Recently, after a long break, I had a chance to finally go to a cinema and see some of the new movies out there. It’s been ages since I visited a movie theater and naturally, I was very excited and ready to be entertained.
My first movie was “The Northman” – Vikings, slaughter, romance, and shirtless men, I mean what’s there not to like? So, I sat in the darkness, eagerly expecting an exciting story supported by an excellent cast and great directing, and what did I get? I got a bloody and muddy version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (or, “Lion King” for those who like a friend of mine had managed to avoid reading Hamlet in high school). This version, however, had a rather forced strong female character Olga (instead of poor Ophelia), and no catchy songs whatsoever. In addition, as usual, the lead male actor was closer in age to his movie mother (9 years age difference), than to his movie love interest (20 years difference), but I’m not going to go into that discussion here. Sure, the last scene where Amleth and his uncle swordfight naked next to a stream of sizzling lava is absolutely worth watching, if only for the fact that the fighters are, well, naked, but there was overall too much drama and too little sense in the story. Visually, the movie delivered, but it’s a tale we’ve all seen so many times before and my brain screamed, “Give me something new!”
In search of novelty, I went therefore to see the next movie “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore“. I liked the first two movies of the series, and all the Harry Potter stuff anyway, so what could go wrong, right? Well, just about everything. I really don’t want to sound whiny, but the best thing about the movie was that I was watching it in a 4D movie theatre, with special seats, which shake and blow air every time a spell is cast on screen. I’ll abstain from spoilers and further comments in this letter because I don’t want to bore you to death, in case you’re not interested, but in case you are, this video on Youtube nicely sums up everything wrong with the movie and why I will probably not see any further movies from this serial in a theatre.
My general disappointment, however, runs much deeper. According to the trailers of the upcoming movies, this year we will be honored with such masterpieces as “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” or “Top Gun: Maverick” in May, and “Jurassic World Dominion” in June. Don’t get me wrong – I am a total fan of Doctor Strange, I love dinosaurs (on screen, that is), and, I mean, Top Gun is history. However, these are all franchise movies, tried formulas that cannot fail to bring in money due to the already existing fan base. There is no sense of adventure, risk-taking, or pushing the limits of cinematography. I guess for that we should go to streaming platforms, not movie theaters. What do you think?