It's amazing how perspectives can change over time to further enhance a movie. I'm not sure how I would have felt about this movie back in 2002 but watching it in 2022 I had fun and it gave me some good laughs. I'm so used now to dredging through absolute dreck that this story was actually a breath of sweet clean air. Scott Bakula is a very charming lead and so an excellent pick to play a character that could have all too easily come off as irredeemable. The story is a little hokey but it's also cute and fun and it makes a nice break from the slickly smooth heartless pap I've seen lately full of fast talking, witlessly bantering ciphers. I'll give anything that's not misery porn a pass at the moment and this movie surprisingly exceeded my expectations. It tells a neat, efficient little story with some nice side characters thrown in for flavour without succumbing to bloat. It's worth a watch.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Uncharted
(2022)
Solid fun throughout
18 February 2022
As an elder gamer I've been a fan of Uncharted for years. I never wanted a shot for shot remake of the games, so thank goodness they steered away from that pitfall. Still, there were plenty of fun callbacks to the games sprinkled throughout.
There have been many who were unhappy that the movie was cast to appeal to a demographic that wasn't specifically them, but Tom Holland did a fantastic job with the material he was given and shows that he can easily keep up with the physicality and charm required in an action lead. He is his own Nate and that's great. Mark Wahlberg as Sully, on the other hand, is a little flat, especially in the timing of his quips. This results in the jokes not landing as well as they might have. That said, Mark Wahlberg has always had his own brand of charisma which he still brings to the table. Tati Gabrielle and Antonio Banderas made fine villains but the PG-13 rating was too limiting and left everything too bloodless and sanitized.
The meeting of Nate and Sully lacks creativity and is filled with clunky expositional dialogue and the setup and payoff of the lighter seemed overdone and disappointingly pointless but, while the adventure is underway, the movie finds its flow, its problems are more easily overlooked, and it remains solid fun throughout because the puzzles, set pieces and fights that one would expect from Uncharted are all excellent.
There have been many who were unhappy that the movie was cast to appeal to a demographic that wasn't specifically them, but Tom Holland did a fantastic job with the material he was given and shows that he can easily keep up with the physicality and charm required in an action lead. He is his own Nate and that's great. Mark Wahlberg as Sully, on the other hand, is a little flat, especially in the timing of his quips. This results in the jokes not landing as well as they might have. That said, Mark Wahlberg has always had his own brand of charisma which he still brings to the table. Tati Gabrielle and Antonio Banderas made fine villains but the PG-13 rating was too limiting and left everything too bloodless and sanitized.
The meeting of Nate and Sully lacks creativity and is filled with clunky expositional dialogue and the setup and payoff of the lighter seemed overdone and disappointingly pointless but, while the adventure is underway, the movie finds its flow, its problems are more easily overlooked, and it remains solid fun throughout because the puzzles, set pieces and fights that one would expect from Uncharted are all excellent.
Dolittle
(2020)
A Fun Sweet Adventure
17 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Far more accurate to the source material than the last attempts at making a Dr Dolittle, this movie has a heart that the toyetic, brand-led movies of today frequently lack. No, it's not an Oscar contender but I was still thoroughly entertained. There were many sweet moments, nothing too scary for young ones to see and some cute animal antics that had children in the theatre laughing. If Downey jr hadn't put on the Welsh accent, you can be sure people would have complained that he was just doing Sherlock Holmes again. Only a Welsh speaker will be able to confirm the accents accuracy but all those American critics saying they don't know what was going on with his accent and that he sounds 'bizarro,' stupid or weird are just putting their own ignorant bigotry on display. On the technical aspects of film making, such as lip-syncing the ADR, this movie falls down, which is why it loses a star, but average movie goers probably won't even care, especially in the foreign markets where it will be over-dubbed anyway. Honestly, the ADR didn't bother me and I was still able to immerse myself in the story. The CGI animals looked fine. One of the biggest complaints about 'The Lion King' was that the photo-realistic animals couldn't emote enough. Now critics complain that these animals look too cartoonish. It's a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. I liked that the animals showed personality. The climax, while on a surface level appears to be a simple fart joke, is also a touching scene centred around building a connection with an enemy rather than 'dehumanising' them. Looking deeper it shows a sweet display of professionalism and empathy in the face of the disgusting side effects of illness, something many carers can identify with. Overall it's a fun, sweet adventure.
Tell Your Friends