Hail, Caesar!

[Bounty]

So I went and watched the new Coen brothers movie today.

Don't ask me about the plot because I don't think there is one. There are colourful characters and great scenes and interesting ideas but it all hangs together by a thread storywise. The closest it gets to an arc is Josh Brolin deciding on a job offer.

Yet despite this it is also hilariously funny. I haven't laughed this hard in a cinema in years. The casting and the tone are pitch-perfect and the scenes it sets up are so bizarre and incongruous you just can't help but laugh. I'm not even sure how the hell it all works because it really, really shouldn't, and there's nothing inherently funny about George Clooney holding two cucumber sandwiches while talking about the body politic, but in the movie it just... clicks.

There's also a scene involving a boat and a very small dog that will stay with me to my dying day.

Go see it. You'll either love it or hate whoever recommended it, but when it works for you, it works beautifully.

[The Spartan]

I wouldn't say that I hated it, but it didn't work for me. There were good moments and I could identify with Brolin's character to an extent, but the rest sort of fell flat for me.

I could also tell there was an allegory or some kind of subtext they were trying to get across to me, but I never figured out what it was until hours later when I read about it online.

[Bounty]

I wouldn't say that I hated it, but it didn't work for me. There were good moments and I could identify with Brolin's character to an extent, but the rest sort of fell flat for me.

You and quite a few other people going by the reviews. Seems like it's a clean split between people for whom the movie just clicks and those where it just falls flat.