Review of Venom (2018) + little rant

I just finished watching Venom, its the first movie I've watched in a while, and not to say it was bad, but it reminded me of why I lost interest in cinema. I'll get to that later, for now, let's focus on the movie.

Venom is a decent movie, I wouldn't say it's bad, but I also wouldn't say it's good. I don't know if it's because I've been watching very expressive shows lately, but watching venom made me feel like I was staring at a white wall. Every shot is so clean and stable and smooth, I would understand that in peaceful scenes, but the entire movie is like that, which is kind of jarring. To be fair, the fight scenes had some better camera work, but there were always so many cuts, that it made the fights look strange as well.

Most scenes felt rushed, almost all of them felt meaningless. For the most part, it didn't really feel like I was watching a movie that had a purpose and a story to tell, it mostly just felt like a generic superhero movie that was doing the things it was doing for no narrative reason, but more so because that's what it's supposed to do as a superhero movie.

What I'm trying to say is that it's a very safe and bland movie, perfectly engineered to be watched and loved by the masses and whoever just wants to turn off their brain and watch violent fight scenes. I'm not judging or trying to be disrespectful, I just personally didn't find much to be enjoyed in the movie myself, but I have found time and time again that most people wouldn't agree with my taste.

One thing I did very much enjoy, was the dynamic between Eddie and Venom, and it's quite sad we don't get to see much of it. If it were me, I'd shorten the boring fight scenes and chase scenes and have more moments where Eddie and Venom get to talk with each other. Though I think that should be a very easy thing to figure out, its a movie about them coming together, doing things together, and coming to accept and respect each other, if that were to be the core of the movie, my suggestion would sound obvious, which leads me to believe that that was not the purpose of the movie. Like I said, it doesn't feel like the movie has a story to tell, just an audience to appeal to.

Now, the thing that I believe brings the movie down the most and, like I said, reminded me of why I lost interest in cinema, is the timing and build-up. Movies can be good and can use all of their time perfectly, I personally find it limited since you can do it well, but not much of it. So in movies like Venom, where time is not used well and the build-up is not good, it is no longer a limitation, it is a problem, most of the scenes in venom feel like they could be edited out since most of them don't serve any real purpose.

Just to make it clear, Movies are a very good and interesting media format, but it's very limited in their storytelling, in a way that isn't an issue in longer media, like series. Just like Live action is limited compared to animation, movies are limited compared to series, that isn't to say that any of them are bad, but I personally appreciate media a lot more when there's more nuance to it, more things to analyze, break down and ultimately love or hate.

On the other hand, every now and then, there are movies that manage to accomplish so much with so little time, and that definitely feels impressive and special. But it's not every day we get movies like that, and Venom certainly wasn't one of them. I wouldn't really recommend this movie to anyone who isn't a fan of superhero movies, but I wouldn't stop anyone either. It's not a bad movie, just bland and boring.

Sincerely, Spoon.

Review of Star wars: A New Hope

This is the start of a great journey. I watched the first 2 trilogies as a kid and a few of the new ones when they came out, but I'm now going through the whole franchise to better understand its origins, its evolution, and what it all lead to.

I watched the first movie and asked for feedback on whether I should write individual reviews, or just compile my thoughts of the whole franchise into 1 big review when I'm done with it. Several people asked for individual reviews, so that's what I'm going to do.

To get started let us first go through the context:

George Lucas is a garbage director and he had no idea what he was doing with star wars. Star Wars is just the classic farmer turned to the knight who rebels against an evil oppressor story, its put into a sci-fi universe and has magic in it for no reason, that combined with the awful structure, lack of direction, 2-dimensional characters, and very boring story, Star Wars had all odds stacked against it.

But because of the very talented people that worked on the music, the costumes, the props, the sets, and the CGI, the universe of Star Wars looked so unbelievably intriguing, most scenes look so full of movement, energy, and life. Even tho the action is bad, the hints of romance worse, and the overall story very boring, Star Wars still managed to be quite funny, sometimes the movie is the joke itself with how bad it is, but when the movie legitimately tries to be funny, it actually does a good job and I find some rewatching value in it with how enjoyable things like the chemistry between C3PO and R2D2 are, they were very funny on their own and even funnier together, I just don't get tired of them.

Now, even tho Star Wars is "so bad that it's good", it's still bad and that should be addressed. As I said, the core ideas are all bad and/or uninteresting and the direction was awful, which lead the actors to perform badly, tho I still think this story could have worked better if it had taken more time. I know the movie is 2 hours long, but it tries to do too much in too little time, for what the movie was going for, the proper build-up, development, and exposition to make the scenes not feel as forced as they are would make the movie at least double of its length.

I want to finish with a disclaimer, I actually really like what Star Wars has become. Yes, the movies are bad, they always will be. The games are bad, they always will be. But this universe that was created from pure chance by an incompetent director has grown into something so interesting and gathered such a large fanbase because inspired people worked on it. Star Wars is far from ever being a masterpiece no matter in what form it comes, but with every new title, I and the other fans always get excited to once again dive into this rich universe and learn more about it. Now that I think about it, star wars could be a really good MMORPG. Has that ever been done? If not, I'm copyrighting that idea.

But back to this particular movie: It's bad, but it looks good, has good OSTs and good sound effects, the audio of the actors speaking has a lot of issues, but it kinda helps with the funny setting. This movie looks like something my classmates would make as a school project and recording it all with a phone. It's a very entertaining movie when there's dialogue and a very boring movie when there's action.

Overall, I would recommend it, it's a great movie to watch if you're alone and bored and possibly even better to watch with friends and have everyone make jokes during the movie.

This feels different. Making a review with such a happy and approving tone. It's legitimate tho, I did have fun. I would not wish for everything to be like this since I do have a lot of fun complaining, but it feels nice to watch and review something fun every now and then. After I upload and share this review I'll start watching the second movie right away but don't expect a review until tomorrow around the same time.

Sincerely, Spoon.