this is a heavily discussed movie, which probably means there are quite a few who agree with me, but the overwhelmingly positive reception to this movie from audience and critics alike is shocking to me.

let's start with the surface level stuff or more specifically, why this movie sucks as a movie:

• the dialogue is unbearably bad. did they do any revisions of the script at all? most of it is just straight up exposition, and all of it seems like it's a fanfiction of the actual movie.

• all of the characters are completely fucking stupid. they make the worst decisions at every moment and for experienced protest and war journalists, they know sutprisingly little about how to behave in combat territory.

• the movie lacks structure severely. stuff just happens and the characters react to it, every step of their way seems randomly generated. sure, you could say this is done to portray the arbitrary nature of war, but it's a movie, it should tell a story, even if it is within a chaotic framework. this movie barely does.

the imo more important reason it sucks though, is because it completely fails as an anti-war movie:

• where is the population? apart from maybe three scenes, war is portrayed purely as soldiers fighting other soldiers. this completely undermines the actual horrific effects a civil war has on civilians. it's not just some tents here and a massacre there. civil war means constant death and destruction for millions of people daily. parts of this movie could literally have been a CoD cutscene and noone would've batted an eye.

• this movie is barely about the war. why did it start, what goals/interests do the parties have, what are their reasons for their alliance, etc.? all these questions go completely unanswered. the movie basically tells it's viewers, that war is just a random occurrence, or at best a result of some bad people who made some bad decisions. this is not only a complete denial of reality but also dangerous. it refuses to even barely explain how it comes to war and what we should do to stop it. it pretends that war is not inherently political and therefore misleads it's audience. imagine a WWII movie that just says there is war in europe but doesn't explain why.

• it also just completely ignores the existence of drones and nuclear weapons. that would be much too complicated for them lol

if you just want to watch a movie that just says "war is bad", there are dozens that do it better. civil war does nothing new, is terribly written and does not understand what it means to have an actual anti war meaning.

I was watching that scene on youtube again and stumbled across a comment that made me think differently about it.

said user (ApollonianDinosaur) pointed

[...] that for all their similarities, there is one striking difference: Pacino's dream focuses on his victims, De Niro's focuses on himself [...] the fundamental difference between two people, who despite their kinship and confidences, are ultimately separated in life by virtue [...]

I never thought about it this way, my focus were only on how oddly similar they were. And now, thanks to Mr Dinosaur insight, to me that scene can be read also like a face to face meet between Devil and God. If we abandon for a minute the religious literal scripts, both of them display a fair share of kinship, confidence, experience, wisdom and power, especially over human life. But they are ultimately separated in the universe by virtue. God is an entity whose existence is spent in the service of others. Devil's existence is spent only in service to thyself.

"If you feel the heat coming around the corner..."

Perhaps Hell is a place where we face the heat of the consequences of our selfish, godless choices - I'm an atheist, by the way.

what do you guys think?

To me this film is an absolute masterpiece in every sense. Harrowing to the last moment. Hubert is a character who has followed me through the years since I first watched it. The most important French film of the 1990s, maybe of all recent memory. The style, the perspectives, this movie is so dark and cool it’ll put your balls on ice for days.

tbh I understand the direction M. Night went with this, but wow I didn’t expect it to be that sloppy and unsatisfying.

The character of David should’ve survived idc. He got did dirty & his end will make Unbreakable less re-watchable for me now.

I only enjoyed the twists tbh everything else was underwhelming

Absolute banger of a cast as well.

I think rom coms are ignored a little too much. I get that a lot of them are cookie cutter films with bad scripts but they’re not all prolefeed. Midnight in Paris is probably one of my favorite movies of all time.

And as much as I hate to admit it I enjoyed “Anyone But You”. Yes, it was a bad attempt at adapting a Shakespeare comedy and a lot of the dialogue was cheesy or just flat out poorly written but fuck I enjoyed it.

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Saw this one yesterday and thought it was decent.

For a low budget film it does a good job building a sense of dread.

Anyone else enjoyed it?

First time I watched this was about 15 years ago and every so often I catch myself thinking about it. I honestly think the great set design makes the movie very memorable. Something about Ms Dismoors run down mansion really captured the fantastical journey Finn started on. Add to it an unconventional love story with a twist. Highly recommended if you haven’t watched this one.

Should I watch the theatrical cut or director's cut?

Found this gem when I was working at Blockbuster in the early 2000s. Never heard of anyone who was seen this before. It's a straight to DVD Bank Heist fun film.

They did a great job of reinventing the series without just trying to recreate the original, scene for scene, only modernized.

The way they setup how Caesar becomes Caesar, with the Alzheimer's drug, is truly unique and a really cool take in my opinion. They also did a fantastic job of pushing his disdain for humans in an organic and interesting way, the stare down with Draco Malfoy is especially intense and gripping and speaks volumes in just a few seconds. I love his "Avengers Assemble" moments where he gathers all his ape bros and gets them on his side.

The hero human element is also great and they actually give them decent motivations and it doesn't feel like I'm just waiting for the Ape scenes like I normally would with most of these types of creature flicks (I'm looking at you Godzilla franchise).

Overall this first installment is a stellar way to start the series and makes a believable case for the virus that eradicates mankind for the sequels.