Dory_Darko

Alright, so I just spent 3,5 hours at the cinema, two days before most of the rest of the world because Avatar: Fire & Ash premiered early in my country. There's a lot I want to say about it, and at the same time, I'm not sure where to start. I love this franchise, I really do, but... The third instalment leaves me wondering if maybe enough is enough.

It's another blatant rehash of the same story and at this point it feels like we're going around in circles. I'm sick to death of Quaritch. I'm sick to deather of Quaritch and Jake fighting the same tired fight. I'm annoyed that we have to keep dealing with the same threat over and over. Why are we still dealing with the same villains three movies, or rather, almost 10 hours in?! Why do I still have to suffer through Giovanni Ribisi's insufferable little prick routine? Where's the genuine emotional depth and psychological complexity? And if you thought the dialogue was cheesy before, this one's steamier than a pound of Gouda on a sweaty summer day.

The addition of a villainous Na'vi tribe wasn't just a great move, it was a desperately necessary one. It's literally the only element that adds a new dimension to this now over-familiar world. And with it comes the absolute best treat this film has to offer: Oona Chaplin as Varang, the tribe's tsahik and chieftain. Casting her was a stroke of genius, honestly. Her mere presence is so superbly menacing it gave me chills. This woman spits fire with her eyes alone, which is a fairly apt quality considering her tribe's nature. These are the Ash People, who have forsaken their connection with nature and Eywa. They are extremely aggressive and they literally fight fire with fire. It wouldn't surprise me if they were cannibals too, though this isn't mentioned anywhere. Seeing how radically different they are from all the other Na'vi was very exciting, and the true high point of the movie.

Everything else is... the same as it was before. Good and bad. Of course everything is stunningly beautiful. But there are no real surprises left. A couple of new creatures are introduced. The airships, which are basically giant jellyfish, are really cool. And there are squid which we haven't seen before, but that's pretty much it. We meet the matriarch of the whales, and I must say that the sound effects of her speech are really awesome. The whole room vibrated! Which is just as well because it was almost enough to distract from the fact that this giant whale was adorned with piercings and other jewelry, which looks only cool for a second until you realise how inexplicable and nonsensical that actually is... Let's not think about it too much.

Unfortunately, it's not the only thing that's unintentionally funny. For one thing, I just can't understand why they didn't pitch Sigourney Weaver's voice just a little bit to actually make her sound like a 15 year old. Instead we've got a teenager with the voice of an extremely mature woman and it's just weird and worse, it shatters the illusion and renders any suspension of disbelief impossible. Spider is given a much more significant role, which would be fine if both the character and the actor were even remotely interesting. Alas, I found myself unable to give two craps about what happened to him. Jake Sully is reduced to nothing more than a humourless, bitter prig who hates his son for the death of his other son and does nothing to redeem himself or his connection to his living children, except for the adopted pinkskin who's the seed of his sworn enemy. That's the one he seems to be bonded with the most, for reasons which are completely beyond me. Neytiri needs two-thirds of the movie to find herself again, but thankfully does and it was just the pick-me-up I needed. Just in time for the climax, which was... almost exactly the same as the last one. On a big ship. With lots of fire and explosions. At night. With the Sullys fighting for their family. Hm. Have we been here before?

And then suddenly (after 190 minutes!!) it's over. The reason it feels so sudden is because the emotional resolve at the end wasn't properly gratifying. I was expecting more. I wanted, at the very least, for Jake to give Lo'ak a good hug and tell him he loves him and that he's sorry for the way he treated his grieving, guilt-ridden child. But no. He shares tears with Spider instead.

I realise I sound kind of salty and that's not really fair. At just about 3 hours and 20 minutes, I was never bored. It was still absolutely engaging and interesting and actually a big improvement on The Way of Water in terms of action sequences. It's still visually mind-blowing and the sound is awesome. But my biggest recommendation remains - Oona Chaplin. Boy... She doesn't just chew the scenery. She devours it raw. This is her movie, all the way.

Oh how I was looking forward to this... Yeah, like everybody else, I know. I'm certainly not alone in my love for X-Men, although, in all honesty, I haven't kept up enough to know all the details. And so, there were more than enough moments and references throughout which left me clawing my own brain (much like a certain character in the movie) looking for the right information to go with what I was seeing to explain the overwhelming mayhem that was going on. Unfortunately, for the most part, I was left feeling exactly like that: overwhelmed and pummelled by the nonsensical mayhem.

Please understand: I freaking love Deadpool!! And I love Wolverine even more, I really do. You have no idea how high my anticipation was for this collaboration that's basically been 24 years in the making. 'Logan' (2017) was a truly beautiful piece of cinema, deeply moving and virtually flawless. It was a truly fitting ending to one of the best fictional characters in modern cinema. I remember going into 'Deadpool & Wolverine' extremely excited, and then, as the introductory scene started rolling out, suddenly I thought to myself, "Oh God, I hope they don't ruin it." I was overcome by a sudden sense of dread that somehow, Wolverine's resurrection in this movie would somehow completely demolish the feeling left behind by 'Logan'. And I hate to say it, but... I wasn't entirely wrong. Certainly, this is Deadpool and you know going in that absolutely *nothing* is sacred, but still... Was it worth it? Was it at least funny? The answer is yes... and no.

The absolute worst thing has happened: I didn't love 'Deadpool & Wolverine'. I didn't hate it either. It left me feeling ambivalent. Who the hell wants to feel ambivalent about the greatest X-Men pairing of all time??

The first act was great. It gave me great hopes for the second and third acts, and then, suddenly, that feeling vanished. The start of the second act is awesome, no doubt about it. D&W are hurled into what's essentially the garbage bin of the universe, and this is where all the fabled cameos start rolling in. And then, inexplicably, there's a shift in tone. The first familiar X-Men face to turn up made me super happy, and then it was over before you could even blink and I felt a devastating disappointment. I was so looking forward to this particular reunion/confrontation and it ended so abruptly that I felt robbed. I felt the shift happen with the rest of the audience as well, it was palpable. From this moment on, so much happens all at once and we're thrown into a setting that's so reminiscent of "Deadpool and Wolverine beyond Thunderdome", (including actual jokes about Mad Max) that somehow, it passes the point of parody and turns into on-the-nose cliché. It all feels too familiar, and at the same time, so strange and confusing, I was just constantly stuck in a feeling of "what the hell is going on"?! Who are all these characters? What are they doing here? Why did Feige et al pull open such a random can of X-Men villains without giving any of them any worthy screen time? How are we even supposed to understand everything that's happening when all we are given to go on is an overload of references and puzzle pieces that we apparently have to put together ourselves? Do they expect every single audience member to possess an encyclopaedic knowledge of the entire MCU? Jason Flemyng and Kelly Hu are back as Azazel and Lady Deathstrike respectively and are given so little screentime and not even a single line of dialogue, it really makes you wonder if they prioritised quantity over quality this time. The answer to me is clearly, yes. It feels as if they spent 15 minutes working on the actual story for this film, and the rest of the time they had on gathering as many Marvel characters (and nearly all their original actors!) as possible to pummel the audience into their own kind of Void, where we might actually be fooled into thinking that an overkill of quantity actually equates quality.

The rest of the audience clearly felt the same way I did. From the start of the second act, for at least about half an hour or so, it was awkwardly quiet in the theatre. Nobody laughed and all the jokes fell completely flat. It wasn't until the third act that things started looking up again. Maybe it has all become too familiar. The first Deadpool movie was incredible, because it was something that had never actually been done before, style wise. The tone was so original and refreshing, and the ironic nature of the humour was such an original concept that it all worked surprisingly well. Then they did it a second time and even though it was a little less brilliant, it was still great. This time, it's just... yeah I've seen this before. Oh ha-ha, ironic joke. A dozen ironic songs. Breaking the fourth wall so much it's been destroyed completely. Subtlety was never Deadpool's strong suit, but this is overkill, even for him.

God, I feel like a right sourpuss right now. Was it all bad? No!! Absolutely not! In fact, there was a lot that was hysterically funny, really well done and OH MY GOD WOLVERINE IN HIS ORIGINAL COSTUME IS THE COOLEST THING EVER AND SOOOOO WORTH THE WAIT!! There will truly never be another Wolverine like Hugh Jackman, and I for one am so thankful that he came back to do this one more time! For this reason alone, this movie is well worth the price of an admission ticket. And yes, some of the cameos are truly awesome - there are a few who were seriously unexpected surprises - and are a joy to watch. But still... I can't shake the feeling that it could have been done very differently. There was just too much of everything, but (and here's the true irony of Deadpool 3) by and large the best scenes were those where Poolboy and Wolfie were alone together. That's where the magic was; they didn't need anyone else. The story was downright idiotic and the main villain was annoying and uninteresting AF, and the few cameos I was truly looking forward to were all so short they barely added anything of value, with a couple of exceptions. And the thing that puzzles me the most is the staggering absence of Vanessa. They already ticked me off by virtually erasing her from DP2, and now she has even less screen time. I don't get it. Not only is her presence Wade's most important driving force, but the chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Morena Baccarin is so awesome, that I am simply dumbfounded as to why they wouldn't use her more. Oh man, I could go on forever... There is so much that I loved, and so much else that frustrated and confused me.

Is it worth it? Yes.

Is it all I hoped it would be? No.

He did it again. And I don't even really understand how. He has some kind of mysterious, special power that he secretly wields over us and we don't even notice. That's how he keeps tricking us into spending all our hard-earned money to see his movies, so much so that we've made him the most commercially successful director of all time. Because these are James Cameron's most typical trademarks, for pretty much all of his movies, which he has once again dutifully employed in Avatar 2:

~ The story is paper-thin.

~ The dialogue was written by a 16-year-old intern.

~ The soundtrack is unbelievably cheesy.

~ The lead actor has no discernable acting skills.

~ The bad guys are all 100% completely evil, and the good guys are all but entirely saintly.

~ The message and moral of the story are about as subtle and nuanced as a jackhammer.

And yet.....

IT'S SO DAMN COOL.

The world he and his visual design team have created is truly a work of art... It's stunningly beautiful, creative and inventive and it makes you want to be there so badly, it hurts. The action sequences are reliably awesome as always, and there are some truly heartfelt emotional passages. In all honesty, the story is awfully predictable, and an almost step-by-step rehash of the first movie. But it's damn near impossible to be bothered by this, because the magic is there, and it's real. And the whales... Oh my god, the whales. Or whale-like creatures, anyway. Absolutely spellbinding. The familiar characters are precisely the same as they were before, and it makes the past 13-year wait seem like nothing at all. It's like meeting with friends you haven't seen for a while. I especially love Zoe Saldaña, she was always the shining star of Avatar, and she's just as mesmerising here, even if her screentime is a bit shorter. The new characters are all good, strong additions to the whole. Cliff Curtis is very powerful as the Sea People's chief, and Kate Winslet is absolutely unrecognisable as his mate, which is as big a compliment as I can think of.

But the biggest, and most pleasant surprise, are Jake and Neytiri's children. All but one, played by young, virtually inexperienced actors who all understand their assignments perfectly. They are, without exception, lovely and engaging and very real. They each have to deal with their own respective troubles that come with their coming of age, and all these young performers were cast perfectly. I loved them. The "but one", however, is one of the most surprising character/performer pairings I've ever seen. Sigourney Weaver plays a 14-year-old. Yes you read that right. And it's amazing. She's amazing, it's all amazing...

Damn James Cameron. If he was a superhero, his name would be Magic Movie Man.