Films watched in 2018

[SSiebum]

I just watched Miss Sloane, been on my watchlist for ages. I loved it!!! Jessica Chastain is an incredible actress. 

[EllaBlair]

On 12/6/2018 at 8:24 AM, Raylenth said:

Arrival.  That was a good, enjoyable, well made film and very much deserves the praise it received at the time.

I love this movie. I've been trying to convince my sister to watch it since it went on netflix but my summary of the plot didn't do it justice and she thinks it sounds ridiculous. Such a good movie though, surprisingly left me thinking a lot about the twist. Wasn't expecting that I thought it would be a standard alien movie.

[Raylenth]

24 minutes ago, EllaBlair said:

I love this movie. I've been trying to convince my sister to watch it since it went on netflix but my summary of the plot didn't do it justice and she thinks it sounds ridiculous. Such a good movie though, surprisingly left me thinking a lot about the twist. Wasn't expecting that I thought it would be a standard alien movie.

just tell her it's a thoughtful sci fi film and leave it at that maybe.

[natedammit]

55 minutes ago, Raylenth said:

1 hour ago, EllaBlair said:

I love this movie. I've been trying to convince my sister to watch it since it went on netflix but my summary of the plot didn't do it justice and she thinks it sounds ridiculous. Such a good movie though, surprisingly left me thinking a lot about the twist. Wasn't expecting that I thought it would be a standard alien movie.

just tell her it's a thoughtful sci fi film and leave it at that maybe.

Nah, just tell her Chris Hemsworth gets his winky out in it.

[Raylenth]

12 minutes ago, natedammit said:

Nah, just tell her Chris Hemsworth gets his winky out in it.

Or that

[ChloeLou]

On 11/29/2018 at 11:01 AM, Kurdamoni said:

Just saw 'Skyscraper' with Dwayne Johnson; liked it very much, very entertaining, great graphics, good acting.

Saw 'Rampage' with the same actor aswell, wasn't all that good 

I absolutely loved Skyscraper! That was amazing! 

[SSiebum]

Just saw Mortal Engines and Widows today! Absolutely loved Mortal Engines. I liked Widows but felt like nothing really happened and I also almost fell asleep, oops.

[Wrong Name]

Apart from the odd Christmas movie, I haven't managed to watch anything new recently, except Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse which I absolutely loved! Not exactly a life changing film, but is a lot of fun and was everything I hoped it would be. Definitely one of the best Spidey outings we've had from Sony without any help since Spider-Man 2. Some Cliche characters and story archs in there but this is easily overlooked with just how beautiful the animation is and a lot of the humour and action throughout. Go see it!

Edited December 11, 2018 by Wrong Name

[Raylenth]

Mowgli on Netflix.  It's a very good film, much truer to the original story than the cartoon Disney version (can't remember much about the more recent live action/cgi Jungle Book so can't compare it to that), though a different ending, but still an enjoyable film.  It has an impressive cast list, and the young lad who played Mowgli was amazing in the role.  Very sad around the end of the film and I'll admit I was crying a bit!  All in all a good film by Andy Serkis and worth the wait.  Definitely not one for the younger kids though, for one particular scene specifically.

 

If I were to be critical about anything, the CGI is a bit dodgy in places and for some of the animals and I think they humanised the animals too much with human eyes, it made them look too weird.

I know it's had mixed reviews but I really enjoyed it.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Raylenth

[only_jay]

Into the Spider-Verse - loved it. Easily the best Spider-Man movie yet. So torn as I want a Miles Morales in the mcu now but I do love Tom Holland’s version. 

Bumblebee - Massive fan of the animated Transformers movie but haven’t seen a lot of the recent live action ones because they got so bad. This movie on the other hand was so good!

Mollys Game - Big fan of Aaron Sorkin so thought I would check it out, was a good watch even if a lot of the poker talk goes over my head 

[wjbleming]

The Mortal Engines - Seen this last Saturday. It's a decent movie. I liked it, but it's nothing special.

Aquaman - Seen Aquaman yesterday and really enjoyed it! Definitely a highlight!

Bumblebee - Seen this today and I echo what Jay's said above: I loved this movie! I'd followed all the previous Transformers movies and whilst I'm easily please most of the time, The Last Knight hit a new low for me (I was about 19/20 when RotF came out, so I was the right demographic for it... unfortunately) but this was the complete opposite! Loved every minute of it and I want to see more of that intro scene!

[Kurdamoni]

Just finished a ‘Lord of the Rings’ marathon yesterday with friends, was awesome, all in extended edition ofcource 

[natedammit]

18 hours ago, wjbleming said:

The Mortal Engines - Seen this last Saturday. It's a decent movie. I liked it, but it's nothing special.

Aquaman - Seen Aquaman yesterday and really enjoyed it! Definitely a highlight!

Bumblebee - Seen this today and I echo what Jay's said above: I loved this movie! I'd followed all the previous Transformers movies and whilst I'm easily please most of the time, The Last Knight hit a new low for me (I was about 19/20 when RotF came out, so I was the right demographic for it... unfortunately) but this was the complete opposite! Loved every minute of it and I want to see more of that intro scene!

Saw.

[wjbleming]

7 minutes ago, natedammit said:

Saw.

Yep, I've seen that, too, years ago. It was... meh.

[Bumper8]

13 hours ago, Kurdamoni said:

Just finished a ‘Lord of the Rings’ marathon yesterday with friends, was awesome, all in extended edition ofcource 

Love these movies- I just wish Peter Jackson had resisted the urge to revisit Middle Earth.

[nicky]

AQUAMAN (2018) 2/5*

I'm really surprised at the praise this film has got from some people. To put it into context, I agreed with Mark Kermode's and Empire's 3 star review.  It was boring, too long, convoluted and was just plain horrible when it tried to be charming. 

The film actually started off good but went quickly downhill once the bad guys tried to explain their motives. By the time the 2nd act comes with Aquaman (Jason Momoa) bringing Mera (Amber Heard) to land, the film seems to try to suddenly change into this weird and forced romantic comedy that just sucked me straight out of the film.

A lot of the film is set underwater and these were the parts that annoyed me the most; talking underwater? C'mon, man! The water pressure isn't even affecting the movement of their skin! And the crappy CGI creatures that the Atlanteans ride on and the fake green-screen sets (not just in Atlantis!) just looked so cartooney. And speaking of sets where was the sunlight coming from when they were in the secret UNDERGROUND caves in the Sahara Desert???!!!

Black Manta would have made a more interesting main villain and his story would have been a much more engaging film but after an impressive introduction and initial encounter with Aquaman, he is reduced to nothing more than a distracting subplot and seed for a sequel. Also Black Manta's helmet design was just so big and ludicrous that it looked like it was the love-child of Dark Helmet from Spaceballs (1986) and The Fly which only added to the campiness of the film.

I can't imagine what Nicole Kidman was thinking signing-on to this film other than the fact she wanted to work with fellow Aussie, director James Wan, who does a great job of shooting the cool fight sequences but relies too often on sudden explosions to interrupt a scene. For me this is probably the worst film in the DCU along with Suicide Squad (2016). I left the cinema asking myself why don't Warner Bros just give up?

Biggest WTF moment: Girl randomly gives Pinocchio picture-book to Mera and eating the flower.

 

[Daniel]

I thought Aquaman was a very good comic adaptation. It certainly had very realistic effects, although the effects seemed to take over towards the end. Some of the performances were good and it certainly gets you thinking about the theories of Atlantis.

[Wrong Name]

Creed II - Loved this film. It's nothing really new, granted, and it VERY much follows the standard Rocky/boxing film plot points, but it has engaging characters that are performed well and made me actually care about them. Even with the two idiots talking throughout the entire film at the screening I saw, I was fully drawn into this film and on the edge of my seat during the fight scenes. I'm not even a boxing fan!

Aquaman - I agree with a lot that nicky has said above. This film was very...meh. Not the worst I've seen, but I won't be rewatching anytime soon. Mamoa was just not a leading man for me. He was ok in Justice League (which is one of the nicest things I've said about that film!) as he was just there to look pretty (for those into that) and do the action stuff. Here, he didn't hold up well trying to carry the film. Especially with the comedy, and I can honestly say that every single joke in this film fell flat with me. Black Manta looked like something from Power Rangers, and for the PR fans out there, I apologise, but I do not mean that as a compliment when this is a 2018 Hollywood blockbuster, not a low budget 90's TV show. Some of the action was good, but I spent WAY too much time rolling my eyes at this film than I should have.

Fantastic Beasts 2 - Title's too long, you know which one I mean! This wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected. I had been told by soooo many people that this was terrible and not to bother going. I've seen all the Wizarding World films but would in no way consider myself a Potter head, so maybe that's why I didn't mind it as I had no real expectations going in. I felt it carried on nicely from where the last film left off. There were some characters that got lost a bit and didn't have some needed development, but it those at the front added some depth to what we'd seen before. Johnny Depp played Grindlewald a lot less evil and not as eccentric as I had expected which was a welcome change for him. Once again, I loved a lot fo the creatures we got to see, most of whom stole the film for me. The film followed the usual steps of the previous films and very much seemed to fit in with the rest of them, though I'm sure all the potter heads out there will tell me I'm wrong!

Mortal Engines - I had been lucky enough to see a preview of this film earlier in the year, which definitely helped me to lower my expectations. I was right to. As much as a visual treat as this film is, it is also the most run-of-the-mill, cliched, action movie I've seen in a while. Not even Hugo Weaving can save it. I expected much better from the writing/producing/production team behind the Lord Of The Rings movies. The premise of this was so promising as to be something we've never seen before, but they obviously didn't know what to do with it and fell in to some very standard plot points that were almost cringe worthy. Where I really cringed though was most of the acting, from all the cast. They were awful and made me hate nearly all of the characters. I won't bother seeing this again either.

[only_jay]

Aquaman - Like some of the past few comments i'm not really sure why this film has got as much praise as it has. There was some okay stuff mainly whenever Amber and Jason were on screen together. The film is far to long and really doesn't need Black Manta at all in my eyes. Certainly better than BVS and Suicide Squad but nowhere near as good as Wonder Woman and I would even argue Man Of Steel was better too.

[brooketessmacherfan]

Aquaman,  one of the better dceu films

[nicky]

A QUIET PLACE (2018)

3/5

I hadn't heard much about this film but decided to check it out at the recommendation of Mark Kermode and other critics (including Stephen King) hailing it as probably the best horror film this year. Naturally I had high hopes and the opening few minutes really grabbed my attention but I'm sorry to say that affect on me was rather short-lived. 

After a great opening the film seemed to be padded-out with too many redundant scenes. And then it dawned on me; the reason for this was because the film was only 90 mins and the plot was VERY thin. The stand-out thing about the film of course is it's effective use of silence throughout in order to crank-up the nail-biting tension and it does this exceptionally well. But the main problem I had with the script was that the great tension throughout the film is maxed-out out so much that it sacrifices story and plot in favour of suspense - to me it just felt the plot was neglected. 

We know the characters are a family trying to survive and avoid blind creatures that hunt by sound but other than that the story is incredibly shallow and not even the conflict between the father and daughter is enough to compensate that. The whole silence thing felt like a gimmick to try and make the film original and interesting. In a way the film kind of reminded me of Pitch Black (2000) and Don't Breathe (2016).

I do like the creatures though and their design - its evident the director did his homework from other great monster movies and didn't give in to the temptation to show the creatures too much until nearer the climax. It was alright but I expected more.

Edited December 25, 2018 by nicky

[VikingGrrrl]

Deadpool 2 - Super Duper Cut

It was one of my christmas presents yesterday, so I had to see it later that evening. It was definitely a Deadpool film. Very entertaining, but not quite as good as the first one.

Oh yeah and my brain went "Thanos, Thanos, Thanos" through the entire film 

Edited December 25, 2018 by VikingGrrrl

[Daniel]

As another year comes to an end, what did you see?

List the films you have seen (or remember seeing) this year in order:

1. Creed 2 
2. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 
3. I, Tonya
4. First Man 
5. Solo: A Star Wars Story
6. The Shape of Water
7. Bohemian Rhapsody
8. Ant-Man and The Wasp
9. Venom
10. Deadpool 2
11. Allure
12. Ladybird
13. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
14. The Girl In The Spider’s Web
15. Aquaman
16. Avengers: Infinity War 
17. Truth or Dare 
18. Overboard
19. Bumblebee
20. The Happytime Murders
21. Love Simon
22. Widows
23. Game Night
24. Ready Player One
25. The Commuter
26. The Predator
27. The First Purge
28. Unfriended: Dark Web
29. Midnight Sun
30. Fifty Shades Freed
31. A Simple Favour
32. Skyscraper
33. Halloween
34. The Post
35. Gringo
36. Molly’s Game
37. Red Sparrow
38. Maze Runner: The Death Cure
39. Tag
40. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
41. The Darkest Hour
42. Entebbe
43. Unsane
44. I Feel Pretty
45. Mary Poppins Returns
46. The Children Act
47. Night School
48. Blockers
49. Insidious: The Last Key
50. The Clapper
51. The Competition
52. A Quiet Place
53. Black Panther
54. Escape Plan 2: Hades
55. Downsizing
56. Anon
57. Tomb Raider
58. A Star Is Born
59. Amanda & Jack Go Camping
60. Peterloo
61. Hereditary
62. The Phantom Thread 

Note: This list may be edited by the end of this year

Edited January 9, 2019 by Daniel

[The Friendly Dalek]

I've kept a record of every film to be released in 2018 that I have seen, and I have also ranked them from worst to best. This may be a controversial list. 

1) Avengers: Infinity War 

2) Halloween 

3) First Man 

4) Bohemian Rhapsody 

5) Creed 2 

6) Mission Impossible: Fallout 

7) Hereditary 

8) Blackkklansman 

9) A Star Is Born 

10) Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again 

11) Aquaman 

12) Spider Man: Into The Spider Verse 

13) Ready Player One 

14) Searching 

15) A Quiet Place 

16) Sicario: Day Of The Soldado 

17) Bumblebee 

18) Black Panther 

19) The Old Man And The Gun 

20) Deadpool 2 

21) Incredibles 2 

22) Ralph Breaks The Internet 

23) The Meg  

24) Venom 

25) Christopher Robin 

26) Solo: A Star Wars Story 

27) The Predator 

28) Slaughterhouse Rulez 

29) The Grinch 

30) Ant-Man And The Wasp 

31) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom 

32) Goosebumps 2 

33) Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald 

34) Hunter Killer 

35) The Girl In The Spider’s Web 

36) Johnny English Strikes Again 

37) Robin Hood 

38) The House With A Clock In Its Walls 

39) Sorry To Bother You 

40) The Nun 

41) King Of Thieves 

42) The Nutcracker And The Four Realms 

43) The Happytime Murders 

44) Slender Man

Edited December 26, 2018 by The Friendly Dalek

[Peter Capaldi Fan]

The Wife.

A slow burner. However I can see why Glenn Close may be nominated for an Oscar.

Such an understated performance