RageLite review - Knives Out

I’m not going to sugarcoat this, I freaking love The Last Jedi.

After a movie that felt far too safe, it was nice to see a Star Wars film that took creative risks, the visuals are incredible and it had interesting pathos and themes. The problems, though often landing at Rian Johnson’s feet, stem from the higher ups having no idea what they’re doing and not having a creative framework in place for the story. It’s no wonder The Rise of Skywalker back-peddled so hard on it. It’s not faultless, of course, but it actually does have me excited for a film trilogy where Rian Johnson can plan it start to finish.

But of course, I know others don’t see it that way, they see Rian’s attempts to subvert expectations to be frustrating and to an extent I understand that. Still, let’s take him away from an established franchise like Star Wars and see if that method actually works.

Knives Out is a murder mystery story in the same vein as an Agatha Christie story. $40m budget, $311m at the box office, high ratings with both audiences and critics and a Netfix deal for 2 sequels worth more than the box office takings of this movie.

RageLite review - X-men Dark Phoenix

The X-men films have been mixed at best in terms of quality, but I’ve been entertained watching them, I hoped it would end on a high and whilst I’ll get to New Mutants at a later date, let’s look at the final main-line X-men film, Dark Phoenix.

So, Brett Ratner and Brian Singer have both been implicated as perpetrators of sexual assault. Bet that makes looking back on the X-men fun. Personally, I would’ve brought back Matthew Vaughn but for whatever reason, they decided to elevate Simon Kinberg to director. He has plenty of experience with the X-men, having been involved with writing Days of Future Past and Apocalypse, as well as The Last Stand and Fant4stic, those triumphs of cinema.

Still, Kinberg acknowledges that studio interference with The Last Stand led to the story not being a good retelling of the Phoenix saga, and wanted to give it a try with more creative freedom. And then the studio got involved again, stopping his initial plan for a 2-part movie after the relatively underwhelming performance of Apocalypse.

The entire ending was reshot as the studio felt it was too similar to Captain Marvel. Speaking of which the villains had to be changed because of Captain Marvel too, creative freedom ladies and gentlemen.

So does this movie deliver… no, it doesn’t… let’s dig in and see why not.

RageLite review - Rocketman

Back in 2019, I announced this as my favourite film of that year, we look at the tale of Elton John, or at least a stylised version of it, in Rocketman.

Taron Egerton had recently been in the absolute disaster that was the latest Robin Hood reboot, I may have to talk about that at some point but for now, it put his status as a leading man on a knife’s edge, the next film had to hit it out of the park. And a dramatized retelling of some of the interesting bits of one of the biggest popstars to come out of the UK, certainly an interesting choice but it’s not as if Taron Egerton had no experience in the field, he had previously a sung cover of I’m Still Standing whilst playing the Johnny in Illumination’s Sing.

The director is Dexter Fletcher, a guy who’s no stranger to musical biopics, having taken over from Bryan Singer as the director of Bohemian Rhapsody. Whilst that film, for all its flaws, was a smash at the box office, Rocketman had a lot more working against it. Simply put, to do justice to Elton John’s life, an R-rating was pretty much guaranteed, which would place it as a much more niche product compared to the PG-13 Bohemian Rhapsody.

There’s also the issue of Elton John being gay, an issue they couldn’t dodge because his love-life ended up quite entwined with his music, especially in this story. This would unfortunately put it on a blacklist for certain homophobic countries, who’s names I am going to happily drop. F*ck Egypt, F*ck Malaysia, F*ck Samoa and naturally F*ck Russia, though ironically it’s f*cking that got the film into trouble in the first place.

Still, the film only had a $40m budget, which was made back and then plenty, making $195m at the box office. And it went over well with both critics and audiences with 89% and 88% Rotten Tomatoes Ratings. Why did this beat out films like Endgame to be my absolute favourite film? Let’s take a look.

RageLite review - Ocean's 12

It’s May, so let’s take a look at the Ocean’s Franchise again with its sequel, Ocean’s 12. With the success of the previous film, a sequel was announced but now they no longer have an old movie to remake so they’re on their own, for better and for worse. To handle this job, they got George Nolfi, a relative inexperienced writer, his only other film is Timeline, which was critically panned and a financial disaster. Still, Steven Soderbergh is still directing so there should be some consistency

Made on a $110 million budget, the film was successful, earning $362m at the box office, still less than the $450m the original made, but critics were far less kind to it, with only 54% finding it favourable, whilst scoring only slightly higher at 60% with audiences [has RT taken away the average scores, they provide important context] so what happened here? Let’s take a look.

RageLite review - High School Musical

2020 – f*ck this year so hard

COVID-19 has changed the game, it may take a very long time for things to go back to normal, even with better testing and other measures coming into force. Physical distancing will likely be part of the new normal, making the film industry, which relies on having butts in seats, a really shaky area. The one plus has been the rise of streaming services. Some of the year’s films have been released on-demand and some directly onto streaming services.

Disney+ came out in the UK just as I had to go into self-isolation. I had paid for a year upfront and got into a few things, this year I did a full retrospective on Austin and Ally and I plan to do full retrospectives on other series, one of which is coming very soon. I also plan to cover a few series episode by episode: the Mandalorian, the Marvel stuff when it eventually comes out, and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

But to cover that show, I first really need to cover High School Musical itself, and since the motto of 2020 seems to have been “we’re all in this together” however disingenuous that may sound, I feel like it’s a good way to round off 2020.

RageLite review - Frozen 2

It’s just past Christmas, so time to cover the long-awaited sequel to the global phenomenon that became wildly over-hated, Frozen 2.

I get that in many circles it’s cool to hate Frozen but I could never bring myself to. It’s a very different twist on the classic Snow Queen story, fitting right on the Disney brand with memorable songs and gorgeous animation. And sure, some of Hans’ actions, particularly in the second go act completely contrary to his overall plan, but I do like they the twist on the classic Disney trope and that it conveys a message that love at first sight is not a healthy idea to obsess over.

Frozen 2 came out 6 years later but we weren’t starved for Frozen content in that time, just content that’s actually good. It’s somewhat encouraging that pretty much all of the major players from the last film are back for this one.

The film was another financial hit for Disney, earning nearly $1.5bn at the box office, and has had a good reception with both critics and audiences. So why then am I putting it in the mini review category as opposed to doing another guilty pleasures review? Is it laziness/busy-ness? Well partly, but let’s take a look?

RageLite review - Shazam!

Note - This episode is almost a week late, my apologies. 

The year is 1939, and creators C. C. Beck and Bill Parker create a character for Fawcett Comics named Captain Marvel. He was a big hit, becoming the most popular superhero of the 1940’s, even getting a film adaptation, but in 1953, a lawsuit alleging that the character was a copy of Superman, no accounting for accuracy there, lead to Fawcett Comics ceasing publication on this character. In 1972 they licensed out the character to DC Comics (the guys that sued them, that’s gotta sting) and by 1991, DC had purchased the rights outright. But when your main competitor is Marvel, who have a Captain Marvel of their own, it ultimately is no surprise that another name became the name associated with the hero, so much so that in 2011 they dropped the use of the name Captain Marvel altogether. So, the new name, Shazam!

Shazam! Is a very different beast for DC but then, it looks like DC is shying away from the shared universe and connected narratives and more towards experimentation with different genres and story arcs. For better or worse, Joker would not have come out if not for that. Shazam is a story about a kid getting super-powers, it’s wish fulfilment, a power-fantasy, it’s cheesy.

In the writers chair is Henry Gayden, whose only other writing credit is Earth to Echo, and Darren Lenke, no stranger to comedy with credits like Shrek 4, and the Goosebumps films.  David F Sandberg is an interesting choice for director as he’s done more around horror than action. The film made $388m on a $100m budget and got solid review scores, 90% average 7.26/10 with critics and 82% average 4.2/5 with audiences.

RageLite review - The Dark Knight

 Can you believe it’s taken me thing long to cover this one?

The Dark Knight Rises is one of my earliest reviews, and one I largely still stand by, it’s not a bad but a disappointing end to the trilogy of films. But as I hope my Neeson Month review of Batman Begins demonstrated, the series had problems even early on.

But when people point to Christopher Nolan as the guy who Fixed Batman, again, after the disaster that was Batman and Robin, it’s usually this film that gets the most attention. It’s considered the best in this trilogy, and it’s where the franchise made serious money, over $1bn of Box office revenue on a $185m budget. Let's take a look and see if we can work out why.