Unfinished

Despite its 2+ hours runtime, this movie feels unfinished and incomplete in many ways. It tries to summarize four years in the life of a wide ensemble cast, and ends up more a collection of disjointed vignettes and under-developed characters.
It also focuses on the wrong ones, in my opinion.

Still, it does a banging job of capturing the vibrancy and exuberance of young hopefuls, and to an extent the harshness awaiting them.

Strangely, the titular song is barely present in the movie (it was completed after the shooting I seem to remember), and its expression of youthful, devouring ambition is equally absent from the narrative.
Cara and her character Coco deserved better than they got here. Especially the scene with the pseudo-French 'cinematographer'; I get Parker's point, but it's awkwardly put.
On the other hand (end?), the closing piece, I Sing The Body Electric, weirdly never met with the success I think it deserves, with its brilliant stylistic syncretism.
I'm a sucker for a good literary reference, and it manages to evoke both Whitman and Bradbury, so, kudos.

Also, the young actors are no frauds. They obviously can sing, Cara chief among them, but they also play well enough to look totally legit on screen, at least for the instruments I've played myself enough to judge their performances.

The very diverse cast does not feel forced - it's New York after all - and to be honest, most black characters would now be decried by your garden-variety leftist (but not in my backyard) as 'acting white', 'bounties' or 'coconuts'. Or whatever they say this week.
Acting white, like being punctual and working hard toward a better future.
Diverse does not exclusively mean black here, but also Jewish, Italian or Puerto-Rican; background conversations come in a variety of languages, such as the bickering Russian pair, or one of the dance teachers' thick French accent.

All in all a good watch, that never feels lengthy but seems rushed in retrospect.

Fossil trail of 80s early woke

I watched the first few episodes out of nostalgia. Shouldn't have. It's meh.

The music, the cinematography, the pocket-change budget: yep, this is one of the long litany of Cannell shows that graced the 80s. Theme song to this one's really good, though.

What sets outs as a touchy-feely take on Superman turns out more nuanced than expected after living through one quarter of the 21st century.

The main characters are pretty on the nose: Katt's (whose name shall not be uttered due to an attempt on President Reagan's life) a frizzled blonde surfer dude special ed teacher, Culp's a 3-piece wearing, ex-mil FBI op. Guess who votes Republican.

And yet, Super non-threatening Male does defend G-man, mansplaining to his girlfriend that while they were drinking coffee, young G-man was down in the trenches defending their country.

Unexpectedly true and truly unexpected. The modern audience would want Culp to be pigeon-holed as the apex of toxic masculinity, and stupidity too. Instead, he's a bona fide badass, with many imperfections but undeniable grit. Then again, they would want the woman to wear the suit, which would then be perfect.
Instead, Selleca's character butts heads with Culp's, who's an outspoken derider of feminism. And she does not systematically come out on top, as taking bullets is mostly a meritocracy. And Katt's is a custodial divorced dad. Pure fiction.

By the way, Selleca is (well, was, probably) a very fine woman, but she's been rendered as bland a humanly possible (and then some); they manage to make her actually unattractive. Not ugly, just, well, barely there. Impressive feat. Feminism hating women's traditional image. Contrast with Charlie's Angels a few years earlier, which was pretty unapologetic. Or the Dukes of Hazzard. Or the Fall Guy. Or Riptide. Riptide never got the memo.

Crap, this show heralded the beginning of the end. It even ends with handing over the mantle to a woman. Precursor show. Not in a good way. 1 woke star because it's early and timid messaging diluted by 80s common sense.

Quietly brilliant

The pacing is slow and thoughtful, so not everybody's cuppa, and can be surprise for the average anime fan I guess. In many ways it reminds me of Mushishi.

The animation is gorgeous if not flashy. Music is perfect but understated, always taking the back-seat to the visuals.

It tackles the subjects of both impermanence, most obvious example being the death of heroes, and permanence, most obviously through the legacy of heroes. It also brooches, quite brilliantly, on the themes of humility, and true strength.
On a more grounded, and political, level, demons are openly instrumentalizing human empathy to exploit and deceive them. "Demons learn the tongue of humans only to deceive them." "Why do you say this word?" "It's a magic word. When I say it you do not kill me."
The Japanese are naturally based.

Which is funny, in a way. Western culture (what passes for nowadays) has adopted pervasive moral relativism; well, the self-proclaimed mainstream has, and has imposed it on the soft belly of the IQ curve. At the same time, the Japanese, and Asians in general (in the US understanding of the term, not Yookay's) are savagely defending essentialism: what is evil cannot be good, and there is no misunderstanding.
They're literally doing us better than us. Making us look like right muppets in the process. Cheeky tossers.

Frieren herself is a new - at least to me - mix of cute elven girl (sans the ADHD) and 70s movie stone-cold bad-ass. Think Eastwood with longer ears. Being high level is not only about overwhelming power. Although the series features some high-powered fights to rival Dragonball. And Macross too, with its missile saturation attacks. Beautifully animated.
As for Himmel, well, he's a hero of the common folk. He's dead from the start, but damn well present.
By the way, if you know a modicum of German, the names are unimaginative and on the nose. They might be exotic for a Japanese audience, but they rather break the immersion for me.
Anyway, the characters - all of them - are solidly written, with adult and rather subtle arcs, if somewhat predictable. Should be a treat for the teen crowd. By treat I mean a good start for moral analysis and discussion.

Good fiction explores important themes; great fiction leads one to explore them by oneself.

Frieren is a decent shot at greatness.

This show is obviously inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, D&D boxed sets mixed with some AD&D, down to having monsters that can't be named, cause Beholders are copyrighted.

The main character's concept is what you get when your Ranger picks goblinoids as his favoured enemy. Every. Time. He's obsessed, he's ruthlessly tactical, he's the Punisher (Ennis's) in a fantasy setting.

I'm probably nostalgic about the good ole days of discovering the game and playing low-level chars, which may affect my judgment.
The story is simple, before domain-level play. Think red box.
On the other hand, it lacks complexity and an overall direction. Which is fitting: the chars go through the modules as you manage to get your hands on them.

Of note, this show attracted controversy for "featuring rape of females".
In short, yes. Although brief and not exactly explicit. Not for the younger crowd, but D&D isn't anyway.
The first episode opens with a level 1 party wipe. So, yeah, bloody and rapey. Because D&D is essentialist: goblins are evil, they commit evil deeds. Also, they start eating their victims _before_ they die.
But the pearl-clutching, eternally outraged crowd focused on 1 second of implied rape. What is wrong with them?
Well, they do choose the bear, and bears also eat their preys alive, so I don't know.

The animation is decent-to-good in the first series, and drops to sub-par in the second.
Still a fun watch, but not for kids. Or players of 5e.

It's pretty and empty

First, it's visually quite satisfying, maybe a little over the top.
It should be: Besson is the incarnation of style over substance, and Mezieres, who drew the comics this was derived from, is up there with Moebius. Valerian (the comic) inspired Star War's visuals, Mezieres worked on The Fifth Element, and so on.

On the other hand, Besson probably thinks Avatar has a deep and meaningful political relevance. So same here: thin, lanky aliens living in a Rousseau-esque, good savage utopia, laid low by the evil of white man and capitalism. Oh, and the power of love. Wouldn't have seen that coming.
It's a French comic from the 70s, and the French are either world conquerors or communists. And well, by the 70s, they had stopped conquering.

Thankfully, the actors don't lean too much into that. DeHaan has a good grip on the character: be unremarkable, somewhat charming, and appear bumbling and inefficient, despite getting obvious elite results.

Delevingne (WTF? Prob French name bastardized by the Brits) seems actually pretty OK as an actress, but far out as a person. Even playing a role, she reeks of the danger zone on the crazy/hot matrix.
Her character is a somewhat tentative girlboss: she bosses her male partner around, but she gets damseled most of the time.

Actions scenes OK, lead chemistry OK, plot MIA, well-meaning (as in, useful idiot) socialism all around.

Meh.

Edit: just 'membered, comic Laureline's a green-eyed redhead. So, basically a Celt. At least she didn't suddenly turn black. Red Heads Matter!

Movie for the kids, too young to know better

Directed by the bloke who gave us Mortal Kombat, AvP and a number of Resident Evil movies. But also Event Horizon, so, one step above Uwe Boll.

Starring his wife. Jovovich has this thing for marrying her director, as she did for the 5th element.
To be fair, she's beautiful, charismatic and a decent actress.

Tony Jaa tries to branch out of the elbow-to-the-face roles. I think he actually does quite good.

Perlman, well, each time I see him, I wonder how he got a career. It can't be the casting couch. I mean, even in Hollywood, bestiality can't be as rampant as buggery and noncery. Right? It's not talent either. It's a mystery.

The first 2/3 of the movie work rather well as a survival / odd couple script. Probably because I haven't played the game (me wee lad has), because it's clearly not that kind of game. And then it tries to be a Monster Hunter movie, and fails miserably. It crams in obvious nods to the game, but fails a movie.

The whole mixing worlds hurts the suspension of disbelief. Even in a 10 y-o. If it can be cut with a (bone?) sword or (huge) arrows, it's not shrugging off 50 cal sustained.

Slight girlbossing, expected with Jovovich, but she does it well enough to have some credibility. Cross-world magic mumbo-jumbo, she's a captain, so she starts off with a leveled char, I don't know.

A Ranger recon mission has not 1 but 2 females, among the two dozens in existence at the time of shooting. Really? What are the odds? On the other hand, they show the other female (black) breaking down under pressure, so yeah, good picture of a diversity hire.

Representation is important.

Same old, same old

Not any better or worse than the previous installment.

It's visually quite advanced, but frankly the overloaded undersea graphics can get tiresome. Plus, we've seen it all in the first movie. Except for the Star Wars Cantina / Jabba rip-off.

Momoa is Momoa, and works well with Morrison and Wilson. They get the father/son and brothers chemistry right.

The script is a chain: a series of holes linked together. Most blatant in the DC universe being, where is Superman. He could have this stopped in ten minutes, and he is in the business of saving billions.

My favorite: the plot techno-bauble releases humongous amounts of heat to warm the planet (in weeks, the maths don't math, but whatever) BUT the island is heat-shielded so it doesn't show up on satellites' nfra-red.
Meaning the heat is not released, and doesn't warm anything up. Even my 10 y-o caught this one.

It's not being as preachy with global warming as it could be (I mean, Atlantis, orichalcum, so why not anthropogenic warming), but still pushes the myth that it's readily reversible.

Also, girlbosses. The whole fish council is female. Well, Atlantis has been hiding and doing jack shit for millennia, so, not the flex they think it is. And the pirate crew. Pudgy women giving shrill orders as far as the ear can hear.
At least not all black people are thieves in this one. Oh, wait, the only black guy is basically a vindicative, violent car thief.
Is this not supposed to be fantasy?
Black Manta is still wet Temu Ironman anyway.

Meh movie, apparently boycotted because of Heard. Momoa really can't catch a break, can he?

Did not invent hot water...

The younger kids liked it.
Script is very formulaic; Arthur, lost royalty, ascends by finding a legendary weapon, character's origin is lazy, movie is not better.
Black Manta is one of the most tepid villain I've seen. Black submariner Ironman? Really? King Night Owl? He tries being a misguided villain for a while, acting for the perceived good of his people, but he just drops it later on.

It's visually pleasant. Lots of money went into the VFX. Some talent too.

Momoa is excellent, but he's played this role quite a few time by now. Dafoe, Kidman, Wilson, Morrison, they all earn their pay. Age finally caught up with Kidman. She's not that perfect dime anymore. Just a dime now.

Then there's Heard. In her 30s and already mid. But still hasn't found the time to learn to act. And has managed to make herself hated by the audience. Or was it after this movie?

The movie doesn't push the "ecological" angle as I would have feared. But, by some strange twist of fate, all white males happen to be bad apples. One could argue Dafoe, but he doesn't look like himself in this one. Very ethnic.
It could honestly be due to chance / setting. But in current year, it still is suspicious.

80s adventure at its best

As another commenter noted, this movie is painful on the ears.

Capshaw's jobs are 1/ being a smokeshow and 2/ screaming at the top of her (expansive) lungs.
She's impressively good at both. Also, she actually can act, even though she's never made much of a career of it. I guess she was mostly a SAHM, no reproach from me.

Seth is vastly underused, Quan was just a kid at the time and Puri takes a detour from his prolific Indian career to play an over-the-top but tone-perfect villain.

My youngest was quite a bit afraid during the movie. Guess Gen X kids were built tougher.

Indy 3 (the final movie) was probably superior, but this one is great fun.

Getting long in the tooth

It's an entertaining movie, reusing the same character, same jokes, same visuals, and basically the same plot.
But all that is getting a bit tired and cliched. It's lost its spark.

Depp, Rush and Bardem are beyond reproach, as expected of such experienced actors. Same for the supporting cast, including Sir Paul (McCartney).
Thwaites and Scodelario are decent enough; they're young actors with a rather bland script, and neither has the presence to shine through that.

Scodelario's character get that woke point, though. Not girlboss, but unsufferable know-it-all, despite getting humbled (without learning humility) throughout the movie.

The male (and thus dumb) characters work because they're caricatures, and manage to succeed despite their flaws. The female "lead" is the opposite: she's incredibly realistic (I've worked with her too many times), and manages to need rescuing despite all of her much-professed-but-never-witnessed qualities. Basically, an extension of the movie's McGuffin, allowing the plot to move on to the next scene.

Still, the movie is somewhat entertaining, mostly due to Depp's involvement, thus highlighting how incredibly stupid Disney's corpos were to antagonize him over that whole false accusation shenanigan. Him and his fans. Threw the golden goose out with the bathwater they bought on OF. Morons. Well, corpos, same thing.