[EXPRESSO] Black Widow (2021) | Velvet Assassins, Inc.

Marvel movies are back into theathers, a fact of life made accidentally more intriguing after the pandemic stopped the torrent of Marvel theatherical releases, and saturation gives way to acceptance and wishing to return to the “pre-Covid 19” habits.

At the very least this particular movie had already plenty of delays and issues behind the scenes before, but the Black Widow “origins” movie is here.

Not exactly my favourite of the Avengers, i will say this upfront, but still, easily more intriguing that anything they could come up with Hawkeye (at least judging what the Marvel movies did with him), i’d say. Like the previous movie hinted at, she had a troubled upbringing, was a KGB, and here we see her momentarily leave the Avengers team (in a timespan between Civil War and Infinity War) to meet up with her old “family”, leading her to take on the villain Taskmaster and confront a figure from her past youth as a selected trainee for the “Black Widow” program.

As Natasha Romanoff is simply human, her origin story uses this to give the movie a more “realistical” feel (though don’t worry, there’s the usual Marvel bombast), and aside from some of the inevitable mentions of the other Avengers, the movie does want to stand on its own and distinguish itself by tackling darker (and a bit more “grounded”) themes than usual, as this action thriller about child soldiers raised -at all cost – to be the most efficient assassins and spies, the new characters are good, there are some fun moments (alongside the usual, obligatory Marvel self-jab).

The cast is pretty dang good too (it has Florence Pugh), and while not sensational, it’s quite entertaining and willing to not really rely on other Marvel movies to tell its own story. Fun one.

[EXPRESSO] Voyagers (2021) | In observation, I analyze

It’s the future, and a group of young men and women, raised to be intelligent and obedient, are sent into space on a mission to colonize a distant planet. But they discover some of the expedition’ secrets, and then rebel to the mission in order to explore their less intelligent, more primitive and irrational side of themselves, resulting in a chaotic struggle with their own fears and lusts.

I want to clarify right away that Voyagers (written and directed by Neil Burger) isn’t a bad movie, it isn’t, but it’s also one of those movies that might come across as incredibly frustrating, the kind of frustrating born not of lazyness or lack of energy and vision, but of ambition too vast for the script own’s good, and – more to the point – its quality.

The premise is intriguing and ripe with potential, the themes are there, there’s clearly a vision, but the execution is incredibly predictable, underwhelming, and some of the more original details of the plot that make it stand out end up unadvertly working against it’s own overall message, coming off as dumb mistakes on part of the program, or contrived excuses to create more conflict.

Like, why the teens are asked to maintain the ship for a mission they themselves simply won’t live enough to carry out ? Why not cryogenically put them to sleep, instead? And yes, they’re teens, so they can be fuck up or be swayed regardless of their IQ or education, sometimes they come off as both incredibly intelligent AND dumb as a bag of bricks (or incredibly naive), somehow, and it never feels natural, just arbitrary bullshit.

There is definitely something to like here, like the good cast and performances, but the overall result it’s an overly ambitious mixed bag. Pity.

Don’t expect a review of Godzilla Battle Line

I planned to play and review this one like i did for the other mobile Godzilla titles Toho unleashed on us this year, as in via the EXPRESSO format, but the game just refuses to work on my iPhone, regardless if i reset the device, uninstall and reinstall it, remove other apps to make space in the phone’s memory storage, i have tried for 2 weeks by now to make this damn thing working on my device, but it ALWAYS, without fail, immediatly crashes after being launched.

Despite the app being constantly up to date and my device being compatible with it.

I have no clue why, the updates didn’t change a fuckin thing, and unless the next one magically fixes the issues (which seems to affect other uses with more advanced iPhones), i’m never gonna be able to play the damn thing, and hence i will never be able to review it. And i kinda wanted to do that, for completition’s sake if nothing else.

The review might happen, and they might just update the game to make it work immediatly after i post this, and tomorrow i will be able to play with no issues at all.

But until that happens, the review isn’t either.

Sorry, but that’s the situation, so expect other EXPRESSO reviews coming from tomorrow onwards, today is a forced review-less day.

[EXPRESSO] A Quiet Place Part II (2021) | Hush Of Us

I wasn’t sure if i wanted a sequel to A Quiet Place, as i was perfectly satisfied… heck, more than that, with both the finale and the movie itself, one of the best ones i saw that year, had everything you could want from a horror thriller, from fairly original premise to great acting, excellent creature effects, tense atmosphere, great characters, etc.

But i guess the combination of it being surprising (as it came from a director that previously didn’t explore or dabble in horror), acclaimed by everyone, AND being a surprise big financial hit made John Krasinki, Platinum Dunes and 20^th Centhury Fox think of making a follow up, and it’s finally in theathers, another of the many movies delayed for months-years due this goddamn pandemic.

Following the events of the first movie, the Abbott family is forced to venture outside of the house they took refuge in and in doing so confront the human survivors of this post-apocalyptic world, still thriving with the blind deadly creatures attracted by sound.

Gotta admit, my fears of this sequel being somewhat of a cash-in were quickly shattered, as it manages to move forwards the story about this family surviving in the post-apocalypse, to give more context to the events that led up to the creatures appearing, and to develop the survival aspects even more thanks to them having to face not just the monsters, while giving way for character arcs.

All still done with minimal use of dialogue and sound, with a great atmosphere, some really scary – genuinely scary – moments, good action sequences, excellent acting, likeable characters, amazing creature effects yet again, all packed extremely tight in less than 100 minutes, no minute is wasted for the sake of it, at all.

Noteworthy sequel, and great movie all around.

[EXPRESSO] Monster Hunter (2020) | Isekai Hunt

Yeah, we just got this one in theathers now, once again delayed due to the pandemic.

Preface: i know a bit about Monster Hunter, but not that much, as the franchise it’s one of those i should be really into, but somehow it never clicked with me.

But still, you should know what to expect: it’s another big-budget live action adaptation of a Capcom IP directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, as the Resident Evil movie series did bring a lot of buckaroos, so let’s do it again, and of course cast Milla Jovovich as the lead, i would be surprised if the director didn’t cast his wife for these roles.

And let’s get this out of the way: yes, it could have took place in the fantasy world alone and still deliver on the monsters and action, but nope, so in order to make it more “palatable” to all audiences, let’s have a US military unit get isekai’d into the Monster Hunter world, finding the guns useless on these giant monsters, and having to adapt to dual blades, maces and more “primitive” weapons that actually can damage these things. All while roaming a mostly desert land, searching for a way home.

And sequels.. that WILL probably be made.

To be honest, while the plot is a shining example of Hollywood cowardice and spineless scripts, the movie itself it’s not that bad. It’s dumb as a brick, written as such, but the CG for the monsters looks good, there’s a bit of horror, it adapts fairly ok a lot of elements from the games, preserving the basic gist of the thing, and it’s entertaining.

Not good, not smart, but entertaining enough, like MOST of the director’s Resident Evil movies. Also, it has Ron Perlman with a hilarious “afro Meatloaf” hairdo. XD

Upcoming Attractions: Sharks und Pirates

(Source) https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4273516?q=sharknado+

(no, a Girls Und Panzer retrospective isn’t afoot… YET)

Just a quick overview of what’s coming for the rest of the summer on the blog.

July will be Shark Month. Usually it is anyway, but this year i actually have managed to pile up enough material (despite everything), so there will be a shark movie review out each day, and maybe some EXPRESSO ones too, depending on when i can get to some releases in theathers.

August will yet again be a One Piece retrospective…. of the TV specials.

Last summer we did go over the featurettes, and it’s still too early for me to properly re-assess all the One Piece movies. Like i said before, i’d prefer some more time to pass,, in order to avoid some lazy rewrite-recycle of the old reviews i made in italian years ago.

Also, i’m gonna take a break from the 15th of August (included) until the 1st of September.

This doesn’t mean i will stop posting at all, since EXPRESSO reviews will be made and published, but any time consuming form of review or retrospective will go on hiatus.

That’s about it, so look forward to another summer of sharks and anime pirates!

[EXPRESSO] Spiral – From The Book Of Saw (2021) | Uzumeki

I have been a big fan of Saw since forever, so i was looking forward to this new one, liked the casting, and you know, it had to work hard to be even worse than the pointless and neutered Jigsaw/Saw Legacy. Plus, we have Darren Lynn Bousman (who directed Saw II, III and IV). So yeah, i’m in.

The plot sees an old cynical detective getting assigned a freshly promoted and entusiasthic rookie as partner to investigate on a series of gruesome murders that look unsettingly inspired by one of the more sordid serial killer stories to ever happen in that city, the Jigsaw Killer. Helped by a veteran cop, they soon find out that they are stepping on a spiral of mistery and traps set up for them.

Yeah, plot wise it’s not exactly a reboot, as in this continuity The Jigsaw Killer was a thing of the past, but it doesn’t make clear if the events of Jigsaw even happened or mattered, so it also works as a new take that doesn’t really rely or require seeing the other ones, and this installment does indeed give the series a new direction, focusing more on the detective/police drama, dedicating more time to flesh out the characters directly instead of a heavy “flashback diet”.

The traps are actually creative, vicious, and deliciously sadistic as expected, with a lot of gore and gruesome details, already making this a lot better than the bloodless boring shit in Jigsaw. But as far as actually reimagining and reinventing Saw as a whole.. no, really no, Spiral sticks to formula with decent results, not really feeling that eager to reinvent itself in the first place, after all.

Not bad, but it lacks the ambition to really try something new with the series and potentially fail.

[EXPRESSO] Run (2020) | Night And Day

Gotta be honest, this one completely flew under my radar, i didn’t even knew it was on Netflix from april… until now, where it got a theathrical release in my country (after leaving Netflix, of course).

Whoopsie. Whatever, i still prefer going to a theathrical screening.

From director and writer Aneesh Agharthy (2018’s Searching), Run tells the story of the weird relationship between Diane Walsh (Sarah Paulson) and her daughter Chloe (Kiera Allen), a wheelchair bound and homeschooled teen, as she notices her mother’s behaviour getting stranger and stranger, leading to find some strange name changes on some documents and making Chloe suspect of everything her mother does, fearing to uncover some dark secret.

Run is one of those movies that don’t really sound like much going by the premise, which might come off as too “familiar” and overused even if it really isn’t, and no, it’s nothing like the 1980’s film Mother’s Day (or its loose 2010 remake), even if it debutted original on Mother’s Day.

Still, while you kinda know what to expect, the execution makes it, as the very good script takes 100 % advantage of the setup and possibilities given by a disabled protagonist, without resorting to insincere little pieties about the “poor wittle paralyzed thing”, and offering very well written characters that perfectly play off each other thanks to the great performances of Paulson and Allen.

Also, while it has a slow first act, it’s not that much of a “slow burner”, as things pick up a bit faster than expected, but tension remains high all the way through, with a lot happening in 90 minutes, and a very satisfying ending.

Been a while since i saw a finale so satisfying.

Nothing “new”, but very well done, with nothing about it feeling vestigial. Good one.

[EXPRESSO] Ghost Lab (2021) | Thai Ghost Of Ruin

Let’s take a dip from Netflix new original content, specifically this thai horror thriller, Ghost Lab.

The premise is novel enough, as we see 2 medical doctors try to scientifically explain ghosts, after their hospital is infested by something they both have witnessed with their very own eyes together, so they venture on this quest of undisputable scientific proof for the literally unfathomable, setting up the titular “ghost laboratory” in a hall of an abandoned building in their hospital.

And as it turns out, it’s quite hard to prove ghosts, as even the odd night events like wheelchairs moving by themselves in fairly open spaces or things flying off the shelves by themselves don’t look more believable than the stuff available online, but while it doesn’t unfold exactly as you would expect (it doesn’t do the “Layton twist”) and it has some good drama, most of the final act seems kinda at odds with what came before, in a last second course correction to make it a more standard horror thriller, maybe afraid it would have less impact if didn’t.

Sure, at least there’s some entertaiment to it, but it’s hard to shake the feeling the script was tooled with to deliver a more palatable, safe conclusion, as if the writer wasn’t confident enough, so it threw all the genre cliches in a final act that – again, for the most part – might as well belong to a completely different movie.

It’s a shame, because it has a decent atmosphere, good characters, convincing performances, but it just doesn’t develop the interesting premise in a potentially interesting way, falling back into the generic, and in a fairly jarring way to boot.

It’s an uneven film, for sure, but i’d say it’s still worth a watch if you dig the premise.

[EXPRESSO] The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) | Pacino Panic

I’ll be honest, once i heard the third Conjuring main installment was gonna be handled by the director of Curse Of La Llrona (the 2019 one), Michael Chaves…. my expectations dropped like a lead baloon. Sorry, but they did, even with Wan involved… not in writing the screenplay. MH.

Now that the movie it’s finally in theathers….let’s go over the plot, first, instead.

In the 80s the Warrens (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) are investigating a new case of demon possessions and the like, which involves a man accused of killing his landlord by slashing him 22 times with a knife, and during the trail the Warrens – for the first time in American law’s history – try to negotiate a reduction by posing (and trying to prove as far as they can) the man was under demonic possession, uncovering another occult force along the way.

Let’s be brutally honest: this IS the underwhelming follow-up, it’s exactly that, not strictly bad, but just uninspired, going through the motions big time, with the best parts being hold-overs from the previous movies, in particular the Warrens’ characters, nothing that this movie can claim to have created. What is new is clearly an inferior redo of the Conjuring as a whole, not just with Chaves’ direction being ridden of limp, almost ineffectual jumpscares, but also the script (which really makes you miss Wan), made worse by the obvious “tricks” to make this one reach the 2 hours mark.

It’s disappointing, and a shame because you almost could see a better movie coming out of it if handled by more experienced people, but that movie didn’t happen in reality. Still better than The Nun or La Llorona, but come on, you reasonably expect more than just that from a mainline installment of this franchise.