Last movie watched...

[Mattofthespurs]

Just watched the Kingsman sequel. If you enjoyed he original, avoid the follow up. It's horrible. I mean that in every sense. To elaborate: it's [spoiler]full of cheap deaths[/spoiler], is relentlessly gory, and is utterly mean-spirited. The original felt like an amusing – if confused (notably politically) take on spy films. This one just felt like someone took a shit on your telly when you were watching it. The £1.47 I just paid Amazon to rent it was precisely £1.47 too much.

Cheers for this. I almost rented it yesterday, but I guess I should be thankful I didn't.

you are right not to. it's toilet.

[Modern Panther]

The Cloverfield Paradox, in which an international bunch of astronauts try to save the world.  In keeping with the Cloverfield ethos...all in spoilers:

[spoiler]Its a really well made bad film[/spoiler]
[spoiler]a crew of astronauts struggle to start the big space engine that will provide the world with limitless clean energy, thereby ending war.  Ignore that we already have this sort of technology here on Earth, but don't build the generators because people complete that they ruin the view[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Everything goes wrong.  Realities clash, and whilst the people on Earth find themselves trapped in a really low budget version of The Mist, the space crew are trapped in a less bloody remake of Event Horizon[/spoiler]

[spoiler]all stereotype boxes are ticked.  the heroic American.  the comedy irishman, the angry Russian,
the efficient but possibly evil German, the religious guy who we're just waiting to go nuts and kill everyone[/spoiler]

[spoiler]on the subject of comedy Irishmen, Chris O'Dowd seems to be taking part in an entirely different,
much funnier film. He's wasted on this straight faced nonsense [/spoiler]

[spoiler]the terror of colliding parallel worlds, and the worry that your mate might actually be a goatee wearing mirror version of himself, is almost immediately abandoned, and instead we get a funhouse of ever "haunted house in space" idea ever[/spoiler]

[spoiler]even before the logic just disappears, this is already a space station with full gravity everywhere, that brought along a tank of big earthworms for no reason, but didn't bring replacements for its most important equipment. Where if something goes wrong, and you have to jettison part of the station, you have to be standing in the jettisoning part.  Its a spacestation which is filled for the first hour with Chekhov's guns[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Nothing makes sense. At one point, the captain decides that the important task needs three people to carry it out...one to turn a handle, whilst the others watch. [/spoiler][spoiler]Meanwhile, back on Earth, the only character we meet wanders round staring at his mobile phone.  He drives through a warzone, staring and sending text messages without problems.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]The big twist, which everything builds towards, isn't a twist.  [/spoiler]

[spoiler]Truly terrible.[/spoiler]

[JamesC]

I also watched The Cloverfield Paradox.

If I tried to list all the things in this film that didn't make sense I'd be here all day. I really don't know why they bothered - it must have been obvious from the script, or even a brief outline that this would be a turd.

[Steven Denton]

I watched Lucy on film 4 Last night: It sucks.

[Professor Bear]

The Cloverfield Paradox is more than an objectively terrible film, it's also a paradigm of everything that's lazy, derivative and wrong with modern film-making.  A catalogue of other things bolted together - it starts out as Gravity, turns into Space 1999, then it's Event Horizon and has bits of Evil Dead - yet it's never as interesting as any one of those things.
[spoiler]Was all the water appearing out of nowhere supposed to be coming from the other space station that was dunked in the ocean?  If the space stations swapped places, why was the one from our dimension in deep space and the other one just in the ocean?  How was the other station back on its version of Earth and not in our dimension?  Why did the blonde lady need our wrecked space station if hers was on Earth now?  If the space station appeared in deep space it wouldn't have been anchored in orbit around anything and would have moved, so how was it back in the same place in Earth orbit it left before?  And what was with IT Crowd man's arm - how did it become a standalone intelligent being?  What was the point of the Chinese actor speaking in Chinese at length when no other nationality on the station spoke in their native tongue? [/spoiler]

Utter horseshit.

[JamesC]

The Cloverfield Paradox is more than an objectively terrible film, it's also a paradigm of everything that's lazy, derivative and wrong with modern film-making.  A catalogue of other things bolted together - it starts out as Gravity, turns into Space 1999, then it's Event Horizon and has bits of Evil Dead - yet it's never as interesting as any one of those things.
[spoiler]Was all the water appearing out of nowhere supposed to be coming from the other space station that was dunked in the ocean?  If the space stations swapped places, why was the one from our dimension in deep space and the other one just in the ocean?  How was the other station back on its version of Earth and not in our dimension?  Why did the blonde lady need our wrecked space station if hers was on Earth now?  If the space station appeared in deep space it wouldn't have been anchored in orbit around anything and would have moved, so how was it back in the same place in Earth orbit it left before?  And what was with IT Crowd man's arm - how did it become a standalone intelligent being?  What was the point of the Chinese actor speaking in Chinese at length when no other nationality on the station spoke in their native tongue? [/spoiler]

Utter horseshit.

I didn't understand [spoiler]how the characters were going to escape in a lifepod back to Earth when they were on the opposite side of the sun from it? [/spoiler]

[blackmocco]

The Cloverfield Paradox is more than an objectively terrible film, it's also a paradigm of everything that's lazy, derivative and wrong with modern film-making.  A catalogue of other things bolted together - it starts out as Gravity, turns into Space 1999, then it's Event Horizon and has bits of Evil Dead - yet it's never as interesting as any one of those things.
[spoiler]Was all the water appearing out of nowhere supposed to be coming from the other space station that was dunked in the ocean?  If the space stations swapped places, why was the one from our dimension in deep space and the other one just in the ocean?  How was the other station back on its version of Earth and not in our dimension?  Why did the blonde lady need our wrecked space station if hers was on Earth now?  If the space station appeared in deep space it wouldn't have been anchored in orbit around anything and would have moved, so how was it back in the same place in Earth orbit it left before?  And what was with IT Crowd man's arm - how did it become a standalone intelligent being?  What was the point of the Chinese actor speaking in Chinese at length when no other nationality on the station spoke in their native tongue? [/spoiler]

Utter horseshit.

Yeah, pretty much.

My questions eventually ended up delving into more existential territory. Didn't at least one of these astronauts trapped on their spacecraft with shit going down ever rent and watch a movie about astronauts trapped on a spacecraft with shit going down and then wonder why their current predicament was a shite version of what they'd watched?

I guess I could level that question at the movie's writers too.

In the end, the only winner here is Netflix.

[Professor Bear]

China's cultural imperialism also wins.  They got another Chinese-speaking actor shoved into a movie that wasn't even released in the Chinese box office.

I didn't understand [spoiler]how the characters were going to escape in a lifepod back to Earth when they were on the opposite side of the sun from it? [/spoiler]

[spoiler]They went back to the exact spot they left in their own dimension.  Good thing the galaxy isn't moving at thousands of kilometers a second or anything or they'd have ended up somewhere else.[/spoiler]

[Big_Dave]

beats me why netflix keep making
awful flims like this & bright

as soon as theyre released
there are 1000s of posts on sociel
media advertising how bad they are

[JamesC]

China's cultural imperialism also wins.  They got another Chinese-speaking actor shoved into a movie that wasn't even released in the Chinese box office.

I didn't understand [spoiler]how the characters were going to escape in a lifepod back to Earth when they were on the opposite side of the sun from it? [/spoiler]

[spoiler]They went back to the exact spot they left in their own dimension.  Good thing the galaxy isn't moving at thousands of kilometers a second or anything or they'd have ended up somewhere else.[/spoiler]

Not that it matters but [spoiler]before they went back to their original dimension the main woman and the blonde interloper were going to stay in the alternate dimension and go to that Earth in a life pod. But it had already been established that they were on the other side of the sun to that Earth. Is that not right? Granted I was losing the will by this point so may not have been paying adequate attention.[/spoiler]

[JOE SOAP]

beats me why netflix keep making
awful flims like this & bright

as soon as theyre released
there are 1000s of posts on sociel
media advertising how bad they are

Netflix didn't make The Cloverfield Paradox; they bought it from Paramount who decided not to release it. They've also bought Extinction from Universal. I assume Netflix know what they get out of it.

[Theblazeuk]

Neither Bright nor this sound so terrible I would cancel my Netflix subscription, even if they are daft (and Paradox sounds actually bad rather than enjoyably lazy bad like Bright).

[DrRocka]

I didn't really dislike Cloverfield Paradox, it was just...dull. I made it all the way through though, unlike Bright, which lasted 20 mins then was unceremoniously switched off in order to save my sanity/tv screen

[von Boom]

I wonder if Netflix looks at stats like the number and type of films people don't watch to completion? It sounds like something they should be looking at.

[Theblazeuk]

Definitely