Tuesday 7 January 2020

Long Shot (2019)

A Goldberg/Rogen production, which is a sweeter, though more lightweight, version of their typical joints. Gently amusing throughout, a strong supporting cast, and Theron and Raphael get good comedy stuff to do (unlike, say, Knocked Up or Superbad where the lead female actor gives a good performance but isn't given any comedy to do). It doesn't have a lot of bite to it, though, and by the end it surrenders to the standard romcom beats, and some of the supporting characters get left by the wayside.
Recommended as a fun, sweet watch but it's not up there with This Is The End, The Interview etc.
Rating: Good

Friday 3 January 2020

Hellboy (2019)

Absolutely atrocious. It's like an alternate universe where the Spawn movie was successful and the same people rushed a Hellboy movie into production with not enough budget or time to do it properly. A script that keeps telling the characters and the viewer stuff they already know, with endless character origin flashbacks, heavily signposted twists, nonsensical motivations, inconsistencies and contradictions, a meandering structure full of dead-ends, and dialogue written by a 14 year old who's only ever watched Shane Black movies. Bad effects. Weird ADR covering up lack of coverage. Sasha Lane and Daniel Dae Kim both scuppered by having to do (bad) English accents.

It is incredibly frustrating that a Del Toro Hellboy III was deemed to risky, but this crap was pushed out to do all the same stuff again but worse and be immediately forgotten (despite, hilariously, having three separate sequel set-ups in a row at the end).
Rating: Awful