Wife is away this week sorting out her late aunt's house, so I'm hoping it stays on until next week when we can both go. Otherwise I'll be going mid-week.

@M.LeMarchand said:

Wife is away this week sorting out her late aunt's house, so I'm hoping it stays on until next week when we can both go. Otherwise I'll be going mid-week.

Don't forget to come back & leave your thoughts.

@M.LeMarchand said:

Wife is away this week sorting out her late aunt's house, so I'm hoping it stays on until next week when we can both go. Otherwise I'll be going mid-week.

I don't know about the theatre near you, but the movie is doing well internationally. In the UK - where it opened higher than "A Haunting in Venice (2023)" two weeks ago - France and Spain, it is number one at the box office so it is expected to stay for the next week there.

@wonder2wonder said:

I don't know about the theatre near you, but the movie is doing well internationally. In the UK - where it opened higher than "A Haunting in Venice (2023)" two weeks ago - France and Spain, it is number one at the box office so it is expected to stay for the next week there.

Cinema has updated its site and it is on next week, so it'll probably be Tuesday or Wednesday to take advantage of my BOGOF "Meerkat Movies" pass. I'm in the UK; a bit surprised that it opened better than Poirot.

@M.LeMarchand said:

@wonder2wonder said:

I don't know about the theatre near you, but the movie is doing well internationally. In the UK - where it opened higher than "A Haunting in Venice (2023)" two weeks ago - France and Spain, it is number one at the box office so it is expected to stay for the next week there.

Cinema has updated its site and it is on next week, so it'll probably be Tuesday or Wednesday to take advantage of my BOGOF "Meerkat Movies" pass. I'm in the UK; a bit surprised that it opened better than Poirot.

I don't live in the UK but that might have something to do with more people under the age of 40 going to the cinema/movies. 🤔

@bratface said:

I don't live in the UK but that might have something to do with more people under the age of 40 going to the cinema/movies. 🤔

Could be, though the few others in the screen when we saw "Haunting" were <40. Our cinema may be a bit of an outlier, as often the audience seems to skew a bit older apart from the "blockbusters" and obvious teen/kiddie films. Also, during the day they sometimes have ballet/opera/RSC showing - though it's mainly been "normal" releases of late. I did ask once how many people they got in and apparently the showings do OK (IIRC the don't have to pay a lot for the screening rights, either). I was more surprised because Christie adaptations generally do well here.

Loved it best sci fi in the last couple years since Dune

@bratface said:

Thoughts?

Gareth Edwards拍这片纯粹就是为了证明《侠盗一号》的结尾是自己拍的而不是Tony Gilroy的补拍么？真以为换了个马甲就认不出大杀器就是死星的stand-in咯？都2023年了还搁这玩后911叙事+越战叙事呢？《哥斯拉》里对氛围的出色掌控在本片中毫无踪影，作为一部科幻片，世界观的设计也非常的匮乏而了无新意（新亚洲的设定尤其可笑），而对于AI一边倒的同情在ChatGPT时代也非常不合时宜。另外既然要不知节制地用那么多现有版权音乐何必还要花大价钱请Hans Zimmer来配乐呢？

@wiIIis said:

@bratface said:

Thoughts?

Gareth Edwards拍这片纯粹就是为了证明《侠盗一号》的结尾是自己拍的而不是Tony Gilroy的补拍么？真以为换了个马甲就认不出大杀器就是死星的stand-in咯？都2023年了还搁这玩后911叙事+越战叙事呢？《哥斯拉》里对氛围的出色掌控在本片中毫无踪影，作为一部科幻片，世界观的设计也非常的匮乏而了无新意（新亚洲的设定尤其可笑），而对于AI一边倒的同情在ChatGPT时代也非常不合时宜。另外既然要不知节制地用那么多现有版权音乐何必还要花大价钱请Hans Zimmer来配乐呢？

English translation:

Did Gareth Edwards shoot this film purely to prove that he shot the ending of "Rogue One" instead of Tony Gilroy's reshoots? Do you really think that if you change the identity, you won't recognize that the big killer is the Death Star's stand-in? It’s already 2023, why are we still playing with the post-911 narrative + the Vietnam War narrative? The excellent creation of atmosphere in "Godzilla" is nowhere to be seen in this film. As a science fiction film, the design of the world view is also very lacking and has no new ideas (the setting of New Asia is especially ridiculous), and the AI is one-sided. Sympathy is also very anachronistic in the age of ChatGPT. In addition, if you want to use so much existing copyrighted music without restraint, why spend a lot of money to hire Hans Zimmer to score the music?

Finally got to see this at the weekend, and enjoyed it. I did feel that it would have been better as a limited series rather than a movie (I normally think the opposite) as there wasn't enough explanation about the state of the world and how it worked. I suspect that a lot of things were the way they were because it was a great visual, but they should have had some sort of explanation. I'm surprised it's doing relatively well, as it's very critical of U.S. foreign policy and, though it was obviously scripted well before current events in Palestine, it's easy to see parallels there, too.* I'd say that any fence-sitters over a trip to the theatre would probably like it.

Re audiences, I've realised that the following films have all done very well locally. I guess the "grey pound" is helping out our theatre (and the UK film industry): The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Allelujah, The Great Escaper, The Miracle Club. The average age of the "poster cast" must be late 60s, if not 70s!

*Not condoning the actions of Hamas (who are clearly nutters), but neither am I supportive of Israel's actions.

@bratface said:

Thoughts?

Nice action movie, good visuals. Didn't blow me off my chair, but worth watching.

Amazing visuals but completely unoriginal story, that didn't make sense in parts. Also David John Washington is an awful leading man - barely any chemistry between him and the AI kid. His character was a over the place too, was actually rooting for him to die.

rubbish to be honest. focuses on the most boring, hackneyed elements of its premise, while exhibiting no imagination regarding the technological potential of AGI. These robots sleep while they recharge! Every appliance in my house functions while it's on charge, and these robots sleep? And at night, too? Why?! Gareth Edwards and Chris Weitz show a 90s, iRobot level understanding of the technology, and no ambition in exploring the vast impacts it would have on the world. We see a civil war between robots and humans where the only apparent difference between the two, in how they behave, work, interact, is that the robots have a cylindrical hole through their heads. Hugely disappointing, particularly given Alison Janney's involvement. Massively wasted potential.

For some reason I thought Neill Blomkamp directed this as it feels a lot like his aesthetic. Overall? It was just okay. Didn't hate it, didn't love it, but as Benedict points out there are a lot of problems. The movie very clearly wants us to side with the AI but without giving us a clear reason as to why aside from the central robot looks like a kid and many have human faces.

Aside from that these are all technically murder bots. This would be like if Skynet were in the body of a little girl. The AI's want to "be free", but free to do what exactly? They don't eat or breathe air. They can't have children. We are meant to see them as sentient but they have no clear wants or desires. The ending is also pretty dumb, just the sequence of events that are meant to get an emotional reaction out of us but just doesn't click, at least for me.

Spoilers if you haven't seen it, but I was expecting "Mother" to have downloaded herself into a robot and was leading the AI resistance. Instead they just keep her in a coma for 5 years, and then she dies, and then the girl robot downloads her into a new body, and then leaves her to immediately die again. And it was totally the girl's fault that her surrogate parents died. Had she not stopped to download Mother into a new body her and Joshua would have gotten away.

It's not a terrible movie, it's certainly pretty to look at and the the sci-fi aesthetic is great, but the story, eh, not so much.

@cswood said:

For some reason I thought Neill Blomkamp directed this as it feels a lot like his aesthetic. Overall? It was just okay. Didn't hate it, didn't love it, but as Benedict points out there are a lot of problems. The movie very clearly wants us to side with the AI but without giving us a clear reason as to why aside from the central robot looks like a kid and many have human faces.

Aside from that these are all technically murder bots. This would be like if Skynet were in the body of a little girl. The AI's want to "be free", but free to do what exactly? They don't eat or breathe air. They can't have children. We are meant to see them as sentient but they have no clear wants or desires. The ending is also pretty dumb, just the sequence of events that are meant to get an emotional reaction out of us but just doesn't click, at least for me.

Spoilers if you haven't seen it, but I was expecting "Mother" to have downloaded herself into a robot and was leading the AI resistance. Instead they just keep her in a coma for 5 years, and then she dies, and then the girl robot downloads her into a new body, and then leaves her to immediately die again. And it was totally the girl's fault that her surrogate parents died. Had she not stopped to download Mother into a new body her and Joshua would have gotten away.

It's not a terrible movie, it's certainly pretty to look at and the the sci-fi aesthetic is great, but the story, eh, not so much.

It's a terrible movie with two terrible leads in both Denzel's son and the Chan woman.