Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle is worst movie I have watched this year. Great fight scenes if you like anime ones. Great animation. Decent sound. But it is easily 1h too long due to massive amounts of flashbacks. Looks like they want to make it a trilogy instead of having sane pacing and making it one movie while skipping some content.
I went in having watched like 5 episodes of the first season of the anime years ago. With that as background I don't know why I should care about some of these characters. They realized this is an issue and thus did 1 min fight, 5 min flashback, fight continues, 5 min flashback, fight ends...
At the end when I realized this was the first of many movies I mentally started comparing it to the lord of the rings. I did not leave happy after making that comparison, this movie felt like it made no progress towards its stated goal of killing a super demon.
Overall I am just sad about the movie. So many good ideas (average soldiers saving stamina for the heavy hitters as an example) and animation I really enjoyed. Wasted on horrible overall writing. I assume they followed the manga too closely without having any idea if that is true. As a stand alone movie it fails since they give screen time to important characters that does nothing important in THIS movie.
Side note, if the default for new movies is >2h duration they should start with intermissions. Would make the movie theaters more money and likely make attendees happier as well.
On September 21 2025 20:12 Yurie wrote: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle is worst movie I have watched this year. Great fight scenes if you like anime ones. Great animation. Decent sound. But it is easily 1h too long due to massive amounts of flashbacks. Looks like they want to make it a trilogy instead of having sane pacing and making it one movie while skipping some content.
I went in having watched like 5 episodes of the first season of the anime years ago. With that as background I don't know why I should care about some of these characters. They realized this is an issue and thus did 1 min fight, 5 min flashback, fight continues, 5 min flashback, fight ends...
At the end when I realized this was the first of many movies I mentally started comparing it to the lord of the rings. I did not leave happy after making that comparison, this movie felt like it made no progress towards its stated goal of killing a super demon.
Overall I am just sad about the movie. So many good ideas (average soldiers saving stamina for the heavy hitters as an example) and animation I really enjoyed. Wasted on horrible overall writing. I assume they followed the manga too closely without having any idea if that is true. As a stand alone movie it fails since they give screen time to important characters that does nothing important in THIS movie.
Side note, if the default for new movies is >2h duration they should start with intermissions. Would make the movie theaters more money and likely make attendees happier as well.
I remember reading the same complaint from IGN, I assumed they didn't watch the show at all, and you pretty much confirmed it. The manga was never about the fight all too much, the art couldn't carry it. At some point it blew up with Ufotable doing these incredible fight scenes and I think too many went in assuming it's another naurto/bleach.
Ironically, it's one of the few anime movies where you go in and the theatre has all kinds of age group, the couple sitting next to me is probably 50-ish and they shred plenty of tears, not far from my seat is another young couple doing the same.
I honestly don't like what they did with the fights. A fight scene is not served by having 2 long (or very long) flashbacks in the middle.
Something like building up to the climatic fight with the flashbacks acting as background on their journey to the fight location might have worked fine for me. Some minor tweak on content to make it work but I am not a fan of the way they handled it.
The emotional content didn't work for me either. I didn't connect with the characters and care about them. So the flashbacks didn't serve their intended purpose for me. Leaving the 10 minutes of fight scenes as the only part of the movie that had any impact. edit, I guess the introduction of the setting for the movie was fine as well.
On IMDB it currently has the same rating as The Green Mile, it has nowhere near that emotional quality (for me).
When I watched it I noticed multiple people near me bored in the long flashback sequence. But some other people applauded the movie at the end. So I know some people did connect with the movie.
On September 23 2025 00:14 Yurie wrote: I honestly don't like what they did with the fights. A fight scene is not served by having 2 long (or very long) flashbacks in the middle.
Something like building up to the climatic fight with the flashbacks acting as background on their journey to the fight location might have worked fine for me. Some minor tweak on content to make it work but I am not a fan of the way they handled it.
The emotional content didn't work for me either. I didn't connect with the characters and care about them. So the flashbacks didn't serve their intended purpose for me. Leaving the 10 minutes of fight scenes as the only part of the movie that had any impact. edit, I guess the introduction of the setting for the movie was fine as well.
On IMDB it currently has the same rating as The Green Mile, it has nowhere near that emotional quality (for me).
When I watched it I noticed multiple people near me bored in the long flashback sequence. But some other people applauded the movie at the end. So I know some people did connect with the movie.
The manga differ from most other by having a backstory to all minor and major characters. it's condensed just right without blowing out into a whole new arc. Doing it mid battle is pretty much how they kept it a relatively "short" series for how much back stories there are.
And these back stories are why the show is popular, they are a cycle of tragic past, on both good or bad side. Tanjiro and his era is just the one to end it all.
If Akaza backstory isn't relatable or emotional to you, chance are you would not enjoy the show much anyways. That's why I said this movie probably didn't expect to blow up this much, it's done pretty much what we readers wanted and better.
One Battle After Another is great, very timely, great musical scoring, super nicely shot, the actors all have great chemistry. Humors on point, very funny critiques of leftists and the critiques of the far right would be funny if the right wasnt in a constant state of acting out any possible parody on their own.
Probably not going to make the money that it deserves, I hope it gets its due in awards, because it infuriates me to know end that we'll have more stupid fucking Jurassic Piss movies and we might not get any more of movies like this (or Caught Stealing, for that matter.)
I cant think of any single thing wrong with the movie, save maybe a bit at the end? 9.5/10? I didnt find it as visceral as The Long Walk, but Im not sure I think any movie Ive seen this year is more well crafted than One Battle After Another.
On September 27 2025 11:59 Zambrah wrote: One Battle After Another is great, very timely, great musical scoring, super nicely shot, the actors all have great chemistry. Humors on point, very funny critiques of leftists and the critiques of the far right would be funny if the right wasnt in a constant state of acting out any possible parody on their own.
Probably not going to make the money that it deserves, I hope it gets its due in awards, because it infuriates me to know end that we'll have more stupid fucking Jurassic Piss movies and we might not get any more of movies like this (or Caught Stealing, for that matter.)
I cant think of any single thing wrong with the movie, save maybe a bit at the end? 9.5/10? I didnt find it as visceral as The Long Walk, but Im not sure I think any movie Ive seen this year is more well crafted than One Battle After Another.
So far its almost at 50 million worldwide, doing leagues better than any other PTA movie (even with the higher budget), I think its going to get extended weekends running on Oscar hopes and word of mouth. I thought it was the best movie of the year easily, and I adored Eddington and thought Sinners was pretty great. Definitely going to see it again maybe next week.
The long walk was a nice movie. Worth watching but didn't hit the right pacing and emotional impact throughout. I thought to myself, how nice that there were hardly any flashbacks and the one there was is showing what a character was explaining.
Will watch One Battle After Another at some point, perhaps next week.
Ok, next week happened. Watched One Battle After Another on IMAX and have to say it was a good movie but perhaps not one that needs the extra tech.
I really liked what they did with characters, they tried making them relatable. Quick shows of character traits in scenes that are simple but convey a lot to make the important characters stick with you. Having them be good and bad at different things, having flaws and not being perfect action heroes or role models in all ways of life.
I also enjoy that they were willing to leave characters behind and keep a small focused cast for most of the movie. This allowed keeping a pace that didn't slow down too much at any point while subverting viewer expectations in a few places.
Hard to say what the weak point was that didn't make this an instant movie of the year. Perhaps that the plot and overall themes were a bit weak?
(Also no flash backs that I can recall. I think I need to detox on that for a while.)
So far its almost at 50 million worldwide, doing leagues better than any other PTA movie (even with the higher budget), I think its going to get extended weekends running on Oscar hopes and word of mouth. I thought it was the best movie of the year easily, and I adored Eddington and thought Sinners was pretty great. Definitely going to see it again maybe next week.
The budgets reaally high for a PTA movie though, its like 130m and it got an assload of advertising (the trailer sucked though, I wouldnt have seen the movie if it wasnt getting rave early reviews) so Im not expecting this to be the sort of very profitable hit a movie like this sort of deserves to be. Its just frustrating that shit like Avatar makes a billion dollars when there are really genuinely high quality movies out there that people just dont want to see.
Hard to say what the weak point was that didn't make this an instant movie of the year. Perhaps that the plot and overall themes were a bit weak?
The only fault I have with the movie is that the mother sent that apologetic ass letter at the end, I did not want to see her selfish ass redeemed in any way. The themes were extremely relevant and on point, with Del Toro being the modern highly effective and conscientious radical in contrast to DiCaprio's old, worn out, violent radical, the whole ICE shit going on, the Christmas Adventure Club was also very funny with their "Hail St. Nick," shit. Im half sure that its meant to sound like Hail Satan, which I found kind of clever. Oh, and I guess a problem is maybe that they just got to go back to their house? Like DiCaprio was still part of the French 75 right, hes still super wanted right? To just go back to where they know he lived and where they actively raided is a little weird to me.
So far its almost at 50 million worldwide, doing leagues better than any other PTA movie (even with the higher budget), I think its going to get extended weekends running on Oscar hopes and word of mouth. I thought it was the best movie of the year easily, and I adored Eddington and thought Sinners was pretty great. Definitely going to see it again maybe next week.
The budgets reaally high for a PTA movie though, its like 130m and it got an assload of advertising (the trailer sucked though, I wouldnt have seen the movie if it wasnt getting rave early reviews) so Im not expecting this to be the sort of very profitable hit a movie like this sort of deserves to be. Its just frustrating that shit like Avatar makes a billion dollars when there are really genuinely high quality movies out there that people just dont want to see.
The only fault I have with the movie is that the mother sent that apologetic ass letter at the end, I did not want to see her selfish ass redeemed in any way. The themes were extremely relevant and on point, with Del Toro being the modern highly effective and conscientious radical in contrast to DiCaprio's old, worn out, violent radical, the whole ICE shit going on, the Christmas Adventure Club was also very funny with their "Hail St. Nick," shit. Im half sure that its meant to sound like Hail Satan, which I found kind of clever. Oh, and I guess a problem is maybe that they just got to go back to their house? Like DiCaprio was still part of the French 75 right, hes still super wanted right? To just go back to where they know he lived and where they actively raided is a little weird to me.
I think that putting up a warning triangle at the traffic accident hill and driving off could have been a good ending point. I think a lot of movies include an epilogue style of scene when they don't need one.
Though the scene using gas as the surprising kill method was a good scene it didn't need to be in the movie.
So far its almost at 50 million worldwide, doing leagues better than any other PTA movie (even with the higher budget), I think its going to get extended weekends running on Oscar hopes and word of mouth. I thought it was the best movie of the year easily, and I adored Eddington and thought Sinners was pretty great. Definitely going to see it again maybe next week.
The budgets reaally high for a PTA movie though, its like 130m and it got an assload of advertising (the trailer sucked though, I wouldnt have seen the movie if it wasnt getting rave early reviews) so Im not expecting this to be the sort of very profitable hit a movie like this sort of deserves to be. Its just frustrating that shit like Avatar makes a billion dollars when there are really genuinely high quality movies out there that people just dont want to see.
Hard to say what the weak point was that didn't make this an instant movie of the year. Perhaps that the plot and overall themes were a bit weak?
The only fault I have with the movie is that the mother sent that apologetic ass letter at the end, I did not want to see her selfish ass redeemed in any way. The themes were extremely relevant and on point, with Del Toro being the modern highly effective and conscientious radical in contrast to DiCaprio's old, worn out, violent radical, the whole ICE shit going on, the Christmas Adventure Club was also very funny with their "Hail St. Nick," shit. Im half sure that its meant to sound like Hail Satan, which I found kind of clever. Oh, and I guess a problem is maybe that they just got to go back to their house? Like DiCaprio was still part of the French 75 right, hes still super wanted right? To just go back to where they know he lived and where they actively raided is a little weird to me.
I think that putting up a warning triangle at the traffic accident hill and driving off could have been a good ending point. I think a lot of movies include an epilogue style of scene when they don't need one.
Though the scene using gas as the surprising kill method was a good scene it didn't need to be in the movie.
I liked seeing him die and be burned, mostly because it sells the fact that no matter how "important" you have to be to join and participate in a powerful right wing organization, you are completely and absolutely worthless as any street dog who can be put down on a whim to these people. Also he was awful and seeing them just toss his ass in the incinerator was satisfying.
I may have just preferred he die from being shot in the face though, the office stuff was definitely not necessary.
I did enjoy seeing Bob and Willa reconcile properly, and I enjoyed that she sort of took up the mantle of fighting for justice because the movie is definitely poking at leftists a lot so its nice to see some positive portrayal and a happy ending after all the hard shit that happened to them. I mostly just wish it felt like she was doing it out of the drive to do good and not because her deadbeat mother sent a letter.
Its hard to imagine the movie as having a happy ending if they imply that theyre still having to be hunted and on the run and shit, so I was okay with the prologue in this case. Movie was tonally fit for a happy prologue imo.
I watched house of dnyamite on netflix. Really interesting film. The ending has gotten a lot of hate for being open-ended and inconclusive. But I felt like that served the point of the movie.
Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc was a great movie. It did everything above average and is probably movie of the year for me. Everything just works together, pacing is good and it didn't commit the sin of being 2h+ (without a great reason).
It beats out Sinners for that spot, for me at least.
I think I talked about CSM in the anime thread, but yeah great film, as a film.
An annoying problem with the Demon Slayer movies is that they kinda take a hit on the structure since it has to repackaged to be part of the anime series later on, whereas CSM felt like a concise conclusive movie.
I saw Bugonia (2025). Went to go see it because the Menu was my favorite movie of 2022. Like the Menu, did not understand a single thing that happening, but I enjoyed it nontheless. It's a completely vibes based movie.
Was an enjoyable experience. They've changed the formula from horror/slasher to action/adventure. Plot is bare bones but it's OK and you can enjoy the movie granted you can just turn off your brain and enjoy the cool fight scenes. Especially during the 3rd act any form of brain activity and thoughts like "how?" and "why?" would really make the overall score plummet.
7/10 with brain off. 5.5/10 if you think about it (looks cool but makes no sense).
On November 16 2025 02:20 Manit0u wrote: I've seen Predator: Badlands in 3D.
Was an enjoyable experience. They've changed the formula from horror/slasher to action/adventure. Plot is bare bones but it's OK and you can enjoy the movie granted you can just turn off your brain and enjoy the cool fight scenes. Especially during the 3rd act any form of brain activity and thoughts like "how?" and "why?" would really make the overall score plummet.
7/10 with brain off. 5.5/10 if you think about it (looks cool but makes no sense).
I enjoyed it quite a bit
A family friendly predator movie, with shared alien universe that doesn't rely on cheap fan services. What a weird combination, and turns out to be great.
So far its almost at 50 million worldwide, doing leagues better than any other PTA movie (even with the higher budget), I think its going to get extended weekends running on Oscar hopes and word of mouth. I thought it was the best movie of the year easily, and I adored Eddington and thought Sinners was pretty great. Definitely going to see it again maybe next week.
The budgets reaally high for a PTA movie though, its like 130m and it got an assload of advertising (the trailer sucked though, I wouldnt have seen the movie if it wasnt getting rave early reviews) so Im not expecting this to be the sort of very profitable hit a movie like this sort of deserves to be. Its just frustrating that shit like Avatar makes a billion dollars when there are really genuinely high quality movies out there that people just dont want to see.
Hard to say what the weak point was that didn't make this an instant movie of the year. Perhaps that the plot and overall themes were a bit weak?
The only fault I have with the movie is that the mother sent that apologetic ass letter at the end, I did not want to see her selfish ass redeemed in any way. The themes were extremely relevant and on point, with Del Toro being the modern highly effective and conscientious radical in contrast to DiCaprio's old, worn out, violent radical, the whole ICE shit going on, the Christmas Adventure Club was also very funny with their "Hail St. Nick," shit. Im half sure that its meant to sound like Hail Satan, which I found kind of clever. Oh, and I guess a problem is maybe that they just got to go back to their house? Like DiCaprio was still part of the French 75 right, hes still super wanted right? To just go back to where they know he lived and where they actively raided is a little weird to me.
I think that putting up a warning triangle at the traffic accident hill and driving off could have been a good ending point. I think a lot of movies include an epilogue style of scene when they don't need one.
Though the scene using gas as the surprising kill method was a good scene it didn't need to be in the movie.
I liked seeing him die and be burned, mostly because it sells the fact that no matter how "important" you have to be to join and participate in a powerful right wing organization, you are completely and absolutely worthless as any street dog who can be put down on a whim to these people. Also he was awful and seeing them just toss his ass in the incinerator was satisfying.
I may have just preferred he die from being shot in the face though, the office stuff was definitely not necessary.
I did enjoy seeing Bob and Willa reconcile properly, and I enjoyed that she sort of took up the mantle of fighting for justice because the movie is definitely poking at leftists a lot so its nice to see some positive portrayal and a happy ending after all the hard shit that happened to them. I mostly just wish it felt like she was doing it out of the drive to do good and not because her deadbeat mother sent a letter.
Its hard to imagine the movie as having a happy ending if they imply that theyre still having to be hunted and on the run and shit, so I was okay with the prologue in this case. Movie was tonally fit for a happy prologue imo.
I watched this one last night, completely agree with the assessment that it's the best thing that came out this year so far. The cinematography, acting and music stood out the most to me, but the rest was pretty great too.
The 2 hour 40 minutes running time was not felt at all and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
I also absolutely agree that the deadbeat mother did not deserve for that letter to be the capstone of the movie, that's my only real criticism of the movie.
In general, I was super happy that character was out of the movie, Teyana Taylor is just not a good actress to me, and while she was much better in this then in "Straw" that I watched earlier this year, it was still pretty jarring, especially since her character is completely unsympathetic, just a completely irredeemable, selfish person doing "the revolution" to make herself feel special and important, completely uninterested in parenting and even trying to be anything like a good mother, a person who rated everyone out without even much pressure being put on her, not to save a loved one but herself.
Anyway, Sean Penn was great, physically imposing but still ridiculous , all the racist fascist fucks were mostly incompetent and dumb but all the soldiers and professionals they were giving orders were good, believable. Every time things had to be done by the "people in power" they'd fuck them up spectacularly.
Finally, Willa was great, sure, a typical teenage fuckup with the phone to move the plot along, but the "park the car" trick was amazing and that whole chase scene and the music was top notch.
I also don't think that the letter was why she went to Oakland, I believe it was implicated that she was going to a lot of those now and is actually becoming a real revolutionary like Sergio is.
Oh, and what a badass character that was, I loved every scene with him.
Is anyone surprised at how bad the new avatar movie trailer looked? I watched it in imax and there's a lot of blurry CGI. But even worse, it just felt like none of the scenes were done well, like action scenes felt so lackluster.
EPT
