Action – Page 11 – Movie Meister Reviews

January 7, 2022 leebutler Review

Altered Carbon Season 2 (2020)

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on March 17th, 2020. This is from when S&T gave out percentage scores on a fancy layout and I somehow kept track of that

Altered Carbon first popped up on Netflix on the 2nd of February 2018. Based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan, the series made waves before a single episode aired by being one of the most expensive shows to be created by the streaming service. Once the series hit the internet it turned out to be very popular, popular enough to get a second season that dropped on the 27th of February and an upcoming anime film on the 19th of March. The first season of this cyberpunk noir detective series was certainly one that required your full attention but rewarded you for it with some of the best characters on TV and some incredible action scenes that made it stand out. Season two certainly started that way, but it stumbled right near the finish line.

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January 5, 2022 leebutler Review

Bad Boys For Life (2020)

NOTE: So for the last 2 years I’ve been producing reviews for Soda & Telepaths who sadly closed their doors at the end of 2021. Thus, I now have a large amount of assorted reviews from the last 2 years that need somewhere to go and so they will be put here… slowly, on days I don’t have a new review to put up so I won’t flood anyone’s page/emails with a dozen reviews.

These are as close to how they were over on S&T, though that site had a different layout and style I had to work within so it might not be exactly 1 for 1. Also, in some cases, old reviews might have been deleted from the site before I got to them (like this one) and I have to rely on old notes I took.

With all that in mind, here is my first review for S&T that was posted back on January 16th, 2020.

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December 17, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) – Home Free

Released: 16th December
Seen: 16th December

As usual, Marvel films are hard to review because saying anything about the plot is enough to have pitchforks and torches raised by an angry mob wanting to set fire to the spoiler who spoiled the movie for them so we’re going to mix up my normal order. I’ll do two paragraph of this review as my general overall thoughts about the movie, then I’ll pop the trailer in and that’s when I will start talking about plot stuff.

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December 9, 2021December 9, 2021 leebutler Review

Dune (2021) – Spicy

Released: 1st December
Seen: 7th December

The 1965 novel Dune is one of those works of fiction that has permeated pop culture in ways that few other books have. Even if you haven’t read it, you probably know of the sandworms that turn the desert planet into a constant sea of danger, you might know about the drug Spice and that it’s been a notorious pain in the ass to try and adapt.

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December 2, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) – Love A Little Carnage

Released: 25th September
Seen: 30th November

In 2018, a little film called Venom came out and I’ll be honest, I didn’t think it was that good. I still don’t, it was badly edited and rushed with a tone that felt all over the place while also being incredibly restrained by the PG-13 rating that it was going for. It got a serious critical thrashing and was just kind of mediocre, and yet, audiences loved the thing. It made nearly $900 million at the box office and was guaranteed a sequel. I won’t lie, when I heard about a sequel, I let out an exasperated sigh because I was so sure we were going to get another bland film… and then Venom: Let There Be Carnage turns around and ends up being one of the most obscenely entertaining films of the year.

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November 17, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021) – Half The Battle

Released: 22nd July
Seen: 14th November

The G.I. Joe film franchise is honestly a little baffling, to say the least. The first two films were critical duds, barely made back their money at the domestic box office, they don’t even seem to be the sort of films that the critics hated but audiences loved. It’s a franchise that doesn’t make a buttload of money, get critical praise or have a cult following so I don’t know why it still exists… but for some reason they made a third movie around the origins of the Snake Eyes character (because as X-Men will confirm, it’s always a good idea to just make an origins movie) and… well, at least Henry Golding’s got some good footage for his reel but not sure what else there is.

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November 16, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Jungle Cruise (2021) – Ship Shape

Released: 29th July
Seen: 12th November

The history of movies based on theme park rides is littered with dull trash that offers nothing exciting. Think about it, with the exception of Pirates of the Caribbean and the recent Muppets Haunted Mansion, there aren’t exactly a lot of theme park movies that turn out to be passable let alone actually good. This would explain why, when the announcement of a Jungle Cruise movie was made, it was met with a collective sigh and many people preparing for it to suck… and now it’s out, up on Disney Plus without the premium price and oh my god how is this thing so good?

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November 15, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Home Sweet Home Alone (2021) – Homesick

Released: 12th November
Seen: 12th November

In 1990 a little film called Home Alone was released. On a budget of a little under $20 million, the film went on to make about $476 million worldwide and become an instant classic that spawned exactly 1 good sequel and then 3 films that technically exist. Home Alone influenced so many other film makers who all took a shot at the “Kid makes an elaborate set of traps around the house that leads to an endless amount of slapstick” genre, which is why we have atrocities like The War With Grandpa. So many people have tried to recreate the magic of the original film and no one has pulled it off… and adding to that “Can’t pull off the magic of Home Alone” pile is Home Sweet Home Alone, a film that doesn’t even pretend to understand what made the original special and just desperately cashes in on a 30 year old property without any effort whatsoever.

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November 14, 2021 leebutler Uncategorized

Red Notice (2021) – S’fine

Released: 12th November
Seen: 12th November

Usually a film begins with a script or an idea, going through a lot of pre-production before they even think about casting but sometimes there are films that are made entirely around a single cast member. Those films that are either designed to really show off what an actor can do or just to play to their strengths… Red Notice is that latter film and it’s so ridiculously simple that it’s almost impossible to truly hate, but probably won’t be up there on the “best of the year” lists either.

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November 12, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Don’t Breathe 2 (2021) – Take My Breath Away

Released: 12th August
Seen: 11th November

The 2016 film Don’t Breathe was one of the best horror films of the 2010s, certainly one of the most fascinating. It was dark, unapologetically so, with a creative set of visuals (That I have talked about in a previous article) and a truly fascinating antagonist in the form of The Blind Man. It was a film that let every character live in the grey area, no one was perfectly good and no one was perfectly evil. It was a fascinating little film that really pushed some buttons… so the sequel decides to play it safe and just turn The Blind Man into a hero, because we can’t have nice things.

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