Briefly put this is a movie devoid of soul and emotion because it sets up the father and mother as having very deep family issues with the mother straight up wanting to escape her husband and kids but it's all completely magically solved by the end of the movie. At its core that's what's wrong with the movie, it tries to do so much but ends up doing nothing. It tries to be funny, serious, scary and deep all at once with no breathing room and ends up feeling super artificial, like Anne Hathaway's performances, too self aware to actually commit to the subject at hand.

I see a lot of people saying "it's only a dinosaur movie" but that sounds like an excuse from an executive making this movie and this kind of mentality, especially coming from the common people is a detriment to actual criticism. This movie cost 100 million to make and no, they won't pay you for defending its quality. Or lack of.

Is it at least entertaining? No. Visually it's like any other movie of its budget and the audio is just okay but it has nothing to really hook. I saw multiple people at the theater checking their watches throughout the movie. But if looking at dinosaurs for nearly 2 hours is enough for you then I envy you.

I would suggest to not waste the $15 to see it or $30 if seeing it with a friend. There are much better movies to see in a day and age where media is fighting for our attention with endless quality releases.

I'm on a quest to see 100 films in theaters this year, so I've watched a lot of movies throughout 2026. I saw a trailer for The Rivals of Amziah king maybe twice, and both times were a few weeks ago. I was predicting yet another 70's style action drama like Carolina Caroline or Motor City (both of which are in my top 10 of 2026 so far); but as I found out, that doesn't really describe this film. The Rivals of Amziah King has so many twists and turns (I don't want to spoil anything) that it keeps you on edge... but not the way a thriller keeps you on edge. There's a strange warmth to the unpredictability that I can't say I've ever seen before. THE LESS YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS MOVIE GOING INTO IT, THE BETTER.

And it's set to a killer soundtrack. And I don't even like country music! I want the CD.

Matthew McConaughey is going to get a well-deserved Oscar nod for this.

By all means, go see it. I'm an unapologetic fan Nolan's The Odyssey, and if The Odyssey wins Best Picture (as I think it will), I won't complain. But The Rivals of Amziah King has me questioning who I'm going to root for at the Oscars.

The VFX was good, and the story was slightly interesting.

But the characters were so dumb that it made the movie almost unwatchable.

Especially that boy, who constantly got on my nerves! Like, you're literally in a life or death situation, but yeah—let's go chase a dog in the middle of the night. Flawless strategy.

The other characters aren't any better. The town is crawling with dinosaurs, but sure, let's just casually jaywalk without looking behind us or checking our surroundings even once.

It's not like the entire town is packed with man eating deadly animals.

And there's a snake the size of a car inside the house, but somehow, nobody noticed it?

And the ending where they jump into the sphere portal was so infuriating to watch.

The portal could disappear at any second, but yeah, let's hold a full committee meeting to discuss who jumps first! And that boy once again did not disappoint in disappointing me. You know the portal keeps flickering out, so just jump the second it appears instead of taking two to three business days to decide!

If you can ignore all of above mentioned things, maybe you'll enjoy the movie.

And Anne Hathaway looks amazing.

...but

I actually voted for Parasite for Best Picture in 2020.

I thought it won out over 1917 and of course The Irishman as the best film of that year.

But over the years, you keep seeing it voted in the top 10, top 20, or top 30 films of all time now lol.

Like what?

It has actually taught me how the average movie goer comes to overrate a movie. As the Oscars were approaching that year, Obama made a social media post (after he was 3 years out of office) saying that Parasite was the best movie of the year. This is what got me to actually see it tbh. I wanted to see what that kind of hype was about. This was in around November or early December. He commented about some social commentary and criticism about upper class and lower class stuff (of course).

So I watched it and I was impressed. I saw the social commentary, enjoyed the dark humor, and was surprised at the twist when it came.

It was a pretty good movie, therefore. It was certainly my vote above 1917, which I felt was a vapid gimmick with very little depth (which it is), despite being an impressive 1-shot cinematographical achievement, And The Irishman was just not that good to win Best Pic. It was good, but nowhere near Casino, Goodfellas, or The Departed.

But now, it seems like every online discourse and voter list has placed Parasite amongst the Top 20-30 movies of all-time. This is clearly being influenced by the average viewers' need for validation from the Academy (in a year with very little competition for Best Picture) and authority (former President Obama was hyping it up on his much anticipated "Best movies of the year" list).

Again, I voted for it for Best Picture adamantly that year, but "Top 20-30 movies of all-time"? Are you kidding? It's a good, entertaining movie, but it has major issues.

First, the initial violent scene at the end feels unearned and comes out of nowhere. It's just abrupt. Shocking, yes, but earned? No.

Second, the epilogue where we learn the young kid is now living in the basement is majorly anticlimactic and also feels unrealistic and unearned. It's too far fetched and doesn't hit emotionally in any way.

I think the problem with these "twists" is that they don't feel earned. They don't hit hard like say The Sixth Sense or Seven do. Yes, they are entertaining and unexpected, but ultimately they are meaningless in that it feels like they are just there for "shock value" rather than earned like in Sixth Sense and Seven. As such, they are ultimately forgettable. You never really see Parasite mentioned in movie requests, for example on this site, on movies with a twist.

As for the social commentary, it has its' merits, but it ultimately still lacks an emotional punch. Looking back the most memorable scenes for me were when the house maid surprisingly returns home and the daughter is doing her thing with the doorbell. Most of the rest of it is forgettable.

See, when you talk about a "Top 10-20 or even 30" movie of all-time, you are talking about a movie that has specific scenes that are so good and unforgettably classic, that they really stand out. Think The Good, the Bad and the Ugly climax, or the end of Shawshank Redemption or The Godfather, or think about even Pulp Fiction or Forrest Gump. Heck, I'm not even a big fan of Fight Club, but I will concede it had classic scenes in it that stand out. Obviously, think Goodfellas and Seven or LotRs trilogy (listing here some IMDB and other lists' top movies consensusly on film critic sites).

Parasite is a good movie, but it is incredibly overrated. Glazing over the sudden nonsensical violence and the anticlimactic ending as if the movie is so perfect it is a definite top 20-30 of all-time feels like people influenced for reasons other than true film merits.

Now, remember, a true masterpiece like Ben Hur (1959) is (today) nowhere to be found in top 20 lists on any aggregate sites, even though it's undeniably a masterpiece. To have a movie like Parasite so far ahead of it is completely delusional. Regarding comparing Ben Hur, the same can be said for lots of movies, like Fight Club, too. But to consider Parasite such a far better film and top 30 of all-time without question, completely glazing it, feels like some sort of group-think brainwashing.

Thank you for listening to my film review Ted Talk.

Hi! I recently went to see the new Toy Story movie, and I LOVED IT SO MUCH! I thought it was really accurate in showing why my generation spends so much time on our devices. I really liked all of the characters, and I was completely focused on the cinema screen the entire time. It was such an enjoyable movie, and I definitely recommend watching it! When I was little, like Bonnie, I was also bullied because I didn’t use my phone, and I was with my toys all my childhood, so I was also bullied to stay on my iPad/phone. So it’s very accurate! My favorite character is Bonnie. Somepeople need to remeberer that its a CHILDREN MOVIE so if YOU dont find it FUN its normal. I think its will be my favorite movie now

***spoilers*** This review will contain spoilers.

I'll start off by saying I'm not a fanboy nor a shill. I've frequently disliked J.J. Abrams' movies and projects, but I've liked quite a few too — Overlord, Cloverfield and its sequels, Star Trek was fun though nothing special. As for the shill part, my bank account speaks for itself.

I consumed no pre-release marketing, went in relatively blind, and actually enjoyed it despite some obvious issues. To be fair, I typically enjoy anything with big lizards, from Godzilla to Jurassic Park — this being about dinosaurs doesn't give it an automatic 10/10 for me though. I loved Godzilla 2014 and Minus One, but I felt the post-KOAM stuff dropped hard into studio slop. That content has its place as mindless fun, I just don't rewatch it or think about it after.

Identity crisis, but a fun one

TEOOS didn't know if it wanted to be science fiction, family drama, or creature horror. It didn't do a terrible job at any of them, but not a great job either. Put them all together and it's a fun watch ... as long as you don't take it too seriously.

My gripes

•The "I want to leave you because you're working too much" trope

•Poor character decisions in general

•A random LGBTQ+ relationship dropped in between what reads as a middle-school-aged girl and a graduating student, set in the '80s, with zero setup

•Greg not finishing off the Allosaurus. The sledgehammer clearly had enough force to knock it out, I wouldn't have stopped until it brains were mashed. That said, it was a genuinely sobering moment when the movie slowed down and the stakes started to feel less real.

The kids in general drove me up a wall, though their bad decisions tracked as kids make dumb calls without thinking through consequences all the time. But why did the sister not tell the parents her brother had gone missing instead of disappearing after him herself?

The ending is the best part of this movie

This is the part nobody's talking about enough. Anne Hathaway's character willingly sacrifices the past version of herself and the kids for a second chance which imo seals it: she's the villain by the end. She traded their survival to paper over her own guilt about the relationship. We know they didn't make it, because there's no second set of them showing up asking "hey, what the fuck?" That's a nice, fucked up little bow on the movie, and it's darker than anything else in it.

What actually worked

The pace never felt too slow or too fast, it plodded along in a pleasing way. I liked how the characters had an accurate lack of situational awareness, that's a real hallmark of people in emergencies, hyperfixating on one thing instead of keeping their head on a swivel. The cinematography wasn't muted or washed out, which was refreshing, and the dino design was great. The stakes felt real as the family fought for survival while setting aside their pettier differences.

It wasn't trying to be hard sci-fi you get about the same amount of information as the characters do, which is a radio talking about temporal waves. The daughter isn't a fully-fledged astronomer, just a kid interested in the pre-internet-information era, which is why there's no deep breakdown of the phenomenon causing all this.

I don't fully get the hate this is getting, and a lot of the complaints I've seen feel petty and pedantic. You're free to disagree — that's fine, I just landed somewhere different.

As a whole, Odyssey was one of the best movies of this genre I've ever seen and I can say that the IMAX ticket, and getting scammed on drinks, was worth it 100% and I can rate it a perfect 10/10.

This post is about a poor casting choice that was taking me out of the story and had me thinking about the acting. Maybe I watched too many romcoms, but Anne Hathaway is simply not the person to play an ancient, mysterious grieving Greek queen waiting for her hero husband.

I know there was a lot of things said about Lupita Nyong'o, but I found her absolutely brilliant to watch as both Helen and her twin, and she completely fit the aesthetic of the movie. Anne on the other hand couldn't deliver passionate dialogue (which was not well written for her to be fair) with her type of voice and presence.

To state a specific example, her dialogue with Telemachus about remarrying near the end of the movie went from calm speech to her whispershouting to full on screaming without any particular change in body language. I don't think a "yell and storm out" scene is in place in a movie like this, almost seemed like a soap opera.

In my opinion, Anne is seeking these roles to gain Hollywood rep and wants to seem like she has more range than she actually does. To end this, I want to state that this is not an attack on Anne as a person. I just wasn't happy about the casting choise while I was watching the movie, which was the only bad thing i could probably say about it, so I might've focused on it more than I should. ¨

Please let me know your thoughts.

EDIT: My rating of a 10/10 is mainly connected to my IMAX theatre experience, take it with a grain of salt please ;)

I hesitated to tag it as “science fiction” since it insults the intelligence of any sci fi fan over the age of 14, but I guess it’s most fitting.

I just got home from watching it, so bear with me as the frustration is fresh. From the glaring paradoxical plot hole that is the ending of the film, to the fact that everyone had the survival instincts of wet farts, the short hour forty minute run time even felt like a grind.

The SUPER half baked subplots, like a gay daughter who likes astronomy (which NEVER actually comes into play) and a son who I was desperately hoping would die eventually with how fucking whiny he was, I eventually realized I didn’t care what happened to anyone.

Did anyone wonder how THAT many carnivores would be able to exist within such a small area? That would be like jumping into a random part of the ocean and coming across 2000 20 foot great whites by happenstance. Also, did we forget that the composition of the air during the time of dinosaurs was actually mostly poisonous to human life, yet not even a cough from anyone? How about the need for everyone to walk down the middle of streets and in almost no cover, all while screaming peoples names and making themselves the biggest targets they possibly could. Maybe the 100 foot Python thing that can go down stairs without even a whisper when I can’t walk down a modern staircase without waking an entire house with the creaks? Why the fuck did the basement flood?

I could go on and on, but I will finish with this one. What was the supposed “timing” of the portal they were trying to get. They stood there for 5 minutes watching it and then started counting as if they were trying to get through the furnaces on the Rock. Bitch, you don’t know if there’s a pattern, just fucking jump.

Terrible, terrible movie. If you must watch it, stream it when it’s a part of when of your existing services.

Not looking for hot takes about bad movies. I mean the ones that are genuinely well made, everyone around you rates them, and you sat there waiting for it to click and it never did.

Mine is Dune (2021). I went in expecting to love it. It looks incredible, the score is great, and I understand exactly why people rate it so highly. But it felt like two and a half hours of setup for a film that then just stops, and I never really got attached to anyone in it. Everyone I know told me it gets going in Part Two, which might be true, but I am not sure a film should need a sequel to justify itself.

The strange part is that I cannot even argue it is bad. Everything on screen is clearly done with care. It just did nothing for me, and that bothers me more than a film I can properly dislike.

What's yours, and did you ever go back and give it a second chance?

From the big city cop finding himself in a small “family values” style town, to the sweet little shop owner trying to blow him away with a shotgun.

I’m not hating, there’s a million movies that do stuff similarly it’s just it popped out to me super quick. The one trend of the past ten years I DONT understand is the need to jam the goofy Oedenkirk down our throats as an action hero time and again. The whole “Nobody” movie vibe was quirky and unique-ish at the time. But with the sequel and then this flick, it’s like someone thought he fit a Neeson build, but that’s a big swing and miss. There’s a reason the popularity of each subsequent film dropped precipitously.

This movie is entertaining and I am ever supportive of keeping run times in the hour thirty realm. Some cheesy dialogue but it fits and the pseudo-Die Hard 2 winter storm feel plays well and probably was even better when this movie originally came out.

You’ll watch it once. You’ll say “OK”, then in 2 months you’ll forget about it and in 5 years as it makes the rounds on all the free streaming platforms you’ll be like “did I see this?”

While easily better than the recent entries in the Jurassic World series, The End of Oak Street just misses out on being the next classic dinosaur survival thriller. It was alright, albeit a bit basic. While The plot is kinda predictable, there are a few good twists and shocks scattered in. I felt the length was good for this film as it never really drags. Michael Giacchinos score is phenomenal and feels like a combination of his score from Tomorrowland and LOST. That said, there is definitely some bad in this movie. There is this underlying family drama plot that just feels underdeveloped. I'm also not a big fan of how the dinosaurs look. The feathers are fine, but some of the dinos just looked off. The plot is occasionally moved forward by stupid character decisions and needless conflict with other family members. Honestly, you could wait for this to hit streaming before seeing it.

I’m a known whore for PlutoTV, and this week they put 8 Mile in rotation. On watching it again for the first time in at least 15 years, I couldn’t help apply my own life to the lessons of Rocky, Rabbit, and the American Dream.

In Rocky’s 1970s Philadelphia, physical prowess, training, and violence creates winners. Grit and determination, sure, but at the end of the day you gotta have a reach and width of someone like Sylvester Stallone taking weird ass experimental 70s steroids to get to a place like that.

Philadelphia is reeling from the loss of the steel industry across the state, the fracking boom is still generations away, and in an American city with almost no economic ladders left the only option left is to fight your way out.

Meanwhile, in 8-Mile Eminem plays himself as a small-statured, but creatively obsessed writer who also uses battle, the act of a 1v1 ring fight where two men enter and only one leaves, as his opportunity to ascend through the ranks of a 1990s America that’s to rewarded every major city in the country with Clintonian riches, except Detroit.

Detroit is crumbling, decimated by the influx of cheaper, more reliable, higher-quality cars from Germany, Japan, and South Korea over the previous 40 years. At the same time we watch Rabbit take his commute home, and a soundtrack plays over real shots from real streets in a city that had been all but forgotten by time and economic purpose.

Yada yada, the hero struggles and transforms and you bet your ass there’s a dope montage and he triumphs victorious etc etc.

I just thought it was interesting to connect the two because in some ways, it shows our evolution as a viewing public.

What does any authority figure tell you when you hit someone as a kid?

“Use your words.”

8-Mile was the movie for a newer generation with much higher rates of literacy than the 1970s, and the battle wasn’t about physical domination. Since WWII America had lost Korea, Vietnam, and barely made it out of Iraq the first time. The idea of American exceptionalism being a pure expression of physical force was degrading, and the new era called for cleverness above all else.

Education, literacy, the ability to understand English with its many entendres and turns of phrase was the new battlefield. Intelligence above all else. If we can’t punch our way out of it, we’ll have to think this thing through instead.

As a writer, the quote from Hamilton always hits hardest: “I wrote my way out.”

Whether it’s code, prose, raps, or beats, writing your way out used to mean something in this country. But since AI scraped and stole every piece of art ever published on the web with zero repercussions, I guess we’ll have to see what comes next.

9-Mile: The AI rap battle? Is that a thing.

I have always been a great admirer of the liminal spaces and cosmic horror genre in whichever formats they appear. Consequently, I had really enjoyed Kane Pixel's Backrooms series on youtube which supposedly served as the conceptual and thematic foundations for the movie. I loved the series primarily because at least in my opinion no other piece of work has existed up until then that comes close to it in terms of treating the concept of liminality and "uncanny structures" as the core driving force of its story or theme. However, having watched the movie it certainly does not seem to be the case for it.

Here's what I think are the shortcomings of the film:

1. The backrooms is only secondary.

In the movie, the backrooms is portrayed as a tool to understand human trauma, and not as the primary subject/focus of the film. Now it certainly can be argued for arguments' sake that the film does not explicitly set out to do this. But everything surrounding from how Clark discovers the Backrooms and later the therapist gets to see its operational properties says otherwise. The film even opens with a monologue about "habits", "loops" and how the "untrained mind" eventually finds itself trapped because of them.

As the movie progresses further we get to know a lot more about the characters and the positions in their respective stages of trauma. Whether the film gives us adequate information about the characters or if it is efficient in communicating them to its audience is a different matter in and of itself, however the deeper problem from having set the backrooms as a "means of catharsis" for the human protagonist(s), is that as we start to know more and more about the characters in the film we inadvertently are knowing more about the backrooms itself, which I think goes against the very concept of liminality and the backrooms.

The youtube series avoids falling into this trap by literally and figuratively having no protagonist. Or a protagonist that serves as a blank canvas. In the series he is a random youtuber who stumbles upon something artificial and exotic. And he goes in to explore this vast unsettling place in the middle of nowhere and because he carries absolutely no emotional baggage or trauma the audience has zero expectations or inclinations to paint the exotic and unsettling backrooms in any manner whatsoever further personifying it.

2. The backrooms do not feel endless

Maybe its because there's very little actual exploration of backrooms but even then there isn't that sense of melancholy and hopelessness that comes with the feeling of being trapped in it. I think this partly has to do with the fact that Clark can always find his way back to the store and the only reason he is "drawn" to explore it besides its absurdity is his own traumatic past. But a big chunk of it I think comes down to them going down the "generative ai" aspect of it all.

Newer sections of the backrooms feel very different from the previous ones and their boundaries are quite sharp and because a significant chunk of the exploration happens while the protagonists are in distress or when they are being chased by the pirate make these transitions abrupt and jarring. They break the immersion of being in an endless repetitive maze. Though whenever they switched to the found footage mode the aspect ratio certainly helped to curb the generative ai shenanigans that felt a bit over the top at times. They seemed to rely a bit too much on these oddities to bring the unsettling nature out of the backrooms when in fact the liminality should have brought it on by itself.

3. Changing protagonists

For the the better part of the first half we have the POV of Clark the furniture salesman. Then for a little while it shifts to include Clark and his assistants as they set out to "research" the backrooms. Then it abruptly ends and shifts towards the therapist. For any other genre of horror this isn't a big deal but in the case of backrooms this prevents us from witnessing the effects the backrooms have on a singular individual over the course of a long duration of time. Everything seems to happen in a matter of days even though Clark has spent quite some time down there. The final act with the therapist starting from the moment she enters the backrooms to the finally being rescued by Async feels so rushed and seems to happen during the course of a single day. Now mind you this is another person who is having to go through the introductory phase all over again to repeatedly see the same cycle of "awe, horror, curiosity...". Instead if we just focused on the POV of a single protagonist we could have avoided repetitive emotional responses, have prior reference to know how the protagonist reacts, plus would have forced the makers to explore newer sections.

I have many more smaller details to nitpick but many have already been repeated in some posts here, one good one being how they changed no-clipping to a door essentially making the backrooms an extension of the store. I think this really had an effect in making the backrooms feel a little less unnerving than it could have been, since in the back of the mind there's always an escape route back home.

The movie certainly is unique in exploring a novel concept and an alternative form of horror so I will give it that but it certainly feels like the uniqueness ends right there. The concept of backrooms was used as a hook and an entry point while still relying on tried and tested tropes, human drama, malevolent/dangerous entities, etc etc to elicit horror. The backrooms served merely as a host for these actual agents of horror and any effect it had by itself in producing the same is trivial and secondary at best.

Stop confusing a great ancient story with a vacuous film adaptation.

Many viewers, especially the unfamiliar, are projecting their enlightened reverence for Homer’s epic onto this movie, but we need to stop confusing iconic source material with a substantive adaptation. This particular film has nothing new to offer. Instead of leaning into the universal truth of the myth, it trades a timeless spiritual journey for formulaic structure and cheap spectacle. Loving The Odyssey shouldn't shield a movie that fundamentally misunderstands what makes a quest powerful in the first place. I’m not arguing that this story has a correct interpretation, I’m claiming that Nolan approached it with no ideological integrity, rather than bringing it into the biggest screen possible, fulfilling a childhood dream of his.

The film’s fatal flaw is opening at Ithaca and constantly returning to it. The Odyssey doesn’t amount to an adventure towards a fixed destination; its beauty is in the process. By beginning at home, under the guise of an explanatory prologue, the movie marks it as the target coordinate, sets a GPS, and completely destroys the evocative experience of finally returning with Odysseus, as a viewer. Penelope represents the unattainable, dreamt-of wife. Her missing him isn't half as narrative-defining as his agonizing journey to reach her and their son. Revealing both of them early strips away the endless longing.

By cluttering the scope with political implications and underdeveloped family subplots, the stakes vanish to the point where you almost wish another obstacle would block his path just to avoid the suitors mess. The storytelling should have departed from absolute nowhere, staying strictly by Odysseus’s side to capture his internal breakage, his pride, and the emotional toll of war. Distorting the timeline and breaking the travel line reduces a universal epiphany down to a basic fable’s ending: reclaim the throne, see the wife. It deprived a deeper character exploration, an actual internal metamorphosis.

Beyond its structural errors, the movie repeatedly descends into a thin visual direction and bloated action. Most scenes lack a true cinematographic vision, settling for documentary footage from multiple angles rather than constructing frames that speak. Combat is dragged out into generic blockbusters. The twenty-minute battle against the silver warriors becomes pure brutal violence for the sake of violence, completely missing the true tragedy: the loss of Odysseus’s men lying in their blood on the shore, which was only shown briefly instead of focused on the mourning. Similarly, the final battle where he kills the suitors is severely long, continuing after it achieves its objective.
I’ve got the impression that besides a few evocative moments(Circe’s monologue, Sinon at Hades, Trojan Horse burning in Troy), the film is afraid of being vulnerable. Any implication is secondary to the next event. Instead of diving inside, it expands outwards, insisting on grandiosity rather than poignancy.

Everything leads us back to Nolan’s most persistent problem: stating the obvious. His writing is achingly transparent. Dialogues that read like an explicit description rather than inevitable stream of consciousness(it’s not the modernity; but the phrasing). Each striking visual beat is immediately cut by shallow commentary. The supposedly “profound takeaways” beg for you to notice them. Nolan always rely on pseudo-intellectualism to hold his movies together, because his scripts simply can’t. The introspection doesn’t get to maturity, the magnitude outweighs the meaning, and eventually none of it lasts. He clearly has passion for the material, but he had nothing poetic to add to it. Nolan is a capturer at heart, not a releaser. He knows how to aesthetically please, but can’t penetrate the screen.

The Odyssey is a pompous IMAX gimmick. It comes across as an elitist attempt at art.

Edit: Thank you! Leave your complaints under the doormat please.

Second edit: Many of you seem to imply that I have no alternatives. Here are my suggestions:

- We don’t meet Penelope or Telemachus until Odysseus arrives, and we’re surprised with him to see the downfall of the kingdom, which is filled with barbaric suitors. It effectively removes the whole trip to Sparta.

- Less action and more dealing with the repercussions of it; the crew isn’t just hungry, they discuss what home even means to them. They rely on eachother, exchange personal anecdotes, memories, contemplations. We see the gradual transition from post-Troy glorious warriors into broken soldiers.

- More comprehensive appearances from Athena, that serves a crucial moral duty for Odysseus.

- Deep dive into the haunting nightmares of Odysseus with Calypso, putting together piece by piece the Trojan Horse story, without giving it to us straight. Darker, emorphic tone.

- Salvaging philosophical themes from the sea, it’s not a prop. As it is, the story is limited by itself.

There’s a difference between inspired filmography, and those illustrative montages that you see on the History channel, only meant to demonstrate the events. This movie mostly falls to the latter category.

[Spoiler Alerts]

I think there were a few things wrong with the movie- so i actually walked out an hour early. It was late anyway, though i wasn't tired. I saw it in an IMAX even, the so called Laser Imax. Even before i went, when I had some higher expectations because my counsellor friend told me i would like it-- i still called it- the theater experience "platos cave"- going to watch projected shadows on the screen in a dark room.

So here's why my review is different and deeper- I couldn't care less about the race or ethnicity or trans-status of the actors as casted, nor even about historicity and faithfulness to the original poem. It is NOT about everything virtually every other critical reviewer yammers about but their EMOTIONAL PRESENCE and ACTING ABILITY. I can best explain by counter example- or loaded questioning.

Where are the likes of people Brian Cox, Eric Bana? Where is Sean Bean who played Ulixes in Troy of 2004 - which would have been good casting. Where are these type of guys, or even Russel Crowe or Mel Gibson or Joaquin Phoenix, or the guy who played Priam?

No one had precense, or even emotional continence. They had to externalize every thought and feeling they had the whole time. They had the 'tough guy' Menalaus- a fall from Brendan Gleeson's troy rendition- and had him get into a petty argument at the dinner banquet, a battle of wills or of seething resentment with his wife Helen and having him justify in front of guests why he did what he did. If the story (myth) indicates there's argument or criticism of characters, they can do it better, more wtih less. I actually just saw Devil Wears Prada for this first time this year, flying over the ocean, and started watching the 2026 sequel. My excuse and justification for bringing that up is that Ann Hathaway features in there like she plays Penelope- one of the better characters in Odyssey but mostly for lack of competition- though she is alright but in Devil Wears Prada she and Streep are great- they show continence- they do [much] more with [much] less. They are not infantile- in fact they are super-adult. Not to knock NY or elite professionals there- that is a tough world but one might expect a movie about Troy and the Odyssey to be the stronger tougher one- that but i guess it might be a mass appeal and accessibility thing- but then why has culture changed to necessitate this when movies of the last 100 years have even taught us how to be stable- look at Brando's Godfather or whatnot-- and look at the flack Sonny gets for 'expressing what he thinks' to Sollazo with a mere question of curiosity. I'm just trying to bring a small amount flack into the current era. This

There is no one like the man who played Priam, let alone Todd Armstrong or Michael Gwynn, who played Jason and Hermes respectively in Jason and the Argonauts from 63

Related - there's a lot of moralizing, self righteusness and then constant caving by the main characters- take Circe who turns the guys into swine. Such moralizing followed by apologizing- the recurring pattern- another modern western anachronism. I get that this may be for modern western accessibility so that people can identify with it but I don't know what changed, and it means they lose me- this viewer. Even before i went i felt like it was a chore- because i thought i should make time to see it in the famous IMAX (btw i'm only in my 40s- not a boomer) and I did get a little excited as it got closer to showing but i feel like movies are largely a joke- film is a joke or has not much of value to provide me- not in theater anyway. There are sometimes good things and maybe this is a function of changes both in me and in the industry but the industry has fallen i'm sure. It has fallen and when the bow breaks the cradle will fall. Makers of men; creators of leaders.. Sorry i got carried away by Al Pacinos speech in scent of a woman.

I'm not demanding perfection or what we had before but the casting is just emo and the scripting has everyone apologizing for everything always or justifying, and the others moralizing and presenting as wise when they don't prove that fact to me, to the viewer.  

Another little thing that bothered me or that i noticed. It is not a movie that tries to draw you into its world by earning it- they had chances and it was high budget and great locations- but to force its world onto you, through noises, sounds, shakes etc- what i get just living where i live in a multifamily with construction around me. that is a fair approach but it has to earn it a little at least and not follow up with emotionality and sentimentality where i feel stabbed in the back. In contrast to trying to force itself into your mind with mindless 'action' sequences that do little for engaging me, and i don't expect it to be as extreme(ly amazing) as Jason and the Argonauts- I loved the scene that was very very short near the beginning where they showed the boat sailing westerward into the setting sun. That was beautiful and they showed it twice but briefly before they cut scened it to odysseus and penelope talking, emoting in bed. They could have lingered a bit longer- or a lot longer- especially since sailing is the vast majority of what they have to do. I'm actually reading a book on the birth of the athenian navy.

If you can summarize this review, tldr

1. I get that he tries to make it accessible but its over the top if i am to judge and if i am to not judge, it loses me- and i only went on recommendation from a trusted female friend, and so be it

2. Where is the Brian Cox like figure, Eric Bana, Priam and the like? Ya pin prick one of these current guys and they crumble. they guilt trip too. I didn't talk about that. Psychologists and sociologists would have a field day with this but NOBODY reviews things like this. They just talk politics and culture wars. They miss the bigger picture. "Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one who ___"--- channeling Walter from the Big Lebowski now.

Verdict: overaccessibility killed. too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Μηδὲν ἄγαν - "Nothing in Excess"

Writing on bench at mall while waiting my wife shopping for a hoodie.

- Actions were good. I've heard the director going to direct Naruto live action adaptation. Most the actions seems like a template for ninja fighting style where i guess he try to warm up the idea for next project.

- The movie seems about Peter Parker how some kind a Nega mode where theres a darker version of him but i thought he should he could go beyond more extreme.

- The stories kinda one dimensions. I don't know what i meant by this trying to be clever but what im saying i can't feel any spectacular by this movie and everything felt artificial.

- Feels bad for Hulk because for a character where i guess among the strongest from Marvel treated like a some plot device for every movie he appeared in.

I want to wrote more but i need to go poop. And one more i don't know how to rate a movie but I'll edit later for my verdict.

Let’s start with the good.

- This is a mid-budget, original IP with a 90~ minute runtime. You don’t see a lot of those anymore.

- Anne Hathaway did her best with the script she was handed.

…That’s really all I have. I wonder if I saw the same movie as all the reviewers.

This movie is trying to simultaneously be a fun, action-adventure popcorn flick while also being a heartfelt family drama. It fails hilariously at both, it simply does not have the heart of the 80’s and 90’s films that the movie is clearly trying to pay homage to.

The End of Oak Street is maybe the most underwhelming IMAX experience I have ever had. The CGI is nowhere near good enough in most scenes to break the illusion that I’m watching a movie, the soundtrack and sound design are not interesting, and the majority of shots are focused on the boring suburbia rather than the far more interesting prehistoric jungle.

There are a small handful of good action scenes, but on the whole, the movie is far too expository for its own good, and the action is typically unexciting.

So, it fails as an action movie. What do we have left?

The most underwritten family drama of the year with completely phoned-in performances. The drama between Hathaway and Mcgregor’s characters is not terrible in concept but there is just not enough material here for anyone to care, and Mcgregor reading lines off a teleprompter doesn’t help in that department.

The kids in the story are even more underdeveloped. The audience is given no reason at all to care for their sibling dynamic, or the girl next door, or the melodrama with the dog. Add in a handful of throwaway characters who similarly lack depth, and this film fails at being a family drama as well.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills regarding this movie. It is a 2/5 at the absolute most for me, seeing all the high praise is shocking. It’s neither a fun action movie nor a touching drama, and you’ll probably forget the whole thing on the car ride home.

The End of Oak Street is one of those movies where I can see the many flaws but because of the chaotic nature of it, I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. I’ve always thought that dinosaurs have so much potential and I’m at the very least happy to see them given a chance outside of the Jurassic franchise. The film does well to push the boundaries of a 12a certificate to make a family film that has a bit of bite! Anne Hathaway is having quite the year!

For my full thoughts feel free to check my profile! What are your opinions on the film?

Well, I went to see this film because of the dinosaurs, and some reviews claimed that it was more than they expected. Well, I didn’t have very high expectations, so this ended up being a below-average experience for me. That said, it’s not a bad film. The storyline is quite different from any previous dinosaur movie we’ve seen, and I actually liked that.
I also want to mention that I didn’t really feel like we can compare this film to the Jurassic Park/World franchise. The treatment is completely different, and I really appreciated the way this movie was made.