Challengers

Praying for Tom Holland. Not because his (rumoured) fiancé gets with 2 dudes in the same film, but because she always gets better roles as compared to him. Bro needs her agent asap. The biggest strength of this movie is the story structure. At first I was worried whether this should’ve been displayed in chronological order but it makes the tennis match in the finals that much more dramatic. The characters are pretty well written, and entertaining in their own right. John O’Connor’s character was the most intriguing to me, the fact that he’s trying rub people in a confusing way but with that smugness smile. I wanted to learn more about Patrick’s background, and more importantly why he never played with pros, especially when he tried to confront Tashi on why she hasn’t pursued playing pro tournaments (he even says that he would go pro asap, and bro is in his 40s). The soundtrack was very in your face, but in a good way lol. The pump up techno really made some mundane scenes actually hype lmao. My biggest cons with the film was the editing. At first I thought I was being nitpick-y because there was a scene where it randomly stops a frame as soon as Art and Patrick win the doubles match (which I’m convinced was meant to act as a newspaper photo transition into Tashi’s party), but then there was a random fade to white transition out of nowhere, and the worst offender was the slow motion towards the end. There’s a scene where 2 people are making out, and it’s obvious that it was filmed at 24fps because the slowmo that they used was so choppy, like something you would expect from a 2000s Adam Sandler comedy. And then they proceed to let Zack Snyder edit the slowmo in the end, and at that point I just wanted to know who wins. It was also lowkey frustrating when the match is getting closer to the end but to then cut to a flashback which adds necessary context, and I wouldn’t be upset by it if it wasn’t for the pacing. Lastly, they mention Spider-Verse in the movie and I thought the joke was that Zendaya played MJ in the MCU, but then I saw Amy Pascal being credited and it all made sense. Cinema rant: I watched this film on a Superscreen, and I think it’s the best way to enjoy it. That joy gets diminished when an old dude and 2 girls are constantly talking, and vaping/smoking in the theatre. Idk if this dude were these girls’ dad, or if he’s someone with a midlife crisis (he dressed liked it too). I actually didn’t notice him and the girls until the guy in the row below me told him to be quiet, but then he became very visible afterwards. It wasn’t long ago that I watched a TikTok about a guy ranting about proper cinema etiquette, and an old dude in the comments tried blaming our generation for the lack of manners in the theatre… I would love for that commenter to meet the midlife crisis cinema vaper.