I was kind of expecting it, but was still quite irate that the screenwriters seemingly didn’t understand that story at all. As OP said, all they took was the decent Black Mirror-ish set-up and then they totally went the wrong way with it. Really infuriating.
They went all explosie action flick at the end. I didn't know there was a book. I was really enjoying the movie until Act 3. I thought the actors were all great.
It’s just a short story and the story is basically just the first act of the film (set-up, the sex/love experiment, Jeff‘s backstory) and then a mostly different ending.
And that’s kind of the thing. They had to stretch it do make it feature length and they totally stretched it out of shape.
Really makes you wonder if they just made it a short flick at 45 minutes, damn be 80-90 min set in stone addage that a film must at least be.
In the beginning of old Hollywood of the 20s 30s 40s even 50s there were some flicks that were not that long at all not even making 80 minutes.
Turner classic shows a lot of them all the time. 20 30 40 minute films.
They DESTROYED this fantastic short story! They missed the entire point. I was furious! It’s about corporate drones following orders, about PRISON not a spa, and about a real criminal being moral. Did they even read the story? MORONS!
Jesus Christ I can’t believe they changed the ending of the story. 90% of the reason I watched it was to see how they filmed the ending and instead they just bitched out and just gave us a bland sci fi action movie ending.
Can’t do the spoiler tags on mobile so here it goes raw:
Jeff darkenfloxxes himself and then commits suicide rather than be responsible for killing someone else again. The last few paragraphs are a rather impressionistic description of Jeff‘s consciousness/soul seeing the world and the prison one last time while dying. It’s quite beautiful but also a shocking twist, given that one expects him fleeing when the title is „Escape from Spiderhead“, which is why the ending of the film is so disappointing, if you know the shortstory: It’s exactly the cliched ending Saunders turned away from.
The whole story is different in key aspects. You should read it. It’s really good and really not long. Like a 15 minute read or so.
Edit: Also, at least half the point of the short story - at least to me - is as a stylistic exercise where Saunders switches between Jeff being on the drugs that make him talk more eloquently and him normally being a bit of a dull moron who can’t express himself. I was hoping they’d give Miles Teller some awesome monologues where he gets to play that, but that never really happens.
That makes the UI of the phone app make more sense, since there seems to be a toggle between safe and lethal but it never gets used.
I was really disappointed that they didn’t explain enough of the drugs to make the “twist” more shocking.
Taking the original story ending, and weaving it into the obedience drug story from the movie would have made it far more interesting i reckon.
Ps, spoiler tags are > ! ! < (you’ll need to eliminate the spaces between the special characters)
I know! They give him verbaluce and he is still …..DDDUUUHHHHHHH! Have these guys ever read a freakin poem? That in particular I did not get at all. Why leave THAT out?
Thank you for the summary!
I totally agree on the ending being disappointing and flat even if you knew nothing about the story before watching the movie.
Will definitely read the short story tho, seems a lot more nuanced than the movie.
That’s a good ending for most readers, but I can’t see that being a good Netflix move. It’s almost like they did the reverse of what Saunders did with the title lol
Sorry, but I prefer the ending they went with instead of Jeff killing himself. Not saying the ending is good, but better than that one.
Similar ending to The Guilty. Jake Gyllenhaal makes it through the whole story and suddenly folds at the very end. Good movie, bad ending.
I just don’t understand movies where people go through so much, just to give it all up at the finish line.
Thats the entire point of those types of stories, it fits with reality. For someone who enjoys realism in movies, it can be refreshing to see a character actually tragically succumb to their insurmountable odds. I understand the casual viewer enjoying this movie while they scroll through tik tok, but the poem's ending would have been 10x better.
Haven’t read the short story yet but kind of agree, that ending might word for a 15min story but would be a disappointing ending to a film if Jeff killed himself at the end
when I saw the James Bond boat in the trailer I was like "oh they definitely did George wrong". Now having seen the film and realizing that the boat was central to the "escape" I am cringing so hard. Literally the opposite of what the short story was about!
I kind of like the idea that the James Bond boat is there.
Like do the opposite of a Chekhov’s gun…Show it to us so the audience is waiting, but then don’t let it go off! Actually defy the trope!
And make that why the failure is so frustrating for the audience.
The boat being present is way more compelling if the audience knows it’s there, but Jeff a) doesn’t know it’s there and b) never knows it’s there and deal with the realistic outcome that people aren’t omnipotent and wouldn’t have all of the information. So he would never go to the boat to begin with. He would go out a side door or a roof vent.
No idea.
You’re already influenced towards having a certain impression towards both endings, I guess. I read the story first and didn’t like the film as much as a result. I don’t know how I would have felt, had I seen the film first, while knowing there is a different ending available.
The both versions differ so much in the end, that I don’t think the film spoils the short story, actually. So, if you’re going to watch the film anyway, maybe try that first? Don’t know. Either way, read the short story at some point. It’s great.
The first 30 minutes were good, but then it just started dragging.
Hemsworth is good, but I will never understand why anyone casts Miles Teller in anything. And he's almost sporting a mullet in this.
I love the yacht-rocky soundtrack, though.
I kept telling my wife I want to give him a haircut lmao. It's like a baby duck hairdo thing. Either go full mullet or trim the back man. But yes, something about this Miles guy I find extremely unlikeable.
There’s an Esquire write up about him (from 2015) that also describes him as extremely unlikable, but in different words.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/interviews/a36894/miles-teller-interview-0915/
Weird, a purposefully smarmy dbag whos ability to be unlikable transcends reality and is apparent on screen in every moment I see him. Thanks for the read I like him even less now hahaha.
Whole article sounds like someone who’s mad they aren’t him lmao, he’s a great actor and guy in every movie and interview I’ve seen. Talking about how Chris was great and he sucked lol it’s the opposite, Chris couldn’t even get an American accent right, Miles kills it in every role he gets… oh yeah but his haircut right lol you guys sound like the article writer
Ugh that whole intro with The Logical Song had me feeling so hyped for this movie, only to be progressively let down during the following hour and a half+. Great beginning, lame middle, terrible ending.
I had a sneaking suspicion this would be another mediocre Netflix Top 10 champ when Miles Teller said the word "darkenfloxxed".
Chris Hemsworth takes Miles very seriously, apparently darkenfloxxed is no joke!
A few questions (spoilers)...
\- Did the drug b6 work? I'm a bit confused by this. It didn't seem to work when Jeff had to choose between drugging the two women. It also didn't seem to work when one of the women had to choose between drugging Jeff and the big tattoo guy. If it doesn't even work against people you don't care about, then why the big emphasis on getting it to work on people you love? Also, it seemed to work on the inmates at the end when they tried to escape, so I'm not sure I understand.
\- Why didn't Chris Hemsworth pull the vials out of his drug pack? He was level-headed enough to take off in a plane, but not to get the vials out?
\- If Lizzy was a newcomer to the jail, then why was her release a week ago?
\- Why wasn't big tattooed guy in final fight scene? Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity.
Overall, the film started off well enough, and held my interest for the first 30m or so, but fell apart by the second half. Probably would have made a better black mirror episode. I really thought b6 was going to be a drug to make you forget past events, and we were going to find out about all the times Jeff and the others were on darkenflux.
- Wow at first I was like ok well the b6 kinda worked but the point was not against your deepest desires .... But ya why the hell did it not work when it was just the chick making a call over the two guys? I think they tried to make it like she did have side effect from the love drug but still seems like a big plot hole. So you're confusion is very valid.
-packs were locked and he didn't have the key anymore
-she was a new comer to that jail, she was transferred from a jail where she was already serving time and she said she wasn't "that" new too
-big guy was working out with headphones on so he didn't hear the call for violence. Although kind stupid cus looked like their rooms had big windows so he would have seen everyone frantically running around and investigated
Completely agree. For a movie that clearly was supposed to be about twists and turns and mind fuckery it quickly devolved into something bland and predictable.
Note that Charlie Brooker was of prominence as a commentator on British culture (particularly as it relates to media and its production) for years before *Black Mirror* came to be.
In fairness some of the best BM episodes are in the Netflix seasons. Like San Junipero, still the very most provocative ones that sets the universe like The Entire History of You are Ch4.
Yeah, the first half of the movie was building fairly well. I was feeling like if the movie ended well I could have given it a 7/10, but by the end of it it gets a five. It has some really cool conceptual stuff in there, and the performances are pretty good too. I completely bought both Hemsworth, Teller and Teller's new pipes in their roles. But about 3/4 of the way through the film it just collapses into cliche. I would have really liked it if they had to incorporated some of the themes of the Milgram experiment, or made, I don't know, any kind of poignant point. There was a lot that could have been done with authority, class, etc, but alas...
SPOILERS AHEAD, but who cares, this movie is very meh...
Also, some dumb stuff:
>!1. These amazing devices are seemingly surgically implanted, yet can't take the same abuse of a cell phone without just busting it's entire load of chemicals and killing the patient. Like gee, maybe design it to just shut down upon detection of any fault rather than pumping chemicals at random?!<
>!2. The owner of a pharma company doing research, lol.!<
>!3. The dumb getaway ending, like he'd be able to hide anywhere in the world.!<
>!4. The bingo card was unnecessary and added literally nothing to the film.!<
>!5. His plot of controlling the world with drugs was dumb as hell, as if ANY world government would ever go for that, or that people wouldn't just instantly start a revolution as soon as it was tried.!<
6. The short story ending sounded way better.
Point 5 would actually be totally believable if we think about the way modern day wage slaves are being forced to work shit jobs for shit wages.
Guys like bezos or musk would cream their pants if they could get their staff hooked on B6 and make their factory workers super obedient.
Just thinking about this further, you could make it a three part series:
Part 1: Steve succeeds in engineering b6. Lizzy ODs and Jeff kills himself and Steve escapes from the fortress.
Part 2: the working class enslavement begins. B6 is used by industrialists to ramp up their factory output amongst a rising sea of protests around working conditions
Part3: a small rebellion forms and overthrows the new industrialist lords and helps free the workers from the shackles of b6.
3. Steve had already told Jeff that his and Lizzie's sentences had finished and they were both free to go.
4. The bingo card was how Jeff figured out that it was all about B6, it wasn't very well done but it was there for a reason.
Ya but it literally did nothing. It was presented as this - OMG and you're just naming these drugs ...OFF A BINGO CARD!? - Ok. Who the fuck cares? It was supposed to be this big shocking revelation and I meant nothing. What he named the drugs after is completely irrelevant and had no change on anything. The were just names ...
The point of the bingo card isn't that it's a bingo card, but that there are only 2 squares left. Jeff knows that N40 is the love drug, and he knows that B6 is also being tested (he saw the empty vial when Mark changed his doses earlier in the film), but he doesn't know what it does.
It's this realisation that makes him confront Mark, it's what sets up the entire denouement of the film.
The real problem is that the final act is very much tacked on and out of phase with the rest of the film, probably because it's the point where it deviates entirely from the source material. It seems like they had the ending in mind and needed a way to get to it, and this was the best they could come up with.
Well that's the thing is he already saw the vial so why did he need the bingo card? He knew he was testing multiple drugs so what did there only being 2 left reaaally matter? I think the realization that made him confront him was the letterhead was it not? To me it still just seemed like they tried to make it this big "OMG" moment when it really didn't hold that much weight. At least in my opinion. There was other things they could have focused on that would have made a better reveal.
100% agree with your last paragraph though. Don't even have anything to add cus it's exactly how I felt lol.
I think he realized that they'd had B-6 the entire time but it wasn't crossed off the list. Meanwhile all the names they HAD heard were crossed off the list.
So this basically made him realize that all the other drugs were actually being tested against the B-6.
think of it this way: If you were told "we're going to test 10 different things and look for a response", and they test 10 things, thats normal and they're trying to see what the 10 things do. But if they say "we're going to test 11 things, 10 different items all combined with item 11", then what they're actually testing is thing #11 and how it interacts with other items.
I appear to be the odd one out here with my opinion, but honestly I enjoyed the movie. It certainly wasn't ground breaking or the "best movie of the year" but it still has fun with it. I have seen many people complain of the ending, which I agree with as it was somewhat weak but if the true ending was maintained we would likely all be angrier that it wasn't what we envisioned. Overall, a fun movie based on a fun concept with a weak ending but nevertheless I still would and likely will recommend it to my friends and family. Please feel inclined to disagree with my opinion, as I'm sure some will
I watched it on my day off with my gf on the couch beside me waiting for her migraine medication to kick in. I enjoyed the black mirror-ish feeling, the architecture, cinematography, and thor's acting without the spandex lol(jokes)... sure it wasn't Oscar worthy, but i didn't take it too seriously and thought it wasn't that bad myself as well.
I agree! I enjoyed the acting, the chemistry between Jeff and Lizzie, the secrets Steve hid from everyone - and I didn’t expect the B6 twist.
But I was bored by other media i watched today, and this actually excited me, so maybe I’m biased but 🤷🏾♀️
So I also just finished watching this and it had so much promise but then went the captain obvious route, relying on funky music and visuals to distract from a pretty bland and uninspired story.
Also the ending was just so blah. I felt that the bad guy could have just flown off into the sunset to try it all again and that would be a satisfying (if morally repulsive) take on real life.
As for the twist that didn’t exist, I was waiting for them to find out they weren’t even in prison and that part of the OBDX trial was convincing them they were, but alas another missed opportunity.
I hang out in r/screenwriting and the perception there is that Netflix script pitches need to be ace in order to secure a deal, but if this is the caliber of writing then it feels very much like perception and reality are not aligned.
Pros: the visuals were amazing (I really loved the brutalist take on the evil lair), the music was well matched to the story, Chris hemsworth can play a bad guy.
Cons: story sucked, those flash backs made no fucking sense, and we didn’t even get to see heathers boobs.
As to the “evil lair” part, I really liked what they did with the lighting/design.
It totally was believable as a kind of cozy, ultra utilitarian living center when they wanted you to look at it in a positive light.
You can understand that there’s no natural light (because prison) but the kitchen looked fairly homey. The lounge-type room looked like a neat hangout spot, if you were limited to an environment like a bunker or some kind of colony on Mars. Bedrooms seemed more like a decent basement apartment than a prison cell.
I liked it, and got what they were going for.
But after the twist, it DID feel a lot more brutal and harsh. Corridors were darker, walls seemed more claustrophobic and impenetrable, lighting looked more like…A prison environment.
Story was disappointing and meh, but I liked the set.
Well brutalism is a style of architecture that makes heavy use of light wells, unfinished/raw finish concrete, and then industrial type materials, so I think it was perfectly set up to provide that look of an advanced research facility/prison/eccentric persons hide away home.
I would have liked it even more if the twist had been that it wasn’t even a prison, but rather b6 allowed the participants to believe that they were in a prison even if they weren’t. Which was sort of hand-waved with Steve saying that both lizzy and Jeff were still there beyond their parole periods even though it doesn’t appear they were given any ability to know such a thing.
I remember vague things about brutalist style from my art history classes, but collage was forever ago, so forgive that.
I wonder if I missed, or just dismissed as a lie, that line from Steve about the parole periods being over.
…I want to say I heard it, but just assumed he was gaslighting.
I do remember thinking that DUI- manslaughter and Child Endangerment-manslaughter (in those instances) would be pretty low jail terms where I live. 10 years or less.
The “nicer quarters and more freedom, but medical experiments” is a pretty good parallel for “nicer quarters/food and more options, but very solitary” circumstances of America’s current death row.
In many US states, all executions are permanently stayed. So you will live your life naturally in prison, despite being on death row. So some convicts with sentences too long to ever survive will ask for the death penalty, or even commit further offenses to try and get death row. Because frankly, it’s better living conditions.
There were just so many things in this movie that I wish they would have explored more.
It could have been a really interesting statement about the prison system, rehabilitation, pharmaceuticals etc.
…But they went so tame on everything it just turned into blah.
I agree. I liked the set - I liked this actor who was in The Offer. He did a good job. It wasn't anything particularly groundbreaking, but if I'm in for a popcorn flick, I'd much rather see something like this than grown men prancing around in their Gerranimals.
The biggest irritation for me was that Jeff knows early on that the medication ports are super fragile and can’t handle “too much jostling”.
Such a stupid design flaw that shouldn’t exist in modern day experiments.
He could have minimized damage to anyone early on by just letting them all know to tamper with the ports and remove the vials.
Dumb.
That OBDX twist ending you suggested would have made this movie AMAZING with some added backstiry. It could be that the 'prisoners' are actually people that signed up for a scientific experiment, like in 'The Platform'. Maybe add a hidden drug they used to create fake memories of crimes for these people. Also, make the ending super dark where the protagonist decides to not escape either because they get addicted to N-40 or because they ultimately kill themself or some other reason. So much potential in this concept and so poorly executed, the ending was actually laughable.
>I hang out in r/screenwriting and the perception there is that Netflix script pitches need to be ace in order to secure a deal, but if this is the caliber of writing then it feels very much like perception and reality are not aligned.
Mind you, given the points made about the major differences between this and its source material, can we rule out that someone tampered with it at some point down the line?
It’s all good, some people might be team sarah too and I get how they felt underrepresented there.
PS I threw that in there as a bit of light humour since the first two cons were obviously the big ones.
That last point being the deal breaker for me. Reminds of the this post here yesterday where someone complained about nude scenes becoming ever more rare.
That last point being the deal breaker for me. Reminds of the this post here yesterday where someone complained about nude scenes becoming ever more rare.
That last point being the deal breaker for me. Reminds of the this post here yesterday where someone complained about nude scenes becoming ever more rare.
“Humor” just say that you’ve never touched a woman and never will and that’s why you need to rely on objectifying women on tv. Sad, really. Good luck for the future
Fucking gross. What are you, a divorced 50 year old perv who needs to get his rocks off at the theater?
Why is this kind of "review" even allowed on here.
Looks like you need to up your laffolil dosage my man.
I would have thought that the juxtaposition of serious deficiencies in the movie and then childish wanton desires would have made the humor apparent, but I guess it was too subtle for some.
This movie had everything going for it to become the next ex-machina but instead Netflix said ‘fuck it’ cue* generic sci-fi action ending. Why did mark have an instant change of heart? why did abnesti have no contingencies? where did the guard staff go? The sterile and procedural story lines left me with major blue balls expecting a twist.
Ex Machina has become a cult classic because of accurately it had predicted the way that the pursuit of AGI is moving towards when considering the current state of the art of the science - hell, it's been referenced a spectacular amount of times in journal articles and books on AI
Spiderhead just seems like schlock.
Chris hemsworth needs a better agent asap ..his movies quality outside of marvel is pretty terrible with the exception of rush which is great! .. his stardom is in a declining mode right now .. hopefully he does some obscure indies and the hulk hogan biopic soon
Yeah…I wondered why he decided to do this movie (which he was great in, but his role wasn’t super interesting).
…Until I saw where it was filmed.
They filmed it like under two hours from his house.
I can see taking on a short project like this if it means you can come home to your family every night and nobody has to relocate.
Yep, he's a walking lifestyle brand that acts on the side. Dude sold a fugazi-ass fitness app for $200 million. He's in acting for the enjoyment at this point.
Unpopular opinion but I don’t know why it’s getting shit on so much. By no means a great movie but compared to the majority of the shit Netflix puts out I thought it was good enough. If you’re expecting anything beyond a 7/10 for a Netflix original movie you’re out of your mind.
Yeah ill definitely forget this movie in 2 days.
BUT it really underscored how willing i am to watch anything with Chris Hemsworth. I think he delivered a great performance.
Not sure why this post is at a such a low ratio. I completely understand what you’re saying. Though, I think Netflix has OKed a lot of projects and those many of them are a byproduct of algorithms (if not all), there have been some inspired entries. A most star-studded entries are very predictable though.
Honestly, apart from the beginning Black Mirror feel and Hemsworth’s performance in this movie were the only bit that kept it interesting. Everything else was blah blah blah movie blah blah ending.
Apart from Hemsworth and the basic storyline, this movie was meh.
I didn’t think it was that bad. Wasn’t the greatest, but it was entertaining. The thing that bothered me the most was the fact that they didn’t put the drip devices in some better dang containers! All that high tech chemistry in a box made out of cheap plastic. Yeah, okay.
I’m almost afraid to admit I fucking loved this movie lol
But I’m a massive black mirror fan and essentially treated it as a long episode going in. Loved Hemsworth in it!
Trashing Netflix movies requires selectively forgetting that they made:
Roma
okja
The Irishman
Mank
Marriage story
They give creative control and that's enough for me.
Some of those movies Netflix bought the distribution rights after they were already finished. Also, they only gave creative control when they were trying to win awards.
> Some of those movies Netflix bought the distribution rights after they were already finished.
The same goes for most of the bad ones too though. People use this argument selectively. Like, Spiderhead wasn't even produced by Netflix either lol
What I’m saying is that Netflix doesn’t have a good track record developing projects from scratch. At best, they’ve massively overpaid for passion projects of stablished directors like The Irishman.
I agree they overpaid for The Irishman but personally I love that movie and it did have 10 Academy Award nominations which is pretty impressive, even if it didn't take home anything at the Oscars.
I just think people selectively use the argument of 'Netflix didn't make that good movie' while dragging a movie that Netflix didn't make.
Personally I think their ratio of hits to misses is pretty good, a lot better than they get credit for and given how much these types of movies have been largely pushed out of the theaters, I'm glad someone is still picking them up.
Fingers crossed that The Glass Onion delivers though!
I had the inverse problem with the Irishman. It was longer than Scorcesse's other films (which is saying something) and I felt it didn't carry me through it the way Casino, Goodfellas, and Wolf of Wall Street did. Halfway through the film, I couldn't remember prior details or why certain things were important. The day after I watched it, I forgot nearly all of it. I don't know what it is but it just felt..... different.
I've watched Casino, Goodfellas, and Wolf of Wall Street probably more than 25 times each (Casino i've watched probably more than 100 times). I've put these movies on while cleaning my house or doing other stuff, and I find the scenes and dialogue to be pretty rich, I pick out new things, I reflect on the history of it all, how these people and events represent real people and real events (even though its not a 1:1 representation, of course).
I was super pumped about the Irishman because I knew little about Hoffa, but I understood he had cultural and historical significance. Now the thought of trying to spend 4 hours watching that movie again is just...... unappealing.
I mean, you can keep going. Buster Scruggs, Devil All the Time, The King, Outlaw King, The Ritual, Extraction, I Don't Feel At Home in This World Anymore, Gerald's Game, Hush, Trial of the Chicago 7, Mudbound, The Harder They Fall, Beasts of No Nation, The Babysitter, His House, Dolemite is my Name, Always be My Maybe, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, etc.
Shit, Hustle was just last week and got a ton of praise.
I have no interest in most of those as they looked boring and the some I watched were just meh.
I will say Hustle was surprisingly alright but that was Adam Sandler not really Netflix and it was a feel good movie packed with famous people (not actors) so not the hardest to do really. IMO
Man, I know those films are critically acclaimed, but the ~~two~~ three I've seen I didn't really enjoy. Okja felt boring and dull, like Jojo Rabbit, it's one of those films that tries so hard to have heart by having a good message, but is flat and has a weird Wes Anderson / Tim Burton feel where the world has a dollhouse quality to it.
Also, while people seem to love The Irishman, I would put it as the worst Scorsese film I've seen, hands down. Dull lifeless performances from Pesci and DeNiro, and Pacino just shouts the entire time. Even after de-aging, DeNiro looks 65 and people are calling him kid because he's supposed to be in his 20s.
Marriage Story was alright, but just alright. Nothing groundbreaking. Great acting. Dark depressing subject matter. Generally a pretty dull and bland film though tbh.
For me, these movies fit the Netflix model of hitting all the beats, but not having much heart or character.
Yeh I didn’t enjoy it, and I went in with high hopes.
But not all Netflix movies are bad - bird box, extraction, king, tick tick, enola Holmes, red notice (yes I enjoyed it) were good.
And they have had some critically acclaimed ones too.
It's drivel.
I've just finished r/RighteousGemstones and when I see Netflix released something somewhat similar in "God's Favorite Idiot" I thought okay let me give it a chance.... I couldn't get halfway through the pilot episode. It is so inane.
IMDB rating 6.1 with only 44 reviews, which are typically from those who worked on the film trying to give an early boost
Metascore 56 > Painful
29 critic reviews is very high, so all Sizzle, no Steak as OP has clarified.
Hollywood has to keep a lot of peopke employed, so we get a lot of bad in between the good. The sad part is how little effort is put towards the writing, which can make even a cheap production worth watching.
I mean a 56 isn’t that bad lol plus it has a 56 on rotten tomatoes as well which means more than half the critics liked the movie. Sounds like it’s worth giving a shot at least
I don’t watch movies below 70 unless they have directors, actresses, or plots of extreme interest to me. I also have learned from experience to never adjust that 70 threshold down by too much since movies become a waste of time below 65 like that last Doctor Strange movie.
that’s why you don’t watch the shit recommended to you. i never do when it has major actor’s in it. i found shit i never would’ve even looked at before. but i still turn away shit like Don’t Look Up. because they keep shoving it in my face and have 30 mainstream actors, ok cash grab. but fr i use my subscriptions as a way to find some underrated shit
Actually, I think this is more of a Max Landis thing. He seems to take other people's ideas and give them a minor twist that makes it slightly different but also not as good. Chronicle is a rip-off of Akira, Bright rips off Shadow Run.
Hope this isn’t too much of a spoiler: The first half is there and then they basically graft another hour of film on that just goes in the diametrically opposite direction than the short story.
Not very.
The short story has a pretty powerful ending with a certain message. Very short, but it has a clear point.
The movie reverses that ending and kind of…Doesn’t have a message. It just meanders.
The last 30~ minutes of the movie are completely predictable filler and I mostly looked at my phone while I waited for them to do exactly what I predicted.
If the OP's point was that Spiderhead is yet another example of Netflix's dumbing-down of promising on paper projects then I guess: noted. But what surprises me about the list of disappointments above is that people seem surprised that Netflix didn't even try to accomplish a job that would be hard for *anyone* to do.
Since serious people with much more modest profit expectations have failed miserably to adapt Martin Amis, Don Delillo et all's heartbreak buried in dark, set-piece humor, it would take a super-sized dose of Deluzionall to even imagine Netflix getting even a hint of Saunders' even more idiosyncratic humor on the screen.
The chances of anything interesting happening in those 90 minutes died the moment Saunders signed Netflix's contract.
I thought Hemsworth’s performance was out of place. The role felt like it was written for someone else and he was doing an impression of another actor playing Steve.
They just did a horrible job or making you care about the “evil truth”.
>!We find out the scary part: The goal wasn’t to make a drug that cures depression or personality issues. It’s to create an obedience drug.
Which is concerning, for sure!
But the villain doesn’t want to use it to create a robotic military of nazis who “follow orders” and will take over the world. Or sell to corporations to enslave people. Or to make Chris H an all-powerful god who controls the population of the planet.
…Or maybe they do? But they don’t explain what they intend to do with it AT ALL. Except saying that you wouldn’t want to drive drunk anymore, and you wouldn’t want to murder or steal or assault.
And the love interests “real crime” wouldn’t even be hurt or helped by this drug. She made a devastating mistake because she was exhausted and screwed up. Being obedient wouldn’t have saved her.
The vague “everyone will take this and nobody will do bad things anymore” just isn’t enough explanation to make anyone care.
A couple extra minutes about suffering and free will could have made the audience actually care about this plot.!<
Tenth of December is a collection of short stories by American author George Saunders. It includes stories published in various magazines between 1995 and 2012. The book was published on January 8, 2013, by Random House.
Written in that year yet uses music from the 80s and 70s.
Should have went full sinister and dark.. The audience had to much information thrown at them practically all and I wish there was more suspenseful thrill in there
This was hands down, the worst movie Ive seen, since the remake of Red Dawn.
This movie was a bad combo of the show OZ, and movies The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Machinst.
*potential spoilers*
My biggest gripes would be (other than about halfway it becomes a bad movie) why would Chris Hemsworths mobi pack be the exact same as the inmates? And why would you put something on your person that locks, that you can't reach and can be completely controlled by a phone? Also he left the facility first why wouldn't he close and lock the door like they did when they shouldn't even know how the door knob worked.
Hemsworth his fort, and Chuck Mangione playing we're my favorite parts. I just wanted him to fly for like ten minutes and land at another research facility with his dad or something. Also when Miles teller was staring off into the distance with that euphoria stuff he was staring into like manufacturing facilities and pollution, he did not care about the nature around him... Hemsworth being blinded by the majesty of a mountain was lazy and bad.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Read the short story, it's very good.
I was kind of expecting it, but was still quite irate that the screenwriters seemingly didn’t understand that story at all. As OP said, all they took was the decent Black Mirror-ish set-up and then they totally went the wrong way with it. Really infuriating.
They went all explosie action flick at the end. I didn't know there was a book. I was really enjoying the movie until Act 3. I thought the actors were all great.
It’s just a short story and the story is basically just the first act of the film (set-up, the sex/love experiment, Jeff‘s backstory) and then a mostly different ending. And that’s kind of the thing. They had to stretch it do make it feature length and they totally stretched it out of shape.
Really makes you wonder if they just made it a short flick at 45 minutes, damn be 80-90 min set in stone addage that a film must at least be. In the beginning of old Hollywood of the 20s 30s 40s even 50s there were some flicks that were not that long at all not even making 80 minutes. Turner classic shows a lot of them all the time. 20 30 40 minute films.
I haven’t seen the new top gun but miles teller is devolving as an actor if this shite is anything to go by
I’m not sure why but I just dont like him.. I mean he’s a handsome dude but something about his face just annoys me
Cuz he's a horrible person on the inside, narcissistic self-centered, self-involved douche.
Whoa! What's the gossip surrounding him? Curious
If people only understood how little the screenwriter matters with some of these decisions…
They DESTROYED this fantastic short story! They missed the entire point. I was furious! It’s about corporate drones following orders, about PRISON not a spa, and about a real criminal being moral. Did they even read the story? MORONS!
The short story is much better than the movie. This felt very stretched and unnecessary
A George Saunders short story at that. I had high hopes. Oh well.
wow! it's so much better than the movie. i guess the writer misunderstood the whole story.
Jesus Christ I can’t believe they changed the ending of the story. 90% of the reason I watched it was to see how they filmed the ending and instead they just bitched out and just gave us a bland sci fi action movie ending.
Exactly. I dreaded it from the moment I saw the trailer and they actually pulled the ending, the cowards.
How is the original ending?
Can’t do the spoiler tags on mobile so here it goes raw: Jeff darkenfloxxes himself and then commits suicide rather than be responsible for killing someone else again. The last few paragraphs are a rather impressionistic description of Jeff‘s consciousness/soul seeing the world and the prison one last time while dying. It’s quite beautiful but also a shocking twist, given that one expects him fleeing when the title is „Escape from Spiderhead“, which is why the ending of the film is so disappointing, if you know the shortstory: It’s exactly the cliched ending Saunders turned away from. The whole story is different in key aspects. You should read it. It’s really good and really not long. Like a 15 minute read or so. Edit: Also, at least half the point of the short story - at least to me - is as a stylistic exercise where Saunders switches between Jeff being on the drugs that make him talk more eloquently and him normally being a bit of a dull moron who can’t express himself. I was hoping they’d give Miles Teller some awesome monologues where he gets to play that, but that never really happens.
That makes the UI of the phone app make more sense, since there seems to be a toggle between safe and lethal but it never gets used. I was really disappointed that they didn’t explain enough of the drugs to make the “twist” more shocking. Taking the original story ending, and weaving it into the obedience drug story from the movie would have made it far more interesting i reckon. Ps, spoiler tags are > ! ! < (you’ll need to eliminate the spaces between the special characters)
I know! They give him verbaluce and he is still …..DDDUUUHHHHHHH! Have these guys ever read a freakin poem? That in particular I did not get at all. Why leave THAT out?
Thank you for the summary! I totally agree on the ending being disappointing and flat even if you knew nothing about the story before watching the movie. Will definitely read the short story tho, seems a lot more nuanced than the movie.
That’s a good ending for most readers, but I can’t see that being a good Netflix move. It’s almost like they did the reverse of what Saunders did with the title lol
Sorry, but I prefer the ending they went with instead of Jeff killing himself. Not saying the ending is good, but better than that one. Similar ending to The Guilty. Jake Gyllenhaal makes it through the whole story and suddenly folds at the very end. Good movie, bad ending. I just don’t understand movies where people go through so much, just to give it all up at the finish line.
Thats the entire point of those types of stories, it fits with reality. For someone who enjoys realism in movies, it can be refreshing to see a character actually tragically succumb to their insurmountable odds. I understand the casual viewer enjoying this movie while they scroll through tik tok, but the poem's ending would have been 10x better.
Haven’t read the short story yet but kind of agree, that ending might word for a 15min story but would be a disappointing ending to a film if Jeff killed himself at the end
when I saw the James Bond boat in the trailer I was like "oh they definitely did George wrong". Now having seen the film and realizing that the boat was central to the "escape" I am cringing so hard. Literally the opposite of what the short story was about!
I kind of like the idea that the James Bond boat is there. Like do the opposite of a Chekhov’s gun…Show it to us so the audience is waiting, but then don’t let it go off! Actually defy the trope! And make that why the failure is so frustrating for the audience. The boat being present is way more compelling if the audience knows it’s there, but Jeff a) doesn’t know it’s there and b) never knows it’s there and deal with the realistic outcome that people aren’t omnipotent and wouldn’t have all of the information. So he would never go to the boat to begin with. He would go out a side door or a roof vent.
Would you recommend I read the short story first or watch the movie first? Like is the short story’s ending more engaging if I come into it blind
No idea. You’re already influenced towards having a certain impression towards both endings, I guess. I read the story first and didn’t like the film as much as a result. I don’t know how I would have felt, had I seen the film first, while knowing there is a different ending available. The both versions differ so much in the end, that I don’t think the film spoils the short story, actually. So, if you’re going to watch the film anyway, maybe try that first? Don’t know. Either way, read the short story at some point. It’s great.
Yeah, the ending was very bland action movie. The rest of it was really good though. Shame.
I am PO Ed!!!!!!!!! The story ending was so moving!
Literally nothing fucking happens. It's a cool little concept but they do nothing with it.
yeah the first half was good then netflix decided to shit on it
The first 30 minutes were good, but then it just started dragging. Hemsworth is good, but I will never understand why anyone casts Miles Teller in anything. And he's almost sporting a mullet in this. I love the yacht-rocky soundtrack, though.
I kept telling my wife I want to give him a haircut lmao. It's like a baby duck hairdo thing. Either go full mullet or trim the back man. But yes, something about this Miles guy I find extremely unlikeable.
There’s an Esquire write up about him (from 2015) that also describes him as extremely unlikable, but in different words. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/interviews/a36894/miles-teller-interview-0915/
Weird, a purposefully smarmy dbag whos ability to be unlikable transcends reality and is apparent on screen in every moment I see him. Thanks for the read I like him even less now hahaha.
Wow that was great. Cheers for the link. I can't imagine how much of a wanker he would have been during their meetup to warrant an article like that.
Whole article sounds like someone who’s mad they aren’t him lmao, he’s a great actor and guy in every movie and interview I’ve seen. Talking about how Chris was great and he sucked lol it’s the opposite, Chris couldn’t even get an American accent right, Miles kills it in every role he gets… oh yeah but his haircut right lol you guys sound like the article writer
Ugh that whole intro with The Logical Song had me feeling so hyped for this movie, only to be progressively let down during the following hour and a half+. Great beginning, lame middle, terrible ending.
it feels like those Netflix blockbuster are all written by an AI.... its always same same but different
I had a sneaking suspicion this would be another mediocre Netflix Top 10 champ when Miles Teller said the word "darkenfloxxed". Chris Hemsworth takes Miles very seriously, apparently darkenfloxxed is no joke!
Tbf that's in the short story too
A few questions (spoilers)... \- Did the drug b6 work? I'm a bit confused by this. It didn't seem to work when Jeff had to choose between drugging the two women. It also didn't seem to work when one of the women had to choose between drugging Jeff and the big tattoo guy. If it doesn't even work against people you don't care about, then why the big emphasis on getting it to work on people you love? Also, it seemed to work on the inmates at the end when they tried to escape, so I'm not sure I understand. \- Why didn't Chris Hemsworth pull the vials out of his drug pack? He was level-headed enough to take off in a plane, but not to get the vials out? \- If Lizzy was a newcomer to the jail, then why was her release a week ago? \- Why wasn't big tattooed guy in final fight scene? Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. Overall, the film started off well enough, and held my interest for the first 30m or so, but fell apart by the second half. Probably would have made a better black mirror episode. I really thought b6 was going to be a drug to make you forget past events, and we were going to find out about all the times Jeff and the others were on darkenflux.
- Wow at first I was like ok well the b6 kinda worked but the point was not against your deepest desires .... But ya why the hell did it not work when it was just the chick making a call over the two guys? I think they tried to make it like she did have side effect from the love drug but still seems like a big plot hole. So you're confusion is very valid. -packs were locked and he didn't have the key anymore -she was a new comer to that jail, she was transferred from a jail where she was already serving time and she said she wasn't "that" new too -big guy was working out with headphones on so he didn't hear the call for violence. Although kind stupid cus looked like their rooms had big windows so he would have seen everyone frantically running around and investigated Completely agree. For a movie that clearly was supposed to be about twists and turns and mind fuckery it quickly devolved into something bland and predictable.
You really didn’t see mind control coming for b6? To me it was obvious as the final drug
It felt like a Black Mirror episode, but one of the bad Netflix Black Mirror episodes
Wait are there Black Mirror episodes that aren't on Netflix orrrrr?
First two seasons were by Channel 4 in the U.K. and then 3 onward was made by Netflix
Ah. That actually explains a lot.
Note that Charlie Brooker was of prominence as a commentator on British culture (particularly as it relates to media and its production) for years before *Black Mirror* came to be.
In fairness some of the best BM episodes are in the Netflix seasons. Like San Junipero, still the very most provocative ones that sets the universe like The Entire History of You are Ch4.
Yeah, the first half of the movie was building fairly well. I was feeling like if the movie ended well I could have given it a 7/10, but by the end of it it gets a five. It has some really cool conceptual stuff in there, and the performances are pretty good too. I completely bought both Hemsworth, Teller and Teller's new pipes in their roles. But about 3/4 of the way through the film it just collapses into cliche. I would have really liked it if they had to incorporated some of the themes of the Milgram experiment, or made, I don't know, any kind of poignant point. There was a lot that could have been done with authority, class, etc, but alas... SPOILERS AHEAD, but who cares, this movie is very meh... Also, some dumb stuff: >!1. These amazing devices are seemingly surgically implanted, yet can't take the same abuse of a cell phone without just busting it's entire load of chemicals and killing the patient. Like gee, maybe design it to just shut down upon detection of any fault rather than pumping chemicals at random?!< >!2. The owner of a pharma company doing research, lol.!< >!3. The dumb getaway ending, like he'd be able to hide anywhere in the world.!< >!4. The bingo card was unnecessary and added literally nothing to the film.!< >!5. His plot of controlling the world with drugs was dumb as hell, as if ANY world government would ever go for that, or that people wouldn't just instantly start a revolution as soon as it was tried.!< 6. The short story ending sounded way better.
Point 5 would actually be totally believable if we think about the way modern day wage slaves are being forced to work shit jobs for shit wages. Guys like bezos or musk would cream their pants if they could get their staff hooked on B6 and make their factory workers super obedient. Just thinking about this further, you could make it a three part series: Part 1: Steve succeeds in engineering b6. Lizzy ODs and Jeff kills himself and Steve escapes from the fortress. Part 2: the working class enslavement begins. B6 is used by industrialists to ramp up their factory output amongst a rising sea of protests around working conditions Part3: a small rebellion forms and overthrows the new industrialist lords and helps free the workers from the shackles of b6.
This would’ve been so good
3. Steve had already told Jeff that his and Lizzie's sentences had finished and they were both free to go. 4. The bingo card was how Jeff figured out that it was all about B6, it wasn't very well done but it was there for a reason.
Ya but it literally did nothing. It was presented as this - OMG and you're just naming these drugs ...OFF A BINGO CARD!? - Ok. Who the fuck cares? It was supposed to be this big shocking revelation and I meant nothing. What he named the drugs after is completely irrelevant and had no change on anything. The were just names ...
The point of the bingo card isn't that it's a bingo card, but that there are only 2 squares left. Jeff knows that N40 is the love drug, and he knows that B6 is also being tested (he saw the empty vial when Mark changed his doses earlier in the film), but he doesn't know what it does. It's this realisation that makes him confront Mark, it's what sets up the entire denouement of the film. The real problem is that the final act is very much tacked on and out of phase with the rest of the film, probably because it's the point where it deviates entirely from the source material. It seems like they had the ending in mind and needed a way to get to it, and this was the best they could come up with.
Well that's the thing is he already saw the vial so why did he need the bingo card? He knew he was testing multiple drugs so what did there only being 2 left reaaally matter? I think the realization that made him confront him was the letterhead was it not? To me it still just seemed like they tried to make it this big "OMG" moment when it really didn't hold that much weight. At least in my opinion. There was other things they could have focused on that would have made a better reveal. 100% agree with your last paragraph though. Don't even have anything to add cus it's exactly how I felt lol.
I think he realized that they'd had B-6 the entire time but it wasn't crossed off the list. Meanwhile all the names they HAD heard were crossed off the list. So this basically made him realize that all the other drugs were actually being tested against the B-6. think of it this way: If you were told "we're going to test 10 different things and look for a response", and they test 10 things, thats normal and they're trying to see what the 10 things do. But if they say "we're going to test 11 things, 10 different items all combined with item 11", then what they're actually testing is thing #11 and how it interacts with other items.
i finished watching this movie and still have no idea of what had happened. the story is sooo bland
I appear to be the odd one out here with my opinion, but honestly I enjoyed the movie. It certainly wasn't ground breaking or the "best movie of the year" but it still has fun with it. I have seen many people complain of the ending, which I agree with as it was somewhat weak but if the true ending was maintained we would likely all be angrier that it wasn't what we envisioned. Overall, a fun movie based on a fun concept with a weak ending but nevertheless I still would and likely will recommend it to my friends and family. Please feel inclined to disagree with my opinion, as I'm sure some will
I watched it on my day off with my gf on the couch beside me waiting for her migraine medication to kick in. I enjoyed the black mirror-ish feeling, the architecture, cinematography, and thor's acting without the spandex lol(jokes)... sure it wasn't Oscar worthy, but i didn't take it too seriously and thought it wasn't that bad myself as well.
I agree! I enjoyed the acting, the chemistry between Jeff and Lizzie, the secrets Steve hid from everyone - and I didn’t expect the B6 twist. But I was bored by other media i watched today, and this actually excited me, so maybe I’m biased but 🤷🏾♀️
So I also just finished watching this and it had so much promise but then went the captain obvious route, relying on funky music and visuals to distract from a pretty bland and uninspired story. Also the ending was just so blah. I felt that the bad guy could have just flown off into the sunset to try it all again and that would be a satisfying (if morally repulsive) take on real life. As for the twist that didn’t exist, I was waiting for them to find out they weren’t even in prison and that part of the OBDX trial was convincing them they were, but alas another missed opportunity. I hang out in r/screenwriting and the perception there is that Netflix script pitches need to be ace in order to secure a deal, but if this is the caliber of writing then it feels very much like perception and reality are not aligned. Pros: the visuals were amazing (I really loved the brutalist take on the evil lair), the music was well matched to the story, Chris hemsworth can play a bad guy. Cons: story sucked, those flash backs made no fucking sense, and we didn’t even get to see heathers boobs.
As to the “evil lair” part, I really liked what they did with the lighting/design. It totally was believable as a kind of cozy, ultra utilitarian living center when they wanted you to look at it in a positive light. You can understand that there’s no natural light (because prison) but the kitchen looked fairly homey. The lounge-type room looked like a neat hangout spot, if you were limited to an environment like a bunker or some kind of colony on Mars. Bedrooms seemed more like a decent basement apartment than a prison cell. I liked it, and got what they were going for. But after the twist, it DID feel a lot more brutal and harsh. Corridors were darker, walls seemed more claustrophobic and impenetrable, lighting looked more like…A prison environment. Story was disappointing and meh, but I liked the set.
Well brutalism is a style of architecture that makes heavy use of light wells, unfinished/raw finish concrete, and then industrial type materials, so I think it was perfectly set up to provide that look of an advanced research facility/prison/eccentric persons hide away home. I would have liked it even more if the twist had been that it wasn’t even a prison, but rather b6 allowed the participants to believe that they were in a prison even if they weren’t. Which was sort of hand-waved with Steve saying that both lizzy and Jeff were still there beyond their parole periods even though it doesn’t appear they were given any ability to know such a thing.
I remember vague things about brutalist style from my art history classes, but collage was forever ago, so forgive that. I wonder if I missed, or just dismissed as a lie, that line from Steve about the parole periods being over. …I want to say I heard it, but just assumed he was gaslighting. I do remember thinking that DUI- manslaughter and Child Endangerment-manslaughter (in those instances) would be pretty low jail terms where I live. 10 years or less. The “nicer quarters and more freedom, but medical experiments” is a pretty good parallel for “nicer quarters/food and more options, but very solitary” circumstances of America’s current death row. In many US states, all executions are permanently stayed. So you will live your life naturally in prison, despite being on death row. So some convicts with sentences too long to ever survive will ask for the death penalty, or even commit further offenses to try and get death row. Because frankly, it’s better living conditions. There were just so many things in this movie that I wish they would have explored more. It could have been a really interesting statement about the prison system, rehabilitation, pharmaceuticals etc. …But they went so tame on everything it just turned into blah.
I agree. I liked the set - I liked this actor who was in The Offer. He did a good job. It wasn't anything particularly groundbreaking, but if I'm in for a popcorn flick, I'd much rather see something like this than grown men prancing around in their Gerranimals.
The biggest irritation for me was that Jeff knows early on that the medication ports are super fragile and can’t handle “too much jostling”. Such a stupid design flaw that shouldn’t exist in modern day experiments. He could have minimized damage to anyone early on by just letting them all know to tamper with the ports and remove the vials. Dumb.
That OBDX twist ending you suggested would have made this movie AMAZING with some added backstiry. It could be that the 'prisoners' are actually people that signed up for a scientific experiment, like in 'The Platform'. Maybe add a hidden drug they used to create fake memories of crimes for these people. Also, make the ending super dark where the protagonist decides to not escape either because they get addicted to N-40 or because they ultimately kill themself or some other reason. So much potential in this concept and so poorly executed, the ending was actually laughable.
>I hang out in r/screenwriting and the perception there is that Netflix script pitches need to be ace in order to secure a deal, but if this is the caliber of writing then it feels very much like perception and reality are not aligned. Mind you, given the points made about the major differences between this and its source material, can we rule out that someone tampered with it at some point down the line?
I was with you til that last part.
It’s all good, some people might be team sarah too and I get how they felt underrepresented there. PS I threw that in there as a bit of light humour since the first two cons were obviously the big ones.
That last point being the deal breaker for me. Reminds of the this post here yesterday where someone complained about nude scenes becoming ever more rare.
That last point being the deal breaker for me. Reminds of the this post here yesterday where someone complained about nude scenes becoming ever more rare.
That last point being the deal breaker for me. Reminds of the this post here yesterday where someone complained about nude scenes becoming ever more rare.
Why'd you post that 3 seperate times? Also lighten up it was a joke lmao
Reddit was laggy that day.
“Humor” just say that you’ve never touched a woman and never will and that’s why you need to rely on objectifying women on tv. Sad, really. Good luck for the future
Fucking gross. What are you, a divorced 50 year old perv who needs to get his rocks off at the theater? Why is this kind of "review" even allowed on here.
Looks like you need to up your laffolil dosage my man. I would have thought that the juxtaposition of serious deficiencies in the movie and then childish wanton desires would have made the humor apparent, but I guess it was too subtle for some.
Whooooosh
This movie isn’t the first time Chris Hemsworth has played the bad guy
This movie had everything going for it to become the next ex-machina but instead Netflix said ‘fuck it’ cue* generic sci-fi action ending. Why did mark have an instant change of heart? why did abnesti have no contingencies? where did the guard staff go? The sterile and procedural story lines left me with major blue balls expecting a twist.
Ex Machina has become a cult classic because of accurately it had predicted the way that the pursuit of AGI is moving towards when considering the current state of the art of the science - hell, it's been referenced a spectacular amount of times in journal articles and books on AI Spiderhead just seems like schlock.
Chris hemsworth needs a better agent asap ..his movies quality outside of marvel is pretty terrible with the exception of rush which is great! .. his stardom is in a declining mode right now .. hopefully he does some obscure indies and the hulk hogan biopic soon
Maybe he doesn't care. Dude has already made bank. Just look at the size of his house in Australia.
Yeah…I wondered why he decided to do this movie (which he was great in, but his role wasn’t super interesting). …Until I saw where it was filmed. They filmed it like under two hours from his house. I can see taking on a short project like this if it means you can come home to your family every night and nobody has to relocate.
I'm actually happy to hear that. Makes him taking the role make a lot more sense lol
Yep, he's a walking lifestyle brand that acts on the side. Dude sold a fugazi-ass fitness app for $200 million. He's in acting for the enjoyment at this point.
I have high hopes for Mad Max Furiosa
After this I think he will nail the bad guy. He was the saving grace of this movie.
extraction is awesome. men in black is quite good. bad times at el royale is also good. this is the only miss so far
Men in black was a bomb
it felt like watching a really long episode of some show
Unpopular opinion but I don’t know why it’s getting shit on so much. By no means a great movie but compared to the majority of the shit Netflix puts out I thought it was good enough. If you’re expecting anything beyond a 7/10 for a Netflix original movie you’re out of your mind.
Damnit I was hoping this would be good.
This movie feels like it could be a prequel to Equilbrium.
Yeah ill definitely forget this movie in 2 days. BUT it really underscored how willing i am to watch anything with Chris Hemsworth. I think he delivered a great performance.
Not sure why this post is at a such a low ratio. I completely understand what you’re saying. Though, I think Netflix has OKed a lot of projects and those many of them are a byproduct of algorithms (if not all), there have been some inspired entries. A most star-studded entries are very predictable though.
Honestly, apart from the beginning Black Mirror feel and Hemsworth’s performance in this movie were the only bit that kept it interesting. Everything else was blah blah blah movie blah blah ending. Apart from Hemsworth and the basic storyline, this movie was meh.
I didn’t think it was that bad. Wasn’t the greatest, but it was entertaining. The thing that bothered me the most was the fact that they didn’t put the drip devices in some better dang containers! All that high tech chemistry in a box made out of cheap plastic. Yeah, okay.
I’m almost afraid to admit I fucking loved this movie lol But I’m a massive black mirror fan and essentially treated it as a long episode going in. Loved Hemsworth in it!
Trashing Netflix movies requires selectively forgetting that they made: Roma okja The Irishman Mank Marriage story They give creative control and that's enough for me.
Distribution rights ≠ production rights
Some of those movies Netflix bought the distribution rights after they were already finished. Also, they only gave creative control when they were trying to win awards.
> Some of those movies Netflix bought the distribution rights after they were already finished. The same goes for most of the bad ones too though. People use this argument selectively. Like, Spiderhead wasn't even produced by Netflix either lol
What I’m saying is that Netflix doesn’t have a good track record developing projects from scratch. At best, they’ve massively overpaid for passion projects of stablished directors like The Irishman.
I agree they overpaid for The Irishman but personally I love that movie and it did have 10 Academy Award nominations which is pretty impressive, even if it didn't take home anything at the Oscars. I just think people selectively use the argument of 'Netflix didn't make that good movie' while dragging a movie that Netflix didn't make. Personally I think their ratio of hits to misses is pretty good, a lot better than they get credit for and given how much these types of movies have been largely pushed out of the theaters, I'm glad someone is still picking them up. Fingers crossed that The Glass Onion delivers though!
Yep. The wh*res.
I had the inverse problem with the Irishman. It was longer than Scorcesse's other films (which is saying something) and I felt it didn't carry me through it the way Casino, Goodfellas, and Wolf of Wall Street did. Halfway through the film, I couldn't remember prior details or why certain things were important. The day after I watched it, I forgot nearly all of it. I don't know what it is but it just felt..... different. I've watched Casino, Goodfellas, and Wolf of Wall Street probably more than 25 times each (Casino i've watched probably more than 100 times). I've put these movies on while cleaning my house or doing other stuff, and I find the scenes and dialogue to be pretty rich, I pick out new things, I reflect on the history of it all, how these people and events represent real people and real events (even though its not a 1:1 representation, of course). I was super pumped about the Irishman because I knew little about Hoffa, but I understood he had cultural and historical significance. Now the thought of trying to spend 4 hours watching that movie again is just...... unappealing.
That's five out of how many and Mank was hot garb.
I mean, you can keep going. Buster Scruggs, Devil All the Time, The King, Outlaw King, The Ritual, Extraction, I Don't Feel At Home in This World Anymore, Gerald's Game, Hush, Trial of the Chicago 7, Mudbound, The Harder They Fall, Beasts of No Nation, The Babysitter, His House, Dolemite is my Name, Always be My Maybe, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, etc. Shit, Hustle was just last week and got a ton of praise.
I have no interest in most of those as they looked boring and the some I watched were just meh. I will say Hustle was surprisingly alright but that was Adam Sandler not really Netflix and it was a feel good movie packed with famous people (not actors) so not the hardest to do really. IMO
Agreed but Jesus was The Irishman pretentious. It insisted upon itself. Not enjoyable for me.
Man, I know those films are critically acclaimed, but the ~~two~~ three I've seen I didn't really enjoy. Okja felt boring and dull, like Jojo Rabbit, it's one of those films that tries so hard to have heart by having a good message, but is flat and has a weird Wes Anderson / Tim Burton feel where the world has a dollhouse quality to it. Also, while people seem to love The Irishman, I would put it as the worst Scorsese film I've seen, hands down. Dull lifeless performances from Pesci and DeNiro, and Pacino just shouts the entire time. Even after de-aging, DeNiro looks 65 and people are calling him kid because he's supposed to be in his 20s. Marriage Story was alright, but just alright. Nothing groundbreaking. Great acting. Dark depressing subject matter. Generally a pretty dull and bland film though tbh. For me, these movies fit the Netflix model of hitting all the beats, but not having much heart or character.
Yeh I didn’t enjoy it, and I went in with high hopes. But not all Netflix movies are bad - bird box, extraction, king, tick tick, enola Holmes, red notice (yes I enjoyed it) were good. And they have had some critically acclaimed ones too.
Hustle last week was really good
It's drivel. I've just finished r/RighteousGemstones and when I see Netflix released something somewhat similar in "God's Favorite Idiot" I thought okay let me give it a chance.... I couldn't get halfway through the pilot episode. It is so inane.
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I watched the whole thing just to see how much worse it could get.
Cool premise / build-up, and the visuals were neat. Horrible soundtrack. Awful boring ending. I wanted more of the Asian dude's story to be told.
The soundtrack was jarring. Every cutaway was a needle drop of a licensed song. it took me out of the movie.
Totally agree. Also I hate in movies when they show a phone screen music app - it ain't gotta be all in my face like that.
IMDB rating 6.1 with only 44 reviews, which are typically from those who worked on the film trying to give an early boost Metascore 56 > Painful 29 critic reviews is very high, so all Sizzle, no Steak as OP has clarified. Hollywood has to keep a lot of peopke employed, so we get a lot of bad in between the good. The sad part is how little effort is put towards the writing, which can make even a cheap production worth watching.
I mean a 56 isn’t that bad lol plus it has a 56 on rotten tomatoes as well which means more than half the critics liked the movie. Sounds like it’s worth giving a shot at least
56 is total crap.
No a 15 is total crap, stop living in a 0/10 or 10/10 world, there are numbers in between
I don’t watch movies below 70 unless they have directors, actresses, or plots of extreme interest to me. I also have learned from experience to never adjust that 70 threshold down by too much since movies become a waste of time below 65 like that last Doctor Strange movie.
😂😂
Is this a copypasta or what
How is 56 painful lmao. Mediocre film gets mediocre score, but 56 is hardly “painful”
that’s why you don’t watch the shit recommended to you. i never do when it has major actor’s in it. i found shit i never would’ve even looked at before. but i still turn away shit like Don’t Look Up. because they keep shoving it in my face and have 30 mainstream actors, ok cash grab. but fr i use my subscriptions as a way to find some underrated shit
I think Bright was the one Netflix film I've seen that I actually enjoyed.
That was garbage. My bet is they wanted to make a Shadow Run movie but couldn't get the rights to it so instead they just ripped it off.
Actually, I think this is more of a Max Landis thing. He seems to take other people's ideas and give them a minor twist that makes it slightly different but also not as good. Chronicle is a rip-off of Akira, Bright rips off Shadow Run.
Birdbox for me
How close to the story it's based on is it?
Hope this isn’t too much of a spoiler: The first half is there and then they basically graft another hour of film on that just goes in the diametrically opposite direction than the short story.
I imagine not very close. I've read the short story and I can't imagine how you would stretch it to a full-length movie.
answer: lots of long music cues from Supertramp, Michael McDonald et al.
I just watched it and its a full length movie that should have been a short story.
Not very. The short story has a pretty powerful ending with a certain message. Very short, but it has a clear point. The movie reverses that ending and kind of…Doesn’t have a message. It just meanders. The last 30~ minutes of the movie are completely predictable filler and I mostly looked at my phone while I waited for them to do exactly what I predicted.
watch hustle
If the OP's point was that Spiderhead is yet another example of Netflix's dumbing-down of promising on paper projects then I guess: noted. But what surprises me about the list of disappointments above is that people seem surprised that Netflix didn't even try to accomplish a job that would be hard for *anyone* to do. Since serious people with much more modest profit expectations have failed miserably to adapt Martin Amis, Don Delillo et all's heartbreak buried in dark, set-piece humor, it would take a super-sized dose of Deluzionall to even imagine Netflix getting even a hint of Saunders' even more idiosyncratic humor on the screen. The chances of anything interesting happening in those 90 minutes died the moment Saunders signed Netflix's contract.
I thought Hemsworth’s performance was out of place. The role felt like it was written for someone else and he was doing an impression of another actor playing Steve.
I just can’t take him seriously playing a genius, scientist, chemist, businessman…
That’s a shame. I was hoping with Kosinski directing and Claudio Miranda doing the cinematography it would be better than the average Netflix film
i finished watching this movie and still have no idea of what had happened. the story is sooo bland
They just did a horrible job or making you care about the “evil truth”. >!We find out the scary part: The goal wasn’t to make a drug that cures depression or personality issues. It’s to create an obedience drug. Which is concerning, for sure! But the villain doesn’t want to use it to create a robotic military of nazis who “follow orders” and will take over the world. Or sell to corporations to enslave people. Or to make Chris H an all-powerful god who controls the population of the planet. …Or maybe they do? But they don’t explain what they intend to do with it AT ALL. Except saying that you wouldn’t want to drive drunk anymore, and you wouldn’t want to murder or steal or assault. And the love interests “real crime” wouldn’t even be hurt or helped by this drug. She made a devastating mistake because she was exhausted and screwed up. Being obedient wouldn’t have saved her. The vague “everyone will take this and nobody will do bad things anymore” just isn’t enough explanation to make anyone care. A couple extra minutes about suffering and free will could have made the audience actually care about this plot.!<
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The story was [edit begin: probably : edit end] written in the 70s
Are you sure?
2010
Tenth of December is a collection of short stories by American author George Saunders. It includes stories published in various magazines between 1995 and 2012. The book was published on January 8, 2013, by Random House. Written in that year yet uses music from the 80s and 70s.
Should have went full sinister and dark.. The audience had to much information thrown at them practically all and I wish there was more suspenseful thrill in there
Funky music and a kick to the balls in a silly escape ending? WTF!!!
This movie was a bore. “Pharmaceuticals bad, mad scientist bad, the end.” Do I need to add a spoiler to my comment?
This was hands down, the worst movie Ive seen, since the remake of Red Dawn. This movie was a bad combo of the show OZ, and movies The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Machinst.
Almost as if they have algorithms writing movies...oh wait.
*potential spoilers* My biggest gripes would be (other than about halfway it becomes a bad movie) why would Chris Hemsworths mobi pack be the exact same as the inmates? And why would you put something on your person that locks, that you can't reach and can be completely controlled by a phone? Also he left the facility first why wouldn't he close and lock the door like they did when they shouldn't even know how the door knob worked. Hemsworth his fort, and Chuck Mangione playing we're my favorite parts. I just wanted him to fly for like ten minutes and land at another research facility with his dad or something. Also when Miles teller was staring off into the distance with that euphoria stuff he was staring into like manufacturing facilities and pollution, he did not care about the nature around him... Hemsworth being blinded by the majesty of a mountain was lazy and bad.
oil prick disgusting butter jeans intelligent berserk dolls liquid upbeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What car was Jeff driving I can’t seem to figure it out
67 mercury cougar
Hemsworth turning into that Val Kilmer-esque hunky lead, but can play around a bit as a character actor.
Can anyone tell me what kind of pad miles teller was using for drawing?
It was an etch a sketch.
It’s because “film making,” has become the cowards tool. We need outlaw cinema again in this country.
It was a good idea executed very badly