Didn't look like it will be, and Drinker thought it was pretty good, so I have decided to sail for it. He noted that there were some woke shit in it, but not much, but there were several he did not mention.
The IRL male protag describes his earlier life as "failed dreams, desperation, and a mountain of college debt", which is declared by his non-white coworker as "horrible and boring and full of white privilege".
A female eyecandy NPC upon gaining some level of independence / sentience "wrote a memoir that's a searing indictment of gender roles, the patriarchy. It's a little preachy in parts but, over all, it's pretty good."
The main female protag: "The first time I kiss a non-toxic guy in, like, forever [...]" There is of course a lame basement-dwelling loser gamer featured, who also has a "special sock" he doesn't want his mom to touch.
When the game world is compared to the IRL one: "See a lot of gun violence in your world? - Actually, that's a big problem, Guy. It's a massive problem." --- you could give this one a pass as there definitely are problems with gun violence, but adding it up with the pacifist story this does come off as anti-gun.
There are other comments in the movie I felt were OK, since this is a GTA-style mayhem game, so it is not a surprise that people's behaviour ingame would be perceived as awful. ("Sometimes I forget not everyone you meet on here is a sociopathic man-child." or Eyecandy NPC: "- I don't have to be with any guy. - Right? Exactly. Most of them are awful. - They really are. - Terrible.")
All in all there was definitely fun to be had, with some genuinely hilarious moments, as well as some surprisingly heartfelt parts. The positive characters were all quite likeable, and the actors were well cast for them.
The movie is mostly entertaining, especially for someone into gaming, who can at least tolerate Ryan Reynolds doing what he always does.
Wasn't as good as I had hoped, and definitely not as free of wokeness.
At least the stronk wahman doing everything important and men being bumbling idiots that contribute nothing stuff wasn't present. Well, technically, it was, as a high level female player is shown to be excellent at the game, and a level 1 male NPC is shown to be a bumbling idiot in comparison, but considering the setting that makes sense. Also, after leveling up considerably, the male NPC became a badass.
If you have zero tolerance for wokeness, skip this. Otherwise, it's a decent watch for sure.
(Unrelated, but I have turned off and deleted Candyman after 15 minutes or so, that one was way too woke.)
Re: Candyman being woke. I'm absolutely unsure how a slasher movie about a very scary-ass supernatural black man can possibly be "woke", but man, they sure must have gone out of their way to do it. Unless it's just hoodrats getting off on a black guy killing white chicks, but if it were the other way around it'd be "waaaayciiiiis".
Edit: I'm finding I'm not remembering the original too well, maybe, but I only saw it maybe once, and that through my fingers.
About a minute after the main black couple discusses how the womans gay black brother must like his gay white partner since he is really showing his ass to him. Then they talk about how "White people built the ghetto and then erased it, when they realized they built the ghetto."
And about five minutes later the main black couple are talking about white supremacy, and how "it creates these spaces of rampant neglect for communities of color, in particular, Black communities.". Also "One white woman dies in the hood, and the story lives on forever.".
That was the time when I have noped out.
Ugh.
No, white people built buildings and infrastructure. It's the inhabitants that turn it "ghetto".
What I figured. Jordan Peele can’t speak for two minutes without talking about race. I feel he could do a good job if he focused on the story. I loved Original TZ and 80s version. I had no desire to see his version.
Yeah, but Get Out also had a racial component to it, but I was still able to enjoy it.
I would’ve enjoyed Get Out 10 or 15 years ago but by the time I saw it I was already tired of racial narratives. I’m black and a lot of the cousins I grew up with push the “I’m oppressed” nonsense so I grew tired of it a while back. Get Out was ok to me when I saw it. I guess my main beef is that nowadays anytime there is racism in the storyline it doesn’t look at it from different views. Just the usual far left talking points.