Sicario: Day of the Soldado

[feather]

This was fucking terrible.

[el presidente Highsteppa]

Re: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

I didn't think it was terrible, it was a sequel for the sake of making a sequel, without understanding or using any of the best things about the first.

With Emily Blunt gone, the audience is no longer getting an outsider looking in to something they don't completely understand that drove the tension and the suspense of the first film. She was constantly overwhelmed by the violence, the cruelty and the sudden, without warning nature of the conflict she was being brought into. With this, we just see that Brolin's character has moved on from wearing flip flops to Crocs (whoa, slow down with that character development, writer) and del Toro's character becomes somewhat inexplicably the opposite of what he was in the first. Interesting idea, but the motivation for the flip was a bit hazy and not really believable.

Don't get me wrong, the action co-ordination is quite good and dynamic, but that's all that really drives this. Dialogue seems to just set up the next action sequence, with a weird third act in the desert that gets a bit away from the rest of the movie.

I wanted to like it more, but it's a hollow movie - apart from the well staged action sequences, the movie isn't really all that memorable and really lacks the suspense and surprises that the first had to keep the viewer off balance. They've turned it into a generic action movie franchise, judging how it kind of hints at further adventures.

[feather]

Re: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

Yes to everything you said, which makes this terrible

There are moments in the film, like with the deaf/mute family, and del Toro miraculously coming alive and squirming around ... but besides that, it feels like the studio might've stepped in (also remember reading this is the Italian director's first English film) and decide Brolin and Toro should be the "leads" when what worked before was Blunt.

It was such an incredibly linear and dumbed-down storytelling, they literally ... left nothing to the imagination. Surely they could've rejigged the sequence, open with the kidnapping of the girl and told it from her point of view ... or try something!

[el presidente Highsteppa]

Re: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

The director is the guy who directed the Italian crime movie Gomorrah - which was one of the better crime films of the last decade. I was disappointed when I heard that Dennis Villeneuve wasn't involved, but a bit hopeful when I heard about his replacement. I wonder what the size of the crew difference was like between the two and what you're saying (this being his first American film) had to do with it.

There's very little doubt to me that this sequel was a studio exec's idea more than anyone else - it's a shame that they misunderstood or just didn't care about what made the first one so special. With the people involved, this should have been a lot better, but it's more of a waste of everyone's talents. Like I said before, I really wanted to like this more, only because I really loved the first movie for how well made it was. It reminds me a lot of the Ridley Scott movie The Councillor from a few years back - it has all the ingredients for what should have been a slam dunk movie (strong cast, amazing writer, veteran director with a vision), comes out very so-so and uninspired.

I think the thing that disappointed me the most is how when you compare it to the first - it doesn't feel anywhere nearly as grounded and "real" as the first. This is more flamboyant in the sense that dramatic strokes are a lot broader, less believable and natural and not much is left for the audience to figure out - that last act in the desert started to rely on a lot of weird and dumb coincidences and circumstances than anything that approached the focused, grittier chain of events that drove the first.

[REDROCK]

Re: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

The trailer of the first film was much better than the film itself I thought - won't be watching the 2nd for the reasons mentioned

[feather]

Re: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

But have you seen the first film? It was very good.

[REDROCK]

Re: Sicario: Day of the Soldado

That was my point - after seeing the first film I felt letdown because the trailer seemed much better than the film. I may need to watch it a 2nd time.