Wow, did I not like this movie! This outcome could not have been predicted by The Entity, let alone me. Let's jump to the reasons why, right away:
The haters said that this wasn't a good movie & they were correct. Honestly, great call from the haters!
I'm still flabbergasted this is my opinion of The Final Reckoning. The biggest movie letdown in years, at least in terms of theatrical releases I saw on the big screen. Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation were very good, while Fallout and Dead Reckoning were awesome; yes, I still feel the same about Dead despite its performance at the box office and it receiving not as strong ratings as Fallout on Letterboxd. By the time this was viewed last night, I knew that unlike on Letterboxd, many elsewhere felt massively disappointed w/ the film; the reasons why were thankfully avoided.
In real life, I know that AI gives you wrong answers and in terms of art, it has a phony appearance where it can't display English words correctly, instead presenting something that looks like a failed attempt at Cyrillic letters. However, in Dead Reckoning I was on board with the AI villain The Entity; it was a fresh threat that was presented as unstoppable. I was also enraptured by the story and fascinated by what would happen in this, which was originally known as Dead Reckoning Part 2.
How bad the story was, that left me staggered. In hindsight, the opening minutes were a harbinger of things to come! It was not only full of exposition-which was a hint that the entire movie was full of exposition dumps-it was edited together in a confusing fashion. That was my biggest issue w/ the plot: I either sighed and rolled my eyes too often or I went “wait a minute... huh? What?” due to befuddlement. One example is that more than once, it felt like entire scenes were missing; this is in a movie almost 3 hours in length.
Since when was that supporting character sick? Dead Reckoning wasn't revisited before last night but I'd like to think such a plot detail wouldn't have been forgotten by me. Then, there was the utterly pointless small role that Hannah Waddingham had; all that character did was utterly perplex me and many others due to how superfluous their role was and how they were presented. I've heard explanations for both of the complaints in this paragraph; both were examples of bad storytelling. That's not even factoring in how too many of the characters felt like they contributed little to the plot. Furthermore, if you love the start of what you think are teases of things to come that don't come to fruition, then you'll love The Final Reckoning.
Even the two big action setpieces—they were conceptually impressive and were presented well... except for the problem that both were utterly preposterous, turning Hunt into a Marvel or DC superhero. In addition, when I was checked out of the movie and not enjoying the experience by that point... heck, The Entity as a villain was barely a presence aside from the world-ending threat it threatened. Come to think of it, its alleged unprecedented intelligence didn't seem quite as believable by the final act. THEN, there's an utterly stupid and ultimately meaningless reveal early on... should I go on? If you want to discuss spoilers, yes I could go on, but I won't.
I am still flummoxed that this alleged final entry in a franchise whose last 4 movies were rated highly by me and ticked many of the boxes in what I want from modern blockbusters—how did it go awry? Yeah, the (large, bloated) cast was typically fine, the score was pretty good and the long stretch without dialogue was nice. Otherwise—right now I can't think of much else in the terms of praise I can think to give to something that for almost 2 full years I was thinking would be awesome yet missed the mark so badly.
As I sometimes proclaim, good on Letterboxd in general for loving a modern movie more or much more than I did. If only my opinion was the same; the rest of the year, there isn't much left that comes to mind in terms of theatrical releases that are at least halfway-interesting. Sigh... at least Sinners was an unexpected gem.
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