This is a frankly astonishing movie. Not only does the story invoke genuine tension regarding the health and well-being of talking monkeys*, but also deftly holds a mirror to humanity and ably demonstrates the inevitable outcome of fear and hatred. It does all this without being even remotely preachy about it, which even lauded and “worthy” Hollywood fare often cannot avoid.

Then, just to top it off (and almost for fun), the main cast of characters are rendered in entirely believable CGI, captured using a revolutionary technique.

The fact that the sources of this fear and hatred are so recognisable today (2024), just elevates the whole thing even further.

★★★★★

My review

This review may contain spoilers.

If we pretend this is NOT based on a “true story”, the first part of this, up until they jump down the first cliff, is pretty decent war movie stuff. By this point, most of them have taken some flesh wounds that, I believe, guys like this could fight through.

What I don’t believe you can overcome with mental fortitude and pride in your unit history is falling 20+ feet down an almost vertical, rockstrewn hillside without breaking multiple bones. I’m even more skeptical that a weapon could take that much punishment and still, apparently, work perfectly.

From this point on, then, we’re in almost complete hollywood fantasy land and it’s bad. Saying it’s based on a true story makes it worse.

Apparently, even the “truth” of the base story is VERY sketchy. The size of the enemy force was estimated, by various sources, to be between 8 and 50. That’s a big enough variation that I’m taking double helpings of salt with the rest of the facts.

What does seem undisputed is that, three of the four SEALs were killed in fairly short order by the Taliban, and Marcus did indeed survive because he was protected by local villagers. This outcome does actually make the last 10 minutes surprisingly moving. The fact that Marcus was actually rescued several weeks later, and protected by the villagers for a much longer period than depicted, makes me feel there might be a better version of this story.

Apparently it’s not one that will sell movie tickets, though.

★★½ (contains spoilers)

My review

I renounce my previous review. There is no cogent story here.

We’re invited to guess a lot of the motivations in this movie, especially regarding David, but any conclusions you might draw will only last a scene or two and then be completely upended.

Is this just a slowly unfolding plot, though? No, because, when you reach the conclusion and the character’s “actual” motivations are revealed, you’ll be able to track back and find them acting to the contrary.

Applying Occam’s razor, rather than conclude that this is an extremely complex and naunced story, with many philosophical meditations on existence, it’s baldly obvious this is just a bunch of preconceived set pieces/visuals/story beats, lifted straight off the studio pitch story boards, and pasted together with a “story” glue made of bullshit.

★

My review

Great story, thanks to the novel, but not a great film. Although I did like the far-right replacing the islamists!

★★½

My review

Woke up 8am Sunday morning, my 12 yo son was 10 minutes into this. Sat on the sofa and watched it to the end with him. We has great time. Five star life experience from a three star movie.

★★★

My review

I got nothing. It’s too long?

★★

My review

Watched with my 9 y/o. Neither of us have read any of the books so I am sure there was some fan service that was wasted on us, but we both enjoyed it and I had a lot of good laughs. In terms of “scares” there was just the right amount of tension to make it fun.

9 y/o decided that Slappy was easily the scariest thing in it.

★★★

My review

Let’s be honest, the story is not even remotely close to what you’d expect from Black Mirror, is it?

But I liked it. It’s short and yet achieves as much as similar genre efforts, and more than some.

★★★

My review

It’s not as funny as it ought to be. Josh Brolin is admirable playing the straight man without which I am not sure most of this would work.

★★★

My review

Watched this for family film night. Drew some big laughs from the kids but…

I feel like this is a classic example of a film where none of the fun from the creative process actually translates into the movie. I often review films based on whether (I think) they achieve what they set out to do. Aside from making Mighty Thor pretty awesome, I am not at all sure what this movie achieves.

This is in stark contrast to Deadpool 2, which I watched later, which is similarly anarchic and unsubtle in its humour but does exactly what you’d expect.

★★

My review