The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven has a lot of flaws, and the acting isn't good enough to carry the lack of plot and character development. Some of the action is cool, but it's not really enough to make it worth watching.

The Magnificent Seven got mixed reviews, but I was hoping it could be carried on the virtue of the actors. Turns out it couldn't. The plot is ridiculously simple, but you know that going in, so they really need to do some character development or have some cool tricks or something, but they don't. It felt really tired and unispired. The whole "defending a small town with tricks" thing has been done to death. You've got to have some spectacularly impressive tricks if you're going to make it entertaining, and they didn't.

Predestination

Predestination is based on a short story, and it shows. They added some things that weren't in the story, but it's not enough. The framework of the original idea is really all that's there, and it wasn't worth my time. I was expecting a flashier action/fantasy-type movie, and it turned out to be straight drama. 

The trailer for Predestination made it seem like it would be all futuristic, but a weird 40s-style future, and flashy and exciting with the way they do the time jumps, like an action/fantasy movie. But it was actually pure drama; borderline boring drama. It was such a narrative. I wasn't surprised at all to find out it was based on a short story. It had a real "short story" feel to it. I don't think they had enough here to make a movie out of, even though they added things that weren't in the story. I feel slightly disenfranchised being sold a movie that turned out to be a short story, now that I think about it.

Daybreakers

Good old Ethan Hawke, before he started looking really gaunt and creepy and old.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

 There can be no hope in a movie that opens with a naked, sweaty Philip Seymour Hoffman doing someone doggy-style. None at all. Also, they managed to make Ethan Hawke look terrible. Albert Finney turned out to be a good actor, though. (I've never really seen him in anything else.) I really enjoyed the strategy they used for flashbacks, both introducing them and editing them in. It kept things interesting, always revealing more of the story without ever making you feel like you were missing out on something. It really is more of a melodrama than a thriller, and the commentary was quite interesting. More enjoyable than the movie, certainly.