Today is a self care day off for me. Back to back cinema. It could have been more epic though. Today the films out should have been.
The Smashing Machine
Roofman
Him
Goldeneye 30th anniversary.
However (& i do love her) Taylor Swift decided to do a movie as a release party for the new album (i have listened its good) & its taken up most of the screens this weekend plus i have to pay the full amount (not even a discount) so im not seeing that & Roofman has now been pushed back 2 weeks (what the heck). So my triple bill is now back to back movies. Ive timed it so that in theory i can move my car for all of 5 mins to avoid the parking charge. So lets start with the Smashing Machine.

For a friday at 2:20 i was not expecting it to be this packed id say 70% full. I mean im impressed (& yes i was there too) but still i was not expecting that. I was also the youngest person there, most people were in the 40s or 50s for this.

Trailers Roofman (just mocking me how dare it) Good Fortune (yess) Wicked (yes) Avatar (nope) & I Swear (which ive obviously already seen).

& then the film started… Can we smelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll what the rock is cooking…?

The Rock will get awards season buzz for a number of reasons.
Hes not in some over the top cgi action film.
Hes actually acting.
Hes vulnerable.
& also more importantly… he can buy his way into the short list.
Im sorry its true. It is his best performance ever, but is it better that Michael & Leo so far this year no. & we are only at the start of the season, this is the beginning of it. We will have Jeremey, Timothee, Stallen, Ive even heard someone mention Ethan, George & Paul as potentials. The Rock can afford to run a campaign to get into everyone mind to be on long lists & then short lists he just can. I know not everyone can do that but still. He is good in it but is he going to be groundbreakingly exceptional like Timothee or Leo, hes not that level at all. But i do love his pride in this & what hes made. He was so upset when this took only £150mil at the box office, mate for an awards bait movie, thats epic. We also do need to remember that the Rocks best performance (& im calling him that for a reason) is because he is a fighter in the 90s jacked up on life… parallel to his own when he was the most electrifying man in sports entertainment (trust me i watched it twice a week).

Emily Blunt however, shes due a win soon. & once again here she delivers. She really makes him come out, i dont think he gives the performance if hes with anyone else. Shes worked with him on a blockbuster before so this was someone he was comfortable with who he knew would bring it all out of him.

Im still trying to work out why we saw 3 specific year & then the first year of that was literally like 5 minutes & then we jumped forward. That felt very odd. Also it either felt like everything was in like 5 days or there was months between it without not real explanation. Didnt help with some of the pacing at times.

The 90s vibes were on point. As someone who was a kid who watched wwf as it was called at the time at the end of the decade, it all felt right. The clothes the houses the attitudes. It felt like a time capsule. Obviously theres a few differences between the uk & america & where he went to fight around the world but still, it felt very of that time.

When Usyk turned up to be one of the fighters & gave it a real feel that this was going to be a battle, i did the DiCaprio meme in the cinema & pointed & when oooh god. Sorry to the people in my screening. Someone else when the credits rolled & his name came up went ahhh thats where i knew him from. Clearly wasnt just me recognising him. you also know that with the two of them in the film the fighting is going to be real & that its going to protect the actors in it who arent fighters in real life & have been in a ring for like 3 weeks before filming.

The first few fights we saw were very good, for filming & choreography reasons, you felt the intensity, but the more the film went on the more fake & staged it felt. It should have felt more real as we were getting to the part that people cared about, but no it lost its edge a little. It got a bit samey, i mean i know with these kind of fights there are rules you have to abide by but there were some moments that just didnt connect with me. It missed the spark sports films usually give you, even when you know the outcome of it. They were filmed really well.

It wasnt the best written film, i mean i guess with fighters they are not orators, but there were some heated arguments that felt a little stale & felt like they just put words in there to draw it out. If im honest the film also felt a little bit too long as well. Like we drew out acts to make it a run time people would notice.

There is some drug & domestic & controlling abuse in this from several characters & manipulation, which is actually when it picks up in act 3, but no one learns there lessons from it. I mean i get if in real life they didnt that makes sense, but there was a lack of sorrow, it was moved on from each time very very quickly.

I really wanted to love this film, for it to be iconic & clever film which they all deserve there flowers from but it was just decent. There will be much better films this awards season for sure, if you know the era & like watching fighters in anyway you will appreciate the craft of this film. It just didnt hit the home run.