Last movie you watched, and your critique of it

[No_God]

Escape from New York (1981) starring Kurt Russel.

Awesome.

The End.

[downbeatplumb]

Escape from New York (1981) starring Kurt Russel.

Awesome.

The End.

Escape from LA ..........not so much.

[Aractus]

Tenebre (1982)

Look I'm going to be honest, it's a solid movie but Dario doesn't exactly break exciting new ground with it like he does in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Cat o' Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (the films frequently referred to as the "animal trilogy") or Deep Red. Probably also due to me prefering the 70's style than the 80's. With that said it is still a very beautiful movie with cinematyography that makes you think of other masterfully shot films (such as his other work - the animal trilogy, Suspiria, etc or Hollwood films like Halloween which obviously applied Dario's style).

[A Theist]

"Alien" (1978) with Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, and John Hurt. It was on TCM the other night. I can see why it remains a classic Sci Fi / Horror flick. The sequel, "Aliens" was just as good.

[The Valkyrie]

The Butler.

Didn't think I would like it but it was a great movie.

9 out of 10.

[Tonus]

Olympus Has Fallen: decent action flick, mostly because it minimizes the scenes where Gerard Butler tries to convince us that he can play a normal guy, and gives us a lot more of Butler channeling his inner-Leonidas, which he does so well. It being an action flick, the plot isn't terribly meaningful, but there is one gaping hole that leaves me shaking my head. And even though it IS an action film, I'll spoiler this part so as not to give away a presumably important plot point:

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The President and several of his cabinet are taken hostage by terrorists. Three of the hostages (including the President) have the codes to a system that will allow the terrorists to detonate America's nuclear arsenal in it's silos. Yes, I know, that's idiotic on several levels, but stay with me here. The terrorists demand the codes from the other two, with threats to kill them. The two hostages insist that they'll take the codes with them to the grave, but the President (who of course is a dedicated and loving person who lost his devoted wife in a tragic accident) commands them to turn over the codes, promising that when it's his turn, he'll die before giving it up. Both of the hostages obey and turn over their codes.

Later in the movie, we see a terrorist entering the third and final code without any preamble. The President shows no signs of any particular duress. Which means that he handed over the crucial final code without any real effort on the part of the terrorists! If Butler's character doesn't kill the terrorists and enter the override code with just seconds to spare, the USA would have been turned into a nuclear wasteland. The movie never reconciles the fact that the President apparently intended to provide the terrorists with the means to literally wipe out the USA. That's insane, even for an over-the-top action movie.

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[TheLurker]

Olympus Has Fallen: decent action flick, mostly because it minimizes the scenes where Gerard Butler tries to convince us that he can play a normal guy, and gives us a lot more of Butler channeling his inner-Leonidas, which he does so well. It being an action flick, the plot isn't terribly meaningful, but there is one gaping hole that leaves me shaking my head. And even though it IS an action film, I'll spoiler this part so as not to give away a presumably important plot point:

---

The President and several of his cabinet are taken hostage by terrorists. Three of the hostages (including the President) have the codes to a system that will allow the terrorists to detonate America's nuclear arsenal in it's silos. Yes, I know, that's idiotic on several levels, but stay with me here. The terrorists demand the codes from the other two, with threats to kill them. The two hostages insist that they'll take the codes with them to the grave, but the President (who of course is a dedicated and loving person who lost his devoted wife in a tragic accident) commands them to turn over the codes, promising that when it's his turn, he'll die before giving it up. Both of the hostages obey and turn over their codes.

Later in the movie, we see a terrorist entering the third and final code without any preamble. The President shows no signs of any particular duress. Which means that he handed over the crucial final code without any real effort on the part of the terrorists! If Butler's character doesn't kill the terrorists and enter the override code with just seconds to spare, the USA would have been turned into a nuclear wasteland. The movie never reconciles the fact that the President apparently intended to provide the terrorists with the means to literally wipe out the USA. That's insane, even for an over-the-top action movie.

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On the part of your spoiler that you where unhappy with, I'm thinking you missed something...

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When the terrorists first take over the bunker they set up a computer to hack the codes but we are told that it will take them far too long to hack the three codes before they can be stopped. We find out after he gets the codes from the other two hostages that that was his plan all along, he never intended to kill them because he NEEDED their two codes. Once he had the first two codes it significantly lowered the time the computer needed to crack the third code and that is where he got it. He never needed to torture the president himself.

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[Tonus]

Thanks, I had indeed missed that.

[c172]

I went out and saw Belle (2014) today. Not my kind of film, those period flicks, but this was rather engaging. Not mindblowing, but still pretty worth it.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/film/belle-2014

[Sejanus]

The Butler.

Didn't think I would like it but it was a great movie.

9 out of 10.

"Alien" (1978) with Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, and John Hurt. It was on TCM the other night. I can see why it remains a classic Sci Fi / Horror flick. The sequel, "Aliens" was just as good.

Both very good movies.