Strangely, I think The Island is one of Michael Bay’s better movies. In fact, while I have not seen every movie he has made, I think that The Rock and The Island are about the only two times he has made a good movie. At some point, it seems he gave up and decided to go all-in on making Transformers movies.
It’s a lavishly produced movie with lots of action, crashes, exploding objects and impressive sets, but I just didn’t find it engrossing. In fact I almost stopped watching somewhere around 30 to 40 minutes in. Opinions may vary, of course, and in this case they do, with some praising this film to high heaven. But it garnered only a 6.8 average rating on IMdB, and on Rotten Tomatoes (which I just checked and had not seen before) the “critics’ consensus” is a paltry 39% and is summarized thusly: “… another loud and bombastic Michael Bay movie where explosions and chases matter more than characters, dialogue, or plot.” I wouldn’t have put it quite so harshly but that kind of sums up my feeling.
I think the differences come from the fact that some of us like pure action movies and others don’t. Personally I don’t unless there’s a really compelling story.
I’ve never seen The Island, but I have seen parts: the clonus horror (1979) on MST3K which (AIUI) has basically the same plot on a much smaller budget.
65 (2023, Netflix) No need for a blurb, you know it.
It appears it was written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who most certainly were 12 year old boys with a 400 million dollar CGI budget. The action kept it moving, but you’ll need to check your brain at the door and don’t get too excited about seeing 65 Million year old flora and fauna cause there isn’t much.
As a family movie it’s alright for it’s goofy fun. I would even recommend this to have on as a meaningless action flick for background noise. But give this a pass if you’re looking for serious entertainment.
Heaven’s Gate. The 219-minute version (it’s available on Amazon Prime Video). I’ll admit it’s not an unmitigated disaster (certainly not as bad as the cult of the same name) but… yeah.
Hard to unpack, but here’s one example: they had a cock fight. A real, live cock fight (roosters). On screen.
WTF?
I tend to confuse Heaven’s Gate, Gates of Heaven and Days of Heaven.
The Martian with Matt Damon
I enjoyed it. I appreciated some clever moments. For example, the way NASA discovers there’s a survivor on Mars. A lot of Matt’s survival skills on Mars made sense. Just don’t over think it. 
The main space ship is awesome. I liked seeing people zipping around the corridors without gravity.
Highly recommended
I thought the MST3K version of The Clonus Horror was way more entertaining than The Island. In fact, the only thing that kept me engaged through the end of The Island (aside from looking at Ewan McGregor) was the dawning realization that it was a big-budget remake of an MST3K movie.
Nimona - Rejected by Disney and taken up by Netflix, this one is ridiculously predictable and the animation is nothing to write home about, but nonetheless there’s a lot of well-delivered comedy and pathos in it, and all in all I enjoyed it. Whether Disney passed on it because of quality issues or because the protagonist is gay, I dunno.
I think it was just a quick decision when they bought and then shut down Blue Sky Studios.
The Wrong Guy a pretty obscure comedy from Dave Foley. The story of a man who goes on the run after his boss is murdered, unaware that nobody actually thinks he did it. Includes amusing trope reversals like a rich, ruthless farmer plotting to put a honest small town bank out of business.
One of my favorites, by a favorite director. The book is good too. I listened to an interview with Niel deGrasse Tyson and the question was what he thought is the most scientifically realistic movie… He said The Martian. Apparently it was so convincing, some people believe it’s based on a true story.
Knowing what I know about the almost preternatural ingenuity and mental resilience of real-life astronauts, I found it easy to believe.
Army of the Dead
Beautiful to look at, empty as a ghost town. Watch it once and forget it.
The prequel Army of Thieves is even emptier. Matthias Schweighöfer is a lot of fun to watch, but everyone else is forgettable and the film never achieves the clever heist vibe it’s trying for.
You’re right, Mr. Schweighöfer was a lot of fun in Army; I hope he has a decent career ahead of him. Tig Notaro was amusing, too, but I couldn’t shake the whole She-was-digitally-inserted dealie. I predict big things for her.
Just watched Cry Macho. It was Cry Boring and Cry Pointless.
The only other thing I got to say is how extremely unhygienic it is to have a rooster on the table while you are eating.
The Devil’s Candy
Strongly recommended. Thrilling.
This was a huge surprise. I was not that impressed with the opening 45 minutes or so, but the final 45 minutes or so were incredible enough to really make the overall experience intense. Yeah, I would describe this movie as intense and in a good way. I also found myself trying to guess how they would end this movie and it was pretty satisfying what they went with.
Kudos to Metallica. They sold the licensing rights to “One” to this movie for a reasonable price and it actually allowed them to more easily approach other bands to license their music. Metallica could have gouged, but didn’t. I know they(Lars!) have a reputation for being jerks, but they helped this movie out.
Streams on Shudder.
Of course you meant “was not.”
Agreed. I liked both the book and the movie very much - exciting, engrossing, funny and exhilarating. IIRC the only major scientific flaw in the movie is that Martian windstorms aren’t anywhere near as powerful as the one shown at the beginning of the film.
Nope!
According to the movie’s Wikipedia page, three former Blue Sky studio employees mentioned that the film got a lot of pushback from Disney bigwigs because of the LGBT themes and same-sex kiss.
So I don’t suppose, despite the fact that some Disney films are now showing gay, nonbinary, and even transgender characters in bit parts, that the hopes of everyone who thinks someone as important as Frozen’s Elsa will turn out to be gay will ever be realized. (I think she works best as what she is right now, anyway, which is either asexual or simply hasn’t come across the right guy yet.)
That surprises me in light of last year’s Strange World who’s leading child role is gay.