Mostly great concept, mostly great performances, mostly great visuals, mostly great visceral scares; I wish the overall impression was of the positives adding up instead of the negatives. If it weren’t for a series of phenomenally weird/weirdly phenomenal images toward the end (in a scene most consider to be the film’s biggest misstep, funnily enough), I might have outright disliked this? (Oh, I guess the score’s good. Extra points for the score. The score brings up the score.) More than…

Totally forgot I'd even reviewed this back in 2019, and it turns out I stand by most of it, except the bit where I say Speed Racer is better than The Matrix Reloaded (and that the latter is a "misfire"), and more importantly, the subsequent bit where I say "Jupiter Ascending doesn’t feel like a movie that only the Wachowskis could have made". It's more generic than their typical directorial output, this is true, but that feels more like a…

Liked this ever so slightly more than last time (way back in high school), if only because the book wasn’t as fresh in my mind. I could easily write several thousand words on the deep-rooted problems with Cloud Atlas as a movie, as well as the struggle to reconcile those with its myriad, undeniable successes, but I think I’ve solidified my main issue with the adaptation. David Mitchell’s novel is, underneath all its structural knottiness, not all that interested in being…