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Oh look it's that John Woo knockoff from the 90s we didn't want, but need.
Ang Lee, what has become of you...

The de-aging for Smith looks great, which raises the question of why everything else looks awfully diffused. Does anyone else see that, or are my eyes just not working like they used to?

I dunno if it's diffused so much as video-like, which is a side effect of the fact that it's being shot at 120 fps.

Bad VFX+ shooting at 120 FPS. And no you're not the only one. I mean I just went through his snore fest that is Ride With the Devil, and it's been a few years since I liked one of his films, so this isn't even getting my Goodwill.

dda1996a wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 8:29 pm his snore fest that is Ride With the Devil

I had 100% completely forgotten this is in criterion's library. Until now.

Full trailer

I was hoping to see something that would make this look like something more than a late ‘90s Woo/Bruckheimer collaboration, but... nope!

Three words:

Mary

Elizabeth

Winstead.

I've always said we should get more incel users.

Anyway, this movie looks kind of amazing to me? Am I alone? The effects are mind-boggling (I haven't seen the de-aging thing in motion before, to be fair to that opinion), and I cannot wait to see it play out over an entire feature length film with this kind of concept, particularly in the hands of such a master.

The de-aging thing is pretty incredible. The Marvel movies have been using it effectively: Kurt Russell, Michael Douglas (though his voice gives his age away) and Sam Jackson, it looked pretty flawless (and was kind of scary).

mfunk9786 wrote: Thu Jul 25, 2019 11:37 pm I've always said we should get more incel users.

Anyway, this movie looks kind of amazing to me? Am I alone? The effects are mind-boggling (I haven't seen the de-aging thing in motion before, to be fair to that opinion), and I cannot wait to see it play out over an entire feature length film with this kind of concept, particularly in the hands of such a master.

Did you have this response draft saved for the Irishman

I won't believe that one until I see it

Smith says it's not de-aging

“They’re using my performance to create the CGI elements,” Smith said. “What is so spectacular — and the special effects team has absolutely outdone themselves — is it’s not de-aging; the younger character is not me. That is a 100% digital character. They didn’t take my image and just stretch some of the lines. It is a completely CGI character in the same way that the lions in ‘The Lion King’ are CGI characters.

I thought the trailers were impressive and promising, but critics are not being kind to this

mfunk9786 wrote: Mon Sep 30, 2019 5:36 am I thought the trailers were impressive and promising, but critics are not being kind to this

The day we'll both agree on something seems so distant...
Honestly the trailer to this looked so ugly and stoopid that I'm not surprised in the least it isn't getting good reviews.
Kind of wish Lee would stop playing with frame rates and 3D and just go back to making simple stories about actual characters. Something like Brokeback or his early Taiwanese films

For me the biggest letdown with the trailer is that I wanted more shots of a guy trying to kill another guy by jumping off a motorcycle in order to send the motorcycle hurtling towards his target. As it is, it only happens, what, two or three times?

This was a terrible film. The dialogue and the acting are so bad I’m genuinely surprised how this film could come from the same director of The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain. As well, young Will Smith didn’t work for me; in theory, he should look like early Fresh Prince era Smith, but it doesn’t quite pull it of. The story isn’t bad, and had some promise, but is brought down mostly by the dialogue. It’s honestly VOD-level dialogue.

However, this is the first HFR 3D film where I finally liked the look of it. It really works, aesthetically, and I hope someday I see a good film this way (0 for 5 so far).

I wouldn't go so far as to call it "terrible", but it certainly lacks a compelling raison d'être. It's basically a generic Bourne script - a government assassin is pursued by another assassin who's just as good! - but with a twist, but not really a very novel twist, and executed in a way that doesn't exactly communicate any sense of urgency or even conviction. The big action sequence in Cartagena is nicely done, but none of the other big setpieces stand out. It's hard for me not to compare it to Rian Johnson's Looper, which covered very similar thematic ground but with a lot more narrative imagination and emotional depth.

The VFX work just isn't really very convincing to me. I think it has to do with the way an actual person's facial muscles move that I don't really think the movie captures in young Smith. There's a lot of close-ups of young Smith, and his eyes move a lot, but the rest of his face doesn't move quite as much so it has somewhat of an Eyes-Without-a-Face effect. It's subtle, but it's enough to be a constant reminder that it's a special effect.

It doesn't really matter much, though, because even if it was spotless, it wouldn't add anything. I mean, Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt don't look anything alike, and JGL's makeup was terrible in that movie, but the movie still worked. At the end of the day, Smith's performance is awfully indifferent, and he doesn't have much to work with anyway, and the story is only going through the motions in the first place, so what do the special effects really matter?

I was just thinking the other day it's been too long since I lost saw Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a movie. Too bad it had to be this movie and not something that's a bit more successful. This is a fairly faithful throwback to the '90s techno thrillers like Universal Soldier and The Sixth Day (yes I know that's not really '90s, but whatever) and just as goofy. As a Lee movie this is pretty bad, though still better than his last few I've seen, though as a look at a falling star it's very fascinating. Smith is an old school star here. You could see him Marlene Dietrich style disappearing so that everyone has the Fresh Prince as their image of him and not an old man. At the same time this movie asks him to be Gene Hackman (please let that mean that MEW gets an oscar some day). The movie wants him to be grizzled and old. Maybe a star similar to Schwarzenegger who has embraced age fully could have played this balance like how the film wants. Smith does his own thing trying to be cool and smooth hitting on women half his age and just seems lame. It's a weirdly realistic look at aging from someone who doesn't believe they can. All this is even before the sci-fi shenanigans make Smith's self conception literal. This also really helps to clarify Smith's star from other modern ones. He's old school for how guarded he is. He wouldn't let himself be seen as a supporting actor the same way that DiCaprio does. Time stands still even as he is now an old man.