor whose red hair gives her the appearance of the genuine mother of her alien plant offspring. There are a few scenes in which the uv lights used to grow the plants shine with a pinkish-purplish glow that has been the modern trend in such horror movies as Color out of Space, and Mandy, two movies which I greatly enjoyed. I do worry however that if the pinkish-purplish color scheme is used too much in horror it will become a cliché. Remove the woke politics and try to sneak in a few red hearings and this movie could have been a solid four out of five. As is, two and a half stars.