Watched
Alice Through the Looking Glass , James Bobin taking over from Tim Burton. The first film I had liked, particularly when the Queen's of Wonderland came in, but had issues (most of side characters) that if fixed could lead to a good sequel. They go with a standard time travel tale which as long as done well, not going to be worried if it lacks originality but film got really bad reviews for good reason.
There are moments that work, little bits of humour here or there, bit of emotion near the end
but most of the film doesn't click. The first film got good performances from Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter and Wasikowska but everyone here doesn't quite same at it, they don't bring the same force of personality with Carter barely recognizable and Hathaway seemingly told to overact while lacking the darker edge the White Queen had in first film. Most of the humour doesn't quite land, Depp is still the annoying Depp as Madd Hatter, the big bad has nice ideas but doesn't come off for most part. The adventure also has some logic holes, fails to develop ideas while Alice being tremendously stupidly reckless and hard to support what she is doing
Me: 5.5 Sis: 6.0
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Watched coming of age film
The Edge of 17. Premise: Nadine Franklin (Hailee Steinfeld) is something of a loner and never recovered from the death of her father (Eric Keenleyside), when her life-long best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating Nadine's older brother Darian (Blake Jenner), she does not cope...
Has a bad start, there is a clear sense of humour from early on but the cast struggle to get the relations to click for awhile. After about 20 minutes, the cast performances begin to click and dialogue works better, there are plenty of good performances. The humour is very enjoyable from Nadine and others but particularly any scene between Nadine and her teacher (Woody Harrelson), likeable figures like the awkward Erwin (Hayden Szeto), plenty of good scenes between characters and good situations that make for an intresting enough movie.
Where it is lacking compared to films like Easy-A and the Duff is that every character other then Nadine feels, by the end, underused, some vanish party way through and appear near end but even those that stay feel underwritten and needing fleshing out. Nadine is also very very difficult to like, it is clear she has issues and when she is not thinking about herself she is likeable but she is extremely immature, self obsessed and unaware of others.
Me: 6.0 Sis: 6.5