Awake not Woke!
Woke r' Not is a community of individuals that have had enough with social justice warriors pushing their woke agenda in Movies and Television Programs.
Are you tired of having wokeness sprung on you when you're just trying to enjoy a show? Help our community by identifying woke media!
Recent Reviews
NoWo
10-28-2024
Where’s the dichotomy?
Batman is supposed to be ambiguous: is the Batman Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, or vice versa? This iteration of the character is pure Bat, with Wayne but a thin veneer that he seldom wears. Also, shirts and socks. He seldom wears them. Because toxic female gaze, I suppose. By the same token, the villain(s) are supposed to be flesh-out, engaging characters, that in their own way highlight the darkness of the protagonist. Here, Catwoman is just a feline-in-distress, the Penguin a walk-on role, and the Riddler absent for 2/3 of the movie. At least he does his job in the end. Both the script and the photography remind me of Fincher’s Se7en, which is a good thing in many ways, but also feels generic in a way, or possibly just too realistic. The movie does not bear the mark of the Bat, the slight touch of insanity that has been the hallmark of previous movies, even the bad ones. All dark and orange simply lacks flamboyance. As another example, fight scenes: they are neither cartoonish (Burton), nor overly brutal (Snyder, Arkham videogames, although they do angle towards that in the end). Here they’re tepid and uninspired. Neither Pattinson nor Kravitz can produce convincing physicality. This Batman’s voice just doesn’t do it for me either. Too smooth. No grit. The Bat is supposed to growl “I’m Batman”, not croon that he is sorry at someone’s sob story. The music too often sounds like William’s Imperial March or Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters. Originality is hard. As for wokeness: pretty subdued for current day Hollywood. Yet another black female Mayor, all white males are corrupt (and I mean all, let’s deconstruct icons), hence Gordon’s race-swap, and female saviour. Catwoman hasn’t looked like Michelle Pfeiffer in decades (and Kravitz definitely is not Pfeiffer), and this Selina Kyle is aggressively, well, woke, as is each and every single black female according to Hollywood. She gets a pass for girlbossing, cause that’s part of Catwoman.
NoWo
10-28-2024
Stallone is not intellectual but intelligent
The 80s fashion of deriding Stallone as a muscular moron, well, was justified by the subsequent Rambo movies, I guess. But this one has more depth than meets the eye, with an engaging if somewhat awkward script, Stallone trying his honest best (he got better with age), and an outstanding Dennehy.
NoWo
10-28-2024
Classic documentary about the 21st century.
A 90s reductio ad absurdum of political correctness results in a pretty accurate description of current date, current time. Beyond the meme potential, this movie is just stupidly enjoyable from beginning to end. Stallone is at his best as the straight man (in the comedic sense, although quite likely also), and Snipes is just brimming with inspiration. And joyful madness. And possibly unlicensed pharmaceuticals. The incarnation of genial evil. We still have a few years to wait to solve the mystery of the 3 shells.
NoWo
10-28-2024
Blade has finally ice-skated up the hill...
... that it could die on. The addition of a Scooby gang wasn't the best idea. 21-yo Biel and 26-yo Reynolds are fantastic as cheese-cake and beef-cake, but Biel is not the greatest thespian ever, and Reynolds' brand of comedy is somewhat tonally at odds with the Blade universe. Purcell and Posey are definitely brilliant, though. I probably wouldn't rate it this high without the prior installments, though.
