MovieChat Forums > Edgar Wright Discussion > Good openings, weak endings

Good openings, weak endings

posted 3 years ago by Drooch (5333)
11 replies | jump to latest

Seems to be the pattern with Wright’s films that they start brilliantly with a great concept and full of promise and energy, then about half way they run out of steam but keep going, usually for another hour, and devolve into something disappointingly generic.

Totally had this with Last Night In Soho. It was dazzling and mysterious, only to give way to a blah ghost story. Baby Driver was thrilling and cool with its marriage of incredible driving footage and great songs… then becomes a meh crime thriller.

Watching his films is like eating too much candy. What starts as heaven gives way to a sickly sweet sensation. Either his films need to be shorter, like 90 minutes, or he needs a balance of flavours.

Tarantino manages to find substance in his mischievous magpie movies, which hover around the 2.5 hour mark but never outstay their welcome. There’s always a story to care about. I don’t get much story from Wright, just a nifty sketch stretched out to 2 hours.

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[–] Cognoscente (2662) 3 years ago

Since he's a writer, Edgar should probably read more novels.

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[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

That’s undoubtably true, but even watching old, good movies (most of which were adaptations) would be a start.

It feels like he’s an iPhone generation filmmaker with an attention span to match.

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[–] Cognoscente (2662) 3 years ago

It's sad because that's something I would expect from someone who was born in 1994 or even 1984...not 1974.

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[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

Yeah, Paul Thomas Anderson was born 1970 and he’s the exact opposite - classy, mature, nuanced and patient. He’s an old soul, Wright is hyperactive teenaged soul.

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[–] Heisenberg (6730) 3 years ago

Agreed.
He is not deep, that's all.
He has great openers, great for a pitch, but his ideas don't have a second half.
They don't develope, or better he doesn't have the talent to deveolpe them.
Also, they are NEVER integrated into anything deeper, or carry heavy themes.

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[–] Kowalski (76274) 3 years ago

develope...deveolpe.🤔

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[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

Totally. The first half of this had a tinge of David Lynch - abstract yet utterly compelling, but whereas Lynch films take you deeper and deeper into… yourself, Wright’s film gets lost and retreats into a generic ghost story with lashings of tedious CGI.

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[–] R_Kane (15828) 3 years ago

Jackie Brown overstays its welcome halfway through the slog.

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[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

A rare exception in Tarantino’s canon and while it’s slow it’s at least consistent and the quality of the filmmaking remains high.

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[–] filmgeek99 (657) 3 years ago

He's an overrated hack, plain and simple. His movies are all based around style and style only, with nothing actually funny or clever happening 90% of the time. His idea of humor is just constant, rapid ADD editing done with match cuts and timed with music. Virtually any jackass with a decent editing software can do that now, so I fail to see what's all the hype about.

When he isn't relying solely on gimmicky quick cuts and music video style directing, he's a shit horror director whose only idea of horror is the trope of the "evil white male rapist", as seen in his latest godawful turd known as Last Night in Soho. Dude just all around fucking sucks.

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[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

I like his comedies for the most part, he works well with Pegg and Frost, but there’s just a sense that some geeky kid has been given the big-boy’s tools and is mucking about with his mates, making ‘films’.

He has actually calmed down with his editing. Hot Fuzz was almost ruined by the constant ‘whoosh! Thunk!’ edits. That works here and there, or maybe for an opening sequence, but not for 2 hours, gave me a migraine. Thankfully by The World’s End he calmed it down, and his action sequences became brilliantly choreographed long takes, no more cut-cut-cut insanity.

He does have some talent, I really did like that first half of Soho, but it all collapsed into a generic ghost story with sickening woke messaging, and because of that I’ll be staying away from his films from now on.

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