Action – Page 12 – Movie Meister Reviews

November 9, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Wrath Of Man (2021) – That’s Some Good Wrath

Released: 29th April
Seen: 5th November

Guy Ritchie is one of those directors who can be a lot of fun when he really wants to be, presenting an over the top world of blokey blokes doing obscene amounts of violence to each other while yelling as many assorted curse words as they can imagine in thick English accents. When he’s at his best, he creates great things like The Gentlemen, a rip roaring grand old time that I still regularly think about to this day (especially Fletcher, one of the best characters Guy Ritchie has ever created and one of the best performances Hugh Grant will ever give in his life). When he’s at his worst, he phones in absolute garbage like Aladdin, which is still a pale, painful imitation of a classic film that didn’t need a remake. So, what does just an average Guy Ritchie film look like? Probably something like Wrath Of Man… which, hilariously, is itself a remake.

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November 8, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Eternals (2021) – Not Your Normal MCU

Released: 3rd November
Seen: 3rd November

It’s kind of nice having a whole bunch of Marvel films back in cinemas again, with several coming out this year and even more next year, it’s like it was before the world went to hell and back. Well, now it’s time for one of the big ones… Eternals, directed by the woman who brought us Nomadland and that has been getting a thrashing by critics who proclaim it to be the worst MCU film. Is it really the worst MCU film or is this some backlash to actual serious attempts at diversity? Yeah, probably the second one.

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November 2, 2021November 29, 2021 leebutler Review

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) – Luke Warm

Released: 13th May
Seen: 1st November

There were a lot of films I missed this year thanks to the several months of lockdown we had. If a film had a cinematic release between June and October then chances are good that I couldn’t see it because my home state wasn’t completely stupid and shut down a bunch of places to try and stop Covid from getting out of hand (which… OK didn’t work, but there was an effort made). So now that a lot of those films are slowly turning up on streaming services the time has come for me to get to work on catching up and I have to admit I was kind of interested by Those Who Wish Me Dead when I saw the trailer for it, and it basically delivered on what I expected.

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October 27, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) – Pure Fun

Released: 2nd September
Seen: 27th October

The last time I saw an MCU film in the cinemas was 1st of July 2019, the film in question being Spider-man: Far From Home. It’s so weird to think that it’s been so long since there’s been an MCU film in a cinema, if you’d told me after seeing that film that we would’ve gone a little over 2 years without getting a MCU film in the cinema near me I would’ve called you insane. That’s been our weird little reality though, the franchise that effectively owned the box office took a couple of years off because they had no choice.

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October 21, 2021 leebutler Review

The Forever Purge (2021) – So Close

Released: 22nd July
Seen: 18th October

The Purge franchise might be one of the most overtly political horror franchises in recent years, which is saying a lot considering how political the Horror genre can get. Pretty much since the second movie, the franchise has been a metaphor for classism, racism and the way fascism can spread fast through a population which has even the hint of a suggestion that such behaviour is allowed. It’s always been a little controversial and very blunt, but usually, it can make for a half-decent time… The Forever Purge certainly has some political ideas that resonate today, just doesn’t really go all-in on them and that makes for a frustrating watch.

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October 11, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions (2021) – Get Me Out Of Here

Released: 1st July
Seen: 10th October

Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions Info

Over the last few years, it appears that one of the big things in horror movies is “What if escape rooms were actually deadly?”. No, not like in the Saw films where you have deadly traps in rooms you need to escape, but literal escape rooms with puzzles to solve and if you don’t solve them fast enough you will die somehow.

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October 1, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Free Guy (2021) – GOTY Material

Released: 12th August
Seen: 29th September

The video game movie is obscenely hard to get right, some might suggest that it’s impossible because once you remove the players’ ability to influence the action then you fundamentally change the story to the point where any adaptation just won’t work… I’d suggest it’s just because the people making movies don’t know anything about video games other than they make money, so why not make a movie about them.

Things can go horribly wrong, from the story not suiting the game (Hi Sonic) to the actors being horribly cast (Super Mario Brothers… both live action and the upcoming animated versions honestly. Seriously, Chris Pratt is Mario, that’s a thing that’s happening), it’s so easy to screw up. Then along comes Free Guy to do a video game movie absolutely perfectly.

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September 26, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Bad Girls (2021) – Talking About Bad Girls

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

The gloriously unsubtle is basically the bread and butter of the Sydney Underground Film Festival (which, by the time you read this, will possibly be finished for the year). Every time I’ve gone to see what they’re showing, most of their films are some level of bonkers, no ifs ands or buts. Well, it looks like someone’s stealing the show and decided to be the most bonkers thing around… ok second most bonkers, you can’t top Ninja Badass.

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September 10, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Fast & Furious 9 (2021) – Deliciously Dumb

Released: 17th June
Seen: 9th September

Remember when the Fast & Furious franchise was just about underground car racing? Remember the early films that were just about this cop who infiltrated an underground racing ring? Feels so long ago, now they’ve turned into superhero films but with cars instead of superpowers where every movie has some giant cataclysmic world-ending event that can only be stopped by Vin Diesel doing a really sick burnout off the top of a skyscraper. It’s the dumbest movie franchise and it is just endlessly fun almost because it is so spectacularly dumb. Now we’re up to Fast & Furious 9 and god damn it keeps getting dumber and I keep just enjoying its celebration of stellar stupidity.

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September 3, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

The Suicide Squad (2021) – Absolutely Superb

Released: 5th August
Seen: 2nd September

You may have noticed that for a few months not I’ve not been able to do any reviews for films currently in cinema. In fact, the last film I even got to see in a cinema was In The Heights way back in June. Why? Because I live in Australia and I live in a state that’s had such a bad covid infestation that we’ve been in lockdown for over 2 months.

Obviously “Hobbyist reviewer can’t see films in a cinema” is a problem worthy of the tiniest violin in the grand scheme of things but it’s still the reason why I’m about a month late seeing The Suicide Squad and why films like Candyman, Shang Chi, Respect and Free Guy haven’t been reviewed here. If I can somehow rent them, or the lockdown ends soon, I hope to get to them but that’s why this blog is even more out of date than it normally is… but now I’ve seen The Suicide Squad, time to ramble on about how awesome it is.

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