Movie Review: Man of Steel REVISITED

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

For decades, while I enjoy Batman contents, I’ve always like to see movies or shows involving the strong hero of Metropolis, Superman. Even though Batman maybe my number 2, but Superman is definitely my Number Uno, he’s ranging for living himself as a last Kryptonian on Earth (unless we have Supergirl or even his nemesis General Zod) to confronting at Lex Luthor. Although since we’ve seen numerous contents involving Superman, he has a tumultuous time for how he’s portrayed, from being ridiculously overpowered in a cartoon days before the 90s, a heroic but awkward behind the identity like Christopher Reeve’s Superman, or a good-heart, clumsy and yet struggle in double life like Jack Quaid’s Superman. But in case in cinema, Superman is pretty much in a rollercoaster ride from good to forgotten ranging from either continuation like Superman Returns that sadly got flopped we used to have DC Extended Universe to competing against MCU, but failed miserably, especially in 2023, which, as im writing this, resulting not only Zack Snyder being done with DC contents, but James Gunn will be the creative control to rebooting DC’s cinematic universe with next year’s Superman. Speaking of which, since I heard about the DCEU, I had my old review of it and I was pretty much bashed it so badly like an immature version of Nostalgia Critic (before the controversial “Change the Channel” that im moved on from NC, but long story). And ever since DCEU is pretty much dead from reboot (New 52 style), I decided to looking back at this movie thinking to myself “Am I really bad that I took this movie so hard to make it look bad?”. Which is why im doing yet another Revisited Edition of my Movie Review since I did with Rush.

“Man of Steel” is a 2013 superhero movie and the first DCEU film that was directed by Zack Snyder, produced/written by Christopher Nolan (yup, the same guy who did Batman trilogy before DCEU), co-produced by Charles Roven, Emma Thomas and Deborah Snyder (who’s Zack’s current wife) and co-written by David S. Goyer.

The best way to describing the development of this movie was… Tumultuous. After the release of Superman Returns 2006, they were hoping to give a second chance to make a sequel with per-self-destructed director Bryan Singer to direct. But sadly, due to a lack of test screening from Singer’s request (Bad move there, Bryan…) and bad timing to competing against Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Devil Wears Prada, the movie got Kryptonite’d at the box-office. Thus, Warner Bros went back to the drawing board for another revision of Superman. Originally, they were originally planned to having Matthew Vaughn and Mark Millar working together for making their version of Superman, not just they’re take of Man of Steel, but to hopefully make an epic eight hour trilogy, which im assuming they wanna competing with Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy. However, that plan was ultimately changed for reintroduction of Batman and Superman, especially for the latter that director role was changed to McG as a director, since he wanted to making his own Superman movie (despite there was a court that it was resulted Jerry Siegel’s family recapturing the rights of Superman’s origin and Siegel’s copyright.) with, surprisingly, Christopher Nolan joining in as both writer and producer (aside of revealing Man of Steel is going to be on its own cinematic universe than sharing the same time with Batman Trilogy). However, rather than making an old school reference of Superman since Action Comics #1, it went into a nonlinear narrative and modern take with David S. Goyer stepped in as writer of story and screenplay. However, the director role had been changed all over from many choices from Darren Aronofsky (the one who gave us The Wrestler that I covered a couple years ago), Matt Reeves (before he gave us The Batman, also been covered) to the late Tony Scott. But it wouldn’t be until Zack Snyder threw his hat in the ring as a director role with his wife Deborah joined in as a producer. However, despite Nolan said there will be no connection between Man of Steel and his Batman Trilogy, the movie was originally planning to having the new Bruce Wayne in the movie with Ben Affleck as the new Batman role, but that plan was left in a shelf for awhile until Batman V Superman was brought in. I should also point out that while this is a reboot of Superman, but they’re also using it as the beginning of “DC Extended Universe”, which I understood their prep of their cinematic universe, but maybe they were late when Iron Man was already started five years ago to starting MCU, it feels like a bad timing after their long development for their reboot.

When Man of Steel was landed on Earth on June of 2013, the movie had a VERY divided reception of this movie, while many people love the action, the presentation and perhaps some acting, but fell flat due to the poor writing for the lack of development, Richard Roeper from Chicago Sun-Times called it that it has no new ground for regard of Superman films, which he said, I quote “we're plunged back into a mostly-underwhelming film, with underdeveloped characters and supercharged-fight scenes that drag on and offer nothing new in the way of special-effects creativity”, but there were a few people liked this movie like Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw gave it 4/5 star and called it “Man of Steel has more than earned its keep, and deserves to be THE iconic Superman movie for a whole new generation”.

As for my experience, like I said before, I’ve wanted to see Man of Steel so badly at cinema that, after I watched Superman Return that I thought it was boring, I was hoped that Man of Steel would be better for their revision of Superman. I thought I liked it, but felt it could’ve been better, which, again, I made my so-bad-its-dated review that im pretty sure I took it too personally, thus, while im looking forward with James Gunn’s Superman for yet another re-re-re-re-re-re-revision for next year, I decided to rewatching if my thought has changed.

So, with all that said, will this very first DCEU does changed my mind that its not as bad was I said, or do I think it still dumb?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie being revision of Superman (aka the beginning of DCEU), Its rather a straight forward superhero movie with origins, discovery and fighting against the evil threat once and for all, IF the writing could’ve either makes sense or even some development.

Like many Superman’s origin, we begin in Krypton, after giving birth of our newborn Kal-El, his father Jor-El, despite happy to see his kid being born, but he’s also concern that his home planet is about to be destroyed (due to the planetary core is destabilizing instead of red sun), despite the skepticism from authority, and being confronted by General Zod to find the way to saving the planet, Jor-El has no choice but to setting up his son to not only capturing a genetics codex (which appears to be a skull), but also using it to Kal-El’s spacecraft to launching away to different planet (mainly Earth). Fast forward to couple years later after the landing, Kal-El, now named Clark Kent (thanks for being adopted by the you know who in many adaptations), he’s ranging from having a job of fishing to living in normal life (I think, cause the transitions between the flashback and present time were all over the place in confusions), despite he gains super powers thanks to yellow sun as Kryptonian. Aside of showing his stressful flashback from uncontrollable of X-Ray Vision, exposing his Super Strength to save the bus from incident to questioning himself to let them live or die without exposing his powers and his tragic loss of his father Jonathan Kent (in an anticlimactic tornado death). Then he goes all the way up North (lets say, Greenland, Alaska or whichever around in Northern Canada), when he heard about an UFO, which turns out it happens to be a Kryptonian scout ship, only getting interrupted when Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane, has entered the ship when she’s assigned about the same situation, which she gets into trouble from being attacked by Kryptonian robots, leaving Clark took them down, healed her with Head Vision (Okay, how does that work as a heal factor to humans??). After fly away with the ship and drop her off for the rescue helicopters, Clark lands the ship to North Arctic, right before he meets the AI hologram of his late father, Jor-El, he explains about as well as we expect, he brought Clark Kent/Kal-El into capsule to launching out of planet and General Zod was an A-Hole to cooperate about then dying Krypton and telling Kal-El to becoming a protector to the people of Earth with his super suit. But later on, people on Metropolis (along with Clark Kent) witnessed a UFO in the air, then received an abrupt broadcast with pixelated threatening message from none other than General Zod, so its up to Clark Kent (as Superman) to first explaining who he is and then going to save the world when Zod and his Kryptonian crew planning to terraforming Earth as their own Krypton.

Now, the story itself is simple as what we expect, learning about his origin and facing against the evil threat, though I know this is long before we have Lex Luthor, here, we gotta dealing with General Zod in his desperation plan to bringing Krypton back from glory, which im okay for that. However, despite the simplicity, the whole movie is trying way to hard to explaining about how to be careful to hide the power and learning who Clark is when people viewing him in question before learning the truth from AI Jor-El or many other philosophical message for what purpose on Clark, what purpose on Lois or what purpose on other characters out there, its just all over that place, and it makes this movie either jumbled mess or the writing of this movie is a convoluted mess that it jumped all over the place from flashback and such, especially on the first and second act. And of yeah, did I mention they’re trying too hard to giving us a development? Yeah, the story, the world building or even character development feel so lacking that we can liking this, sure they’re trying, but the execution comes off as lackluster that we can enjoy or even related. But the one plot element that baffled me is whether or not Clark Kent/Superman has a choice to let people live or day, normally we can say “no” that suffering isn’t the right answer, but here, it feels like dying is optional that completely deviating what we know about Superman, but trust me, we’ll get there to the characters.

While il give a credit for trying something new after the origin, but the writing just came off as a mess, confusing and lackluster.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costed between $225 – 258M, that’s about like one of those big budgeted film as what you expect, and by look at it, its… Fairly descent for its presentation. Or perhaps the presentation and the actions are the budget’s focus than the writing.

For starter, the filming location is interesting spot for taking place either Metropolis or even Smallville. While the presentation of planet Krypton looks interesting, but I find the setting to be odd at best that it felt more like a minimal of futuristic design, more with some nature and downright questionable, some designs like Kal-El’s launch pod looks like a fetus, which kind of make sense, but when General Zod and other hostile Kryptonians are banished into Phantom Zone, their pods looks like… Lets say, flying prunes? (Or just, use your imagination) Its no stranger that some shots were filmed on sets like either Krypton or even Fortress of Solitude (you know when the scout ship fly away to Arctic North that turned into the fortress?). But it wasn’t just filming on the set, but filming outdoors as well in Chicago (as yes, The Windy City), California and even British Columbia, Canada, the latter of which is like the focus on both Metropolis and Smallville like when they filmed on Ucluelet, Nanaimo, and of course, Vancouver. Sure they also film in Chicago to imitating Metropolis. Speaking of the latter, the setting in Metropolis is not bad for mix of Chicago and Vancouver, but one nitpick that I noticed the building of Daily Planet, which it looks like a MAJOR downgrade compared to the comic or even 1978’s Superman. I get they wanna make something different or realistic, but come on, I’ve better city design on SimCity.

As for the effects and filming, I find some scenes with the effects and the quality is fairly descent to see from Clark Kent/Superman coming out and using his powers like in he comes out indestructible (in fireproof) in offshore, X-Ray vision, the heat vision (either using his power or pose of threat in anger) and of course, his good’ol fashion flight. Sure, the Kryptonian effects are pretty cool to see, even though the technology are odd looking what they’re representing. However, one part that I really hate about this movie is the way they filmed. Sure in modern action movies, it tries to be like a point of view to see what’s going on with the battle or even the witness either Superman or the UFO, but when we’re not in action scenes, the shaky camera are annoying from the start, its fine when we’re in action like chase or POV, but there’s no reason to get shaky when we’re take a break. But lets not forget the constant zoom in the POV, like I get they want to play almost like a found footage, but there’s no excuse to have a constant zoom in the action or witnesses that, much like the shaky camera, it gets infuriating.

Of course, there’s one thing that many like to see, the presentation of Superman’s costume. When I first saw it, I thought it look pretty nice, despite the symbol of “House of El” is kinda off-putting. But, looking back now, I find it to be… Bellow average at best. I mean, I know “DC’s New 52” is one thing when Superman going full on trunk-less, not just for reboot, but some modern readers/viewers, but in case for this movie, not only they pulled similar design from New 52 (so we think), but also “a modern aesthetic” and for different tone. Though, while the symbol looks good, but again, off-putting, some textures are not bad, but between without shorts, and the darker color, I find it to be pretty bellow and didn’t have the charm what we know about Superman, gone is the bright, colorful and the charm. If you like this suit, that’s fine, but if you don’t like it, I know how you feel. As for the rest of the designs like Kryptonian armors, I think they’re not bad, though most of them are either done traditional like armorless bodysuits or some royal outfits, but some like armors are obviously done with CG.

And as for the action scenes? Well, I find some action scenes are fairly decent to see them flying around beating each others for either saving the people of Earth or even trying to change Earth to Krypton 2.0. But I think my favorite is the battle in Smallville, aside of cheap product placements and the turning and shaky camera, but its nice to see Superman got a helping hand from the military from hostile Kryptonians, and even the final bout between Superman and General Zod in Metropolis, despite Superman could’ve protect people and buildings from destruction and the final part… Yeah, il save it later. While some action action scenes are okay at best.

While the presentation looks fine, but its just too ambitious, too dark and annoying from various ways to filming.

The Characters

For the beginning of DCEU, you think they could give us a promising character development to make them like like MCU’s Infinity Sage? Yeah, due to the writing’s problem, the characters felt like they didn’t give us some good developments.

Lets start off with the Man of Steel himself, Clark Kent, aka Kal-El, and aka Superman (played by Henry Cavill), unlike other roles of Superman either Christopher Reeve or even Jack Quaid, this version is more of an outsider that he explores all over for help or being crossed the line like when he got bullied by drunken customer. In other words, he’s one trying to give a helping hand, but by only himself while kind of being a jerk at the same time. Yeah, when he started as Clark Kent, it just feels like he’s trying to help, but kinda being cheaply overpowered without knowing his powers nor even his own identity that like public in question, gone from being nice, mild-mannered and clumsy humanoid alien that we all know. But once he learned about his origin and then becoming a hero from his father Jor-El, he eventually becoming a hero to protecting the people of Earth, but once he becomes Superman, rather being well-protected and helpful, he’s more like, again, cheaply overpowered being that kind of being a godlike hero almost without any weaknesses, and not to mention, he also less helpful whenever he fights the hostile Kryptonian, leaving putting these people at risk without the safety and especially the final act, again, more on that later. But not to mention, they also came up that, there’s a scene when Clark talks a man in church about his powers, he’s questionably compared himself as Jesus Christ. Yeah, its been controversially brought up from “Superman Returns” when they did the comparison the powers, the message or even arms stretched out after throwing off the landscape with Kryptonite, but alas, they did it again in Man of Steel with even dumb execution that there’s no reason to comparing Superman to Christ, which sure, he is powerful and kind of careful to protecting some that he cares, but he REALLY needs to be caring, is the people of Earth to be protected without putting themselves in risk, along with being lackluster of merciful, which clearly made this Superman either being dumb or cheaply overpowered. Now before you’re going to attacking me, I’ve nothing Henry Cavill, he’s a good actor and he did the fairly decent role in this movie, especially for (by far) the only British actor who plays as Superman, but the problem is the way he was written that just didn’t work of the execution.

Next up, we have Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams), the reporter of Daily Planet who’s been assigned about the strange witness about Clark. While she’s still being damsel in distress, but she’s more curious and pressured that she wants further story in difference between Clark Kent (while he was on his own before meet AI Jor-El) and Superman. Sure, when she was first introduced, she generically in distress from being threatened by Kryptonian robots to holding hostage by Zod and his crew, but she’ll eventually fight back as Superman’s helping hand, which il give a credit, but its just that her personality is rather minimal what we were hoping for, I don’t know either they forgot to give her personality, or Amy must’ve forgot how she’s portrayed, she’s just a curious in her risk to a lucky helping hand to Superman. Again, I’ve nothing against her, she did a nice work of her, but again, its easy to blame from the way she’s written or depicted that they’re “trying”, while the chemistry between her and Clark/Superman are… okay at best.

After that, we have General Zod (played by Michael Shannon), the main villain in the movie as a once convicted Kryptonian to hostile in attempt to changing Earth into Krypton 2.0 for his race’s glory after their home planet were destroyed. I think he’s kind of nicely written, sure Zod was introduced in the 78 Superman is more of an afterthought before the cliffhanger for Superman 2 (either theatrical or Donner’s cut). Whereas Zod is planning to taking over Earth for his dominance and revenge to kill Superman, here, Zod’s goal is to wiping out humanity for the rebirth of Kryptonian, which I find his goal pretty fascinating. Sure, Zod is over-the-top in his desperation to kill Superman because he has codex on his system, just that he wants it to be big and powerful than Superman (Yeah, that codex thing is also dumb too, it feels almost like a filler). Despite some flaws, I think he’s a pretty good villain, even if he’s kind of being over-the-top, and Mike Shannon did a pretty good work of his villainous role.

And lastly, we have Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe, aka Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, and Nikolai Kravinoff from Kraven The Hunter), he was the Kryptonian scientist about the concern of his home planet and the father of Kal-El (aka Superman) in his plan to not only launching his son to Earth, but also putting the aforementioned codex on his son. Of course, he comes back, but as a holographic AI where, as we all know, explains when Krypton used to be and where Kal-El was born before landed on Earth to becoming the hero to the people of Earth in the name of hope and peace (for the most part). I find him also a passable character. Cause, like many version of Jor-El, he gives plot development who they were before Kal-El landed on Earth, along with taught him that he’s gotta help people, but some of the execution just didn’t turned out as what we getting after Superman say goodbye to his father to going back to Earth. Despite some problem, I also give an appreciation that he’s also a helping hand to Lois Lane to escape the hostile ship, I know he didn’t discover Earthlings, but still, il give a small credit for that. Though il also give a credit to Russell Crowe’s performance, he did a fairly nice role for being a sorta emotional and caring father to his son Kal-El.

As for the rest, they’re just there for extra plot elements, but most of them are cheaply executed from dialogue driven or even some are questionable. There’s Jonathan Kent (played by Kevin Costner) who’s Clark’s late father that he makes a questionable motivation whether or not if Clark let people at risk to death, along with his very anti-climatic death by tornado, Martha Kent (played by Diane Lane) is Clark’s mother that she’s caring to give wisdom to him (Well, so we think that she’s rather minimal), Perry White (played by Laurence Fishburne, aka Morpheus from The Matrix) is the editor-in-chief at Daily Planet who’s not-so-loud boss when he assigns Lois about the witnesses of Clark’s action and some unnecessary dialogue driven to explain what happened about life at risk or not (no disrespect to Laurence, but like some, he deserves better than the way he was written) and Faora-Ul (played by Antje Traue) who’s sub-commander and loyal to Zod.

While some actors did their nice performances, but the way they’re written are either okay to questionably bad how they’ve been translated in execution.

SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen the movie or didn’t care

The final act may have some good start, but ohh boy, the ending battle was pretty controversial.

After leaving the ship to thanking and goodbye to AI Jor-El, General Zod and his group are deploying their terraforming machines (called “World Engine”), blasting from North and South in attempt to destroy Metropolis and wiping out humanity, our heroes suggest a split up that Superman is taking care the small one from the South, while the Lois and the military are trying to destroy the main one over the Metropolis, using Superman’s pod that contains a bomb that transport into dimension called “Black Zero”. But at first, it may sounds the end of the world is start, but obviously, Superman was already took care small one, but he’s gotta recharging himself from yellow sun. Back to Metropolis, the military with their aircraft, carrying Black Zero with Lois Lane, they’re preparing to sacrificing themselves with their dimensional bomb, but at first, they got ambushed by Generel Zod and Feora-Ul, thankfully, Superman flew by to destroy Zod’s ship and Dr. Emil Hamilton (played by Richard Schiff) flick the switch of the bomb to sacrifice themselves for being transported into Phantom Zone, while Lois does a leap of faith, which Superman flew to save her. But alas, it was far from over, as General Zod is pissed about his plan to bring back Krypton is wiped out, this brings us into Kryptonian throw down, one who’s made to protecting humans in peace (again, so we think that he’s supposed to be 100% overprotective) and the other is an extremely hostile against humanity. After fighting in the air and briefly in space, they both landed on train station, Zod has reaches his boiling point to questioning Superman to either let Zod in Mercy or let human be killed by Zod’s Heat Vision.

And thus brought us one of the most controversial moment ever. Instead of defeating Zod in merciful way either knock him unconscious or a new weapon to sending his Kryptonian’s ass back to Phantom Zone, Superman SNAPS Zod’s neck, killing him instantly. Which, as we already know, this isn’t supposed to be like this, because, in every medias (depending) Superman has never, ever, ever, EVER, killing people on his way, he’s build to fighting bad buys in mercy like taking to the prison or even banishing into the Phantom Zone, but not in a genocide option. Sure, when we saw Superman II, Superman did knocking out Zod by both crushing his hand and throw him into crevice, even though we never know either he died or just knocked unconscious after Superman set this up by locked himself in chamber while activate the red sunlight make Zod and his partners got powerless. I know its kind of out of character, but at least its soft (for the most part). But here, they took it seriously to have a genocide option to having Superman in difficulty option to either live or die, which again, it wasn’t supposed to be like that we know about Superman, since he’s build to using his powers to protecting humanity and even punishing villains in mercy, he’s might into light side that he brings peace to the world without violence. When I first saw this, I was both shocked and confused for what just happened and “Why would he did that!?”. Looking back now, its safe to say having Superman killing off villains like Zod is bad and controversial, which it clearly lost the meaning and maybe even the identity of Superman that we all know. I know some may like it, but this scene right there is the perfect example how not to changing a light-hearted hero in darker tone, well, depending for the execution. Sure Batman didn’t kill people, unless he does in whichever comics before Burton’s Batman…

Anyway, after all the mess, Clark is in double duty as working as a reporter in Daily Planet, and as Superman to going on his independent duty, leaving military and government into question from his lack of safety and the amount of damage.

Yeah, it feels like a rushed ending we have, especially we don’t want to know after when Clark/Superman just did to Zod, its as if killing solution is just like… Nothing happened at all.

And now for my final opinion of this film

Overall, Man of Steel may sounds like a revision of Superman for the starting point of DCEU, but alas, this movie is nothing but a big budget overhyped mess in the equivalent of saying “What you see is what you get”.

Sure, the filming is fine, some designs are good, the story is nice at some moments, the concept could’ve been alright and the acting are also fine, il give credit that they’re trying for more modern.

But everything else fell apart from annoying camera effect, some plot elements are questionable, some characters didn’t have a proper development that we all know, the other designs are dark and underwhelming, its rather silly for being in dark tone and the writing is a mess that it focused too much on either build up dialogue and actions.

I know its been talked about last decade ago that we’ve been divided on this. We can be give this one a mixed bag or just find it disappointed. For me, its definitely the latter that, looking back, while I may like the concept, but the execution could’ve gone better what we got, especially its been hyped up to be something big and better, but it just fell flat on the ground after being exposed by Kryptonite. But yes, I know there are some people like this movie, but the problem is that the fans of this movie (and DCEU) are taking their defense way to hard to telling us to Eff off if we don’t like it, which, we can all agree, they becoming the most toxic fans that they just can’t take criticism with gatekeeping the people who’re involved from DCEU, and sending harassments and death threats against opposing people. And yes, even I got personally attacked by those god forsaken toxic fans when I don’t like something. Like, I just can’t take these kind of people with their cheap double standards. Anyway, this is one of the film that you gotta watch it for once and let you guys draw your conclusion, and also, just don’t be those toxic fans, otherwise being a hardcore fanboy of this movie will mentally hurt yourself (“Stop it… Get some help…).

For my rating, I decided to go lower, il give this one a 4.5/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: F1 The Movie

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

If anyone who haven’t seen in my works or may not know, im a fan of Formula 1. Since early 2000s, I enjoyed watching many drivers with teams racing all over the world to see who’ll win to score and dreaming to becoming the world champion in their fast open-wheeled cars in high speed, while also putting their lives on the line without suffering on live TV. Even with the safety left a lot of question if its good or could’ve gone much worse, F1 is no stranger to be enjoyable to watching from Ferrari vs McLaren since 1970s, some team trying to take the next level to building strong car or even seeing one driver who’s rising to the ultimate challenge, for better or for worse when it comes to rivalry. Though in nowadays, while I still like to see F1, but it feels like its no longer the same where it used to, ranging from Max Verstappen is aggressive against anyone with his time in Team Red Bull, Ferrari are acting like clowns based on their idiotic strategies and excuses, some kids are either desperate or full of ego (*cough* Lando Norris cough), some teams are no longer the same when they used to like Williams, the V6 turbo charge sounds is like vacuum scratching on a chalkboard, some circuits are taking place in the streets for which came off as both lazy and cheap, and worst of all, the president of the FIA is a complete control freak. But, even if F1 is in desperate to be good since the good’ol days, it doesn’t mean its 100% bad, it has some good moments and stuff. So, why did I bring this up for today’s review? Well, looks like somebody think it will be interesting to having a movie in Formula 1.

“F1 The Movie” is a sport drama film that was written/produced/directed by Joseph Krosinski (yup, the same director who gave us Top Gun: Maverick), co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Lewis Hamilton (yes, the one and only modern seven times F1 champ since Michael Schumacher), Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner and Chad Oman, and co-written by Ehren Kruger.

The idea of this movie started on a bidding war, when both Brad Pitt, Jerry Bruckheimer, Ehren Kruger and Joseph Krosinski start developing their big project about the world of F1, with Lewis Hamilton jumped in for the project, along with FIA in collaboration. Many studios jumped in for the war for who’re going to be involve with the project, its not just major ones Paramount, MGM and even Disney, but also streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Apple. As a result, Apple (ugh…!) had won the bid and going to be involved with the project as both in production and distribution (though Warner Bros are also threw their hat in the ring) to giving us the movie with F1.

So, with all that said, is it as dramatically exciting to race with fictional team, is this film we’re going downhill very badly much like either Williams or Sauber?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For movie going into fictional with F1, you think the story is gonna giving us something unique or pretty cliché from the get-go? Well, technically, yes, but its a mix about drivers and the team, dependable…

The movie begins with the bang, where we introduce a nomad free agent driver name Sonny Hayes, who’s racing with Porsche at 24 Hours of Daytona, which he ended up win the race. However, despite his winning and received a check, the reason why he’s in nomad in his van, its because he used to be a promising driver with Lotus, right before his near death experience with a near fatal car crash, leaving him having an addicted to gambling (hence his gimmick) and got three times divorce (Ouch…!). Despite living himself into hell and winning Daytona, the latter is impressing his former teammate/buddy, Ruben Cervantes, who came for discussion to offering Sonny to coming back to the world of F1 with his team “Apex Grand Prix F1 team” (APXGP F1 Team), mainly because his team is struggling that since they arrive about couple years, the team is in backmarker and had no wins, no podiums nor even high score, otherwise the investors and the board of directors will sell the team if its another year with no wins nor podium, though Sonny wasn’t so sure, but he accepts the deal. Once he packed up to flying in UK, he arrived at Silverstone to meeting members of the team like Kate McKenna the team’s technical director, Peter Banning, the board member, Kaspar Smolinski, the team’s principal and finally, the hotshot rookie/teammate, Joshua Pearce. Unfortunately, when they started on British GP (instead of starting on Australia or even Bahrain), its up to Sonny Hayes cooperate both the team and his teammate to do the best driving in order to keep the team open to prevent shutting doors.

Basically, the movie is basically the mix veteran driver who’s asked to coming back to the motorsports when he used to, and the team’s struggling to keep the doors open or else be gone when the season is over, its like a mix between “The Wrestler” and one of my favorite sports movie “Slap Shot”, which I find it to be fairly descent concept that they gotta race to do the best to putting their teams and business on the line, even if it kinda took similar concept from Slap Shot, or at least like any struggling business from several movies. Though the movie isn’t just the team’s sacrifice, usually focusing on two drivers (kind off), whereas Sonny is about trying to get himself back since 3 decades ago to help the team, and Joshua is trying to help the team and kind trying to be a big deal in the name of family, even if its a challenging chemistry between of two from in order to not only help the team, but also working together to do the best finish, especially for their different personalities, but you know what this also reminds me of? It reminds the EA F1 game’s campaign called “Braking Point”, specifically the first one that was introduced in F1 2021, you know a game where a young driver who entered F1 to teaming up with a veteran to working together, but became a crap show from the start, even though I never played the game, but I watched the cutscenes from the internet (but if anyone wants to play it, sorry to say, its no longer available in digital market, but buy physically). There’s also a subplots in this movie that it has two things, the first is the team’s setup that they’re trying to upgrade or even make an odd strategy to win, which sure, upgrading car is dependable if the FIA accepts it, or worse, if its illegal for their investigation, which is common since some teams trying to make something unique to upgrade their cars to win, some can be acceptable (though only in season before its banned after its over, similar to Mercedes’s Dual-Axis Steering in 2020) but others crossed the line (like the infamous Brabham’s Fan Car in 1978’s Swedish GP). And the second subplot is the struggle of Sonny Hayes’s life, mainly his origin, but let me tell you, when they showed his origin before he three decades return, they gave us quite possibly the Biggest BS moment I’ve ever heard as a “not-so-smart” F1 historian, but trust me, il talk about it later, even if it may sounds like a SPOILER, but just a small detail to reveal. Sure, while this movie has an action and couple of drama, but the movie may including some humors, either from deliveries or the dialogues, which I will admit, while the writing is trying to be understandable about F1 (even if they tried a bit “too hard”), but at least they gave us some chuckle moments.

While the story is flawed from similar ideas, but its a nice from the get-go about the taste of modern F1, some good humor dialogue, even if there are some moments that either defying F1’s rule book and the WTF origin.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costs between $200 – 300M, but man… The movie’s presentation looks pretty damn cool to watch with actions, despite there are some moments that I asked so many questions in racing scenes.

For starter, the filming locations are pretty good and fun to watching with racing sequences, like Gran Turismo the movie, they filmed in actual race tracks, commonly the tracks in F1 like Silverstone Circuit in UK (the OG F1 track since 1950), Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium (one of fan favorite, but also dangerous as we all know), Monza in Italy (another classic track since the 50s), Suzuka in Japan (one of my favorite F1 track), Zandvoort in Netherlands, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico, Las Vegas Strip Circuit (god I hate this track, all that for cheap show than racing…!), and Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, but rather than filming this during the race, it was filmed in Friday, which is taking place with two practice session before the qualification on Saturday, meaning it will be pretty unlikely to filming in actual qualification and racing, so they have to film on Friday’s practice sessions for their time to film. Although they also filming outside of F1 tracks like Daytona International Speedway on Daytona Beach, Florida during the “24 Hours of Daytona”, it plays like the famous “24 Hours of Le Mans, but the track in Daytona is rather short, whereas Le Mans is ridiculously long straights with couple of chicanes. And even Brands Hatch in UK (yes, the same track that was used in F1 since Rush) for the flashback scene in Spanish GP in 1993 (though they could’ve filmed in Jerez circuit in Spain, maybe they skipped over for their budgets or so), but the rest is obviously using stock footage (and post-production edit) of the infamous near fatal car crash of Mark Donnelly during the Friday practice of 1990 Spanish GP (Again, more on that later).

The way they filmed the racing sequences are pretty good and fun to watch based on the placements of cameras from onboard view (with perfect center like in IndyCar whereas in F1, the camera is off-centered), a sidepod with fast-paste turn when the car is overtaken or incoming car (they can be fun, but sometimes it could be overused to just stayed camera. Those where Apple (ugh…!) stepped in for the way they filmed in production based on the use of iPhone and powered by A-series (Apple Silicon) system on a chip, which is especially when the team did the same thing when they did in “Top Gun Maverick” like the placements on which sides and cockpit, along with shrinking the size of the cameras to prevent the cars’ weight. And the aforementioned turning control was actually came up from Panavision.

But of course, the first highlight part of this movie is the fictional team, APXGP F1 Team, for my best, its a British F1 team to act like one of the more new team since last couple years, but they never had winnings, nor even collecting points after three years (Huh, its pretty much a fictional backmarker since Manor Racing in 2016), otherwise, like I said before, leaving board of directors and investors tell them that if there’s no wins, APXGP will go “bye-bye”. For their headquarter, its easy to notice that they filmed in McLaren Technology Center, the wind tunnel scene was provided by Williams, and the racing simulator was filmed in Mercedes HQ at Brackley, which is located on West Northamptonshire in UK, so not bad to filming in team’s headquarters, which is coincidence that both teams have Mercedes engine supply. But when it comes to their cars, rather then building a F1 car from scratch, they recycled the F2 car (Dallara F2 2018) to modifying it with V6 Turchocharge hybrid engine and a couple aerodynamics packages to look like an F1, despite its an F2 car disguising as an F1 car (come on, I can build my own F1 car in EA F1 game with “MyTeam” career). But as for the livery, it feels just like one of those black and gold car, in other words, they recycled the same color scheme from Team Lotus in 70s and 80s.

The last and definitely not the least for the highlight, are the racing sequences. Like I said they filmed in Friday without getting bombarded from qualifying/racing schedules. Those racing scenes are pretty good and fun to watch to see a struggling team trying to overtaking against any teams to collect points and fingers crossing to win. However, while the racing are pretty good, but its worth pointing that the racing are real, no special effects involve. But sometimes, some scenes gave us some dumb moments that left me so many questions. For example, in Hungarian GP, Sonny Hayes is constantly getting clipped by any drivers on purpose to bring out safety car to let Joshua Pearce having an easy overtake from pit strategy in their “Plan C” (What is this, a debris caution mix with Crashgate??). Or worse, some scenes with questionable near death experience, in Italian GP, when Joshua is trying overtaking Max Verstappen in Sonny’s dismay, Pearce got hit by Parabolica’s (Monza’s final corner) sausage kerb that got him flying in the air and crashed outside of the track, I mean, I get this is a reference from Alex Peroni’s crash in F3, but as an F1 car? That’ll be impossible to crash like this, when today’s F1 car are heavy like 800 kg, unless if the cars get lifted by wheel after wheel like when Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton crashed together at 2021’s Italian GP. But don’t even get me started when Sonny went in Race Rage in Las Vegas before bumped into Sergio Perez and crashed in fences to track (im pretty sure they replicate Carl Edwards’s nasty crash at Talladega in 2009 Aaron’s 499 when Brad Keselowski took his first W, but that’s just me), they wanted another shot of having Brad Pitt coming out of car and fell flat after the crash, but it was removed in the final cut (Yeah, cutting the walking on the track while almost dying after the crash scene is a good call for removal, cause it will be even more exaggerating).

While I question about the on which questionable moments and even some exaggeration part, but at least the film’s production, the filming and the racing are pretty damn good to watch as both movie goer and F1 fan.

The Characters

Since this is the alternative time in F1, you think they could give us something interesting and relatable characters that feels almost like F1 drivers? Well, yes, but with more personalities, though dependable for the execution.

Lets start with the main protagonist, Sonny Hayes (played by Brad Pitt), the veteran driver who used be a big shot back in his younger days of F1 when he used to be with Lotus, right up until he near fatal car crash of 1993 left him away to becoming a broken man from gambling addictions, three times divorce, desperate for job searching and “Racer for Hire” that he just wants a check, despite he’s in nomad life in a minivan. I find him to be a fairly descend character, even if he’s another one of those broken down athlete in whichever sports movies (like say Randy Robinson from The Wrestler), even if he still has a passion of racing, and also looking for money. While he’s accepted to going back to the track, you would think that Sonny is going soft to give it a shot with modern technology compared to when he had in the early 90s? Well, yes and no, he could drive, yes, but it just came off as mixed from constant slip to even constant clipped by almost every cars for the combination of questionable pit strategy and safety car deployment, that would be fine to coming back as race engineer, but not so much for coming back to driving the car in his late 50s. Oh and remember when he had a replica of near death moment from Mark Donnelly back in 1990? Well, in typical movie fashion, while he suffered a harsh injuries of C5 fracture from 1993, he walked out in no problem after being recovered, which it just didn’t make any sense that, if you have a harsh injuries, that all depends if you’ll coming back to race or forced to retire from medical concern, in case for Donnelly back then in practice, his crash left him a F1 career ending with even worst injuries with brain and lung contusions and bad leg fractures that he was close to be amputated. But for Hayes, its just spine injury that he could’ve been retired forever and bounded on wheel chair, like there’s no freakin’ way to coming back to motorsports when he nearly died like this, along with living in broken down life. I know im harsh for saying that, but I know people said its dependable if you’re good to coming back or not if its not that harsh like say, Romain Grosjean back in Bahrain GP in 2020 (despite he has burnt scars on his hands, but he’s saved thanks to Halo cockpit). Again, while he’s a fairly descent protagonist in the movie, along with his origin that gave me a head-scratching, at least Brad Pitt did a good work of his performance, let along learning how to driving F1 car after learning how to drive with both F3 and F2 cars.

Next up is Joshua Pearce (played by Damson Idris), a British rookie driver who’s been with APXGP since when the team opened. While most drivers are either calm, taking seriously, genius, a cardboard cutout or being space and time wasting to be in F1 (cough Lance Stroll cough), here JP is a hotshot rookie that he always wishing to be the best be in F1 since Lewis Hamilton won 7 titles like Michael Schumacher. He’s being charismatic, fast and a loud cocky driver that he wishes to be a big shot in F1 to win the title, think of him as Rod Tidwell from “Jerry Maguire”, without the level of ego as an underdog driver. Especially when he and Sonny have a sour star in different personalities from Sonny being a veteran with questionable strategies, while Pearce is a loud rookie in the name of “Show me the money!” (kind of). And I will say, Damson did a good work of his performance that he has an energy from calm to charismatic (without being egotistic), and like soap maker in Fight Club, he also taught to driving two minor open wheeled cars before driving F1 car (even if its a F2 car disguising as an F1 car).

After the drivers, we have Kate McKenna (played by Kerry Condon, aka the AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. in MCU), a female technical director of APXGP that she’s trying to help the team upgrade the car in attempt to beat any teams to get the winning, even if when she tried to upgrade the car in whichever parts, the FIA will going after the team in question for legality. She plays almost like a mentor when it comes to taught our main hero drive the more modern F1 car, that is until she’s also the obvious love interest to Sonny halfway through the movie. She’s more of a passable character in the movie to teaching the drivers to hopefully this will win the team (despite if she could get herself into trouble if she crossed the line) and being Sonny’s new love interest, and Kerry did a nice work of her role.

After that we have Reuben Cervantes (played by Javier Bardem), who’s not only the owner of APXGP, but also had a history of F1, not because he used to be a racer, but he’s also Sonny’s former teammate back in F1 racing days as their buds. But when his team is in Dire Straight, he thinks that this will be the opportunity to bringing his old friend back to the glory to saving his asses before closing doors. While he seems to be friendly with old Sonny, but he’s also being so desperate to either keep the team going if they win, closing doors or going into new management whether he’ll stay or go home. I find him another descent boss of the team, but he’s more of a desperate man of bringing back to the good’ol days, even if Sonny’s near death experience his haunting him for why he backed out as a racer but working as a businessman to boss of the team, along as partially a historian of F1 (Huh, kinda like me, eh?). Though il give a credit for Javier’s nice performance of his role.

And finally, we have Peter Banning (played by Tobias Menzies), APXGP’s board member who’s keeping his eyes on the team if they’ll doing good or not. While he’s sorta like a secondary boss, to keep the business team in the flow, but he’s also… A fan of F1, based on his personality? I mean sure he may like F1 to keep the team open or not, but most board members are taking seriously to do the right thing, if not “BE GONE!”. But here, he seems to be a bit obnoxious that he enjoys a bit too much on F1, unless he wants to be the new boss of APXGP, as long as he doesn’t going nuts about. While he’s kind of over the top, but il give a credit for fun performance to Tobias.

As for the rest of the movie, the most common are the members of APXGP that they have plot developments and conveniences, there’s Kaspar Smoliski (played by Kim Bodnia) the principal of APXGP, Bernadette Pearce (played by Sarah Niles) who’s Joshua’s mother and kind of protective on her son if it didn’t go on his way, Hugh Nickleby and Rico Fazio (played by Will Merrick and Joseph Balderrama) who’re the race engineers on our main drivers, Jodie (played by Callie Cooke) who’s a clumsy tire gunner, and Cashman (played by Samson Kayo) who’s Joshia’s best cousin and manager.

Since this movie was filmed in fictional 2023 season, we have a couple of cameos of drivers, however, those F1 drivers are just there for being obstacles. But the only personalities we have in F1 are the principals/CEOs like Zak Brown from McLaren, Frederic Vasseur in Ferrari, Guenther Steiner from Haas (though we was in 2023 before he was fired due to disagreement after 2023) and even Toto Wolff (though the latter is about to give a plot element, but won’t tell you more to prevent SPOILERS),

The characters in this movie are fine at best, sure they may some that I like, but the rest, they’re more of passable or hollow.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, F1 The Movie is pretty nice film, while its the best film, as a fan of F1, but its not bad.

It as a descent story, the writing maybe good, the characters are above average, the acting are good and the presentation looks fantastic in the view and racing scenes.

Sure, while I enjoy this movie, but there are couple moments that left me scratch my head in confusion such as Sonny’s origin, a dumb strategy that makes Crashgate look like a joke and some crashes left so much questions (again, I know the racing and crashing scenes are done for real, no special effects involve).

While im sure non-F1 fans will enjoy this movie for all about the struggling team, a rocky chemistry drivers, and of course, the racing scenes to be a fun action moments. But as a F1 fan like me, I find it to be good, even if there are moments left me so many questions, even some motorsports fans that, while enjoy it, but they’ll probably be critical for various moments. For recommendation, once again, its one of those films that you gotta watch it once and il let you guys make a conclusion if you like or not, though if you do like it, perhaps you can give it a shot to watching a real F1 racing, either from clips on the internet or even live racing, if you want. But for F1 fans, it will be a debatable for how the movie’s presented.

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 7/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Oh, and Happy 4th of July.

Movie Review: Elio

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Last year, I covered Inside Out 2, while im kinda nitpicky on this sequel for being similar as the first one, but in fairness, at least its a pretty good movie with nice message and even new characters that we enjoy and it made a Beaucoup bucks at the box-office that it became the Number 1 Highest-Grossest Animated Film of All Time, right up until it got destroyed by Ne Zha 2 by doubling box-office result less than a year later. (Ouch…!) I know it sucks for both Disney and Pixar, but hey, at least Pixar made a comeback to get back on their feet for more projects, once of which happens be… Another movie about alien abduction since like 3 months ago?

“Elio” is a 2025 Sci-Fi Action movie that was written/directed by Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi and Adrian Molina, produced by Mary Alice Drumm and co-written by Julia Cho (both screenplay and story), Mark Hammer and Mike Jones.

The idea of this movie came from the mind of Adrian Molina, after worked as a co-director with Coco, he was highly anticipating for making his project as a sole director (and story writer) and Mary Alice Drumm teamed up as a producer. Molina said the idea of his movie came from his childhood when he used to live in a military base, but being there isn’t so easy when he was young due to dealing with social isolation before he was enrolled at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) to befriend with students, as one of director Madeline Sharafian called Adrian’s experience “he felt like he'd found his people there, he'd found his world”. While Adrian working his passion project, but he wasn’t be able to keep going halfway through development, thus leaving him bowing out of project to working on “Coco 2” (Aw come on, is that really necessary after a perfectly emotional ending??), thus the Chief Creative Officer of Pixar, Pete Doctor, announced that, while Adrian Molina still credited, the aforementioned Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi (yup, the same director who gave us Turning Red) stepped in as both writer (for story) and directors continue the project (Am I start noticing a pattern since the making of Brave?).

So, with all that said, is discovering aliens from different planets will be a fun trip, or is this film we’d rather stay in home planet with isolation?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about a kid who wants to be abducted by aliens to see something cool outside of Earth, you think the story of this movie would be something adventurous to learn something outside of Earth along with dealing with serious issue? Well… Kind of…

The movie begins in a flashback where we introduced our main kid Elio Solis, who lives with his Air Force major aunt Olga after his parents tragically died. While he’s living with her after the unfortunate moment, he wandered on his own to curiously see space probe Voyager 1, which left him both surprised and curious that he wishes to going out in outer space, much to dismay to his aunt when she gave up her dream to becoming an astronaut for the focus of family. Fast Forward to couple years later, now aged 11, Elio becomes obsessed not just wishing to going in outer space, but also wanting to be abducted by aliens, by laying on the beach with message in waiting, but to no avail, that is until when everything going down from getting bullied by two boys that left Elio a left eye’s injury for two weeks to sneaking in emergency meeting room in his attempt to sending message to the discovered proof of aliens (due to Voyager 1 got captured), which his message sent ended up causing a power outage, which it nearly losing Olga’s job, which she punished him by sending him to the youth camp, much to dismay to Elio when the same bullies are there. But one night, Elio is running away from the bullies who’re trying to beating him up, but then, his dream comes true when he witnessed the light that he got abducted by aliens in a planetary ship called “Communiverse” as an “Ambassador of Earth” to welcoming the other aliens. But at the same time, he also noticed the emergency about an evil warlord named “Lord Grigon” who’s posing a threat against Communiverse because of being rejected due to his menace, hence his invasion with against Communiverse, its up to Elio to find the way stop the intergalactic warlord to bring peace.

I find the story to be… Alright, while it feels just like one of those movies about a kid discover an alien (name a single film that has that), but the execution is actually nice to do the opposite, instead of alien lands on Earth, here, its the kid lands on aliens’ planetary ship for his dream of being abducted. While its fun to see this moment in the second half of his first discovering aliens, but later on, it goes into trying to prevent the invasion on Communiverse in attempt to bring peace, which while it maybe nice, but the execution felt underwhelming with obvious cliché. But despite my nitpick of cliché, the movie does have a heart moment due to the subject of the plot element, its to dealing with social isolation problem, which is not hard to see why Elio’s struggle came from Molina’s idea from his childhood struggle with same subject, which il give a credit what they came up and its probably relatable, especially when its even more difficult without the parents when they died, even if it felt like they took the similar development from Lilo and Stitch, but with different plot. Despite some copycat, at least il give a credit what they’re trying for the mix of caring of be like a family and share the struggle of social isolation, even if some of the writing can be good, but other times it could get underwhelming. As for the humor of this movie? Well, I find the jokes to be… Trying too hard. Sure, I did have a chuckle with some good joke, but most of them are trying, like a little too hard that, again the writing is a mixed bad that it can work, but others, didn’t work that well.

While I may like the story to be similar but with the opposite, along with nice message to gave a heart moment and some okay jokes, but its just that the execution is underwhelming from obvious cliché and felt like its kind of done before.

The Animation

I think its safe the say that the budget is more gearing towards the presentation than the writing. Anyway, the movie’s budget costed $150M, which is kind of high for development, but holy Christmas, the movie’s presentation looks so amazing what they gave.

For starter, the background went from simply to beautifully well-crafted presentation of the world building. In Earth, It looks pretty nice and simple from small town to the forest with camp youth, its a nice and fresh air in Earth’s presentation, along with the setting in Olga’s workplace. But when we’re leaving planet Earth… Oh man, it shows its true color, while going in space is simple, but beautiful at the same time, but that’s just an appetizer. But when we entering Communiverse, this is where the creativity and the beauty show us, the planetary ship itself is amazing that it has colorful settings in which rooms like the fountain room (despite its cheaply joked that its a toilet, because of flushing), the cloning room and many others, giving them a unique life-like design of the sets in this ship. There’s also Grigon’s ship, while it looks nice design for dark and deadly from each rooms or death traps, but its more of a pass.

What makes this movie also amazing its the effects and the quality, mainly for going into space with lighting of bright stars and fade quality, especially with the presentation of space and planets during the opening’s flashback. But like I said, the Communiverse is even more fascinating, not just the ship itself, but the effects like the fountain water, a cloning with obviously made in squash and stretch (which makes sense) and even unique quality effect from either ship or some of the alien designs.

Speaking of the latter, the character designs and the animation are also nice and creative. While the human designs are there (though perhaps the same design style from either Turning Red or even Luca), but they’re not bad to say the least (yeah yeah, go ahead, laugh at me all you want just because we keep bringing up CalArts design since 2010s, but not everything is bad). But the alien designs are a new level, for starter, they proclaimed that the alien designs are based on microscopic plants or animals to capture both oddity and believable vibe, some examples like Grigon’s species are made in a difficulty balance of cute and creepy, which il give a credit where one of them could be terrifying to giving them in a robot suit, but outside of it, its probably cute, even if creepy at the same time. Another creative design they made is OOOOO, which is made of liquid shapeshifting supercomputer, which I find it both cute and creative, but animating is also a challenge based on its effect from 2D facial to shapeshifting effects, especially when the facial rigging and technique were brought up from Pixar’s first series “Win or Lose”. Finally, the animation is still pretty good for humans being normal and realistic movements (for the most part) to smooth, creative and unique for the aliens.

Its no stranger that the animation is the highlight for pretty cool and creative designs and even a beautiful world building and the quality.

The Characters

While the world both in Earth and outside like Communiverse, we expecting to have some promising, cute and likable characters in this movie? Well, based on the writing, yes and no.

Lets start off with our title character, Elio Solis (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), the main kid who’s struggled with social isolation ever since his parents died that he has to live with his aunt, that is until going into space, mainly abducted by aliens in his dream, despite some people (like his aunt and the bullies are questioning his dream. But once he does get abducted, he went from struggling kid and dreamer to overly exciting, but also naïve to thinking himself as the ambassador of Earth, which his pretending as a big deal from Earth would be a huge risk, the fact that he’s probably too young to understand about many things in space and aliens, even if he likes to hanging out or even helping them. I find him to be fairly descend, he’s more of dreamer and naïve that he should’ve learn a reality check, despite he’s trying of get off his head of tragic past and his isolation. While I find him to be an okay character, despite we can relate the struggle, but il give a credit for the young teenage Yonas for his good performance.

Next we have Olga Solis (voiced by Zoe Saldana, aka Gamora in MCU and aka Uhura from Star Trek reboot), she’s Elio’s aunt who works as a major in Air Force, who’s once originally going to be an astronaut, but dropped the plan in the name of FAMILY. The best way to describing her is she’s somewhat similar to Nani from Lilo and Stitch, a struggled aunt who’s trying to stay in the business careful because of her nephew that could cause trouble. Except the difference between Nani and Olga is that when Elio was abducted and replaced by the clone version of Elio, it feels like his regret of being heard on his nephew is thrown out of window (perhaps she’ll apologize, but not going to the SPOILER detail), while Nani is struggling to taking care of her little sister Lilo in difficulty connection of “Ohana” (aka FAMILY). But then again, I understand the movie is focusing on Elio, but it would be nice to give a little more chemistry between Olga and his nephew, making her the poor man version of Nani. Though im not gonna take personal on Zoe, cause once again, she did a good work of her performance, since I mentioned her in couple of my reviews like two Guardians of the Galaxy and the third installment of Star Trek reboot.

Then we have Glordon (voiced by Remy Edgerly), an alien worm who’s the son of Lord Grigon who’s left alone bellow the ship before eventually befriend with Elio. I think he’s meant to be a comic relief in the movie from curious and fun fella that he likes to know about Communiverse when Elio met him. Though I find him to be pretty cute in the movie when he’s a young work, but as a comedic role, its a “meh”, I did have a chuckle of his moment, but others are low-brow. But like Yonas, il give a credit for nice performance to a new young actor Remy.

And lastly, we have Lord Grigon (voiced by Brad Garrett) the main antagonist of the movie who’s trying to taking down Communiverse because of the rejection from his threatening appearance with his high-tech armor, which it drive him made for his threat. I find him to be an average villain in the movie, he’s just a typical villain who’s angry for being rejected for being a menace for the way he develops or he looks, though one thing that he should’ve pay attention is his son, its as if he treats his son like nothing happened when he’s planning for a war at Communiverse. While he looks pretty cool, but the way he’s written is average at best, but again, not gonna blame on Brad, I think he did a nice work of his role.

As for the rest, they’re just there for small bit of developments, there’s Helix (voiced by Brandon Moon) the ambassador of Falluvinum who’s curious but welcoming in his party nature, there’s Questa (voiced by Jameela Jamil) the ambassador of Gom who’s surprisingly an enjoyable character for me, due to being kind-hearted and learner from her ability of mind reading, Tegmen (voiced by Matthias Schweighöfer) the ambassador… Whichever the planet he came from (yeah, totally forgettable one…), Bryce and Caleb (voiced by Dylan Gilmer and Jake Getman) who’re the bullies toward Elio, and OOOOO (voiced by Shirley Henderson, aka Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter franchise) who’s a shapeshifting supercomputer who gives Elio (and viewers) to show us Communiverse, she’s another memorable character for creative design.

The characters in the movie have some fun moments and the actors did a good work of their voice performance, but when it comes to the characters how they’re written, they can be good one, but some are forgettable.

And now for my final opinion of this movie

Overall, Elio is a somewhat above average film at best.

Il give a credit for the idea of this movie, the message of struggling of social isolation, the world building of space and Communiverse, the animation look amazing, creative and colorful, some characters are alright and the voice acting are pretty good.

Though im aware some people may like this movie like high positive, but for me, while il give a credit, but the movie is suffered with numerous problems from story is good, but downhill afterwards, the writing could’ve gone better, the jokes are trying too hard and some characters like one villain just didn’t worked out for their potential or just a copycat.

Again, I know some people said its a recommend to watch this with friends, family or some who’re fans of space and aliens, that’s for those people, but for me personally, I recommend to watch this movie once and il let you draw your conclusion if its worth to watch or is it Pixar’s forgettable film. Even Disney themselves didn’t even bother to marketing this movie, making this as Pixar’s worst opening weekend’s box-office ever, and an early flop (Jeez, they went from comeback with Inside Out 2 and then this?? It feels like we’re going back to Pixar’s downhill).

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 6/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Last year on September 13th, I’ve covered Friday the 13th Part 4, the so-called “Final Chapter” that, as I said before, it was originally intended at the final installment of the franchise and moved on, whether because of rise of slasher genre was declining or perhaps its due to resulting of many filmmakers are obsessed to making trashy slasher movies, ever since slasher was a huge trend in the 80s. But you know what they said “Money Talks”, hence when Part 4 made more money at the box-office, they killed off the “final installment” to make another one in today’s review, because hey, we’re in Friday The 13th as I recently posted.

“Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning” is a 1985 slasher and the 5th installment of the franchise that was written/directed by the late Danny Steinmann, produced by Timothy Silver and co-written by Martin Kitrosser and David Cohen.

As I said before, since Part 4 made a lot of money at the box-office, its no stranger that they scrapped the final installment to make another Friday the 13th movie to making it as a new beginning for new story, as the title implies with the executive producer, Frank Mancuso Jr., appreciate for the title. Once its time to preparing Part 5, the director Danny Steinmann threw his hat in the ring when he did his low budget slasher film “The Unseen” (even though the budget costed $2M). Though unlike Part 4 was horniest and the behind the scene left a lot of questions on Joseph Zito’s involvement from bad attitude and/or negligent, Part 5 on the other hand is probably the most sleaziest that i’ve ever heard upon doing research (though the history the behind the scene is rather hard to find nor knowing), it wasn’t just a kills or horny campers, but this one has a lot of sexual tones with sexing and bunch of revealing nakey bods from ladies, especially with a lot of revealing boobies. This was all because Danny Steinmann was also been making porno movie called “High Rise” in 1973. And to add more sleaze, Danny was also flying high with cocaine when making the movie, pretty much means, the director is so coked up that he liked to see titties and sexing with zero control of his direction to letting actors do whatever they went, whether to just follow the script or making their own delivery, its almost like a free-for-all whether some actors can improvise while the director enjoyed himself with nose candy for sex and nudey scenes, leaving this movie had no direction from the get-go and it was Danny Steinmann’s last film he ever directed in his career. And from what I’ve noticed, Part 5 was meant to be the new trilogy of Friday the 13th franchise with some new characters and new villain without Jason.

But when this movie came out, it was widely regarded as one the worst film in Friday the 13th franchise due to its questionable directions, the tone and the movie that it’s almost barely followed from the previous installment, and the biggest criticism of all is the absent of Jason Voorhees himself, while Tommy Jarvis is left as a backseat character. The same can be said for the box-office, whereas the previous films were a success, Part 5 is a complete opposite that it was a box-office disappointment by earning $21.9M, sure it bypassed the budget of $2.2M, but still, the movie’s earning was a downhill. As time went on, Part 5 is still considered the weakest one of the franchise for many people, but there are some considered a “Guilty Pleasure”, whether you like it or not, I guess its not hard to know why Part 5 is regarded as the Friday the 13th version of “Halloween 3” for similar reasons.

So, with all that said, will I find this movie to be misunderstood, or is this film really that bad that it’ll be left forgotten?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

Since this the new chapter, you think the writing are trying to make something new while we have a killer on the loose? Well, yes and no.

The movie begins where our familiar main boy Tommy Jarvis who’s walking in a banana raincoat to see the gravestone of his nemesis that he killed him five years ago, Jason Voorhees. After the two idiots dig out the grave that they got killed by Jason, the dream ends when we see grown up Tommy in his late teen, who’s been in psychiatric hospitals from his personal traumatic nightmare from a familiar hockey masked killer. After been in hospitals, he’s brought into a new institution called “Pinehurst Halfway House” to meet the owners of this apartment, Dr. Matt Letter his assistant Pam Roberts, along with new teens like teens like serious blondie Robin, goth music-lover Violet, an awkward fella with stutter Jake, a lumberjack Vic (though they never met), a fatass chocolate eater Joey and two sexing teens named Eddie and Tina, the latter of two are brought back by the cop when they’re caught sexing in the wood, which happens to be property from madness neighbor Ethel and her son Junior, but at the same time, Tommy meets the reckless boy Reggie who’s also involved in institution thanks to his grandpa George. But while this is going on, Joey goes to annoying other patients for give chocolates, which pissing off both Robin and Violet, to in a brutal final straw, Vic, where after harshly refused to take a chocolate, he KILLS Joey with his ax (Jesus dude!!), which it quickly call 911 for cops to arresting Vic and ambulance to get rid of dead Joey, much to shock for Roy Burns, minus his partner Duke Johnson doesn’t give a crap about it. What we didn’t know is that a new killer is out there after killing off two greasers Vinnie and Pete, which is up to Tommy and perhaps some others in the institutions are find out where the killer is, so we think.

Yeah, its a same old, same old who’s involved of killing anybody on the way, except this one is a follow up with Tommy Jarvis is struggling to get over his traumatic past ever since he killed Jason five years ago, its like nothing new that what we expect. But in this movie, the horror feels like its forgotten, cause like I said at the film’s origin, because the director loves sex instead of horror slasher, the movie plays on its own crazy antics, especially with the dialogue and even their own character developments, otherwise, it feels like Jarvis is gonna be in the backseat from the craziness it has. This left the writing feels like an afterthought that it nearly has no story, but rather go crazy on it from, again, the lack of direction. Which I think its safe to say that because of the lack of direction, it left some actors going improvised and slightly follow the script, which its understandable because of director’s been busy enjoy sex and coke, but despite the craziness from behind the scene, I enjoy some actors to having their own fun to improvised developments or fun dialogues, which I find t them to be both fascinating and even chuckle worthy, I know it sounds like im turning off my brain to have fun with it, but then again, without the direction, the actors can make their own fun and their ideas, ranging from greasers hilarious broken down relationship while their car is jammed (“Crap my ass!”), Ethel’s going full on Karen about horny teens in the prop, Reggie and his bestie Demon or other stuff going on, which I feel like im watching a sleazy comedy movie than a slasher movie because of… Obvious reasons from behind the scene. Not to mention, since the slasher in the movie is lacking, we never be able to see more with Tommy Jarvis, again, this left Jarvis in the backseat until the 3rd act.

While the story felt like no originality and no direction means no story til the 3rd and final act, the writing is pretty much a mess from the get-go, but at least it has a fun moment that I was chuckling from fun moments, even if it could get over-the-top.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget happens to be shared the same number as Part 4, mainly the $2.2M of budget. Despite the same number, the presentation looks nice and standard as what we expect, except the movie is downhill compared to Part 4.

For starter, instead of taking place in the camping spot, this one takes place in the institution Pinehurst, though we can see the extra location like the restaurant and the farm, which some fans theorizing Pinehurst takes place close to Camp Crystal Lake due to similar presentation spot and possibly the similar pattern about Jason Voorhees, it can be true since its like in the forest spot, even if Pinehurst is like a small town next to the forest, which is why this movie was filmed in Camarillo, California.

While the presentation looks nice, the lighting quality is lightened a bit, which I can easily tell the quality is somewhat bigger than Part 4, which I appreciated a bit, but I find it be a bit ambitious for the lighting and flat, which is bigger budget of the previous films, but only forcible to look bigger and better, but in fairness, some filming shots are pretty nice as always, even if, like always, there’s plenty of nude revealing shots from Lana’s exciting to hanging with Billy by showing her bewbs in front of mirror, which Rebecca Wood (who played Lana) came up her performance idea as a reference from “All that Jazz” from 1979, I never seen it, but touché, or the most gratuitous of all, is when Eddie and Tina going out in the woods to, in typical slasher fashion, smoking dope and sexing, but outdoor and indoor, which it probably explained why the director, Danny Steinmann, is way too excited (probably in nose candy) for this as the first day of production of this film, which he wanted it to be explicit and extensive, along with wide shot of Tina’s birthday suit, again, only for showing her Ts, which it felt like we’re watching porn film, much to both uncomfortable and asked so much questions from the crew members and the aforementioned executive producer Frank Mancuso Jr. But on the bright side, at least its not as negligible as Part 4’s behind the scene.

But you know what’s negligible? The kills. While I like to see the kills in many slasher films, but in case for Part 5, its sadly the weakest of all, we never be able to see the action kills for what’s going on from POV butcher knife to the face, a camera bellow the bed of copy-paste Kevin Bacon’s death in Part 1, slit throat with zoomed to the face and the blood feels rather minimal, making it rather the least gory film in Friday the 13th film which will unfortunately suffered the same way in the later installments, all because once again, MPAA are constantly threatened the movie to be X Rated, forcing them to cut or edited to be safe to be an R Rated film. Again, its easy to blame MPAA for their sensitive rules. Though the makeup of dead bodies are not bad to say the least, but again, its the least gory when the director is interest of skins instead of gore.

As for the body counts, like always, based on watching Dead Meat’s Kill Count (I know im cheating, but I love watching this show on Youtube), it has 21 dead bodies. If I have to pick which one is my favorite kill in this movie is when Eddie got wrapped in the head and crushed to death by a belt from behind the tree, pretty painful to look, but also creative kill. But the weakest will be almost everything, though il go with Duke’s death which is we never see how did he died along with kill and blood makeup is about to washing away due to fake raining.

The presentation of this movie looks alright at best, but it felt more like we’re in a soft-core porn with less gory kill because MPAA said so.

The Characters

I think its easy to say that unlike the previous films, the characters in this movie have their personalities, a pretty crazy personality based on actors’ improvisation, I guess I can say the actors had fun with.

Lets start off with Jason Voorhees. Though I know you’re like “Really Anthony? Why bring Jason in Part 5, he’s already dead in Part 4.”, well yeah, I understand that, though in this movie, we only see Jason as a jump scaring ghost in Tommy Jarvis’s mind when he’s trying to clearing his head. However, Jason is played by two actors instead of one, some moments (commonly) that he’s played by stuntman Tom Morga, while the opening dream was played by unknown John Hock when Morga was unavailable. Which Im assuming Jason is meant to keep looking at Tommy that if he wants to get off his mind is to be like Jason Voorhees, more on that later.

And as for Tommy Jarvis, he’s played by both John Shepherd and reprised by Corey Feldman in cameo. In this movie, Tom is no longer being a fun artistic kid of creating monster mask that we all know from the start, here, his fighting and killing Jason is hunting his mind that Tom is been struggling. Not to mention, he’s also feeling uneasy to be social with other patients around that whenever he’s mocked or put to blame, he flat out fights them in a threat in his minded trauma, especially some of his attack feels like he learns from either MMA or pro-wrestling. I think its safe to say that Shepherd’s Tommy is less crazy, but rather both struggled and disturbed, which probably explained John Shepherd is going into method to taking his own role seriously from doing research in mental institution in Camarillo and buying monster masks from various stores. While its a damn shame that Shepherd’s role is minimal that he’s meant to be the main role, I think he did a nice work for playing as Tommy, but then again, he’s pretty much into a backseat character than others.

So lets get to the survivors/victims in this movie.

First up is Pam Roberts (played by Melanie Kinnaman), she’s the main final girl in the movie as Dr. Matt’s assistant. She’s almost like a chaperone in the institution that she’s always watching over people, even if there’s some moments she constantly calling her own name and as far for her… She’s just a forgettable final girl in the movie, she constantly trying to surviving herself or even fight back at “Jason”, like any clumsy victims in any slasher films for all of cheap build up or clumsy purposes. While il give a nice credit for her performances, but she’s just a lame final girl compared to some previous final girls that I like.

Next up with with Reggie Winter, or Reggie The Reckless (played by a then 13 year old Shavar Ross), he’s another surviving kid like Tommy Jarvis, but unlike Tommy, Reggie is such a memorable kid, being fun, energetic and surprisingly charming, especially that I like his either dialogue or delivery whenever he interacts with patients or even some other characters, which makes Reggie, for me, the best character in Part 5 and Shavar did a fun work of his role, as long as he doesn’t swear what he promised to his parents. Aw well, understood, but still fun work for him.

Next, we have Roy Burns (played by Dick Wieand) who’s a lone paramedic who seems to be an average and awkward man when we saw him in the introduction with his A-hole partner Duke Johnson (played by William Caskey Swaim), not before when he sees dead Joey, this left us fishy what happens next to him, but again, more on that later.

Last but not least for talking about is Ethel Hubbard (played by the late Carol Locatell), she’s basically a local Karen in Pinehurst, but at least she’s a lot memorably funny than real life Karens, being quickly pissed whenever it didn’t go on her way or possibly crazily have fun in the kitchen. While I enjoy Reggie, but when it comes to Ethel, man she’s like all over the place for her delivery with the dialogue from she’s got a bomb on herself to pissing off at anybody or even her son Junior (played by Ron Sloan), when her son is a lunatic fat kid with her motocross. As I said before, she took improvised performance in fun way from her delivery from the script that she thought its funny (which I can’t blame her that she’s probably had fun with), along with her method that she bought her own wig since she’s been in “Sharky’s Machine” in 1981 and doing her own makeup by rubbing her face with dirt from the side of the road to make her look like an angry dirty old lady, which again, il give a credit for her idea. But its a damn shame that she’s tragically passed from dealing with cancer on April 11th 2023. Rest in Peace Carol, you were both great and funny in this movie.

As for the rest, most of them are obviously shown for potential body counts, but then again, they had their own unique look and personalities, but like always, some are just… There.

There’s Matt Letter (played by Richard Young) is the manager of Pinehurst institution, Robin Brown (played by Juliette Cummins) a patient who takes it seriously to do the chores and kinda didn’t seems to care, Violet (played by Tiffany Helm), a music loving gothic girl, with one scene that she does a fascinating robot dance with the song “His Eyes” by Pseudo Echo (while she did a fun performance, but I heard when it was premiered, Tiff admitted for being a party girl by tripping on acid. Yeesh…), Jake Patterson (played by Jerry Pavlon) is an awkward stutter patient, Vic Faden (played by the late Mark Venturini), Eddie and Tina (played by John Robert Dixon and Deborah Sue Voorhees, I like your name, Sue) are obvious sexual patient for illegally sexing in the woods, Joey (played by the late Dominick Brascia), a fat patient from eating disorder, and lastly is Demon (played by Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) another memorable character with his also fun personality and being best pal with Reggie with his babe Anita (played by Jere Fields), especially with the outhouse scene.

While most of them have their fun acting for their improvisation, but the characters, while they’re pretty good to have their own personalities, but they’re pretty minimal for their appearance for either just.. There or potential body counts.

SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen it or didn’t care.

The third and final act felt like a copycat from some previous installments, but has an underwhelming twist and one of those BS cliffhanger that’ll never happened in later films.

After almost everybody died, along with Tommy Jarvis disappears from his emotional beat down at the late Junior as his own defense mechanism, Reggie goes back to the second floor to checking in after sleeping in the couch, he discovers dead body in the room in a shock, right before Pam shows up with shacking and question him to reminding she’s Pam Roberts with “What’s the matter? Its me Pam! What is it?? What is it???” (Like chill out missy, there’s couple of dead body in the house!). But once she sees the dead bodies, its a perfect time to panic when “Jason” breaks the door down for rainy forest chase! Upon arrive at the ambulance (along with weirdly different shots when Pam either has a pink sweater or others not), they see Duke died from throat slit by “Jason”, this resulting Reggie disappears in running away, leaving us forced to see Pam act like a klutz as a final girl (along with her buttoned shirt being wet with see-through with bare chest nips, because the director wants it), as well as seeing more dead bodies like her partner Dr. Matt is killed by stabbed in a head by a railroad spike and Grandpa George being tossed in the building with no eyeballs from his sockets. As she left the building and tripped in the mud (again, because the director said so), Reggie finally shows up to driving a tractor to knocked down “Jason” (which yes, the young Shavar said he did drove the tractor for his own stunt). This led to the copycat battle in the barn from Part 3, also Part 2 when Pam uses her chainsaw, but at least “Jason” blocks it with his machete like a duel swordfight. But the chainsaw fuel has ran out, but she decides to drop it instead of keeping like a sword like a F(OOF)ING Coward! That is until Tommy Jarvis FINALLY shows up for help, but he’s frozen of fear in Vietnam Flashback when “Jason” slash him opened (though not suffering, though he did fightback with his pocket knife, but not good enough), but he did follow Pam and Reggie up to chasing away from “Jason” to the loft of the barn. As “Jason” tries to kill Pam, Reggie jumps out to body check at the masked killed off the loft, but “Jason” holds the ledge in attempt to kill Reggie, but Tommy gets back up to dismember the killer’s hand, leaving “Jason” fell flat into spike tractor parts with mask flopped off, revealing to be… Roy Burns!

Yup, that’s right, Roy Burns, the paramedic from minutes ago, was the killer by copying what Jason did before. “But for what reason?”, you asked yourself, its all because from before, Roy was devastated over Joey’s death, who happens to be Roy’s lost son, taking his own revenge as knockoff version of Jason Voorhees, based on a different shape and color from his hockey mask compared to Jason’s mask. Yeah, I find this one to be underwhelming, mainly because Roy didn’t know about his son’s death since… Well, they never see each other again for a long time (I guess…?), and not to mention, Mrs. Voorhees did first when she did a personal vendetta to killing anybody just because they never checked Jason when he was “drowned”, which is a memorable plot twist and understandable why she did this before Jason do the same what her late mother did. Roy on the other hand, just came off as out nowhere without proper development and again, a pretty underwhelming twist. Though I kinda give a credit for the idea of copycat killer, mainly when someone took inspiration for what they saw, though the idea of slasher reference wouldn’t be until we have Scream for about the next decade, but, hate to say to bring in real life, some killers decided to do a “life imitates art”, by doing a real life copycat slasher, which I do NOT recommend this, otherwise you’ll get yourself into a serious legal trouble for killing real life people like what some people did for being inspired from slasher movies. So if you love slasher movies, just do a cosplay or doing a role play instead of doing a real life killer, again, I do not recommend. Though I should also mention Roy’s killer appearance just didn’t match accurately between from the aforementioned Tom Morga (yes, he played Roy under disguise as Jason) and Dick Wieand

After giving us the most underwhelming twist ever, Tommy has a hallucinating dream of killing Pam, but only wake up to see ghostly Jason one more time, but this time, Jason (in my imagination) is all like “You know what you must do… Make them suffer, make then wish they were dead…! First, we attack their hearts!” before vanishes, leaving Jarvis grabbed Roy’s hockey mask, starting to imitating what Jason has done in a plan to kill Pam in a cliffhanger.

But as we all know, it was all BS cliffhanger that the next installment won’t followed up from Part 5’s ending, like completely thrown in the bin like all nothing happened in a similar fashion as Halloween 4 (yes, I saw it, even I knew when I watched the reviews, the ending is BS) to having a protagonist becomes a killer, but never happened in the later installments. But the final act itself, while it may have some fun attack, but the rest felt like its been done to death, unoriginal, underwhelming twist and the ending might well said “Everything what you seen the ending is all Bullcrap!”.

And now for my final opinion of this movie.

Overall, Friday the 13th Part 5: A New Beginning is a very mediocre film at best to describing it.

In fairness, il give a credit for giving us some characters making their own personality and some acting are fun for their own ideas along with some dialogues or deliveries that made me laugh, almost like something out of parody movie, except this is Friday the 13th movie, which it felt like a missing identity compared to previous installments. Though it has a nice filming locations and the idea of copycat killer is not bad, if the execution could’ve done right.

Because everything else is a mess with bad writing, lackluster story, some characters are lackluster and the final act is just underwhelming of how unoriginal it is, and even the ending is all left to nothing.

I know many people called it the Friday the 13th version of “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch”, due to some similar concept and even no focus of our familiar slashers. Im very mixed for this movie, I maybe recommend to watch it for once, mainly if you like to see the characters and probably ignore the third and final act. Though perhaps there are some may like Part 5, that’s fine for their own, but for me, its okay, but it doesn’t feel like a Friday the 13th film. Again, just watch this movie ONCE, whether you like it or not.

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 4.5/10.

Next time, we’ll be back to check out Part 6, aka “Paramount’s apology” to bringing Jason back from the dead. But I hate to say my friends, when I checked in 2025’s calendar, we never have the 2nd or third real Friday the 13th, which means il come back to see Jason again next year as always.

But as always, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.