[Spoiler Alert] Film reviews and ratings

Had never even heard of Whiplash til tonight, but we gave it a bash. Thought it was brilliant, most I've enjoyed a film in a long time.

 

Just watched Marley and me again for the first time since We put our dog down a couple of years back and wow I cried my heart out, if you never seen it before give it a go and have the tissues handy as you will need them.

 

Watched this for the 1st time on a flight going on holiday. Half the flight watching it, the other half gabbing away...

5 mins from the end, the queues with men trying to get into the toilets and bawling their eyes out was amazing..... I just sat in my seat and cried..

 

Just out of Joker 2, * me it was dreadful.

A musical as well. Dug meat.

 

And above all of that, the most astounding thing is that they spent US$200m+ to make a movie that is essentially a prison/courtroom drama - and not a particularly good one.

 

Unbelievable mate.

I know people will praise Phoenix for his performance etc, but it really was a dog * film.

Gaga as well, her character was kinda pointless.

They shouldn't have done a sequel, if this was their plan, and not wanting to do spoilers but they can't exactly do another film.

*-show.

 

Same. Just out. I didn't sign up for a Disney sing along.

 

See, I get why a lot of people were * at that element of it, but I could deal with that IF the songs were there to actually progress the story or help reveal character development, but 95% do neither of these, so they are effectively just meaningless filler. And upto a certain point, largely the only time we see 'Joker' is in these imagined sequences anyhow.

Plus disregarding the end of the first film so that they could shoehorn in this story when the first was a perfectly adequate origin story (albeit being largely derivative of King of Comedy), turning the second half of this movie essentially into recapping the events of the first really underlines how little they had thought this through and how little it has to offer.

Take the songs out and even with the courtroom scenes left in, you're still looking at maybe an hour at most of a very thin story, with a rather unsatisfying take on 'Ley Quinnselle, that could have been done so, so much better. That is not a criticism of Lady Gaga's efforts, rather the dreadful writing of the character and what she is given to work with, which had so much more potential but instead... this.

Spoiler: As for the end... spoiler

Oh, and as for the end, that was very clearly done as a nod to Nolan, who had previously insisted that it not be related by Phillips and the studio, but as Nolan no longer has a working relationship with WB, they ended up taking a rather large dump there.