82%
on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 160 reviews)
Runtime:
106 minutes
Directed
by: David Gordon Green
Starring:
Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Haluk Bilginer, Will
Patton
From:
Universal/Miramax (under new ownership, of course)/Blumhouse
Well, this was better than H20, but that's not a high bar to jump over, IMO... I liked this new Halloween more than loved it:
The fact that there are plenty on
Letterboxd who also felt at least a little underwhelmed by this movie
made me feel not a total outlier because of this not knocking my socks
off like it has for a number of people. The original is still a classic
and in fact I saw that yesterday afternoon before viewing this; I don't
need to do another review for that as I am happy with the one posted by
me back in 2015. It's still a great film; my expectations were in check
but I could not avoid all of the reviews, including those by people
followed on various forms of social media.
The trailers revealed quite a lot (too much, IMO) so I imagine from that alone people are familiar with the general plot, or how this version of the timeline only recognizes the original film and thus Myers is once again a pure unstoppable force of evil who only went after Laurie Strode because she dropped off the key to the abandoned Myers house (leaving it under the mat) and Michael happened to be in it at the time and he became obsessed with killing her, with her friends becoming collateral damage... the big plot twist of II never happened and that's for the best. The Shape of course ends up back in Haddonfield and he slaughters random people he comes across; how he and Laurie meet each other again I had a big issue with but spoilers, so I won't explain what it is or why it did not work for me.
I can't complain about Jamie Lee Curtis or her performance as a Laurie that was traumatized by what happened 40 years ago so she became obsessed, at the expense of her family and thus there are big problems with her, her daughter and granddaughter. I can't complain about the cast in general and it's always nice seeing Judy Greer but Curtis was the shining light here. There were some memorable kills but the movie did remember that Myers-at least in the original-was not about offing victims in creative ways, although you do get to witness some gruesome moments here.
While there are some pretty suspenseful scenes and quality moments, this is not really all that scary and even though the Halloween holiday milieu is captured well, this is lacking in the mood and atmosphere that the original had in spades. Then, there's the humor... as I've had to say too often in the past few years, this had too much of it and only a small amount was actually funny. As I've mentioned before, “modern comedy” is just lost on me, for the most part. The laughs you get in the OG Halloween are not only more amusing to me, but also way more organic. Wait until you hear a pair of police officers have the most inane conversation about lunch. Even those that rate this movie highly did not like everything about the plot, especially objecting to a particular moment that comes out of nowhere and is just nonsensical. I was not a fan of the moment in question either; there had to be a better way to get all the pieces in the right places for the finale, and at times what an overblown finale it is.
This is one of the better movies in the franchise, but only because too many of them were only OK or worse. I understand how this would work like gangbusters for many people... several occasions the crowd I saw this with loudly applauded after big moments. There was enough to where I can say that this was fine, yet I was hoping for more as with the main plot points, this could have been something that I thought was great instead of something that I'll likely forever believe was a missed opportunity.
The trailers revealed quite a lot (too much, IMO) so I imagine from that alone people are familiar with the general plot, or how this version of the timeline only recognizes the original film and thus Myers is once again a pure unstoppable force of evil who only went after Laurie Strode because she dropped off the key to the abandoned Myers house (leaving it under the mat) and Michael happened to be in it at the time and he became obsessed with killing her, with her friends becoming collateral damage... the big plot twist of II never happened and that's for the best. The Shape of course ends up back in Haddonfield and he slaughters random people he comes across; how he and Laurie meet each other again I had a big issue with but spoilers, so I won't explain what it is or why it did not work for me.
I can't complain about Jamie Lee Curtis or her performance as a Laurie that was traumatized by what happened 40 years ago so she became obsessed, at the expense of her family and thus there are big problems with her, her daughter and granddaughter. I can't complain about the cast in general and it's always nice seeing Judy Greer but Curtis was the shining light here. There were some memorable kills but the movie did remember that Myers-at least in the original-was not about offing victims in creative ways, although you do get to witness some gruesome moments here.
While there are some pretty suspenseful scenes and quality moments, this is not really all that scary and even though the Halloween holiday milieu is captured well, this is lacking in the mood and atmosphere that the original had in spades. Then, there's the humor... as I've had to say too often in the past few years, this had too much of it and only a small amount was actually funny. As I've mentioned before, “modern comedy” is just lost on me, for the most part. The laughs you get in the OG Halloween are not only more amusing to me, but also way more organic. Wait until you hear a pair of police officers have the most inane conversation about lunch. Even those that rate this movie highly did not like everything about the plot, especially objecting to a particular moment that comes out of nowhere and is just nonsensical. I was not a fan of the moment in question either; there had to be a better way to get all the pieces in the right places for the finale, and at times what an overblown finale it is.
This is one of the better movies in the franchise, but only because too many of them were only OK or worse. I understand how this would work like gangbusters for many people... several occasions the crowd I saw this with loudly applauded after big moments. There was enough to where I can say that this was fine, yet I was hoping for more as with the main plot points, this could have been something that I thought was great instead of something that I'll likely forever believe was a missed opportunity.
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