TTTTT'Omen

They decided that now (now being around 2006) was the time to redo Damian's origin story!

I should just copy and paste the summary from the first post, because this is just the same movie again. Many scenes are repeated, almost verbatim, but with one small issue... it is worse. This movie doesn't bother introducing characters, they just appear. Need the nanny to kill herself, bam, suddenly we have a nanny and she kills herself. Need an old scholar? Just namedrop Bugenhagen without establishing him. Cut to the thing already in progress, and just whatever.

And I'm not sure at all why they bothered to remake this. Some scenes are very early 2000s with how they are shot, but there isn't anything new being said. The movie starts with saying "things like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina mean we are in the end times," but otherwise this is just the same movie as what we had before, nothing new added.

Certainly lots of big names here. Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, Pete Postlewaite, and David Thewlis doing a good impression of David Warner.

Well, that's it. There are no more Omen movies to watch... aside from the one that just came out, but I'll likely wait for the VOD for that.

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Marvel-hibition

Since December, our (Wellington's) new exhibition space is Takina. I'm not sure if this is the first exhibition there, but the one since December is Marvel/MCU, with a potted history of the comics, some of the key characters, and props.

I finally went. Want to see photos?

They had a Mjolner out and about in Wellington, which a gull enjoyed.

The exhibition itself starts with a SMASH

There are a lot of props and costumes and... hey, I got one of those!

Anyway, check out the album for loads of pics!

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Kong Foo Ponda 4

Did we need a fourth movie? Did we need a second or third? Why should that stop anyone?

Po hears that there's a new villain in town, or rather another town, so heads there with a new companion. After undergoing various "hilarious" adventures along the way, they eventually get to the actual plot, and there is a character moment, then another character moment, and then a fight scene.

This feels like a waste of a movie. The movie is already over half over before the actual plot starts. And the villain is very one note. The big twist/mental challenge Po faces is solved in the most obvious way, and... apparently the producers are planning another two movies. Perhaps the Furious Five might actually turn up, but the VOs aren't interested in being in this one.

Jack Black is just having fun, so not surprised he continues to turn up for these. Awkwafina is here as a comedy schtick, so being the same character she is in every other movie. Viola Davis get a chance to flex, but the movie doesn't really do much with her. I will always take a Ke Huy Quan voice and... Mr Beast was in this? Sigh...

Has this made its money back yet? It was one of the cheapest, so no doubt there will be more to come.

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Sacrifice of Senua

With the sequel coming out, I decided now was the time to play the first game.

Senua visits Hel to get her love back... unfortunately, she has severe mental illness that led to others to cause her problems. And so she travels through Hel, defeating opponents and finding runes, with voices in her head giving extreme commentary, sometimes helpful, oft times not.

This was not a game I sped through. I can't say I entirely could put myself in Senua's position mentally, it definitely wasn't a light breeze of say, a walking simulator or a Call of Duty. Story-wise, this was certainly a journey.

However, I have a lot of gripes about the game mechanics. First it doesn't tell you any of the controls (they are in the options menu) so I missed the first recording entirely, thinking it was a save point (before remembering it autosaved). The fighting is a whole thing, with, again, not telling you the controls, and there were combos?? Also, the combat starts as "Automatic"... which is harder than Hard. I did get quite far on Auto (up to Fenrir), but just got too annoyed with the combat that I knocked it down to just get through the game (which was already taxing, see above). And the game swivels wildly between combat and puzzles (which mostly aren't hard, just annoying to traverse around as even running Senua doesn't move quickly).

This is an experience (is it art?), and a thinker, but the game side of things could be better.

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BEES-keeper

Jason Statham does good action, so let's enjoy!

A scamming group defrauds an elderly lady, and because of that her tenant decides to go on a killing spree, and her daughter chases him. As it happens, the tenant is a Beekeeper, a member of a secret organisation everyone knows about, and the daughter is a member of the FBI. The Beekeeper goes after the scamming group, and the daughter gets there after. Then the Beekeeper goes after the higher level group, and the daughter chases after him. Then the Beekeeper goes after the higher group, and the daughter chases after him...

Yeah, so, this movie is stunningly nothing. As you might be able to tell from the summary, it's basically the same scene repeated three times. Okay, yes, some good action beats in there, and lots of references to bees, but... still a lot not of nothing of any import happens.

One odd thing that occurred to me was that the Beekeeper is a highly trained person who can take out everyone else... it's odd in that, is that special training? For some reason the government has decided, or doesn't know about, that everyone in the military shouldn't have that training? That seems amazingly inefficient.

But hey, Jason Statham kicks a lot of ass, so there is that. Emmy Raver-Lampman is fine as the FBI agent, and her mother is a cameo by Phylicia Rashad. And not much more than a cameo is one Jemma Redgrave. Josh Hutcherson is playing a scumbag, which he seems fit for. And Jeremy Irons is in this, easily dominating all scenes he is in.

Fine if you want something simple, no thinking needed.

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TTTT'Omen

Damian dead? Not a problem, let's do the first movie again... but this time with a girl!

A couple, where the husband has political aspirations, adopt a child. The child grows up, with weird things around her, and eventually the mother comes to view her with suspicion (and jumps to the Book of Revelations rather quickly). After some random deaths that... actually are the child's fault, the mother finds herself pregnant, and wants the child to stay away from potentially harming the new baby. Eventually she finds the truth that (deep breath) the child, Delia, is the child of Damian, and is carrying the fetus of her twin brother inside her, which the doctor transplants to the mother, to give birth to the new antichrist, which isn't Delia but Alexander, and the mother tries to stop them, but hey this is the Omen movies... (it's a very busy 10 minutes at the end).

Delia is so more active over dealing with people than Damian ever was. With Damian, it felt like there was another force keeping an eye on him and killing others, whereas here Delia is very much the one killing people. And more power to her! This movie is basically a retake on the first (and a little of the second) movie, and this is so much better! I don't know if they learnt from the previous movies, or just had a better script writer, but this movie works on Delia as a devil child more than Damian ever had.

Faye Grant does good work as the mother, and Michael Learner owns the scenes he is in. Hey, that's Don S. Davis in around two minutes of screen time. Even Asia Vieira as Delia isn't a terrible child actor and plays her part well too!

This clearly set up the next part of the ongoing series, and there is no need to do anything silly like reboot the series (yes I know what the next movie is).

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Gojira Smooching Kongy

Another premier, so got in. This was a bit fuller than the previous one, but still not bursting.

I haven't seen the trailer, so no idea what is revealed. What we have here is that Kong find another layer to the Hollow Earth (...the planet has severe gravity problems...) and lo encounters a whole new villain to fight. In related plot, humans follow Kong and encounter something that I feel would have been set up differently in the previous movie had they known they were doing this. And Godzilla is hanging out.

Yeah, this is a Kong movie that guest stars other titans. The humans feel like "we have these actors who agreed to return for this movie, so we need a plot for them, as well as throwing in some other characters". We don't get the return of Millie Bobby Brown, but do get her sidekick the Conspiracy Wacko (who is less of a wacko in this). And Godzilla was also there...

The actors were fine, and not annoying unlike so often in the previous movies. (G-1 so much showed up how to do humans in a Godzilla movie.) There is a lot of time with Kong and Ko, and while the CGI worked, they simplified so much to make the basic story/emotions come across. [And, amusingly, a trailer for Kingdom of Planet of the Apes played before this!]

There's a few other comments I want to make, but for the sake of spoilers, I will resist.

It's fine, and better than previous entries, but I hope future movies aren't just "here's another generic villain" (although that does describe most movies).

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