Octopus Overlords

My wife wants to see this.. I suspect for all the pretty pictures.. I really had no interest in it and the actors were one reason. The scenes in the trailers just felt flat to me... Oh well, I'll have to suck it up I guess.

We saw it.

I'd say it's meh.

Fun in parts, beautiful, but the story just sort of drags on. Some laugh out loud funny parts. I better understand why so many comic movies start with origin stories. There were a few scenes where I was scratching my head in confusion. They either needed better explanations or should have started with an earlier setting. I suspect people who follow the comic understood much better.

I have no clue why they picked the lead actor, he was terrible, Hayden Christensen terrible. I thought the actress was better, but handicapped by acting with a mannequin.

You know, the Star Wars prequels (2-3) are a great comparison for this movie. Terrible lead actor, lead actress fumbles with nothing to work off of, beautiful sets, fun fights. The big difference being Ewan Mcgregor and light sabers were not there to save it.

I saw it as the last movie of the day on Saturday. I saw it in 3D and was perhaps influenced a bit because I'm pretty sure the 3D polarization was off. When the movie started, it was completely messed up and we were all seeing double images. Then they fixed it and restarted and I still think it was a bit off as anything in the distance wasn't sharp - which was unfortunate as it means I don't think I ever saw a clear shot of Alpha (and if I saw what was intended, that was just sad).

I pretty much agree with Fitzy. I have no background in the comics and so apparently needed more explanation on who these guys were. The lead guy seemed to be playing it almost like James Bond at times, but never quite pulled it off and he had no chemistry with Cara Delevingne. I liked her role a bit better, but thought it would have been better had she been less robot and more feeling.

While there were odd moments that made very little sense, at least the overall story made some sense and was wrapped up well at the end. Might be worth a rental, but not really worth seeing in the theater.

Read an article today that called this the bomb of the summer. 200+M budget and no chance of making it back.


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I saw it this weekend with a couple of friends. They liked it, I found it to be completely boring. Which is too bad because I love Besson's Fifth Element which this very much resembled visually but where FE had the cast and story to pull it off, this one was just bleh. The only part of this movie that I actually enjoyed was Ethan Hawke.

DD* wrote:Read an article today that called this the bomb of the summer. 200+M budget and no chance of making it back.


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Hm. I'd say "I'd like to see it on the big screen" but the reality is, I don't think CGI movies that do not ask me to believe in cartoons as reality are not where they need to be to get me to see it on the big screen. I'm still of the opinion that sets should be less green screen when possible and puppetry and stop motion have more current potential for being less distracting than CGI. I saw that the new Blade Runner largely rejects CGI and now I'm more hopeful for that movie.

I'll still want to see this but I have no pressing need to see it in the theatre.

I am pretty much in agreement with most of the reviews on this. I got talked into seeing it this weekend and while it is not terrible, it is definitely missing something. It is a visually stunning movie but it just has no soul. Cara was much better here than in Suicide Squad but that's a low bar to clear and she barely clears it. The male lead was not good. A friend fittingly dubbed him Low Budget Leo ( DiCaprio). They heavily played the "Lothario vs the only woman in the universe that could tame him" card but in the end, they had zero chemistry together so you really didn't care. I am glad I saw it at matinee prices, it was not worth a full price ticket. The dance scene with Rihanna was pretty cool, though. I would pay real money for that.

I, on the other hand, really enjoyed this film. I appreciated the various places they went and the sci-fi doodads employed. I didn't particularly care for the space elves, but I did enjoy the station and the universe that was created. I had no problem with the leads, or even with the non-leads. I don't know if the story in the film followed any particular story in the comics, but the romance aspect did seem rushed, so maybe that was a very long story in the comic, condensed into a single adventure.

Saw this last night. Even the popcorn was bad. Sad!

It's now free on Amazon Prime so I decided to give it a shot this weekend. I stopped watching about half way through when creepo goes to watch a strip tease while his soul mate is dress shopping with a gumby orc.

I recommend watching the pre-title sequence and just ending there. Save yourself from ever even meeting the boring main characters or getting bogged down with the stupid plot. Some of the visuals are pretty good but you've probably seen lots of similar things if you've ever seen a Star Wars movie or played a sci-fi video game. I did really like the multi color clouds on Dune by Disney World though so maybe fast forward to that bit or just look at this picture.

Coincidentally, I just watched the DVD a couple of nights ago. It was an interestingly imagined and well-rendered world populated with stereotypical characters spouting inane dialog in the service of a boring, almost random story -- a movie that got all dressed up with no place to go.

Then last night I watched Aliens: Covenant, and that was even worse.

Geez man......

When Wife goes out of town for a few days I do Bad Movie Weekends, my chance to see superhero movies and B scifi movies and horror movies and other junk that she doesn't care about. I didn't expect those two to be that bad.

Thanks to Amazon Prime, I have trash movie night several times per week. Maybe we need a thread for those kind of movies that are surprisingly not bad...it happens on occasion.

You'd need a list...

bad movies that are good
bad movies that are so bad they are ok
bad movies that are really bad
bad movies that are cheesy
bad movies destined for cult status

In other words a JeffV thread about bad movies he doesn't hate.

Well, Valerian benefited from low expectations. It was at least visually interesting, if flat and soulless. The Aliens movie, OTOH, had nothing to redeem it.

Yeah, if nothing else, Besson knows how to put on a spectacle.

I saw it a couple of months back. Altho I thought it was okay I'll probably never watch it again.

I haven't even managed to get through it all yet. I've stopped watching it 2 or 3 times now, getting a little farther each time.

Everyone has pretty much covered anything I've got to say about it.

I started watching it with my 10yo daughter and I couldn't help but mutter "stupid. stupid. stupid" under my breath. Then she noticed that I had stopped and I explained that certain aspects of the movie were actually quite interesting. But then it would fall back into dumb terribleness. You can tell what I think about a movie when I suddenly exclaim "acting!" with a flourish and in a theatrical voice. That's typically when I recognize their high school drama lessons showing through. I shouldn't be able to see those, that means you're doing a poor job, actors.

I had to look up the cast to Suicide Squad because you guys kept talking about it and the only women I can remember from that movie are Margo Robbie and the tyrant, who if I'm not mistaken was black (memory is a little fuzzy on that). The villains were such an after thought in that movie that I had actually forgotten they existed! I wouldn't say Delevingne was any better or worse in Valerian. Which is not a compliment, really.

So lots of cool visuals, some very cool imaginings of the future, even the ones that didn't make any sense, and just general sci fi fun fest. Unfortunately the two primaries were forgettable, dull and flat, and everyone else was mediocre too. When I stream from my cable company they often list 2 or 3 people in it, and I had to laugh after the first 30 minutes or so, because one of the names was John Goodman. Of course he only exists as a voice for a CGI character, that has 5 minutes or less screen time (unless he shows up again at the end, but I seriously doubt it). So while it wasn't a lie that John Goodman was in it, it was definitely misleading.

It's not even mediocre, except for the visuals and some fun and imaginative ideas, but those weren't enough to save it.

I also immediately exclaimed "Boob armor!" and then had to explain to my daughter why boobs don't need their own separate armor. I thought we were past that, to be honest. Guess not.

Kudos, sounds like you found a way to make a bad thing worse.