Raymond Ocdol
Civil War Review

I really did not know what to expect from this movie, I'd seen the trailers and like most people I was pretty fixated on why a 2nd American Civil war was happening. The western forces of California and Texas? The Florida Alliance? A third term president of the loyalist states. Some pretty interesting choices for factions of a 2nd American Civil War and if you were thinking would dive much into this you would be wrong. Civil War is fundamentally about a civil war occurring in the modern USA, journalism specifically war journalism and the people on the ground. We follow a group of journalists as they make their way to DC. Our lead is Kirsten Dunst as Lee a war photographer, followed by Wagner Moura as Joel her college, Stephen McKinley Henderson as Sammy as their old mentor and Cailee Spaeny as Jessie as an aspiring photographer who tags along. Kirsten Dunst is quite the battle hardened pro while Cailee Spaeny's Jessie is the extremely green newcomer and a good part of the movie is Jessie learning the ropes.

Civil War Review
Raymond Ocdol
Top Games 2023

Really wised i got around to playing more this year on top of the giant backlog. Though I did play some other things besides WoW:Dragonflight. My GOTY is below plus some other highlights

Top Games 2023
Movie Review
Raymond Ocdol
Top Movies 2023

My Top 10 Movies for 2023 plus some special mentions at the end.

Top Movies 2023
Raymond Ocdol
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and ...

It's been quite a while since the YA craze and the last Hunger Games movie but here we are 2023 and a new movie, a prequel, the origin story of the main villain. The Hunger Games series were some of the better movies to come out of the YA craze, the quality was a bit un even especially at the end with Mockingjay being split into 2 part but overall solid movies.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Raymond Ocdol
A Haunting in Venice Review

A Haunting in Venice is Third movie is Kenneth Branagh's Poirot movie series, coming just a year after Death on the Nile though I think that movie got caught up in the Fox acquisition and the pandemic. Personally I thought Murder on the Orient Express was decent, Death on the Nile not so much, serviceable but not great for this third I did not have high hopes. Anyway turns out this movie is pretty good and is the best one out of the three.

A Haunting in Venice Review

CHAPiE

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CHAPiE Review

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Artificial Intelligence 

Had fairly high hopes for this movie, I have been a fan of Neil Blomkamps work, I loved District 9 and Elysium was pretty good as well. So I was very interested to see how CHAPiE would turn out,

I didn't choose the Thug Life...

I didn't choose the Thug Life...

The cast was kind of a mixed bag, Dev Patel as Deon was decent and Hugh Jackman while kind of inconsistent was serviceable he is an asshole for whatever they need him to be, he's supposed to be a military person but sometimes it's his faith that’s driving him and yeah its inconsistent. Sigourney Weaver is in it and its always good seeing her in sci fi though her character is not very major. And after coming off as a fairly reasonable strong character she is turned by Hugh Jackman very quickly. There is also Die Antwood the South African rap group in the movie and I thought they were a bit hit or miss, when they were raising chappie they were good but the stuff outside that was a bit to silly also Yolandi just seems a bit too nice to be in a criminal gang. On to Chappie I quite liked the robot he takes on the characteristics  of those around him and its funny seeing the way he acts as he learns. His movement/body structure is kind of similar to the prawns of district 9 but he is different enough/becomes different enough that he is pretty memorable.

Someone really needs to talk to HR about this...

Someone really needs to talk to HR about this...

On to the movie itself, the story was decent though some Hugh Jackman's antics are really stupid. There is a scene with some pretty terrible workplace harassment right in the middle of an office and its a wonder Hugh Jackmans character does not get fired, or that nobody seems to mention it. As this is a Sony Movie there was plenty of Sony Product Placement, lots of Vaio Laptops which is funny because Sony just spun Vaio off. PlayStation 4s are featured and its funny how they end up being used, strangely enough I don't remember seeing any Xperia Phones. The Action was good, most is at the end similar to D9. Actually a lot of the movie was similar to District 9 probably to CHAPiEs detriment though as most of it was better in D9.

I tried to temper my expectations after seeing the reception and for the most part I enjoyed the movie, it definitely had its issues but was not really that bad or anything until the ending. The movie comes off as reasonable even with how crazy Die Antwood are you can suspend your disbelief because it’s a movie but the ending is just so jarring that it brings the rest of the movie down. I get what the messaging is and what the intention was for the ending but it comes in so abruptly and is not executed very well.

Overall I enjoyed the movie for the most part though it certainly had its issues. You could do a lot worse movie wise but Neil Blomkamp could do better.

6/10

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