The Northman Review

 

The Northman is a epic historical action drama film based on the legend of Amleth. The movie is produced by Regency Enterprises, Perfect World Pictures, New Regency, and Square Peg and distributed by Focus Features. The Northman is written by Robert Eggers and Sjón and directed by Robert Eggers.

The story is young prince Amleth is on the verge of becoming a man. All that changes when during a trip with his father, when Amleth's uncle attacks them. After so many years, Amleth has returned to keep his vow of avenging his father, saving his mother, and killing his uncle.

Initial Reaction

The reason why I wanted to see this movie was because the trailers made the film look really awesome. Then I was hearing many positive reviews, and I was even more pumped.

Cons

I've got nothing to say. So let's move on.

Middle Ground

Got nothing for this section, so let's keep moving.

Pros

One spectacular thing about The Northman is how they showed just how brutal the world was back in 895 A.D. The filmmakers gave us a savage world, I'm convinced nobody ever died of old age. You either got shot with arrows, stabbed in the face, or sliced up during a pillaging. Even a simple sports game turns violent. What also elevated the quality of the film was the performances. I could pick a favorite or favorites, but with this everyone was really great. Alexander Skarsgård pretty much disappears when playing Amleth, Anya Taylor-Joy was amazing. Hell, even people who weren't even in the movie that long like Willem Dafoe do an incredible job. The next thing I'll praise is the cinematography. Even though there's not that much to the landscapes, Jarin Blaschke still managed to show off how beautiful they are. So if you're a fan of the cinematography he did for The Lighthouse, he's definitely not gonna disappoint you here, and after seeing what he did with those films, I'm definitely gonna see what he does with M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming movie, Knock at the Cabin. Another amazing thing regrading The Northman is the action. There's not that much of it, but when it does show up all you're gonna say is "Holy Sh*t"! Seriously, when it came to the fight scenes, nothing was held back. Cause if someone's gonna get messed up, the movie's not gonna shy away from it. You're gonna see exactly what happened, whether you like it or not. The other aspect that made the film amazing was it's revenge story. I'm all for the main character going on an absolute rampage filled with bullets and explosions, but what made this revenge story was how patience Amleth is, and how he psychology torments his uncle. Because of that approach, you're left wondering what messed up thing is gonna happen next. The last thing I'll praise the film for is Robert Eggers' directing. I'm gonna keep it brief, cause I don't think my words could do him justice. What I will say is there's this gorgeous shot of Valhalla that could've made for a spectacular painting.

The Northman is a film you should go see right now, or make plans to see. It's got a really intense world, amazing performances, top notch cinematography, brutal action, a great revenge story, and stunning directing from Eggers.

My final rating is A Must Watch.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ambulance, The Bad Guys, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and now this. Man, I ended April with a bang. Hopefully May also brings some greats as well. But that's all for me. Come back on Monday, May 2nd for my A Look Back at review of, Doctor Strange. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Review

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an action comedy film. The movie is produced by Saturn Films and Burr! Productions and distributed by Lionsgate. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten and directed by Tom Gormican.

The story is Nick Cage has begrudgingly accepted a $1 million dollar offer to attend a super fan's birthday. Things start off simple enough, then everything gets very crazy. In order to push forward through these events, Cage must become his most iconic and beloved characters if he wants to survive this insane outcome.

Initial Reaction

I've been excited for this movie when the synopsis came out. Since then, it's appeared on my lists of most anticipated films of last year and this year. Then the trailer was released, and I realized that I just had to see this.

Cons

I've got nothing to say. Let's just move on.

Middle Ground

Near the middle of maybe more accurately the end, the movie is a little bit predictable. Even going as far as spelling things out. However I'm willing to forgive that. Because by the end you're still given a wonderful experience throughout the movie.

Pros

Now if you're a Nicolas Cage fan, this movie won't disappoint you. It's quite literally a tribute to Nicolas Cage. From both the characters he's played, or more importantly the great actor that he is. Speaking of Nicolas Cage as an actor, he's truly awesome in this. He goes through a range of emotions. From heartbroken, to comedic, to serious, to suspicious, and then just over the top insanity. What also made the movie a great watch was the humor. I laughed a lot more at this than I expected. One of my favorite comedic moments was a but involving Paddington 2. Heck, as I was writing this I was cracking up right now just thinking about. The last thing I'll praise the movie for is Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal's chemistry. The majority of the movie is just them hanging out and having a good time. Which was one of the funniest parts of the entire movie. Sure, an action sequence does come later, and while it's still entertaining, it truly was outshined by Cage and Pascal's characters being friends with one another. And you're by no means gonna be disappointed by that.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is awesome and I'm so glad I saw it. It's a great tribute to Nicolas Cage, Cage's performance was wonderful, I got a lot of good laughs, and Cage and Pascal's chemistry is truly the highlight of the movie. Yeah it gets predictable, but that can be forgiven.

My final rating is Great.

So yeah, check this out if you haven't already. Okay, that's all for me. Come back on Thursday, Apr 28th for my review of The Northman. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

The Bad Guys Review

 

The Bad Guys is a 3D animated comedy crime film loosely based on Aaron Blabey's children's book series of the same name. The movie is produced by DreamWorks Animation Studios and Scholastic Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. The Bad Guys is written by Etan Cohen and directed by Pierre Perifel.

The story is Mr. Wolf and his gang have just been caught after their latest heist went wrong. The gang pretends that they want to go over to the good side, but the leader Mr. Wolf truly does want to go straight. While the gang is arguing amongst themselves about Wolf's sudden change, a new villain arrives and has their own plans.

Initial Reaction

The reason why I wanted to see this was because going by the trailer it looked fun. From the animation to ads I saw on YouTube, it seemed like it was going to be a very entertaining movie.

Cons

I've got nothing to say. Let's move on.

Middle Ground

Now I'll fully admit, that yes, the movie does have a predictability issue but, given a lot of the good aspects of this movie, I can kind of let it slide just a little bit.

Pros

Speaking of good aspects, let's get into those. One of them being the performances. Two of the best being Sam Rockwell as Mr. Wolf and Marc Maron as Mr. Snake. Rockwell really made Mr. Wolf sound every bit of charming and smooth, while Maron just owns the role. I mean it, he disappears so much into his character, that nobody would've guessed it was him. Then we have the humor. It's pretty good. Not all of it works, but for the most part it does well. One of the many great humorous moments is the fact that Mr. Shark is the group's master of disguise, despite A) clearly being a shark and B) having the most generic costumes you'll ever see. And the humor also comes from the dialogue. One of my favorites being "Look at that, 4pm, now we know the exact moment our friendship died". What I also liked about The Bad Guys was the animation. What I loved about it so much was how lively it was. It very much had a lot of energy going about it. Whether the scene was humorous, action, emotional, somewhere in between, the animation was just amazing. I especially give props where even though it's 3D, the animators did use a lot 2D animation effects as well. I also went to give credit for how chaotic the movie can be. At first it starts off with a diner scene that almost felt like it could've been in a Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie film, if those actually made a kid's movie, then it quickly turns into a car chase that would've perfect for a Looney Tunes episode. Now I'm going to give credit to the director, Pierre Perifel. For a guy who just made his directoral debut, he sure didn't make it seem like this was his first time directing. Cause just going by the diner scene, not only did it give off that Tarantino and Ritchie vibe I mentioned earlier, but it's one great looking one-shot scene. That scene alone really does draw you in. Nicely done Mr. Perifel. Nicely done.

The Bad Guys is definitely a film I can see families enjoying. It's got good performances, good humor, great animation, can be quite chaotic (in a good way), and Perifel's directing was on point. Sure, it can be predictable, but you still get a very entertaining movie.

My final rating is Good.

Okay, I'm all finished here. Come back on Monday, Apr 25th for my review of the brand new Nicolas Cage film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Cinematic Disasters - Disaster Movie

 

Well...it's that time again....time to see what kind of crap Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are making this time. Yay.

Disaster Movie is a 2008 parody movie. It was produced by Grosvenor Park, The Safran Company, and 3 in the Box and distributed by Lionsgate. Disaster Movie was written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

The story is Will is on edge after having a dream about being warned that the end of the world is coming. Despite this, him and friends continue to live their lives, which is short lived after a huge meteor storm arrives. Now Will and his friends must not only survivor this disaster, but they also must work they're way through the city to save Will's girlfriend Amy.

My Thoughts

So our title sequences begins with Earth and then the title exploded. In the same style as Michael Bay's Armageddon, alright. We have a disaster film reference in a movie called Disaster Movie. Why am I making a big deal out of that? Pay close attention afterwards and you'll see why.

Then our movie starts off with a parody of 10,000 B.C., We see our main character Will running from an animal and then we get our first of far too many pop culture references, where he proceeds to American Gladiator's Wolf. Not even ten minutes in, and it's already stupid. After that, Will runs into...Amy Winehouse...just go with it. After a far too long burp joke sequence, She tells Will that the end of the world will be on Aug 29th, 2008, and their fate lies within...the crystal skull from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Where six minutes in, and we're faking fun of movies that AREN'T disaster films.

After that, we cut to Will sweet sixteen (despite being him being 25), we get awful parodies of No Country for Old Men, Superbad, and Wanted. I'm annoyed Friedberg and Seltzer are making fun of No Country for Old Men and Wanted, but how is it, on their FOURTH movie, they still haven't learned you can't make fun of films like Superbad. That movie is a comedy, which means it's already making fun of itself, so there's no point in spoofing it!

During the Wanted parody, we cut to Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra have a fight in a parody of WWE: Divas Search. For the record, yes Kim and Carmen both have character names, but be honest. You're just calling them by their real names. But the real point to get to is how outdated this WWE parody is. Cause WWE stopped doing that contest back in 2007. Another lesson these two didn't learn, never make all of your jokes something related to the current year, because by the time that year is over, the joke isn't gonna work anymore.

Also, Juney is here. Who's Juney you might be asking, she's the parody of Juno. Fourteen minutes in, and no disaster movies are being parodied. Don't worry they'll show up soon....I think.

Then we're introduced to a musical number which spoofs High School Musical 3: Senior Year, and my god. How is it that this sequence was only four minutes long, and yet it felt like it went on forever? Like it said it's only four minutes, but somehow it felt longer than that. How do you do that? How do you make a pretty short scene, feel like it goes on and on and on and on!

Afterwards, I checked the clock...and we're only twenty minutes in. Which is weird because it felt like I was sitting there way longer than that. Then I came to a conclusion, and that being, the pacing is dreadful! Any time there's a joke or a parody of another movie on screen, especially the parodies, the movie just comes to a complete stop, to make an awful joke, then it goes on, but then there's another parody, so the movie has to come to a complete stop. And that happens over and over again. So because of the pause and resume structure, an hour long movie almost feels like three or more hours.

There's one good the ghetto got destroyed joke. I mean it. That was the only good joke. Everything before and after that is just awful.

So now we have meteor shower. Yes, we finally came to the disaster portion of Disaster Movie. So, that means right off the bat we'll finally start getting disaster movie parodies, right? Nope. Cause then we get a joke with Hannah Montana. Then she dies, says some stupid joke, dies, says some stupid joke, and we repeat that process. In the hands of a good writer or writers that could've worked...but we didn't have good writers unfortunately. Then we get a parody of Hancock. It's as predictable as it is pointless.

Then the city starts to freeze over. Apparently that meteor shower from earlier just went away, so Will and his friends take shelter and then the meet the chicks from Sex and the City. Which then leads to Juney fighting one of them, I didn't care to look up which character it is. Never once have I ever cared for the show and anything relating to it, so I'm not bothering with character names, then we're given a pointless parody of Don't Mess with the Zohan, but both during and after that fight we see quite possibly the most forced adult humor ever. Another common problem with the movie.

After that bit of stupidity, Will has a flashback to a moment with his girlfriend Amy. Now this scene is meant for character, but we don't care. Why? Because we know Friedberg and Seltzer don't care. We know that both during and after this scene, they're just gonna move on to make another awful joke relating to movies released in 2008, or pop culture in general. This scene in and of itself proves that, because during the flashback we get spoofs of Jumper and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

Will and the others leave the shelter and then Will gets a call from his girl Amy. They have a brief conversation, which also has an AT&T ad slapped onto, because product placement, and afterwards Will sets out to rescue her. His friends come along, expect for Kim Kardashian's character because she doesn't think it's save. Then she's crushed by a meteor, and despite putting in sad dramatic music nobody cares. Throughout the movie leading up to this point, we don't care her character died. There was nothing to make use emotional attached to her. So big deal.

Now we're at scene where Calvin (Will's friend and Kim's character's boyfriend) is sad and crying and then Giselle from Enchanted shows up. Again, that was a comedy, actually Enchanted itself already comes off as a parody, so why parody a parody? That makes no sense. Also, that movie came out in 2007, so making fun of it in mid-to-late 2008 make any joke Friedberg & Seltzer make about her outdated. Also this character is annoying! She's not in the movie that long, but still, she's just annoying. I couldn't stand her.

After this introduction...we have a dance scene. Yep, much like Meet the Spartans, Friedberg and Seltzer put in a dance scene, because they have to pad out the runtime. As if people weren't already suffering enough throughout this movie.

Thankfully that scene is over, but now an even dumber one comes along. A twister now arrives, and parody Giselle shouts "we need a hero!" Then Iron Man arrives, gets crushed by a cow. Then Hellboy and Hulk shows up and the same thing happens. That's the entire scene. They say something related to their character, a cow hits them, and they walk away.

So the group takes shelter AGAIN, and guess what? MORE POP CULTURE REFERENCES! Now their dancing with Alvin and the Chipmunks. Then the chipmunks go evil for some reason, attack the group, and kill Juney. Guess what? Nobody cares. We don't care if these characters die. We don't love them nor do we have any reason to hope they survive. If anything, we're begging for all of them to die, because when that happens, we won't have to sit through the movie anymore.

After making through the stupid bit, the group runs into Batman because The Dark Knight was a huge thing back in 2008. So he says some stupid dialogue that's supposed to be funny, and then just goes away. It's almost like that served no purpose, and was parodied for the sake of a pop culture reference. Much like everything else in this movie.

And do you know what's better than a pointless scene like that? ANOTHER POINTLESS POP CULTURE SCENE! Now the group hijacks Speed Racer's Mach 5, and during this scene they try to make more of a dark humorous one, but there's nothing here. It's just parody Giselle shooting Speed Racer, and they just move onto the next scene. Also during this scene Friedberg and Seltzer make fun of Michael Jackson....because it worked so well in Date Movie.

So the group finally goes to the museum that Amy was trapped in, rescue her, and now, all of a sudden, Friedberg and Seltzer want to do a plot. And they can't do that. You can't have us, watch these characters do nothing but interact with characters from other movies, make god awful jokes about said movies, and then now, give us a story. Especially when the previous stories (Will's relationship issues and the rescue) were barely there to begin with.

While Will and Amy return the crystal skull, ya remember that? The crystal skull? No. Well I can't blame. I myself forgot all about that. Anyhow, they want to return the crystal skull to the alter to stop the apocalypse. Meanwhile, Calvin and parody Giselle decided to go to the emergency evacuation zone, but they're locked inside the museum. Where we now have Night of the Museum. And I gotta say, out of all the parodies in this movie, this was the most pointless. There wasn't an attempt at a joke or anything. The characters show up, walking around, and then Calvin and parody Giselle just run away.

Then we cut back to Will and Amy where they run into Beowulf, where they crack jokes about how he once fought completely naked. Totally original jokes guys. Nobody was making those before this movie. This was clearly the genius of Friedberg and Seltzer being ahead of the curve.

Then we cut back to Calvin and parody Giselle trying to find a way out of the museum...then they run into Po from Kung Fu Panda. Where the actor for Po is wearing a terrifying costume. Just look at it...

This movie is by no means meant for kids, but could you imagine if they saw this. You'd probably scar them for life (🤣). But after that fight, Po kills Calvin and thankfully Giselle. Seeing that parody of Giselle get killed was the only time I cheered, and I'd imagine the same response happened in the theaters when this was first released.

Thankfully, thankfully were finally nearing the end. So after the fight scenes, and a parody of Indiana Jones with Tony Cox playing Indiana, Will and Amy put the skull back where it belongs. Then Will and Amy go and get married, where not only do we have a completely pointless parody of The Love Guru, but they end the movie with this song...

Now some of you say "Hey, that's kind of funny, and a little bit catchy". Well there's a reason it's funny, it's because Friedberg and Seltzer didn't write it. They STOLE it from Sarah Silverman's I'm F*cking Matt Damon, but they just changed the words a little bit. Don't believe me? Well watch this...

How they managed not to get sued is beyond me.

So that was Disaster Movie and holy sh*t....just....holy sh*t. Somehow, Friedberg and Seltzer out did themselves. They somehow made a movie worse then their previous ones. The bad jokes, the pop culture references, product placement, celebrity look-a-likes, horrible pacing, everything. They turned all that up to 12, not 11, but 12, they went one step beyond. But what's really awful about this movie is the title. It's a complete lie. Hell, even in Brazil they lied about the title, they called it Superheroes: The Injustice League. Again, that's a lie because there's only five superheroes in this, and they're not on screen for a minute. I also kept track of everything folks, they made fun of a total of 23 movies and none, NONE of them are disaster flicks! The closet we got was that opening title sequence, but that doesn't count. How did the miss the mark on their own gimmick?! It's like they saw the trailers (and I say they saw trailers because some of the movies that made fun of were released a month or two before this one), said "Let's make fun of that, but we already used Date and Epic for a title, so let's use Disaster". Because that's one of the genres we didn't use for a marketing ploy". And even then, that was pointless because the disasters themselves were either barely there, or not there at all!

My final rating is Destroy It!

Wow, this was a tough one to sit through folks. Due come back on Saturday, Apr 23rd, for my review of The Bad Guys. Hopefully that'll be a better experience. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Studio Executives, STOP MESSING WITH A FILMMAKER'S MOVIE!

 

Hi guys. So, originally there was gonna be a brand new "Differences Between", but today I want to rant and rave about something that's what I think is terrible trend in the movie business.

What Brought This Up?

So you're probably wondering why I'm doing this. Well let's look back at my Morbius review. Basically I brought up the fact how things we're cut out of the movie, and of course it's boiled down to studios feeling the need to butt in where they don't belong.

A History of Studio Interference

Maybe history isn't the right word to use. Maybe more of a short summary, but either way I do want to bring up, how studios have a long history of doing this. Yes, you most likely already know this, but it's still important to look back into the past. Also, if I most likely didn't get to a film that suffered from studio interference I apologize. Sometimes things just slip by. Anyhow, let's begin.

Let's start off with not the first movie to suffer from studios, just the first one on this list.

Ridley Scott was just hired to direct an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Everything was going according to plan, until Warner Bros. stepped in. The executives took issue with the dark tone, and weren't big fans of the more ambiguous ending. Because of all of these changes things got very confusing, which would result in Harrison Ford having to do narration, whether it fit the movie or not. In the end Warner Bros. got the changes they wanted and were ready to release the movie.

The movie was released. Now because it's crowned such a classic who'd think reviews would be positive right? Well, we're wrong. Reviews for the movie were mixed and it sadly underperformed at the box office. Thankfully, years later, Ridley was allowed to release his verison of the movie. And despite the initial reactions, the movie was and still is regraded as a sci-fi classic.

Our next film is one I've mentioned previously but it's still worth brining up.

Basically it goes like this, Wes Craven wanted to do something different. He's done horror for a lot times previously wanted to do something else. While it was gonna be more of a thriller, which still means we would've been scared, Craven had a vision focusing more on the plot and characters instead of just blood and guts.

However, the test screening audience didn't like this and wanted something with more blood and gore, and what do you know so does Warner Bros. (get use to hearing their name). So sadly Wes has no choice but too give into demands, and give everyone their gorier movie.

So, you'd think that would make everyone happy right? Well you're wrong. The movie would get negative reviews, and then all of sudden Warner Bros. DOESN'T like the more bloody aspects of the film, despite wanting EXACTLY that.

With Alien and Aliens both being huge wins for 20th Century Fox (another name who should get use to seeing), of course they would want a third movie.

So they hired David Fincher (who must like the previous films directors Ridley Scott and James Cameron, would go to make even more classic films) to direct the third installment of the beloved franchise. Things might turn out well. Sadly that wasn't the case.

The movie would face many problems during production. Such as filming without a complete script, but the biggest issue was Fox constantly clashing with Fincher. It got so bad, that they even went as far as to lock him out of the editing room and would proceed to do re-shoots without him. So because of all of these problems, David would just leave the film altogether and disown it.

Alien 3 would latter be released to mixed reviews, but would always commonly be referred as "inferior" to the two previous films. In 2003 a different version of the movie was released, and it was dubbed as the "Assembly Cut". Unlike the theatrical cut, it got a much more warmer reception and while it did receive Fincher's blessing, he still disowns the movie.

Despite Batman Returns generating a lot of controversy with it's darker tone and violence, Warner Bros. still set out to make a third movie.

Joel Schumacher was working on a much more darker movie than the one we're all familiar with. This was not only gonna have a dark tone, but also dive deep into Batman's mind. The reason for this change was Warner Bros. couldn't get over the backlash from the previous film. They wanted Schumacher to make a more "toy friendly" film, that why not only would the film be more lighter, but then they could afford complaints from angry parents.

While the movie was a hit at the box office, it gathered mixed reviews. And because of this more "toy friendly" route, we would be given the hilariously bad Batman & Robin. While there were talks of releasing a director's cut for the film's 10th anniversary, it never happened. But since the successful Snyder cut campaign, there have been calls for a Schumacher cut to be released.

This is a movie I've talked about twice. Once for a countdown, and the other time was for a more of an in-depth history. But this one will be brief.

So it goes like this, Paul W.S. Anderson made the live-action Mortal Kombat film a huge success. He was offered other jobs such as the sequel and the upcoming live-action X-Men film. He turns both of those down because he doesn't want to make another PG-13 movie. So Anderson sets out to make his passion project, he wants to make a rated-R horror movie, that movie being Event Horizon.

At first it seems like Paul has nothing to worry about, until Paramount executives come in. The executives saw the writing on the wall. They see that James Cameron's Titanic isn't going to make the release date they were hoping for. So they basically demanded Anderson to edit the film so they have some sort of big movie to release. In doing so, Anderson sadly had to cut a total of 130 minutes of footage.

This decision backfired. When the movie was released it received negative reviews and bombed at the box office. Sure it would later get a cult following, but it's sad that Anderson had to get rid of so much stuff from something he was really passionate about.

Now we move over to the Sony side of things. Because of the big success of Spider-Man 2, Sony greenlights a sequel.

Sam Raimi gets to work, unfortunately problems start to rise. During production Raimi had many creative clashes with Sony. They demanded many things, one of those being having Venom as a villain. But despite this, Sam still continues to make the movie, even though he would later have to cut things out. Things that really would've made the movie better, but apparently Sony didn't want those scenes.

The movie would be released, and even though it would become the third-highest-grossing film of 2007, much like the previous movies I've mentioned the reviews aren't that great. Sure it got mixed reviews, but compared to the previous movie, that's not really all that good. Especially since during the aftermath, Sony would've given us Spider-Man 4, but because of the drama with this movie, Raimi decides to dropout, Sony hits the reboot button, and we're given The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012. And since people are aware of those cut scenes this would lead to the #ReleaseTheRaimiCut movement.

During the first three X-Men films, there's one character that 20th Century Fox was looking at to make a spin-off about. That one being Wolverine.

Sadly while making this movie an array of problems would occur. From filming having to be delayed because of weather and Hugh Jackman's other film commitments, to an incomplete screenplay still being written in Los Angeles while principal photography was still going, to even an unfinished workprint being released online a month before the film's debut.

But what really screwed the film over was Fox constantly clashing with the director [Gavin Hood]. Fox really didn't like that the filmmakers were going for a brutal movie. Fox wanted that stuff cut out despite the fact that it's freakin' Wolverine.

Later on the movie would be released to theaters, and would get mixed reviews at best. However, many X-Men fans (myself included) would dismiss the movie, and have love for the clearly superior sequels, The Wolverine and Logan.

Would you believe me if I say that M. Night Shyamalan isn't really to blame for The Last Airbender being terrible? It's true.

Because Avatar: The Last Airbender was such a smash hit for Nickelodeon, this would naturally get the attention of Paramount. Production seemed like it was going smoothly during the first draft of the screenplay, then Paramount executives started to butt in.

Once this happened, they had a list of demands for Shyamalan. The first thing that happened was because of nepotism with casting of Nicola Peltz as Katara, what with her dad being a billionaire CEO. Afterwards things just got worse and worse.

Paramount would later want Shyamalan and co. to do rewrites, cut scenes out, make sure the film stays within a 100 minute runtime, make sure the film is conversed into 3D and so forth. Then naturally arguments happened. Arguments would occur and happen so frequently, that they would take a toll on M. Night Shyamalan to the point he as one person who supposedly worked on the movie puts it "He eventually gave up and collected his paycheck".

To say the movie got negative reviews would be an understatement. This film got universally panned. Nobody liked it, and the movie would always show up on either list called "the worst movies ever made" or "the worst movies of 2010". The backlash was so bad, Paramount had no choice but to cancel their plans for a trilogy.

Another movie I have a history with when it comes to talking about cut scenes.

Since I went into a details about things I'll get this one brief. So it goes, we all know about how Mary-Jane Watson was cut. Other things also included a more terrifying Green Goblin transformation, and him going on a rampage afterwards, and Spider-Man almost killing Goblin because of Gwen's death.

Like I stuff I mentioned before. But what I forgot to mention was this...

Yes folks, that is a bloody Captain Stacy. He still serves the same purpose that is to haunt Peter about his failure to save him. So why was this, along with a more violent Green Goblin cut? It's simple, Sony wanted to keep everything PG-13, so they cut out the more violent stuff. The MJ thing was probably so the movie didn't go over a two hour runtime.

So the movie makes it's debut in theaters, and while it was the ninth-grossing film of 2014, it got mixed reviews. Maybe the cut stuff would've made this better for the movie, I don't know. People for whatever reason treat the Amazing Spider-Man franchise like it's the worst thing to happen to the character, despite some really bad comic storylines existing. And much like Spider-Man 3 before, we would get a director's cut movement dubbed, #ReleaseTheWebbCut.

I don't really think this movie stood any chance for success, but it's still sad how Josh Trank was screwed over.

Basically, 20th Century Fox wants to make a new Fantastic Four movie, and this time they wanna do it right. So they hire Josh Trank because of his success on the film Chronicle. Now, I'll admit I didn't mind some things getting cut. Let me explain, basically the first movie would've contained a lot. I do mean a lot.

There would've been Annihilus, the Negative Zone, Dr. Doom declaring war on the civilized world, Mole Man would've been in it, Doombots, and whole bunch of other stuff! The reason why this was all cut out was because it was gonna be massively expensive. So I can agree with Fox about wanting that stuff cut out and saved for later, what I can't agree with is the stuff that come afterwards.

Fox went completely overboard with the changes. Scenes were cut out, and then obvious reshoots happened. How obvious? Let me ask you a question folks. Does this wig...

...look anything like Kate Mara's real hair?

And to think, all of things cutting and reshooting happened because Fox thought the film looked too muck like a sequel to Chronicle. The movie was latter released, and wow. People myself included just hated it. The negative reviews were so bad, that not only did the film lose money for the studio, but Fox had to scrap whatever plans they initial had for the sequel.

It's 2016 and Warner Bros. has the ball rolling with their DC cinematic universe that has been dubbed the DC Extended Universe aka the DCEU. Warner Bros. was fully on board with this idea, and were gonna let the filmmakers do whatever they wanted...until Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

What do I mean by that? What I mean is despite the trailers and marketing telling critics otherwise, all of them (okay, maybe not all of them but still) complained over and over again about the dark tone. Because of these negatives reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. demanded David Ayer [the director and writer of Suicide Squad] to make the film more "fun".

Because of that, we winded up with a film that ultimately Ayer wasn't too happy with. Then the movie was released and despite having that "fun" tone the critics wanted, it still got negatives reviews. Even DCEU fans, while they don't completely hate it, they just put it on the okay side of things.

Sadly, this wouldn't be the last time Warner Bros. would mess with a filmmaker's work. Because in 2017, we would see their most infamous case of meddling where they shouldn't have.

Now I've already gone with a more in-depth look at the behind the scenes stuff with Justice League, so once again I'll try to keep it brief.

Basically, what we know now is would we wish we knew then and that is Suicide Squad was a precursor of Warner Bros. messing with their DCEU films and which would result in them shooting themselves in the foot.

In May of 2017, news broke that Zack Snyder stepped down from Justice League because his daugther [Autumn] committed suicide. Now around this time Snyder already had a film made and all Warner Bros. had to do was let the editors finish it, and then let it release comfortably until they could release. Sure it was four hours, and they were most likely gonna trim it down to two, but still.

Instead of that smart route, they decided to do something completely stupid, and that was to remake the entire movie, despite the fact that they were five months away from their November release date. During that time, Joss Whedon was brought on board to make a Justice League movie that the Warner Bros. executives would love regardless of the fans. All because A) The backlash from Batman v Superman and B) an attempt to get their pats of the back from Rotten Tomatoes/online bloggers when they really should've known around this time, they were never going to please them.

Then the movie was released and didn't do well. It got mixed-to-negative reviews and because the film didn't make a break even point of $750 million, it would become a box office bomb. And because everyone was aware of how much Zack Snyder was screwed over, fans would campaign to get his cut of the movie released, which thankfully we did, and it was awesome.

When I heard that Shane Black (writer of films such as Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, and The Nice Guys) I was excited. I think he's done a lot of great work, many of which is underrated, so I expected a really good movie. Sadly, I got a decent movie.

When test screenings happened and they were poor, naturally the studio [20th Century Fox] overreacted. Because of this, they kept making changes to Black's script to the point where things such as the final act was re-shot. Changes were so drastic, they many things such as the human characters teaming up with predators were completely gone from the movie, and we also got a pretty obvious tacked on "Predator Killer" ending.

The film was released in Sept of 2018 to mixed reviews. While the movie is the highest grossing in the franchise, it's very clear that the studio doesn't seem all that interested in making a sequel. Sure, we're getting a Predator movie titled Prey this year on Hulu, but still.

Now we have the last film on the list that one being Dark Phoenix. Now it's unclear which executives is too blame when it comes to this film. Some say it's 20th Century Fox others say it's Disney. I'm putting the blame on both parties. Disney for screwing with the film, and 20th Century for not fighting back.

Why do I believe this? Well for starters, Fox wasn't originally going to have this be it's finally X-Men in their main series. This was gonna be part of a trilogy. But then the Disney-Fox deal came thought and screwed everything up for Dark Phoenix. Because of this changes were demanded. The obvious being the trilogy was cut down to just one movie, many alterations were made to the story, and many other changes that you can read about here.

Then the movie was released and got negative reviews from critics (unsurprisingly because they've been trashing the movie before any footage was released, and they gotta be loyal to the MCU), although from perspective most of the reviews from fans were mixed. And sadly the film was a box office bomb.

The Common Thread and Why Does It Keep Happening?

If read all of that then you would've noticed a very common thing surrounding all of those movies. That's studio interferes, changes are made, and reviews are at best mixed, but a lot of times wind up being negative or universally panned.

So despite this pattern, why? Why despite the long history do studios keep doing this? Simply put, they really never learn and they think they know better, when they don't. Studio executives think just because they give the filmmakers money to produce these films, then they think they know how to make a proper movie, when they don't.

There's a difference between funding a project then making the project. That's why they got the title "studio executive" and not "director" or "writer".

What Should Happen?

Now this is by no means going to be the definitive answer, buy maybe some sort of answer.

I think there should be a compromise. Like they still have to cut things out but, the director can make these decisions, and then later the executives will release the director's cut on DVD/Blu-ray. Now that could be a risk in and of itself. Cause there could be a chance that both the theatrical cut & the director's cut are both awful. But what sounds less like a headache? Constantly clashing with each other to the point where the movie suffers, and then everyone is disappointed. Or ya make a deal that'll make both parties happy? I prefer the latter.

I don't believe for one second what I wrote down will become the next big fan movement. But if I can get a conversation going then I'll be just fine with that. Anyhow, that's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, Apr 21st for my Cinematic Disaster review of Disaster Movie. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.