Wow bit late aren't you? Have you seen the original Swedish versions?

C

I saw the first one and that was quite enough.

The Intern: A solid 7.5 out of 10.
Ernie will probably hate it.
Nothing blows up, there's no real action sequences, and the protagonist is a successful business woman balancing home and work.

For the rest of you, it's really nice to see a film with older people having actual lives - De Niro isn't trying to be an action hero, just a regular guy in his 70s.
I'm not normally an Anne Hathaway fan, but she's growing on me. A very good well rounded performance. Her husband in the film though - some questionable dialogue and performances on his behalf.
But a minor whinge on what was otherwise a great way to spend some time in the cinema. It made me laugh.

Ernie doesn't care what it is so long as it has a decent script and is going somewhere.

Hell, I'm probably one of the few people in the world who actually enjoyed Jersey Girl.

And yet you enjoyed Iron Man 3.

You enjoyed Iron Man 2, which kills this debate stone dead

I did see the last one before I read the books and I thought it was well done. That is why I was so upset with how unfaithful the US remake was.

Mad Max Fury Road - as mad as a box of frogs, with no plot to speak of, terrible acting, 1-dimensional characters, some dodgy CGI and over the top stunts.

I actually quite enjoyed it perversely, but it's completely forgettable as soon as the credits roll. Also, it felt as though something was missing in terms of backstory - what was the apocalyptic event that resulted in this world, who was the little girl he kept seeing in flashbacks. OK, we know who it is from Mel Gibson's original, but this is a reboot for a new generation, many of which won't have seen the original films. Why was Theron's character taking these 'breeders', and where was she going? Too much was assumed by the writers/directors, it felt like I'd missed a first film and this was the second of the franchise!

You're right, I'm so used to the old films that I just accepted what was in front of me here. The first half hour had me ready to walk out (I'm fcuking sick of lazy trippiness masquerading as meaningful these days), but the second the camera landed on Theron it was clear she was the real focus. There's already plans for sequels as you'd imagine, but the director has always had his own way of doing things. What does he share with Cameron, Scott, Whedon etc? A love of strong women. And as ever now, you get something approaching explanation in a sequel...

Yeah, I often feel that one of the let downs of Blade Runner is that Deckard's back story isn't explicitly laid out before us. We know next to nothing about him but we're meant to be getting behind him a hero?
The same with the utter shambles that is The Shining. Who's Jack Torrance? We know he's a writer, but where does come from? What was his childhood like? All we know is that he's a writer with a family, a book to deliver and he's shacked up in a hotel to get it done. Then before you know it, it's all special effects and running about (in a hotel who's floor plan makes no sense - honestly, the continuity people really slipped up in parts). Both of these films need a sequel just to explain what on earth happened in the first! Typical Hollywood.

We were specifically talking about Fury Road.

My broader point is that the complaints about characterisation can be levelled at many other films.
Fury Road is a continuation of the earlier films. It isn't a reboot. It's not going back to the start.
You needn't see them to understand what's happening in the film. It's post-apocalyptic, and if you're really curious, go and watch the earlier three.
It stands alone quite well without needing to have seen the other 3. I haven't seen those films in about 20 years.


It's fairly clear she didn't think people were property for the enjoyment of the big baddie. So she springs them to rescue them back to her origin, some sort of collective/village away from the control of big baddie. I seem to recall that being fairly clear.

As for the 'dodgy CGI' - any parts in particular? I thought it was some of the best work I've seen in a long time.

Mind you, this is the only film I've seen a in long time which made me want to sit and see it again, immediately.

The biggest criticism people lay at the door of Hollywood these days is the "leave it alone, it doesn't need a remake."

Now, I don't see any merit to this argument unless George Lucas is going around deleting the original, you still have the choice to watch it if you prefer. Also, given 10 years, as much as you think you remember how good a film is, the acting, clothes, sets, action, dialogue, all start to get dated, and as much as you wish it weren't so, you watch it again 15 years later, and even you think the original is a bit [LIFTED], or at least less good, and you find yourself watching the rebooted one.

Because the CGI is better, the action more exciting, the dialogue less misogynistic (perhaps).

Well one of the best justifications in the eyes of many people for making a remake is that it introduces kids to the worlds that you enjoyed when YOU were growing up, and you get a new generations reaction to it, where THEY see the improvements should be made, how THEY want their heroes to react to a situation and what message THEY take away from it. Mad Max Fury Road is one of the best reboots I've ever seen, because you get more back story if you know the originals, but it also stands alone.. It has original twists, it's serious enough and also tongue in cheek enough. It's a very well thought out modern take on an old series. The presence of a flamethrowing guitar player for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, is a nod to the fact that there's no storyline.

What they want to say, in doing that, is the storyline, the adventure is the remaking process itself, it's a literary commentary that the women take centre-stage, the way they realise that they can't run off and find a utopia, they have to fight the social structures in place and defend the people that are in the urban environment and not just write them off as ignorant rednecks. There's plenty of storyline and depth, but it's not in the plot of the movie, it's in the social commentary and the remaking process itself. It's rebooting as an homage, as an art. Not a cash in.

You could say the same about Star Trek. You couldn't say the same about Phantom Menace.

And further more, it's a tradition of all art forms there have ever been, to play within the confounds of artistic limitation. The more limitation you put on the art, the more interesting and thought-provoking it often becomes. a totally "original" work, is, probably, either not original at all, or so original that it says nothing about the creative process and more about the wackiness, the "aren't I original and random" of the creative team, which is actually, less interesting and more distracting for me. If Toy Story 1 and 2 didn't exist, we wouldn't have Toy Story 3, which is one of the finest films of recent times, precisely because it's a sequel, and we are familar with the characters, and 50% of the depth comes from the acknowledgement that we have grown up with the characters and these are the ways in which our perspective on the world and human nature has changed since the first film was made.

A totally new Pixar film wouldn't have been able to make that commentary, that film wouldn't have gotten made if Hollywood actually listened to the false logic that "we want more original films". The ticket sales say you don't. It's not cynical, it's because it makes for better story-telling, more depth, more excitement.

Homer, we're sick of Odysseus, and his flipping adventures, you did Odysseus last Thursday, why don't you come up with a new character, don't bother creating one of the greatest literary characters told over many years as formulaic, generic, unoriginal, remade, rebooted, oral tales.

I regret using the term CGI, it should just be called "visual artistry", the tools used just happen to be the best available in 2015, it's silly to set them apart as being in any way lesser or better because of the medium used to create it. Also that article which shows that "bad CGI" is a false complaint when you realise that 99% of the CGI used int he film, you didn't notice as being such, because it was so near-perfect that you didn't even notice it wasn't real, in case you haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL6hp8BKB24