Suicide Squad (2016)

*Fortunate Son playing in the background*

The long waited blockbuster superhero film is finally here. David Ayer was set to direct the film. The trailers and teasers of the film promised a lot of fun things. Even the film tried to approach to a child-like theme; it promised craziness, fun, and also Jared Leto’s Joker.

First of all, I have to say that I’m impressed that DC got their hands on one of the best directors of the 21^st century. Ayer made End of Watch (2011) and Fury (2014); movies that I love and full of fancy action sequences. I imagined Ayer directing a movie like this would’ve a big stomp for superhero movies.

Another thing that I have to mentioned is, Will Smith, Margot Robie, Jared Leto are not some actors. They are really amazing actors. The studio had to pay big bills to get their hands on them. We were expected to see some great performance. They even have to provide a psychologist for the actors to stay sane. A lot of method acting were applied for this movie.

So did the film live up to the expectation we’ve all been waiting for?

I say, no.

The editing of this film is a disaster. Like all the other critics said, it felt like it was not a finished movie. I want to add another thing: I think the film was supposed to be like 4-6 hours long, but some douche just cut the film into 2 and a half hours. It felt rushed. One minute they introduce a character and a minute later something destroyed a city? Whattt?

As predicted, the script lose the main story of the movie because of the exposition of every character in the movie. They even had to kill one interesting character in the movie, which is really a waste of asset.

They say that it was the studio’s cut that made it into the theatre, not Ayers. I do want to see the extended cut of this movie. I think it would be much better than the studio’s one.

As I said earlier, the cast of this movie were amazing. But I really hate that the Joker didn’t have much screentime. I think it’s a waste of opportunity. Everyone wants to watch this movie because of the Joker (also Harley Queen).

Overall the movie is going somewhere in the DC universe. But I’m really not sure where are they going with this film. Suicide Squad is a disappointing movie. I see a potential if they re-release it with Ayer’s Cut. I mean, c’mon guys! Put your ego and greed aside so you can produce a better movie!

The verdict:

Silly in a bad way and a waste of potential.

Lights Out (2016)

Internet has become a new platform to present ideas and arts, especially for filmmakers. Lights Out was originally a short film back in 2013. The concept is great and pretty scary if you ask me. It was directed by David F. Sandberg. The short is only less than 3 minutes; it starred the director’s own wife, Lotta Losten. Sandberg and his wife had to move to Hollywood in order to get the interest of investors and the time to get this movie in production. They were really strugling. Another interesting fact that Sandberg had never been in a film set before; he had to ask his first assistant when to say “Action.”

According to Wikipedia, the budget was only about $5 million and made 20 times more than that.

Movie critics like to embrace smart-simple things. This film proved to be one of it. This film is like James Wan’s low-budget horror-thriller film; shot indoors – not in public places; few cast and only revolves around a family problem; cheap but effective effects with some fancy jump scares. It had a simple story pattern and still felt fresh. Although it wasn’t as good as Wan’s.

But all and all, I didn’t really enjoy it, I like the short film better than the feature film. The short film only embraced the idea. The idea evolved into a feature length movie, which wasn’t a good thing. The story didn’t live up well beside the idea. The story made the special idea into an ordinary idea.

The verdict:

A simple horror movie, but didn’t evolved well from its original creation.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

After the disappointing Batman V. Superman (BvS), we are forced to wait and hope for the best for Marvel’s Civil War (CW). DC comics didn’t come as what people are expecting. I already watch the original BvS (actually it was adapted from The Dark Knight Returns comic series which was made into a 2-part animated movie) and it was more interesting than BvS.

I first heard about CW in 2014. My friend, Arthur Jonathan, who already read the comics, told me that Captain America would die. That was a major spoiler of the franchise. Adapting a comic into film which isn’t filtered with the filmmakers creativity would came the result of Snyder’s films – this is one of DC’s mistakes. Even many of my other friends were very anxious about the spoiler. I wasn’t really that happy too.

The Russo Brothers were pointed to direct again, before that they have directed Winter Soldier. It was quite rare for a director (or directors) to direct another Disney Marvel film, because Kevin Fiege (the producer of all the MCU films) have a strict unwritten rules which he always change a director if the film have an averange rating and/or not very commercially successful. As I said earlier in my Ant Man’s review, Kevin Fiege is a control freak and directors didn’t really did their full potential because of it.

CW have many bad ass trailers and teasers. I was very excited with the superbowl one. We hear the film’s tagline being spoken – “United we stand, devided we fall.” Our heart were devided to see them fight each other. It was only 30 secs, but it truly got the spirit of the film.

Let’s get to the film.

The film has a very good and thrilling blockbuster quality scene and action. For me, the film is better compared with The Avengers and The Avengers: Age of Ultron combined. The theme of the film is very big, universal, and very enganging – it is everywhere. I thought it was cool to see a big theme in a blockbuster movie, I mean look at The Avengers – what theme they wanted us to feel – it didn’t give a great answer to the conflict (not everyday you’ll summon Vision with Thor’s hammer); they only wanted to present big action scenes.

There were itching moments in the film that I thought were boring and wanted the film to go straight to the airport scene. With a total of 2 hours and 27 minutes running time, 3/4 of it went to the argument and talking with the same topic all over again. Dude!! Films are made to be watched, not to read the subtitles.

The characters arc were very cool, especially with Iron Man’s and the 2 new characters (Black Panther and Spider Man). I truly understand why Iron Man wanted to sign the government, there were some scene that explain his way of thinking. Black Panther is another important character for the big theme I mentioned before. Spider Man is for the continuation of the franchise – what a strange feeling to see a young Aunt May and very young Spider Man.

The Russo Brothers really made Civil War a great blockbuster film to watch. They see the detail in every characters in the MCU; and they choose the great ones to make great character arcs. The brothers piece together the 2D puzzle into a 3D sculpture. No wonder they will direct next 2 Avengers.

The verdict:

A new experience of superheroes film with great theme and believeable character arc.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)

After a scandal with Kristen Steward, Ruper Sanders was replaced by his co-worker, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, the visual effect of the previous Snow White and The Huntsman (2012). The movie basically added another fairy tail into the franchise, “The Snow Queen” by Hans Chritian Andersen – the fairy tail which also inspired Frozen (2014). Also with a shift focus of characters.

Before you want to go to watch this film, please ask yourself: are you still a child? Would you want to enjoy a bedtime story with a PG-13 rating with unnecessary sex scenes that would eventually be cut by the cencorship organisation? Would you want to watch Frozen on cocaine?

Well if the answer’s yes, then watch this film. If no, don’t watch this film.

This film proved itself as the most not-interesting-thing this month. There were a lot of story which was too easy to be processed. It didn’t have a perfect chatarsis to be remembered as a film that will change my life… or any other form of life. This film was another remark of the film industry’s demand that they think they could make some money from it (it turned out to be a flop).

On the bright side, Thaliya noticed something incredible in the film. She said that the wardrobe for this film was very detailed and pretty hard to make. So I hope this bright side can be the only reason for someone to watch this movie. Other than that, I prefer to watch Frozen and sing like Elsa.

The verdict:

A fairy tail which only a child could withstand.

10 Cloverfield Lane

The next ‘installment’, or should I say ‘the cousin’, of Cloverfield franchise. Production was made and executed in secret. Only when the trailer came out, we knew what was going on. It brought some excitement in me when the trailer came out. I like what J.J. Abrams did with the first Colverfield. It brings sci fi into this whole new dimension of filmmaking.

The film had a low budget; so the story was simple… but it created a whole new experience. In theory, the film only had three active characters in one set. But there were some amazing things happening in that set, it thrilled the chills out of me. The thrilling thing about this movie was the intense feeling and the ambiguous character of Howard (John Goodman) – oh my, the comedian was amazing in the movie.

John Goodman is a comedian, which was contrary with the character he played in the movie. He was the highlight of the movie; playing it with such tense even I didn’t know what he was up to. When I saw him in the frame, I was guessing his actions ALL THE TIME. I don’t need to mention the other two, because the other two were also well-build characters; especially Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

It was Dan Trachtenberg’s directing debut film. He made a short film for the Portal game francise from Valve, you should see it free on Youtube. He didn’t know what J.J. Abrams up to when he was given this project. When he finished shooting, only then, Abrams told him it was part of the cloverfield franchise. It was rare to see a producer hid the true purpose of his/her project; J.J. Abrams really nailed it!

I consider this an independent film, because it had the spirit of it – small but felt big. The ambition of each cast and crew could be felt when you watch this movie. This is truly a cinematic experience.

The verdict:

Full of spirit of the previous installment, 10 Cloverfield Lane is bad ass with great-intensed chatarsis.