Rules: explain why
Ready player one.
That has to be one of the cringiest movies I’ve seen, is tries so hard, too hard with it’s “WE LOVE YOU NERD, YOU’RE SO COOL FOR PLAYING GAMES AND GETTING THIS 80S REFERENCE” message and the whole “corporation bad, the people good” narrative seems written for toddlers… The fan service feels cheap and adds nothing to the story.
Finally, they trying to make the people believe that very attractive girl with a barely visible red tint spot on her face is “ugly”… Like wtf?
Yet it received decent reviews plus being one of the most successful movies of that year.
The John Wick series
Watched them all over the course of a weekend - its the same fucking moving over and over and over and over again. The amount of disbelief I needed to suspend got exponentially larger so by the time I got to the last movie I just couldn’t take it anymore. There is no real plot or any development of characters, it’s just implausible fight scene after implausible fight scene.
I think if I put a few months between each movie I wouldn’t have this opinion - on their own the movies can be mindlessly entertaining but all together was too much for me.
The whole point of those movies is to see the action. The martial arts, guns, cars, everything is an incredible stunt or piece of action camerawork. John Wick is what happened when stuntpeople made a movie. People liked it because it looked realish and the stunts were cool. So they made more.
Exactly. The lore and such is an interesting attempt at world building, but I enjoyed it because of the insane level of tight choreography and flow, when many action films merely imply martial arts by showing a single punch and then shaking the camera violently lol.
I think a prequel with less emphasis on action could be pretty good
I enjoyed the first movie; The “I hear you have struck my son.” scene sold it for me; if the movie was perfectly cliche that scene would have ended “Sorry sir, it’ll never happen again!” while a red laser dot is wiggling up his chest and then Viggo says “I know.” and we hear a gun shot through the phone. No, that “He stole John Wick’s car, sir; and he killed his dog.” “Oh.” It was a fresh helping of big Hollywood action movie. And for a big improbable ridiculous one man army action movie, it still had some restraint. It was at least a little grounded.
The second movie went right up its own ass. So, literally everyone everywhere in the world is a secret underground contract killer? I haven’t seen…I saw a thread about “there probably won’t be a John Wick 5 because Keanu’s knees” so 3 or 4. I enjoyed the first one.
Brain off. Guns go pew
I love the first one and would argue it’s fairly grounded, it’s the sequels that quickly got unhinged.
Dude murders everyone over a dog. So grounded.
Murdering people over a dog part is still plausible. But the secret assassin organization where they pay for services using secret gold coins and talk about guns like fine wine, that was just a bit over the top.
Well…
The first movie feels like it could take place in the real world. That society as we know it exists, drug cartels and mafias and all, and the organized criminals have worked out a deal with a hotel owner. When a gun fight erupts in a night club, everyone screams and runs away.
The second movie blows that all up; everyone is a secret underground hitman pretending to be a normal civilian, the hotel owner is a quasi-religious figurehead who only fears the Truly Evil Council, and when a gun fight erupts at a concert, everyone cheers.
They came up with a cool setting and then shoved it straight up its own ass.
We were talking about the action scenes being believable.
I saw this movie in theaters with no expectations, and I’ve seen a lot of action movies in theaters. There was a palpable shift in that moment, a few people audibly gasped, and then we were all on board.
He doesn’t kill anyone that doesn’t have it coming, most of them many times over. He lets the bouncer go, makes peace with Viggo’s brother, lets Cassian live, and honestly seems to just want to live in peace after he sends a bunch of souls for judgement. It’s like Creasy in Man on Fire; forgiveness is between them and God, it’s up to him to arrange the introduction.
He got beat to within an inch of his life in his own house after making a deal never to be bothered again.
You seem to hate them for the exact reason people love it - that’s the sign of a cool movie. It’s not a work of art by any stretch, but it knows what it is and it executes well.
I honestly liked the first one in isolation, it was when I watched all 4 back to back that I came to dislike the franchise. It was too much John Wick all at once I guess
Oh yeah the John Wick hangover is a real thing !
I haven’t seen them, but based on your description, I think this xkcd explains how these movies were conceived:
(source)
I find they are always on when I stay at hotels. A few years ago it was always Harry Potter, now its always John Wick. The first movie is pretty good to watch in one sitting. But I am convinced the rest of the series is mean to be consumed in 5-10 minute chunks. Like coming and going through the hotel room while your doing other things. For that its pretty good cause you don’t have to know any story to follow it for a minute or two. Just have to remember that you don’t need to know who is who because they will probably die in the story soon anyways.
It’s not that deep, you just shut your brain off and go “People died lol!”
It honestly wasn’t until the last movie that I gave a shit about the plot. I feel like till the finale, there really wasn’t any deeper meaning than “Wow Keanu Reeves is a bad motherfucker with a gun! Who knew? Oh right everyone who saw the Matrix when it came out 50 years ago, but still!”
I didn’t like these either. I think it would have been better if he WASN’T already some badass guy with access to firearms but instead just some regular dude that got his life ruined, and then he had to figure out how to get revenge on everyone while being just an average guy. They could have gotten real creative with the methods he uses to locate people, obtain firearms, plot his revenge, etc. I feel like his character went into the whole thing already having the upper hand. It would have been a better movie to watch him rise up from real rock bottom and still kick everyone’s ass in the end.
The movie you’re looking for, generally, is called Peppermint and stars Jennifer Garner (in between credit card commercials). It’s a fun movie.