It was a big weekend for the movies, at least for me, and hopefully the box office performs well. There were three releases in the theaters this week, Saw X (10), The Creator, and a new Paw Patrol, plus on Netflix, there was a Wes Anderson short film and three shorts. So I spent more time than usual in the theater this week, and I loved it. I also spent way more money than usual as well. On Monday I saw a special showing of an old studio Ghibli movie, which was $15, because my movie pass did not work for the special event, then on Wednesday, there was an early day showing of The Creator in IMAX, and that is an extra $7, and then on Friday the showing of Saw X that worked best for me was in the 4DX theater, which is also an extra $7, but I am okay with spending my money on movies, obviously!
The Creator was a sci-fi thrill ride that took place on Earth in the future. A.I had taken a prominent role in human society, but there was a nuclear strike on Los Angles, and this got blamed on A.I, so they became persecuted in the U.S, and a war started to find and exterminate them. Colonies of A.I still flourished in other countries. The A.I had one last card to play. They created a super A.I, that would allow them to win the war. Joshua was a part of a mission to find this secret weapon, and he does, but the weapon is a child, named Alphie, and he is unable to kill her, so he takes her with him, and the war wages on as Joshua decides what he is going to do with Alphie.
It is a visual masterpiece to watch. It cost much less than many major blockbusters filled with CGI, and it looked so much better than most of them, but these are not even the visuals I am talking about. The scenery in this film is stunning, and it has a great color pallet. The colors are soft, and it feels like there is constantly a sunset. The A.I people and the robots also looked cool, but I am not a fan of the hole in the side of the heads of the A.I people, it looked fine, but personally it bugs me. The movie itself was a fun time, but it felt like it needed more. It was on the precipice of being something great, but it could not get over the hump, but I was thankful it was as good as it was. When I saw the trailer originally, I had no desire to see it. I thought it was going to be absolutely terrible, but it surprised me. Probably the biggest surprise of the year for me, when I thought something was going to be terrible, and it was not! I saw it in IMAX, and this was unnecessary, mainly because the screen size did not enhance the viewing experience, because it mainly stayed in a smaller format, and the sound was never loud enough to rattle my chest.
Most of the Saw movies are ninety-minute gore fests, that come in hot, and then they throw in a twist at the end for fun. None of them are overly special, but I enjoy them for what they are: bad sadistic movies. So I was surprised to see that the new one was two hours long, and I was expecting it to also be terrible, but it overperformed. The first hour gives the backstory of what is to come. Saw was diagnosed with cancer, and he was attending a cancer support group, where he met a guy, who he ran into later. This time the guy had recovered from his cancer completely, and he told Saw about a special cure that he received in Europe, but the doctor was being persecuted, so he would have to reach out secretly. Saw did, and he went to Mexico to get this experimental surgery, but it ended up being a sham that sucked hundreds of thousands of dollars from Saw’s bank account, and he went out for retribution.
The first half of the movie was the set up for why Saw was going to test these people, and it was a little slow, but it was interesting, because normally Saw does not explain his motive for the people he captures until later, but this time, the audience got to see it happen in real time, and it was egregious. There was only one fake test in the first half. He saw a guy who was about to steal something, and he imagined what he was going to do to the guy, but it was just a fantasy, all the real traps were being saved for later.
The best part of this movie was after the surgery, and Saw is in the park drawing a trap in his journal looking longingly off at beautiful scenery in the distance like an artist drawing a lover. It was a hilarious moment! When the gore came, it was intense. I think Saw is not giving the people enough time to complete the tasks though. Three minutes is just not enough time to cut off your own leg and suck the bone marrow out. He needs to keep in mind the initial panic that people do not want to cut off their own legs. She cut her leg off and was sucking the marrow out, and she literally failed by seconds, and so did the others, so maybe four minutes, so that way the people get the 30 seconds they need to get mentally started on mutilating their own bodies. It is only fair. The people in this movie were scumbags for tricking terminal cancer patients into giving them all their money for a fake cure, so there is no real sympathy for them. The extra money for 4DX was unnecessary, the chair barely ever moved, and I just got sprayed by water a few times when there was blood splatter.
Also, we were blessed with new releases from Wes Anderson, despite him having a release earlier this year, Asteroid City. This was a Netflix exclusive that included a forty-minute mini movie, and three shorter stories that were a little over 15 minutes long. They were all stories from Roald Dahl, and they were incredible. I am a huge Wes Anderson fan, and so to get these was a true gift. His color pallet and set design is not rivaled by anyone. Everything is so meticulously manicured and placed, that I cannot help but dart my eyes around the screen to see all the details, and these films were all super-fast paced. It was like the dialogue had set pace. It was almost musical how consistent the pace of the dialogue was. I also appreciated how they literally read the text word for word, including saying things like they said.
The stories were all enthralling and naturally propulsive, and it was like being drawn into a different world that I wanted to be real so badly. It is hard to pick a favorite of the four! The Rat Man and Poison were the best of the three shorts. Swan was good, but it was not nearly to the level of the others. The 40 minute one was great, because it was the longest, and when they are reading the text, they do it word for word, which might be why they read it so fast, because that is a lot of ground to cover. Honestly, so many people complained about The French Dispatch, that they do not deserve to love these ones. They are very similar, but for some reason, this one has received much more love.
Finally, I went and did my homework for work, and I went and saw the new Paw Patrol. As a preschool teacher, I had heard that multiple of my students were going to see it, so I figured I might as well go see it too. I waited for the late and final showing at seven o’clock, because I figured there would be less people there. At the end of the movie, Sky breaks a massive comet, and she falls to the bottom of the ocean injured, and it would have been perfect to copy the ending of The Dark Knight Rises. Sky Disappears, presumed dead, and one day, Ryder is out in Italy, and he makes eye contact with Sky while she is slurping spaghetti with some other pup, and he nods to her, just like Alfred did to Bruce, but sadly that does not fly in a kids movie.
None of the theatrical movies were great this weekend, but they were enjoyable! I loved getting to go and experience the continuation of a couple of franchises and going to see a new original story in The Creator, plus the fun at home addition of the Anderson films. I do not think I have been to the theaters three times in one week in a while, and none of the films were boring. Out of the four I saw this weekend, the Wes Anderson films on Netflix are a must see, and I would also suggest seeing The Creator in theaters. Also now it is officially Spooktober, so I am ready for the deluge of horror films! I started early this year with my rewatch of all the Friday the 13th films.
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