The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Spoilers.

The Conjuring movies have a draw and a repellent for me, and they are one and the same: that they are based on real-life stories. I believe in the supernatural—in demon-possession and ill-meaning sprits and hauntings. So, I am fascinated. And a bit creeped-out. But fascinated. There are few definable rules to the subject, but mostly it's a dark unknown, full of potential for exploring by way of fiction. And that's why, despite reservations, I've come to be a fan of The Conjuring movies.

Well. Up till now... 

Not only is this the most poorly made of the three films, it's also the only one in which the real-life element is thrown out the window. Of course, the first two were embellished (to put it mildly) and sometimes heavily added to to make a longer, and more cinematic, story. But parts that did have claims on reality were the same parts that gave the films their draw. The supernatural. The haunted house and demon possession of the first film. The girl being oppressed in the second, with the levitating and teleporting and the old man speaking out her mouth. So, what's true about The Devil Made Me Do It?

Arne Johnson (Ruairi O'Connor) has a brother (Julian Hilliard) who's possessed by a demon. After the Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are called in to exorcise him, the demon moves from the brother to him. Afterwards, he murders his landlord, and then claims that, well, the devil made him do it. But that doesn't quite do it, does it? Whether you believe the true stories of the first two films or not, the claims are scary. Reports of seeing a witch with a head that looked like a tangle of cobwebs. The little girl falling asleep in one place and waking in another. The old man's voice coming from inside her. What's scary about this story? Nothing, really. It's a loose, undetailed set of facts. There's no inherent fear. It must be invented.

"What if there's a demon/ghost in the water mattress?!?!" "HoW sCaRy!!"

There's no haunting element, so the movie brings in a witch character that curses the family and then begins to telepathically stalk the Warrens when Loraine accidentally makes contact with her. In one fell swoop the movie forgoes whatever little grasp on reality it had. It allows its witch to animate dead bodies for a cheap scare or two. Then with the planting of one little totem, she gains the ability to literally control minds and make people see whatever she wants. The only thing more annoying than this is that her mind control spell is broken by the power of love. No exorcism. No mention of God or application of His power. No rules. No reality. Just hogwash.

It's even understood in the narrative that there was no demonic possession at all; that Arne was tricked by the mind control to commit murder—which means that the movie doesn't even accept the true story's premise. And despite my being a horror lightweight, I was more scared watching The Conjuring for the third time than I was watching this. Ed and Lorraine's character story is contrived and silly—if the Hallmark channel turned horror—while the rest plays out like an unfinished sketchbook from some not-particularly-creative tween who's determined to write a hit creepypasta. A series of vignettes, with no build or significance, that continuously fall flat, until the runtime is over-filled and all is quickly solved by magic.

I doubt the real Arne was demon-possessed. Especially if it supposedly left him after the murder like they claim in the film. Demons don't just up and leave. It was more likely a successful ploy to get a lessened sentence.

For what it's worth I do believe a demon could drive a person to commit murder, but even so they still would have to have chosen to give in and do it, so this movie's title isn't a viable defense in my book. As for the crime of having made this film? "The devil made me do it" is the ONLY defense I'll accept.

Godzilla vs. Kong

Spoiler-free.

You've seen the 2014 Godzilla, that took the classic campy monster and turned him into a serious and dimly-lit force of nature; then focused the lens down to the earth, not to watch the destruction, but to see how the human characters react.

You've seen the 2017 Kong: Skull Island—the bombastic and gleefully explosive adventure romp with a cast full to the brim with A-list actors and an enlarged King that packed an entertaining action punch.

And you've seen the 2019 sequel to the former, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where the dark and the seriousness remains but any semblance of interesting or even memorable characters are gone.

Now. Get ready... for the series to be degraded even further by pitting the two epic beasts against each other as the finalists in a literal knockout tournament, complete with brackets showing their progress in defeating Skull Crawlers and Hydra monsters in single elimination on their way to the top.

If that sounds like the direction you were hoping this "Monsterverse" franchise would take, quit reading and watch the movie. It's for you. If you were hoping that this mashup would contain even a single drop of respect for its predecessors, or human characters worth rooting for (let alone learning the names of) or a plot that tries to make sense, or fight scenes that hold more substance than CGI is capable of... you're as out of luck as this movie is out of a worthy bone in its massive, lazy body.

Its worst offense in my book is the tone-deaf way in which it attempts to borrow from the extremely stylish Skull Island. King of the Monsters already did away with 2014's Godzilla's grounded sensibilities and that was left to lie in its discarded grave. But people still like Jordan Vogt-Roberts' use of color and fun classic tunes, so that's what this movie gives us—just sans the purpose that drove Vogt-Roberts's epic choices. There's music. But its applied meaninglessly, ignorantly splashing it against the giant monkey whenever it can't think of anything else to do. Bright colors are even more used. And while I thank copycat mentality for making it more colorful and not less, it might as well have been black and white for all the good it did.

I felt so sorry for the human actors in this. Kyle Chandler was wasted as the lead in the last film; here he gets 5 short scenes out of obligation. Meanwhile the ostensible new lead, played by Alexander Skarsgård, is treated the same way as his predecessor. I remember someone saying his name near the end of the film and realizing I'd not heard it until then. He serves to set the plot in motion, then as a reactionary sign from whom the audience is meant to take their cues. He, Rebecca Hall, Eiza Gonzáles, and the cute little girl spent the film sitting inside the cockpit of a magical ship, gasping and staring at what is clearly nothing before their eyes. How frustrating a shoot it must have been.

There's a bit at the beginning that explains how Main Character's brother died going into the Hollow Earth, leaving Main Character on the too-careful side. The cute little girl and her mom agree that he's a coward and I figured he was meant to have an arc that culminates in a redemptive moment of bravery. But he was the one who pushed to take the risk of moving Kong to the Hollow Earth in the first place. And while he looks constantly nervous and timid, the movie never allows that to become a flaw. He risks himself for others and to further the plot easily—because the movie doesn't have time to spend on things like arcs or consistency.

The movie has no time, or interest, in thinking about anything. It needs a way to get people into the Hollow Earth, so magical flying ships are already made, with no explanation to the science that makes them look like they were plucked from a Star Wars film. On the way down there's a weird scifi portal that's a hassle to travel through. So much so that going back up, the portal no longer exists. Too much trouble. Why think of an explanation when dedicated fans can explain for you? Why put in effort when the cash will come in without it just as easily?

There's one exception to the movie's aversion to thought, (a spoiler so I won't go in depth) and it was the only part of the movie that didn't seem to actively rip brain cells from my brain. Beside this one part that explains an impossible science and ties back to the last film, the movie doesn't even turn off its brain; rather, its brain doesn't exist. And it demands you leave yours at home as well. I wouldn't care so much—who am I to get in the way of people's mindless entrainment—except that Skull Island and 2014's Godzilla both were far more entraining, while keeping their brain intact and in use.

The movie knows that it doesn't need any of the things it lacks. Sense, story, characters with names... it's all moot. Godzilla and King Kong punch each other in the face, and roar, and destroy buildings. It knows that's all it needed to earn attention and accolades. I despise this film. It was bad—but not just bad. It was carelessly bad. Confidently bad. It took the easiest path to shallowest success, and what frustrates me most is that its smug, lazy judgment of audience's tolerance was correct.

The Old Guard

Spoiler-free!

A group of immortals, (Charlize Theron, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, and Luca Marinelli) whose bodies heal themselves from any injury, go around the world and get themselves in dangerous situations in the two-fold hope that they'll do some good in the world... and that maybe someday they'll die.

If that sounds like an interesting, exciting flick to you, then I'm sorry to report: that isn't what actually happens in the movie. That is the premise of the characters' existence, only. The plot of the movie is that a new immortal (KiKi Layne) becomes known to them in a vision directly after they mess up on one of those said missions and get some bad guys on their tail. (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Harry Melling) They have to find and recruit her to their ranks before facing down the baddies who want to study them for a cure for death.

My one hope was that it'd be better than Bloodshot. No dice.

Even that sounds more exciting than the movie winds up being. It's Deadpool without the comedy, and half the action. It's a long series of droning conversations about things that are more ambiguous than deep, inter-cut occasionally with quota-filling fight scenes that do nothing to drive the plot forward. Sometimes action happens off screen, then when the character who witnessed it relates the event to the others, the movie flashes back so we can see it, too. It's desperate to put in as much action as possible, but it can't keep itself from those meaningless conversations in which people who are hundreds of years old act like whiny children, cynical of their own existence.

There really aren't any positive sides to it for me, but if you tend to enjoy action -- fight scenes with hands, guns, and swords kind of stuff, complete with improbable choreography -- then this movie does have that going for it. Shaky cam has finally, and thankfully, died, so you can see what's going on in the film, and none of the set pieces are too extravagant to need an excess of CGI. A good thing, because the CGI isn't great. (when is it ever?) Still, the fights aren't particularly exciting, filmed typically, and without stakes in the narrative to back it up.

They spend the whole movie telling us why we should care, and never give us a reason to.

The film opens on the group complaining, and arguing over whether they should take another "case", which made me instantly not care about them. There's only four yet they're developed so shallowly. Charlize is the whiny leader, Matthias is handsome, and the other two are gay. (And Marwan was Jafar in that awful live action Aladdin!) That's it. The new girl isn't better developed, but she starts off on a good, likable foot. She's a marine who's killed in action, and once she wakes up, the confused reaction and mistrust from her unit is the most compelling slice of story the film has to offer. I wish they'd focused the story down to her.

Instead they fight nonthreatening or uncommitted bad guys (or their red-shirt henchmen with laughably bad training) until the plot is resolved because enough people have been killed to render it inert. And the new group goes off again, to do their thing of exotic locations and extreme, daring, dangerous missions for the good of mankind. Wouldn't that have been nice to see. Clearly a sequel is desired. But now we've been disappointed and bored out of wanting one.

In the Shadow of the Moon

Spoilers. Spoilers galore.

This movie starts out so well. Set in 1988 and starring Boyd Holbrook as a beat cop who latches onto a strange serial killer case, it's pulpy scifi noir, and I thought had a great chance of being one of my favorite pure-fun movies this year. But that was just the first five or ten minutes; by the time it ends, it's worked its way into being one of the most trite, self-righteous, garbage movies of the year instead.

It's like he's trying to do penance for being a man. Just keep elevating fun movies! Don't throw your career away on guilt-ridden garbage!

What caused the decline? As with most movies of recent days that have fantastic premises but flop into miserable piles of wasted opportunity, it boils down to an agenda. Films should have agendas; if they didn't, they'd never be anything but an unstructured mess of nothings. Most movies have an agenda to entertain, tell a meaningful story, or show a character grow into a better person. To be art! This movie's agenda? To promote an idea; the idea that some ideas should be restricted and punishable by death.

This movie says that if you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, you should do that, but not even to stop there, but kill his family and anyone who might have influenced him. (Otherwise they may simply influence someone else into being "Hitler.") It declares that to be a moral good and doesn't ever offer a counterargument. We follow the lead down the rabbit hole as he chases a murder suspect who reappears every nine years. He grows older and falls further away from his daughter in his obsession, until finally he is taught -- like in a Sunday school lesson time -- that the murderer is good, and that he must accept her deeds as such because one day he will believe as she does, and be the one to teach it to her in the first place.

This is the Antifa version of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Plot twist! She's a time-traveler. And his granddaughter. When he first met her in '88, he killed her, and in 2015 when these realizations come, it is too late for him to fix anything, though she hasn't gone through it yet. Also, he's made a miserable life for himself and his daughter over the past 27 years, and none of his action resulted in anything. Understandably, he's upset. So, what happens after that? Nothing. He accepts it all like the good, contrived fictional character he is, and the film wraps up with a hopeful sermonette on the importance of saving the future by any means or some such BS.

Because the future is apocalyptic and the lead's granddaughter's mission is to kill just the right people in the past, whether they be innocent or guilty, to prevent the apocalypse. It's like if Skynet were presented as the good guys. They'd blame John Connor for the war (he did resist their takeover, after all!) and use that to justify killing Sarah Connor and anyone else who gets in the way. Their ultimate goal is to prevent a war! How could you possibly call that evil??

The movie aims to never allow the validity of their moral reasoning to come into question. There's no debate presented within the movie's pondering, and though the lead is crazed to stop the killer, he never argues with her once she explains her actions. She's clearly the twist good guy, and he is clearly just ignorant; misunderstanding the situation. This winds up hitting the movie's quality down from two directions. First, who is ever going to enjoy a movie where that boring monstrosity is the lead's arc? The film ends at his lowest point and he's never given a chance to overcome anything, decide anything, or have ultimate triumph. The "triumph" is taken from him and given to his granddaughter, who never earns her spot as hero.

Makes me want to watch The Predator. A dumb fun movie where he gets to be heroic. 

Secondly, it hits the movie from a messaging standpoint. These days all movies seem to have a message of some kind -- and by that I mean a meaning to takeaway that is intentionally added by the filmmakers. All good art has meaning of some kind, but I remember a day when that meaning was merely what the viewer saw in the art. And nowadays most films will add a little straw-man counter argument at least, so they can knock it down easily and make their message look even better. I suppose this movie was afraid of counterarguments. And well it should be; all it takes is for someone to point out that killing an innocent person is morally wrong, and the whole movie crumbles like a house of cards made of dry sand.

This whole movie is like if you were to cook a spaghetti noodle by dipping it incrementally deeper in the hot water. (The hot water is a metaphor for all this movie's indoctrinating hot air.) The end of the noodle you'd hold onto is the extremely solid premise and set-up. Then the longer the noodle soaks in the garbage water, the softer and limper it becomes until by the end it disintegrates into nothing -- overcooked until its structure fails.

The evil ideas on a pedestal here eat into every aspect of the movie. If they don't directly influence it, they distract from anything that could be worthwhile as the filmmakers clearly don't care about constructing a clever scifi mystery at all. The scifi and time-travel is a means to an end, never explained beyond a vague "the moon allows for it." They don't care about character, or they wouldn't have destroyed their lead to make their point. And they don't care about entertaining through world building or visuals or anything else. Good actors give lazy and contrived performances, and the action is messy, and unforgivably bland.

The antithesis of Minority Report. And Minority Report had the good grace to present the appeal of the other side.

I can ignore bad, even evil ideas if the rest of the movie is good and high-quality. I can even ignore if a movie is low-quality in technical aspects but at least has an entertaining story. I was open to forgive this movie's horrible progressively worsening slog of preaching and cheap storytelling; all it needed was to give me one solid thing to hold onto. One. It had a gigantic head start, being two sub-genres deep into my favorite genre, and starring someone who makes even the worst crap worth watching, playing a character set up with great potential.

How they lost it is almost beyond me. Almost. They failed and lost because even though their starting point was two steps away from a successful finish line, when the race began, they sprinted backwards. In the Shadow of the Moon is the sad and frustrating proof that any movie can ruin itself if it tries hard enough.

Deadpool

Yep, I watched it.

Off VidAngel, of course. And I didn't really want to, but my brother did, so I kept him company, figuring that at least it would give a little more credence to my already-expressed low opinion of this film.

I'm very glad I saw it; now that I know how dumb it is, I can forget all about it. And it only cost me 2 dollars! (I am not sponsored by VidAngel, but dang, I could be!)

When the trailers came out, and the film released in theaters, this movie's existence made me mad. And sad. At first I thought it was a purely selfish reaction; that because I wouldn't allow myself to watch a film with content like that (but would have been very interested otherwise) I was annoyed that they didn't cater more to my preference. And while that is a little true -- obviously I'd wish all movies to be exactly my kind of movie -- I slowly realized, and have now confirmed the bigger truth behind the matter.

The truth is that I have never predicted a movie with such pinpoint accuracy as I did in February's Upcoming Movie post. Now I have seen my success.

Deadpool made me angry from the very beginning by exploiting its content. It seemed to exist only to be inappropriate. I didn't think that a movie like that could possibly be faithful to a comic book, so I did the only thing that could settle the matter for me, and started reading Deadpool comics. I've been reading them since before the film released, so I've got through a decent amount of them, and therefore had established an understanding of Mr. Pool's character all on my own before ever seeing this film. And I'm really glad I did. Not just because the comics are very entertaining and commonly hilarious (which they are) but because I now feel qualified to hate this film's rendition of the character to my heart's content (which I do).

Don't worry buddy -- after this I love and appreciate the comic character even more!

I'm not sure yet if I want to make direct comparisons between the comics and the film, but let's start out with a very broad statement on the subject: the only way the film could be less faithful to the comics is by changing its lead's name to Captain Mossbeard and having his superpower be an uncanny ability to completely avoid all injury with no effort at all. Okay, maybe not quite; comic Pool does have a penchant for babes (which never goes anywhere) and swearing (which always comes out like "@$&*$," even at a PG-13 level) and violence (which is directed way more towards him than his victims) and wacky jokes (which are original, funny, and comparatively quite clean). But in this movie's eyes, that's all there is to him. (I guess I did want to do some direct comparing.) And while I'm on the subject, the scene with the pizza delivery guy was pulled right out of the comics. Just sayin' -- that why it was cool. If only they'd done that for the rest of the movie.

Now on to the film. We set the VidAngel filters so that the film was basically rated R for violence (if we cut that out there wouldn't be anything left to watch), and PG for everything else. Oh, we left the S-words in -- but I soon regretted that. And you know, I don't mind sitting through language if the movie is worth it, but I didn't think this one would be worth one single F-bomb, and it turns out I was right. Watching this film was... an interesting experience. With all the sex, nudity, language and crude humor out of the way, all that was left to notice was the story that was under it all.

At heart, Deadpool is a romance. One of the most typical and distracted romances I've ever seen.

This is my overall impression of the movie: Dude falls in love with woman. Contracts cancer. Pushes woman away. Gets a cure which messes up his good looks. Tries to get his good looks and his woman back. On this base level, it's just drivel. Minus the good looks bit it's nothing more than a Hallmark movie -- and even then it's typical. But it doesn't matter that the basic plot is what lonely women paint their nails over on lazy Saturday afternoons, right? Because it's just a platform for everything else; a blank canvas to splash blood and gore on.

I guess everything that filled up the run time in between the plot was meant to distract so well that no one would ever notice. Extremely epic and violent superhero battles! Endearing romance! A non-stop onslaught of the most brilliant comedy you will ever see because you will die of laughter after you see it! Plus that one thing that's so unique to Deadpool that makes everyone love him; breaking the fourth wall! At this point who remembers that plot anyway? The movie's originality and brilliance is in those things, right?

Short answer: No. Long answer...

Noooooooooo. Let's start with an easy one; those fourth wall breaks -- one of my favorite things about Deadpool. (Besides the yellow and white thought bubbles that he has full conversations with, his random obscure references, and the plot twists that is.) They were made super easy by having the movie be narrated by Deadpool. So he'll just look at the camera while doing it every once in a while. I know. Riveting stuff. It was better when he did it more casually, like acknowledging the existence of Ryan Reynolds (even though he is Ryan Reynolds!), but the worst was the fourth wall within a fourth wall bit. "That's like, sixteen walls!" Um, no, it isn't. It's still just one. Apparently the movie's writers don't know what a fourth wall is. Or how to break one without ripping off Ferris Bueller.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it." -- not Deadpool.

On to the comedy. This will be quick because practically half of the punchlines were muted. Of what was left, most of the jokes didn't make sense (sixteen walls) or were just too immature to be funny. I counted about four moments total that I considered funny. Two of them were related to Megasonic Teenage Warhead, and one was the Hugh Jackman mask.

The romance was too closely connected with the plot to be any good. It was so typical and cliched it was ridiculous! I'm wracking my brain for one thing that was even slightly original and the only thing I can come up with is that the romance was between a prostitute and a mercenary. Even that sounds trite when I say it out loud.

Acting wasn't terrible. This kind of movie doesn't need it to be exceptional so it worked, but there was nothing noteworthy. I'd heard that people were impressed by Reynolds' performance, but it's really only good in comparison with Green Lantern, which is arguably the worst thing he's ever done, and also arguably the worst thing anyone has ever done. In comparison with his endless stream of dumb rom-coms, it was par for the course except with a hardcore haircut, and then uglifying prosthetics -- wait, forget that one... Just Friends. Personally, I was much more impressed with him in Safe House, and when he steers clear of any kind of comedy altogether.

Certainly not the definitive Deadpool.

Now the biggest disappointment: the action. And this was the one thing that I was expecting to actually be able to enjoy, but man, it was all pretty pathetic. And that really surprised me, especially considering that the action was completely unedited for my viewing. There were the parts that were R-rated, mainly on the bridge, totally only there to be R-rated, and nothing special besides having extra gore and unrealistically sized bullet holes. And then there was the stuff that was the action; fighting, running, spinning jumps, dodging bullets and mowing down the faceless extras. And guys, it is with a shaking head that I write this: That stuff was boring. I kid not. I exaggerate not. It was completely lifeless. I guess that's what I get for expecting DisneyMarvel-quality action out of a FoxMarvel movie, but there were no cool stunts, and almost no choreography at all let alone good choreography. And everything looked very cheap. They spent their whole budget on strippers I guess.

One more thing to rant about and then I'll wrap up. The ending. The ending is where all the terrible elements previously mentioned come together and really let loose with their cheap boring terribleness, but it also reminded me of how no effort was put into the plot at all. The romance side of it was a Hallmark movie, but the action side? Nonexistent. I was honestly expecting a neat plot twist wherein Deadpool actually had a plan and saves the day is classic Deadpool fashion, but nothing happened! He saves his girl from falling off the cliff by throwing her off the cliff, and then kills the bad guy is a completely unsurprising move. And that's it. Someone flips the channel back to Hallmark where the plot's drama is resolved out of nothing, there's some kissing, and then you just kinda sit there wondering what the takeaway is supposed to be.

I need hardly tell you that in this film, there is not positive and/or moral takeaway -- of any kind. You may be interested to know, however, that in the comics, there often is, because in the comics, though Deadpool kills people (bad guys) he also always does something noble and heroic too. So there's a balance. Here; none.

Bite me.

And please, riddle me this: Why, when your superhero can get shot an unlimited amount of times and still be fine, would you still think it necessary to have him fight through raining bullets from multiple gunmen and come out miraculously unscathed? WHY?? Why did that happen in an R-rated DEADPOOL movie? What excuse could possibly be given? Did they forget who their main character was? How could they overlook such a shining opportunity to riddle Deadpool with bullet holes? It actually makes me mad how many opportunities for quality this film tossed away, like an ignorant kid who eats the rat-poison cherry off the top of a milkshake, and refuses to even taste the rest.

Of all the stupid things this film does, my favorite was how they couldn't think of an extremely graphic way to kill the alien from Galaxy Quest, so they just had Deadpool tell us to look away. And that basically sums up the problem with this movie; they couldn't be bothered to be original, so they just covered it all up with cheap cop-out distractions. And if any superhero deserves originality, it's Deadpool.

I detest this movie because the goal of it was to make a shocking movie, not a quality one. I hate it on a personal level because I would have loved to see a good, faithful, and original Deadpool flick, but it also offends me as a movie lover, and as someone who understands -- at least a little bit -- what a good movie is. Because that is the last thing this cinematic trash is. I can thank it for one thing: being so pathetically terrible that it drove me to the comics, where the true Merc with a Mouth thrives.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes of the Intergalactic War of the Total Carnage of the Blood of the Innocent People of the Planet of the Apes. 

As it is less-commonly known.

(Some Spoilers beyond.)

So as a result of the drug that caused the apes to become smart in Rise of the Planet of the Apes of the Beginning of the Events of the War of the Population of the Apes of the Planet of the Apes, being given to humans, there is a global epidemic that wipes out nearly all of humanity. Amongst those left are Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, and Gary Oldman. They need power, and unknowingly trespass on ape land -- Caesar's (Andy Serkis) land -- looking for it. War almost breaks out for the first two acts, and then finally does for real right as soon as the film ends.

Jason Clarke regrets signing something maybe? Or left the stove on?

Okay, right up front I have to say: this movie is just awful. I didn't expect to love it going in, but I did expect to appreciate it. I mean, seriously -- it has an impressive 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, but there's no way that a movie about smart apes warring with post-apocalyptic humans is ever going to be a favorite movie of mine. I expected to tolerate the plot, and appreciate the artistry, but the plot wound up being boring with a super-sized side of irritating, and the CGI varied from just as expected to weirdly cheap.

The animation budget seemed to be spent on just two apes -- Caesar and the villainous Koba (Toby Kebbell) -- they were the only two who were consistently flawless and perfectly detailed. The rest of the apes were generally alright -- about the quality they were in Rise. Anything that was animated and not an ape... oh my goodness. The herd of elk at the beginning looked like a video game. Even explosions looked cheap. And most interaction between man and ape was not quite convincing. The ape's expressions were realistic because there were talented actors behind that CGI, but motion-capture technology is not enough of a novelty to me anymore for that alone to impress. Is it just because I'm a year late to the party, or am I missing something?

He looks great, but honestly, I'm still more impressed by Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.

And even if the effects were as awesome as they were hyped to be there would still be that plot to deal with. Arg. First of all, whose genius idea was it for this to be a two-hour, ten-minute buildup to a war that's gonna happen in the next movie? I was waiting the whole time for nice battle of epic scope, and all I got was one little skirmish near the end. This movie was so anti-war that they actually didn't have the war. 

In the middle of the movie I had a thought that maybe they would prevent the war, and no battle would take place in the whole movie -- and that they'd filmed the battle clips showed in the trailer just to deceive us. If that had actually happened this would have been the best movie ever; but still super boring.

"Onward to war, faithful black steed!" "Yes my King Kong-- er, Koba!"

Like I said the first two acts were just the dramatic threat of war, and that was boring enough as it was, but on top of that, neither side was actually bad. Caesar, the leader of the apes, and Jason Clarke, the spokesperson for the humans were both perfectly willing to get along peacefully and trustingly.

"But people -- there has to be a war. It's important. What do we do?"
"Contrive the heck out of it."
(This was probably not a real conversation the movie's writers had.)

And in comes Koba, who hates humans, and wants them gone for good. And in comes Gary Oldman, who's a distrusting coward, and with his perfectly reasonable act of precaution of making sure the humans have the means of defending themselves, Koba is able to misunderstand and justify his rebellion. Misunderstandings. Yep. Those wonderful, ever-helpful misunderstandings.

Interestingly enough, this type of misunderstandings in movies -- of which this film could be the poster child -- is my biggest pet peeve in movies. When two seconds of thought or just a drop of common sense could make sense of the matter, but it doesn't, because this plot point it's contriving needs to happen to keep the story going. Well, the story keeps going, but now I don't even want it to.

That was what pushed the movie over the edge for me.

No. Just... no. Please.

Besides that, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes of the War of the Stupidity of the Humans and Apes of the Failed Peace of the Planet of the Apes tries so hard to be serious and culturally relevant with drama and understated statements, but does it all so wrong. It's humorless, aloof and totally uninvolving; not drawing us in, so when things get serious and dramatic we're still thinking about how ridiculous it is that apes are riding horses, and can't get involved in the emotion of the moment. And its "cultural statements" are nothing more than humanistic sentimentality designed to trick us into forgetting that this movie never actually says anything.

I love Andy Serkis, and all his work I've ever seen. And I like Jason Clarke a lot too, who gave a valiant effort to the task of carrying this huge wet blanket of a film along with Serkis. They're both superiorly talented actors, but the film swallowed them. Good grief -- it swallowed Gary Oldman for crying out loud! What kind of bottomless pit of a movie is so terrible that it pulls talent like this down with it? That is actually very impressive. I'm impressed by that. And that's about all.