Wapsi Square Forum

You'd think film makers would have learned by now that expensive special effects alone do not make a great movie. In fact, if the story telling sucks but the visuals look great, well... Then you've just proven that polishing shit just means you polished shit.

Meanwhile, I'm still hoping to have it show up on Netflix...

I personally haven't seen it, as I haven't taken the time. Back when I smoked weed, I saw a trailer for it and thought it'd be fun to watch high.

Also, why isn't there a thread about movies? Then we wouldn't have a new thread everytime someone wants to talk about a movie. That, or just create a movie section.

Alkarii wrote:Also, why isn't there a thread about movies? Then we wouldn't have a new thread everytime someone wants to talk about a movie. That, or just create a movie section.

So - start one!

Yeah, but... I don't watch a lot of movies these days.

I rather liked Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It's not a great movie, but it's fun, has some really pretty effects, and the plot is at least as good as any of the Star Wars movies (not, admittedly, that that's saying a lot...)

I also saw the Fifth Element, and I think Valerian is significantly better. For one thing, Dane DeHaan (Valerian) is better-looking than Bruce Willis, and arguably a better actor - or at least is less familiar, so less of the same old same old. The tone of the film is more even, if noticeably French: FE went from a Willis-dominated action sequence to a reasonable sci-fi flick to some rather over-the top slapstick. The special effects are way better. And it has Rihanna in it!

That said, I'm not surprised by its failure to make money. Too French. Kind of whimsical and frilly. Not at all the thing that I would expect to appeal to an audience that flocks to Star Wars and superhero movies.

Moving on, I'm waiting to see Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time.

To me, the main flaw with it was that the lead characters seemed to have absolutely no charisma, chemistry, or really any positive qualities at all. Sure, that's somewhat a carry-over of Valerian's character from the comics, but for some reason that seems to work better in comic form than in movie form. I ended up just not caring at all about the main characters, and none of the many interesting supporting characters got even the slightest bit of development.

The many, many, many lapses in logic in the screenplay were also bad, but I can usually overlook a lot of that sort of thing if the characters are at least interesting and compelling.