Film Frenzy: Episode 15 - Furiosa & Atlas: The high and lows of cinema in 2024

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone and welcome back to the 15th? 16th? 15th! 15th episode of Film Frenzy, bit of a milestone for us and well the gang's back together, we've got everyone today, Alex is here, Magnus is here so yeah you know it's a reunion of sorts to mark this very special occasion, the 15th episode."

"Now we're going to be talking about some really exciting things today, well exciting things to me should we say, but we'll get to that in a bit. For starters let's talk about some things that are coming up so today or this weekend is quite a big one for movies because we have a couple of really exciting things debuting in cinemas and on streamers, Furiosa is coming out, Atlas is dropping on Netflix and we actually have two experts to talk about both those things because Mag you've seen Furiosa and Alex has seen Atlas so this is going to be an interesting discussion because I think they're on very different sides of the spectrum so should we start with should we start with Furiosa? Yeah let's save the juicy stuff for last I feel like because Furiosa is very expectedly very good or I think at the very least was some trepidation going into it because of the amount of CG used in the trailers which had a quite a stark contrast to the very sort of analog tactile dimension of Fury Road which we all enjoyed at least from my perspective to a great extent. The fun part is that that is perhaps Furiosa's only sort of major failing is an over excess in use of these bit floaty CG textures which does stand in quite stark contrast to I guess the proper sort of action set pieces which is where inspiration has been drawn from Fury Road but apart from that I mean it's just a it's a banger man it's just it's great on almost every single conceivable parameter it's a win I think with no proper drawback I suppose you could say that it's a little bit long it's like two and two hours 28 minutes which I think we're all in agreement is the select few movies that justify that run in time. Furiosa apes I mean yeah yeah of course yeah Kingdom was quite close I think. Kingdom was close but I think it was shorter I think that while I love the Andy Serkis movies to like a great extent I also think they over indulged in its run in time I remember like War the third one as being oh it was good but it was also long so no but it's I think it's two hours and 28 minutes it's a very sort of expansive epos this compared to like Fury Road which was so long but you could almost call it sort of situational in the sense that it feels like it's a very very compact time frame that you are witness to and then you're out again whereas Furiosa is the really the story of a character evolving through the different sort of sections of her life but it's George Miller obviously very much knows his characters he knows his universe he knows his action set pieces and choreography and this universe is just very nice I'm not sure that it can stand the test of times in terms of overexposure like I loved I sat on this show and I just love the shit out of Dune part two but even I look at the teaser for Dune Prophecy as good as it looks and thinks I'm not sure this universe this universe can withstand continued exposure where we have to shine a light into every single nook and cranny to tell stories from it so it's very it's perhaps very good for Mad Max that George Miller just waits a long time every time that he wants to do something and he has here I'm a bit I'm skeptical about this third Fury Road movie seemingly about Max up until the events of Fury Road which just seems like now Furiosa spends a lot of time with exposition it's very good exposition is you've seen all of these disseparate elements in Fury Road well now we'll explain what actually is the bullet farm what is the you know the the gas base what is the actual hierarchy structure within the Immortan Joe's fortress you know all of these things you it's not really a criticism but one could also argue that it was better to leave them as open mysteries that made Fury Road what it is but at the very least it's very well handled but I'm not sure I want to go back a third time I think this is just the perfect now we're done we can let George Miller do another one of those movies with Tilda Swinson and Idris Elba which was terrible so I guess what I'm also saying is that maybe he can only do Mad Max movies which is a shame no but I really I think it's great and I think if you're looking for like a an action buster that is a like a bit it's intelligently put together you have this and you have Apes you feel like that's a real blessing to have those two in the same sort of month and it can pretty much like I mean I mean it can only go down here from here again I mean that I think I think that one is better than the other obviously but I think that she's very good Apes is by the way you you're talking in such a in such a condescending nature about Apes I wasn't here for this episode you don't like that movie I didn't I didn't actually think it was that great I didn't I didn't like it that much but I thought it was good but it wasn't like no no no no no it's like like it takes too long to get stuff done I think and it doesn't the fact that we're stuck with like Noah is our POV character throughout and it works as if it's a novel brought to life rather than like a screenplay in that we follow him all the time because it's as if the the writer didn't know how to take anything from anyone else's perspective so like we don't see things in Proximus's mind we don't see things like that and I think Proximus can pace and feel a lot less sluggish but we did Apes you know we did Apes last week I don't want Ben to bug out. This is disappointing news. I think it was fine I just I just don't think it was like amazing. The viewers listen too much to your opinion though so I think we should just we should put a stopgap on that say that is Alex's opinion which is fine. It's not worth anything."

"I obviously also think that it's not as good as the two circus the two good circus movies can't remember their names Dawn and the other one so yeah but yeah but Furiosa really good go watch it. I'm going back to when I'm on the show we always talk box office figures I'm not sure that you guys do that but it's just it's such an interesting dimension to modern filmmaking and I'm just very very worried that this will not bank the way that Warner Brothers wants to bank it and I hope I'm wrong because Mad Max but Fury Road had that sort of shock factor and I'm just I'm not sure that this is going to have that so I'm I'm really I'm nervous. Well it's a topic of conversation in general really because like I think you know while I'm not going to go and put the Fall Guy in the same category as Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Furiosa it's still a fun film to watch and it's still like it's a good movie to go and watch at cinemas compared to some of the drivel we've had this year and yet right. Have you seen Apes yet then? No I haven't. You haven't seen it last week? I haven't seen Apes yet no."

"What the hell what are you doing? Yeah you're part of the you are part of the it's only made 250 mil up until this point you are part of the problem. Yeah probably yeah but that's the point though is that you could have 10 million on your own. Fall Guy came out right at the start of this month and it's already on digital and it's like this is the problem we're having with I think with the box office as a whole is that they it's not valued anymore. Clearly by these big production giants the box office numbers they're not as important as they used to be because these films aren't getting a theoretical release window to really succeed. Like Dunes is probably the the the exception of this year really everything else they come out in cinemas and then within three or four weeks you can rent them at home. So I am a little bit worried about Furiosa in that regard because I think we talked about it briefly last week actually Alex didn't we? We was like did Fury Road actually do that well? It didn't make that much of a profit. It did okay but you know this was at a time when the box office was absolutely massive like billion dollar films were becoming quite a a commonplace factor and Fury Road I think it earned like 400 million or something so you know yes it's 318."

"So the point is that I also think that it Fury Road became more expensive than it was supposed to be because they had set up production in another country and then it reigned all of that debacle which also could argue made the made the movie some some free headlines within the media at the time. But Furiosa is made for 168 mill which it's just a massive amount of money which very few movies at least up going back to your point at least in terms of cinema revenue very few movies get to a point where they can like like triple or semi quadruple that sum. So and both of them both of the movies that we're talking about here both Apes and Furiosa are made for roughly the same amount of money which is by the way still considered cheap because everyone was like how could Denis Villeneuve make a movie everyone was like how could Denis Villeneuve make Dune for 190 million."

"It's just it's ludicrous to me that we are at a point where something like Apes or probably Furiosa we'll have to wait and see you know is roaring in on great reviews and great word of mouth and a lot of sort of recognition and sharing on social media and it's just not putting asses in seats but revenue that comes after that is that we don't know that there is no proper like announcement figures for rentals or how much movie is going back to the studio from streaming."

"So all we have to go with are the box office figures that's the only thing that's public about all this. Yeah it's definitely a valid point and it's concerning it's very concerning when you know there's we're nearly halfway through the year and there are like three blockbusters right in regards to actual sort of box office revenue and one of them's Kung Fu Panda 4 so it's you know it's a bizarre situation to be in and I hope Furiosa does well."

"You see the figures for the Fall Guy by the way. Yeah it's not great.
It's absolutely ludicrous. It's so frustrating right because you look at it and you go there's no reason why this film shouldn't do well like or like you know it shouldn't recoup its numbers at the box office. You've got two popular well-known stars leading the film."

"It's an action film. It's an easy watch. It's not that long. It's like there's a multitude of reasons where it's like this is a film to go watch at cinemas and nobody goes and watches it.
It's absolutely shocking really so I don't know there's something going on at the box office and the way that it's all set up and it's definitely something that needs to be looked at otherwise cinemas will die. They will just disappear and not become as popular as they as they once were but again that's why I guess we have streamers because there's other ways to watch movies and other blockbusters to look out for including the Jennifer Lopez fight. But I mean streaming. Streaming. Right. Alex tell us all about it. Yeah go on Alex. Alice. Just for reference you gave it a two out of ten. You gave it a two out of ten didn't you? I gave it a two out of ten."

"My positives were you might get a you might get a really good drinking game out of it and it was laughably bad at points. Like there is there's a moment where this guy's like head comes to a death. She's interrogating like an AI. They just use like AI as much as they can in terms of like robot you know. So Jennifer Lopez is Atlas. She's got the weight of the world on her shoulders. She's not a soldier. She's an analyst. She goes on mission with the soldiers over to the Andromeda galaxy on a planet that is toxic and hostile to hunt down an AI who's Simu Liu who went evil 28 years ago. She's casting herself as a 38 year old here which I think is quite you know. That's probably what got her into the script. Why is she? She's like 50, 51."

"She's 38. She was 10 at the start. She was 10. She's 38. She's not saying she's 28.
She's not going that far. But she... There's no spoiler alert okay. There's no spoiler.
I'm just gonna spoil the hell out of this movie. She was the one who set Simu Liu free because she got jealous of her mum hanging out with him too much. So she goes up to him and she's like Simu Liu lets Neuralink. It's like basically they use like Neuralink which is like an ear chip."

"And so he goes. He sees like all of human history through a 10 year old's eyes. I don't know how.
And then he goes I'm gonna kill people now. And he makes her mum kill herself immediately.
No hesitation. And then frees all his AI buddies. There's only really one of them that actually matters. And then they go on like a rampage throughout the world. Killing like millions of people. I think it's like three million. Which really isn't that much. If you think about like it's far future. There's probably like 12 billion people in the world. Three million. I know you know I'm sort of like starving in it here and there. But like it doesn't sound like that much. It doesn't sound apocalyptic. And then he goes. And then he gets battered. Because the world is like okay we're gonna form a new international congress to go and fight this together as a planet. They absolutely batter him. He goes into space to be like see you later guys. I'll be back. But I've taken the L on this one. This is all within the first five minutes of the film that this happens. What? Then. Yeah."

"Then. The mum dying as well. No the mum dying gets revealed later. Because it's the only bit of backstory that we don't get. So she's just annoying as hell for like the entire movie. Like I don't like AI. But I'm not gonna tell you why. And it's like Jennifer tell us. I need to know. Because at the minute you're just really. You look like a suicidal maniac. Because she gets abandoned on the planet of the Andromeda galaxy. Right. Everyone else dies. All the other soldiers she goes with die horribly. Apart from like Sterling K Brown. He gets captured and then dies at the end of the movie after two minutes of screen time. And also there's a bit where one of his eyes gets like plucked out by Harmon. Simu Liu the AI terrorist. And then he gets found later by Jennifer Lopez."

"And they've used effects on the wrong eye. I'm 99% sure it's the wrong eye. There's so many questions I have about this movie that just that like it's like no one watched it. It's like no one thought about it. It's such like a horrible reflection of like what what the hell we did. Like I said to I said that like in the review and on group chats and stuff like I could actively feel myself like being closer to death thanks to this movie. Like I was like well that is you know people say that that's an hour of my life I'll never get back. I felt the fact that I was never getting time again thanks to this film. I I don't know. I don't know. I felt on the verge of like like I was like laughing. But also I could have cried at the end because I was just like so baffled by what I've experienced. I don't know. Like the thing is is that I almost want I don't want anyone else to watch this. But I also want someone to like I need like a therapist after it."

"Because there's so many things of like why. Like why have you got contacts in Simu Liu's eyes?
None of the other AI have that. And it's not like it happened when he woke up. He just has them.
Why does like why is Jennifer Lopez doing this movie? Why does she hate AI but she has one in her house that she plays chess with every day? Why? Like why does at the very end do you know how Simu Liu dies in this movie? Do you know how she beats the villain? So she has this like mech."

"Chess. It's gotta be chess right? Did she beat him at chess?
No it's not chess. It's way worse. It's way worse. She has this mech that she's like traveling around with that she links with at the end and is somehow way better than all the super soldiers that have been doing this for years because she just trusts in the robot or whatever. Yeah it's Hollywood garbage. And she beats all the other AIs and then she fights Simu Liu. But Simu Liu has like a robot like a sword that comes out of his fingers that he can kill people with. And so he hacks the robot up like like it just really is a beatdown to the point where Jennifer Lopez gets knocked out and the robot's like trying to crawl with her and its hands to like save her. And so you imagine like the robot's crawling. The hand is out here right? The hand is outstretched. Simu Liu is on my back if I'm the robot and he's hacking away at me. I drop Jennifer Lopez in front of his eye line and she's unconscious right? She's out. There's no there's no little tease of like her fingers twitching or anything like that. There's nothing. Five seconds later after he's about to finish the robot off for good he gets stabbed from behind. So in those five seconds Jennifer Lopez has got to her feet. She has stood up in the eye line of the main villain who has clearly either watched her do this or has proven too stupid to look at her. It's like did nobody ask a question in the writer's room. How did she do that? It's insane. It's absolute insanity. I hate the fact that people got jobs for this. I hate the fact that people got paid for this apart from the special effects. I hate the fact that this exists. I hate the fact that on Monday Netflix are going to go 20 million views for Atlas guys. Thanks a lot. And they're going to fund Atlas 2 and it'll be out next year and it'll somehow be worse. I'm not like I don't know if if anyone watches this regularly I'm not that negative of a person I find. I'm usually quite positive about a lot of things. I like I got really angry that this film exists. I got really mad about it. I got really the thing that I'm really confused about. I've been going on for too long. The thing that I'm really confused about with this film right is Simu Liu is like a person but he's actually an AI."

"No he's just an AI. No but I mean like he's a person. How does he have a body? He's not he's not they just made that they don't explain that. He's not like a he's not like Shodan right from System Shock. He's not like an AI that contorts the world or anything like that. He's just they all have bodies. It's a robot. Yeah. With a physical body. Yes yeah. An AI mind. It's just a robot. No I think it's just they don't really go into the fact that it's AI meaning that it really kind of could just be anywhere and in every machine. They just sort of think of them as separate entities with like robots. Why is he at Jennifer Lopez's house playing chess with her?
Because her mum made him. Oh right. Okay. Yes. Now her mum didn't make him. Her mum made the neural link and used him to like. I don't know why she hates Jennifer Lopez. I think it's the fact that. If she makes the neural link. And yeah and the AI. It would make a lot of sense why that AI is then in their home. So why is Jennifer Lopez then so angry? It's just because her mum didn't like her. Is this like a basic thing about don't bring your work back home with you? No I don't think it has a message. I think you're thinking too deeply for that. Like I have the same sort of thing. Like there's no point. It's like it's like digging into stone. There is no point. You will just break your shovel. You will you know. The movie positions this as jealousy like a child being jealous that her mum spent time with someone other than her. She says it. She was jealous."

"That's where her deep rooted fear and anxiety and hatred.
And then they're like no it wasn't your fault Jennifer Lopez. But it was. She did. She was she was a stupid little idiot child who decided I mummy's not watching me like you know fortnight dance or whatever. So I'm going to go and wake up seemingly. And I'm going to make him and like he's going to end up killing the world because apparently by going into my 10 year old mind he can also understand that all of human history has led to death. Like so what has she read as a 10 year old at this point? Warren Peet obviously. Yeah. So what you're saying is really right and Jennifer Lopez carries this film and brings it to life and elevates it to a new level that otherwise right be that Jennifer Lopez wasn't the lead star of this of this film. He's like the only person in this movie as well. Like Sterling K. Brown is in it for like 10 minutes. Marks. What's his name? Strong."

"Mark Strong. He needs to. His agent needs to learn to say no because he's in this movie as well for like five minutes. Like you can tell he doesn't he doesn't give a toss. He does not care at all.
But it's still like Mark mate. I know you're probably on it for like a day but just don't show up. Like just get somebody else to do this. There's no point in you doing this. This is I mean I'm pretty sure that you've answered my question already but I'm going to ask it anyway just for the viewers. So is Simu Liu also awful? He's not really in it that much but yeah he's not great."

"What? Who's in this film? How is he not in it? Who is in it? He's not really in it that much. He's in it like I would say he's in it like 10 minutes.
He's in it at the start when he's doing all the flashback stuff and then he's in the flashback stuff for Jennifer Lopez and then he has like the final fight which is like 10 more minutes and the prelude to the final fight. All of the time this movie is an hour. It's two hours."

"It's two hours long. He's not in it that much. What's going on? It's just Jennifer Lopez.
It's like gravity if it was shit. It's like it's that's all I can describe it as. It's because Jennifer Lopez is stuck with this meth robot for 90% of the movie and they're just walking around in like CGI bits. It's like Titanfall. It's like a live action Titanfall. The meth is stolen from Titanfall basically."

"I can't wait to watch this. I'm gonna watch this tomorrow. There's no action.
Don't watch it please. You could have given like something else your time by that point.
So Atlas out on Netflix on May 24th. Yeah tomorrow. It's definitely worth your time. Make sure to check this out.
It'll be out probably by the time you're watching this. That was a brief snippet from Alex's review."

"It's not my worst movie of all time though. It's actually not my worst movie of all time.
I would say Sausage Party's worse. Well Sausage Party got fine reviews compared to what this is going to get if you consider your worst to be semi-gospel.
I mean this is going to bomb with critics but in the Netflix way it's still going to get a lot of views which will then justify the sort of the renewal if you will or the continuation because Netflix very rarely makes these like these critical bangers. Well they do in some cases but there's a lot of these series like Extraction for instance that just doesn't do particularly well critically but it doesn't really matter ultimately. So do you honestly think because you used it as a joke at the top of the piece. Do you think it's going to get those 20 minutes? Do you think we're going to get that press release that people just flock to this?
I'm not sure that I'm not sure that Lopez in and of herself has draw. Maybe it's because that it's sci-fi dribble that usually does well. The action movie it's like the film that you walk in on your parents watching and they're and you're like what are you watching and they're like oh the new Netflix thing. They don't even know the name of it. Like my parents very much like this. I don't know if you guys can share it but that they're like I'll just walk in and go what you're watching just just whatever's on. Oh is it good? No. So I walk away. That's that's that's it. It's just this resigned yeah it's on it's the thing that they're pushing so I'll watch it. Just a weird thing because they treat it like flow tv even though that it's very much a much more deliberate exercise which is like whatever pops up whatever whatever comes up whatever's on the channel I mean it looks to be honest with you I have I'm not like Ben is going to watch it I'm pretty sure I can see it on his face but I'm not going to. I will not be a part of this statistic and I think because you watched it on like a presser Alex that you don't contribute to the overall viewership statistics. I'm I think I think we can say that for sure so I'm not going to I'm going to be watching something else hopefully and I won't be drawn in by this bullshit so so I'm so sad that you had to go through this I'm really sorry it's it's fine it's like it I feel like you need one of those every now and again that you like you do need an app you say that but we had rebel moon recently so I think we've had plenty of that but um I haven't watched rebel moon as well I like rebel moon way more than this I could watch rebel moon because it has like a vision of Zack Snyder. I know that Zack Snyder likes movies at the end of the day I believe that he likes movies even if he's not that great at making them because he clearly has like a passion for uh I really like action and I really like slow-mo and I really like when stuff looks cool so yeah okay Zack I don't really think that you're that great at making these films and I don't think the actors have given their best but I can I I get that you tried I don't believe anyone besides the people making the CG in this movie tried at all I believe it was written by an algorithm who then decided what director no-name director to attach to it what no-name script writer to attach to it what slightly popular actor to attach to it was then attached and then they just went with it and that's all that no one cared no one cared at all about what it looks like or stories or sci-fi or robots or anything fun thing is that it kind of looks like and this is just me speaking from the outside looking in it looks like sort of a pandemic project where no one was allowed to be in the same room when they made it everyone recorded their bits at home and sent it off somewhere and then they stitched it together because it just seems like us are like a bag full of the separate elements that has no like connective tissue to bind it all together maybe it's like Fury Road where like the actors all hated each other because they were put through this film I think I think we should I think we should leave it there for the simple reason that it's borderline it's becoming borderline malicious now so let's uh let's leave the attacks on can I put it it is put him got it I put in one more like one more suggestion like I just saw uh the trailer drop for uh Oz Perkins horror movie long legs people should go watch that trailer that movie looks absolutely terrifying and awesome so we can end on a high note I'm pretty sure that this movie's gonna rock so uh no one else is gonna rock Ben we ain't got time to talk about that we'll talk about that next week we'll talk about that next week so are you by the time we do this next episode have you actually been to a theater to watch this movie yes or no horizon horizon no it doesn't come out until late june yeah you'll be watching it in his mind I just love the stories behind it that's the I love the drama behind it it's very Yellowstone right it's it's all it's just it's just fascinating to get very Yellowstone Ben it's it is it really is it really is the drama behind it's fascinating so we'll talk about it again at some point at least I'll talk about it at some point but uh no the things we can take from this watch Furiosa uh watch the the long legs trailer don't watch Atlas so that's pretty much the last 30 minutes summarize go yeah otherwise this has been episode 15 of Film Frenzy we're back again next week so stay tuned for that and otherwise yeah we'll see you all on the next one"