I was wondering how you could be so precise with a method. I've given it a quick test with some of my favourites and a few I consider to be howlers, and to some extent it works quite well. However there are certainly a few films I would possibly have missed out on had I followed this, and so it isn't something I would use in the future.

Tree of Life was rubbish

X-Men: Days of Future Past - It starts off brilliantly but plateaus in the middle and stays there until the end. It's good but it's just missing that little something to tip it over into greatness. I think part of the problem is how familiar you are with the characters and their powers at this point - even when you've got big set pieces your pulse is never exactly racing.

It reminded me of Cap. 2 in that it's a bit of a thriller, though in this case with heavier sci-fi, obviously.

Minor quibbles... There's some remarkably dumb scenes you're supposed to ignore in the name of drama, and you get the feeling there's a lot that hit the editing room floor in terms of cameos and new characters. They'd be mad not to do a director's cut if I'm right. No doubt they will once you've bought the original release...

Oh, there's a 'stinger' right at the end of the credits, and it's quality. Certainly a lot better than Marvel themselves have been doing recently.

16 Blocks - I've seen some seriously cheap horror movies that weren't as telegraphed as this sh1t. I remember when Bruce Willis wasn't working to meet court-ordered payments

White House Down - The stupidest action film you'll ever see. It's so spectacularly dumb that you watch it just to see what madness comes next. It's from Roland Emmerich, but bloody hell...

I went and watched Godzilla today.
It's not nearly as bad as people made it out to be.

I went and watched X-Men : Days of Future Past today.
It's not nearly as complex as people made it out to be.

All-in-all, not a bad 4+hrs entertainment for just £6.

Mark

The two movies I've seen over the last few days too.
My assessment is about the same. Good sorta middle of the road honest to goodness solid 3.5/5 sort of films. Not bad, but never brilliant.

Yeah, some of the critic reviews I read afterwards would have you believing it was the X-Men version of Inception or something. I think some people can't get past what they expect a film to be, good or bad, and something like 'time travel' doesn't help.

If anything was confusing it was trying to remember the previous films afterwards

BTW, did you find the second half wasn't as exciting as it perhaps should have been? It was OK I thought, but it just needed more of a push...

Yeah. I mean, there's quite a lot going on in it, but even when you don't really remember all the X-Men films that came before it (like I don't) it was still able to make internal logic, which is a really good thing for a film that's so far in to the franchise and has to make reference to those films by the very nature of this story.
I really only recalled two events from past films that were referenced in this one, but still it all made sense.

I imagine seeing this film written down on paper would be a bit of a nightmare, but on-screen, it is all handled very capably.

Mark

Nah man, it was good to see the characters breathe, to let the actors actually do their job instead of just lurch the script from one VFX scene to the next.

Mark

Kick-Ass 2 - It hasn't got a clue how to handle the dialogue, but at least it's better paced than the first film. Great fight scenes.

You don't watch that filmn for the diaglogue. (8+D

Mark

True, but some of it's teeth-grinding

Kick Ass 2 is utter dross, from beginning to end, it has no redeeming qualities.

I watched it the way I watched Machete, if you get me. Some films are designed to be awful!