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Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

 Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)


 

5/10


Starring

Idris Elba

Tilda Swinton

 

Directed by George Miller

 

This romantic fantasy may not be everyone’s cup of tea. There is a way this movie starts with a cautious Alithea (Tilda Swinton) as she goes about her lonely way then coming into the possession of a Djinn (Idris Elba) with three wishes she can use. This start and her willingness not to be a sucker had me, I wanted so much to see how this was going to end.

Then the movie lost me the moment she wished for… not to spoil the movie she made a wish for something that was clearly missing in her life, and I was not surprised, and the movie then ended woefully.

I was really hoping she will be cautious all through and just do some living, but I guess the movie is more about the three stories the Djinn had to tell than anything else. Is why I can understand how this was not a massive hit. Then the way she just succumbed to the weird wish of hers just showed for me some form of lack of imagination.

The movie is based on a book called The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye a short story from 1994 by British novelist A. S. Byatt. I have not read that book, so I can not say if this movie is true to the material or not.

I like the movie’s three stories to be honest and that was it for me. The plot is simple Alithea loves to travel to narrate stories and her life has been one of being alone. She used to be married, but one thing caused that marriage to fail the movie showed glimpse of what that could be but did not dwell on it. In one of her trips, she purchases a nice bottle which had some burnt stains on it.

She takes it to her hotel and while cleaning it releases a Djinn who then grants her three wishes.

We learn that the Djinn was trapped in the whole granting three wishes thing by King Solomon (of the Bible) and the only way he can be free is if he can get someone to make three wishes.

So, he tells his story of the places he has been since being a trapped in this wishing thing and how come the three wishes never come to be completed so he can be free of the bondage in which he finds himself.

In the end, I admire the ambition of the movie in wanting to capture the marvel of the days of Solomon and the times after that until this present day, but in the end that is all I get. Fine visuals and that’s it.

Emily the Criminal (2022)

Emily the Criminal (2022)


5/10

Starring

Aubrey Plaza

Theo Rossi

Megalyn Echikunwoke

Gina Gershon

 

Directed by John Patton Ford

 

Decaying somewhere will be this movie and all memory of me seeing it will be lost soon. The sad thing is that it will not be missed. Even though the movie has a one up on entertaining than the nonsense being thrown at us during this drought of good eye watering cinema, it still lacks the ingredients that will make it memorable.

Hard on luck woman decides to do something about her difficulty by getting involved in an illegal credit card scheme which in the end turned out some needless tragedy and deceit. Wow! How surprising. I think the biggest problem now is not the lack of originality is the lack of creativity when recycling things. There is nothing new you can say, but at least do something good with what you have decided to reuse.

The movie had too much Ctrl+C (copy) Ctrl+V (paste) from what we were already used to.

Emily was working hard doing odd jobs to get buy hoping to get a good job to get her out of her present state of despair. One day a colleague asked her to cover his shift and in return gave her a contact which guaranteed her $200 an hour. The offer looked too good, and she jumped on it to discover it is a fraud credit card scheme. Where they go to a store buy an expensive item with the fake credit card and fake ID and bring it to the men who are running the ring. In return for that trip, they get $200 and go home.

After the first one went well, she got another offer for $2000. This one did not go so well and from no where one of the men who oversees the ring took a liking on Emily. And their little union got Emily her own numbers, her fake card creating device and she could now start making her own purchases and selling them on the street.

As you would expect things were not going great later when the two decided to be a couple, and soon we had an ending which just showed how odd this movie could have been if the writer had just tried to be more creative with what they had in their hand.

The lack of good movies with directors and good writers stretched thing among these streaming services means we must make the best of what we have dropped on our feet. This is not one of the best we can see out there, but it is something to make do while waiting for something better.

Pinocchio (2022)

Pinocchio (2022)


 

3/10

Starring

Tom Hanks

Benjamin Evan Ainsworth

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

 

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

 

This Disney Live Action remake is all skeleton and no flesh.

If I was anywhere near the board of people who decide what movies to be made, I will not have advised about this one. It looked like a mountain to succumb with the idea of making a movie about a puppet who wants to be a real boy and must overcome many things to do it. When you see 1940 Pinocchio the fun was in the comedy which followed Pinocchio’s journey and Pinocchio’s string of bad decisions. I saw the movie in the early 90s and then was no problem seeing a child smoke on screen, drinking beer (not root beer as in this movie). The cruelty of Pinocchio’s experience and the almost impossible things he had to get out off to save himself and his father.

This movie made one big mistake; it did not go all the way. Why not? Why stop where they were saved from Monstro? Why not give us the whole ordeal of Pinocchio lying because he was a bad boy? Why not show us Pinocchio being sold for money? What about the end and the donkey incident, why not just show us Pinocchio being bad and just running off again?

The story of Pinocchio being swept by the moment was just annoying and did not make the movie any better, but boring and made it look like a washed-up job that could only survive on TV slots when everyone will be sleeping.

The wonderful CGI in this movie is the only thing that is good in a story of a man who made a little wooden boy to serve as a cork to seal his bleeding heart for the loss of his own son. Before going to bed he wished that the puppet be real, and he was awoken to a puppet moving about his home with no strings.

Pinocchio had to show himself true, brave, and wise to finally complete the transformation from a wooden boy to a real one. A task he can only accomplish with his guide Jimmy the Cricket as his conscience.

The journey to being a real boy starts the next day with a kick in the butt on reality that children are expected in schools and puppets are meant to be in puppet shows. This one incident led our wanting to be a real boy down a path of sad things where he almost lost his life and that of his father on his misguided journey through life on his first day.

I never saw enough marketing on this movie, so I guess Disney also knew it was a dud.

Me Time (2022)

Me Time (2022)


 3/10

 


Starring

Kevin Hart

Mark Wahlberg

 

Directed by John Hamburg

 

You get the feeling that Netflix is scrapping the bottom of the barrel for anything that will stick as a good movie for people to write about. This one does not make any common sense at all. The whole idea of this movie is drowned out by what the writer and director Hamburg thinks pass as funny. With mediocre acting, like ever main cast was just tired and doing the last hour of a stressful day shift.

A grown man taking a dump on the bed of another, I know the Amber Heard case was weird, but the incident was not funny. How this is what pass as funny now, shows you how deep down the barrel they had to go to bring this out.

This movie is like an over used rag which instead of tossing out, they decided to use it once more and now, it has stains everywhere and still did not do the job.

The plot is about two old friends Sonny and Huck (Hart and Wahlberg respectively). Huck always gets Sonny to do crazy things with him on his birthday and this became their tradition. After 3 years apart, Sonny has become a stay home dad and Huck is still living the life.

During Huck’s 44th, he invites Sonny for it, but Sonny has become boring, and his wife was begging him to go. She wanted to use the opportunity to get to know her children. Sonny decided to take the offer of a Me-Tim while the wife take the kids to her parents.

From here we discover the wild ride Huck has planned for his 44th. Also, we learn that there is more to the Huck than the eyes could see and he is hiding something critical from his friend Sonny.

What a predictable plot with the only twist being how much predictable it could get.

I want so much to not see anything Netflix for a while because I will need something amazing to make me forget that this movie was ever done.

Kevin Hart is just making money doing the bare minimum in these strings of movies he has dropping everywhere. Even here, casting him and Wahlberg was a total waste of money for a script that should be nothing more than a 10-minute skit.

The movie is playing on Netflix, and I will advise you to go find an old series and re-watch that because the chances of you watching this movie to the end without falling asleep is very low. If the boredom does not get you, the stupidity being displayed on screen will.