Film Corner: Midnight Chronicles

Ok, fuck it, I'm in pain and this helps: shitty Amazon movie live-watch.

This one is called MIDNIGHT CHRONICLES. "Based on the role playing board game" I pause. I have...never heard of this game? I feel like I have heard of a lot of games.

"Based on the role playing board game, in the world of Midnight, it is a time of overwhelming darkness. After three agrees of scheming and war, the dark god Izrador has finally defeated the heroes and armies of the free races."

Amazon cuts off the description there, so I hope it's a light hearted comedy in which Izrador marries, like, a fashion blogger and she has to cope with her new identity.

There's reading. I was not informed there would be reading.

It's fine, it doesn't make sense. Probably not important.

Two identical men in identical robes are portentously watching each other and being face blind makes movies hard sometimes. One of them seems sad about the fact that his book just spontaneously combusted.

Well, he was just stabbed dead by the other identical guy so I guess he wasn't our protagonist??

"Izrador, the Shadow In The North, gathered about him creatures of evil and darkness." *orc growls* I really do wonder what Tolkien would think about how far reaching his uhh influence ended up being."

The free races are led by Aradil, the witch-queen of the elves. She has a magic mirror. Tolkien's estate is rapidly filing a lawsuit, probably.

Oh hey!! There's a Black elf! Please let him be a main character. SEE HOW EASY THAT IS, PETER JACKSON???????

A...apparently our protagonists are the bad guys? The hooded evil priest who stabbed the other hooded evil priest who was trying to escape? And another hooded evil priest who, THANK GOD, has a beard?

A woman who has never once in her life smiled (and I love her for it) is being sarcastic at them.

I feel like it's a bold move to make a Lord of the Rings movie from the viewpoint of the Sauron guys.
It's all white people again. I miss the elf.

The bearded evil priest has a creepy Kenneth Branaugh thing going on.

Somewhere, a bland pretty boy demands that's a bland pretty girl talk to him. She refuses. I have no idea what is going on.

Like, the short version is that a tiny town is dragging its feet on the building of a local temple. But why this is supposed to matter to us is unclear to me.

The bland white couple are trying to inject drama, but it's not working, my friends. Oh no, Creepy Kenneth has intuited that Bland Romeo must be important since be keeps getting screen time for no adequately explained reason.

Every scene is 40 seconds long, which doesn't really help me to work out any kind of continuity.

Ok, you know what made FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING a good movie? There was a clear understanding of stakes. Ring bad: must destroy ring or everyone die. Easy. This movie has no stakes. There's a temple that isn't being built, and rebels, and a mysterious blossoming tattoo on the evil hooded guy's arm, and Romeo and Juliet, but there's no STAKES. What is the HERO trying to ACHIEVE and what will happen if FAIL?

I can full well believe this was a game campaign--lots of plot hooks!--but a game campaign is not a movie!!
"Oh no! The mayor is planning to kill the Evil Hooded Priest and that would be......bad?" You can't just designate a protagonist and expect people to care about him because he's the white guy who the camera follows!!

I don't think I'm supposed to like the mayor, but she's living her best life under Sauron's Eye, so I love her.

Ok, seriously, film people: why are all the scenes so short??? Is it a lack of money thing? A bad acting thing?

Higher than usual number of cunnilingus jokes in this movie, I'll give it that.

Why is homophobia always the best way to provoke men into a rage in fantasy movies? Just ONCE I'd like to see the antagonist be all "going somewhere to shag, gentlemen?" and the other guys be like "sure, yes, that's exactly what we're doing" and walk on.

I mean, BETTER would be to not include homophobia as some kind of inevitable state that all societies develop. It's not. But just think how undercut the villain would be! He can't exactly chase after you like "no, sorry, you were supposed to be offended and fight me so I could kill you!"

Not really sure how I feel about this woobying of Sauron's evil priests. Maybe they were picked at birth (idk, I'm just filling in the blanks that this movie won't bother to fill), but that doesn't mean they are innocent of the evil things they've done, and I miss She-Raaaaaaa.

Aww, he arrested the mayor. She's a fat woman who gave the finger to Sauron her whole life AND apparently had an amazing backstory as an assassin (???) so I stan.

I wonder if the source material has you playing on the Sauron side. I just don't understand why I'm supposed to care about this protagonist.

It's amazing. There are 20 minutes left in this 100 minute movie and I still couldn't tell you the plot.

A special effect is slaying people.

I......I guess everyone is ok now? And the two boring white guys are prophesied to do....something?

That was a trip. NOTHING made any sense to me.