Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-04-26 (Friday)

On 4/27/24 5:18 PM, Arthur Lipscomb wrote:

On 4/27/2024 8:22 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:
 

Yesterday, I finished off Fallout, and watched a movie:
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What did you watch?

 I watched:
  There were two movies that debuted this weekend.  "Boy Kills World" and "Challengers."  "Boy Kills World" is a new action comedy starring Bill Skarsgård as a deaf-mute young man who goes on a blood soaked revenge spree to slaughter the people who killed his family.  The movie also stars Jessica Rothe, Famke Janssen, Sharlto Copley, and "Mad Dog" from the Raid movies.  How could you possibly go wrong?  "Challengers" on the other hand is a 2 hour long drama starring Zendeya.  The plot involves her being in a love triangle with tennis players.  So it was not a hard decision picking which movie to see on Thursday night.  Except "Boy Kills World" was not playing in IMAX or Dolby cinema.  All the high quality theater screens had been taken over by "Challengers."  So I went to the local theater and saw  "Boy Kills World" on a regular screen...
 "Boy Kills World" - I actually saw this on Thursday night, but didn't feel like talking about it.  Given the cast and premise I went into this with high expectations.  My expectations were crushed.  I though I was going to get "Crank" and instead I got "Gamer."  :-(  It's just a mess of a movie.  I'm trying to wrap my head around this is a hard "R" revenge fueled blood fest (with "Mad Dog" from the Raid movies!), and yet I was nodding off due to boredom.

That is very disappointing - I was actually looking forward to this one. [sigh...]

So after the movie I headed over to Rogerebert.com and saw they gave "Boy Kills World" 1 star.  I also noticed they gave "Challengers," the movie that stole all the Dolby Cinema and IMAX screens, 3 1/2 half stars.  So I went to see "Challengers" in Dolby Cinema Friday night.
 "Challengers" - The plot is actually kind of hard to describe without getting into spoilers, and that's in spite of the fact the plot is very basic.  Zendeya stars as a former tennis pro who is now married to a famous tennis player and is his coach.  But there is a bit of a love triangle (or hate triangle) with her husband's rival and former best friend.  This movie was surprisingly really good.  Much better than the blood soaked revenge fest.  Although "Challengers" is also very "R." The vibe of this movie feels a *lot* like "Less Than Zero" or "Rules of Attraction," and could easily be set in that universe (there are several movies set in that universe).  I checked the credits to make sure it wasn't actually based on a Bret Easton Ellis book, because it felt like it was.  The movie also borrows a page from "Memento" and tells the story in somewhat reverse order.  It's not always going in reverse, but there are a lot of jumping around in time, usually backwards.

I doubt I am going to like this movie at all. [shrug]