SilentLuminary Reviews

  Genre: Musical/ Comedy Time: 1h 52mins Directors:   Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr. Quick Summary:  Cady Heron is a hit with the Plastics, an A-list girl clique at her new school. But everything changes when she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George. I lost it when the 0.5 selfie angle came on screen. Please, stop making films that are directed towards Gen Z but are made by boomers. It feels a little offensive I'm not going to lie to watch these kids that strangely look like adults, prance around saying "slay" and "rizz" every 5 minutes.  A lot of the comedy was lost in this version. I just don't know if maybe I don't find Gen Z humour funny, or this isn't funny. All the sexual jokes, bitch fests and cunty nature of the original just aren't here. I don't think I heard one slur, which is strange to complain about, but that's what made it so funny originally to hear these things s

  Genre: Comedy/ Drama Time: 1h 37mins Director:  Melanie Mayron Quick Summary:  The Plastics are back in the long-awaited follow-up to the smash hit Mean Girls - and now the clique is more fashionable, funny, and ferocious (🤮) than ever. Ew. Who let Disney remake Mean Girls? This is like Disney made this film but they decided to be a bit more risky by saying the word fuck and virgin. Ooooh, look. This film is so cool it said virgin. (Said maybe one 12-year-old girl thinking she was cool for watching this) It feels gross. The outfits are horrendous and honestly an eye-sore. The acting is awful too, and not even the funny kind. It's even got the line "I'm not like other girls" seriously said by the stereotypical tomboy girl who dyes her hair and likes cars. That is how bad this is. Don't watch this. Please. I wasted time out of my life for this terrible, icky sequel.  1/10

  Genre: Comedy/ Drama Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Mark Waters Quick Summary:  Cady Heron is a hit with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school until she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George. Banger. Classic. Masterpiece. Timeless. 💅 Nothing beats the early 2000's cunty high school films. It's a genre I will never get tired of because they're so funny and in their own league. This is so easy to enjoy and it's absolutely timeless, even now, 20 years later it's still funny, even if a lot of them are based on far-fetched stereotypes.  The teenagers actually look like teenagers, not like 30-year-olds playing teenagers. And what holds the film together are the great performances from the actors. They're all perfect. Lindsay Lohan is perfect as Cady, the clueless girl who gets a taste of popularity and has to have more. I've always found to enjoy her in film, she has this sort of quirky ch

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action Time: 2h 20mins Director:  Matt Reeves Quick Summary:  After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. *Sobbing* First the obvious, the CGI is amazing and is truly a technological marvel to cinema. I thought these apes looked good last time so I was absolutely blown away with how good they looked this time around. Andy Serkis once again plays the ape ruler Caesar and is easily the best movie character in recent years, in each film he has gotten progressively better and in this one it is definitely the best performance. I may have cried a little bit and some of the more emotional and harder-to-watch scenes. This poor guy has gone through it and continues to go through it during the events of this. The story is great and is well-acted throughout. This movie is also an amazing drama. You know I'm glad they focused more on the drama and emotional side of things as the last

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Action Time: 2h 11mins Director:  Matt Reeves Quick Summary:  The fragile peace between apes and humans is threatened as mistrust and betrayal threaten to plunge both tribes into a war for dominance over the Earth. I liked the funky tribal paint they used to decorate themselves. I liked the previous film. I really liked this one as this one takes everything from the last one and just improves on it. However, I will say the first hour was a little bit slow so it lost my attention a couple of times. Granted, this needed to be slow to build up the main conflict. The CGI is so much more impressive this time. The ape's fur looks so realistic in some of the scenes and yet again I had fully forgotten these were fake apes. They feel so real and I think that's what makes this one work so much more. To add to this you can actually tell each ape apart from various little changes to their appearances or how they move which is honestly so cool to me. Though it is a little

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action Time: 1h 45mins Director:  Rupert Wyatt Quick Summary:  A substance designed to help the brain repair itself gives advanced intelligence to a chimpanzee who leads an ape uprising. Finally the justice these films deserved with a good film. There is so much that is good about this film that the small things can be overlooked. Some moments are truly gratifying, and the main ape really steals the show with his evolution throughout the movie. The journey this ape takes really connects and you feel his plight. Honestly, it's so emotional the whole way through and there were moments I gasped or cheered especially during the big “no” moment. Hands down one of my favourite film moments. Even though you know the chimps are CGI, their eyes look amazing, with depth and personality, and along with their body language and facial animations, you really do forget they are CGI. This ape has the most terrifying but impressive look I have ever seen. It just screams a strong l

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action Time: 2hours Director: Tim Burton Quick Summary:  In 2029, an Air Force astronaut crash-lands on a mysterious planet where evolved, talking apes dominate a race of primitive humans. For such a shit film why did they give us such a juicy ending Okay, I'll give this credit. This looked really good and stylistic. I really liked how the apes were designed, leaning more towards humans with monkey characteristics in which we get fully clothed, waddling, swinging, odd-looking apes with various different hairstyles. The makeup for their faces was done well too, but they looked solid and difficult to move which made some of the talking scenes look a bit funny. As for the world, it seems really primitive but styled almost towards Asian culture. The issue is, it's too damn dark and it was difficult to see anything. As I am someone who has seen and loves the original, it was surprising to see in this remake that the humans could talk. The fact that humans couldn&#

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Action Time: 1h 35mins Director:  J. Lee Thompson Quick Summary:  Ten years after a worldwide series of ape revolutions and a brutal nuclear war among humans, Caesar must protect survivors of both species from an insidious human cult and a militant ape faction alike. I suffered through this for a very sweet ending. Now we are finally at this era's end of these films, the budget has been lowered even more and it is so obvious they were scraping every penny. I don't think thr monkeys' mouths moved much, and also don't even get me started on the very obvious gorilla masks folding inwards at times. Whilst the last one was a clear indicator that it wanted to be a slow-burning uprising, this one isn't so sure what it wants to be. There are moments where it feels like it wants to burst out in a huge battle, and then it seems it wants to be more calm and diplomatic about things. This made it really hard to get into personally as it was all over the place. 

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Action Time: 1h 35mins Director:   J. Lee Thompson Quick Summary:  In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, Caesar, the son of the late simians Cornelius and Zira, surfaces after almost twenty years of hiding out from the authorities, and prepares for a slave revolt against humanity. This is not perfect, but this is darker and stranger than the others. It's much more violent. Action scenes are absolutely brutal in this (and I watched the rated one). Its carnage is sometimes full of bullet hells and explosions. Something I do love is that it strives to make a social statement and does a decent job. Parallels are drawn between the apes’ struggle against slavery to humans and the struggle for the civil rights of black people. There's this one monologue which is so captivating and terrifying at the same time, fire is burning everywhere and an ape uprising is about to let loose. All the ethical and philosophical parts of this film are really what makes

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Adventure Time: 1h 38mins Director:  Don Taylor Quick Summary:  The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrived mysteriously in a U.S. spacecraft. They become the toast of society, but one man believes them to be a threat to the human race. Should have named the baby Taylor in my opinion but whatever. Let's pretend this is the sequel to the first film. Our two favourite talking apes have come to Earth as we know it. This one comes across as less dramatic and more fun and whimsical as the pair experience Earth's luxuries in a cute little montage. Honestly, I'm glad this one had more fun with it, as we really needed it after that god-awful second film.  I came to love Zira and Cornelius even more in this as their personalities come out a lot more. Their dialogue becomes more funny as they bounce jokes between each other, and funny little misunderstandings of earth's culture. Most of this film is very lighthearted, but as i

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Adventure  Time: 1h 35mins Director:  Ted Post Quick Summary:  The sole survivor of an interplanetary rescue mission searches for the only survivor of the previous expedition. He discovers a planet ruled by apes and an underground city run by telepathic humans. What just happened? This has to have one of the most terrible, strangely cut, bizarre endings I've ever seen. Like who said this ending was okay? I feel scammed.  Anyway. This is a bit of an odd sequel. I think I was left with more questions than anything. We're introduced to a new human who can speak, who looks exactly like Tayor which wasn't confusing at all. At least he isn't much of an ass this time, but he does feel like a watered-down version of him. It goes through the same rehashed beats of the first film, "Oh my god talking monkeys.", "oh my god, a talking human." "escape from taking monkey city". So it did get a bit boring as we had basically seen this al

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Adventure  Time: 1h 52mins Director:  Franklin J. Schaffner Quick Summary:  An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved. I mean, he didn't need to be so hostile initially but okay. For how slow the start of this film is, I was unsure if I was going to like this. A good 20 minutes into the film is just these three guys crashing and landing on an unknown planet and trying to find some sort of life. They talk about why they became astronauts and then walk some more. But I'll tell you what, I was unsure but there was just something about this that kept me watching. How this managed to do this is the funky sound design and background music, it really hooks you with how frantic it is. It makes things much more tense, or risky and I think if they didn't use this, this wouldn't have been so interesting.  It was interesting to see our view on science and evolution flipped. Instea

  Genre: Comedy/ Romance Time: 1h 59mins Directors:  Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly Quick Summary:  A man gets a chance to meet up with his dream girl from high school, even though his date with her back then was a complete disaster. I didn't hate this, but I didn't love it either. This is full of extremely dated 2000's styled humour. Making fun of mentally disabled people, body fluids and sex jokes, and a lot of bathroom humour. I laughed don't get me wrong as these are pretty good jokes and I'm still a young teen at heart, but not all of the jokes landed well. It's such a mixed bag because, some of these jokes I couldn't stop laughing at, but a lot of them I really cringed at. There's this one moment where this guy feeds a dog drugs to chill it out, but feeds it a too-high dose so the dog stops breathing, so the guy proceeds to try and bring it back to life by hitting it against things, doing wrestling moves against it, and various other silly things.

  Genre: Comedy/ Fantasy  Time: 1h 51mins Director: Brad Bird Quick Summary: A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous Paris restaurant. I think I watched this so many times as a kid its probably why I love to cook. There is always something so charming about pixar films. They have such a soft eye pleasing style, and this is no different except there are moments that look stylistically real. Such as during the cooking moments. They really made that food look appetising. Its almost like watching those ASMR cooking videos but with French music and a cute little rat. The colors are very lush and detailed; very accurate toward a real city-scape. This is one of those feel good films that you can't hate. Its so relaxing to watch this, even during some of the more action based scenes. Most Pixar movies actually contain very mature messages and this one is no different. It teaches kids that anyone can do anything and be from anywhere. There should

  Genre: Horror/ Fantasy  Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Bryce McGuire Quick Summary:  A family moves into a new home, unaware that a dark secret from the house's past will unleash a malevolent force in the backyard pool. Jesus Christ that was awful. I had the unfortunate experience of sitting through this entire film. It wasn't fun at all. Not even in the bad film is so bad it's a good way. This was just bland and awful. Think of any generic possession horror movie, but in this one, the main character gets possessed by a cursed swimming pool. If they made this in the 2000's it might have been a hit.  The family consists of a dad who played baseball, a mother whose personality is nowhere to be seen, a daughter who follows in her mother's steps, and a son with the personality that he wants to be his dad.  If you want to see an even remotely good movie, see anything else. This isn't even scary when it comes to the supernatural side of things. The creatures were just

  Genre: Comedy Time: 1h 30mins Director:  Jake Johnson Quick Summary:  Given the opportunity to participate in a life-or-death reality game show, one man discovers there's a lot to live for. *disappointed* oh I think I expected more from this. This had a lot of promise as the set-up for this film was so damn good and funny. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen, Andy Samberg pulled up in a limo to this random dude and told him to get in. I was instantly hooked by this premise, but unfortunately, it struggles just after the halfway point. It has its funny moments. Jake Johnson was funny no matter what he was doing as well as Anna Kendrick. Together they were just like two awkward kids and I loved it. But I noticed as soon as we got over the initial hurdle of the set-up, they just weren't as funny. The awkwardness had vanished. The same goes for James, the homeless guy. After all the jokes were made and everyone had gotten used to him, he was just there. Which sure is fu

  Genre : Drama/ Action Time: 2h 23mins Director:  Hlynur Pálmason Quick Summary:  At the end of the 19th century, a young Danish priest is sent to a remote part of Iceland. The deeper he travels into the Icelandic landscape, the more he loses a sense of his own reality, his mission and his sense of duty. I think this was too artsy for me. The first thing I need to get out of the way is, I did not finish this film. I couldn't. I was so bored of this by the 30-minute mark I really didn't want to waste any more time watching this film.  It's a shame I couldn't get into this as this is so pretty to watch. All the footage is shown in a grainy square to mimic the look of a 19th-century camera. Each shot is static and we only momentarily linger on the shot before it cuts to another, and honestly, I really liked that. We get stunning shots of Iceland and the beautiful various landscapes.  I couldn't get interested in the story though sadly. It was just too boring. Nothing

  Genre: Family/ Adventure Time: 1h 37mins Director:  George Miller Quick Summary: Babe, fresh from his victory in the sheepherding contest, returns to Farmer Hoggett's farm, but after Farmer Hoggett is injured and unable to work, Babe has to go to the big city to save the farm. Well, this got morbid. While I do like this one, it's nowhere as perfect as the first one. This time around, it feels very overwhelming as they cram in 50 different characters and several different elaborate events for this little pig to go through. Sure, it looks a ton better and the set pieces are so good, but did they really need to shove this much into one film. However, I can say it doesn't try to recreate the previous story or try to bring back everything we knew from the first in an attempt to get us to like this. It does its own thing, which wasn't brilliant, but I still liked it. I did like the addition of the chimpanzees. This family of apes are fully dressed in clothes and talk as if

  Genre: Comedy/ Family Time: 1h 31mins Director:  Chris Noonan Quick Summary:  Gentle farmer Arthur Hoggett wins a piglet Babe at a county fair. Narrowly escaping his fate as Christmas dinner, Babe bonds with motherly border collie Fly and discovers that he too can herd sheep. But will the other animals accept him? This makes me sob with happiness every single time I watch this. It's difficult to find a more charming and heartwarming family film like this. Anyone can enjoy this as it's just so loveable. Almost like a storybook come to life. This has been a childhood favourite of mine and it's still enjoyable to this day to me as an adult. How can you not love this adorable little pig? He's so cute and charming and just straight-up innocent. I found myself tearful for the damn little guy during his harder moments, and gleeful for his achievements.  Like you, I have seen thousands of talking animal films over the years but there's something so good about this one.

  Genre: Romance/ Drama Time: 2hours Director:  Tom Hooper Quick Summary:  A fictitious love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer. I tried to watch this twice and both times I zoned out. This is another film that really drags out its runtime, except this isn't all that interesting. It feels very pretentious and feels incredibly shallow. For a film that is based on a true story and a real-life person, this is an insult to them. I think what was the biggest issue is that we're supposed to Sympathize with the main person here, but I actually found them to be very selfish and just shitty I'll be honest. I spend more time feeling sorry for their wife than the person that the story is actually about. Something that actually made me a little uncomfortable is how they made the transgender accept that this is sort o

  Genre: Horror/ Mystery Time: 2h 26mins Director:  Gore Verbinski Quick Summary:  An ambitious young executive is sent to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness centre" at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. However, he soon suspects that the spa's treatments are not what they seem. I wasn't bored it was just long I'm not going to lie this is a strange film, but I liked it and was interested all through. It plays on a well-known paranoia and gets really creepy with it. The issue is, that it doesn't really give us enough substance for this concept that they give us.  This has some really good cinematography and shots, as well it's actually really pretty and aesthetic. We get loads of dizzying, mind-bending, travelling shots as we also get lost with our main character within the sanctuary. There are a lot of gothic horror elements, that have been slightly modernized in a good way, and they really help sell how creepy this